Nick Spencer

As for taxes, yeah, the bars pay a lot more in property taxes, but we also have earning tax revenues, and tons of permits. We generate the most economic impact in OTR by far.

The buildings that I think would make for great market rate housing: Jordan Carryout building, NY Dry Cleaners Building, and Mary Magdalene House Building. There actually are apartments above where Empower was, Kaldi's, where Diva's was, and above Lucy Blue. In fact, back in the day, those are the buildings everyone fought over to get apartments in the entertainment district.

Kendall: Here's why that can't/won't happen. 1) The buildings below 13th are very different from the ones up North. They're much bigger, especially the storefronts. 2) They've already been rehabbed into office space during the digital rhine era, and the building owners won't cough that up again. 3) The Entertainment District, while woefully under-appreciated, is still the biggest tax and revenue generator in OTR for the city. 4) The market was stretched thin by the construction on North Main, and will only be stretch thinner once the Vine Street stuff opens. Its hard to imagine being able to sustain that many more condos. Again, I wish more OTR folks were boosters for the Entertainment District, but that doesn't seem to be the way things are heading.

I think PRidge sums it up well... a lot of people on here might look at say, Red Cheetah, and think its not a very compelling product. But we're not the target market. Nightclubs need a lot of attractive 18-25 year old girls to really move drinks. Those girls love bars like Cheetah and Japp's, but they got scared away from OTR because of crime. And Rando, I think you overestimate marketing here. Its not like Kenwood or Newport have excellent marketing efforts. People go there because word gets around that you can shop or dance there in comfort, which you can't in OTR. Its not an issue of advertising. Hell, I'd say Main Street does a great deal more promotion-wise than either of those spots.

What are you talking about?!! Michael, I'm sick of having this argument with you... please just let it go. Yes, Jordan has been there, and it has always hurt the district. After the riots, it got even worse, like everything else down here. The riots chopped the entertainment district in half, and it never came back. People decided it wasn't worth the risk. Yes, OTR still brings people out for special events-- like Midpoint or Final Friday. But you can't build a market around that. Second Sundays is a scale-back of Markets on Main, which couldn't build crowds on a weekly basis. Whatever... dude, doing business in OTR flat out sucks most of the time, and I'm not the only one saying so. You can try to spin it a million ways, you can insult the businesses here and say they aren't marketing (that's complete bs, btw-- we spend over a thousand dollars each MONTH on advertising, not to mention all the press/awards we get). Most of these bars offer a great product, and work very hard. Quite frankly, they're practically the only business owners down here who have invested real money, pay market rate rents, and bring consistent crowds down here. Maybe you could just say thank you instead of tossing these careless insults about our marketing and concepts out there. And we're not the only ones... Red Cheetah has their Club Kiss promotion with Kiss 107, RBC/Japp's had their Phat Tuesday with the WIZ (which I wasn't supportive of, but it is promotion), Purgatory promotes all the time on radio. Main Street Live bought new signage for all the participating bars, worked out shared cover promotions on Fridays, buys regular print ads,gets shuttle buses for Party at the Point, works with beer sponsors for us as a collective group, and prints banners for lots of events. Like any small business group, we don't have a fortune to spend, but we do the best with what we have. Nice to know you're so spectacularly unaware, but Dan Dell does an excellent job with Main Street Live. But customers and prospective customers complain CONSTANTLY about the violence and the risks-- but apparently, you don't think that's the primary issue. I'm a business owner, you're a realtor. Therefore, I think its safe to say I know slightly more about running a business in OTR than you do. But again, I'm sick of arguing with you about it, I'm pretty offended by some of the stuff you've written. But please, by all means, keep blaming all the business owners who get sick of the crackheads, the violence, the panhandling, and the car break-ins. It is totally our inability to market ourselves. Absolutely. Funny how whenever we move, we make a lot more money. But again, clearly, TOTALLY our fault. This Saturday, a friend of mine who posts here sometimes told me that he walked out of my bar to get a slice of pizza next door. In that short walk around the corner, he was accosted FOUR TIMES. You don't market around that. THAT is what's killing business down here. Please stop trying to insult business owners down here and try to somehow insinuate that they're incompetent or poor promoters just because they may not be your cup of tea.

