^Jake would love that.

It's not officially Neon's, it's "Neon's Unplugged" because the original owner took all of the neon signs to Terry's Turf Club. 

Neon's can't move its vibe combined with its physical space make it what it is.  It's going to be finished and it's so sad.  4EG taking over that space makes me really sad. 

 

A bar called Neon's in another location is just a new bar by the same owners.  They can call it Neon's but it won't be.  :cry:

Moving will lose the connection to the Terry's thing as well. Kinda not the same if there was never and actual neon involved.

What made Neons popular was it's outdoor patio.  The bar itself inside is nothing special and would always be way to crowded when it's cold since the space was so small.  I'm sure someone will take the space and setup a similar bar that will be super popular in the nice months and less popular when it's cold.  The owners of Neons should definitely move somewhere else in OTR because in no way are there too many bars in the area, there aren't nearly enough.  More and more people are moving and/or going out there with every passing year so we're not even close to hitting an over saturation of bars. 

Store Opening / Cocktails at Brush Factory Home tonight at 6pm at 1417 Main

https://www.facebook.com/events/602738093245305/

 

Has anyone heard about the planning commission meeting today for the Liberty/Elm project?

Has anyone heard about the planning commission meeting today for the Liberty/Elm project?

 

Just heard it was approved.

 

margyartgrrl's avatar

Margy Waller

margyartgrrl[/member]

#PlanningCommission approved with 1 dissent from @prostreetcar stay tuned for next steps. It’s not over at all. #savingplaces #ElmLiberty

 

Thank god. If this were to be carried out any longer I'm sure those last remaining buildings on that elm block would be demolished. They are in such bad shape!

Look inside Towne Properties' new Elm Street project in OTR

 

 

Towne Properties has completed new townhomes in the 1500 block of Over-the-Rhine, its first major project in the historic neighborhood.

 

Towne’s seven-home project along the Cincinnati Bell Connector streetcar line, adjacent to Washington Park, was announced for the half-acre site in June 2015.

 

More below:

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2016/12/02/look-inside-towne-properties-new-elm-street.html

Large OTR project near Findlay Market gets final approval after lengthy dispute

 

A contentious fight over a major new mixed-use development near Findlay Market at Liberty and Elm streets ended with the Cincinnati Planning Commission siding with developer Source 3 and approving its final development plan on a 4-1 vote after a marathon, six-and-a-half hour meeting on Friday.

The exterior proportions of the Towne Properties house look pretty good, and the cornice design is nice.  The brickwork looks pretty bad though.  I'm seeing this more and more, even in pretty high-end residential work.  It's like the mortar joints are growing and the brick is shrinking, plus they're not cleaning it properly afterwards.  At least tint it some.  Red mortar with red brick is really quite beautiful, and it would hide these thick sloppy joints.  https://goo.gl/maps/4yY258bEH6x  I do wonder what's up with the lintel over the front door.  It's not the same as the others and it looks like it was pulled out and replaced. 

The latest HCB for 12/5 is out.

 

http://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/buildings/historic-conservation/historic-conservation-board/december-5-2016-staff-report-and-attachments/

Pretty cool to see that a restaurant will be going into the first floor of 1910 Elm. That's going to be a neat space! Details in the HCB packet starting on page 45.

 

 

 

 

Another restaurant will be opening at the corner of Race and 15th:

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2016/12/12/tex-mex-restaurant-coming-to-over-the-rhine.html

 

With Taft's and ZBGB, that corner is turning into a neat little cluster.

 

I can't remember if anything has been proposed yet for the northwest corner of that intersection.

I took a long walk around OTR last night and there's a ton of progress being made everywhere. The townhomes at 15th & Elm, 15th & Race (NE corner), and Market Square are all coming along. 3CDC's 14th Street office building has the steel structure in place, and the 3CDC Race St. condos are nearly done. Nothing happening at the 15th & Vine office development, though.

I took a long walk around OTR last night and there's a ton of progress being made everywhere. The townhomes at 15th & Elm, 15th & Race (NE corner), and Market Square are all coming along. 3CDC's 14th Street office building has the steel structure in place, and the 3CDC Race St. condos are nearly done. Nothing happening at the 15th & Vine office development, though.

 

Pretty certain I just saw the finances for 15th and Vine (tax exemption) and for 133 West 15th Street (Commercial first floor and 8 condos above) were going to be discussed today or this week sometime.

 

Sorry too lazy to look up but it was from Building Cincinnati Facebook/ twitter.

I took a long walk around OTR last night and there's a ton of progress being made everywhere. The townhomes at 15th & Elm, 15th & Race (NE corner), and Market Square are all coming along. 3CDC's 14th Street office building has the steel structure in place, and the 3CDC Race St. condos are nearly done. Nothing happening at the 15th & Vine office development, though.

