thebillshark

I dunno. People on this forum have said that $2.2 million was allocated towards the project. However I don't know if that's enough to fund the project anyway. According to my source who think that the project is dead, there are underground utilities that would need to be relocated if the street is narrowed. Utility relocation can be very expensive. That was never mentioned on any of the public meetings they did about this project. The electric is run on poles east-west on the north side of the street. I even asked about being able to bury that electric and they said that takes too much time and money and their plan was to not to have to touch the north curb. Were they talking a sewer or gas line or something? Whatever it is it would have had to be installed post 1950's when the widened the street to begin with.

Who is telling you the numbers don't work? Because the city's plan doesn't reduce the traffic flow at all, but instead takes away parking during peak times for two lanes of traffic in each direction. Personally I think they should keep the parking (on street parking creates a barrier to increase pedestrian safety) and go down to one lane of traffic in each direction- maybe that could happen after they actually narrow the road. This did seem to good to be true how well it was progressing in a town full of naysayers though.

If this was in OTR, people would be screaming "gentrification!" right now, but since it's in Walnut Hills, no one is going to talk about this. It's tough. I think that article shows this building does not work well as subsidized housing. It's concentrating poverty in vertical form. However on the other hand there are not the raw numbers of subsidized housing units available that could serve the need if it is redeveloped. And there are no HOPE VI style government programs with continuity that are working on it to my knowledge. Perhaps a good plan could be to convert this to market rate after replacing the units with a Brackett Village or City West style development on some of Walnut Hills' empty tracts of land, but it would be expensive and no one is funding anything like that right now. (Also people are indiscriminately screaming "gentrification!" absolutely everywhere right now, no matter what the situation)

Question about the current design. Having this site cleared gives a wide open view the historic buildings on the south side of the street. Is something lost by having the parking garage face the street on the second, third, fourth, fifth stories etc in the proposed design? On the south side of the street in the historic buildings that "zone" is habitated by human activity (office and residential,) on the north side under the proposed design it is parking garage dead space. I know we have a lot of focus on retail and building entrances for street level activation, but I wonder if there's something psychologically important/appealing about having the upper stories in this kind of low to mid rise "zone" activated as well. Is having two habitated low to mid rise "zones" facing off across the street a key to a great street, one that just "feels" right?

Cones are up east of Vine blocking the southernmost two lanes of Liberty Street right now (for reasons unknown to me)- but it's a pretty good approximation of what the street might look like after the project is completed

Cincinnati needs new higher-wage office jobs to fill up the space at the Banks. We need a higher median wage to justify new residential construction on these surface lots downtown. Without demand these things we talk about on here are just blowing smoke around.

Cranley has indicated in interviews and on twitter that they are working on a response to the RFP. In a bit of awkward timing the city's director of economic development has actually recently resigned with an effective date before the response due date.

Amazon talk aside, that plan shown for the IRS space in the WCPO article is horrible. They need to reconnect the street grid. Have Third Street traverse the site east-west again and add at least one, probably two, north-south streets. A key component to the "walkability" buzzword is how easy is it to walk from your new development to OTHER stuff! I feel like this is consistently ignored when large parcels like this become available. Reconnecting the street grid is the surest way to get there by far.

The Amazon project would happen in phases. The first phases could happen at open parcels at the Banks. The later (requiring larger spaces) phases could happen at the IRS site. Works almost perfectly actually:

Really don't see that happening without some kind of catalyst or huge growth occuring like the Amazon campus being on both sides of the river. But it would be the perfect connection between he unfinished Banks parcels and the IRS site and the best route for a Covington streetcar as well.

This is kind of a bad sign for the market if this one doesn't get done. This project is kind of a wiffle ball on a tee (relatively speaking.)

What's up with this project? Is it neither hotel or apartments? No lights on & looks like nobody's home. Maybe they all go to bed early?

