Queensgate or Camp Wash?

Yeah, that's what I meant. Fixed.

Yeah, that's what I meant. Fixed.

 

I see the Taft Tap room on Spring Grove hopping after work quite a bit but i doubt the people who stop in there for a drink after work would go downtown if it wasn't there. They would probably just go to another nearby place after work. Especially I'm guessing all the younger P&Gers up on Este and nearby who fit the demo for casual afterwork gatherings. It spreads out the 'nearby place for drinks' to other neighborhoods and they can capture the business they would have lost otherwise.

 

Capital 'C' Conspiracy theory: What if Rhinegeist is looking to privately finance part of the McMicken Ave./McMillan streetcar extension that was the preferred extension route of the 2009 feasibility study? At a cost of $69 million (in 2009 dollars), might they be able to put enough in that matching grants, city/state funds, and UC/Uptown Consortium would be able to get this over the hump? Then those property purchases makes sense because by flipping them they'd probably be able to recoup what they put into the project. Sort of like an entirely private TIF district. At any rate, that's my dreamiest dream scenario.

It's funny because that's how streetcars used to work back when they were privately owned. Property owners would build a streetcar line from the center city out to the land they owned in order to make the land more valuable, or because they ran an amusement park or resort at the end of the streetcar line.

Rhinegeist purchased that somewhat large w mickmicken lot a few years ago...it was assumed it would be parking for the rhinegrist distribution trucks...clearly that never occurred. I’m not sure what they have planned but I wonder if the lot is large enough for some gondola system?

 

They use a lot on McMicken for valet parking.

 

There are distribution trucks parked everyday in that lot

 

They own the McMicken lot for distribution parking and least the Philippus lot across the street for valet. Rookwood leases the same lot during the day for their employees.

 

I didn’t realize that franz Fund owned 28 individual parcels on Renner St alone....I also didn’t realize that Bellevue Park (the proposed location of the rumor for the beer garden/gondola concept) was so close to renner st either...if the gondola rumor was true and would connect to Bellevue park then rhinegeist purchasing that land on renner st makes sense.

More info on the Franz properties up north of Rhinegeist: https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2018/07/30/exclusiverhinegeist-backed-group-plans-development.html

 

Nothing finalized in terms of plans, but here's a bit on their vision:

He said the group is exploring different options for the land but all of them revolve around increasing the residential density in the area. Because many of the parcels are grouped together, it gives Franz the opportunity to do larger residential developments with the potential for mixed-use with retail or restaurants on the ground floor and residential space above. He said the residential development is entirely separate from Rhinegeist's brewery operations.

It's not unrealistic at this point to expect a wildly transformed area, including renovation of the Jackson Brewery, by 2025.  My one personal request would be for a stairway connection between W. Clifton at the bend (Zier Pl.) and Renner St. 

 

Also, if we had been applying for Tiger grants, we could have gotten a streetcar extension up McMicken St. to Mohawk Corner built for free by this point.   

 

 

Interestingly, a vacant lot is still on the market on Renner:

https://www.sibcycline.com/Listing/CIN/1496075/241-Renner-St-Cincinnati-OH-45214

 

Here is the location:

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.1206424,-84.5219912,3a,60y,222.83h,87.55t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s7xLj_1Uqae8DtE3DrSrL1w!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

 

I was in the house to the right with the red door about four years ago.  Around 2005-06 somebody started renovating it and ran out of money...a leak formed where they build a balcony in the attic and caused the kitchen to partially fall into the basement .

This makes a lot of sense for rhinegeist. I’m not really familiar with the craft brewery scene, but I’m not sure how many of the large capicity craft breweries and actually located dead center in the urban core.

 

The more people they can fill around rhinegeist the more they can grow and expose there brand.

 

Rhinegeist is growing at a crazy rate even with no one living around their brewery/the area not being very nice.  I think they just saw this as an opportunity to make some money with the benefit of also making the area around their brewery nicer.  Someone was inevitably going to profit off that area so I'm sure Rhinegesit figured might as well be them. 

Agree about more steps down to the Mohwak area. It would also be great if the city reconnected Renner St back to Byron and even that little stub of Klotter east of Ravine. You can see the outline of the street on maps, but in reality it's fenced off and totally overgrown. It would make Renner and Mohawk in general less isolated. There's also an alleway between Renner and Mohawk that's completely overgown.

