I find it fascinating that young professionals under 30 can pay $600k for a townhome. I know east coast cities command those prices but how on earth do they generate any savings. I know I sound like jmecklenborg[/member] , but it fascinates me.

 

How do you know the purchasers are under 30?

^ I had a renter on a property I owed at one time. SHe was new to the area from Florida and never held a real job before. She drove a brand new Lexus and a pedigree dog and expensive tastes in every area. She had a decent job at Medpace, but even with a masters and no experience, she easily spent everything she took in, plus her $1000 month rent. Just doing the math, I was like, you can afford the place fine, but your lifestyle wont leave you much room to move up to bigger, nicer places down the line. Of course I did not take into account she could be promoted and earn more which could change things, but I have always taken a cautious view on earnings potential through the years. Never know when a crash will come and you need to be ready.

I find it fascinating that young professionals under 30 can pay $600k for a townhome. I know east coast cities command those prices but how on earth do they generate any savings. I know I sound like jmecklenborg[/member] , but it fascinates me.

 

How do you know the purchasers are under 30?

 

They made a comment on the radio that they had a lot of interest from  young professionals coming in from out of town who are interested in the area and work at Med Pace.

The demand for walkable urbanity in Cincinnati is through the roof. The sooner that more developers get this through their heads and start building what the people want, the better off we will be.

 

Through the roof...on the east side, primarily.  8 years after the housing crash we've still seen virtually zero investment almost anywhere west of I-71 with the exception of Northside.  All sorts of areas like Norwood and St. Bernard and Avondale and parts of Price Hill and Western Hills are as walkable as any of the east side neighborhoods.  Also, "walkability" on the east side seems to mean just walking distance to bars and restaurants, not to daily tasks like a dry cleaner, bank, grocery store, etc. 

 

 

The 1st Bank of Mom and Dad often has very favorable terms.

 

My cousin's house (one of the famous painted lady houses from the 1860s) has been on the market in white-hot Columbia-Tusculum for 5 or 6 weeks with no offers.  The problem?  It's half the price of the brand-new $600k yuppie boxes.  I suspect that if she jacked the price $100k she'd have more interest. 

Yeah, that's how it was for me. I did walk to Hyde Park Plaza quite a few times. It was more time-consuming than I'd like though.

The demand for walkable urbanity in Cincinnati is through the roof. The sooner that more developers get this through their heads and start building what the people want, the better off we will be.

 

Through the roof...on the east side, primarily.  8 years after the housing crash we've still seen virtually zero investment almost anywhere west of I-71 with the exception of Northside.  All sorts of areas like Norwood and St. Bernard and Avondale and parts of Price Hill and Western Hills are as walkable as any of the east side neighborhoods.  Also, "walkability" on the east side seems to mean just walking distance to bars and restaurants, not to daily tasks like a dry cleaner, bank, grocery store, etc. 

 

 

 

This is why it's such a shame that Center of Cincinnati and Oakley Station were built as strip malls straight outta Mason. If they would've just modified the site plan to put the building in front and parking in the back, demand for apartments/condos in that area would be huge. And maybe they'd get some more interesting tenants than Olive Garden and Bar Louie.

One of my buddies has purchased on of these units. He's moving here from Centerville (from Dayton). He's a finacial planner and will continue to work/commute to Centerville. He fell in love with Oakely after I had my wedding at St. Cecilia/20th Century. He definitely isn't living off of his parents money - he's a REALLY hard working dude that happened to make some good decisions with some good connections and now has earned at an early age to buy one of these.  I think it's phenominal that he loves Cincy that much that he's willing to commute.

 

 

Those look nice to me.  Has anything moved forward with that larger development that was mostly opposed by Oakley?  Sorry, forgot the name?  I think it ended up passing but with a lot of concessions?

 

Then that project in Hyde Park which will be a lot of apartments, there will be added density in Hyde Park / Oakley area, will be interesting how it unfolds with development along the Wasson Way, too.

This is why it's such a shame that Center of Cincinnati and Oakley Station were built as strip malls straight outta Mason. If they would've just modified the site plan to put the building in front and parking in the back, demand for apartments/condos in that area would be huge. And maybe they'd get some more interesting tenants than Olive Garden and Bar Louie.

 

Center of Cincinnati/Oakley Station are disasters.  There is some residential but it's not very nice (expensive, but not nice) and the commercial space inevitably competes with all of the traditional storefront retail in the area.  What's more, the whole thing has snarled traffic and is ugly. 

 

Imagine the difference if instead there had been a small amount of housing over retail along Madison, 200-300 apartment units, but primarily an area of new single-family homes on relatively small lots.  Like 30x90 lots.  Could have really competed with suburban housing and helped bolster Cincinnati Public Schools. 

 

Prominent Oakley site sold from one developer to another

 

A prominent corner in Oakley has been sold from one real estate developer to another.

