thesenator

The second entry at 205 W 4th isn’t City Club, it’s for the Textile Building being redeveloped by The Bernstein Group out of Washington DC. The City Club project at PNC Tower (Union Central) is mired in budget issues.

Perhaps the scope of this study will take more resources than the Planning Staff could provide, even if properly funded. A comprehensive study might take 8-10 people and that would be the entire Planning Staff. Outsourcing the work to an organization that has completed similar work may be the most efficient way to get it done. One comment I have is: to make Cincinnati more walkable, the one way streets need to be eliminated. 9th Street, for an example, becomes a 45 MPH thoroughfare as downtown workers try to get to I-75 as quickly as possible.

We've looked at this project and question whether the stone work can be restored at any reasonable cost. Unfortunately, previous owners have ground it down to what maybe the point of no return. A terrible shame, but making it uneconomical to redevelop the building at all would be a bigger shame. It also has extremely deep floor plates which makes it a challenge for housing, but we'll see.

Amazon uses the “K” as the first letter of it’s air cargo facilities (the ICAO code). The Wilmington (ILN) air cargo facility is designated KILN by Amazon, for example. Thus KCVG.

This project should be starting in the spring. An exterior renovation will tuckpoint and replace damaged terra cotta stones. Plans are for a pool and deck area on the 19th floor overlooking the Ohio River.

The key is that Amazon wants to control it's flight operations. Ultimately they plan to takeoff or land a plane every 7-8 minutes on average 24 hours per day. When you're trying to achieve next day delivery throughout the country, minutes count. Amazon still has the right to use the other runways, but also plans to have one exclusive for their use to allow waves of jets to takeoff or land. On the jobs front, remember this is an air cargo hub, not just a e-ecommerce sortation center. A portion of the jobs will be related to flight operations at higher pay rates. And Amazon has above average pay and benefits for their warehouse workers as well. These are good jobs, especially for non-college educated workers.

The plan is for another north-south runway between the 2 on the west side that would connect directly to the Amazon tarmac which can hold up to 100 cargo jets. This would expedite Amazon takeoffs and landings by avoiding having to wait in line with passenger jets, which is costly.

This is only Phase 2 of 3 planned phases for their CVG Air Hub. The main building will ultimately reach down to Aero Parkway (SR 1017). Last I heard Phases 2 and 3 are both the size of Phase 1, but Phase 1 included all the basic infrastructure, thus it's $1.4 billion price tag. They also have the option to build their own runway at CVG.

It appears the parcels under this building are owned by the City of Cincinnati (mostly over the Lytle Tunnel). Probably a ground lease to the apartment owner (an affiliate of Western-Southern, I believe).

Yes, plans have begun for a full renovation of this building. Built with high end features throughout, most of which are fully intact, but largely obsolete and many barely functioning. Couldn't ask for a better location on Lytle Park next to the Residence Inn and across from the Taft Museum and new Lytle Hotel. Taft Museum will be undergoing a full exterior restoration later this year as well.

My guess is that CoolCo was formed to provide chilled water for air conditioning for downtown buildings that were built with steam heat only. CoolCo is not a geo-thermal plant. It provides chilled water only using large chillers on the 6th floor roof. Google Maps shows just 2 chillers, but I believe there is now a third.

CoolCo is located in the basement of the 4th & Walnut Center (SE corner) that has been otherwise vacant for more than a year. The planned 2 Flag Hilton development has been canceled and the building is for sale. Many lookers, no takers. CoolCo has numerous cooling towers on top of the adjacent 6-story building (also vacant) and a water loop through a fair portion of town.

Expected completion is March of next year.

Lots of construction activity at CVG, including Amazon Air Cargo Hub and new Rental Car Facility (CONRAC).

At many e-commerce sites, people are simply the cogs that feed the MHE (material handling equipment) that does the skilled work. People load bulk items in one side, the MHE breaks it down, sorts and distributes it, and delivers it to the outgoing side where people put it in boxes and load it onto trucks or planes. And the robotics companies are working to push automation ever further to the edges with new package filling machines that can handle disparate products and combine them into a single box as people do now. At Amazon facilities, conveyor and other MHE often cost more than double the cost of the facility itself. And nearly all errors are made people, not the MHE. We need to accept automation and robots as a reality and focus on how people should best use their time in the future (and how to control the robots) instead of denying that it’s happening. Remember “survival of the fittest”.

Athlete's salary and bonus are allocated to each of the cities and states they play in during the season. Some have their bonuses structured so they are received when they are "working" in lower or no tax areas.

The walk over I-71 via Robertson Avenue between US Playing Card and the Neyer project (Kenner) is less than 1/2 a mile. That's not unreasonable. We all need to get out of our cars.

I’m told that hazardous materials were quite pervasive due to the age of the building and it’s manufacturing uses. If so, trying to specifically abate is not financially feasible. Fortunately they are saving the iconic clock tower and, I believe, the smokestack.

It will be interesting to see which one opens first.

CityWest, unfortunately, has a legacy of substandard construction issues. Exteriors were not properly installed and decks are falling off the buildings. The repair costs are enormous so the current owner is evaluating next steps. Several of the buildings were investigated and repaired to determine the extent of the issues and they were far greater than expected.

Maybe all Norwood needs is more Peters.

Clearly Norwood has a great location and I remember something about "location" from my real estate classes. Hopefully people like Pete Ventura and Peter Klekamp of PLK can get this town back on the right track. Kroger is going to need to build its distribution network after the C-19 crisis and Surrey Square has great access to Norwood Lateral, I-71 and I-75 (with a few modifications to entry & exit ramps).

Not sure the Gwyne hotel plans are cancelled. Nouvo RE is sitting out the C-19 period, but will likely be back when the world returns to normal. Still going to be a huge undersupply of hotels in Cincinnati.

Just FYI. The Marriott Courtyard in the Ingalls Building will not open until 2021. I agree that taking some supply off the market will help these new hotels get off to a better start when the economy starts up again.

The trash chute plan was to build a tower of scaffolding on the roof of the 6 story building, line it with plywood and cut openings down the garage. Much more effective that plastic trash chutes, which clog and have limited capacity for massive amounts of demo debris.