atlas

Who dis???!!!?

I don't know much about this particular building and I agree that it is nice to have layered history in our cities, but my understanding of the problem with many typical modern buildings and modernity in general, is they tend to be so overly universal and rigid that they can be difficult to repurpose in an economic way. Typical 100+ year old buildings, smaller and more locally utilitarian, don't seem as rigid and have been able to be repurposed or adapted for myriad uses. Special 100+ year old civic buildings have been saved because they tend to exude value and meaning with ornamentation and beauty and are now seen as desirable traits whereas modernity exudes universalism which has been panned both by 130+ years of philosophical thought as well as new urbanists, though not by style-focused architects perhaps.

The Square suffers from suffocation. The short squat parking garage just north of it needs to be torn down and rebuilt or totally gutted and turned into a mixed use modern podium that has a highly permeable ground floor with 1 or 2 big, generous pedestrian links to 6th, and active 2nd and 3rd floors too.

Start small with the portion of the alley between Vine and Doerr. That section doesn’t need to be used for servicing, etc and can also visually spill onto Vine St. The thing with the Melbourne example, in the 90s they focused a lot of their downtown revitalization around the laneways, and because they offer an atmosphere/experience totally unique and different to the suburban or Main Street experience, they flourished and led to spinoff development and activity on all streets, too. What I take away from this is until you understand and exploit your ‘place’ value, you’re just going to be scratching around the edges and you’ll never reach potential. Court Street is nice, but it is also a somewhat standard street and will rely on heavy programming to make work. A Cincinnati Laneway strategy would be new, different, create a unique destination and change the way restaurants and retail are done.

With the #6 building highlighted in green above, they have an excellent opportunity to create an 'active lane' on the building's south side. It is an ideal spot to develop the ground floor in such a way with a restaurant/bar opened onto the lane, with indoor/outdoor seating at table top height. The lane itself could have catenary lighting. etc. Something like Centre Place Lane in Melbourne.

Also, I’d say Cincy does have that vernacular, but again, just not quite as realized. Sedamsville and South Fairmount/Fairmount are the obvious ones, with the latter being fully realized but only to succumb to big infrastructure projects over the years. A stretch but you could say Columbia Tusc is a sort of gentrified/yuppie, less dense version, but really C Tusc doesn’t really compare to anywhere in Pitt., bc well, Pitt be ugggly. In all seriousness, Pitt is one of my absolute favourite cities. I’d move there if I ever could in an instant. Only if ColdayMan changes his name to ColDayCinPitts and joins me.

Ok I hear you squirrel friend, but I’m comparing urban Cincy to urban Pittsburgh. Cov and Newport are urban Cincy, not some distant Norwood type suburb. Amirite?!

I don’t think Pitt has anywhere similar to OTR in character at least. I was thinking Southside was more what DT Covington/Pike St could be if it were filled with sports bars and much more vibrancy/life. And Cincy also has Northside (perhaps Pitt’s Lawrenceville), Clifton, Oakley, Mainstrasse, Newport, Bellevue. I always thought Cincy’s are more abundant but mostly smaller in vibrancy and scale. But Cincy has OTR, which Is a vibe all it’s own.

They have absolutely no idea what they’re doing. This is what you get when banks design cities.

I can't find anything on the other infill sites, particularly the one at Pleasant and Liberty. There are some renders on the GBBN site (showing 5-storey). Does anyone have insight on if that has been maintained as a 5-storey?

It is a crime. The church is so gorgeous. I can’t believe anyone with the public good in mind would let this happen.

It’s an actual crime. Sad that decision makers think this is what an ‘urban stadium’ is. ?

Has the experience with this streetcar increased or decreased our chance of ever having serious transit in the region? I just can’t see how this thing can be expanded upon. The political will has been decimated at the moment and it’s hard to imagine it coming back anytime soon. I hope I’m wrong. Also, I know it’s easy to blame Cranley for it all going poorly, but advocates should have had their ducks in a row before the thing was built. We should have known to improve traffic lights, make it free, etc. Kansas City seemed aware of this and made it happen. A lot of the messaging from key advocates was that it’ll work just bc it’s a streetcar and it will attract investment. While it did attract investment, that is less important to how people engage with the thing on a daily basis and ridership has suffered. We may have gotten some increased development outcomes, but we’ve got a political downer that has soured our chances of legit rail service anywhere else. Any other thoughts on this?

