Michael L. Redmond

I am not even going to respond to the "conspiracy theory" comment you critic of descent! :wink: But, Duke is not the partner when you put it into context of a rate hike. You and I just became the partner through a portion of our utility bills of which we do not have a choice in, much unlike a simple tax. The city saw this as a way to add a rider to the hike all the while presenting it as a cut in the rate hike (the game) and avoid at least in part to take it to the voters. Only if P&G were a monopoly and a public utility. This is heating for people, lights on/off, not a funding mechanism for projects. Tax if you want to tax, don't back door this on everyone.

Ok, Duke energy agreed with the city to, as a part of a rate hike, to help fund the streetcar. That doesn't change anything to me. That is a backdoor tax. On one hand, we say do not put it to a vote because it does not involve an increased tax, and on the other we take money from every person through utility fees to help pay for this. And to say there was going to be a hike anyway and we are somehow saving money because it is only 4% instead of 5.7% is just playing the game. It doesn't sit well with me, how do you think others will take it outside of downtown? Bad move, but hey, hopefully the rest of the city isn't paying attention while we pilfer money from them.

Or there is an underlying hope there. Blame the city on one hand and turn around and hope to sell the building for "fair market price" when no one else would touch them. Am I hearing this correctly, my utility bills will go up to help pay for the streetcar? Please tell me this wasn't the big announcement that everyone was supposed to be excited over.

They will not be looking for a "random" brand at the riverfront splitting two of Cincinnati's biggest investments. They will be looking for a bold statement. It sets a tone, not just for the rest of the banks, but Cincinnati as a whole and brand familiarity will be key otherwise it will go unnoticed by most.

They are expanding like wildfire and who else is a better fit, bigger statement, and actually attainable? I could be wrong, but I sure wouldn't bet against it.

No Arn, the last thing a developer wants to do is return 35 deposits and walk away from a project half sold. Coldwell has to be steamed over this as an agent typically isn't paid until closing. There has to be more to this than we are hearing as they were close to their 51% mark and I hear that FHA is getting ready to extend its limits to 600,00. Not enough information here for me, they are leaving out something.

Isn't today the 27th? Here I am, 5:22, hangin on the edge of my seat and I got nothin yet! I am going back to the development threads...

That was my understanding however when business go out like that it is almost never because of the simple failure of the business itself so who knows. Tom and Helen (at Comey) had that building and that was the understanding that I got from them and this was a year or so ago when I was selling the space adjacent to Moose. At the time, the two condos directly above were vacant, and probably still are. The other issue was the use of the courtyard if I remember correctly. On a gateway related note, I noticed the rooftop deck accesses are now installed on Falling Wall, Urban Sites building at Ball North.

Correct and local 1207 before that. The thing that surprised me originally about Martinos was that they were going to reopen a bar under the condos, which I thought was a big reason for Moose going out.

I love that type of thinking! But let me ask, what is the main draw, or is it several draws? (and Brad if you even say streetcar, I swear I'll....)

Sorry Brad, wrong name. You looked up Main Street Ventures, it is actually Main City Ventures. Close, but no cigar my friend.

Reread what I wrote and you will see why that didn't happen in Pendleton. "It is no one thing, it is no one building, it is no one design, instead, it is the cumulative affect of all these things. SCPA is another piece of an ever growing arts community that we have long since wanted OTR defined as." Contrast todays OTR to the yesterdays Pendleton. Even todays OTR to todays Pendleton is vastly different. SCPA is a piece of the puzzle that did not have to remain in OTR much the same way that the Art Academy could have went elsewhere along with the various other arts venues that have come and will now be more and more drawn to. Intead it was an uppercut straight up Vine with some body blows thrown in for fun. And could that have happened without PHill, Pendlton (sort of) and Main Street? I do not know, but those certainly didn't hurt. The others occurred somewhat organically (and widely underfunded) which is very different from the planned development you see now. It is a new day in OTR and Wash Park, Music Hall, SCPA, Gateway, Main, shops on Vine, Prospect Hill, Pendlton, Art Academy, Ensemble Theater, Know Theater, and on and on are just parts to a whole.

ProkNo5 , You have a true understanding of what is making OTR successful again. It is no one thing, it is no one building, it is no one design, instead, it is the cumulative affect of all these things. SCPA is another piece of an ever growing arts community that we have long since wanted OTR defined as. Great design or not, it is here. Facing the park or not, it is here. Capable of holding another 100 or 150 students or not, it is here. Complaints after the fact are simply complaints. SCPA is, and will continue to be one of the finest schools in CPS and thank God it's in OTR!

Yes sir! And the Glencoe Auburn Place Row Houses [inwood Village], which will receive $3.9 million in credits.

It is directly north of the school on Vine. It isn't Vine St Elementary.

Another 3.9 million today from the State.

