Maybe this will have them reconsider or ditch the music venue 

19 minutes ago, tonyt3524 said:

Maybe this will have them reconsider or ditch the music venue 

I thought the "music venue" was more of an open flex entertainment space. Not specifically for concerts, but could still be used as such?

 

Also, is it just me, but it seems like music venues are almost becoming like car washes. They seem to be popping up on every corner and part of every new development. Drive down a suburban street and find a car wash. Drive down an urban ave and find a music venue.

Edited January 30, 20241 yr by Brutus_buckeye

11 minutes ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

I thought the "music venue" was more of an open flex entertainment space. Not specifically for concerts, but could still be used as such?

 

Also, is it just me, but it seems like music venues are almost becoming like car washes. They seem to be popping up on every corner and part of every new development. Drive down a suburban street and find a car wash. Drive down an urban ave and find a music venue.

 

Yeah you're probably right, I remember reading concert venue but looks like the actual plans say "entertainment space". 

 

It sucks for places like Bogarts (I know it's smaller) when you plan to have 4+ venues with a smaller capacity. 

1 hour ago, tonyt3524 said:

Maybe this will have them reconsider or ditch the music venue 

I would much rather them move the venue to the next phase or decrease the amount of office space rather than take off floors from the hotel or apartment portion. 

 

I'd like to see them add more residential. This is just posturing to get some tax breaks. They'll make a killing off this development regardless.

Here's the full scoring sheet for the latest TMUD round. Looks like the FCC development was pretty close but suffered from lack of payroll and taxes generated.

Edited January 31, 20241 yr by dnymck

1 hour ago, dnymck said:

Here's the full scoring sheet for the latest TMUD round. Looks like the FCC development was pretty close but suffered from lack of payroll and taxes generated.

I’m more baffled that the Gallery at Kenwood scored higher than FC. 

33 minutes ago, Ucgrad2015 said:

I’m more baffled that the Gallery at Kenwood scored higher than FC. 

 

Also it seems like Carew left money on the table...

12 minutes ago, Miami-Erie said:

 

Also it seems like Carew left money on the table...

Yupp as I said before Carew Tower could get any and all the grants/tax breaks it wanted to be re developed. It’s big, historic, iconic and is in a premiere location. But I’m happy they didn’t get greedy, get what you need and leave the rest for others.

Answers in Genesis buys two Cincinnati properties for $2 million

 

The religious organization behind the Ark Encounter and the Creation Museum has purchased a pair of adjacent properties in Cincinnati.

 

Answers in Genesis, a fundamentalist Christian parachurch group, bought the properties on Western Avenue in the West End, just south of Union Terminal, in early March, according to Hamilton County Auditor records.

 

The building at 1105 Western Ave. is around 12,700 square feet on nearly an acre of land. The building at 1155 Western Ave. is around 8,100 square feet on 0.3 acres of land.

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2024/03/08/creation-museum-ark-encounter-property-purchase.html

 

I anxiously await whatever embarrassment AiG has in store for the West End. They already have two embarrassing tourist traps in NKY.

i heard thru the "true vine" that AiG is not only going to bring back the marsupial tiger, but they they will attempt to bring back the marsupial unicorn, too.

New apartment building opens in Cincinnati's West End neighborhood

 

A new 62-unit apartment building is open in the West End, which will allow another set of Over-the-Rhine apartments owned by the same entity to be redeveloped.

 

Tender Mercies, a nonprofit, officially opened Slater Hall Tuesday, March 12, with 62 units of permanent supportive housing. In turn, the 55 dorm-style units in Tender Mercies’ properties on 12th Street in Over-the-Rhine will be redeveloped into 30 efficiency apartment units that will also serve as permanent supportive housing.

 

The 30 residents of 12th Street relocated to Slater Hall, at 898 W. Court St., in January. Overall, Tender Mercies oversees 205 housing units.

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2024/03/13/new-apartment-building-opens-in-west-end.html

 

Anybody know what's going on with 1801 Baymiller? It was bought by somebody with an address in Texas in 2021. Recently they put OSB boards in the window openings. You can see in the photo, a guy was carefully painting each board. On the one hand, I appreciate that level of care. But on the other hand, I don't want those windows to stay boarded for long. Hoping there's a plan to get new windows installed and put this building back to use!