Well, let’s hope the access/exit is off Campbell alley, which would likely result in the loss of 3-4 spaces to the 80. I’d love to see the little non-contributing blue building between Elm and Campbell replaced with a pedestrian laneway that could connect to a cool, small bar laneway environment in this new development. It could even go all the way through to the Film Center if you can rationalize the floor plates, which I think you can.

can I suggest some reading material to help with said hobby, if you haven’t already: High cost of free parking Parking and the city cities for people social life of small urban spaces death and life of great American cities Walkable city street fight happy city radical cities the city at eye level manuals This is a good start I reckon.

Well you heard it here. Troeros is getting his best practice urban planning cues from Dubai, not Madrid (or Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Tokyo, Melbourne, Portland, Vancouver, London, etc etc etc). And please remember Troeros - cars are not some new invention. They’re an outdated 20th century hangover. You defending a mono-functional, likely inflexible garage for them is just about as retrograde an idea as you can get. What were promoting is something new and exciting, and yes, traditional all at the same time.

On one hand you say - I love Cincinnati’s compactness. And on the other you say - yea it’s cool if said compactness is destroyed. ??‍♂️

Once you lose land to private interests, it is nearly impossible to get it back for public use. And I’m all for positive change, which means advocating and arguing for positive outcomes. I get that it’s easier to put your hands up and just say: well, it is the way it is. But that attitude leads to mediocre outcomes, which is what we’re seeing here. And I’d argue this outcome is sub-mediocre. In fact, this isn’t a ‘future forward’ change. This looks like something out of the 1980s. So if anything, I’m against going back in time and pretending there will magically be a different outcome than similar efforts we’ve seen in the past. I truly hope I’m wrong. I see you waxing on and on about safety in the centre city and wonder when it will ‘truly’ turn the corner. These sorts of decisions are why the city doesn’t ‘feel’ safe in some corners. No eyes on the streets which comes from a mix of uses, diversity of ownership, small blocks, etc. This isn’t an opinion - we know this to be true. You need to build for urbanity. If you plan for people and place, you’ll get people and place. If you plan for cars, you’ll get cars.

When is enough enough? It is just a bit of land, they said, when the Mt. Adams incline right of way was sold off. Just a small breezeway, they say, as PNC erases the fountain square pedestrian cut through to Walnut. Just one block, they say, as the convention center eats up Elm. Just one more block, you say, as the FC Stadium demolishes what’s left of a historic block of rows. Death by a thousand cuts. Except the city has been cutting itself since the 50s. This isn’t about one block, it’s about the obliteration of the historic grain, which includes individual buildings with their beautiful cornices, but also a walkable intersection density, connectivity through mega blocks, narrow street widths and diversity of land ownership. This is yet another example of the homogenization of the city centre and it will keep happening until it’s stopped.

So then why ruin a neighborhood by adding just 1,000 more? Seems totally preposterous. Remember, these garages are also the reason the Liberty Street road diet is so muddled down. When will we learn the answer is in creating a great place for people, instead of this fantasy where we think we can have a place with ease of parking AND still be great for people. Cities don’t work this way anywhere on the planet.

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The entire stadium is lifted off the ground plane by the parking garage. This is why it doesn’t interact with the street level well.

It’s been said before and needs to be said again and again. The only way downtown and OTR become truly vibrant with critical mass is through transit. If you don’t have that you won’t get the political capital to do away with parking requirements, you won’t get many banks willing to lend against parking-free projects and you won’t get the population willing to get rid of their car. I’m amazed how many folks I know from Ohio who owned a car and then moved to the coasts and got rid of said car bc they could, they wanted to live in a central area and bc it was more of a hassle to have one there. The same people making a different decision in a different location - it’s only possible with transit.

Oh my god this stadium is a disaster. That area will be totally dead most of the time. This is as much an ‘urban’ stadium as the ‘urban’ casino turned out to be. This won’t be used By other cities as best practices anytime soon. And let me get this straight, there’s a garage under the stadium and now next to it? Is that right?

Slightly off topic. But I’m surprised there’s been no movement to get a boutique hotel in OTR. This would be in high high demand