Even more than that Dmerkow, would that have changed student enrollments at various schools across Cincinnati. If it would have then, it certainly will now and are we building schools today that are reflecting this ongoing change, or are we being caught by surprise. Bloom Middle School closed out of nowhere a couple of years ago. Shrinking enrollment certainly in OTR yet we are still planning to rebuild Rothenburg (which has greater sqft) although Vine St Elem has the capacity somehow to hold three schools in its current location. These are primarily the kids of voucher holders and when a voucher holder moves, I would hope they would take their kid with them yet generally speaking, the incoming residents do not have children. Are we building the necessary school capacity in these communities and are we appropriately scaling back in others?

They are open but the Grand Opening is Friday.

That was a shift grounded primarily in a desire to live in "white neighborhoods" I am talking about a need to make a change due to economics. Good point. Also smaller yards etc will be a factor to many retirees as upkeep becomes more and more difficult. Condos come to mind (Surprise surprise huh!), but you could be correct in that this could offset much of what I am saying. But on the other hand, with retirement accounts diminishing (which could change on a dime) will that affect population movements? I could see a move out of a house of any kind into a rental as more and more people look to cash out any equity they have in their home and pay rent just to affect their own personal cash flow. Sale/lease backs might be the wave of the future for some, but most will look at rental communities for those that could unload their home What would have happened in Cincinnati had there never been project based section 8. What if in the 60's we went straight into a voucher system, where would they have elected to go? Situations were different then I know, but we talk about the damage the other way caused, would vouchers have caused less? I think the answer is yes to some degree but I absolutely believe that we would be looking at a fundamentally different Cincinnati today. Vouchers can only go where they are accepted and today it seems obvious where they are flowing from and where they are flowing to. What does this do to what we know of Cincinnati's makeup? I believe it will be paradigm shift similar to the one we saw with the introduction of project based policy on inner cities. I don't doubt that for a minute but there are some realities that we are going to have to face sooner rather than later here.

Building code violations is what brought down Cue and as simple as things like railings (at least this is the info I am hearing). What we will finally have on Main is a 1200 block that will be empty for a while. I agree about the services but as a practical matter, what else is going to go into large open spaces with an existing liquor license? Nothing, hate to say it but nothing except for another resurgence of entertainment type venues. Mixx is proving to be very successful and of course they do have a multiple draw with sushi/club. Cue, god love em, but they were run by some very young guys and when Paul left 6 plus months ago they did not have that experience behind them any longer. This was not a Main Street issue, it was an experience issue in my opinion. The building code violations may have been there opportunity to bow out gracefully. This same issue happened with Michael Spalding. Great creative mind but when it came to business, he waited until it was too late to ask for help. I am almost of the mind that we need the franchise clubs back in large part just to have that business model to work off of. Pitifuls is still Pitifuls, Mixx is doing well, and others can do well also but kids should be going to the clubs and bars, not running them. If we want banks and grocery stores etc we had better be prepared to sit and look at vacant store fronts for a long time. It makes no sense, from a landlords side or from the tenant side. We may want to have this as consumers but there are going to have to be a lot more consumers demanding that particular location before it will ever happen. Kathleen Norris, if you are out there, tell me I am wrong. This has been floated about by the Chamber concerning Red Cheatah and what do we have? Lights OFF.

Just having a conversation, that's all. I don't know what the answer is. I understand Dohoney saying that if we have $52 then some neighborhoods should get $5 and perhaps another should not get any. There is merit to that by saying we as a city need to go all out to correct major problems and that may create an opportunity cost in another neighborhood. But on the other hand, how does a community combat concentrated areas of vouchers? Not displacing nor all problematic. This is one of the reasons I threw this out here in the first place. It was neglect and terrible policy that drove targeted neighborhoods down to the point that when the policy was abated, then no one wanted to live in that neighborhood. Then you get into simple economic decisions primarily on the part of the landlord. Good supply created elsewhere will reduce demand for the bad supply we had in OTR . Don't you think the Robininis would love to have all of their buildings filled in OTR. Even more than that, it was most evident this was happening when Denhart went bankrupt immediately after this rule change because he could not fill his buildings. http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2001/08/19/fin_land_shifts_for.html These people did not just disappear. They, just like you or I, made the decision to move to a community that was safer but not necessarily safe. They had a voucher and said I can move to community A that has been neglected for 50 years or community B that has been kept up with the same voucher. That is not displacement or gentrification as they were the ones who made the decision, and development simply followed. I ask though, what does Cincinnati look like in 5-10-20 years from now? Many said 80 years ago there was no way Mt. Auburn, Avondale, OTR, West End etc could ever fall the way it did.

