kendall

And some of them even rode bikes to it!

I hope they will be able to continue their success with 40% less staff.

^Are you referring to the Drexel apartments? They are a disaster. I would consider them more suburban-styled than Marburg Square. The Drexel surrounds a parking garage, not engaging the street at all. They don't even have token walk-ups connected to the main sidewalk. It's like a tornado picked up an entire suburban apartment complex and dropped them all neatly on a plat 1/4 of the original size. Plus they are huge and out of scale with the surrounding houses. The Marburg Square buildings are smaller, much like the two-story houses that surround it.

You've got to be kidding. Suburban apartment buildings have front doors that lead directly into parking lots. And they are hundreds of feet from the nearest street, and that street usually doesn't even have sidewalks. Surely, this could be more urban. But they do a decent job of fitting into the scale of the existing neighborhood. Also, the sad truth is that to sell new housing in this part of the country, you have to offer at least one garage parking space, and given that constraint I think they did okay.

I don't think this project is that bad. Look, the first houses abut the sidewalk of the existing street grid. They're not on 100-foot lots and don't have protruding garages. I admit the second photo is disconcerting, with the garages appearing to front the street. But this doesn't fit in with the plat map, which calls for all garages to be on the alley. So I guess we'll just have to see how it develops.

I see what you mean about the buildings south of 13th, but there are a few key ones in that area that are either vacant (and not turned into office space) or low-income that could be upgraded. I'm thinking Davis Furniture, Rhino's, NY Dry Cleaner, and a couple smaller ones and, of course, "The Jordan" a/k/a 1200 Main Street, currently owned by Rhine-Main Apts. The building at 12th and Walnut (Lucy Blue) is also an attractive building, though not on Main. The units going in on Vine will spread the market thin in the next couple years, but at the same time the vast improvement in the neighborhood they will bring will be a positive force for Main Street, even though it's two blocks away. As for taxes, don't forget that residents pay income taxes too. I would guess my little 6-unit building generates around $8,000 (more than $130k/acre) per year in city income tax alone, not counting anything in the storefronts. Plus investment in underused buildings will bring a net increase in property taxes. I'm certainly not opposed to the bars (I drink at them at least a couple times a week, and bring friends), but it seems like a better (and easier) long-term solution for Main Street to continue to transform into a vibrant urban neighborhood.

Is this realistic for 140 units in the Cincinnati market? It certainly seems ambitious, doesn't it? I wonder how many square feet they will deliver for $400k. That is an amazing location, and I'm sure they will be able to move several units at that price, but I have my doubts about 140. I wonder if it's just not economically feasible to deliver downtown (CBD) condo units in the $125-175k range. Just make them 800-1,000 sq ft. Simple, smart, modern floorplans with some city living details, like higher ceilings and exposed ducts. I bet you could sell 140 of those in a couple years. I know the Gateway offers floorplans like this, but the prices are $150-225k and it's not really in a CBD location. I think it can be done, the building would have to have more units than the Gateway to take advantage of economies of scale.

I think the future of Main Street is as a neighborhood, not an entertainment district. I really like some of the bars down here, and I frequent them. But I would be happier to see them winnowed down to a few unique bars, the vacant upper floors of the buildings renovated into market-rate apartments, and a couple of the low-income buildings turned to market rate for a better mix of incomes that can support more retail. In other words, use the street north of 13th as a model for the blocks from Central to 13th and the side streets. The added eyes on the street, and the lack of a bar scene that spikes the money and crowds (and bums and criminals with it), will settle down the panhandling and crime as it already has on the northern blocks. The resulting neighborhood would both be safer and seem safer because it would have a critical mass of market rate tenants and unique stores, restaurants, galleries, etc. It would be very attractive to folks who want to live in the city but are currently living in outer neighborhoods because they perceive Main Street as unsafe.

Yes, all of those things are named after people, but I do not agree with naming public spaces after people unless they happened to have something to do with the place itself or championed the purpose or ideals it represents. For example, the Potter Stewart Federal Courthouse, the Roebling Bridge, Woodward High School, Corbett Auditorium, etc. The Robert P. Taft Government Square is gratuitous.

I'm still not sure what he has to do with a bus station. What a bad move on Metro's part.

Did anybody notice that the kiosk building is engraved: "Charles P. Taft" "Government Square" Why on earth can't it just be "Government Square"

They repainted and put new exterior light fixtures on three townhomes about a year ago and has stalled, as far as I can tell.

An indoor ice arena on prime riverfront land is such a bad idea.

From the column a couple posts above: The experience in other cities is that density follows rail investment. There's even a name for it, "transit-oriented development." Rail is much more expensive and permanent than houses and office buildings, therefore houses and office buildings follow rail. Just as they follow freeway exits. It's such a painfully simple concept, you'd think more people would grasp it. I spent last weekend in D.C. and the transit-oriented development there (around Metro stops) is through the roof. I mean, absolutely unbelievable. Especially in Northern VA which was very low density twenty years ago. So even though the areas that the eastern corridor train will go through are low-density now, it will not stay that way once the line is built.

I've seen that commercial on TV before, I love it.

The project can't go forward because the Ohio Supreme Court has not yet issued an opinion.

Word on the street is Theresa's is closing for personal reasons. It seems to get a decent amount of traffic, especially on weekends.

My wife and I just got in from walking our dogs from our place on Main Street, over to Elm through Washington Park. There is still loitering over there (the weather is wonderful, so who can blame them), but it seemed friendlier than our past trips through there. I noticed several police cruisers. The Bank Cafe building is looking great, too. I am excited to see how the area looks in a couple years.

Yeah, the Gateway condos are off to a slow start. But the (literal) views are changing rapidly with all the development in the area, so I expect they'll pick up. They are good products.

Go take a look at Vine St. between Central Pkwy and 13th. There are 26 condos built (Gateway), with work crews on site for 48 more.

The Cincinnati figure (33.x% with college degrees) is actually for the city proper, not the metro area. I double checked on census.gov myself. It actually drops to the mid to upper 20s if you expand it to the whole metro area. DaninDC, I was in your neighborhood visiting a friend this weekend. Beautiful place. [edit] It's the 2004 estimate for "Cincinnati city", based on a 25+ population of about 182k. I can't figure out how to make a decent link to it.

It would be nice to see some 3CDC involvement over on Main St - the old Davis Furniture building, the building above Rhino's, and the corners of 12th and 13th. If those were market rate apartments, the added eyes on the street would make a big difference.

Bar scenes come and go. Few of the establishments in the entertainment district have evolved or changed in years. Add to that the carryout at 12th and Main that generates loitering and the panhandlers and the scene stopped being compelling for a good chunk of the bar-going crowd. You can find them at Newport, McFadden's and Mt. Adams now. In my opinion, Main St. above 13th is a better model for the street as a whole. There is a healthy mix of residential, offices, shops, galleries, and a couple bars. I think it's going to take some coordinated efforts to fill the larger ground-level spaces, but the smaller ones will fill in if the price is right. This section has a sustainable ratio of low-income to market-rate housing, too.

Signature gatherers have descended upon downtown Cincinnati like locusts. They are selling it as a "scholarship program for Ohio students."

I see this as an example of Ohio's backwardness. Here we have a dedicated group of folks who've put together an innovative education program that actually works at educating the most at-risk children. And now it is being suffocated by a one-size-fits-all funding system.