Good to hear. This tower is going to be pretty dominant on the east side of Downtown and isn't just a typical glass box like most 21st century residential buildings. We need about a dozen more of these though.

I'm excited about the depth to the skyline that will be added by this building.  I love the density of our skyline, but the vast majority of our skyscrapers are clustered in along 3rd, 4th, and 5th streets.  The northern half of the CBD has some isolated skyscrapers like the Kroger building, URS (7th and Walnut), and 600 Vine, but for the most part it is mid-rises, low rises such as what is found on Court Street, and an unfortunate amount of surface parking.  If we can get some more  high rise residential built on some of the parking lots in this part of downtown, it will really make the city seem larger, and help heighten the contrast between downtown and OTR.

If we got a tower of at least the height of Carew on the 4th/Plum lot and then filled in a bunch of the lots by Central Parkway and utilized the mess of lots down by Eggleston even slightly our skyline would look significantly larger.

A coworker and I were walking through Smale at lunch earlier in the week, looking at the skyline, and he opined that there is a city ordinance stating that no building can be taller than Carew. Great American got around it because it is down on 3rd St.

 

Anyone know if that ordinance part is true?

It is not. It's one of those old wives' tales of Cincinnati. The pinnacle of Great American is higher above sea level than the pinnacle of Carew just for reference.

How tall in feet will this building be? I can't remember.

275'-300'. So pretty tall.

If we got a tower of at least the height of Carew on the 4th/Plum lot and then filled in a bunch of the lots by Central Parkway and utilized the mess of lots down by Eggleston even slightly our skyline would look significantly larger.

 

What would you say are the worst surface lots in CBD?

Everything along Central Parkway because they're not only large but also create a barrier between the CBD and OTR.

 

The others are the ones I mentioned around Eggleston. If you draw a triangle bound by Broadway, Eggleston, and the river and compare the area of all the surface lots in that spot to, say, the False Creek developments in Vancouver it becomes obvious we have room for literally tens of thousands of residential units if we're smart about how and where we build.

In terms of sheer size, I agree that the lots down by Eggleston present a huge opportunity for development. But in terms of impact on downtown, those lots are pretty insignificant. They're on the periphery of downtown, are sunken below the grade of much of the CBD, and are bounded by the mess of 71, 471, and Columbia Parkway.

 

I think the worst surface lots in the CBD are the lots around Walnut and Central Parkway, the lots at 7th and Sycamore, 4th and Plum, and the whole mess of lots in the extreme NW part of the CBD (just north of City Hall). I also think the parking lots along 12th and 13th and Sycamore in OTR are particularly bad as well.

 

*edit: 7th and Vine is also pretty bad.

The various lots north of City Hall make that side of downtown feel dead. It would be cool, rather than seeing a huge tower over there, to see some Banks-scale development on those lots. It would be better to build the huge towers at Central & Walnut, Court & Walnut, 8th & Sycamore, and 7th & Sycamore.

If you go into sketchup, geo-sync your drawing with the lots along Eggleston and out to the river and start plopping in actual residential skyscrapers you start to realize just how big those lots actually are. They appear like they're in a super tangled mess of highway stuff, but in reality there are only a handful of moments where something passes overhead. The highway infrastructure mostly misses the lots west of Eggleston. It might be sunken but it could be a cool new neighborhood.

 

The lots in the NW of Downtown offer the opportunity for stuff in the 5-15 story range. Stuff similar to what's happening in, say, Mission Bay in SF (though hopefully less sterile). That whole area is surprisingly large and has absolutely no life at all right now.

^^Agreed. There is so much ground to cover in that area, so it would make more sense to fill it in with mid-rise development rather than high rises.  I've heard that St. Xavier church has 0 plans to sell their lot for development, and given the minor addition and paint job the church just received, it doesn't look like they'll be changing their mind about that any time soon.  Realistically, I think 8th and Sycamore would be the easiest place to put the next high-rise residential tower.  With the large city-owned garage going up across the street, one would think that spaces could be secured for tenants in the new building as well, especially if it is also developed by 3CDC.  Perhaps not eliminating the need for any new parking, but significantly reducing the amount that would be required otherwise.  Also, the streetcar would only be a block away.

