I'd like to see Walnut Hills population data since 1991.  It's surely significantly lower, and talk of a Walnut Hills resurgence has been going on for 5 years and there's hardly anything to show for it.  What's more, the 300~ at most people of middle class or higher character who have moved in over the past 10 years (Suzy Wong apts, Walnut Hills High School condos, and hardly anything else) likely are driving to Hyde Park or another Kroger, not using the one within walking distance. 

1990- 8,917

2000- 7,790

2010- 6,495

 

 

I do think that East Walnut Hills is starting to transcend above what it's been for a while, but it admittedly is starting from a way better place than Walnut Hills is.  You're starting to see more restaurants and bars open in the DeSales Corner area, and there are some fairly decently sized residential projects going in close to there as well.

 

Walnut Hills is another story entirely, I think.  There has been talk about how 'Walnut Hills is the next hot neighborhood' for years, and like you said Jmeck, there is very little to show for it.  I think the WHRF has been terribly mismanaged, and yet they are celebrated as one of the more effective CDCs in the city.  They chose to go the route of demolition, hoping that new development would move in and save the McMillan and Taft corridors.  Well, guess what phase of redevelopment is starting off? Historic renovation of the Trevarran Flats development, and the rumored redevelopment of the Paramount building (I think that's what it's called) on the corner of Gilbert and McMillan.  No new development has occurred, except maybe those horrific habitat for humanity homes right off McMillan, and now there is considerably less historic stock to play off of in the future.  The RF has also been focused on the obscure alleyways in an area they've dubbed "5 points' (never mind the fact that there is already an area an Evanston that has used that name for a long time...), and they keep saying that something real and good is going to come of the beer gardens they've hosted in this area for years now.  That's a huge mistake, imo, because the average passer by knows nothing of the '5 points' area, and the only people enthused by the beer gardens are the same echo chamber of hipsters who have been going since they began.  Yes, the alleyways have been cleaned up, but what difference does that make, when 90% of people's impression of Walnut Hills is formed by going down either Taft or McMillan, which still largely look run-down and abandoned?

 

Fwiw I'm a regular shopper at both the WH Kroger and CVS, and I really haven't noticed a shift in demographics in the 3+ years I've been frequenting the stores.  New residents must either be going to Hyde Park or over to Newport. 

Yeah, I feel that portion of Walnut Hills with all the empty grass lots is the part of Cincinnati that reminds me the most of Detroit.

I do think that East Walnut Hills is starting to transcend above what it's been for a while, but it admittedly is starting from a way better place than Walnut Hills is.  You're starting to see more restaurants and bars open in the DeSales Corner area, and there are some fairly decently sized residential projects going in close to there as well.

 

Walnut Hills is another story entirely, I think.  There has been talk about how 'Walnut Hills is the next hot neighborhood' for years, and like you said Jmeck, there is very little to show for it.  I think the WHRF has been terribly mismanaged, and yet they are celebrated as one of the more effective CDCs in the city.  They chose to go the route of demolition, hoping that new development would move in and save the McMillan and Taft corridors.  Well, guess what phase of redevelopment is starting off? Historic renovation of the Trevarran Flats development, and the rumored redevelopment of the Paramount building (I think that's what it's called) on the corner of Gilbert and McMillan.  No new development has occurred, except maybe those horrific habitat for humanity homes right off McMillan, and now there is considerably less historic stock to play off of in the future.  The RF has also been focused on the obscure alleyways in an area they've dubbed "5 points' (never mind the fact that there is already an area an Evanston that has used that name for a long time...), and they keep saying that something real and good is going to come of the beer gardens they've hosted in this area for years now.  That's a huge mistake, imo, because the average passer by knows nothing of the '5 points' area, and the only people enthused by the beer gardens are the same echo chamber of hipsters who have been going since they began.  Yes, the alleyways have been cleaned up, but what difference does that make, when 90% of people's impression of Walnut Hills is formed by going down either Taft or McMillan, which still largely look run-down and abandoned?

