neilworms

I finally got to see it completed this weekend, and while I have been highly critical of a lot of things surrounding the project let me get the good out of the way first: * The developers made sure that U Square was mostly full first - This is fantastic it really helps to revitalize the area right by campus and give it a really striking urbananity that was not as strong when there were a mix of local and fast food restaurants there before. It also took forever for the University Park Apts to fill up its retail portion making this pretty darn impressive :-). The area by the university feels like a real neighborhood again! *I like a handful of features - the rooftop terrace was a nice touch as was the central square part of the development that when paired with the restaurants really gives the neighborhood a nice village square feeling. Now what I don't like: * Crapitecture - 'nuff said. * The garages - I mean these are ugly but what annoyed me even more is on Mcmillian on the south side next to the garage is a surface parking lot, why go through the effort to put garages in and then leave a lot where their could be more urban friendly structures? It doesn't make any sense to me unless they are going to do a future phase where that lot is developed into something else.

At the same time it's close enough to Chicago that the concept of an urban grocery isn't so foreign

The Polish Triangle really is underdeveloped relative to the rest of Wicker Park/Uke villiage. I hope the Pizza Hut tower gives it a shot in the arm, it could be a really cool district. I feel like the mid century co-op further down milwaukee is probably what really has hurt it due to its anti urban design. Where is this exactly? Near the Lasalle Metra?

I believe there is only like one trader joes in the whole Cincy region and its near Kenwood right now, where the money is. In Chicago there are 4 urban stores and all but one (South Loop) are in the North Side where the money is, and even the south loop is pretty well off. I think Cincy will have to wait a few years on the gentrification curve / developers getting on board with urban revitalization to get one.

Do you by chance have said rendering or know if its online somewhere? I had heard the plan to demo everything, and am glad that that's not what seems to be going on right now. I'd be happy if the 80s stuff comes down, shame that garage supposedly isn't usable, as it probably could have provided the parking for any new development allowing developers to spend less and (hopefully) up quality of design.

Saw this article in Soapbox, but its pretty slim on details as to what's getting demoed and what (if anything) is being kept.... :P http://soapboxmedia.com/devnews/082013shortvinedevelopments.aspx Does anyone know more details?

Has those weirdly staggered panels between windows. See also Mercer Commons garage. There are two brand new buildings in Chicago that have something similar going on. Its good to see that area filled in, shame residential didn't work out.

You know as much mud gets slinged around about alternatives and killing the "trolley folley to nowhere" sometimes people loose sight of what could be good ideas as a defense mechanism to protect their own goals which are constantly under siege. I actually think that as long as the streetcar is still a part of the plan having a reliable transit option to get to Mt Adams from downtown would be wonderful. The 1 currently has too long a headways (especially on weekends - it should be the same as weekdays, as a lot of people would travel to Cincy as a weekend getaway not as a major weeklong destination), and maybe something that can get those headways down would be super nice - Mt Adams is ridiculously close to downtown, yet has surprisingly poor transit connections (one would think that having better bus service would be something easily sellable to Mt. Adams). I also feel that short of building very expensive things like a replacement incline or an aerial tram (which would be sadly a hard sell to cincy) this is probably the best option as I think the hill might be too steep for a streetcar (though I could be wrong).

I'll agree that the ride is not the best. Luckily, when I use it I don't have to ride it for very long, generally 10 mins. A streetcar would be ideal, but given the political realities (and also would a streetcar be able to cross at the suspension bridge, or would it have to take a more indirect route given bridge weight restrictions?) its one of the better transit routes in the city in terms of being useful and reliable.

While the southbank shuttle may not be as good as a streetcar, its still a very handy transit route (I kind of wish they ran it later on weekends to allow for people to circulate between downtown, newport and mainstrasse for drinking), I use it all the time when I'm with family who live near the river in Covington. Also wish it ran to Bellevue as that area is up and coming, in the shadow of downtown, and yet lacks a transit route that runs less than an hourly to get there O_o

I was thinking about it, and the only way it could be 1890 is if its a converted italianate double that someone decided to put vinyl over within the last 20 years. You can almost see where the crease would be in the middle. Along the lines of things that don't make sense in Cincy due to conservatism/myopia: 1) Skyline Chilli next to the "Gateway Quarter OTR" keeping bankers hours despite the neighborhood changing around it 2) Only one tour a year of the subway in spite of it selling out well in advance of it happening! 3) Majority of Gateway quarter places closed on Sunday, even on bengal's game days! 4) Findlay Market keeping weekday hours as if everyone still had a wife who stayed at home and shopped during the day! I mean in each one of these cases they are instances of people doing things because that's the way it's always been instead of that's what would maximize profits/take advantage of high demand, its downright absurd. Most restaurants these days close down on Monday/Tuesday as weekends = a lot more business. I see the developer's mentality as a part of this same illness.

Its kind of sad, and IMO kind of speaks to the very insular mentality of developers in Cincy. I wonder how many of them actually travel to places like New York or Chicago. (Though the ones that do I'd think would be like well that's different ;) ). Its a shame that there is so little bottom up redevelopment, and what does happen happens at a snails pace, however, I do feel that Cincinnati as a whole is on the verge of the mass gentrification seen in other cities whose economies aren't completely in the gutter. OTR might be enough of a catalyst to encourage developers to get a bit riskier as they can now see that urban redevelopment is a good investment in their own town. I've heard that the Auditor's site tends to be less accurate for older buildings, though this one is so mangled that its hard to tell what it was originally - Italianate or Federal.

