dlueg

the competition created between competing music venues in the city is one thing, and a worthwhile discussion....but having just moved out of the Newport's East Row, after living there for ~7years, I can tell you that i could stand in my back yard and hear bunbury, and the macy's music festival. Those things were tolerable because they are one-off type of events and it was kind-of cool, halfway between a perk and a consequence of living in the city. An outdoor concert venue surrounded by what amounts to a largely single family residential type urban settings seem to be a fairly precarious proposition, and is going to have to wrestle with the implications of that. Promowest's developments in columbus and pittsburgh are urban, but are not situated in the type of setting as this one will be in Newport. should be interesting to watch.

people tear stuff down all the time - i give you that it would seem like a huge waste of money, given that it was literally just spent - but its not that tremendously much money in the grand scheme of things, and it is just a parking structure. right next door riverfront stadium cost a bunch of money when it was built (45m) and we tore it down to build something else.

with all the talk of the fcc stadium - could they just do something like this? i mean, i know you'd have to demo the garage you just built - but... it seems to work, and then you've got all your stadiums in one spot and all the infrastructure right there.

architecture is one of the most profound anthropologic tools we have. you can learn so much about times in which people live by the things they build.

you, as the city of cincinnati, would have to ask yourself - why do i want any of these places to be part of my city? is there some tax base (existing or potential)- businesses, property, population that would be beneficial to you, the city? most of these places might make geographic sense to be a part of the city, but would likely do nothing but be a drag on the city's resources.

glad to see the above answer - parking garages will tend to be demolished due to functional obsolescence or lack of financial viability before they have (with proper maintenance) deteriorated to the point that they would raise safety concerns. a concrete building in Arizona could last a thousand years... Unfortunately, a given with concrete is that it cracks- and cracks allow water a place to hang out and freeze and expand and make more cracks... So - here, the name of the game is keeping water away, or getting it away quickly. garages with overbuilds, as are becoming more common in Cincinnati hopefully provide an incentive for building owners to keep up with regular maintenance. Unfortunately, as i'm sure has been discussed in other threads, parking structures are usually unable to be converted to other uses (unless they are intentionally planned to do so - speed ramps)... due to the high cost to construct/the return they generate, they are engineered to only support cars and people, which is considered to be a lower live load than an office, and i'm pretty sure the live load for residential is higher too... + because of the cost the floor to floor heights are usually too low to be retrofitted anyway... a more interesting question to me, revolves around the role of the car in 50+ years.

^pete rose way/riverside drive is a pretty busy street, but this is literally on the riverfront park, it couldnt be more pedestrian friendly. that overpass isnt bad, i walk under it almost every day going to/from work. i dont think anyone envisions this area turning into an entertainment destination, but, instead, a more residential area. so the library? its a half mile away no matter how you cut it. the overpass doesnt hinder you there - theres a sidewalk that connects pete rose way and E. 3rd if your goal is to get to the core of downtown... but the taft museum, the new lytle park, the entire riverfront park being within a couple hundred yards, this place is actually pretty connected. topographically it is isolated, and will continue to be so, but that actually creates an opportunity for a more distinct, quieter, residential condo district.

this would certainly cause less parking structures to be built... or at the very least, would cause what is built to be much more carefully considered - while i'm sure causing some temper tantrums from developers. parking structures as built now are engineered structurally to be as bare bones and minimal as possible (read : cost less) the floor to floor heights are lower. structurally they actually have less stringent requirements for live load, so their slabs are thinner or contain less reinforcement than office slabs, the column spacing is wider and the beams are shallower. dead load and deflection may have stricter reqs for office or residential as well, but i dont know that (a little counter-intuitive i thought at first - but imagine those garage slabs and the potential amount of people they could hold vs the amount of cars they are designed to hold + plus office furniture storage etc, and that weight adds up quickly) all of this to say that the more structural requirements imposed on parking structures, the higher the cost. i dont necessarily see this as a bad thing as it would discourage the building of parkign structures, but you will get significant pushback from developers if they see the price of parking go up from 15-16k/car, on an amenity that they believe is essential to securing tennants. In a lot of instances, these structures are what make or break a devleopment from a cost/benefit standpoint. ramps are one thing, but if i have to spend a lot more money on concrete or steel just in case it wants to be converted to office space some day when i might not own the structure - i might be a lot more hesitant to take that risk.