I am saying it has been happening. I am also wondering if it isn't going to speed up. Same locations, but now only faster because many find themeselves with no other option than to accept vouchers. There isn't a way, under the current system that I could think of where you could make a concerted effort to steer. Well it looks like that is the way it is shaking out right now. But once again my question is the effect that the current economic crisis has on the time frame. The motivation of a landlord may be changing considerably now and this will have huge impacts on differing neighborhoods, most of which I see on the West Side due to the age demographic and the type of housing stock. The conditions are right in certain neighborhoods so that we may see a more rapid decline then in the past few years. In some cases I believe that train may have already sailed. How do you defend them? Especially now whereas even a decrease in crime rates may not be enough to change the individuals motivation of whether or not to accept vouchers. I believe it is out of our hands to a certain extent now, a decade ago was when to take action and now some of the cards will fall where they may. But it isn't all bad news. Some areas will benefit from the exodus but that exodus was prompted by a recipients unwillingness to stay in what could only be described as a slum. Even the West End had to do 60% subsidized in City West to keep voucher holders but that isn't being done elsewhere in and around OTR. This isn't an impact of redevelopment, but an impact of policy and choice on the part of the recipient and the landlord. OTR itself may have caused the exodus, but only through blight, not redevelopment and it is the lack of blight but coupled with affordability and acceptance that is attracting it to other communities and now I would argue it will be very apparent to most as it will no longer be a slow trickle, but rather a quick slide.

Not my study....2005, and is it more or less true today? Will it increase in speed due to todays economic conditions? Have those locations changed? Study Pinpoints Cincinnati’s Hot Spots for Housing Vouchers A new study by University of Cincinnati planners pinpoints more accurately than ever before just where Section 8 housing-voucher recipients reside. Many voucher families live in areas with high concentrations of poverty and high numbers of racial minorities. University of Cincinnati planners David Varady, a nationally respected housing researcher, and Xinhao Wang, an expert in geographical information systems (GIS), recently published research regarding which Cincinnati neighborhoods are most likely to attract residents using Section 8 Housing vouchers. (These housing vouchers, provided by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, provide rental assistance to low-income residents who are free to use the vouchers with any landlord – who passes HUD housing-quality standards – willing to accept them in lieu of cash.) By applying a very precise technique – called “hot-spot analysis” – to a HUD database containing 6,000 Section 8 participants in Hamilton County, the researchers examined Cincinnati’s neighborhoods street-by-street rather than relying on broad census-tract information. They found that the areas most likely to attract Section 8 residents begin near downtown and then extend west and north, especially along the I-75 corridor and along the Mill Creek Valley. ... http://www.uc.edu/news/NR.asp?id=2622

this is not an "ideology" it is a theory and observation of how things are going. I agree that it isn't good for the city as a whole as the west side is certainly a part that needs to succeed. That being said, what part of my observations is flawed. Is crime going up? Are property values declining? Is there still the replacement demand that once existed in the West Side? The difference between me saying "contain the cancer" to what could be argued as being the next path of least resistance for a voucher holder I believe two very different things. If we were to "contain the cancer" then I would say that we would have to take deliberate actions that steered voucher holders into one single place to "contain" them. This is not steering by anyone other than the voucher holder themeselves. I site the West side and perhaps I should have thrown some other likely areas in as well because the West Side is not the only place that fits that mold. And while I am at it, let me tighten up my description a bit more and say that the entire west side is not equal but I will say that parts of Price Hill and Westwood are prime examples of what I was getting at. I knew when writing that this would come up as someone thinking that this was a desire, not just an observation. But as I said in the first paragraph of this post, am I wrong on my observations? I of course had to forecast forward and say that I believe that trends would speed up because of current economic conditions, but that is a forecast, not a wish. "don't be so naive, that kind of incident could have happened in any city or suburban school for that matter." But it didn't! And I am not so naive to think that things like this go unnoticed by a future homeowner who is looking for a neighborhood with a safe school for little Johny next year. These things have an affect and all of these things have a cumulative effect that can be devastating. For me to leave this out would naive simply through omission. What the past 40-50 years has concluded is that project based section 8 does not work. Containment doesn't work. But what I said is a flow of vouchers into not "contained" areas, but distinct areas and this is not by anyone other than the voucher holder having the ability to move, and a landlord providing the opportunity to move into an area. This is vastly different than the system that was in place from the from 60-'00. Why did you pick those two? Why Price Hill and Westwood? If you think about it, we probably picked them for the same reason. Once again, West Side is not the proper way to describe what I am speeking of but to get the thought out there "West Side" was used for expedience. Property values are not down everywhere whereas they pass that equilibrium point that I described of market rate rental vs section 8 voucher rental. But these two areas are seeing this, along with others especially Springfield Township. "I know of people who are taking up to 80,00 dollar losses in outer ring suburbs." which means nothing until you apply it to the previous value. Many of the houses I am talking about that this is happening to are valued at 80,000-100,000 to begin with and are not selling because of a myriad of reasons including being upside down due to current economic circumstances. So you see appreciation in the future? You see crime decreasing, schools improving, demand growing? I hope so but it just isn't the feeling I get. And this is not an OTR vs West Side argument, forget OTR, forget West Side. Where do you see voucher flows moving. They aren't moving into OTR as much any more[fact]. They aren't moving into Montgomery, Blue Ash etc[fact]. where are they going. My observation is on the table, my theory is that it continues and increases in speed. Where would you say if I am wrong that this move is taking place and what, if anything will result of this? First, don't take this personal because you own property there, this isn't my doing and who know, perhaps I am wrong. Second, a value drop vs national average has nothing to do with what I am talking about. I am talking about increase in 1. rental 2. subsidized rental. A property owner must weigh what the market rate rental market will bear vs the subsidized market. Have they, or will they go below what market rate will pay. Also, how many people will be forced to rent as they can not sell nor afford to live in their current homes? Is this number increasing because of declines in personal wealth especially in an area that has a high amount of retired homeowners on fixed incomes? That is where theory and projection comes in but once again, mine is on the table now. I do too. This is not wishful thinking. This is about taking the information that we have from the recent past, applying information from today and making a prediction of the future. I know that this is the last thing some people want to hear especially if you are vested in the area but am I wrong when you look at my real question of voucher flows? If I am, then where are they going? Society/Government artificially created both supply and demand in areas like OTR and the West End through project based policy. That being undone, and a choice based system now on the part of both the recipeint and the landlord, where will the choice be made to demand, and where will the choice be to supply? Same place no doubt, but where? What conditions do you think will be present on the supply side/landlords side, to make the choice to accept vouchers? Just because voucher holders go to a specific area in mass does not necessarily mean crime rates will follow and schools decline etc. after that, but before that, does that make the economic choice clearer one way or the other for the landlord? not just "right now" but instead should have been working on this for the past decade. Some have and are doing just fine on both the East and West Side. But others have not, and we have 52 communities here and many other distinct little neighborhoods within those communities. Who has, who hasn't and who is feeling it now and will continue to feel it in the not so distant future? I am not cheerleading here, just curious as it affects every single one of us both positive and negative.

