Right -- a number of people also stated that they preferred to park in the Town Center Garage because it's only $5 as opposed to the Washington Park Garage which is $6. As if $1 makes any sort of meaningful difference after you factor in the cost of tickets for the event you're attending, the cost of gas driving downtown, and whatever you're going to spend on going out to dinner before or after the show.

Right -- a number of people also stated that they preferred to park in the Town Center Garage because it's only $5 as opposed to the Washington Park Garage which is $6. As if $1 makes any sort of meaningful difference after you factor in the cost of tickets for the event you're attending, the cost of gas driving downtown, and whatever you're going to spend on going out to dinner before or after the show.

 

Plus that $5 may become $6 to pay for repairs...

Could they be crumbing because the city has ignored the garage and skywalk? All I'm suggesting is that it could make sense to preserve them. Reading that you're directing your comments at the crazy Enquirer comments make sense, I wasn't sure who you were talking to.

 

I know we're all very much pro urban life on here, but if folks only want to go to OTR for a show, then leave - that is completely okay. There are plenty of legit reasons why I'd park in town center garage instead of washington park. And there's plenty of reasons why I'd only want to come to OTR for a show and not visit the rest of the neighborhood. Music Hall is not just a culture institution for OTR, its an important institution of the entire region. If our assets like town center garage help the entire region support music hall, then they should be invested in.

 

 

The garage is also used by the TV and radio studios.  Redeveloping this entire block would require reconstruction of this building, which is fairly large and specialized, although the future of public television and public radio is a bit uncertain. 

Could they be crumbing because the city has ignored the garage and skywalk?

 

No, I think they're crumbling because they're 40 years old. Parking garages and skywalks don't last forever, they need significant rehabbing every 30 or 40 years. That's also one of the reasons that the Washington Park Garage was built--to provide parking for Music Hall and allow people to park there and enter through the front of Music Hall rather than through the back. I remember hearing discussions as long as 8 years ago about how the Town Center Garage was nearing the end of its life and would either need to be torn down or rehabbed soon.

If memory serves, the middle support for that walkway extends down thru the subway tunnel below. I had a picture of it from inside at one time.

 

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.108467,-84.5197202,3a,52.6y,345.47h,88.63t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1ssihhSD5ncOOFqODZhmjEYA!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DsihhSD5ncOOFqODZhmjEYA%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D308.70224%26pitch%3D0!7i13312!8i6656

If memory serves, the middle support for that walkway extends down thru the subway tunnel below. I had a picture of it from inside at one time.

 

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.108467,-84.5197202,3a,52.6y,345.47h,88.63t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1ssihhSD5ncOOFqODZhmjEYA!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DsihhSD5ncOOFqODZhmjEYA%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D308.70224%26pitch%3D0!7i13312!8i6656

 

Correct.  The legs of this bridge are not centered in the parkway median.  They start at the floor of the inbound subway tunnel and extend through the ceiling.  This is the same tube that has the water main, so few people notice it while walking through the subway.  This same tube also has the two turnouts to the never-build underground freight terminal.  They are sort-of hidden behind the water main so again, few people notice them. 

 

 

I don't really care one way or the other about the garage and skywalk, but I do think it's worth pointing out that the Washington Park garage is pretty small- definitely not big enough to support all of the patrons of Music Hall, especially if there are other things going on in the area that will demand parking. Keep in mind that the Drop Inn Center, a use that required 0 parking, is being replaced by the Shakespeare Theater. If the Washinghton spark garage is going to be leased out more and more for residents of OTR (as it should, to some extent l, imo) we need to think about where additional parking will go. The Trancept and Memorial Hall also are poised to increasingly strain parking resources in the immediate area. Ideally, the town garage would be replaced with another garage, topped by residential or office, and featuring first floor retail. The skywalk doesn't really matter to me, as Central Parkway is kind of a dead zone as is, and it is a wide crossing.