pretty big news, both for how the final form of the kenwood collection plays out and (potentially) the future of downtown retail. http://www.cincinnati.com/story/money/business/2014/08/19/saks-kenwood-collection/14286865/

the term is a bit misleading. its not an ocean. but yeah... saltwater pools are gaining in popularity. less maintenance, less chemicals, softer on skin and eyes etc, similar antimicrobial properties

was out there to watch the derby... can confirm, has some nice points but on the whole (completely subjectively) not a nicer interior space than horseshoe.. and difficult to express, but the exteriof eifs somehow manages to appear less nice than the horseshoe as well. individual spaces (bars, restaurants, main axes of the gaming floor do have some high quality finishes, on par with or possibly surpassing horseshoe. but large swathes of the gaming floor are just open ceiling - a la hollywood casino - that at least to me doesnt feel as "nice"

i'm not sure mike brown has much/any control over the hotel site planned for "the banks" phase 1(c or d?) directly adjacent to gabp - be it height or anything else. and i do believe there was a 10+ story hotel supposed to be built on that site should an operator ever be found. now were they to attempt to put a hotel closer to pbs - i think he does have air rights over there, and would probably let his opinion be known.

i may have misrepresented my position when speaking about contextual quality. when it comes to the siting of the building i'm not normally too concerned with the directly adjacent buildings, but more how its particular siting merits architectural response A) built context in this sense (disregarding for the moment solar and other site issues) is just the collective result of decisions made by other architects in the past, under normal conditions i wouldn't show them any extraordinary amount of respect.. B)i dont consider contextual appropriateness stylistic mimicry, rhythmic mimicry or anything of the sort, unless it fits into the concept for a particular project. i more think of context in terms of a buildings position in time relative to available technological, methodological capacities as well as construction trends and abilities of a local environment. context for me is working within the time the project is made, a reflection of the collective "zeitgeist" in which case this project may be contextually appropriate. relative to how this building responds to its adjacent built environment though. i hardly see a convincing argument to be made for a response to any of it, superficially, sure it might work as an argument. but its a relatively chunky, squatty building perched atop a chunk-ier parking garage... the original proposal might not have been so bad, were it to have been incorporated as planned. but the addition of more levels of parking, i think merit a total rethinking of the project conceptually. the perceived vertical emphasis, again is just too chunky for me, too much a result of simply cladding a floorplan. for the buildings length to its height, especially if it is largely disregarding its parking base, you'd expect greater and more pronounced emphasis on something... the vertical or (and especially) if you are trying to separate yourself from the garage, a total distancing from the design and instead maybe emphasizing the horizontal, i dont know. yay for more units downtown, but i disagree totally with the apparent desire to partially intergrate this new building with its base. i would have hoped the move would be to even more profoundly disregard the base it and instead create an intervention that responds like you would hope a new structure being added to an old one would. in that, even though the project appears to attempt to distance itself from its its existing lower levels somewhat, the project as a whole becomes to regular - too kinda-sorta of the old one, and not enough of a statement on its own. it appears to lack a stance.

the one rendering we do have absolutely says those things... and i would have a hard time imagining any self respecting architect standing smiling next to that image. i know how to read (and ignore) an elevation, and how to interpret a rendering, and i get the design intent, and understand that theyre working within an established column grid. my comment is that its mostly uninspired garbage, and they could afford better with the same money. finishes will match (in quality) existing exterior, interior i'm not as concerned with at this point, because the first hurdle is getting people to want to live somwhere based on what it looks like from the outside. i'm very familiar with JSA and they do fine work. they do excellent single family residential work, in fact... still that still doesnt inspire much confidence. worst project to ever grace our downtown? maybe not... still waiting to see banks phase 2 built.... this city has a massive educational problem when it comes to our collective expectations regarding high end contemporary design.

