Wasn't there also a neighborhood where the "Ovation" was supposed to be?

Can I ask what has lead to so much demolition of the historic stock in Clifton Heights?

 

There used to be quite a few beautiful Victorian mansions and churches.

 

Alot of Cincinnati neighborhoods have been able to keep there historic stock in tact (for the most part). But with the Clifton Heights area it just seems there this constant "itch" to erase historic structures, for bland new student housing blocks...

 

Can anyone explain why? And why there's hasn't been more opposition (similar to what we saw for the Dennison Hotel group, and the Davis Furniture building in OTR) from grass root groups?

 

 

Granted I can maybe understand "why" it's occuring. No doubt more housing is needed for UC, and these old Victorian Mansions, and Churches do little in the way of providing proper housing and retail. It's just sad that you have a neighborhood like OTR who has managed to save the old, while infilling the new. With Clifton, it feels like, "nope" lets just bulldoze anything old, and replace it with new. I just don't understand why...

CUF is almost entirely intact.  Almost zero parking lots, empty lots, or anything under 100 years old in a square mile area.  Unfortunately Corryville hasn't been so lucky. 1/3 of Corryville was completely demolished for UC's expansion and the EPA building.  The Kroger site used to be a very interesting area, with a Y-intersection at Corry St. and an old castle-looking water tower near the corner of WH Taft and Euclid. 

So much of Uptown has been demolished because developers want to make money and don't care about the existing historic buildings. UC's student population is growing, so developers are building student housing as cheaply as possible and making a lot of money. The historic buildings surrounding UC are nothing more than inconveniences to the developers who want to build on this land.

 

OTR and some other neighborhoods were lucky in the sense that we did not see them as "valuable" areas in the Urban Renewal era. We are lucky that developers did not demolish all of OTR in the 1970s or 1980s to make way for big box stores, a mall, or something like that. Since no one cared about OTR at the time, the buildings were just left to rot, which is why so much of the neighborhood is intact and ripe for redevelopment today.

The only parts of CUF that have seen demolitions are properties on the south side of McMillan Street. The building on the corner of Ohio and McMillan and the building currently under constriction at the corner of Clifton and McMillan are the only large, recent demolitions I'm aware of. However, immediately across McMillan and on Calhoun you see the same thing, not to mention throughout Corryville as described in the above posts.

 

One thing to note around UC's campus is that while demolitions still occur, it often involves removing 4 or 5 houses that may have housed 20 people and/or a couple offices, and replacing them with 100+ apartments. In the very least, the demolitions result in more density. The EPA site doesn't fit this pattern, but much of what's going up today does.

Yeah I was going to mention that.

 

The whole CUF area is kind of "suburban" early 19th century esque.

 

In that, it's less like OTR where you these large 3-4 story tenement row houses and pretty much no space inbetween, compared to single lot Victorian Mansions with a bit of space between house to house.

The area I'd really look out for tragic demolitions is that there are huge back yards in the center of Corrville -- Eden Ave., Bellevue, etc.  No doubt a developer would love to tear down those very nice 1880s-era 2-families that line those streets and plop down some more 150-unit apartment complexes. 

 

In other news, the corner of Ohio and McMillan has seen some action this year...whoever owns the first historic home on Ohio Ave. just redid the back with a new concrete parking lot.  The same guy might also own the "1 Hour Photo" building at the corner, which has one or two apartments on the second floor and a first floor storefront that has been shuttered for at least 10 years.  Work is happening in that building right now.  It's good to know that that corner will remain intact, at least for awhile.  Also, the owner of Adriatico's now owns a third property on that block facing McMillan, one of the brown brick houses between Mr. Tuxedo. and the Adriatico's parking lot.  Obviously he'd be interested in eventually buying all of them so that he has a nice chunk of property to sell out to the people who own the former Pomodorie's site.     

 

 

 

The Verge on November 22:

 

I've seen a few comments recently about the glut of retails space in CUF and people mentioned this building adding to it. Thankfully this building will only have 7,500 square feet of commercial space while adding 500 new residents to that section of the neighborhood. So basically we wind up with the same amount of retail space as before but have hundreds of new customers. Hopefully that will help with filling the empty storefronts.

There's also a large hotel going up on the opposite side of the street a block east of this area. That will add 100+ people or so most days, most of whom will make use of dining and retail in the immediate vicinity.

Which will be hugely helpful as well. And UC's student population is still shifting towards less commuter-based even though it seems growth has slowed dramatically after a decade of extreme growth. So more people living around campus in general which will also help.

Many of the newer Uptown developments are not marketing themselves as "student housing" but as general housing. With the massive amount of bars and restaurants nearby, I can see how it would be appealing to a lot of people who can't or don't want to live in downtown/OTR but want a walkable urban environment. It also has the advantage of having more low- or mid-priced food options than OTR has at the moment. I wonder how many of the people living at USquare or VP3 are not students though.