 

Fwiw I'm a regular shopper at both the WH Kroger and CVS, and I really haven't noticed a shift in demographics in the 3+ years I've been frequenting the stores.  New residents must either be going to Hyde Park or over to Newport. 

 

I photographed every building on every street in Walnut Hills in 2007 for a real estate company.  Almost nothing has changed since then. 

 

I'm not going to agree with WHRF on everything they have done. I seriously opposed the demolitions along McMillan west of Gilbert that is now huge vacant land and an occasional pop up farmers market. I also really hate that they tore down the Graeter's building on McMillan. I think that was extremely shortsighted considering the rest of the block was intact.

 

But I think you all are somewhat dismissive of them because of how wildly successful 3CDC has been. Most of the people working for the WHRF live in the community and make either nothing or modest paychecks for the work they are doing. They don't have huge Fortune 500 companies paying six figure salaries to multiple professionals who have decades of experience. I think the 5 Points Alley Biergarten has been extremely successful. It gets people acquainted to the neighborhood who might not have otherwise ventured over there. It's actually pretty incredible how they have cleaned up that space and made it into a real community space. If you lived near the alley, you would be really appreciative of them doing that work. No one else was going to do it, and it attracted a lot of crime, drug abuse, and sexual activity. Now it is something they can advertise as uniquely Walnut Hills (despite apparently Evanston having one? I've never heard of it, but I rarely spend time there anyway). And who are the people who are going to be buying homes, or condos, or renting renovated apartments? It's going to be the "hipsters" who get priced out of Over-the-Rhine. It's not crazy to cater events to that crowd. In case anyone forgot, the only people moving to Over-the-Rhine in 2006-2010 were hipsters or people who wanted to live in an urban environment and were willing to take a pretty big gamble with their money on the first round of 3CDC condos.

 

The WHRF is working on securing funding for almost the entire McMillan business district. In order to secure funding for all of it, there had to be a certain percentage of residential, so they are tying the business district buildings with the Paramount Theater building. The Paramount is what they are expecting to bring in the bulk of the revenue as office, and that will help offset the cost of maintaining street-level retail and activating the neighborhood.

 

Honestly, the WHRF is pretty amazing to me. I think they've done a very good job carrying out their plan, even though I haven't agreed with all of it. I still think it's only a matter of time before the neighborhood is a destination for more than just the true hipster crowd.

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2015/12/16/20m-walnut-hills-redevelopment-project-lands-tax.html

 

And here's an article about the "Paramount Square" development receiving State Historic Tax Credits in December.

For some reason that demolition of that block a few years back didn't really matter much to me.

 

Yes, I would have preferred it to be preserved, and turned into retail and apartments above. But honestly, I feel like the historic fabric already had a huge gaping dent in it. The Kroger building, the various fast food spots are quite deterring. Walnut Hills lost it's fabric a while ago IMO. That's why I feel that a demolition of a block in OTR is so much more impactful compared to walnut hills at that stage. OTR still has fabric, that transports you to a time and place. I feel like Walnut Hills lost that fabric quite a while ago with the development of the kroger, and the fast food joints. So ultimately, yes it was sad to see that block go. But, it didn't neccesarrily kill walnuts hill character. As long as we preserve what we have left, and cross our fingers for some decent infill the neighborhood will still draw people in (Just Q'in, and Gomez will be pretty big draws I'm sure).Unique Restaurant + Bars + Retail + A microbrewery + Neighborhood Festivals/Concert Series(?) is the formula IMO for short term to potentially long term success.

 

Lets continue to preserve what we have left in that area (considering some of those buildings are quite gorgeous), and hopefully some decent infill will take over those grassy lots.

 

 

I work in East Walnut Hills right along the border with Walnut Hills.  To me it is obvious that the revitalization of Walnut Hills will start south of McMillan and move North to McMillan, and move from the border of Victory Parkway and move west.  The paramount square and Trevarren Flats will be really big for this area.  There is a lot of work to do obviously, but they are moving in a good direction and I agree with Ryan that the work they have done so far is pretty incredible.  It's kind of like OTR, starting off a bit slow then picking up.  This is obviously a lot more market based, they don't have the backing of the big companies like 3CDC does.  They also don't have as much work to do as OTR and downtown did, but they have a lot going for it with the overflow of people from OTR and downtown needing a place to stay as well.