^ yes. I think that corner should be four or five 6-8 story buildings. It would do well with a very neighborhood scale development.

St. Xavier church does not own that lot, the high school does.  In the 90s, when there were several announced plans for apartment buildings on the property, it was known that the lot generated $300,000 annually for the school, and that any development needed to replace that income in perpetuity.  This sort of situation is very common in New York City and other big cities but the real estate market in Cincinnati isn't strong enough to enable construction on that lot. 

I'd love to see Central Parkway lined with buildings as tall as the ones along Park Ave in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, but with a pedestrian experience more like Commonwealth Ave in Boston's Back Bay. So, 8-12 story buildings but a wide grassy median for walking with lots of benches. We could go full imitation and add a half dozen statues to the median as well. Famous Cincinnatians or something.

How tall in feet will this building be? I can't remember.

 

According to the latest City Planning Commission packet, the building will top out at 228 ft.  6 stories of garage, 11 stories of residential on top, and apartment units flanking the western side of the garage as well, plus ground floor retail.  I'm a little disappointed in the height, but it will still be a good development, especially taken in conjunction with the Holiday Inn that will block the eastern side of the garage and hopefully give a little life to that far east side of 7th st.

 

http://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/planning/about-city-planning/city-planning-commission/aug-21-2015-packet/

That's a little shorter than originally stated, but only by a few stories. The tower dropped from 14 stories to 11 and everything else sounds like it stayed the same. This places it at about 25' taller than the 7th and Broadway project which is not quite as exciting as the original massing model that was 300' tall but still adds a lot of height to an area that doesn't have it.

 

And more importantly, the residential wrap of the Sycamore Street side remains. Height is nice, but 50-75 feet isn't going to make a huge difference in how nice of an addition this will be.

Yes.  Biggest thing is this fills some very underutilized blocks in a part of CBD that has many underutilized blocks.  Losing 75' of height takes it from substantial to notable in terms of effect on the skyline.  Either way, if you look at the site and imagine you can see the project is pretty massive.

It's like taking the 7th and Broadway building and adding 2.5 more floors to the top of its mechanical room (which stands about 15 feet higher than the roof of the building). Definitely going to add to the skyline, just not substantially in terms of height.

 

Its location though will definitely make it stand out. As you pointed out Rabbit Hash, this side of Downtown doesn't make the best use of its land so something taller than 5-7 stories is by nature going to draw attention to itself. And it will pull the skyline northward when looking at it from Mt. Adams and coming into Downtown on Columbia Parkway.

Popping this into Google Earth, 228' will not have an impact on the skyline from any vantage point except the downtown approach ramps at the base of Mt. Adams. A project notable for adding units to downtown, but not a skyline changer at all.

Popping this into Google Earth, 228' will not have an impact on the skyline from any vantage point except the downtown approach ramps at the base of Mt. Adams. A project notable for adding units to downtown, but not a skyline changer at all.

 

That's a real shame. Even though skyline impact is kind of a "vanity" concern, it still would have been nice to have a taller building to help stretch the skyline in the N-S plane. I wish they could just tack on 3 more floors to bring the total to 20, thus increasing the number of units and augmenting the verticality of the building a bit.

One would think economies of scale would play out in favor of a taller building? I wonder what technical trade-off they tan into that caused them to limit the height of the building.

Money. Every additional level you build gets more and more expensive. 2 or 3 levels may seem like it shouldn't make a huge difference, but when you're already up there in height it definitely does. This height is most likely what they determined was the most reasonable number of stories to fit the maximum number of units at a price point they felt the market could bare.

 

Tall buildings are extremely expensive. Even with the success of our core they're still very risky endeavors. A lot of collaboration necessary and the necessity for a decade or more of steady success is needed to make them plausible financially and even then lenders are still hesitant for smaller cities that haven't had long-term success yet.

 

We'll likely get some tall residential buildings in more prime locations within the coming years, but a building of this height in this spot is actually quite impressive as it is. And will add a lot to the CBD.

Port Authority advances a major downtown Cincinnati apartment project

Oct 14, 2015, 10:05am EDT

Chris Wetterich Staff reporter and columnist Cincinnati Business Courier

 

 

The apartment project at Eighth and Sycamore streets got a boost on Wednesday when the Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority agreed to take ownership over some of the parcels at the site, reducing the project’s costs.