^exactly. Washington Park garage is already full more often than not when there is an event at Music Hall. If they want to keep an entrance to Music Hall directly facing Town Center Garage, so be it. (As much as I disagree with the anti-change, anti-urban tone of the enquirer commenters)

 

Town Center Garage is an interesting play- do we develop the neighborhood around it and take advantage of its underused capacity to support denser development in the surrounding neighborhood? Or would that make it harder to tear down and replace with a more urban friendly structure someday?

 

In any case when the streetcar opens you will be able to park there for $2 and access almost any destination Downtown including the stadiums.

For moderate climates, skywalks are never good for urban vitality.

 

This is one that needed to go. They could have improved the street level crosswalk instead.

I don't understand why there's so a big issue about the existence of the skywalk. Some people want to be able to park there car, and get to Music Hall directly without worry about where they have to park. It serves a purpose. Get in, get out.

 

I think we have to consider how wide CPkwy is and the demographics of patrons. Some are older and a grade separated crossing is a safety issue, no?

 

 

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The real push against skywalks, esp the Fountain Square skywalk, was because non-smoking policies in the office buildings pushed all of the smokers out onto them.  Before it was torn down, the Fountain Square skywalk was a beehive of smoking activity all day and night. 

When the city brought famed Times Square planner John Alschuler in post riots to assess what needed to be done to reposition downtown he toured around the city and asked city officials where all the people were.

 

They were in the skywalks.

 

If you want a city with street level vitality, skywalks are not the answer. The skywalk system had other issues including confusion over who had responsibility of the maintenance, inducing a class separation (poor on the streets, everyone else in the skywalk) and hiding retail from street frontages.

 

This is why the city has for years promoted the demolition of them since 2001. However; it looks like we are going backwards on that policy in certain places.

 

Even though the circumstances of this skywalk are isolated from the overall downtown skywalk system, its a shame this one has been allowed to stay. If there are disabled people or elderly, wouldn't it be wiser to drop them off or use valet at the front entrance or the handicapped entrance?

 

There are ways to accommodate them that does not include keeping the skywalk.

 

 

Too bad the water main is down there, because we could just have an underground connection using the subway tunnels. It could be decorated all fancy like a European subway station/subterranean entry hall. They would have to make a bigger connection between the two tubes unless that intersection is actually near a station, I cant remember if there is one after Liberty and before the bend. As a 'Jake like' aside i was once exploring down there back in the early 90's when it was easier to hop over the door and happened to be underneath the Chili Fest. Nothing is creeper than the faint echoes of 'Ackey Breaky Heart' reverberating in the darkness.  :|

The new system of handicap accessibility is also no harder to use and no further a distance if you were to park in Washington Park Garage and utilize the new disabled entrance.

 

More importantly than just getting rid of an extremely dated piece of infrastructure that serves as a relic to remind people of a troubled era for OTR, the lot that this dated garage sits on could serve as a huge redevelopment opportunity in reconnecting the West End to OTR. It's a hulking, ugly building that really doesn't anchor that important corner very well. Redeveloping it, along with many of the other terrible buildings on the block between Central Parkway and Central Ave., could do some really good things for the core.

I realize the tunnels go perpendicular to where people would be traveling if they were just crossing the street but this is the look i was thinking. It would serve the same purpose as the sky bridge but wouldn't muck up the exterior of music hall like the current 70's looking bridge does.

Although........ if they make it look like the old 'Cincinnati Exposition' bridge than i'm back on board with the skywalk plan!

I don't understand why there's so a big issue about the existence of the skywalk. Some people want to be able to park there car, and get to Music Hall directly without worry about where they have to park. It serves a purpose. Get in, get out.

 

What if we designed all of the new parking garages in OTR in this way? Patrons could walk directly from the Mercer Garage into The Mercer for dinner without ever having to set foot on the streets of OTR. You could park in the Gateway Garage and walk directly into Article to do your shopping. How convenient!

I don't understand why there's so a big issue about the existence of the skywalk. Some people want to be able to park there car, and get to Music Hall directly without worry about where they have to park. It serves a purpose. Get in, get out.

