JoeHarmon

My guess is that it will sit vacant for another few years. Eventually once 3cdc finishes with the convention center hotel project, they will take this on.

Eminent Domain is a thing though. The government has no problem forcing someone to sell their property when they need to build more roads. The laws are what we make them to be. We could make a law that if you own historic property in a Historic district, the city can Eminent Domain it away from you if you are unwilling/unable to maintain it.

I give 3cdc the benefit of the doubt most of the time given their largely positive record in getting stuff done and most of it turning out pretty well. I assume this is their way of Land banking this until they are ready to build whatever. I guess its better than making it a parking lot, but it does seem weird to lay down grass here.

With how many office workers there are now who are demanding remote work, a speculative office building is going to be even harder to swing.

I agree, drives me crazy when there is concern about blocking or covering up a mural.

Yes, hopefully if this one is successful, then maybe some developer can finally figure out what to do with vacant land on Calhoun/Vine/McMillan/Scioto

That too bad. I had been going to Total Juice Plus since I started working downtown in 2004. Tough to see them get pushed out this way. Admittedly I have been working from home since the Pandemic started. I'm kinda surprised they managed to stay open this whole time.

I know the Hotel is the main focus, but if they are talking about a Convention Center district, hopefully they take down the two garages north of the Convention Center and replace them with something like what was built at 4th and Race.

If they are basically building the apartments where the Tennis courts are now, Hollister Recreation Area no longer exist, which is fine, the Tennis courts don't really get used, and you could move the basketball courts to Inwood park. But I don't understand why they wouldn't develop all the way up to Vine street. The left over triangle at Vine and Hollister just ends up becoming useless Green Space. They have it labeled as Inwood Park Improvement Opportunity. But it is not functionally part of Inwood park, no matter how much they try to say it is. Hollister very clearly separates it.

This will never happen, but I think it would be best if they moved it to the triangle shaped Parking lot on Eggleston next to the Casino. Buy out the Pet Athletic Club and Solo Products, then they can take over that triangle as well, and take over Reedy street North of Eggleston. Buy out the Greyhound station, (I thought I saw they were trying to sell) so they can have that land as well. They can take over that piece of E court street to connect the Greyhound lot. Rip out the Gilbert Street over passes, and have Gilbert just dump out onto Eggleston. Then the Convention Center is attached to the Casino. The Casino has talked about building a Hotel, so they can build a massive one there for both Casino and Convention Center. I don't really know anything about the Convention Center business, but my guess is that having it attached to the Casino would likely make it much more appealing for various Conventions. Losing that piece of Reedy Street and Court Street wouldn't hurt the walkability of downtown as that area is pushed up next to the Highway. Then we could reclaim the current site, rebuild Plum street, and let 3cdc do their thing constructing some good urban buildings on the current site.

Those Condo's looking out over the River towards downtown are going to be killer though. The apartments behind and above will also have great views. I think the Residential component will allow this whole development to be more durable/sustainable than Newport on the Levee. The connection between the two could use some improvement though. Right now you can walk along the levee, then have to go down the stairs, walk under the bridge, then back up the stairs to NOTL. Would be nice if you could stay at the level of the Levee and walk between the two.

That is what drives me crazy though. We just built this huge massive beautiful wonderful smale riverfont park. Its right there. You don't need more park space in between The Yard House and that gravel lot. You need some buildings that tie the east and west sides of the Bank together. For that matter, The Schmidlapp event lawn and the proposed park space just south of the Icon are wastes as well. I know they insist that Smale park extends north past Mehring way, but that is nonsense. Mehring way is a wide street, and everything North of it is elevated on top of a parking garage. Ask any normal person walking around down there where the park is and they will point South of Mehring way. I always though it was foolish to have Freedom Way be essentially the only East-West street. Theodore M Bary Way should have extended from Race to Main, rather than just Vine (Rosa Parks) to Walnut (Marion Spencer). Then you could have a full building where Schmidlapp event lawn is. Rant over,

It has always bothered me to no end that the lot with the Yard house and the pink Sing the Queen City sign is slated to stay a vacant piece of grass. Or maybe have the Ferris Wheel on it. With the Freedom Center set back as far as it is from the road, and that lot empty, it creates this huge void between phase 1 of the Banks, and newer Phase 2 and 3. If I remember correctly, The Freedom Center demanded a clear view of the River or something. I always thought that was a ridiculous ask. There are really only about 7 blocks that make up the Banks. You can't just waste one like that. They need to build to residential there with some 1st floor commercial and stitch either end of The Banks together.

