jjakucyk

I think ground floor retail or offices is probably unrealistic considering the amount of undeveloped space in Columbia Square and also at the old Lincoln School a block up Delta. I could see one retail or office space at the corner just because of its high visibility, but along the whole length of the building? Probably not. Pedestrian traffic is fragmented at that location because of all the turning movements onto and off of Columbia Parkway, unfortunately. The pedestrian connection from this corner to the Precinct is cut off because of that, requiring a 3-step navigation of the intersection just to get from the one corner to the other. Not that there would be a whole lot of demand for such a connection, but the Precinct corner is the most "activated" of the four as far as pedestrians are concerned. Nevertheless, there's more pedestrian activity at this intersection than you might expect, so there's definitely an opportunity to make it better. Some on-street parking on southbound Delta and a curb bump-out and more street parking on northbound Delta would do a lot to help calm what's already an excessively wide street. As for the architecture, it's the same uninspired crap that's been spewed out on all similar projects for the past 15-20 years. It screams "cheap materials" and "unresolved, poorly scaled details". There's also this strange aversion to properly addressing street corners. Instead of embracing the corner with a tower or turret, or even just a simple curved facade, the building retreats from it leaving completely unresolved space at what should be the most important part of the design.

Yeah but it's better than most of the other photos in that article, blech! Some of them look like Google street view screen captures. The money shot of Cincinnati is really the view from Devou Park, but I'll admit that it doesn't show off the river so well.

That's kind of funny seeing this sleek new train on some rickety old wood pile trestle.

The trouble is that sprawling development does provide a quick short-term cash infusion for the township/village/city as they get a bunch of new property taxes while having to do virtually nothing. The developers build all the new infrastructure and it's all brand new when turned over to the municipality. Unfortunately those taxes don't cover the long-term maintenance costs of that infrastructure, and even if some of it remains privately owned there's still the broader services that have to be increased, such as schools, police, fire, libraries, water and sewage plants, widening arterial roadways, etc. This situation only works when there's more growth that brings in new taxes to fund the maintenance and replacement of the old infrastructure. It's what's called the growth ponzi scheme. So in the long term it's completely self-defeating, but in the short term it provides the illusion of prosperity and economic stability. A struggling township can try to "grow its way out of their problems" and it will look like a success in the short term, so they have every reason to do it even though it's ultimately making the problems worse. The impact fees, while attempting to do the right thing, really aren't effective because it's a one-time payment that doesn't address the continuing obligations of the municipality to service and maintain the infrastructure. A $6,000 impact fee is only enough to push the problem back a few years. To pay their own way, most suburbs would need to quadruple their property tax rates. That the property taxes in older cities aren't that high, while their infrastructure is almost universally "old" says something about the benefits of density that most suburbs haven't learned yet.

The argument about what people do once they get to the station is specious. It's the same situation as someone coming in by airplane. They either rent a car or get picked up by the friends they're visiting or the get a taxi or whatever. Granted, not many people fly between Cincinnati and Columbus, or even Cleveland, but it doesn't matter because people do come to all these places without cars when they fly, and they manage just fine. The advantage here is that the train station is much more centrally located so there's many more options to get around. Besides, for all the people who can't "make it work" on the train, there's plenty of people who do. This mindset where if something doesn't work 100% all the time for everybody in every circumstance then it's not worth doing must stop.

It's techno-grandiosity coupled with 1970s-era highway fetishism at its most absurd.

They probably just want to move so they can be on the corner of Ridge and Montgomery and nothing else. They also picked the corner that's most easily accessible by people driving home in the evening (right in, right out). Grocery stores try to do that too. It's all highly abstract and normative, concerned only with metrics and formulas that have no consideration for placemaking or community, let alone urbanism.

$30 million is the cost of the Kennedy Connector project, let's blame that!

It might help. That area is zoned CC-P (Commercial Community Pedestrian), which has very strict requirements about building placement and parking. The building must be right on the sidewalk, and in the case of a corner lot the building must be on the corner, parking must be at the rear or to the side if there's not enough room, no drive-throughs are allowed, the facades of the building must meet transparency requirements etc. So if they abide by the code the results probably wouldn't be hateful, but the street wall would very well end up with missing teeth on either side. They are also probably going to seek variances for many of the requirements, so that's somewhere both the community and city councils would be helpful in making sure those don't get granted. Their current store is right at the edge of the CC-P district, and just east and north of there it transitions to CC-M (Commercial Community Mixed) which allows some more auto-oriented uses. If they want their usual suburban crap store then they should just stay there. Anything at Ridge and Montgomery should be at least two stories as well, and I don't see Walgreens doing anything like that either.

The post-WWII period also marks the change from highly connected and essentially gridded street layouts to an excessively hierarchical dendritic system of cul-de-sacs feeding into collectors that feed into minor arterials that feed into major arterials that feed into interstates. So while a gridded street pattern doesn't necessarily denote an urban neighborhood, a dendritic layout almost certainly denotes a suburban or exurban one.

