There is no doubt that Model Group's investment in northern OTR would not have happened (at least not for several more decades) without the streetcar. That's why Bobby Maly, COO of Model Group, was such a streetcar advocate in the late 2000's and early 2010's. Only in the mind of a hardcore anti-streetcar columnist's mind is there "no evidence" that the streetcar is accelerating development in OTR.

Oh, I don't think so. Fred and Bobby had discussed these properties for years. They went back and forth adding and subtracting parcels. The whole deal was finally inked by July 2015. I never one time heard Bobby, Steve or Art say anything about the streetcar. The streetcar spurred development but not that group's purchases.

Bobby Maly was literally one of the co-chairs of the No One Nine effort in 2009 to keep the streetcar project going.

I'm sure he was a big supporter. But, if I listed all of the properties that were included in the deal you would see that the streetcar route was not much involved.  The Elder and Elm St. Properties were a small part in number and value.

Does anyone know if something is happening around 12th and Main, close to the Davis building/Salvation army?? They appeared to be a surveying the area yesterday, a  helicopter circled for about 15 min.

^ Netflix movie that's being filmed here

^ Netflix movie that's being filmed here

I think they're also up filming further up Main around Rothenberg.

I’ve long been curious about this...

 

But the land along east liberty (closer to l liberty hill) and the check cashing place...is that land developable? I noticed it’s mainly grass/shrubs and trees, but I wasn’t sure if that space could fit any type of mixed use development?

 

I also hope that along reading the suburban looking staples building with the parking lot that’s close to Pendleton and the casino can eventually be developed as well. It seems like a waste, and that short stretch of reading, along with the check cashing place could perhaps be absorbed into the fabric of otr/Pendleton and gain more use than what it is currently...

When Liberty was cut through to Reading, to make it as wide as it is, the result is hillsides that are very steep and pretty unstable.  If you made the street half as wide and shifted it all to today's eastbound lanes, then yeah you could build something on the north side.  You could probably do something with the Staples, the empty casino corner, and the check cashing place, but you're at one of the busiest intersections near downtown.  It would take a lot of road-dieting and also an alternate route to I-471 to make that anything but a horrible place to be. 

It appears that The Royal has closed.

Also, Epicurean Mercantile Company across from Findlay Market has announced that they will be closing.

That really sucks the royal couldn't make it as a business.  I would have thought with the owners also having the Pony and Liberty's they would have held on longer but maybe it was making no money.  I think in another couple years when there are more office workers in OTR they could have done even better business but I guess they didn't want to hang on any longer. 

Agreed about the Royal, you can even imagine an identical pub opening in the same space with a new name in 18 months and maybe it does really well. (Though some more vegetarian food wouldn't kill them.)

 

About Epicurean Mercantile, I feel like you could see that coming from a mile away. The prices were high, the produce wasn't reliably fresh or even present, the location was poor, and with the new Kroger going in you felt it was only a matter of time. That said, the food from the Counter was delicious and I'll miss that at least. But again, it always seemed like a business that was just a year too early for its ambitions.

The royal lacked an identity.

 

They went from staying open late at night, with hamburgers, to closing early, to only selling breakfast and lunch items.

 

Besides, the vast majority of people go to otr to experience unique food items. The last thing people want is hamburgers that they can already find with the nation or sacred beast.

 

You got to be unique when it comes to the otr food scene and have an identity that’s unique. The royal lacked that in spades.

EMC was at least 2 or 3 years too early. There just aren’t enough residents and workers in that area yet.

 

Same thing, to a lesser degree, with The Royal. Once all of the new office space opens above Japp’s/LouVino, there will be a lot more people needing a place to grab lunch on that block. They also suffered from the fact that they were 1 of 3 sandwich shops to open in the last year on Main Street. I have a feeling the space won’t be empty for long, though.

I never heard of The Royal until now.  I've walked or biked down that street 2-3 times per month and never noticed it.  I'm sure many other people didn't see it either. 

 

Epicurian looked like it thought it wanted to be on Martha's Vineyard so I never went in.  You could see that there was food inside from the sidewalk but the pillars sort of blocked the view and it never really looked open. 

 

A business needs to look OPEN.  It needs to be lit up.  It needs to be obvious what goes on in there. 

 

When you pass a gas station, it's obvious that it's a gas station.  It's a place where you can get gas for your car.  They're going to sell cigarettes, beer, snacks, etc., inside.  There's going to be beef jerky up by the cashier.  They've got lotto tickets.  There will probably be an air thing but it might not be working. 

 

A storefront business needs to be like that.  If you're a restaurant ideally you can smell the food out on the street.  You can smell Italian food or bakeries or anything with a fryer outside.  You can't smell lettuce and avocado. 

The royal was quite lit at night...you could see it was an eatery from the drinkery....you could also see that it was dead inside and the cooks and greeter were literally standing by the front door waiting eagerly for a customer.