 

Last time I was on Renner I also noticed some crumbling stairs on the north side near where that lot is for sale. Not sure if those were public stairs going up the hill or just the remnants of a house that used to sit there.

You can see on this zoomed in overhead how Renner St used to connect to other streets. Also looks like thee were stairs going up to Klotter towards the western end of the street.

 

There also appears to have been buildings fronting the alley between Renner and Mohwak.

 

 

^Great photo! Do you have the original high-res version somewhere?

 

You can also see that there were steps connecting Clifton Ave down to McMicken, right where Elm St terminates into McMicken.

There also appears to have been buildings fronting the alley between Renner and Mohwak.

 

Yep. My Grandfather grew up on Mohawk on the 30's, and his grandfather lived in the "rear" house which faced the alley.

 

Love that picture by the way; never seen it before. I really wish that massive staircase between McMicken and Clifton (just to the right of the Metal Blast building) was still there. The bottom 6 feet is still visible on McMicken, but that's about it.

You can see on this zoomed in overhead how Renner St used to connect to other streets. Also looks like thee were stairs going up to Klotter towards the western end of the street.

 

A house has since been built on Klotter where those steps (Manchester Ave) connected, however a house was torn down long ago directly south of where Stratford terminates at Klotter, so new steps could be build connecting Stratford down to Renner.

 

The steps from Klotter to Ravine were removed not all that long ago - I believe it was in the 90s, after a crime spree during which suspects frequently fled down them after robbing cars and homes on Klotter.

I posted the uncropped monster photo over in the histroical photos thread: https://www.urbanohio.com/forum/index.php/topic,105.msg928837.html#msg928837

Thanks for that photo. Pre-landslide.

 

I think there will be a plan for the Jackson Brewery but it is not connected to the Franz Fund activities and it will not happen for a while yet. Things are stable there with the new roof and the ownership issues resolved. Be patient, the Brewery is in good hands. In the meantime, if someone wants to put an incline up W. Clifton to UC, that would be splendid.

While we're talking about the Mohawk area, I just realized that the City put out for RFP the two buildings at 254 Mohawk. The City spent $119k in 2017 to stabilize the buildings.

 

That RFP has already closed: https://www.dropbox.com/s/fgd3lses85uwl22/RFP615CEDMOHAWK.pdf?dl=0

 

There are a few other RFPs for city-owned property that are still open:

1735 Vine (full building): https://www.dropbox.com/s/f44x4a4q6ekyv2o/RFP626CEDVINE.pdf?dl=0

120 Elder (upper floors above Silverglade's at Findlay Market): https://www.dropbox.com/s/c5upgna31o5fujx/RFP627CEDELDER.pdf?dl=0

Businesses come and go, and I imagine operating a bakery is extremely hard work with low margins, but I'm still sad to see Shadeau Breads close:

 

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2018/08/02/longtime-over-the-rhine-bakery-closes.html

With Allez and Brown Bear Bakeries a block away there was a lot of competition as well, but it is sad to see unique places go away.

 

Main Street is doing great right now though, with the Main Street bumpouts, the opening of Alladins, Platform brewery, and the giant new Pins space. Along with the Woodward's new marquee and all the other recently owned bars/restaraunts, Main Street is finally about to take back the crown from Vine as the  best street in OTR. (Personally I've always liked it more, but it's always been a bit more off the beaten path compared to the more mainstream Vine street)

Main Street is where you see the culture of the city of Cincinnati, Vine Street is more of the uppity crowd but not quite the culture of Main.

 

A while back my brother was in town and we went to Main Street from like 8pm to 1 am and he kept going on how awesome it was. We went to Vine Street before and it wasn't like that.

Shadeau didn't die because of competition. It died because of the arrogance and incompetence of the new owner, sadly.

I personally pled with the new owner to learn the process from Bill before he left. It is a craft not for the untrained.

Appears that a new Philly Cheese Steak concept is opening on 13th St near Brown Bear Bakey. It will be called 13tb St Alley: A taste of philly...it will stay open late and have a carry out window.

Rare single-family homes coming to Main Street in OTR

 

 

A Cincinnati developer is close to completing three single-family homes in the 1400 block of Main Street in Over-the-Rhine.

 

8K Development expects to finish the last of the three homes within the next 60 days. The first, 1430, is on the market now for $540,000.