 

About the only street with nothing going on is McMicken.  Even E. Clifton has a few renovations going on.  Vine and Race don't have anything going on between Liberty and Findlay, but Elm does all the way up to Findlay Market. 

 

$25 million Over-the-Rhine project has a name, groundbreaking date

 

 

The development team working on a $25 million mixed-use development in Over-the-Rhine has a name and groundbreaking date for the project.

 

Source 3 Development, the downtown-based development group that is leading the development of the northwest corner of Liberty and Elm streets, named its development Freeport Row. The name is an ode to Freeport Alley, which is being preserved in the center of the project.

 

More below:

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2016/12/12/25-million-over-the-rhine-project-has-a-name.html

^Speaking of Race St, the latest HCB packet has a request to change the zoning at 33 Greene St (corner with Race), to allow for office, retail, or restaurant use. Currently it is zoned RM 1.2 (residential multifamily), which doesn't allow for any of those uses. It's frustrating that a building like that is zoned RM 1.2, when it was was clearly built for first floor retail, and within the last few years had the J&M Market operate out of it (perhaps illegally?). I wonder if other buildings on Race St with storefronts were also downzoned to residential. I hope the city makes it easy to re-zone for commercial uses, but it's still an additional hurdle for getting these storefronts re-opened.

 

Another way the city could make it easier for redevelopment is by easing parking restrictions. The 33 Green St zoning use variance states (i.e. they can't just open a retailer without securing some nearby parking, which will add additional cost to the project):

The relief is only to allow for the Use Variance and any parking relief to be sought will need to be addressed once a final use is established.

 

http://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/buildings/historic-conservation/historic-conservation-board/december-5-2016-staff-report-and-attachments/

^Speaking of Race St, the latest HCB packet has a request to change the zoning at 33 Greene St (corner with Race), to allow for office, retail, or restaurant use. Currently it is zoned RM 1.2 (residential multifamily), which doesn't allow for any of those uses. It's frustrating that a building like that is zoned RM 1.2, when it was was clearly built for first floor retail, and within the last few years had the J&M Market operate out of it (perhaps illegally?). I wonder if other buildings on Race St with storefronts were also downzoned to residential. I hope the city makes it easy to re-zone for commercial uses, but it's still an additional hurdle for getting these storefronts re-opened.

 

Another way the city could make it easier for redevelopment is by easing parking restrictions. The 33 Green St zoning use variance states (i.e. they can't just open a retailer without securing some nearby parking, which will add additional cost to the project):

The relief is only to allow for the Use Variance and any parking relief to be sought will need to be addressed once a final use is established.

 

http://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/buildings/historic-conservation/historic-conservation-board/december-5-2016-staff-report-and-attachments/

 

Zoning and parking policies haven't been touched for years, and still reflect a suburban mentality superimposed on the city. They really need an overhaul.

It's really a shame we can't just blanket form-based code over the whole city and be done with it. Especially with reuse of old buildings there is no reason code should dictate that it can't be used for it's original purpose again.

OTR home tour highlights history, vibrancy of neighborhood: SLIDESHOW

Dec 13, 2016, 7:07am EST

Nikki Kingery

Projects Editor

Cincinnati Business Courier

 

Over-the-Rhine's third annual holiday home tour on Dec. 10 featured a self-guided walk through five homes and two historic churches.

 

The tour provided a glimpse of new construction and historic restoration across a range of architectural styles. Tickets for the tour were $25 and all proceeds went to Future Leaders Over-the-Rhine, a year-round program providing educational and character-building opportunities for students in grades 7-12 living in the neighborhood.

 

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2016/12/13/otr-home-tour-highlights-history-vibrancy-of.html

From the latest HCB packet (http://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/buildings/historic-conservation/historic-conservation-board/december-19-2016-staff-report-and-attachments/):

 

Proposed demolition of a non-contributing structure at 1408 Vine St. This is behind the Weilart's building and was formerly a garage. 3CDC wants to demo it and save the vacant land for future use.

 

Proposed 5 new 2-story townhomes on the vacant lot at 1510 Pleasant.

 

Plenty more in the packet, too.

From the latest HCB packet (http://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/buildings/historic-conservation/historic-conservation-board/december-19-2016-staff-report-and-attachments/):

 

Proposed demolition of a non-contributing structure at 1408 Vine St. This is behind the Weilart's building and was formerly a garage. 3CDC wants to demo it and save the vacant land for future use.

 

Proposed 5 new 2-story townhomes on the vacant lot at 1510 Pleasant.

 

Plenty more in the packet, too.