 

It just never worked for whatever reason.

 

The next BIG restaurant opening next week is LouVino. It’s a huge get for main st, and could be a game changer. Since it’s going to located right next to Pins that will drive pedestrian traffic to that stretch of main.

 

With Alladins and soon Lou Vino I am generally curious if main st will slowly shift to a vine st of sorts with upscale expensive restaurants?

 

 

With Alladins and soon Lou Vino I am generally curious if main st will slowly shift to a vine st of sorts with upscale expensive restaurants

 

Pins, Aladdin's, and LouVino (and I like the one on Bardstown) aren't exactly upscale/expensive.

louvino is charging 18$ for glasses of wine and 16$ for chicken egg rolls...maybe not upscale, but still expensive. Much more expensive than any other current eatery on main.

 

And pins isn’t upscale, your right. But it’s definitely an entertainment hub, and more so than 16 bit will be. Not sure if you’ve ever been to the Columbus location but it is always packed. Shoulder to shoulder crowds.

 

Pins will drive a lot of day time traffic and night time traffic and that can only be a benefit for the other businesses on main st in the long run as people are walking to and from pins.

Blog post about the Kroger site: https://cincinnatiideas.com/turner-street-new-street-in-otr/

Despite the appeal of bars and restaurants to outsiders, Main St's success does not depend on these businesses. It is already established as the business corridor for market rate residential with all of the residential amenities one needs for good city living. The restaurants are a plus, but they come and go and trends are fickle. If Main St. never got another bar or restaurant, the development progress would continue unabated.

Bars and restaurants are absolutely critical to neighborhoods like OTR. They're the main draw of outsiders who might then become residents when they then discover the other things the neighborhood have to offer. It's not critical for specific bars and restaurants to stick around, but it is critical for these establishments to draw people from outside the neighborhood. Exposure is everything, even in fairly well established areas.

^^Uh huh. Like all the new bars and restaurants in Hyde Park Square, Mt. Lookout Square and Mariemont, the top three residential neighborhoods that have bars and restaurants embedded in the residential area.

Those are completely different kinds of neighborhoods that are significantly more established in what they are and their perception in the minds of people within the city and region.

 

Neighborhoods "LIKE OTR" as I said, rely on bars and restaurants as a draw.

I don't think the entire neighborhood of OTR is reliant on bars and restaurants.  But Main St in OTR is the most popular bar spot in the city, so it certainly is. 

^^Uh huh. Like all the new bars and restaurants in Hyde Park Square, Mt. Lookout Square and Mariemont, the top three residential neighborhoods that have bars and restaurants embedded in the residential area.

 

You're comparing apples to oranges, because those aren't urban neighborhoods. Think bigger. Look at the most successful urban neighborhoods in the country. They're mixed use centers that attract lots of people, both residents and visitors alike. But even your examples are telling. You picked three of the most walkable suburban neighborhoods and they also happen to be places with vibrant business districts. No doubt they would not be as desirable without the bars and restaurants they have.

I think what's going to really help OTR the most now is this "second phase" ish type of development, more office and tech workers. It seems to me, not living in the neighborhood but former resident and every other weekend when I'm around Findlay Market goer, OTR is at an inflection point of sorts. Sadly we need more structured parking in key areas (Findlay Playground, Vine Street Kroger, West End area), but that said, I don't mind so much as long as we get the streetcar figured out to run efficiently on time every time, and the Liberty Street Road diet.

 

I can't imagine where the neighborhood would be if we didn't finish up the streetcar. Market forces are working against everything Cranley fought for, and it's awesome. As every single year passes by, OTR becomes more and more complete neighborhood with more vibrancy

Main St. has plenty enough bars and restaurants. What it needs now are residential amenities. It serves a quite large area being the business district for both Liberty Hill and Pendleton. Its long term stability depends upon people being able to access those less colorful businesses like clothing, grocery, arts, healthcare and offices. Visitors from outside the area will come, see what an interesting life style is available here and continue to drive renovation of hundreds of existing buildings. But hoards of one time visitors are not helpful to a neighborhood on the brink of mainstream residential as Main St. is. Ask anyone who lived in Mt. Adams in 1980.

I don't think the entire neighborhood of OTR is reliant on bars and restaurants.  But Main St in OTR is the most popular bar spot in the city, so it certainly is. 

 

Oh for sure. Now that OTR has had enough time to ground itself a bit there are other amenities that can help draw and hold people (Washington Park, Findlay Market, etc.) but its primary success in the last 10-15 years has been through bringing outsiders in via quality bars and restaurants and then providing them a walkable environment in which to discover the other great things the neighborhood has to offer which is generally what makes them stay.