 

The other areas west of Gilbert on McMillan and Taft will take a lot more time and it is pretty bombed out with all the demolitions.  But I think once you get that McMillan area back up and running around the Kroger up to the corner with Gilbert, then the areas south of there with the school building apartments and whatever comes after, it is going to be a lot bigger influx of market rate apartments which will better help shore up the business district.

Despite all of the talk of a Walnut Hills resurgence, there is basically zero house flipping going or any other activity by small investors.  The only thing we've seen happen in Walnut Hills for the past 15 years is stuff by medium-big developers like Suzy Wong Apts, Walnut Hills High School condos, and Treverran, and then a handful of small storefront businesses like Growler House, Myrtle's, Firehouse Pizza, and that's basically it.  None of those places are regularly crowded. 

 

There has been no huge development and there is basically zero small, house-by-house work.  In Over-the-Rhine and Downtown there are developers of all kinds doing different sorts of projects.  In Northside, there was almost no activity by mid-sized and big developers for the past 20 years, until very recently with the American Can, Gantry, and Chase School developments.  I have the sense that a lot of entities are spending months if not years attempting to get ridiculous tax breaks, credits, and government grants for work in Walnut Hills, and as such they're stuck in a slow swirl of delays as pieces of financing expire while they apply or re-apply for yet another nugget of free money. 

^I don't disagree with you at all.  I think that is the key, will people be willing to flip some of these very large homes if they become available?  I am guessing most are broken up into condos.  The further south to Eden Park, there are homes that are in pretty good shape but the closer you get to McMillan moving north they are in rough shape but still occupied.  The problem as I am sure you agree Jake is that it would take a ton of money to flip some of these homes, in comparison to Northside, the UC area, or probably even in some cases OTR though I am not entirely sure on that now.

 

What I am curious to see is if all this investment with the Paramount Building, Windsor Street school, YMCA (eventually), etc., if this will spur more interest from people with a bit more money to spend their own capital in Walnut Hills for smaller scale development?  Time will tell on that one.

I like what's going on in Walnut Hills but they still have a long way to go. Northside has much more going on in terms of people buying and flipping houses, nicer restaurant opening, record stores, coffee shops, etc. Walnut Hills does not yet have most of these amenities.

 

I currently live and work in OTR, so walk most days and rarely use my car. If I were forced to move to a neighborhood where I had to drive or rely on transit, I'd probably choose Northside over Walnut Hills based on what's there now.

771 and 772 E. McMillan Street and 2504 Chatham Street were awarded state historic tax credits.

 

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/money/2016/06/28/tax-credits-could-spur-89m-cincinnati-development/86426414/

 

These three buildings near Fireside Pizza

^That's great news for Walnut Hills.

^I don't disagree with you at all.  I think that is the key, will people be willing to flip some of these very large homes if they become available?  I am guessing most are broken up into condos.  The further south to Eden Park, there are homes that are in pretty good shape but the closer you get to McMillan moving north they are in rough shape but still occupied.  The problem as I am sure you agree Jake is that it would take a ton of money to flip some of these homes, in comparison to Northside, the UC area, or probably even in some cases OTR though I am not entirely sure on that now.

 

What I am curious to see is if all this investment with the Paramount Building, Windsor Street school, YMCA (eventually), etc., if this will spur more interest from people with a bit more money to spend their own capital in Walnut Hills for smaller scale development?  Time will tell on that one.

 

The paradox of the WHRF is that the hype is driving up prices and keeping professional flippers from setting up shop.  People aren't saying you're insane for buying a house or condo in Walnut Hills like they were in Over-the-Rhine 10 years ago or Northside 15-20 years ago.  So people keep listing bad houses on so-so streets for $75k or more (houses that sell for $35k in Price Hill, by comparison) and getting those prices.  I do know a guy who got a great house on Melrose for $30k during the recession but that's very much the exception rather than the rule. 