 

What if we designed all of the new parking garages in OTR in this way? Patrons could walk directly from the Mercer Garage into The Mercer for dinner without ever having to set foot on the streets of OTR. You could park in the Gateway Garage and walk directly into Article to do your shopping. How convenient!

 

That's crazy talk. No one is suggesting this.I'm all for eliminating the lot and the overhead walkway, but if it can be maintained with minimal costs, then let it stay until such time land prices deem it profitable to tear down and redevelop it.  As things sit now, there is plenty of other underutilized land along the parkway.

There's a big difference between a skywalk system and a single pedestrian bridge that connects a parking garage to the building it primarily serves. This is a very ugly pedestrian bridge, and I wish it'd be taken down, but it probably is warranted. The people I see using it are usually about 90 years old, on average, and they probably can't make it across all 38 lanes of Central Parkway in a single red light cycle. 

As a 'Jake like' aside i was once exploring down there back in the early 90's when it was easier to hop over the door and happened to be underneath the Chili Fest. Nothing is creeper than the faint echoes of 'Ackey Breaky Heart' reverberating in the darkness.  :|

 

Yeah I have been down there and heard conversations on the sidewalk above and of course police sirens.  The weirdest sound is the crackling that the water main makes.  The one time I was down there when the main was releasing 100+ gallons of water every 10 seconds out of a valve was crazy.  I could hear what sounded like a waterfall or maybe car wash from a few hundred feet away. 

 

There's a big difference between a skywalk system and a single pedestrian bridge that connects a parking garage to the building it primarily serves. This is a very ugly pedestrian bridge, and I wish it'd be taken down, but it probably is warranted. The people I see using it are usually about 90 years old, on average, and they probably can't make it across all 38 lanes of Central Parkway in a single red light cycle. 

 

Exactly. The options are: spend money rehabbing the skywalk, or make Central Parkway more pedestrian-friendly and easier to cross. Now is the time to force this issue. If we don't tear down the skywalk now and instead invest money in rehabbing it, it's going to stick around another 40 years. And then, in the year 2056, we will be having this debate again.

There's a big difference between a skywalk system and a single pedestrian bridge that connects a parking garage to the building it primarily serves. This is a very ugly pedestrian bridge, and I wish it'd be taken down, but it probably is warranted. The people I see using it are usually about 90 years old, on average, and they probably can't make it across all 38 lanes of Central Parkway in a single red light cycle. 

 

Which was my earlier point. As far as what Travis just said...let's go for the gusto and road diet Central.

Or we could do this!!  :evil:

 

Perhaps this plan should be resurrected.

 

^^ I don't get a road diet. We've already added bike lanes. What else could be done? If CP is a barrier, it's a barrier as old as our city, dating back to the canal.

 

Isn't a wide boulevard also a legitimate urban form? What if CP was lined with taller apartment buildings?

Not so much a road diet in this case, more like making the sidewalks and center island more inviting for pedestrians, lengthening the pedestrian crossing phase, putting better markings on the crosswalk, etc.

I just don't see the big push to get Music Hall patrons to cross at grade and then walk around to the front of the building to enter. Central Parkway's width is one issue, yes, but there are several other conditions that exist around there that make the walk less than ideal. There isn't much in the way of ground level visual interest in that area, and there really isn't much that can be done to change that in the immediate future. The neighbors to the site are a public broadcasting center, the CPD headquarters, and the back side of the fortress-like MH. Making a bunch of old people navigate the street crossing and walk around to the front of the building really would accomplish very little. It's not like people would suddenly decide to eat in OTR before a performance just because a skywalk was torn down. Also, many people get dressed up to go to the opera and symphony, and having a quick, sheltered path into the building is really nice in inclement weather. Like I said above, in an ideal world, the garage would be replaced with a new mixed use building, but until then, I just don't see what the big deal is about this. Washington Park and the front side of Music Hall is pretty active now, and it will only continue to see more and more pedestrian activity once the streetcar opens, Shakespeare Theater and Memorial Hall open, more residential rehabs occur on Elm, etc.  The neighborhood will continue to thrive with or without a handful of old folks walking a couple of blocks. 

