wjh2

While I hate to see any small business fail its important to remember that restaurants are one of the riskiest businesses to be in. They close all the time and most don't make it more than a couple years. Restaurants close all the time in New York / Chicago / SF - and locally they close in Hyde Park / Anderson / Mason etc... I would not use that as a barometer for the success of a neighborhood.

What does she have the 'power' to actually stop though? Outside of yelling and screaming and being unreasonable? Are there specific projects that have been pulled? The Elm/Liberty project is incredibly frustrating. A person with zero standing / interest in the development suing to stop it due to some technicality in how things were handled.

The building on 4th and Vine (with Starbucks on the ground floor) was purchased by Enson Realty for $2.35MM. It appears that Enson is a food distribution company located in the Tri-County area... not sure if they are planning to have an office there or what.

Not to mention defining the criteria would take away the ability for a select few to try and be arbiters of what gets approved in certain neighborhoods. The abatement approval process is just another way for people opposed to development to lobby against it and raise non-legitimate concerns.

The building at the corner of Court & Main (914-916 Main) and the parking lot behind it (209 E Court) were sold for $2.5M to Mazal in Cincinnati. I can't find much about them online, looks to be just a holding company. Hopefully this building gets some TLC.

I imagine it is much easier to finance a condo tower (in secondary markets) that is wholly owned by one entity with dollars to back it up (in this case - Airbnb) than one built spec.

In DRC Meeting minutes from November ( http://ilivedowntown.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/110921.pdf ) there is a short blurb about Garfield Suites that a new owner plans to re-open the hotel. Not sure if that new owner is this Phoenix Acquisition that recently purchased the property.

With the capital budget being as tight as it is (unless this is somehow receiving grant dollars).. this seems like a not-great use of resources. There are additional ways to get down to central via car 0.2 and 0.4 miles away. I would be curious what the daily vehicle count is that currently uses it.

Madison from Madtree all the way to Oaklawn needs to be re-configured. Its way too wide and the intersection with Ridge is a mess.

The "Phase 2" of the development (to the right of the railroad tracks pictured above) seems like a waste of space... single level retail with a huge parking lot. There is a ton of land there to use and this seems like the lowest value of redevelopment.

Is this the Port tearing it down for future use/land bank? Or are there plans?

i understand the sentiment here. But from the developers perspective it could be quite challenging to sell new build homes priced in the $400s in college hill with no garage.

Buried in the article it says they are waiting on even more tax credits before establishing a timeline. They currently have $8.5M in Federal and now $5M in State, for $13.5M in tax credits on a $55M project... essentially 25% of the project. Hard to believe the numbers wont work as it stands.

I 100% think the FWW caps would be a great improvement, but using it to add more park space I don't think is a great use of real estate. There is already so much green space between FWW and the river, and it would just keep spreading people out.

That would be a great project and to get some additional office workers in the area. The main caveat is no work will start until there is a main tenant signed to a lease, and in the current environment I dont know if that would happen anytime soon.

Not sure how much a difference this makes for the “left over” space per floor. but there are 8 elevator shafts and 2 stairwells.

The parking garage already exists on floors 2-7.

Most recent City Planning packet is out... https://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/planning/about-city-planning/city-planning-commission/nov-5-2021-packet/ Looks like the former Macy's office at 7 W 7th is being converted into 338 apartments. (Page 17).

This sounds like it is going to be a grass field for years. Which is pretty wild considering this 'planning' has been going on for years and it appears it is years away still.

Round 27 of Ohio Historic Tax Credit Applicants. Winners are announced in December.

1005 Gilbert Ave (Greyhound Bus Station) was sold to CP 1005 Gilbert Avenue LLC for $4.25M. That LLC appears to be tied to Parking Company of America. I hope there are more plans for it than tearing it down and making it a surface lot...but that may be wishful thinking. I would have thought the casino would have purchased the property to control the area adjacent to them.

According to the auditor the current ownership is Archbishop of Cincinnati. You would think they have a vested interest that the building survives. I am not sure if the Catholic Church has a stance on repurposing churches for other uses? But if the alternative is either sell it or it will eventually fall apart I would hope they would see the big picture.

Reading that article it felt like a press release from a Highway construction lobbyist not the person in charge of shaping the vision for transportation in a region of nearly 2.5M people. Not to mention some of the phrases/verbiage he uses comes across as he is just trying to dismiss any mass transit idea as being some pie in the sky absurdity. (Such as saying the streetcar is “woke”) Then to go on and say “cities like cincinnati can’t have mass transit we only can have cars”. When there are peer cities in conservative states that do have light rail (Salt Lake which is a region half our size and Charlotte to name a few). anyway - he just seems way more interested in appealing to a room of retired suburbanites than actually helping to solve any problem. And that’s an issue for an appointed position that effects so many people.

I do not understand why people would spend time, energy and money to try and keep this an empty lot (as opposed to housing, retail and jobs) when they have no standing.

(Pardon my lack of legal understanding...) but does this stop anything from happening on the site while this makes its way through courts and appeals? That could take months and months.