 

The same problem might happen eventually in Price Hill, since so many people are hyping it, although for the time being there are still tons of houses listed over there for well under $50k. 

 

 

 

Does anyone get the sense that Cincinnati neighborhoods are such islands?

 

For instance, to walk to walnut hills it either involves a steep incline from the eden park are, or crossing a massive pedestrian highway bridge from Clifton. There's a huge gap, and just makes walnut hills feel very isolated, and not very pedestrian friendly to physically walk to.

 

For instance, I could see maybe my friends walking down from the UC campus to OTR, but walking to Walnut Hills (which wouldn't necessarily be a problem) seems so less friendly to casually walk to.

^ Yep, that's why it's so tragic that we don't have good public transit linking our neighborhoods together. If we had subway stations under all of the city's major NBDs and you could get around extremely easily, the values would be spread out a lot better instead of having OTR prices skyrocketing and most other neighborhoods slowly rising or stagnant.

$13M mixed-use development coming to Walnut Hills [subscriber Content]

 

An Indianapolis developer is planning a $13 million mixed-use development that will bring dozens of new residential units and thousands of square feet of retail to Walnut Hills.

 

Looks like it's going into the large vacant space just west of Fireside Pizza that WHRF tore down a bunch of buildings on. Glad to see some positive things happening there. Still disagree they should have torn down that block, but it's nice to see some progress.

90 units. Great news for the neighborhood and city!!!

How much of the site is it going to take up? That spot had some very attractive smaller buildings that were sad to see go and the current way they've redeveloped up until now (those crappy vinyl through-block houses with the shed in the back) in conjunction with the giant vacant lots really destroyed any potential historic fabric connection along this stretch. They really shot themselves in the foot with all the demolition along McMillan. Hopefully more projects like this (and proposed future phases of Trevanan (sp?) Flats) can fill in the gaps that shouldn't be there.

I just hope this doesn't look like Oakley Square or Delta Flats, the latter especially was a huge letdown.

I just hope this doesn't look like Oakley Square or Delta Flats, the latter especially was a huge letdown.

 

That's what we'll be getting.  Developers are incapable of building anything that actually looks good.  We'll have air conditioners on little concrete pads and utility boxes on islands in the parking lot. 

 

Same old discussion every time. You guys want density and infill and population growth but then you always complain about the architecture, in this case sight unseen. Do you guys really think someone is going to build Versailles and rent it out to Millenials at $900 a month? A little cognitive dissonance going on here I think.

 

This proposal even puts the parking underground which is a cut above what we're used to when it comes to respecting the urban form.

You're taking the argument to the extreme, no one said Versailles. And either way, these examples are everywhere, in wealthy neighborhoods as well. I mean Delta Flats couldn't be that cheap and it seems like something that was built pre-fab it's so boring and lifeless. Plus there's just a simple lack of quality apparent in these places, and it's just unfair to the community in my opinion. The Banks would be a great example of this. I just don't seem to understand why people are okay with it over and over again, when there are other cities building much more attractive architecture at similar rental prices. See Columbus.

First off, this is great news for Walnut Hills.

 

Secondly, I agree it would have been better to rehab the existing buildings that were there.

 

Third, I agree with billshark, we can't have the cake and eat it too.  Developers need profit for their investments, and they need to also hit good price points.  Once the corridor fills in, they re-pave the streets, they plant some trees, bury utilities, etc., it all matures and turns out to be nice looking.  Let's see how it plays out in Walnut Hills in the next 3 years, with some big rehabs if all goes to plan on the east side of Gilbert coming soon as well.

The problem I have is that I know for a fact you can design a building that's affordable to build that looks good. Those two things don't have to be at opposite ends of the spectrum.

 

But when you hire CA Architects, they will literally copy-paste details from past projects (like, that's actually what they do) such as The Banks or U Square and you wind up with crap.

