2 minutes ago, taestell said:

A skywalk between two P&G office buildings that you are not allowed to enter unless you are a P&G employee or a registered guest? No, I don't have a huge problem with that.

 

A skywalk between the public Kroger store and the public Kroger Building lobby? Yes, I have a problem with that. The existence of that skywalk would take much needed foot traffic off of Court Street.

I am in agreement with you on that part. I was assuming the skywalk would be limited to Kroger employees to go between the HQ building and store offices and garage. They would need a key card or something to access it.

 

No, I don't want a public skywalk but private ones I am fine with.

I'm for sure against the skywalk but I doubt it would be used by anyone other then Kroger employees.  Why would a random public person walk into the Kroger headquarters if their intention is to get to the Kroger store?  It would have to be a certain instance where it's freezing outside and they're walking to the Kroger store from the West of the Kroger headquarters.  I just don't think it would get used that often except for Kroger employees.  

Seems like bad urban design creep. The project went through all the approvals, now they spring the controversial stuff as an afterthought. No thanks.

32 minutes ago, Cincy513 said:

I'm for sure against the skywalk but I doubt it would be used by anyone other then Kroger employees.  Why would a random public person walk into the Kroger headquarters if their intention is to get to the Kroger store?  It would have to be a certain instance where it's freezing outside and they're walking to the Kroger store from the West of the Kroger headquarters.  I just don't think it would get used that often except for Kroger employees.  

 

I used to work security at the Kroger HQ. You would be amazed at how many people came into the lobby and thought there was a grocery in the building. It got to the point it was making me upset that people would even think that

A skywalk to the store would facilitate the lot being used for Click List customers as mentioned upthread. Seems like a costly design change at this point though. 

 

If i was Kroger evaluating this plan i would ask how much does having Click List in the surface parking lot increase sales vs. having Click List operate out of the parking garage in the new Court and Walnut building? I guess having it out on street level would increase visibility, which may be the point (along with showing off new tech to investors.) But then is that theoretical increase in sales more than the increase in sales caused by building a 100+ unit apartment building in that lot which would be better for the city? 

With where construction is currently I don't think you will be seeing a skywalk anytime soon.

1 hour ago, cin614 said:

 

I used to work security at the Kroger HQ. You would be amazed at how many people came into the lobby and thought there was a grocery in the building. It got to the point it was making me upset that people would even think that

 

 

They recently changed the lobby around and now the security guards have to endlessly tell people to get to Kemba from the Central Parkway side. 

 

 

 

There was also a "Gift Card Mall" in the lobby that was open to the public, but that may just been for the holidays.

That Kemba office is merely low-key outdated.  Usually, credit unions are marvelous bastions of yesteryear office décor.  It needs another ten years to truly season, so let's hope there is no plan to move it to the new building. 

I've been thinking, once the new Kroger opens, there will be a lot more OTR and Pendleton residents crossing Central Parkway to get to the new store. The intersection where I will personally be crossing (along with most Pendleton residents) is at Central Parkway and Main Street, which is not very pedestrian friendly right now. Fortunately, it would be easy for the city to improve this intersection, and it wouldn't even require a single square foot of space to be taken away from cars. Not even a single parking space would be lost.

 

Right now, the parking lane on the south side of Central Parkway gets wider as you go east towards Main Street (Street View). If you simply realign the sidewalk to eliminate this, and add a new bumpout at the corner, this is a significant improvement for pedestrians. It would reduce the pedestrian crossing distance by 18 feet!

Of course, if the city wanted to go all out, they could also add a bumpout at the SE corner of that intersection and expand the existing bumpouts at the NE and NW corners. Again, all of these changes would not take a single square foot away from drivers or eliminate a single parking space.

So, you're going to send these graphics to a city council member, right?

They still haven’t responded to the last email I sent, so...

That sidewalk in front of Salvation Army is criminally narrow too.  The entrance to that parking lot is also a joke since the whole thing is sloped to the street, which I'm sure is an ADA violation.  And yet there's a good 12+ foot parking lane there which you can see in Travis' photo, which makes no sense whatsoever. 

On 1/14/2019 at 11:00 AM, nicker66 said:

 

This makes no sense logistically, especially with 3CDC controlling the properties in between HQ and the store.  Is this a joke?

 

Kroger employee here. This rumor sounds off.