 

“There’s not a lot of Main Street single-family homes with frontage,” said Michael Chewning, a principal with 8K.

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2018/08/03/rare-single-family-homes-coming-to-main-street-in.html

 

A Taste of Philly will open on 13th St, right next to Brown Bear Bakery. Will stay open until 3am.

 

I met the owner, he seemed like a really nice guy and offered me a free cheese steak!

 

As I've expressed before, I definitely think OTR needs more late night food options as the OTR continues to blossom with it's night life. I'm happy that we are slowly seeing these small hole in the wall options pop up, and I'm happy it's something different than the typical, pizza/taco/hot dog option that you would already typically find in otr.

 

I'm still holding my breath for when someone from Urban Ohio forum (who has the money to do so lol) will open up a Chili parlor down in OTR. It doesn't even have to be that good, just have it be cincinnati chili style with 3 ways, chili fries, and conies and that's all you would need to satisfy drunk patrons at 3am.

 

 

Have I mentioned recently that, despite the fact that Walnut got a new streetscape 4 years ago, the utilities still have not been fully buried and most of the telephone poles are still standing?

 

Holy moly, it looks like all of the above-ground utilities have been removed. Does this mean the poles might actually be removed some time soon?

Hopefully this means they won’t have to cut down the trees like they always have done in years past, a hopefully this means walnut can finally become properly streetscaped.

All of the underground conduit was installed 4 years ago when they redid the sidewalks, so there is no need to rip up any sidewalks again or cut down any trees. It just took them over 4 years to actually get everything switched over from the above ground wires to the underground wires. Unbelievable. And it'll probably be another few months before they come around to remove the poles, then fill in those sidewalk gaps with concrete.

Good news for Main Street. A diversity of tenants (which right now means more office) will help make Main St businesses more successful:

 

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2018/08/08/exclusive-recently-acquired-startup-moving-hq-to.html

Main St has really crushed it in the last year. 

Council members urge school district, 3CDC to negotiate over parking spaces

 

 

There was no resolution on Tuesday to the dispute between the Cincinnati Public Schools, the teachers union and the Cincinnati Center City Development Corp. over 200 parking spaces in the Washington Park garage that the district wants teachers at Over-the-Rhine’s School for the Creative and Performing Arts to continue to be able to use.

 

3CDC proposes allowing teachers to retain 60 Washington Park spaces with another 120 coming from the Town Center Garage across Central Parkway from Music Hall as well as 20 in the YMCA surface lot across Elm Street from SCPA. 3CDC cites increased parking demand in the neighborhood as the reason for the needed change. There are 450 spaces in Washington Park, although, as is standard in most parking facilities, 3CDC has sold more monthly passes than total spaces because such passes are used at different times of the day.

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2018/08/08/council-members-urge-school-district-3cdc-to.html

The CPS teachers refusing the parking spots in the Town Center garage is pretty laughable.  Though the distance is the same from the Washington Park garage they complain about having to walk across Central.  Uh hey teachers hundreds if not thousands of people walk across that street everyday to get to and from their job, you guys can do the same. 

The 360 from last year to this year on Main Street is incredible. The street went from sort of dead and sketchy at times, to a street that’s comparable to the bustle of vine.

 

I believe there has been more than 8 new businesses open this year on main.

Pretty sure their main gripe about Town Center is that there is the very likely possibility it gets torn down in the near future and they're back to having to find a new place to park.

The CPS teachers refusing the parking spots in the Town Center garage is pretty laughable.  Though the distance is the same from the Washington Park garage they complain about having to walk across Central.  Uh hey teachers hundreds if not thousands of people walk across that street everyday to get to and from their job, you guys can do the same. 

 

If only there were a bridge across central from that garage..........I kid, I kid!!

The 360 from last year to this year on Main Street is incredible. The street went from sort of dead and sketchy at times, to a street that’s comparable to the bustle of vine.

 

I believe there has been more than 8 new businesses open this year on main.

 

If it was a 360 it would be pointing the exactly the same direction

Yeah, it's funny because we had a big political fight about the exact same thing less than a year ago. Music Hall patrons and now the teachers' union have both complained that it is not safe to cross Central Parkway. What's odd is that the city repainted two of the crosswalks on Central Parkway with zebra stripes after the skywalk was demolished and I haven't heard anything else about the skywalk since that happened. So apparently it was a good idea to not spend millions rebuilding the skywalk...but maybe we could spend a fraction of that amount on making a few more pedestrian improvements to Central Parkway to make teachers and all other pedestrians feel safer.