 

Look up modern low income housing from all over the world. It's built on even tighter budgets and yet often winds up looking very nice because competent designers started off with an affordable material palette and used it in the best manner possible.

 

No reason we can't have affordably built infill in a yet-to-be-proven neighborhood that also looks nice.

Developers do things based on percentages they expect to earn.  If they can get 5% on an investment, they're obviously making money, but they want to get 10-15%.  There is a huge difference over time when comparing 5% versus 15% returns, and as long as they can get yuppie rents for crap buildings, they'll keep doing it.  So don't blame the developers as much as the people paying big money to live in these mediocre places. 

EXCLUSIVE: Sports bar coming to Walnut Hills development

 

A sports bar with a neighborhood feel is the latest tenant in the $9 million Trevarren Flats mixed-use development in Walnut Hills.

 

Alex Spencer is opening Corner Social in a 1,700-square-foot storefront at 975 E. McMillan St. Spencer, a longtime resident of Walnut Hills, told me Corner Social is a concept he designing specifically for the neighborhood.

 

"For maybe five years I've been trying to think of an idea or create something I wanted to bring not only to Cincinnati but specifically Walnut Hills," he said. "I have family there, I grew up there, it's the place I got my first apartment and bought my first house, so the neighborhood means a lot to me."

 

No timeline set for opening, yet. Just signed on apparently.

At last, a development boom in Walnut Hills

 

 

Walnut Hills is at a tipping point, but it didn’t happen overnight. Community and business groups, private developers and the city of Cincinnati have been buying up property along East McMillan for the past decade to build up what once was Cincinnati’s “second downtown.”

 

More below:

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2016/09/02/at-last-a-development-boom-in-walnut-hills.html

What boom?  Where is the guys and equipment actually building stuff?  Walnut Hills is a Potemkin Village. 

^You're animosity towards Walnut Hills is perplexing.

All of this is good news for Walnut Hills and Cincinnati in general.  Who knows if it will really boom like OTR or Uptown, but the slow and steady progress is good.  There is a lot of work to do no doubt, but if they can keep pushing forward that will continue to help with possibly attracting more investors into the neighborhood to rehabilitate the large homes, etc. 

 

East Walnut Hills also has some interesting potential.  I am curious to see what comes out of Anthem moving out of the area.  I work on the border of Walnut Hills and East Walnut Hills, technically in East Walnut Hills.  The skyline and taco casa and McDonalds are always full but I wonder how much of that is Anthem. 

^ Is he wrong though? Projects seem to get announced with some regular frequency, but very little has actually changed in WH. I love the neighborhood and live right on the border between WH and Mt Adams, so I spend a bit of time there, and have no noticed barely any change at all in the 3.5 years I've lived here. Trevarran Flats is a big win for the neighborhood, I will give them that. I'm hoping they are successful at getting good tenants, and I'm a little skeptical of their ability to do so, but that is still at least a completed project. Where are the others? Remember the project to convert Windsor Elementary to apartments and build a new 3-4 story apartment building along side it? Yeah, announced 2 years ago, still no sign of action. Plans have been announced for the low rise buildings next to Trevarran Flats, the Paramount building, and more over the past couple years, and not a single piece of work has been done on any of them. Walk or drive around the residential side streets and you won't see rehabs and renovations taking place aside from isolated properties here and there. Hell, even the property adjacent to Fireside, which the WHRF calls "the brownstone" hasn't been rehabbed into apartments yet, despite that being a condition of the loan/grant/massive under-writing the city agreed to to get the Fireside space done. Literally that was a condition for receiving the funding, and that building still to this day is boarded up, stabilized but not even close to being able to be occupied.