I think it's technically illegal for them to only rent to students, but they advertise where students will see it and gear the amenities to things that students would likely be the only ones who want it (pre-furnished apartments, for example).

With the massive amount of bars and restaurants nearby, I can see how it would be appealing to a lot of people who can't or don't want to live in downtown/OTR but want a walkable urban environment. It also has the advantage of having more low- or mid-priced food options than OTR has at the moment.

 

For these same reasons, I've been wondering if the nearby housing stock will start being rehabbed as students shift out of houses and into these new apartments. 

EXCLUSIVE: Cock & Bull opening 4th location, see why soccer fans will cheer

Cock & Bull Public House plans to open its fourth Greater Cincinnati location near the University of Cincinnati.

The pub that’s famous for its fish and chips and craft beers on tap signed a lease to take the last remaining space at Uptown Rental Properties’ and North American Properties’ Views on Vine development located at 2825-2875 Vine St. in Corryville. Cock & Bull will open a pub at the southern end of the building

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2016/02/02/exclusive-cock-bull-opening-4th-location-see-why.html

 

 

Great news for Short Vine. They'll do good business and draw a nice crowd, especially on game days.

Wasn't there also a neighborhood where the "Ovation" was supposed to be?

 

That property was owned by the U.S. Army when Ft. Washington was decommissioned.  Eventually that military base was moved to Ft. Thomas, where there are still many buildings remaining from the 1800s.  The Ovation land was public housing up until about 2005. 

^ and all the fast food restaurants...

 

Love the RedBike station in the Taco Bell parking lot

 

Why run to the border when you can bike?

It's been almost a year since the new streetscape was finished, and it still looks horrible because the city and/or Duke has not yet come around and removed the telephone polls and cobra head lighting:

 

 

 

I've been driving past short vine the last few days heading into work and it looks as if they have started taking down these telephone polls. Unfortunately I have not been able to get a good picture.

I never understood the sheer obsession with telephone poles cluttering things up.  I like clutter, its part of an urban environment IMO.

^Clutter in the sense of a variety of buildings and street furniture and such is one thing, but janky wood poles with a rat's nest of wiring jumping around all over the place?  Give me a break.  There's nothing about it that isn't ugly, and I think you'll find that your opinion is overwhelmingly in the minority.  Plus what you don't see is the tree canopy that could be there instead.  It's even worse for the people on the upper floors of those buildings, who have to look directly at the poles, wires, and transformers.  Advocating for keeping power lines is like advocating for not fixing potholes, not painting buildings, and not cleaning up litter.  It's a huge turn-off for most people. 

 

Yes, it is possible to do utility poles in a cleaner more tidy fashion.  They do it in Europe all the time.  It's easier there however because of their higher secondary distribution voltages compared to what we use here.  So rather than having multiple transformers and their attendant wiring on every block, they can have one larger transformer tucked away somewhere that serves several blocks at a time.  They'll then use metal poles and still do service drops underground in preparation for full undergrounding at some point in the future.  Plus none of the telecom stuff is put on the poles with all their junky repeaters, backup batteries, and other crap.  Those are more likely under the sidewalk in a small concrete vault that only requires lifting the sidewalk panels away to access.  Even with wood poles it CAN be done nicely, but it takes some craft that's lacking in the US.  https://goo.gl/maps/R3ZcBA14KmE2

I'm also of the opinion though that the sign laws in Cincinnati are too stringent.  Take a look at this old photo of Main Street for instance, it makes Cincinnati seem so incredibly vibrant (though do ignore that the streets are torn up in that shot).:

 

https://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpf1/t31.0-8/c0.126.851.315/p851x315/12615414_10153929522632700_4686476657877055088_o.jpg

 

Not much different than this (though I guess there aren't overhead wires here):

 

http://s3.media.squarespace.com/production/447825/5899952/_cNMGcUju8JI/RcFsRWSx6gI/AAAAAAAAAB4/7bfJzh9N4bU/s400/sf-powell-st-1.jpg

 

Or Chicago (though I'll admit the wires in Chi-town are in alleyways so they are hidden, but this is still an extremely cluttered area):

 

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3174/2560110816_2e923d8c53.jpg

 

I'm just thinking of the amount of wires you see in East Asia or in cities like San Francisco (which is still a beautiful city, but there is more clutter - bigger signs and more wires in part due to the streetcars and trolleybuses).  I actually find some beauty in it.  Cincinnati IMO really struggles to embrace its sheer urbanity and this is part of it.