 

PLK Communities LLC, which is just wrapping up construction of its 2940 at the Square townhome project on Markbreit Avenue, purchased a two-thirds of an acre site from Fortus Group for $1.15 million. Fortus had purchased the property in October 2016 for $1.1 million.

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2017/08/16/exclusive-prominent-oakley-site-sold-from-one.html

This is why it's such a shame that Center of Cincinnati and Oakley Station were built as strip malls straight outta Mason. If they would've just modified the site plan to put the building in front and parking in the back, demand for apartments/condos in that area would be huge. And maybe they'd get some more interesting tenants than Olive Garden and Bar Louie.

 

Oakley is one of those middle grounds, where most people want a community that's "walkable" but Olive Garden and Bar Louie are the types of places they want to walk to.

Most of Oakley is old school residents and children of old school residents. They are not represented by the recent developments on Vandercar. They are not looking for Olive Garden, it is not their choice, Habits or Oakley Pub is. More of them eat at Skyline, Baba and Subway than elsewhere. Oakley has everything a neighborhood needs without the boxes at Oakley Station. The people who live at Oakley Station have come to Oakley a minute ago and will move back to Mason or West Chester when the novelty wears off or their apartment looks drab. It is a scientific fact: no one has ever relocated from Minot Ave. to Vandercar Way. Where they come from no one knows. But there aren't very many of them as a % of Oakley's 10,000 souls.

It is a shame that they couldn't have done Center of Cincinnati in a much different way, like what Jake described.  That would have been huge for Cincy to have a very high quality, single family yet still dense neighborhood in that area with commercial lining Madison and possible another road there.

 

Alas, that never happened, but hopefully they can continue to densify what is Center of Cincinnati as time moves forward.

The upside of terrible suburban shopping plazas is that nothing is built to last. In 30 years we will have the opportunity to redevelop Center of Cincinnati and Oakley Station again, and hopefully we do it right.

^Yes, another one I was disappointed in was the Mercy Health building off Norwood in Bond Hill.  It seemed like it could have been so much better, just a sea of parking in front of the building which seems to me to back up to the residential housing behind it.  Maybe at some point they can build that area up with parking ramps on the surface parking, etc., but it is just unfortunate that they obviously took the very cheapest route to build it.

 

Reading about Paycor and their explosive growth, if they decide to build a new building to complement their growth, I hope it is nice and tall and a bit more pedestrian friendly as well.

It's amazing how well the original rapid transit loop anticipated all of this.  Stations would have been within walking distance of Rookwood, Paycor, Oakley Station, etc. 

Not sure if this is the whole story, but it looks like Tap & Screw is not going to be going into Oakley, due to an inability to get a 4-spot parking variance:

 

They have been fighting the community council and city for months to try to get that number reduced. We really need to designate no parking requirements for developments in Neighborhood Business Districts unless the parking demand is 2X that required by regular zoning code. Then only require half of what's typically required (or some formula like that).

The fact that we have parking requirements for bars and breweries is absurd. It's practically begging people to drink and drive.

It looks as if there were multiple factors at play here...but with the advent of Uber/Lyft many people simply do not drive when they go to drinking establishments. And a single digit difference in the 'required' number of spaces and not being able to overcome that is absurd. You had people ready to invest money and start a business in a building that has been empty for something like 8 years and it gets denied over outdated zoning.

Maybe they wanted them to put in a drive thru, too

RE: Tap & Screw not going into Oakley…

I’ve attended almost every Oakley Community Council meeting in the past 2 ½ yrs.  Over a year ago, the OCC voted to support the City granting a parking variance for the few parking slots that T&S’s plan fell short of the min reqd spaces.  At an OCC meeting shortly thereafter, a few local business owners (or their lawyers) very forcefully spoke against “ever” allowing T&S to come into the building they had taken a lease on many months earlier to prepare/alter to get opened.  Most (maybe all) of those objectors had acquired variances of greater impact or were grandfathered in before zoning code required min amt of parking.  Also, the landlord from whom T&S took lease did not fix infrastructure problems, including a busted HVAC system and leaking roof.  All residents of Oakley who spoke at OCC mtgs or posted on Oakley NextDoor most enthusiastically support T&S opening at that location.  After meeting with the zoning staff multiple times, the zoning staff told T&S owners that they had a green light.  But, later they threw up roadblocks.  It is widely believed by most Oakley residents and by T&S owners that the deep pockets of some of the objectors pulled strings to cause the zoning staff to throw up roadblocks.

3 groups submit for Oakley property

 

 

Three development groups have submitted proposals for a 4.2-acre property in Oakley.

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2017/12/18/exclusive-3-groups-submit-for-oakley-property.html

Such an awkward parcel of land. That stretch of Kennedy Avenue doesn't feel like a street, it feels like part of the highway onramps.

Does anyone have any idea what is going on in the southwest corner of Ridge and Ibsen? I have noticed they cleared all of the trees out of the plot of land.

^At one point that parcel (sw corner of Isben and Ridge) was going to be a Crunch Fitness. Not sure if that’s still the case.