 

The port will own and lease back the site of the 150-unit apartment tower to North American Properties and its partners in the project. The port’s role is key because as a government agency involved in development, it does not have to pay sales taxes on construction materials.

 

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2015/10/14/port-authority-advances-a-major-downtown.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+bizj_cincinnati+%28Business+Courier+of+Cincinnati%29

Awesome.  Big-time welfare for this project's wealthy investors. 

That last sentence is intriguing, "There is more in the pipeline"

 

I guess perhaps those rumors on here about a few new condo towers being announced next year from an Indy developer might hold some weight...

Too bad a decrease in the cost of construction can't equate into an increase in size or quality at this stage of the game.

It did reduce the subsidy cost though which means the city has some funds to throw at another downtown project.

 

I don't see condo towers right now. Its still too difficult to finance and there will be lag time to get enough presales. Maybe something smaller scale but if it is small scale like townhomes or something, it doesn't belong downtown.

New downtown development should be future-proofed. Apartments should be built in a way that they can be easily converted to condos at a future date. Parking garages should be built with flat floors so that they can be converted to more productive uses in the future (as was done with Dunnhumby).

It doesn't look like any portion of this parking garage will be underground. Seems like a wasted opportunity, although I guess it will result in the final building being taller...

 

Taller and significantly cheaper.

^^ I would say you are unfortunately correct. Probably less expensive for the developer to do it that way. I'm happy about a taller building, but I think I would rather have a more hidden garage (both underground and because the apartments would be closer to the street), all things being equal

True, but at least this garage will be wrapped on Sycamore by residential units so it won't seem quite as garage-y.

I'm a little unclear on the design aspects. The Sycamore side is supposed to be all apartments, with ground floor commercial? 7th and 8th St sides will have garage poking out?

Yeah. Basically the garage is a rectangle that fronts 7th and 8th and stops short of Sycamore by some distance. That will be filled in with residential and the tower will be above the entire thing along the 8th side of the building.

The crane is up for this development. It's useful in that the current height of the crane is a pretty damn close approximation of the height of the building. It gives a good sense of the scale and how well it will add some height to that spot.

We need a pic of that crane, man!

Ask and ye shall...

 

Hard to gauge but that is pretty tall.  I suppose they won't jack it up and add anymore sections...that is the full height.

Based on the numbers given this building will wind up being about three stories taller than the top of the mechanical penthouse on Seven At Broadway. So about 5 or so stories above the top floor of that building. That would place this building's roof more or less at the maximum height that crane could lift something in its current setup.

Builder selected for $45M downtown Cincinnati apartment project

Dec 23, 2015, 10:42am EST

Tom Demeropolis

Senior Staff Reporter

Cincinnati Business Courier

 

 

The developers of the Eighth and Sycamore project selected a general contractor to build a 12-story apartment tower above a 500-space parking garage.

 

Al Neyer, a downtown-based design-build contractor, will build 133 apartments atop the garage at Eighth and Sycamore streets in downtown Cincinnati. The project reunites the team that worked on the wildly successful Seven at Broadway project.

 

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2015/12/23/builder-selected-for-45m-downtown-cincinnati.html

There's no way that crane is only 140' tall. The surrounding buildings don't support that number.

 

Somewhat unrelated, but is there ground floor retail going into the new Holiday Inn as well?

I don't believe so. I think it's all just space for the hotel.

Taken from Mt. Adams today. To help with the visual of the height.

 

That's gonna be a big parking garage!  :-D

So is this tower only going to be 140'?  I thought it was going to be higher?  The reason I ask is because on the 3CDC website it lists the project as 131 units at $51 million for the tower portion and the crane is at 140'.

No, it's going to be around 225'-250' tall depending on a few things. I'm not sure where the 140' figure they use comes from. Seven at Broadway is about 3/4 the height of the crane which would make it only around 7'-0" floor-to-floor if that crane is only 140' tall which obviously isn't correct.

 

The only information I can find regarding the height of Seven at Broadway puts its tip at 201.84' above ground. That would make the crane around 270ish feet tall which looks about right and would make sense for a building that's 225'-250' tall.