 

Google streetview from 2022 for the "before": https://www.google.com/maps/@39.1162259,-84.5293496,3a,75y,344.62h,94.85t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sJueZoxR406Pz9EZD7EfX2A!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu

 

 

looks like it's going to be a Kresge's

https://local12.com/news/local/dozens-of-new-homes-planned-for-the-west-end-cincinnati-ezzard-charles-laurel-park-housing-metropolitan-authority-tax-abatement#
 

More homes are going to be build in the City West development. 69 total in the next 5 years with the first 8 starting construction soon. Should be close to filling all the vacant land that City West currently has. 

Area circled in orange idk if they own that parcel or not. 

Edited May 8, 20241 yr by Ucgrad2015

I hope the orange circled parcel doesn't get developed with low density housing, if an east/west streetcar line from the museum to the casino gets built that would become prime real estate for a dense development. Good to see the missing teeth in City west get filled in though, with the more mature trees those streets are actually quite nice but the amount of space dedicated to off street parking on the overly wide alleys is still annoying. Personally I would rather narrow all those alleys and allow some parallel parking to give everyone a 15/20' deep back yard, but I doubt CMHA would ever do that. 

35 minutes ago, Ucgrad2015 said:

Area circled in orange idk if they own that parcel or not. 

That is owned by the Port now. It looks like they purchased it from St. Mark's last year, who split up their property to make it work.

38 minutes ago, Ucgrad2015 said:

Area circled in orange idk if they own that parcel or not. 

 

That parcel is owned by the Port. https://wedge.hcauditor.org/view/re/1420004001400/2024/summary

 

You can turn on "Owner Name" on CAGIS (https://cagis.hamilton-co.org/cagisonline/) to easily see the owner of each parcel:

I found a RFQ attachment by CMHA dated September 2022 dictating the final costs:
 

Quote

Marketing/Sales Strategy: Provide a sales strategy that will ensure a timely sale of all homes in this area, with at least 5% to 10% of units set aside for households with incomes between 80% and 120% of Area Median Income for a family of four. One of the units should be set aside as a model unit for sales purposes, with the model unit sold at the very end of the sale process.

 

22 hours ago, Ucgrad2015 said:

 Should be close to filling all the vacant land that City West currently has.

 

I believe that the last City West home was built in 2006.  So all of these lots have been vacant for...20 years.

 

 

3 hours ago, Lazarus said:

 

I believe that the last City West home was built in 2006.  So all of these lots have been vacant for...20 years.

 

 

It is crazy that it’s taken this long to develop the rest of the land. Wonder why.

It is crazy that it’s taken this long to develop the rest of the land. Wonder why.

 

the Great Recession, four years of stinky plus covid. lots of things..

On 5/9/2024 at 5:06 PM, Ucgrad2015 said:

It is crazy that it’s taken this long to develop the rest of the land. Wonder why.

 

The Hope VI program was cancelled under George Bush.  I have no idea how that changed the status of the undeveloped parcels - would have been a great thing for The Enquirer to investigate at some point over the past 18 years instead of endlessly harassing the streetcar.  It's crazy how these parcels made the news when FC Cincinnati preposterously promised to develop them, but then reporters STILL didn't follow up!

 

It's the sort of thing that illustrates just how dumb so many journalists have been in this town - does anyone think that some of The Enquirer's recent hard-hitting political reporters like Cindi Andrews ever just took a walk around town to get story ideas? 

 

 

Development group plans to complete City West with $34M townhomes project

 

A group of private developers plans to finish City West more than two decades after the mammoth project broke ground in Cincinnati’s West End neighborhood.

 

The $34 million project is expected to result in 69 new single-family townhomes, with the first eight starting construction in July and the last ones to be delivered by 2029.

 

The homes will be around 2,700 square feet with three bedrooms, three bathrooms, rooftop decks and private, two-car garages with direct rear access. The homes can be upgraded with elevators.

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2024/05/13/cincinnati-west-end-city-west-new-townhomes.html

Any news of the FC Cincinnati development? 
 

Excavation has already started on the land but I bet they wait to apply for state money again before any building occurs. 

For unknown reasons a collection of old metro buses is growing on Findlay St.:

12 hours ago, Lazarus said:

For unknown reasons a collection of old metro buses is growing on Findlay St.:

Replacement for the West End horse stable? https://www.google.com/maps/@39.1154384,-84.526396,3a,29.5y,177.43h,92.32t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1suJiHj2G1fN40rpkRd6_F-A!2e0!5s20140701T000000!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DuJiHj2G1fN40rpkRd6_F-A%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.share%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26yaw%3D177.42993765300704%26pitch%3D-2.318890211391789%26thumbfov%3D90!7i13312!8i6656?coh=205410&entry=ttu

Laure Quinlivan produced and shared this video on the new CityWest townhomes:

 

 

On 5/13/2024 at 9:49 PM, Cincy513 said:

Excavation has already started on the land but I bet they wait to apply for state money again before any building occurs. 