I'm sorry, but that's just flat-out wrong... This is not a marketing problem. Its a problem of crackheads, car break-ins, and shootings. Its a problem of having blighted, ugly properties like the Jordan Carryout building in the middle of the entertainment district. These things scare away 18-25 year old females, who are the lifeblood of any bar district. That's the market, and they demand being able to have some drinks in safety.

I tend to divide it into three areas: 1) More cops, moving social services, cracking down on blighted/abandoned/trouble properties via inspections, licensing, and housing docket... that's what you have to do to stop the bleeding. 2) Validating parking, new lighting, and key property acquisition/development (The Emery Theatre, Jump) would be the positive moves to actually start getting people excited about coming back. 3) Big picture stuff could really change the game: Broadway Commons development, mass transit. But even just

Sigh... okay, first off, I have talked to the square people, and there IS NO concentrated area for bars/nightclubs down there. Period. There are three spots available in the CBD center, and in each case, to open a bar, you'd probably need at least 500k, and in one instance, probably 5 mil. Anybody who blows that kind of money to open a bar in Cincinnati needs to have their head examined. Fountain Square has become everyone's answer to everything. Look, there aren't any practically any new spaces coming available down there. What's there now is it, practically. And The Banks? Yeah, right... And I really don't think any developer would have any interest in building an entertainment district in Lower Price Hill or Camp Washington. Trust me on this, as a person who works in this business: you can't relocate this entertainment district. And to me, its ridiculous that we're even talking about it. This district has been criminally underappreciated for years, and I'm afraid that will only continue.

Well, probably because I was wrong. I thought they would clean up the area after the riots, and they didn't, they let it get worse. Do I think people will fall for the potential and come in to OTR? Of course. They were before I did, and they will after me.

Thanks, look, I understand what folks are trying to say, and believe me, I understand what its like to not want to give up on this stuff. I mean, I'm walking away now, and really have very little to show for it. But I see a neighborhood that is chewing up residents and businesses and spitting them back out. OTR is a place with amazing potential, everyone sees it, including me. But to reach that potential requires something outside the abilities of small business owners and residents... it would require a city leadership waking up and changing the situation on the ground by buying up the vacant buildings en masse, cracking down on bad landlords by flooding the area with inspectors, putting cops/cameras/ambassadors on every corner to chase away criminals, and redistributing the low income housing and social services throughout the city and region. Here's what's most frustrating about OTR: I think you could turn it into a spectacular neighborhood in TWO YEARS TIME. Again, its that potential people get addicted to. But its not going to happen. Its an ILLUSION of being close. Because the people in positions to do that, never will. The neighborhoods don't want them to, the suburbs don't want them to, conservatives don't want them to, liberals don't want them to. There's no sense of urgency, and there's no desire to take up such a difficult, controversial task. And as long as that situation is what is, that potential is nothing but a mirage. People will lose a lot of money, possibly get hurt physically even, over what is essentially an illusion. Reality has a way of catching up with all of us. So I don't like it when people, with wonderful intentions, buy into the myth that things can get better here. I hate to sound so pessimistic, but this is probably the best council you'll ever get in terms of urban core issues, and they're not going to do it. No one will. Its a sucker's bet at this point.

Also, I don't blame the consumer at all. My customers are great, and I'm sick of putting them through the headache of coming down here.

"However you are offending an equal number of people here by tearing down OTR." That's what he said, that's what I'm responding, too. And somewhere, the only thing my customers tell me about "improving my product" is that they're sick of being harassed, threatened, attacked, and having their cars broken into. Finally, I'm not running for Council, next time or anytime. So the 'politician' thing is pretty weak.