It's just that there's nothing inherently urban about wires.  In much of the world, it's the cities where there are no wires, because that's where the wealth and density is sufficient to cover the cost of undergrounding.  There was a big push starting in the 1920s to underground wiring for reasons of civic pride and city beautification.  There were also studies about proper street lighting and paving surfaces that came about at that same time too.  Unfortunately when the depression hit, the focus was put on streets and roads as that was easier for the government to put WPA effort into since the streets are government-owned, while the electric utilities are not.  After that, with cities being strip-mined of their resources in favor of the suburbs, any undergrounding plans or policies had to be shelved. 

 

As with many things, the US suburban experiment has turned our cities backwards from what you see in most of the world.  Japan's excuse is that overhead electric is more resilient to earthquakes.  The same can probably be said for San Francisco, but that certainly hasn't stopped them from burying wires.  The thing is that in Japan, Europe, and pretty much any place that has some semblance of civility, they at least hide the wires on the main streets.  Even if it's just feeding from behind in an alley, like in Chicago, that makes a huge difference.  It's tough to impress people with your neighborhood business district, the "high street" of the neighborhood if you will, when it's strewn with wires. 

Throughout college I had two people from foreign countries sublease from one of my roommates. Both of them (one from Iran, one from Germany) immediately pointed out and commented on how ugly a lot of our streetscapes were because of the overhead powerlines. They questioned the wisdom of putting them up on cheap wooden poles and the complete lack of organizational standards resulting in a mess of ugly wires directly above the sidewalks.

 

And I agree with them. They are ugly. The wooden poles are crappy looking, the wires don't add anything that's truly urban to our cities, and they make it impossible for street trees to mature properly since they're just cut back when they reach the wires which is shortly after being planted.

 

I totally understand wanting clutter, but there's a TYPE of clutter that makes sense in urban areas. And ugly powerlines/telephone lines is not the way to go about achieving that.

I heard a visitor from Korea remark not only about the overhead power lines in Cincinnati, but how our traffic lights dangle from wires rather than being properly mounted on an arm or something more attractive. Most of the time, even when we bury utilities, we leave the traffic lights suspended from wires.

 

Also, I think cobra head lighting simply does not belong in urban environments. It's fine for above highways -- not city streets.

Yeah that same comment was made about traffic lights. The guy from Germany actually mentioned how uncomfortable they made him if it was at all windy out since they flop around aimlessly in a slight breeze.

 

Our utility infrastructure is far behind most of our peers. Peers that have significantly more urban environments than we do.

Agreed about the cobraheads.  Chicago is rather striking in that regard though.  As far as the traffic signals, that used to bother me but it doesn't so much anymore.  One thing you can say about the span wire setup is that it's about as visually unobtrusive as possible.  This is especially true with typical Ohio practice (if only Duke would follow suit).  There's minimal wires and they're wrapped tightly to one another which is very clean.  At least in the city they hang all the signals and signs so their bottoms align.  This allows a bottom tether to be installed where needed (and I think it should be standard practice honestly, to keep the signals from swinging around in the wind), which was done at I-71 and Dana because of some weird quirk of the terrain that causes strong winds to twist the signals around.  https://goo.gl/maps/DM6Kko3zGT82

 

Compare that to Kentucky with their loose hangar wires and generally sloppy install (gross!) https://goo.gl/maps/ChXRsh6aF9y

 

Or Indiana and their over-engineered catenary.  https://goo.gl/maps/bDpjhZ9nNKv 

 

That said, mast arms and truss arms can get to be pretty massive especially at large intersections.  I don't think that's an improvement necessarily.  https://goo.gl/maps/EhcqwVToC9y

^ That Kenwood Road truss arm is massive, and likely very expensive. I can't even imagine what the moment is on that thing, or how deep that foundation pier must be.

 

I was recently in Taiwan and was impressed by their complete lack of signaling. Some intersections don't even have signage at all. People just drive up to them and slowly drive through them, and somehow everything works out. People are much more careful when there's nothing to provide a sense of security.

 

https://goo.gl/maps/4dgJdQRLRVn

I heard a visitor from Korea remark not only about the overhead power lines in Cincinnati, but how our traffic lights dangle from wires rather than being properly mounted on an arm or something more attractive. Most of the time, even when we bury utilities, we leave the traffic lights suspended from wires.

 

Also, I think cobra head lighting simply does not belong in urban environments. It's fine for above highways -- not city streets.

 

I had never seen wired hanging traffic lights until I moved to Cincinnati.  The three friends from CA that I've had visited all mentioned it almost instantly. 

It all depends on where you grew up.  Span wires are the norm east of the Mississippi River (with the exception of Wisconsin and Illinois), and mast arms everywhere else, but with many installation varieties.  Cincinnati and Dayton's signal color scheme (black bodies, black visors, and yellow doors) is actually unique to southwest Ohio.  Go figure.  The move is towards mast arms in general, but they are quite a bit more expensive.  Here's a spreadsheet I got some 8 years ago (not sure where) that gives a good outline of typical state practice. 

