chinkley

This is more than just good news. It is great news. It is also something that I have long wanted to see happen in cincinnati. Hopefully some of those employees will decide to live downtown or over the rhine, or even other close-in neighborhoods like Walnut Hills. Our corporate community seems to talk a lot about how great downtown and over the rhine are / have become, and I know they use that as a selling factor for prospective employees, but it seems like none have moved their offices into the basin.

Thanks for putting this together! I have to ask, though: where are all the people? Or did you purposefully get shots without crowds?

Jake for someone who knows so much about Cincinnati, it's disappointing to hear you say that.

According to Google Maps streetview there isn't a single tree on Vine north of Liberty... :-( It would be great for the city to preemptively add trees (and bury utilities) so that in a year or two when things start to really pick up along upper vine, the trees are established and not just little spindly twigs.

That makes sense, and I understand it's a phased development. The building just doesn't go anywhere near to the lot line in the back. Seems like a wasted opportunity, either for larger units or more in gneneral

This is the same phenomena that Cincinnati experiences for the first 90 years of existence, and made the basin so dense: it really isn't feasible to live on the hills and walk into downtown / otr. I remember reading once that the Bellevue incline turned a ~40 minute walk (I assume up Vine, because the Ohio Ave steps are much shorter) into a 2 minute ride. Transit really allowed people to move up and out, and allowed the city to expand its boundaries.

Is there built-in first floor parking in that new structure? There's a lot of space between the backs of the buildings fronting Race and fronting Pleasant. Or is that all open air parking?

Isn't one of the great things about downtown Cincinnati -- and any downtown -- that the buildings *don't* look the same architecturally? What is the "context of downtown"?

Great photos, Travis. I spent some time yesterday evening walking around Pendleton, up and down 12th and 13th. There are a number of buildings that appear to be in some stage of rehabilitation, which is very exciting to see. Between the SCPA building and the dozen or so smaller buildings, Pendleton is poised to significantly add to its population. On a side note, it's intriguing that local developers have more or less cared out their own territory in OTR/Pendleton: 3CDC has Race and Vine; Urban Sites has Clay and Main; and Model has all of Pendleton.

article states that the site needs a 215K square foot building. how large is the empty hotel / department store building at 6th and vine, whose name is escaping me at the moment? It would be amazing if that was repurposed into a federal building.

It's awfully anti-urban, but it is also a fully functioning grocery store for a neighborhood where most people probably don't drive. So having to get downtown to the vine st location, or across 71 to corryville (closer, but probably takes longer on transit), will be huge burden. It could be argued that kroger came into the neighborhood with a terrible design that actively harmed the surrounding area, which then led kroger to make the good business decision to abandon the neighborhood, in turn furthering the downward spiral. And, since Walnut Hills is poor and needy, they can't be "choosers" and demand good design, as Cranley and others have said. But maybe it's exactly that good design that is needed to improve the neighborhood. Rant over.

Regarding Chris Smitherman's comment at the end of the article, I wish we could have a serious conversation about how the most unattractive thing on that block is...the Kroger building. It presents a blank wall to McMillan and Kemper and then has a large blast radius of parking and grassy lots surrounding the other two sides.

More corporate welfare potentially on the way from our favorite mayor: http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2016/06/21/council-member-mulled-lawsuit-against-cranley.html Can't get 100K for bus shelters; willing to shell out millions for largest Fortune 500 company in Ohio.

target has also branched into food, so that would be a nice bonus to a downtown store.

I'm confused. Is the roadway part of the street going to be widened? Or are they just proposing to add a more hard surface to the east side? I'm generally against any idea that widens a street, and don't see how that can be more pedestrian friendly. It also doesn't make sense to widen the street to abut the set-back buildings if our zoning code still calls for setbacks. New buildings will just be built even further back from the street, defeating the purpose.

Thanks for the image. the bottom part is weird but I don't mind the tower portion.

Apparently Wendy's on 4th is closing...today. http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2016/06/10/last-of-the-big-three-burger-joints-pulls-out-of.html The article mentions a "Fifth and Race tower" that was razed in 1999. Anyone have a picture of this building?

Is Cheapside actually expanding to 12th and Main? because there go my savings...

It actually doesn't if you look closely. The apartment portion just sits at the back of the site in between the ends. You can see a sliver of it if you look closely. The building is the same height all the way across the site but the garage podium doesn't align with the apartment portion above which creates a setback for the amenity deck. Color me corrected. In appearance though it looks taller on the corners, which is what I like.

I really like that it gets taller on both the Race St end and the Elm St end.

Is 1701 Race the corner building? It's the tallest on the block! Would be a huge shame if it came down.

I agree with your sentiment, and am hesitant to endorse the project for all the reasons listed above. But at the same time, it would be one more thing to do in the greater downtown area, which can't be a bad thing. Plus, how many people say they want to vacation in Cincinnati, Ohio? Yet I have a friend who volunteers with the underground lagering tunnel tours and has told me that they get visitors from other countries, in town on vacation. So the market is there; it just has to be sold appropriately.

The Park Formerly Known as Ziegler Park has been transformed into... a (temporary?) parking lot made of the straightest and freshest of orange lines.

I hope / wish that the city DOTE would come up with a standard sidewalk design. Having spent a lot of time walking around Manhattan, I've noticed that a lot of the sidewalks there are huge pieces of dark stone, which looks really classy. They can be seen in SOHO and Midtown, jus to name two neighborhoods. I'm sure there are huge expenses with this design, and maybe maintenance issues, but it looks really good from a pedestrian viewpoint. Locally, I like the sidewalks on Vine with the 2'-3' ribbon of brick up against the curb, and then concrete for the remainder. My wish would be for this design to be adopted throughout downtown and over-the-rhine. Right now everything is a complete mish-mash of difference surfaces.

Or what about the one on 6th between Elm and Plum, across the Duke Energy Center? It proudly bears a plaque that says it was built by the City of Cincinnati in 1958. Never been in but it looks like the ceiling heights are maybe 7 feet.