 

I get that neighborhood transformation doesn't happen over night, but Walnut Hills doesn't seem to be going anywhere very quickly. The normal signs you'd look for to see grassroots efforts to repopulate the neighborhood (ala Northside) are conspicuously absent, and the majority of the announced big projects have yet to start. People have been saying Walnut Hills is the next hot neighborhood for 5 years. Ok, I'll believe it when I see it.  Now EWH, on the other hand, has been speeding up its turnaround in recent years, mainly through repopulating the business district with active uses. O Pie O, Myrtles Punchhouse, Woodburn Brewery, Growler House all have come on in the past year/ year and a half. There is also some residential infill happening on Clienview, infill going in at the church site on Clienview and Madison, and a big project going in across from Purcell on Woodburn. If any neighborhood is deserving of praise at the moment, it's EWH, and even their turn around has been slow and as gradual as hey come. The only reason WH gets so much attention is the hype machine that is the WHRF.

^I agree that WHRF is great at hype. Though half the battle is convincing people that the neighborhood is worth investing in. They seem to be turning a corner lately in actual development and progress.

 

Last December they received state historic tax credits for the Paramount. I believe they are waiting on one other source of funding before they can begin construction.

 

Trevarren Flats was finished this year, adding 30 market rate apartments.

 

Fireside Pizza has been successful and is always busy when I go in.

 

Just Q'in opened a couple of months ago.

 

Gomez Salsa is opening on Gilbert this fall (last I heard was from a conversation at Gomez in OTR where they claimed sometime in September is likely).

 

The new construction development next to Fireside was just announced.

 

A new bar in Trevarren was announced the other day (though probably won't open until next year).

 

The 5 Points Beer Garden was completed this year, making it an actual usable space.

 

Baldwin Piano Building is going through renovations.

 

In June the building next to Fireside and the two buildings along Chatham Street closest to McMillan were awarded state historic tax credits. Construction will likely begin next year.

 

Brew House added outdoor seating in their parking lot and are renovating the exterior storefront.

 

McMillan and Taft were successfully converted to two-way streets (and continue to add to the stretch that is two-way).

 

You can talk about the lack of residential rehab, but most of the buildings southeast of McMillan/Gilbert (the most desirable housing in the neighborhood) are already occupied. North of Taft is a little further removed and will not be redeveloped as quickly as the rest of the neighborhood (similar to North of Liberty around McMicken Ave in OTR). I expect southwest of McMillan/Gilbert to start seeing more development in a few years when the business district is a little more built out. People keep saying nothing has happened in 5 years, but a lot has happened. Just because it isn't bustling on weekends like Main or Vine Streets in OTR or Hamilton in Northside doesn't mean significant progress isn't happening.

I walk through the SE quadrant of Walnut Hills at least weekly, so I know the dynamics of the neighborhood pretty well. Most of those houses are occupied, and it's definitely the healthiest part of Walnut Hills, but there are still pockets that are pretty rough, with vacant homes/lots, litter, loitering, etc. The other 3 quadrants are largely a disaster still.

 

I don't want to go point by point through your response, but I will say that receiving tax credits and financial support is not the same thing as completing a project. The Windsor School also received a very large tax credit years ago. The Baldwin Building is a great project, but I don't think anyone really considers that Walnut Hills. It's in that no-mans-land zone between Mt. Auburn, Mt. Adams, Eden Park, and Walnut Hills. But yeah, that project should help WH, at least in theory. There have been a few businesses who've utilized the facade improvement program, and Brew House definitely looks much better now. There is some good stuff happening in Walnut Hills, but the needle has really BARELY moved, if it's moved at all.

I'm in Walnut Hills all the time.  I've delivered food there every weekend for the past 7 years.  I could draw a pretty much perfect map of the area from memory, including block numbers.  There is literally not a single house rehab underway anywhere in Walnut Hills.  I challenge someone to take a picture of a newly renovated house anywhere between I-71 and Woodburn.  You're not going to find one.  Zero from McMillan south.  There isn't even that much going on in East Walnut Hills.  There are still crappy blocks of Moorman, Hackberry, etc., wedged between the blocks that have been well-maintained for decades.  There is a little going on on Dexter and into Evanston, but Evanston is really a dump north of Dexter.   