The issue is with the use of that garage as the primary garage for visitors using Music Hall. The initial intention was for patrons to use Washington Park Garage and enter in through the front (which is just as easy as using the other garage and using the skywalk since both are ADA) and that the crumbling skywalk and garage would not need to take up valuable public funds to continue to exist, opening up a redevelopment opportunity sooner than the situation now will allow if the skywalk is rehabbed.

^^ I don't get a road diet. We've already added bike lanes. What else could be done? If CP is a barrier, it's a barrier as old as our city, dating back to the canal.

 

The skywalks need bike lanes. 

 

 

^Washington Park garage is already at capacity for nearly every performance at Music Hall.  It's very small garage, and it serves it's purpose pretty well, I think.

Rabbit Hash[/member] taestell[/member] I want to dial back a little what I said about road dieting Central Parkway. Looks like there is some further steps you could take like addressing too long turn lanes and double turn lanes to return some green space to the median.

 

I think at this point a lot of what is needed to bridge the CP divide is pedestrian activity along it driven by new and repurposed structures facing it with a mix of uses.  Like this: https://cincinnatiideas.wordpress.com/ballet-flats/

What should also be part of the consideration is that starting in September, Music Hall patrons can easily park anywhere along the streetcar in otr or downtown and take streetcar directly to Music Hall. I really hope people start using streetcar in this way decreasing such a need for parking directly adjacent to whatever destination.

Somewhere in this conversation it has been lost that this garage doesn't serve Music Hall exclusively.  It is primarily the garage for the WCET studios, WVXU, and the other stuff in that building.  I'm not really sure why this tangent is happening without the appearance of some plan to redevelop that block. 

Well, the primary discussion here is about whether the skywalk should be torn down or whether we should invest more money in rehabbing it. If we were to tear down the skywalk, the garage would continue to exist and serve the "Crosley Telecommunications Center" as I believe it is called. I think we all agree that that entire block could be redeveloped in the future, as can much of the nearby land. As property values continue to rise in OTR, it's going to make more and more sense to build on the west side of Central Parkway which is still only 2 blocks away from Washington Park and the streetcar.

Obviously, this is a large site that would be very appealing to a residential developer.  But it's either owned by a non-profit or still owned by the city (as it was going back to its time as the City Hospital) and its sale would have to pay for replacement of this facility.  Also, as others have noted, there isn't enough parking in the Washington Park garage without a garage on this block as well.  So redevelopment of this block would probably require construction of a new garage to augment the Washington Park garage.  So the new development would be better as office rather than residential in order to free up the garage for night and weekend events.  I don't think the Williams Bros and the Josephs and the Barretts want any office on Central Parkway.  They want it all in the CBD, since they control most of the likely skyscraper sites.  That's why there has been an effort for the 90~ years Central Parkway has existed to line it with cultural stuff -- to keep it from competing with downtown.  That's why SCPA was given that whole block in 2008 or thereabouts and it's why WCET was given this block back in the 70s. 

This sounds very similar to the situation that NPR found themselves in, where their DC headquarter was in a gentrifying neighborhood where the land values were rising. They sold the building and made enough money to finance a new building in a different neighborhood. If the Crosley Telecommunications Center is sold off for redevelopment, you could either include new studios for WVXU and WCET into the new building or use the proceeds to move them elsewhere.

Or we could do this!!  :evil:

 

Perhaps this plan should be resurrected.

 

 

That plan reeks of "urban renewal".

The City owns everything on the block (listed as <a href="http://wedge3.hcauditor.org/view/re/0810003000190/2015/summary">310 Ezzard Charles</a>) except for the CET building, which is <a href="http://wedge3.hcauditor.org/view/re/0810003011900/2015/summary">owned by the Greater Cincinnati Educational Foundation</a>:

 

I think it would be really easy to develop the south half of the block as opposed to the whole thing. The south half is just surface lot and one level of parking deck.  Seems like you could demolish that just that half of the garage without affecting much.  Then the issues are that new development would face the ugly electrical equipment to the south and the satellite dishes in the roof of the WCET building may have to be adjusted or re-aligned depending on the height of the new stuff.