I have a theory. OTR was already experiencing a mass exodus since 2000 due in large part to the Section 8 change from project base to vouchers. This meant that a voucher recipient could now go to another, less blighted neighborhood and exercise that voucher anywhere it was accepted. I have always looked at it from the recipient side until now. With recent problems in housing, does our current economic situation actually speed this process up more? We were already seeing places, especially in the West Side depreciating in value. I would say that this depreciation started with a cultural change that no longer saw the next generation of Westsiders choosing to live, not just on the same side of town, but sometimes on the same street as they grew up on. Property values begin to fall due to lack of demand and ever increasing market rate supply throughout the rest of Cincinnati. Crime begins to rise, schools begin to decline (just yesterday an armed, non student, roamed the halls of West High) and this puts more downward pressure on value until you hit the tipping point. Now we are left with small, post WWII homes with an aging population that is not being replaced as it once was. Today lending is tight and many homeowners find themeselves both upside down on their home and unable to sell as buyers are more and more unable to buy. What option is left? Rental. But coupled with a declining neighborhood even rental prices at market rate may be lower than what a property owner may now get by accepting a voucher. Guaranteed money primarily paid by the Government at a higher amount vs the shakiness of a non recipient at a lower amount. To me the math seems easy but should be even easier to a desperate homeowner who is left with few, if any, options. So then what of the neighbor? Is his house value helped or hurt by the already rising foreclosure rates coupled with an increasing subsidized housing market? Would he or she be willing to take a hit on sale price if they had no mortgage (or try and do a short sale if they did and were already in distress) and sell at a loss? Some may as they see their only remaining asset with any value is there home so why not limit the loss and move into the rental market themselves? This would only further drive down value, and value translates into assessed value for property taxes that could put even a heavier burden on schools and safety as raising taxes to offset decreased assessed values wouldn't help short term demand one bit. If things continue in that direction, higher crime, lowering property value, tightening lending standards, then this process that I believe already has begun, will simply become exponential in its speed. This is bad for the westside property values but what does that equation mean for OTR? Once again, the trend that was already established also speeds up exponentially from lowering crime, rising property values whereas market rate value exceeds subsidized value, and the weakening economy forcing many in the suburbs to downsize as they go into retirement. Choosing an appreciating area near the core with a relatively low effective cost due to tax abatement may be the best option for many. Will the new West Side be the old OTR? Just a theory but we as a society seem to like well defined boundaries. "wrong side of the railroad tracks" now becomes "wrong side of 75". I believe if you look at crime maps and value charts ranging from '00 through today, that they will support the trend. What will be most interesting is that same data from today through the next decade.