Yes, this is a big packet! Includes all the remaining phases of the 15th & Race 3CDC project. The corner of 15th & Race infill maintains the same scale (3 story) as the adjacent existing structure to be rehabbed.

 

Wow. What a shame that most the 15th & Race block will be filled with a surface parking lot wrapped by a thin veneer of single-family townhomes. There's a potential to add so many units to that prime urban location, and this is what we get.

That ^^ is fantastic news. The one story proposal from the original redesign was very worrisome.

 

The design though is excessively boring. As is typical at this point. Someone needs to hire better architects for more than just individual townhomes. We need better firms doing these large multi-phase projects.

 

And what's up with designing in a gap toothed Pleasant Street? Fill that gap with another townhome for Christ's sake.

 

Also, way to squander a high-density streetcar site with low-density development. This could have easily had twice as many units. No reason for 3 story buildings along the streetcar at this point and never a reason for 2 story buildings anywhere in OTR.

Wow. What a shame that most the 15th & Race block will be filled with a surface parking lot wrapped by a thin veneer of single-family townhomes. There's a potential to add so many units to that prime urban location, and this is what we get.

 

One thing I can't determine from the renderings is, does the planned new building at the corner of 15th and pleasant have upper stories that extend out over that planned parking lot (similar to how the just built condos on the race street side extend over their parking spaces) or not? If it does, it's really not that bad of a design because when you check it out in person it really wouldn't be that much open space.

^It appears it will, at least in parts. If you look along the 15th Street building you can see the parking lines are wide in line with the structural columns on the interior of the building and you can spot one at the eastern end of that building along the entry drive into the interior courtyard. That's likely because there will be two columns floating out in between parking spaces with the spaces covered just like in the Race Street Condos. Along Pleasant Street however there doesn't appear to be any overhangs in any of the buildings.

 

Honestly, the amount of space taken up by the parking lot really isn't that much. With the Race Street Condos overhanging the parking spaces by about 18' and the same thing happening in the new building on the corner of Pleasant and 15th you really aren't left with a ton of space being used by purely parking. It just looks worse than it is when looking only at the ground floor plan because the parking is integrated underneath structures for more than half the site.

Wow. What a shame that most the 15th & Race block will be filled with a surface parking lot wrapped by a thin veneer of single-family townhomes. There's a potential to add so many units to that prime urban location, and this is what we get.

 

Agreed. It would be nice to see the new developments take a cue from many of the the contemporary renovations of older buildings where they are designing front and back units. That said, nothing they have done prevents that from happening, necessarily.

 

The two story townhomes really should be the same height or taller than the existing building. I don't necessarily understand the logic behind making them two stories other than the ability to inflate prices through scarcity. womp womp.

 

The gaps are truly perplexing.

 

I can be happy with the buildings on 14th. 1) They increased the height of the corner building. I can't believe they were going to consider a 1 story building there! 2) The designs are modern with reference to this historic patterns without being ostentatious or fake.

 

It's great to see these proposals scattered throughout the neighborhood. It encourages more people who are sitting on properties who can't afford to do something with them to sell.  10 years from now it's going to be mostly built-out, but there will be a handful of people who still mysteriously refuse to sell or something is held up on probate.  This happens in New York City sometimes where 20 years after an area gets hot some conspicuous derelict property is finally sold and renovated. 

I think it looks great. The lack of density sucks though.

 

That said the quality of infill that 3cdc has created today compared to just a few years ago is quite noticeable. They seem to get it, and the buildings don't stick out like the ugly Mercer Building on Vine, but rather blend into the built environment.

 

I honestly wish 3cdc would realize their mistake and demolish that horrid mercer building, but that will never happen of course.

^No. They won't blend. They'll stand out for their noticeable cheap faux historicism and complete lack of care for what's going on. This entire block is going to feel fake. It's not going to be nice.

 

One Mercer is far from "horrid." We live in 2016, not 1880. There's no reason what we build today should be trying to emulate what we built over a century ago.

 

The absolute laziest way to "blend in" is to take something from around you, boil it down to the simplest version of itself so that it loses all character or design purpose, and tack it on two-dimensionally to a frame building. Which is what is happening here. It's known world-over as a poor way of designing. There's nothing about 15th and Race we should be striving for.

I don't think One Mercer looks bad. It looks like a modern building that was recently built in an historic neighborhood. Which is what it is.

I think the problem with buildings like Mercer is that they are too large. There are some precedents around OTR for bigger buildings (like 13th and Walnut), but I don't think we should want much more of that. We're going to see another one on Elm and Liberty, possibly on Walnut and Liberty, etc. I'd much rather see 4 or 5 individual 4 unit buildings atop a retail space than something like another Mercer. The smaller buildings are much easier proportions for a designer to work with, and inherently look better. The big mega-block buildings are almost always ugly - and even the best ones are just "not bad."

