thebillshark

There's a faint odor on Race St. tonight- have they begun brewing beer at Taft's Ale House?

I think you meant *without Maybe the historic rehab portion of this project will be that test. I imagine you can fit many more units in those buildings and they don't appear to have parking spots according to this plan. Perhaps this will wait until the streetcar is up and running. Not that the streetcar is the be all and end all of going car free, but it might facilitate a shift in attitude. Also you could take a "car lite" approach and keep a car at a cheaper garage in the CBD somewhere and ride the streetcar to it when you needed it.

I think all parking requirements were eliminated in OTR and the CBD in the waning days of the Mallory administration but I'm not sure. Also 3CDC may have their own parking plan. I don't know why it's not taller. Could be to avoid an elevator as jwulsin mentioned. Myabe they didn't want to go higher than the historic building on the corner. Maybe they wanted to match the density of the Pleasant St. neighborhood one block to the south. Maybe they are planning something taller up near Liberty St. I know there is a master plan for the Pleasant St. corridor from the Park to the Market, and this looks a lot more like that than the previous design. http://www.schickeldesign.com/documents/otrch_vision_study_final_booklet.pdf

^They probably don't think they can go any higher and add units with the amount of parking they have. Try saving to your hard drive and opening from there to read the whole thing easily.

Why must all modern cornices be blank? Would it really be more than a few thousand dollars (with cost divided over 17 units) for more elaborate, even old-timey cornices? I don't care if it's mimic-y, it really feels like something's missing from these modern structures.

I'd have thought some parking structure is in order. There are the 6 abandoned historic buildings waiting to be renovated to the north of this planned new development as well as 1 to the south and 2 huge ones sitting across Race Street. And Washington Park garage does get full fairly often on weekends and some evenings. In general I'd be in favor of some concentrated parking structures (the one at Fifteenth and Race could be smaller than the one previously presented however) if it preserves greenspace and courtyards from becoming a hundred mini surface lots. I like how this proposal preserves the rear of the two historic buildings on the block however.

Wow! Awesome. Totally improved from last year. How did that happen?

I too hope for the demise of the riots meme in the next round of these national news articles. Please focus on brewing heritage, once being the 5th biggest city in the US which gives us a great urban core, etc.

MLK will be nothing more than a highway linking I-75 with I-71. Unfortunately, that is the only vision Uptown leaders have for the area. All the more reason to seize this moment for Taft and McMillan to be converted to two way east of Vine. Choose your battles right? Let MLK be fast moving and auto oriented. As it is Taft is like a motor speedway where it feels unsafe to be a pedestrian, but it is the one that could easily be a neighborhood street. Uptown needs to do this if you are ever going to sew the neighborhoods of Corryville, Clifton Heights, Mt. Auburn, and Walnut Hills back together again.

The morgue isn't downtown currently. It's on UC's medical campus. Why not build a better morgue and crime lab somewhere in Uptown and keep all of the office workers, BOE, DMV, etc. Downtown? Maybe a new morgue/crime lab could be one of the new MLK interchange developments (along with the NIOSH facility which there has been articles about today as well.)

Totally agree. I agree with the following caveat: with the streetcar, you're going to have a dense mix of uses along the line, so people aren't going to have to travel as far to complete the tasks of their daily lives. That's why they say the streetcar is about access and not distance or speed. So I think the streetcar would both win the energy per one person one mile metric against the automobile and obliterate it at the same time: traveling five streetcar miles might let someone accomplish just as much as traveling sixty automobile miles would.

Except the utilities hate the concept of everyone putting panels that they own on their own roofs. It completely undermines their economic model, and since we have publicly traded utilities in the United States, they have successfully lobbied against large-scale government research or tax breaks. There is a pretty significant tax deduction for solar panels, but not enough to make economic sense for most implementations. That is true, the biggest obstacles will be from rent-seekers in charge of the current system delaying change legally and politically. Also, fossil fuels will become cheap cheap cheap if it looks like they are in danger of becoming obsolete. OPEC will really turn on the spigots which may delay a changeover for awhile. But I think the technology can and will improve to the point where it's basically providing free and clean power to humanity. I didn't always think it would be technically possible but now I do.

Photovoltaic solar is gaining efficiency and has a sort of Moore's Law in effect that is driving the cost per kWhr produced down each year. This will be the dominant form of power generation, no subsidies required, by the time I die, if I die of old age. Bet on it! That streetcar is going to run squeaky clean & green.

Lots of discussion about the Oasis bike trail today. Question: if you are pro bikes, pro rail transit, and generally anti Eastern Corridor (anti highway and think it's not that great of a rail line,) how are you supposed to feel about this project? I think pro, even though it takes up a rail right of way? Also this is supposed to be a cheaper in lieu of alternative to the Ohio River trail in the east side right?

They make shoes without rubber soles?

Exactly... it would be weird for that lot to be developed with a new building. At the same time, it is right across the street from a massive urban park, so it can't duplicate what's already there. Maybe 3CDC could purchase that lot and lay down some nice pavers. It could still be used as surface parking on weekdays, but then used as civic space during special events and/or rented out as a reception area for Music Hall and Memorial Hall events. Actually it's funny-I just checked the Google Maps and Hopkins St. would go right through that lot if it were extended through the Public Broadcasting building all the way to Elm. If that happened it could go a long way to reconnecting Betts Longworth and the West End to OTR. I can't say if it would justify the cost of tearing down and rebuilding the public broadcasting building though.

taestell[/member] I think it would be weird to have that be something other than civic space being in between two landmarks like that, at least on the side facing Elm St. Maybe that could become some kind of park-like gateway from Central Parkway to Washington Park if the Channel 48 garage is redeveloped and the West End becomes better connected in general (like reconnecting Hopkins St. to Central Ave. by tearing down that weird Park Board garage.) I could see developing the lots behind Memorial Hall on Grant St. however, maybe with some shorter row houses.