 

for public access, this would involve a visitor coming into the Kroger building, going up one flight of stairs or taking an elevator to a second floor, and then they'd have to travel through the half of the second floor that is part of the internal Kroger building garage for a long ways to get to the where the Skywalk would be built.  It wouldn't really be more convenient for customers.

 

As for the existence of a Kroger-only Skywalk: the internal garage is where the VIPs of the company park, everyone else parks at the Gateway garage or nearby parking lots. spots in the internal garage are highly coveted, since there's not that many of them. hard to imagine directors and VPs getting excited about giving up their plum parking spots for this. This would not be cheap and would be of limited utility. 

Kroger officially has a front door.

 

I wonder how they will manage shopping carts? If you are taking groceries to your car you are likely parked in the garage above... will the carts lock if they leave the silo of the building? You wouldnt want carts left all over the area on the sidewalk like you see around some grocery stores. 

I agree that the Main / Central Parkway intersection is dangerous.  It already has a very high number of pedestrians crossing there and the Enquirer even wrote an article about a guy in  a wheelchair that got hit by a car in this intersection twice.    

 

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2018/11/20/dear-drivers-stop-running-into-man/1423666002/

 

Also agree that the sidewalk in front of the Salvation Army is almost impassable it is so narrow

The most dangerous part of the Main / Central Crossing is if you're on Court House side because of the double right turn lane from main onto Central. Cars will constantly try to gun it to beat you as you're walking across. I see people stop in the center island even though they have the walk sign because they don't trust the cars making that turn. 

Edited January 25, 20196 yr by cincydave8

We could definitely use some of these on northbound Main Street at Central Parkway:

11 minutes ago, cincydave8 said:

The most dangerous part of the Main / Central Crossing is if you're on Court House side because of the double right turn lane from main onto Central. Cars will constantly try to gun it to beat you as you're walking across. I see people stop in the center island even though they have the walk sign because they don't trust the cars making that turn. 

 

Double right turn lanes should be banned in the basin. Just one small indicator that we show preference to cars over people. These little things add up to big problems. 

Some pics taken on Tuesday (1/22). One is from the north side of Ziegler Park. This building will block the Macy's building from this vantage point pretty soon. 

29 minutes ago, DEPACincy said:

Double right turn lanes should be banned in the basin. Just one small indicator that we show preference to cars over people. These little things add up to big problems. 

 

Apparently there was a minor controversy back when Central Parkway was last re-done (maybe in the mid-2000s?). DOTE insisted that we needed two left turn lanes from westbound Central Parkway to southbound Walnut Street. The neighborhood insisted we didn't. DOTE won that fight, which is why the median of Central Parkway right there (between Central Parkway and the new Kroger tower) has been whittled down to almost nothing.

So by my count there will be 5 more floors above where the construction has been completed. Sound right. Someone said about the same height as the American Building...

42 minutes ago, Rabbit Hash said:

So by my count there will be 5 more floors above where the construction has been completed. Sound right. Someone said about the same height as the American Building...

I believe they are on the 14th floor, so 4 more floors and from the looks on the photos that Depacincy posted it looks like it will be s little taller than the American building (which is 250 ft).

Kroger parking garage set to open Feb 18th

 

Kroger Store to open in September

7 minutes ago, Jimmy Skinner said:

Kroger parking garage set to open Feb 18th

 

Kroger Store to open in September

Jake needs to alert Auditor Dusty Rhodes. The city has been saved from the parking space gobbling Streetcar!!!! And before Taxes are due!

 

Edited January 31, 20196 yr by SleepyLeroy

3 hours ago, Jimmy Skinner said:

Kroger parking garage set to open Feb 18th

 

Kroger Store to open in September

 

Hopefully that means we could be potentially see the Vine St Kroger demoed shortly after September and see new infill for that block of Vine in early winter 

 

That was the most absurd twitter rant.

Edited February 1, 20196 yr by Chas Wiederhold

1 hour ago, troeros said:

 

Hopefully that means we could be potentially see the Vine St Kroger demoed shortly after September and see new infill for that block of Vine in early winter 

 

 

That seems like an unreasonable timeline. 

23 minutes ago, edale said:

 

That seems like an unreasonable timeline. 

 

Why?

 

3cdc stated that they would shut down the Vine St Kroger shortly after the new Kroger is opened.

 

Assuming 3cdc can get through the HCB approval process and get all of the necessary permits, it wouldn't seem unimaginable for the Kroger site to be cleared and ready for active

construction by December/early January?