 

 

I walk through the SE quadrant of Walnut Hills at least weekly, so I know the dynamics of the neighborhood pretty well. Most of those houses are occupied, and it's definitely the healthiest part of Walnut Hills, but there are still pockets that are pretty rough, with vacant homes/lots, litter, loitering, etc. The other 3 quadrants are largely a disaster still.

 

I don't want to go point by point through your response, but I will say that receiving tax credits and financial support is not the same thing as completing a project. The Windsor School also received a very large tax credit years ago. The Baldwin Building is a great project, but I don't think anyone really considers that Walnut Hills. It's in that no-mans-land zone between Mt. Auburn, Mt. Adams, Eden Park, and Walnut Hills. But yeah, that project should help WH, at least in theory. There have been a few businesses who've utilized the facade improvement program, and Brew House definitely looks much better now. There is some good stuff happening in Walnut Hills, but the needle has really BARELY moved, if it's moved at all.

 

Also, the neighborhood might lose its grocery store.  That's devastating in and of itself, but then Kroger might sit on the property and prevent a competitor from putting something up.  That's been the situation in College Hill for the past 20 years.  An entire generation of kids has been raised in College Hill only knowing a parking lot where Schuller's Wigwam stood for many years and then an abandoned 1980s-era Kroger across the street. 

I'm sure Kroger does a lot for the city but they frustrate the hell out of me left and right. Just come up with an urban store model that works, I'm sure that could be in the budget somewhere.

I lived in East Walnut Hills. 50 years ago I tried to squander my hard earned college tuition on a lovely 8 unit building on Alpine which was eventually (25 years later) sold for less than I had offered for it and the building torn down. I was sure then that EWH was on the cusp of a boom. And, this has repeated itself periodically over the last 50 years with progress on some fronts (see the Verona and Cooper) and deterioration on others (see the Alms e.g.).

 

Anyone watching this process over decades would have healthy skepticism.

EWH needs to continue converting their streets back to 2 way (ESPECIALLY Woodburn) (and others coming into EWH.) Then WH itself needs to work on continuous walkable pedestrian/biking corridors to the strong jobs center of Uptown to the West and EWH to the east.

I believe I saw an article recently that the Windsor Development is still moving forward.

 

That said, I agree with everyone here, not much has changed since the 3 years I worked here, but at least some things are popping up and hopefully, they can get things moving on Peebles Corner, that new development next to Fireside, etc.  That will start to help the area take shape better.  Also, if projections are true with all the new development promised from the Uptown 71 Ramp, and the trend of moving back to the city, people will start to re-populate the area to be closer to work. 

 

I also expect some turnover to happen with the new retail as it inevitably does.  That said, if they can keep moving on East McMillan it will start to become more of a draw and more people will move in.

 

 

Anyone watching this process over decades would have healthy skepticism.

 

A lot of people have lost a lot of money waiting for Cincinnati neighborhoods to turn around.  My grandfather bought one of the nice old houses with a city view on the south side of Liberty Hill around 1980 because Mt. Auburn was going to be "the next Mt. Adams".  I went there one time with him to collect the rent and still remember him knocking on the door with his cane and the tenants acting like they weren't home.  He sold it around 1988 with no gain and bought a commercial building in Green Township that he then sold in the late 1990s for no gain. 

 

It's easy to look back and say to someone that you should have done this or that but it's impossible to know when the market is going to jump or go backward. 

 

A quote from the article that basically says it all:

 

“For my entire life, I’ve heard Walnut Hills is about to happen,” Laura Davis said.

Permanently closing the 3rd St exit on 71 would be a step in the right direction.

Permanently closing the 3rd St exit on 71 would be a step in the right direction.

Why?

Permanently closing the 3rd St exit on 71 would be a step in the right direction.

Why?

 

Because for the past 60 years the city has viewed itself as a place to get through, not to. We've designed our streets to maximize the flow of traffic through our neighborhoods, sacrificing their economic viability and livability. Whether Main / Walnut in OTR, or Harrison and Queen City in South Fairmount, or Taft and MacMillan in Walnut Hills, these are viewed as places to get through. Why would someone live in those neighborhoods when it is so easy to live just a little further out, and indeed when the very street design makes these NBDs so unpleasant?