Are they just waiting for the TMUD credits or are there other state credits that they are applying for? This seems like a matter of when, not if in terms of the development. I’m wondering if they are unsuccessful to obtain more credits if they just decide to decrease the scope of the project.

I believe it is the TMUD credits they are after, they missed out on their first try but were up against the Carew Tower and other heavy hitters that made it difficult. I think they will get the credits this time around and if they do get it, which would be announced near the end of 2024, construction would start shortly afterwards by early 2025. There is a bunch of other related work going on now at the city, including watermain replacement work on Central Parkway, vacating of Wade Street and it's utilities along with Duke's utilities, and the Central Parkway redo which just got more funding and will be progressing soon. The FCC project is working closely with the city on the Central parkway project so it all blends together visually and so it all works together well from a stormwater/grading perspective.

 

I agree with you that it's a matter of when, not if, the development happens but it seems like a lot of it is in the city, state and utility company's control at this moment.

if we were building a new arena on Central Parkway right now, we could add a 4th professional team. With Caitlin Clark changing the WNBA, this would be a great time to get into that league. 

On 6/14/2024 at 2:21 PM, taestell said:

Laure Quinlivan produced and shared this video on the new CityWest townhomes:

 

 

 

Still no explanation as to why these vacant lots went untouched for 20 years. 

 

 

Wasn't CityWest originally counting on various federal funding sources that ended up getting eliminated during the George W. Bush administration? Then there was finally an announcement a few years ago that new homes were going to be built on the vacant lot on the south side of Ezzard Charles, but then the FCC stadium plan was announced and that vacant lot was instead used for the replacement CPS stadium.

1 minute ago, taestell said:

Wasn't CityWest originally counting on various federal funding sources that ended up getting eliminated during the George W. Bush administration?

 

Yes, but that was around 2004, with construction progressing to the point we see today around 2006. 

 

Then FCC Cincinnati around 2018 declared that THEY somehow were going to build affordable housing on the vacant lots on the north side of Ezzard Charles, but it was more likely the case that they knew that the wheels were finally turning and that they could successfully get people to think that they had something to do with it. 

 

I think that the development where the high school stadium is now was going to be handled by a private developer, but I might be wrong. 

 

With all of the trumpeting re: "the missing middle" from Pureval and the rest, the new plan appears to be entirely single-family housing.  New SFH's ought to be limited to infill lots, but there is plenty of space to build multifamilies in City West.  Everybody suddenly forgot about "connected communities". 

 

 

 

47 minutes ago, Lazarus said:

With all of the trumpeting re: "the missing middle" from Pureval and the rest, the new plan appears to be entirely single-family housing.  New SFH's ought to be limited to infill lots, but there is plenty of space to build multifamilies in City West.  Everybody suddenly forgot about "connected communities".

They are townhomes, which was one of the focus areas for Connected Communities, and is largely considered Missing Middle.
In any case, Connected Communities was not a dictate to only build Missing Middle. Detached Single Family is still legal to build.
  

46 minutes ago, Lazarus said:

Yes, but that was around 2004, with construction progressing to the point we see today around 2006.

The previous article from the Courier upthread disputes this pretty clearly:
 

Quote

But it did not finish. Congress phased out funding for the Hope VI block grants beginning in 2007.

 

The last attempt to develop City West came around the same time, when Drees Homes constructed 18 townhomes on lots near Laurel Park. But the Great Recession torpedoed that project, according to VanHuss, and CMHA has been sitting on the lots ever since.

 

28 minutes ago, Dev said:

 largely considered Missing Middle.
 

 

 

 

No it's not.  We hear endlessly about the urgent, crying need to outlaw supposedly "racist" single-family zoning, yet SFH's are also somehow "missing middle", and therefore "equitable", or whatever.   

 

The old public housing was multi-family and had little or no parking.  City West is single-family drive-to urbanism.  But if you squint it looks like OTR multi-families, which makes it "missing middle".   

 

1 hour ago, Lazarus said:

Then FCC Cincinnati around 2018 declared that THEY somehow were going to build affordable housing on the vacant lots on the north side of Ezzard Charles,

5 minutes ago, Lazarus said:

 

 

No it's not.  We hear endlessly about the urgent, crying need to outlaw supposedly "racist" single-family zoning, yet SFH's are also somehow "missing middle", and therefore "equitable", or whatever.   