I think it's possible demolition starts before the end of the year on the old Kroger site on Vine, but we won't see any construction until 2020 at the earliest.

Ok, so say the old store closes in September or October. They still need to demo the store and its parking lot, do whatever sort of environmental testing and clean up that would be required, design the infill project, get financing in place, obtain permits and a COA/CCMP from the HCB... No way that all gets done in 2 months. I'd say groundbreaking in summer of 2020 might be more realistic.

3 hours ago, edale said:

Ok, so say the old store closes in September or October. They still need to demo the store and its parking lot, do whatever sort of environmental testing and clean up that would be required, design the infill project, get financing in place, obtain permits and a COA/CCMP from the HCB... No way that all gets done in 2 months. I'd say groundbreaking in summer of 2020 might be more realistic.

 

Can't wait for the UO speculation on what might replace the Kroger really heats up.  I might enjoy the speculation more than what actually gets built. 

 

 

Like everything else in OTR, it will get NIMBY'd and unnecessarily delayed for three years once the designs are announced. ?

Just now, JYP said:

Like everything else in OTR, it will get NIMBY'd and unnecessarily delayed for three years once the designs are announced. ?

 

I truly wish this was just a joke.  Sigh.  The Over-the-Rhine Community Council is a cancer on the neighborhood.

I'm guessing whatever they do to replace the Kroger will tie into the surrounding buildings at least on Vine Street obviously but be similar in that they will want an office component there

Edited February 1, 20196 yr by IAGuy39

I'm sure 3CDC will do something similar to Mercer commons.  Parking garage in the middle surrounded by retail on ground floors with residential and office above.  They've worked with OTRCC many times and have the backing of the city so it should get done without any major delays.  OTRCC is still a bunch of idiots though and if you're not 3CDC they make it way too difficult to do any development in OTR. 

3CDC has announced that the Court and Walnut garage will open by March 1, although if you sign up to park there now, you may be able to park in the garage as early as February 19. The "introductory rate" will be $135/month for the first 6 months.

28 minutes ago, taestell said:

3CDC has announced that the Court and Walnut garage will open by March 1, although if you sign up to park there now, you may be able to park in the garage as early as February 19. The "introductory rate" will be $135/month for the first 6 months.

 

Just so you know, I get a little depressed every time you post and it's not a new drone aerial of the site.

8 minutes ago, Chas Wiederhold said:

 

Just so you know, I get a little depressed every time you post and it's not a new drone aerial of the site.

Should do a drone of central as well as 8th and Main and Fourth and Race.

8th and Main and 4th and Race aren't out of the ground yet but they are doing work.  

On 2/5/2019 at 12:02 PM, taestell said:

3CDC has announced that the Court and Walnut garage will open by March 1, although if you sign up to park there now, you may be able to park in the garage as early as February 19. The "introductory rate" will be $135/month for the first 6 months.

 

It's now official, the garage will open Monday, February 18.

New bump-out installed at NE corner of Court and Walnut as part of the new streetscape:

 

1 hour ago, taestell said:

 

It's now official, the garage will open Monday, February 18.

 

I really want, no, I NEED, Mayor Cranley to roll down the ramp in a red convertable Corvette!

^^ Dem truncated dome "bricks"...

Woah is that a sewer line under the sidewalk? I thought that was impossible on liberty street. 

3 hours ago, wjh2 said:

Woah is that a sewer line under the sidewalk? I thought that was impossible on liberty street. 

 

The manhole cover is at the old location of the storm drain.  The new one is covered by that rolled up orange plastic.  I wouldn't be surprised though if the original pipe then goes right back out to the middle of the street.  

New parking garage to open in downtown Cincinnati

 

 

A new public parking garage will bring 560 additional parking spaces to downtown Cincinnati on Monday.

 

The Court and Walnut Garage at 119 E. Central Parkway will open to the public at 6 a.m. on Monday, Feb. 18.

 

The garage was developed by Cincinnati Center City Development Corp. as part of an 18-story mixed-use project that will house downtown’s Kroger store along with 139 residential units.

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2019/02/15/new-parking-garage-to-open-in-downtown-cincinnati.html

the former Monro is completely demolished now and they're treating the site... BUT FOR WHAT? I'm wondering if it's related to the 3CDC Court Street project.

If they turn it just into parking for those buildings i'm gonna scream