 

That whole area is an example of all the urban renewal stuff Jane Jacobs warned against.  That circular amphitheater park seems designed to be separated from any street activity. As a result you can never tell what's going on in there- skateboarding or vagrants taking naps.  The awkward cincinnati parks maintenance garage across Central Ave. needs to be demolished so Hopkins St. can be reconnected to Central Ave.  Looks like Hopkins may have been originally cut off as part of the plan shown above.

There is a dead zone between Central Ave. and Central Parkway all the way from City Hall north to Ezzard Charles.  This was caused for a variety of reasons.  The city owns a lot of the land as does Duke.  The Charles St. substation needs to go, and rebuilding that somewhere else or underground or in a new building won't be cheap, but seems a little more plausible than reconstruction of the WCET studios. 

 

Ok, so now we have some actual numbers.

 

- $3 to 4 million to replace the skywalk

- Unknown cost to rehab the skywalk, but rehabbing would only extend its life by about 10 years

- $600 to 700k to demolish the skywalk

It's a bit strange that in all of the lead-up to the Music Hall renovation, that the condition of this bridge was never discussed.  I doubt that it is in bad condition.  There are many, much older concrete pedestrian walkways that don't have a roof still going.  For example, the one over Columbia Parkway in Mt. Adams.  The Central Parkway pedestrian walk at Baymiller St. was 70 years old before it was demolished. 

Current state of the skywalk:

 

3CDC has been posting some photos of the Music Hall construction. A lot of work is already happening inside the building. This is a truly massive project.

Did anyone else see the massive crane on 14th today? I wasn't able to get a picture but what were they working on?

 

 

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Councilman pushes for Music Hall bridge study

Bowdeya Tweh, [email protected] 5:54 p.m. EDT July 12, 2016

 

A Cincinnati councilman wants city administrators to spend time studying how to pay for improvements to the elevated pedestrian bridge that is attached to Music Hall.

 

Vice Mayor David Mann is lobbying fellow council members to support a motion to direct the administration to identify sources of money to renovate or replace the bridge, which connects the city-owned Town Center Garage, WCET-TV and Cincinnati Public Radio offices to Music Hall. Mann said it would be a mistake to raze the structure because "scores of people" use it and it serves as an amenity for Music Hall patrons.

 

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/money/2016/07/12/councilman-pushes-music-hall-bridge-study/86999926/

What a shame -- hopefully this idea goes nowhere. Imagine if, instead of spending $4 million on a new skywalk, we spent that money on upgrading sidewalks around OTR and installing new street lighting to make Music Hall patrons feel "safer" (which is the main reason they are demanding the skywalk be kept).

What a shame -- hopefully this idea goes nowhere. Imagine if, instead of spending $4 million on a new skywalk, we spent that money on upgrading sidewalks around OTR and installing new street lighting to make Music Hall patrons feel "safer" (which is the main reason they are demanding the skywalk be kept).

 

In my opinion, you are putting forth a straw man argument...

 

I'm not suggesting I totally agree with keeping the bridge, but doing a study and understanding all the options probably makes sense if patrons really believe this is an asset worth keeping. 

 

p.s. We don't need 4 million dollars for street lights and sidewalks in OTR. We have special assessments for that - HA.

Gordon Bombay[/member] has published an excellent article talking about the proposed Queensgate II development. Most of it was never built, except for the Town Center Garage and the skywalk over Central Parkway connecting it to Music Hall. If you read some of the quotes that Ronny managed to dig up, you will see that there was not an optimistic view of the urban core at that point in time (1976). The manager of the development even said:

 

You are not going to entice middle income families in. You may get a racial mix-that is no problem-but you are not going to draw in middle income families. It is not going to happen in my lifetime. It is going to be a poor neighborhood. There are no ‘ifs’ and ‘ands’ and ‘buts’ about it.

 

The skywalk exists because it was part of the "urban renewal" fantasy to suburbanize our cities. It's anti-urban. It's not needed anymore. Tear it down.