Once the 4th and Race garage+apartments is done, and then if we build another Cincinnati special, retail+parking garage+apartments either on the 5th and plum site, or current Millennium site, Maybe then 3cdc would be ok giving up the 84.51 parking.

Interesting idea, build a new hotel on the 5th and plum lot, convince the convention center they don't need to do an expansion, and then give the space where the Millenium is over to 84.51 for expansion.

I understand your point, but disagree. Right now, most of the blocks either have a surface parking lot, or a tiny triangle of land too small to build on. Accepting a modest 10 ft increase makes those triangles possible to build on. Once those get built, to your point, it is unlikely we will ever get it narrowed to a proper width. If we leave it as is but put in bump outs, those triangle are not possible to build on, and the parking lots are going to stay parking lots for quite some time. 3cdc just built the lot on Race/liberty last year. They clearly expect to keep it as such for a while. I realize there have been some parking lots in OTR/Pendleton that have gotten new infill, but there are still way more vacant buildings and vacant lots to be developed before we get to a point of parking lots delevoping en mass. There is too much money to be made on them right now.

I find this maddening. Reducing from 7 lanes to 6 still leaves it as a major arterial road. Completely misses the point of the road diet. The only benefits are the pedestrian bump outs, and as mayor Cranley pointed out, we could do that while keeping the 7 lanes for way less money. If I am agreeing with Cranley, something is wrong. Better to just do the bump outs, and wait for a better political environment and try again to see if we can get it right.

That is a surprising large price. However, with it being John Huber Homes, I am guessing that will be another couple of million dollar town homes. Missed opportunity for some added density there with it being on the Streetcar line.

That all makes sense. Although the project on Sycamore in Pendleton has been excavating and moving dirt around like gang busters

Things I think would help with this: 1) Kroger would need to redo their first couple floors of their tower so they interact with Court Street instead of being a bunker wall 2) Infill build on the parking lot south of the new Kroger 3) Renovate the building on the corner of Court and main. This one looks very rough right now.

yeah, I am going to bet most residents of this apartment building end up using a lot of Uber trips. Maaaaybe walk down, then Uber back up.

At first, I was going to say that is too many parking spaces, but then I realized there isn't really any good way to walk to anything in OTR/downtown from here. Best option is walk over to Young Street steps and then down, but I don't see many people doing that on a regular basis. It would be nice if there was a stair case going from the south end of Walker down to Sycamore, or Boal. Kind of surprised they didn't try to buy out 1803-1825 Josephine street and take the property all the way over to Josephine. A bunch of pretty landscaping on Walker St is going to get torn out. Sucks for the residents on Walker if that ends up being lower level parking garage.

Somewhat related, I have felt it would be worth the cities money to rebuild/extend Pueblo over to Walker Street. Since some developer just built those Modern homes up on Pueblo that I think went for close to 2 million. Seems like a good idea to try to get some more of those put in up on the hillside.

The path I was referencing is an extension of Ringgold, rather than Pueblo. If that is where the driveway entrance to this development is going to be, it will completely change that little hidden park area. I'll be interested to see how that all turns out. Infill in this area would be good for Filson Park. I was jogging around one day this summer, Zeigler swimming pool was overflowing with people, Filson swimming pool literally had zero people in it, just two bored life guards.

I always hoped someone would build out more townhomes with Stone facade on Bigelow to match what is already faces Hopkins Park on Auburn and Park Pl