UO is turning into AARoads

Nerds of the world unite! 

Not development but...

 

City Council extends development controls in this Uptown neighborhood

 

 

The Cincinnati City Council on Wednesday unanimously extended special controls it has placed on development in the Clifton Heights-University Heights-Fairview neighborhood.

 

The city is contemplating a major zoning overhaul in the area, which has seen tensions between longtime residents and developers looking to build housing and commercial structures driven by the considerable presence of University of Cincinnati students.

 

More below:

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2016/04/06/city-council-extends-development-controls-in-this.html

So basically, down-zoning to prevent construction and driving more apartment rentals into the illegal underground market.  Not surprising Flynn would support such things too. 

None of this can be trusted.  Cranley is looking to devalue these homes so that a developer can come in and buy them up cheap and tear them down.  They might use parking as their tool.  For example, a house without off-street parking might only be permitted to have two adult inhabitants in order to reduce the number of cars seeking to park on the street.  Only being able to rent a 3 or 4-bedroom house to 2 adults dramatically lowers the value of the house. 

Can you even implement that at all though? That doesn't sound like it would have any legal backing since none of the homes in CUF require on site parking by code. And zoning isn't going to change to suddenly require a bunch of parking and even if it did you can't restrict existing properties based on new code.

 

It's all questionable, but the fear of restricting already-legal properties isn't one I have.

It seems ridiculous.  I mean, are they trying to push development to Corryville?  That's what it sounds like.  This is a bustling area of the city, of course it will be difficult to find parking.

Cranley sounds like Cobra Commander in that last quote where he's praising Flynn for agreeing with him. Like,"Yessssssssss, excellent thinking, Zartan."

This was initially adopted due to the communities reaction to demolition of Christy's and Clifton Natural Foods for the Verge on Clifton and McMillan. Community members wanted pushed for a form-based code at the time.

CUF is one of the best-preserved historic areas in the city.  I would support a moratorium on the replacement of any residential property with a higher-density residential structure.  For example, a 3-bedroom house can only be replaced by a new 3-bedroom structure.  That gets the developers out of the area.  That does not address the shoddy character of so many homes, which is caused by highly leveraged landlords and/or accidental landlords (like ex-wives). 

 

There is plenty of space for more UC rentals along Calhoun and McMillan and on other under-utilized sites like the CinFed credit union or whatever that is at Auburn.  And of course redevelopment of University Plaza with zero residential was just stupid. 

 

Don't forget the old deaconness site, which IMO should be upzoned to allow for more student housing as to take pressure off of further neighborhood encroachment.

The Deaconess site could house hundreds of students. It would be a great area for a lot of high density housing. Hopefully that's what comes of it.

New development 75M coming to Corryville,Clifton heights,Mt. Auburn intersection:

http://m.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2016/04/14/75m-mixed-use-project-planned-for-uptown.html

 

 

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Are they tearing down Mole's Records?

Big news coming on the former McDonalds/ Primetime site.  Tall and new to the area.

 

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2016/04/14/75m-mixed-use-project-planned-for-uptown.html

 

Took a lot longer than I thought for this to break.

From the rendering it looks like it is all before Scioto St, so I don't think so.

There's no way that building is within zoning height limits, is there?

No you can see on the rendering that there is more "stuff" planned on the current gravel parking lot.  There are a few derelict homes still standing on the north side of McMillan there.  And then Mole's and the various hookah bars are there on the south side of Calhoun.  That chunk of old buildings is in real danger of disappearing and being replaced by more low-quality midrise apartments. 

I like that.

I'm not holding out hope for the materials of the apartment building, but I like the site plan and the general look of the hotel.

 

My biggest concern with this site was always getting street frontage along both Calhoun and McMillan and this has it so I'm happy in that regard.

 

I also like the integration of the bus stop into the hotel entrance area.

 

It appears this definitely takes over that gravel lot but stops short of any of the existing historic buildings.

 

Also, thank god the parking is underground...

Very interesting. I like that they're going to to deliberately target a non-student demographic since that will add more balance to the community:

 

The residential space is planned to include more than 130 apartments catering to the 55 and older active adult community. Ealy said adding that segment to the area will help, especially in months when college students leave for break.

“That 55 and older group helps stabilize the community,” Ealy said.

Gateway to Uptown is planned with 17,000 square feet of street-level retail with a goal of including unique restaurants. The underground parking garage will have between 350 and 400 parking spaces.

In addition, Gateway to Uptown is planned with an event center with space for 500 people. Other amenities of the project will include rooftop spaces for residents and hotel guests with a rooftop bar that will offer views of the city.