god that is ugly. straight up, it will be hideous. i'm not talking oh the banks is a terrible attempt at urbanism ugly. no, this will be an eyesore, the likes of which this city has never seen.... proportionally, contextually, materially, its just really going to be bad. if one good thing were to come of it, i hope it will provide a case study of poor design making poor business sense, long run... my biggest fear (other than the gash on our city's face, is that when the units don't sell/rent that it will be taken as a lack of desire on the part of the market to support continued investment in downtown housing. unfortunately i stare directly out of my office window right at the current parking garage, so i'm really looking forward to my view being improved over the next year or so...(read sarcasm) i never thought i'd be excited to get that hotel built. edit - spelling.

like everything said here, the following is purely conjecture.... i think the type of 8-5ers is very important though. i think i read somewhere that the average age of an employee at dunnhumby is 27 years old (and yes i know that there is no guarantee that dunnhumby will occupy this building forever) but with that assumption, the odds of them wanting to live at one of the several either completed, in the works, proposed projects in the surrounding blocks is pretty high. their age and likely desire to live proximal to their office, coupled with their high income and lack of societal obligations (family, kids, etc), and dunnhumby's expectations of growth, could help push these projects over the top. Also, i think ground retail at this street, and 4th street, and all of race street and most of downtown, benefits greatly from this building, its occupants, and their high incomes. that aside, i actually enjoy the facade. (there was very little gensler could do with the overall massing, DH wanted max plates, and the city wanted max parking) there is a nice rhythm and texture to it, its generally playful and has a certain dynamism lacking in many of our newer buildings *cough QCS* In addition to that, gensler details buildings well and i'm sure this will be no exception. the height comments, while true, i think are a bit overstated. 9 floors of a high floor to floor of something along the lines of 16ft, will give you something right about the height and general proportion of federal building or the courthouse. so while not a tower, it is certainly substantial. given what potential development it could, hopefully, maybe spur... i think its an all around positive.

would be terribly curious to know what some of the detractors definitions of "urban" are when thinking critically about the built environment. if your comments are stylistic in nature, i'd REALLY be curious to know your concept of how this project should have unfolded. Not to say that you dont hold your views, its just that a discussion devolves quickly into "nuh huh... yes huh!" when people make such blanket statments without much qualification

having stopped in once because im a bourbon fanatic i will report my experience. it was an awful place. It was j-hall with a name change, but a concept that implied a complete overhaul of the space. it billed itself as a bourbon bar, yet had none of the atmosphere that you'd expect from one. frankly it didnt even have a good bourbon list. it was badly crafted from concept to completion, and i'm not surprised it failed at all.... being a resident of newport, i was really hopeful about this one too.

the name of the game in the casino business is creating experiences that the guest will come to associate with your brand... and then reward those experiences to create a loyal customer base. by converting river downs to Belterra Park Gaming & Entertainment Center, pinnacle is making it very clear to its customers that they can have the "belterra experience" (whatever hell that may be) at the race track. If consumer A is a member of a rewards program at belterra rising sun, (and consider what type of person that consumer A might be) he may be more inclined to spend his entertainment dollar at the raceway bearing the same name, knowing that it will likely boost his rewards, whatever they may be. If the name remains unchanged, Consumer A will be less likely to associate the track with Belterra and his rewards points and will be less likely to go. Belterra wants to corner the market on their customers entertainment money. golf courses, spas, hotels, higher end restaurants? in rising sun, the racetrack in cincinnati... oh and hey while you're there, since you've been a good customer, here are some concert tickets to riverbend, reds tickets or a dinner out at boca or something along those lines as a thank you for being such a loyal customer. its all in cornering your customers entertainment dollars. Gary Loveman, the CEO of Caesars Entertainment gave a really interesting speech on very similar topics at the Chamber of Commerce's Annual Luncheon at the casino a couple weeks back. the casino business knows what theyre doing when it comes to targeting the consumer. Edit: the name of the project