 

The old public housing was multi-family and had little or no parking.  City West is single-family drive-to urbanism.  But if you squint it looks like OTR multi-families, which makes it "missing middle".   

 

 

The problem is not SFH. It is the giant lots they get put on and lack of business activity in their neighborhoods.

6 minutes ago, Lazarus said:

No it's not.  We hear endlessly about the urgent, crying need to outlaw supposedly "racist" single-family zoning, yet SFH's are also somehow "missing middle", and therefore "equitable", or whatever.   

 

The old public housing was multi-family and had little or no parking.  City West is single-family drive-to urbanism.  But if you squint it looks like OTR multi-families, which makes it "missing middle".

A Google image search for "Missing Middle" will find tons of images like this that clearly show townhomes as Missing Middle.

2 hours ago, JaceTheAce41 said:

 

 

 

Wait so if I'm right. 

The CMHA signed off on a one-year option for FCC to have the first right of refusal before the stadium plan was approved. The stadium plan that's 4 years old at this point. Meaning that FCC might not have exercised the option and shifted its priorities to developing the land on the stadium site.

 

 

21 hours ago, JaceTheAce41 said:

Wait so if I'm right. 

The CMHA signed off on a one-year option for FCC to have the first right of refusal before the stadium plan was approved. The stadium plan that's 4 years old at this point. Meaning that FCC might not have exercised the option and shifted its priorities to developing the land on the stadium site.

 

 

 

Those lots were not on MLS or otherwise advertised as being available for purchase (option or outright).  It's like, if you owned an MLS team, then you magically had access to stuff that wasn't on MLS. 

 

I know because...I owned lots in the West End at the time and was actively trying to buy more.  Yes, I actually looked up property owners and wrote handwritten letters to them back in 2017-2018, before the soccer stadium was announced.  It never occurred to me to write CMHA to see if they were willing to unload vacant lots that they had been doing absolutely nothing with for 15 years, and I am still flabbergasted that they actually sold options.  You know who buys lots of options?  Fischer Homes, Drees, etc.  They buy long-term options from farmers and other rural property owners.  They aren't building missing middle out in Clermont and Warren and Bracken Counties.

 

 

 

23 hours ago, Dev said:

A Google image search for "Missing Middle" will find tons of images like this that clearly show townhomes as Missing Middle.

 

The missing middle is missing because it doesn't make money.  Stuff on the left makes money.  Stuff on the right makes money.  The middle doesn't.  It's bad business.  The banks outlawed the "middle", not zoning.  I made that point 5+ years ago when Minneapolis self-congratulated itself.  Here we are in 2024 and the middle is still missing, even where it has been de-criminalized, because it is more expensive to build and less efficient to rent. 

 

 

Townhomes clearly make money or developers wouldn't be putting them up all over the east side of the city.  

1 hour ago, Lazarus said:

 

The missing middle is missing because it doesn't make money.  Stuff on the left makes money.  Stuff on the right makes money.  The middle doesn't.  It's bad business.  The banks outlawed the "middle", not zoning.  I made that point 5+ years ago when Minneapolis self-congratulated itself.  Here we are in 2024 and the middle is still missing, even where it has been de-criminalized, because it is more expensive to build and less efficient to rent. 

 

 

 

If so many people weren't forced out of the trades because of 2008 there would be more capacity to build a wide variety of properties instead of just the most profitable McMansions and 12 stories. 

3 hours ago, Lazarus said:

 

The missing middle is missing because it doesn't make money.  Stuff on the left makes money.  Stuff on the right makes money.  The middle doesn't.  It's bad business.  The banks outlawed the "middle", not zoning.  I made that point 5+ years ago when Minneapolis self-congratulated itself.  Here we are in 2024 and the middle is still missing, even where it has been de-criminalized, because it is more expensive to build and less efficient to rent.

Of course it isn't profitable because no one is even trying to build it...because it was banned in too many places. As more munis make it easier to build Missing Middle, more lenders will start funding it. Reform takes time, it's not instantaneous.

1 hour ago, Cincy513 said:

Townhomes clearly make money or developers wouldn't be putting them up all over the east side of the city.  

Hell, there are now developers active in multiple suburbs who are building townhomes because they can't afford to build detached housing.

21 minutes ago, Dev said:

Hell, there are now developers active in multiple suburbs who are building townhomes because they can't afford to build detached housing.

The suburb I grew up in outside of Cleveland has seen almost exclusively townhomes built in the last decade. They're all over the place. The city population recently just stupidly voted to ban their construction and force a zoning change to only allow detached housing, but there is essentially zero detached single family housing being built as it is no longer the economical option.