I'd agree on Italianate, but watch out for the subtle distinction between Italianate and Greek Revival row houses. The major difference is the Greek Revival has 6 over 6 windows (though it's not uncommon for those to be replaced later with 2 over 2 or 1 over 1 sashes) and a less pronounced cornice without heavy brackets. Greek Revival: http://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/cdap/pages/-3773-/ Italianate: http://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/cdap/pages/-3777-/ Cincinnati's Major Architectural Styles: http://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/cdap/pages/-3753-/ It's a good resource, but one thing it seems to miss is the typical French Second Empire row houses. The example they show is highly elaborate, whereas most look like this: http://goo.gl/maps/B3XE

So I went through this area for the first time yesterday and got my first taste of the continuous-flow intersection at Austin and Springboro Pike. That has to be the most ridiculous example of over-the-top gold-plated absurd traffic engineering I've ever seen. Aside from the immense cost of such an intersection, with all the added engineering, huge number of traffic signals and camera detectors, a lot of extra pavement, curb and gutter, medians, etc., it also functions horribly at low-traffic times. Granted a sampling of two isn't anything to go on, but when one has to sit at a light waiting to turn left for three minutes with NO TRAFFIC coming, then something's wrong. The same goes for turning right, which has two separate signals, both of which don't allow turning on red. Seriously, waiting for two to three minutes just to turn right? It really puts into perspective just how crazy things are in the exurbs.

Voicing opinions on a discussion forum doesn't really get them out in any meaningful way. It's slacktivisim at its most absurd.

Still, how is that any different than an apartment with more units?

Few duplexes get built nowadays because they're excluded from the zoning code, just like most other urban building forms. Same for garage apartments, granny flats, etc. I don't see how high energy bills or lack of privacy are any different than you'd find in any apartment situation. The real advantage to them is you can own a duplex and use the rent from the other half to help pay down the purchase of the building. You can do that without having to be a full-time landlord like you would with a larger building.

What's wrong with duplexes? Those and fourplexes (both of which there's a ton in Cincinnati) are some of the best affordable housing there is. They look like regular single family houses (usually anyway, the many art deco examples are exceptions), so they are a perfect fit for those neighborhoods that want to maintain a certain character. They allow more density and a choice in unit sizes that would otherwise be lacking in such areas.

8 foot long T-14's I think, totally old school.

Having no building is the worst rate of return when it's private land in anything but a rural environment. Parks and streets and such are a different animal, and in that case you have to look more at opportunity costs than anything. That's not to say we don't have too much empty public space too, namely overly-wide streets.

An interesting metric would be the property taxes per acre for a surface lot versus a garage of say 10 stories, with and without first floor retail. The overall point though is that having no building on a piece of land is of course the worst rate of return. A single-story building surrounded by a lot of "open space" whether that's yard or parking lot is little better. Even a single-story building that covers the whole lot is at least as good if not better than some of the best big box and strip shopping developments. The key to good return is height and full lot coverage, which requires the least amount of infrastructure. What I find interesting about the analyses is that while they mention the suburban developments require 42 years or thereabouts to repay their infrastructure investments, they neglect to mention that much of that infrastructure won't last that long. The roads alone will need resurfacing at least twice if not three times during that period, with replacement curb and gutter and full rehab in the 30-40 year time frame. The water and sewer lines will need some maintenance too, though they're unlikely to need full replacement by then. There's also sidewalks, street lights, and other things needing maintenance as well. Plus, do they even consider the operating budget for this infrastructure? Roads need plowing in winter, public right-of-ways need mowing, the street lights need electricity, there's fire and police and school and library budgets too. If you count all those things it pushes the "payback" period more decades out to where it's never recouped at all.

Great article, very "strong towns".

Seriously. Did they not know about the Kennedy Connector, or did they just say, "Screw it, it's not our problem"? My guess would be the latter.

The fountains probably use a lot less energy than all the lights in the park, or the streetlights on any given street. Also, the water is likely recycled like it is in most fountains, unlike at Fountain Square where the water is always fresh, potable drinking water - which was part of the agreement with the city when the fountain was gifted by Henry Probasco. As far as fountains go, I'm sure these are far more efficient than Cincy's most famous fountain. I wouldn't be so sure. There's been a lot of advances in lighting as of late, and from what I saw a lot of the lighting around the park is LED. At the very least, all the uplighting in the fountains themselves are LED, and those use a tiny amount of power. Pumps on the other hand always have used a lot of electricity, and unless there's some revolutionary breakthrough in motor technology (which there hasn't been in nearly a century), then they probably always will. Pumps also require a lot more maintenance. Electricity and maintenance are the reason the many fountains at the Palace of Versailles are only run for two or three days a week, and they charge extra admission on top of it. Regarding the Tyler Davidson Fountain, the whole point is that the four little fountains at each "corner" are drinking fountains. I think the main pool of the fountain was more for horses originally. Anyway, there's a pretty complex plumbing infrastructure for the whole thing, but if it's just passing city water through and draining it away then you wouldn't technically need any pumps at all, just some pressure regulators and shutoff valves. The many elaborate fountains in Rome are mostly gravity fed straight from aqueducts. That's about as simple and elegant as it gets, no electricity needed.

A roundabout with a fountain or other large sculptural item would certainly be a good way to go. Alas, we get a front lawn instead. http://www.jjakucyk.com/portfolio/otr.html

While it's a very poorly defined space, at least the grass can always be replaced with a plaza, which would be much more appropriate.

Fay Apartments --> The Villages of Roll Hill Winton Place --> Spring Grove Village Indian Hill --> The Village of Indian Hill Pardon my French, but FUCK...THAT...SHIT.