Does it actually stop in the transit center, or is that just a layover spot? We still need to get Megabus down there...

^-That's a lot better than the giant pit that was there the last few years... :P

VBML is a disaster, particularly in a city with as rich an architectural heritage as Cincinnati I'm hoping the buildings your showing above weren't torn down because of it :( The sad thing is when it first came out the awful local paper the Enquirer talked about how good it was to eliminate crime causing old buildings - instead Cincinnati now has cleared lots that are dumping grounds. Its crazy that Cincinnati doesn't at least require some sort of fencing on areas where buildings were demoed to prevent t his kind of blight. I'm surprised I haven't heard the CPA fighting it, they need to be a way more visable organization, Cincinnati should be in crisis mode for loosing everything.

I do, it was called the late 1990s/early 2000s, popular music was TERRIBLE at that time, it was like they took everything bad about grunge and amped it up as well as angsted it up and turned it into cheap plastic crap. I was so happy circa 2004 when the Internet began to take over popular culture. Even if today there is an overabundance of echoy hipster bands, its still a heck of a lot better than the sh!tty boybands and wah wah wah nu meta/rap of that era. The early 1990s as terrible as they were (though laughably bad) at least had some damn good rap music until the music industry decided to take gangsta rap and make it about glorifying being in a gang instead of critically looking at inner city life. I think I would have been happiest being a teenager in the mid 90s. I like flannel too ;) To bring this back to driving, being an early millennial I'm kind of at the cusp of both perspectives - I still lived in a time at least in SW Ohio when owning a car meant something, (and gas was dirt cheap) but got to experience the beginnings of the more stringent rules they have today, the two strikes and your out policy left me without a car for about 6 months while I slowly worked through the classes they required me to take (this was for a speeding ticket and an accident where I was at fault). As gas prices rose, I became less enamoured of a car, even took the bus to work when I worked in Downtown Cincinnati during my co-op, and these days in Chicago have a car, but barely use it.

^-You should have taken the Big Blue Bus if you were coming from DTLA and on off peak time as it takes the 10 and doesn't stop til your in Santa Monica - it takes about 40 mins barring bad traffic (I took on the 4th of July so that might have made it smoother than normal). When they finish the expo line, and if I'm there again then, I'd probably just take that to where it crosses the Expo line then take the expo towards the pier. I'll agree with you on that point, but coming from Chicago which is a kind of in between LA and NYC - its simultaneously dense and spread out at the same time - I have a bit different perspective. In Chicago, when you are going between two areas that aren't connected directly by rail, it can be as bad as what you experienced in LA, except that, you are quite literally stopping every min, and saying, why the f- do they have bus stops that are only a block apart! At least there it feels like you are making progress and getting somewhere even if the distances are insane. Could you imagine going from DTLA to Santa Monica on a local bus there, it would be BRUTAL and not worth it even if traffic was backed up everywhere.

The so-called Pizza Hut tower is ready for showing: http://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20130809/wicker-park/photos-wicker-parks-commuter-pet-friendly-apartment-tower-opens Those prices are pretty steep even for that part of town. 1500 for a studio?! That's normally a 1BR price, though rents have been going up astronomically in Wicker Park (even if technically the building is in the East Village). Btw the architectural style appears to be a new thing, there is one other building that looks very similar to this one being put up in the South Loop. I even see similar design elements to the Mercer Commons garage down in OTR.

^-I hope so too - I'd like to see more routes and weekend service. If its an indication of how it will do, I rode LA's rapid buses a few weeks ago when I was on vacation there, which only stop at major intersections and have signal priority and they were PACKED. The megabus is another good example, here's a bus that cut out all the extra stops that Greyhound had and was very successful.

My bad, I was looking at the wrong block. There is literally only one townhouse that's worthwhile there, its not much. Still I hope they are going to up their quality of infill. I kind of knee-jerked, mainly because its amazing how these projects keep getting pushed through and people don't usually know of them unless they are on the Comm Council until its too late to do anything about them. It would be nice if the Corryville Comm Council did maintain and even pay for their website which is cybersquatted btw. Agreed, its a step in the right direction.

Not only that but even more sh!t is in the works: http://www.building-cincinnati.com/2013/08/council-approves-plan-for-160-unit.html [Edit: Knee Jerk reaction due to looking at the wrong block, the housing there is nothing special for the most part] There are some lovely old victorians there! So f-ing typical. Yet the CPA doesn't have like some kind of watch list? They are f-ing useless :(

After seeing pictures - the Schiel development is pretty terrible IMO - it tries to incorporate historic features and fails miserably by sticking Vinyl siding in all the wrong places and just generally having an awkward shape. I would have been happier with a street facing brick facade and a back vinyl or cement block facade. More garbage replacing great old buildings :(

I'm kind of surprised this whole part of downtown that has more lowrise apartment buildings isn't taking off faster - the housing stock is fantastic - I mean much of Court Street is intact and close to Vine in OTR, it should be bustling! Oh and btw: http://cincystreetcar.wordpress.com/2013/08/12/906-main-street-to-undergo-400000-redevelopment-create-20-apartments/

Along those lines, I wish more cincinnatian's would get that they have neighborhoods that can be compared to ones that are as celebreted as Boston's North End and Beacon hill... Instead we get a thread about how Brighton is endangered :P.

I'm curious what the architects think of the infill presented in this piece in NYC: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3445_162-57585020/the-newest-thing-in-architecture-something-old/