And no, Michael, I don't think Newport or Rookwood have many office workers, but they have the other two-- they have a market rate residential base, and they're able to attract destination shoppers. My point is that OTR doesn't really have any of the three: the market rate residential population is low, there isn't a big cluster of daytime office workers in OTR, and because of safety concerns, its nearly impossible to bring out destination shoppers.

Uhhh... right. And yet, if I move to Northside, how much do you want to be my business doubles? So, something in your math doesn't add up. If you think pissed off, departing business owners who leave after horrific experiences with OTR (and let's not forget I lived there for five years, too) are what's tearing down OTR, you're out of your mind. What destroying OTR is violent crackheads bothering everyone who comes down there constantly, and city leadership that doesn't do anything about it. Until they really get serious about cleaning it up, anybody investing money down there should rethink it, because they're more than likely gonna end up getting burned. That's reality-- no one needs to spin it, or try to put things in a positive light. Until something REAL is done to clean this area up, NO ONE should be pumping money in here unless they've got it to spare.

Oh Jesus... are you actually trying to tell me there's a healthy base of office workers in OTR? Look, I'm not gonna argue this stuff anymore, its pretty pointless... and no offense, seriously, but you're a realtor, and if there's one thing I know about this area after years of experience, its that realtors view the area in some spectacularly unrealistic terms. I understand, it comes with job description. Best of luck to you, but I really think you're managing to offend a lot of people by trying to blame the businesses as opposed to the location.

Rando: You can't just pick up and move an entertainment district. The money just isn't there, its not run by one person but dozens, etc, etc. In general, I find Cincinnatians don't appreciate nightlife and what it does for urban areas. I find that spectacularly lame, but that doesn't make it less true. And as I've said before, you don't have retail down here because there's not a market for it. The bar district is still, by far and away, the biggest generator of people traffic in OTR. A very busy Final Friday still doesn't draw the crowds that a Saturday night in the entertainment district does-- and that's once a month versus every weekend. The market's not there for three reasons: 1) lack of a decent market rate residential base 2) lack of daytime foot traffic due to lack of offices/workers 3) crime and the perception of crime, which makes destination shopping a nearly impossible sell. Look OTR has a plenty of nice boutiques and shops already (Greg's, Mainly Art, Vintage Poster, Urban Eden, etc.), but many of them pay practically no rent, and don't see much actual retail traffic (they pay the bills off clients, who often never step foot in their stores). Again, I just find the entertainment district and nightlife in general to be woefully underappreciated in this town. And that's kind of funny, since we're just about the only ones left actually investing in the city with real dollars. The bars on Main Street are probably close to the only ones paying market rate commercial rents in the entire neighborhood, and plenty of people seem to be saying "Ah, who needs them?" Finally, I'd say whether you like it or not, the spaces that were bars aren't going to become anything else. If they don't rent to new bars, they'll sit empty. The building owners sunk too much money into them converting them into bar spaces. They won't invest like that again, they'll sit on them, or put them up for sale (where they'll sit with huge price tags for years like Jump has). This means crime will become more commonplace on that stretch of Main, and that will impact the condos and galleries, too.

Newport on the Levee and Union Station are family-oriented destinations, not entertainment districts. You see high schoolers and families at both, primarily. What the "market" wants is to be able to come down here and feel safe. If we were half as safe as Newport, we'd do twice as much business. Take alchemize as an example then. I haven't heard anyone say the product is stale or insufficient. My customers tell me they're sick of being aggressively panhandled and sick of having their cars broken into. They're not tired of a certain dj or band that we book. And I'd say Purgatory and The Exchange are in the same book, and I'd certainly say that was true of Jeff Hall. If Jeff Hall was so stale as a concept, why the hell are they packed at the Levee?