What's the plan for the Drop Inn Center site at 12th and Elm once the Center moves to Queensgate? If there is one it's been kept secret. I think this is intentional so 3CDC doesn't look like over eager gentrifiers. Right now I think they've been pretty successful portraying the move as a facilties upgrade. Which I'm sure it is. I would think they would raze it and build multi story residential. Combined with the YMCA renovation and the church renovation into an event space/bar, there's going to be a lot of activity in that corner of the neighborhood! Does anyone know when the church renovation will be complete?

Here is my concept for an Ezzard Charles Drive "Cincinnati Icons" West End Streetcar. The track travels in both directions along Ezzard Charles (Purple Line in diagram.) At Central Avenue the eastbound tracks make a left turn onto Central Ave., and perform a clockwise loop around 14th St, Race St, 12th St, and back to Central Ave. and Ezzard Charles drive. It is possible to connect to the northbound main streetcar line at Music Hall; a new stop on the south side of 14th would allow travelers to disembark and cross Elm St. to wait at the existing Music Hall stop for a northbound streetcar. The new loop would tie into the existing streetcar track on Race and use the existing 12th and Race stop for travelers to make a connection to the southbound streetcar. The new line would require cutting into existing track to lay an x crosspiece at 14th and Elm, a tie into existing track at 14th and Race, use of the existing "Washington Park Junction" to make the turn from Race to 12th, and stub out to let the streetcar continue straight on 12th at Elm to return to the West End. There would also be a spot where the new track crosses over itself on Central Ave. making a left hand turn onto Ezzard Charles. I thought about making the loop counterclockwise onto Elm St. but decided against it for the following reasons. First, if there was new stop on 12th to make a connection to the southbound streetcar, it would still require walking a whole block across the Park to the 12th and Race stop. Secondly, every turn on a counterclockwise loop would be a left hand turn; on a clockwise loop they are all right hand turns except the turns from and to Ezzard Charles. Three is that it might make for some awkward track geometries when tying into existing track (Thinking specifically of the left turn onto Elm.) I am most excited about this line when I think about improved intercity rail service operating out of Union Terminal. I can imagine trains of tourists from Chicago and Indianapolis arriving at Union Terminal being able to enjoy a completely car-free weekend in Cincinnati because of the streetcar. This would also be good for tourists staying downtown to reach the Museum Center. The biggest drawback in my view, besides the construction downtime to the streetcar system caused by tying into existing track, is that it would take two streetcars in continual operation to keep the headways under 10 minutes. This would be costly and probably not justified by current demand in the area. Most of the functionality of this line would lie in the ability to make a quick connection to and from the existing system; I feel twenty minute headways (from one streetcar) would be inadequate for this task. There is plenty of room for future development in the West End that could eventually justify the costs of running the line however. I can see some denser mixed use development with commercial space along Ezzard Charles, in the current streetcar construction yard. They could fill in around the Laurel Park semi-circle with multi-unit buildings. There are parcels of land sprinkled throughout the City West area that could support development. There are some lots on the NW corner of Linn and Ezzard Charles. Also, there are built out storefronts on Lynn, part of the City West development, that sit mostly vacant save for a lone cell phone store, which could blossom someday.

I like the town home concept but the miss was on the driveways and alleys. They are way too wide and built to some kind of suburban new home spec. Some of the streets have long-ish driveways going to each house, which is a lot of space taken up by pavement, which may have otherwise given each unit some private outdoor space. Also there are some awkwardly shaped cul de sacs between Court and Elizabeth St. that take up a lot of space. There are other big chunks of land over there too. For example, I think you could build out some denser multi-unit housing around the Laurel semi-circle park. There's also space for denser housing further north along Laurel Park Drive. You could add something on the north side of the Hays-Porter school (there's also a field to the east of the school by the church that could be developed but I kind of like having that open for when I walk my dog. :-) ) There's land south of the old Hostess factory (which I have no idea what is being used for now) on Richmond St. There's land and parking lots on the NW corner of Lynn and Ezzard Charles. In general, I think any new development over there should strive to be denser than existing with maybe some mixed-use with storefronts along Ezzard Charles. Perhaps this is true. Another thing to consider, and I don't want to get into all the pros and cons and rights and wrongs hornet's nest of this, is that I think the government is shifting its strategy away from big housing projects, which may change the whole dynamic of the neighborhood in the coming years. All in all I think those City West homes are a great value and my next move may be over there.

It would be pretty unique to have the same boutique hotel to operate out of two buildings, that one you mentioned and the one across 15th Street from it (the "Rosco" building,) which is also pretty massive.

Yes. But there is still a long long way to go.

I wonder if Milwaukee will use CAF cars like us & KC and if we could combine future streetcar orders to save $.

They should get an Apple store in the other space if they really want to jump start the planned Race Street retail corridor. Then Saks could move to Fourth and Race tower and another residential tower could be built where Saks is with more ground floor retail. Then fix the Millenium hotel and build something (convention space?/arena if it will fit?) on the lot south of the convention center. But I wonder if that end of downtown will face headwinds for being a few blocks away from the streetcar line though.

Looking at that street on streetview I don't see how widening it can be done without demolition. Also, I don't think its THAT heavily used a street, its going to kill the pedestrian friendliness of this area too. The Wellington Place development in the recent Enquirer article sounds a lot bigger than what was planned in the Business Courrier article from last November. It'd be great if they can develop Glencoe Place. I wonder if he is thinking he can get the streetcar routed through Inwood Park on its way up the hill?