 

Closing the 3rd st exit (or, say, cutting back the W 6th Expressway) would be a big step in making Walnut Hills more attractive because of its closeness to the region's largest employment center (and 2nd largest!). Our current transportation system totally inverts the inherent benefits of being close to a regional place of importance.

^That plan is riddled with holes. First of all, there are other exits serving downtown on 71, so closing one would not be a huge deterrent to anyone.  The only thing that would result in is more traffic on 71, which negatively impacts everyone, including us city dwellers who have to breathe in the polluted air that more idle traffic would generate. Secondly, if you make downtown difficult to access, businesses could very well leave downtown and go to places that are easier to access and with much less hassle. Downtown has already dropped in employment numbers over the past few decades- if the 'regional place of importance' becomes less important, that impacts desirability.  Finally, I'm not really sure how Walnut Hills specifically would benefit from closing the 3rd street exit. I guess you're saying that it, along with other close to the core neighborhoods would become more popular because of the difficulty that would be associated with getting downtown from the northern burbs? Someone buying a house in Blue Ash or Mason just isn't going to be buying a house in Walnut Hills. They are totally different markets with different housing styles, demographics, densities, histories, etc.  To think that if we just make it more difficult for suburbanites, they'll suddenly become urban dwellers is frankly naiive.  Walnut Hills already has locational advantages over Blue Ash, Kenwood, Mason, etc. It's about as close to both Uptown and Downtown as you can get without being in either place.  Living there offers residents options for how to get to these places, as well.  You can drive, walk, bike, or take the bus in Walnut Hills- options that are more or less unavailable in the burbs.  Instead of constricting people/vehicles with the hope that they'll be coerced into city living by way of inconvenience, we should be (and are) looking at ways to increase access and visibility to these neighborhoods, so they can function at a higher level.  The MLK exist and converting 1 way streets to 2 ways are both means of increasing access and visibility, and Walnut Hills should benefit from these things.  I don't see removing one of the downtown exits having even remotely the same effect.  Plus, it would not just be suburbanites negatively affected by increased congestion and traffic both on 71 and areas around the exits.  City dwellers have to deal with this, too, you know.

There is virtually zero traffic through the Woodburn and McMillan business districts.  It was originally the case that if you were traveling downtown from any Madison Rd. neighborhood, you had to travel through these two areas to get downtown.  Victory Parkway was a sort-of-bypass, then Columbia Parkway created a full bypass.  Then I-71 created a second full bypass.  Then WH Taft made McMillan 1-way and cut what trickle of visibility that business district had in half. 

 

Today the Madison and McMillan business districts get zero thru traffic.  They're each basically like Short Vine, but not right next to a 40,000-student university or 10-20,000 university and hospital workers.  The neighborhood is terribly under-populated, so there is hardly enough local foot traffic to sustain local basic businesses.  The neighborhood's only asset is that it is close to Downtown and UC/Hospitals but so are a handful of other similarly bombed-out neighborhoods (Mt. Auburn, Corryville, Avondale). 

^ People coming from east side still often use Taft as a way of getting to Clifton from Columbia Parkway. I'd imagine McMillan gets some of this as well going the opposite way, but you're right that there isn't a whole lot of through-traffic on these streets east of 71. But through-traffic shouldn't be a pre-requisite for business district health. Many of the best Nbd's in the city aren't on through streets or otherwise very congested streets. Hyde Park Square would be on Madison instead of Erie of vehicular cut through traffic was that important. Oakley's nbd would out perform Hyde Park and Mount Lookout. My point is that I think the sorry state of the residential neighborhoods, combined with the fact that there's simply a glut of retail space, are the bigger issues facing WH's business districts than the lack of through-traffic. 

You want cars an people going as sllllllllllllllooooooooooooooowwwwwwww as possible. <1mph is ideal. Even 35 is too fast for businesses that take up less than 1/2 acre.