Oh, come on. Michael-- Nicely worded put-down. Yeah, its definitely the product down here that's causing the lack of foot traffic. Please. alchemize has been named "Best Bar" or "Best Nightclub" or (last year) "Best New" in pretty much every serious poll or award system. Purgatory, The Exchange, and Red Cheetah, while not my scene, are VERY good at what they do. Move these businesses into a safer area, and they'll likely triple in business. As for Jeff Hall, RBC's and Neon's, those aren't nightclubs, they're bars. They shouldn't have to be reconcepted or changed, in fact, they should've strengthen with age. You say no one wants to go to their parents bar, but people go to bars like that in Mt. Adams or on the West Side all the time: places like Murphy's, Crowley's, Christy's, etc. Again, this is not NYC. There isn't some new entertainment district out there that's draining all the business, or a bunch of newer, hotter bars popping up as competition. Bar openings have slowed to next to nothing in this town. And I consider that a sign that we're losing the audience altogether, and not replacing them. Whether its to the burbs or other cities, I could really give a damn. The problem down here is not the product. Its safety, safety, safety. Too many crackheads and car break-ins. The city didn't do anything about it, now its collapsing. And I think its cute that a lot of people on here don't think Cincinnati has a problem attracting and retaining young and creative people. I'll be sure to let the Brookings people know we have, in fact, fixed that problem.

I'll look around... but obviously, I think the region doesn't matter TOO much. If the future of nightlife and entertainment in the ciity depends on attracting suburbanites, we are totally screwed. As someone mentioned, they are just too far away. Hit a bar in Cincy, and leave at last call, and you are looking at a long, late night drive. Not gonna happen. Look, I would argue statistical numbers only tell part of the story. For plenty of young people (and plenty of older folks) suburban life is fine. Believe me, I know, I grew up in Northern Kentucky. Those are people terrified of urban areas, people who don't have a great deal of taste (sorry). But Cincinnati is a lousy place for creative, urban-oriented young people, and that's why so many of them leave. I mean, everyone sees this anecdotally, and the census (for the city and county) reflects this. Here's what I don't think happens: young, creative urban types who are born here or go to UC here aren't leaving to move to Blue Ash. Tracking suburban growth is a tough thing to do, but I haven't really encountered many young people who tell me that's the plan. I do think some are moving to Covington and Newport, I'd agree with that. Me, I concern myself with the city (and the county to a lesser extent). And those numbers are clear, and pretty awful. But even with those young people in the region, the suburban types, you gotta believe the dissatisfaction levels are pretty high. Look, I've always enjoyed this forum, and I appreciate that some folks are optimistic and want to look on the bright side. But as someone with a lot of firsthand experience in the urban core as a resident and business owner, I see far too much wrong with this place to believe its moving in the right direction.

Last I heard, a month or two ago, not so great. I believe the number was 6 out of 26 sold.

I'm sorry, Jimmy, but young people like to go out, drink, meet people, and enjoy nightlife. Are you seriously trying to say nightlife isn't a major factor for young people? Now, come on... there's spin, then there's getting dizzy. No offense to you at all personally, I like your comments usually, but if you think young people are more into galleries and theater than bars, you may be a little off in judging mainstream tastes. I agree that tolerance and openness, as well as good job markets, play a big role. But nightlife and shopping... that's what the vast majority of young people do with their off-time.

And I can tell you from talking to 3CDC folks, there is no young tenant waiting in the wings.

Jeckyll and Hyde's closed this past week, and two more of those bars will close soon. Its over, seriously. Everyone is moving out, its just a question of leases right now.

All I'm saying is young people are leaving this city (according to the census and according to most everyone's anecdotal experience). The Main Street Entertainment District is officially dead, and our city leadership flat out sucks. From Citybeat: "So who's leaving? Young people accounted for a lot of the decline in Cincinnati and Hamilton County in the 1990s. The city suffered a net loss in every age category under 39, while the rest of the county suffered a similar losses of people ages 22 to 34. For example, the city lost 28,582 people between the ages of 18 and 39. The county lost 16,672 people in the same age group, not counting the city."

It would be very cool, but no one has the money to start it. http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2003/06/08/genxwinners.html Its just a steady, steep loss of young people... and its often the best and brightest. Its just dark days right now, I've got no idea how to fix it.