Here is how it could work at the Banks if we work together with Covington and the State of Kentucky:

Things that make you go "hmm." Big time echoes of when they landed the GE Operations center: http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/cincinnati-mayor-well-be-very-agressive-with-tax-incentives-to-get-amazon/vi-AArvN7M?ocid=st Of course Cranley would never mention the S-word (streetcar) but I suppose it will be here when they get here!

Yeah they're getting tons of free publicity out of this. To that end, if they "rescue" a rust belt city, they will be seen as heroes. That's why I think Cincinnati has a chance- were semi-Rust Belt and they are taking direct aim at the rest of our businesses. There's a political dimension to this so they don't get cast as the villain in large parts of the country. (And subsequently aren't targeted by politicians.) I don't understand why they would be doing it otherwise.

Those three options are a freakin' JOKE. I would suggest those involved with the bid visit Seattle and the existing campus. They're not coming out and saying it, but IT HAS TO BE DOWNTOWN. Blue Ash and Oakley are not interesting enough. They may be interesting to you, but not to Amazon. There's simply too much competition. I hope our leaders have awareness of this. It is almost tailor made for the Banks. The Banks needs higher wage office jobs because lower wage office jobs tend to stay in the suburbs.

I'm also skeptical of the numbers being thrown about, and there is a pretty good chance that long term plan like this for a company that operates in such a dynamic space may not come to fruition. Taking a step further back, the idea of an "HQ2" is so strange that they probably already have a city in mind to begin with. But I guess it worked for the Roman Empire.

I also noted in the last OTRCC meeting notes, they mentioned $2.2M had been allocated for the "Liberty St. construction project". Does anyone know any details about what this is for? I don't have a clue what the entire road diet plan entails, and so what portion of that 2.2M could cover. The five lane option was preferrred in all the DOTE open houses and also supported by the OTRCC last October I believe. My understanding is they are coming up with a final design now and the construction money has already been allocated by city council.

Maybe just the opposite will happen. Considering how stressful and demanding working at the Seattle Death Star actually is, and how high the attrition rate is there, I expect a stream of ex-Amazon employees will soon be crawling over to 84.51 with tears in their eyes. Poor little yuppie over-achievers gotta work somewhere, you know... :roll: It'd be interesting to see the dynamic with competitor Kroger but it's also been suggested by pundits that they may straight up buy Macy's. Wonder if that would factor into their plans.

They could take all the available Fort Washington Way caps. If Fourth and Race is really being "re-thunk" they could have that too.

Attached is the RFP for Amazon's "HQ2". Bids are due Oct. 19th. They're talking a lot of buildings and square feet. Specifically mentions "access to mass transit" as a core preference. If I was in charge I would make a two-state pitch for the remaining sites at the Banks plus the IRS site in Covington soon to be vacant. Streetcar access, Metro/TANK plus whatever future transit will ever go into the Riverfront Transit Center. Two halves connected by the most beautiful historic bridge in the country. Heck, Streetcar access means a they could even expand to Joseph's parking lot up on Main. https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/G/01/Anything/test/images/usa/RFP_3._V516043504_.pdf

^Yes, I remember reading there are plans for a Phase 2 but as of now the building, though it looks nice, doesn't address any of the surrounding streets. Looking at it from another side of things, perhaps nighttime/early morning security was a main concern in that location. It is good they invested in the city.

The site layout for the new Messer construction headquarters is bad. The building is smashed up against the highway with a Walmart sized parking lot between it and Court Street. It's exactly the opposite of how it should be. To top it off there is a fence around the whole complex. Two streets were removed from the streetgrid to accommodate this.

They were running three cars. The first car leaving riverfest was packed. The good thing is it had a police escort that told people to stay off the tracks. With river fest being a million dollar event, and chartering a streetcar only costing $1,200 or so, you think they could be running all five. To say nothing of having a sponsor step up and offer free rides for a day. Cincinnati still needs to get its act together on this.

I'm hearing money has been allocated from the casino neighborhood improvement funds to implement the Liberty Street Safety Improvement plan.