thebillshark

Got the chance to walk around Covington for the first time in awhile yesterday. The brewery rehab into the new County building turned out well. I thought the form of Duveneck Square phase 1 was good. They will need to mix up the height, style or colors for phase 2 to avoid monotony over a large area however. (Something that naturally could have avoided by keeping some to the historic buildings.) (Perhaps go a story taller at corner of Washington and 7th facing the little square to add variety for next phase?)

Got it. Makes sense.

@thomasbw did you possibly undercount the transit users on Walnut? I once added up about 22.2k bus riders per day on routes that use Walnut street south. Granted, some or most of these bus riders may embark and disembark outside of downtown and not on Walnut Street itself, but that’s a lot of people. (Also everyone using the bus route benefits if the bus doesn’t get stuck downtown, regardless of origin and destination.) plus about another 2k per day for streetcar https://cincinnatiideas.com/2017/10/27/can-metro-unlock-the-value-hidden-in-our-streets-the-case-for-transit-only-lanes/

Yes I think the parking lot to the south of the building is part of the property. That’s where they should build an addition facing Third Street. Everything to the south of the property at the banks would be low-rise, and the caps, if they are ever built, are limited to 4 stories but would probably be 0 or 1 stories

I’m going to go ahead and say it: the caps are a pipe dream. The way to connect downtown to the Banks is redevelop buildings like this along Third Street with active uses. This particular building could get a tall Riverfront-facing modern addition in its current parking lot. Would be visible on any postcard picture of Cincinnati: https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2020/08/12/former-pogues-service-building-listed-for-sale.html?ana=RSS&s=article_search

it’s strange to think, if they had preserved the historic architecture around the square decades ago (starting, say, after the Carew Tower was finished) I would have a completely different mental image/conceptualization of Cincinnati in my head. Maybe our national image would be different too

Yeah this subdivision in Sayler Park on on page 40 of this packet: https://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/planning/about-city-planning/city-planning-commission/jul-17-2020-packet-1-of-2/ It looks like it could be built to have a pedestrian connection to Sayler Avenue (the plans are little unclear in this area, I can't tell if it does or doesn't.) Otherwise the only way in/out is via Hillside Ave., a high speed road with no sidewalks. Agree that new subdivisions are rare inside city limits, which makes it tough because the city would probably be the only local jurisdiction interested in encouraging/requiring these kind of pedestrian connections.

I was looking through some planning commission packets. Is there anything that could be put in place to encourage pedestrian pathways (or even stairs/bridges) in new subdivisions to connect to existing surrounding streets when new subdivisions are planned? I’m thinking cutting the time it takes to walk from the interior of a new subdivision to other parts of the neighborhood even if there is only one way in/out for vehicles. (Especially if the only connection is to a pedestrian unfriendly road.)

At this point just build a tunnel for rail underneath it and avoid all the at grade surface street conflicts as well!

I thought there was a plan for the multi use path to extend westward on the north side of MLK- I can’t remember exactly where I saw this, though? What you describe would be a pretty good connection, would have been good to incorporate into the original interchange project.

One thing Sharon Woods could do right now to enhance connectivity is build a sidewalk or mixed use trail along Kemper Road between the two entrances/parking lots on the south side of the road. That would allow visitors to do only half the lake trail at a time of they so choose.

Right. My opinion might turn more positive when the bump outs, medians, north sidewalk work, lane rearrangement and other features are complete.

South side of Liberty at Walnut street looking west.

They have installed a good portion of the south curbs now. This project is turning out incredibly underwhelming. If the new curbs extended out to where the construction cones are now, we would really have something. But they don’t come close.

and are these alignments wide enough to support double track (in order to run trains in both directions at same time ) for light rail?

I hope they redesign the side of the corner building facing 12th street. Looks like the elevator shaft is front and center or something. Needs more windows. Other than that I think the scale/granularity of this project is appropriate and i like the overall number of units and number of affordable units added to the neighborhood

Right, and they have had a seat on the Banks steering committee for years, which has always had a vision of filling in the area between the stadiums with mixed use development. I just don’t know why they would want the area around their stadium to look perpetually unfinished. That’s what it looks like and there’s no other way to spin it.

this is at least the second time they’ve had this discussion in public and the county still has not explained why the city’s math regarding the number of surface parking spaces is inaccurate. EDIT: That looks like an old article reposted by mistake with 6/22/2020 date? It mentions Councilwoman Amy Murray. Also I remember parts of it (the Wetterich no relation comment.) I don’t think anything is going on right now except the big budget discussion.

Question: if back or side yard ADU’s were allowed, would that reduce the demand for subdividing lots? https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2020/06/19/mayors-wife-ex-chief-of-staff-spar-over-zoning.html?iana=hpmvp_cinci_news_headline

The issue of BRT through Neighborhood business districts isn’t an urbanist vs. car culture or 700 WLW debate or some kind of measure of progressiveness. It’s real trade offs within urbanism. If you dedicate the curb/parking lane for busses and make it wide open, there’s no barrier to the street for pedestrians on the sidewalk and drivers will go faster without any perceived obstacles around them. plus it would eliminate the possibility for curb bump outs for pedestrians that would otherwise extend into the parking lane. It needs to be carefully evaluated on a case by case basis

Oakley sits at a sweet spot in proximity to both downtown jobs and jobs in the Blue Ash/northeast suburbs along the golden road of I-71, the rest of Cincinnati needs it to accept growth, lest it is captured by the suburbs and exurbs. Other neighborhoods don’t have this geographic advantage that creates demand.

Please don’t take my comment the wrong way, I am not expressing a preference for single family housing at this site, I am actually excited by the fact that multifamily housing at this site could increase the city’s population by the hundreds, maybe a thousand. I am simply commenting on the form

Re: master plan for the site. i like how it extends the street grid for 31st to 33rd Aves. and also adds an East-west street. And that 2 out of the 3 street extensions go almost all the way to the tracks in case additional connections over the tracks can be made someday. it gets a little dicey in in terms of urban form in the northwest corner where it looks like some buildings (labeled “G”) would face parking lots. Although that portion is sort of boxed into a corner anyway. It seems like many multi family buildings face parking lots as a default design these days, ironically making it easier to create good urban form (buildings that face streets) with single family homes like in the eastern portion of the development, although its not as dense. I guess my views on urbanism are really simple: have streets and then have the buildings face them.

^are ADU’s legal in Cincinnati? seems like they could be a good fit for neighborhoods of a certain vintage with detached garages (like Walnut Hills or Westwood.) Gives options to homeowners to get more use out of their property be it from housing extended family or using as a rental or AirBnB. (Or could even help a family member quarantine if they got coronavirus.) Plus they would be hardly even noticeable. something to think about now that some of these original detached garages are becoming dilapidated and will need to be rebuilt soon

Don’t know why a big city would aspire to be a suburb of an even larger city. Not that it’s going to happen anyway.