At this point, in Cincinnati, a big portion of the picture boils down to parking. if a developer can come up with a workable solution to parking, a large scale condo/apartment conversion becomes much more feasible in their minds. its one of the reasons the enquirer building conversion to residential floundered. right or wrong, in the current market, most people interested in living downtown/able to pay the prices are also going to be people who have a car and want a place to park it. that said, there are plenty of garages nearby which at least allows for the possibility of a deal being struck. I also believe there are elevator issues in the Bartlett building, possibly relating to the number of existing cores or being brought up to code for residential.... i don't quite remember what they might be though. I do know several developers have explored the option of turning it to residential and the numbers haven't worked for them for whatever reason in the past. the residential market in downtown is experiencing something of a boom right now though, so i wouldn't be surprised to see someone take a chance.

didnt mean to respond. cant figure out how delete my post. do disagree about the usage of "form following function" wrote a very long arrogant sounding book as a reply and meant for it to not be posted. i would note though that that expression comes more out of a concern with structural and material honesty, and an outrage over ornamentation. you can see find examples of garages that follow this principle quite literally, in corbusier and other early modernist designers who were obsessed with the automobile, and buildings being machines (which they viewed as the penultimate achievement of form following function) i'm sure you just meant that a garage should look like a garage, but that is a very weighty statement to be throwing around in the midst of architects. i would argue that to mimic historicist architecture is every bit as dishonest as what the early modernists were rebelling against. one advantage we have is 100 years of the architecture produced as a result of their writings to measure against their ideals. one big thing also is to broaden the understanding of ornamentation, which isnt purely motifs and flourishes added to a facade but can include color, pattern, material, actual formal ornament. note the herzog demeuron parking structure in miami. its definitely a parking structure, but structurally and formally it is highly ornamental, without appearing so.

honestly speaking, i think we could do much much worse than that garage. of course we could do much much better as well, but i'm willing to hedge my bets and accept something that at least doesnt detract from the neighborhood, or stick out like a sore thumb. (start bitching about "thats what cincinnati always does, and thats why its average" but hear me out) its not challenging to accept, its not exciting, it just is background, completely neutral background. at a certain level it does exactly maybe what it should do. you need some bland to appreciate the salt some times. given the context, lack of connection to the rest of downtown created by the surface lots more or less surrounding it i think its fine. it would be nice to get a santa monica civic center garage or that herzog de meuron project in miami, but i'd rather a fairly quality background building than a poorly executed, value engineered attempt at contemporary, which cincinnati loves to do. also, given that theres a giant garage across the street, that definitely looks like a garage, and that there are surface lots and parking garages all around this site, maybe its a good thing that this offers something somewhat different, but just neutral. garages arent often known as drivers of vital urbanity possibly because its obvious to every passer-by that the sole use of the place is a storage depot for people occupying other areas of the city. (written by an architect who would never in a million years design a neo-traditionalist building) side note, for my money probably the coolest parking garage in cincinnati is 2 blocks away on 7th street right across from the busken bakery in the base of the aronoff center, and this definitely echoes shades of that.

your thinking would disallow the possibility of a "modern dissonant orchestral piece" if applied to music though. I'm confident that plenty of people think those are ugly as well.. should musical evolution, then, cease? just because it isnt appreciated, or considered beautiful by some, does not mean that it isnt still valuable in advancing a discourse in its field and in society? One large difference is that the built environment is the possession of the entire population and with that responsibility, i'd imagine that you would want someone who has spent a large portion of their life studying proportion, aesthetics and architecture history, not to mention someone with the structural and mechanical background to execute such a design properly. Not that this isnt a valid discussion, (its entirely worth having, to discuss the aesthetics of a prominent new piece of our city) and without getting into some argument about the prevalence of true understanding of architecture history and theory amongst the general population, ill say this... So many times these discussions sound like a patient with a sore throat going to their doctor after reading WebMD and telling him that they have throat cancer. by the way, this is not in any way a defense of the design, just an argument against a way of thinking.

does anyone have old photos of the 5th and race site? i've found a few aerials of downtown in the 70's and 80's, but didnt know if anyone might have good photos of what used to be here

Walked out of my apartment this morning and saw a new sign on the space directly adjacent to holy grail on freedom way that read "coming soon: Mahogany's at the Banks" not necessarily sure what this is, but there is a mahogany's steakhouse chain nationally so that was my assumption... I hadn't seen this mentioned anywhere so I figured id share it with you all (sorry for not taking a picture)