^At one point that parcel (sw corner of Isben and Ridge) was going to be a Crunch Fitness. Not sure if that’s still the case.

 

Correct. 

Latest Planning Commission packet: https://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/planning/about-city-planning/city-planning-commission/jun-1-2018-packet/

 

Show that developers are requesting a change to the site plan to allow for another drive-thru (for a Smoothie King) at the corner of Vandercar and Marburg.

 

So sad to think of what this huge swath of land could have become if a proper site plan had been put in place and followed, instead of just letting it devolve into a standard suburban layout prioritizing cars over all other modes.

That pisses me off, why couldn't smoothie king just stay in Hyde Park plaza where it's been forever? Agree that the whole development sucks compared to what it should have been with the original plan. It honestly is more dense than I expected though overall.

Our next crack at fixing the mistakes of Oakley Station will be 40 years from now! Maybe 20 if we are lucky.

As a member of crunch I love that crunch is building in Oakley. It’s alot closer to me than kenwood, but what do you think of having three different gyms ( crunch, la fitness, planet fitness)? Is that too much saturation?

If they start shutting down, it is

Speaking of an abundance of gyms in Oakley, the latest Planning Commission packet talks about the land just north of the railroad tracks and east of Ridge, being sold by CSX to Climb Time to build a climbing gym. I suspect Climb Time will do well here, since the other climbing gyms in the area are much further north.

 

 

I wonder if Climb Time will incorporate the existing, open-air structure. If it's structurally stable, it could make for a neat space for outdoor climbing.

 

 

Here's the location: http://wedge3.hcauditor.org/view/re/051-0002-0263-00/2017/aerial_imagery_full

 

 

Here's the Planning Commission packet: https://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/planning/about-city-planning/city-planning-commission/jul-6-2018-packet/

 

 

 

 

Luxury townhomes coming to heart of Oakley

 

 

A new luxury townhome development is coming to the heart of Oakley.

 

The Allora on Madison is a 19-unit luxury townhome development that will be built at the corner of Taylor Avenue and Madison Road.

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2018/09/05/exclusive-luxury-townhomes-coming-to-heart-of.html

 

Luxury townhomes coming to heart of Oakley

 

 

A new luxury townhome development is coming to the heart of Oakley.

 

The Allora on Madison is a 19-unit luxury townhome development that will be built at the corner of Taylor Avenue and Madison Road.

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2018/09/05/exclusive-luxury-townhomes-coming-to-heart-of.html

 

 

Wow, prominent location along Madison Ave, and we have this ho hum design that doesn't reflect the surrounding neighborhood program. Single family townhomes dont exist through this stretch of Oakley. There should have been lease able space on the ground floor. Well NIMBY got what they wanted, could have been a great addition to the neighborhood. It looks cheap in the rendering i can only imagine after pricing comes back and value engineering plays a part what the final product will truly look like.

is this the old 5/3 branch footprint?

is this the old 5/3 branch footprint?

 

Yes. Was there on Monday for brunch and it's already fenced off.

Agreed - the amount of push-back on the previous proposals was entirely nimby driven using the "think of the children and the church and the parking" even though there were more spaces in the garage than residential units. And would have added public parking for the retail space. So now we are stuck with this for a generation.

Fortus was going to build 83 units, now we get 19.

 

64 units lost. ?‍♂️

Terrible project. I hope it doesn't come to fruition.

Drove by today. The old bank has been demolished. There is a banner on the fencing around the site showing the project rendering. My guess it this will get built.

Sams Club has been bought and the front of building is starting to be demolished. I can't find a specific link but everything I've seen is that it will be an At Home store. 

https://www.athome.com/

43 minutes ago, cincydave8 said:

Sams Club has been bought and the front of building is starting to be demolished. I can't find a specific link but everything I've seen is that it will be an At Home store. 

https://www.athome.com/

Finally building a home store on the East side. Hate having to drive up to Springdale to go to this. 

1 hour ago, cincydave8 said:

Sams Club has been bought and the front of building is starting to be demolished. I can't find a specific link but everything I've seen is that it will be an At Home store. 

https://www.athome.com/

 Yes, you are correct, they are putting an At Home in both the old Oakley and Loveland Sams Club locations. 

A Tesla Supercharger is being installed at the Center of Cincinnati in the Meijer parking lot.

Those things are apparently really expensive because the utility company has to run a 440V line, or something like that. 

277/480 volt (and various close permutations depending on wye vs delta transformers, etc.) is a very common commercial electric service.  Volts don't really matter though, it's amps, and superchargers need a lot of amps.  That's easier to deliver at higher voltage because it allows thinner wires. 

A building like a Meijer should already have that.

16 minutes ago, GCrites80s said:

A building like a Meijer should already have that.

 

For what?  Are they powering an underwater electric fence to keep Asian carp out of Duck Creek? 

Edited November 7, 20186 yr by jmecklenborg