Yeah, it's funny because we had a big political fight about the exact same thing less than a year ago. Music Hall patrons and now the teachers' union have both complained that it is not safe to cross Central Parkway. What's odd is that the city repainted two of the crosswalks on Central Parkway with zebra stripes after the skywalk was demolished and I haven't heard anything else about the skywalk since that happened. So apparently it was a good idea to not spend millions rebuilding the skywalk...but maybe we could spend a fraction of that amount on making a few more pedestrian improvements to Central Parkway to make teachers and all other pedestrians feel safer.

 

You can take a lane off Central Parkway and traffic flow would only be reduced by a few miles per hour. Oh and get rid of the 2nd left turn onto Walnut while we're at it.

^When you come to a fork in the road, take it. 

Pretty sure their main gripe about Town Center is that there is the very likely possibility it gets torn down in the near future and they're back to having to find a new place to park.

The city and 3CDC said yesterday there is no immanent plan to do anything with the town center garage.  Now they could be lying about that or know that something will happen but not for a year or two.  But the city did say that unlike what we all thought the town center garage is not part of FCCs plan. 

My understanding is that WCET owns the center building and has not yet announced what they plan to do next--whether they are interested in selling the building and relocating elsewhere, or not. WCET leased space to Cincinnati Public Radio, which is planning to relocate due to that uncertainty. The city has been trying to find a place to add more parking in that area for a long time, because there are various players that want more parking, including the owners of the Streitmann office building. One idea that was floated was building a garage on the parking lot next to the YMCA building, right at the Central Parkway curve. I'm sure the city would prefer to partner with an org like 3CDC to redevelop the Town Center/WCET block. The advantage is that you could kill multiple birds with one stone--providing parking for Streitmann, Music Hall, and FCC with one new garage. If WCET refuses to sell, we might end up with two separate smaller garages--one by the YMCA and one somewhere else near the stadium site.

Yeah, it's funny because we had a big political fight about the exact same thing less than a year ago. Music Hall patrons and now the teachers' union have both complained that it is not safe to cross Central Parkway. What's odd is that the city repainted two of the crosswalks on Central Parkway with zebra stripes after the skywalk was demolished and I haven't heard anything else about the skywalk since that happened. So apparently it was a good idea to not spend millions rebuilding the skywalk...but maybe we could spend a fraction of that amount on making a few more pedestrian improvements to Central Parkway to make teachers and all other pedestrians feel safer.

 

You can take a lane off Central Parkway and traffic flow would only be reduced by a few miles per hour. Oh and get rid of the 2nd left turn onto Walnut while we're at it.

 

When they were doing work on the rapid transit tunnels (Jake, what's the actual name?) Central Parkway was down to one lane for over a month and no one noticed or cared.

Any updates on Elm and Liberty?

 

Drove by this morning and still looks like no movement has made on the site. I was under the impression that fortus had all the financing in place so I’m not sure why the promised summer start date is being prolonged...

The only recent activity on site has been mowing and related grounds maintenance. That doesn’t seem to be something you’d spend time doing if you were going to start site prep for construction. 

Weird....I know fortus has applied for demolition permits for the old boys and girls club on Logan st...maybe that has something to do with the delay?

Model Group is nearing completion of a bunch of buildings around Findlay Market. Here are a couple photos from over the weekend.

 

Northeast corner of Race/Findlay:

 

Northwest corner of Elder and Goose Alley:

^Awesome stuff. I wonder if Model is looking to add more buildings to their portfolio around Findlay or if they still have some buildings in the pipeline ready for construction. They had so many buildings and also I believe it was a total of 3 phases for Market Square (I think that is what it is called) and so I am lost as far as where they are at with everything.

 

The area around Findlay Market is really changing rapidly and hopefully the Fortus development that Troy just mentioned gets moving soon as well. Also, maybe someone can tweet at Jason Williams as I heard him on 700 this weekend talking about the streetcar article and him saying "I haven't seen any proof that the streetcar has helped with any development"

 

When in fact I believe Model said the reason they were investing so much around Findlay was becasue of the streetcar and they wouldn't have done so without. Same with the Streitmann building and many others.