Developers plan $128M OTR housing expansion

 

 

Developers are planning a massive housing expansion in Over-the-Rhine that will add 550 apartments in the resurgent neighborhood, and the majority of those units will be affordable housing.

 

The complex, $128 million effort that involves the Cincinnati Center City Development Corp., the Model Group, Over-the-Rhine Community Housing and the Cornerstone Corp. for Shared Equity will save about 300 units of low-income or affordable housing that have been lost in recent years or are at risk of going away and add about 50 more affordable units.

 

The developers also will build another 200 market-rate apartments. The new housing will encompass up to 12 different projects, including the now-vacant and blighted Jan and Senate apartment buildings that include six structures.

 

The developers have been working for years on the project. Key to the deal is 3CDC acquiring the Jan and Senate buildings from the Community Builders, a nonprofit real estate developer with projects across the country. 3CDC also will acquire 101 housing assistance payments, which are U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development subsidies, associated with the two buildings. 3CDC will donate those subsidies across the 12 projects, mixing the low-income and affordable housing along with the market-rate housing in different buildings.

 

More below:

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2016/12/19/developers-plan-128m-otr-housing-expansion.html

^surprised no one has commented on this. Huge for the neighborhood IMO, very good deal! The chance to rehabilitate dilapidated buildings, get better housing for people that is more affordable and giving them more hope in the world, and adding a ton more vibrancy by revamping commercial store fronts. This is going to be huge in the neighborhood and the chain saws keep buzzing in OTR. You gotta think, 3CDC is waiting to get their hands on the row of buildings on the east side of Vine from 14th up to 15th that are vacant now. Guessing that is their next big project once the new Kroger gets built on Walnut and Central?

Several OTR projects awarded historic preservation tax credits.

OTR’s Film Center project gets key city incentives

Dec 22, 2016, 2:55pm EST

Chris Wetterich

Staff reporter and columnist

Cincinnati Business Courier

 

 

The Film Center, a mixed-use project near Cincinnati’s streetcar line, received property tax incentives from the city this week, which is another key financial piece for the nearly $11 million project being developed by Urban Sites.

 

Urban Sites will save nearly $1.2 million in property taxes over the course of the 12-year community reinvestment area tax exemption deal for the building at 1632 Central Parkway. It will pay about $309,000 to the operations of the Cincinnati Bell Connector streetcar during that time.

 

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2016/12/22/otr-s-film-center-project-gets-key-city.html

Dec 23 2016:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is across from Kaze:

 

Wow, I didn't realize the ETC expansion was that far along. Model Group's Market Square is coming along fast too.

Took a walk at lunch since it was so nice out, grabbed some pictures of the new Shakespeare Theatre, which has much more corner presence than I was expecting it to, as well as some work on Race Street across the street from 3CDC's 15th and Race project. I really like the dark brick and modern windows being used there, especially compared to whats going in across the street and one block over on Elm.

Some pictures from lunch today, Ziegler pool is starting to look like something with retaining walls up all along the north side of the site. The parking garage below the new park is getting close, it's a very strange site with the one end being 30 feet below Broadway and the other end being 10 feet or more above Sycamore. Also the 15th and Race project from the side facing Pleasant, a very suburban looking rear-end, and that's never a compliment whether on a building, a car or a person.

^ I remember that from the proposal with the dark gray brick and varied depth windows. I thought it was a cool idea then, & you are right it looks very good in person too. The shadows really help liven up an otherwise flat facade. Makes it look a whole lot more luxury looking than if they were all the same flushed or even recessed depths. Hope to see more dark and rich colored bricks too. Im tired of the tans.

 

 

They also did a good job making those bricks look old - no where near as uniform as a lot of high quality infill does it.

Around Findlay Market & Findlay Playground:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j231/jmecklenborg/2016/city-7657_zps2pqg

Dec 30, 2016:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for all the great photo thread updates!

 

More housing coming to Findlay Market area

 

 

New low-income housing is coming to an area near Findlay Market with Over-the-Rhine Community Housing, a developer attempting to ensure a mix of incomes remains in the neighborhood, hoping to acquire other property near the iconic site in the future.

 

The Cincinnati Planning Commission approved the sale of 1630 Pleasant St., a vacant building one block from the market with six efficiency apartments, to OTRCH on Friday for $1. It is one of the properties owned by the city that the Cincinnati Center City Development Corp. is charged with unloading to capable developers.

 

More below:

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2017/01/20/more-housing-coming-to-findlay-market-area.html