 

But OTR still has a long way to go so it needs to continue being a draw for people outside of the neighborhood. There are hundreds of buildings that still need to be fixed up, hundreds of vacant lots, hundreds of empty storefronts, etc. that need to find an audience and that can't happen without people "discovering (for lack of better term)" the neighborhood from the outside. The quickest way to do that these days is via bars and restaurants that provide something unique and make a name for themselves and grab the excitement of a variety of types of people.

I don't disagree with the premise that bars and restaurants expose a new area and open it up to development. That is exactly what we sought to achieve with the significant sales of develop able properties to the Franz Group and the Model affiliates. If I gave you the number you would be impressed. More bars and restaurants in the area north and west of Findlay Market is the starting point. But the Main St. boom is already won and over as far as an incentive for development. The hundreds of properties that are already online or in the queue are gonna happen without another bar. McMicken? Not so much.

If we had a Walgreens or CVS set up shop, we'll be good to go.

 

Just have to demand an urban street fronting one that does not require any historic building demolition!

^^ That would be the Shell Station. No one would buy gas there anyway. Its really just a bodega with a big nasty parking lot.

I'm not sure the 1400-1600 blocks of Main are as healthy as you are suggesting at this point. There are some good businesses in those blocks but also a lot of vacant storefronts. Most of the buildings are not affiliated with Urban Sites, 3CDC, or Model Group, and haven't been renovated in decades. At some point these smaller landlords will have to decide whether they want to invest in making their apartments as "nice" as other apartments in the neighborhood, or accept the fact that they can't get comparable rents out of them. There are also several smaller, independent HOAs that will need to make a similar decision. Do we invest in making the common areas in our buildings "3CDC-quality" or do we accept the fact that condos in our buildings won't sell for as much as other condos in the neighborhood?

^^ That would be the Shell Station. No one would buy gas there anyway. Its really just a bodega with a big nasty parking lot.

 

[move][/move]

Yeah I would much prefer any other brand than Walgreen's. I haven't shopped at one since the whole Bishop's Mansion fiasco.

I assume that the new Downtown Kroger will also have a pharmacy. If so that will be a convenient place for OTR residents to get prescriptions filled.

The German clothing store that was located inside Christian Moerlein has closed after their lease expired and they opted not to renew.

The 3CDC buildings are not economically stable in a private market. This doesn't matter because they are built with subsidy which becomes permanent. But, at $250- $300 per square foot of construction cost (which is what most of new Vine Street was built for), if privately owned and financed as Main St. was, one could not get a tenant to pay the rents needed to amortize the cost. So, you are not going to get 3CDC quality without 3CDC tax incentives.

 

When City Center Properties fought the first battle with ReStok and renovated the 1400+ Main properties they were renovated in the $50-80 per square foot range. Today, think of that as $80-100 per SF. Model is spending more than that but they don't care. Its not their money.

 

Stable development is private development because people who have an equity interest in th eproperty play for the long term. And, long term is good.

Convert the shell station into a Kroger fuel station...there’s none in the urban core except, I think the Newport location....I mean most of the people living in the cbd and otr still have cars and earn go to the new cbd Kroger to earn fuel points...but for what if there is no fuel station nearby.

 

Simple solution for me would Kroger to buy out the shell and convert to a Kroger station.

EMC was at least 2 or 3 years too early. There just aren’t enough residents and workers in that area yet.

 

EMC was based off of a concept that's really popular in Chicago.  I'm sad to see it go because these kinds of small urban markets come in handy for neighborhood residents who don't always want to go to the grocery but still are willing to pay the extra cost (that and high quality goods).  Hoping that this doesn't set back urban markets in Cincy a few years.

EMC was at least 2 or 3 years too early. There just aren’t enough residents and workers in that area yet.

 

EMC was based off of a concept that's really popular in Chicago.  I'm sad to see it go because these kinds of small urban markets come in handy for neighborhood residents who don't always want to go to the grocery but still are willing to pay the extra cost (that and high quality goods).  Hoping that this doesn't set back urban markets in Cincy a few years.

 

I’m not sure why it would. The majority of north liberty residents can’t afford the prices of emc... just wrong location. Otr is simply not gentrified enough yet to sustain such a business yet imo

EMC is a big loss. The proprietors really stuck their neck out creating an independent concept unique to Cincinnati. But in the end there were not enough bodies walking through their store. I could see it every time I went by. Because for all the urban living and streetcar hype we are not adding population fast enough. There are real world consequences to NIMBYism and maybe this store could have held on a little longer if the Elm and Liberty project wasn’t halted. Could have had ~150 or more potential customers living nearby.

 

Also when they opened they had to deal with some arcane law where they couldn’t sell wine on Sundays. We need to prep the ground in the urban core to make sure our policies are more business friendly and pro-growth. We haven’t done it.

The Newest Pack:

 

Page 96

 

https://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/buildings/historic-conservation/historic-conservation-board/august-20-2018-staff-report-and-attachments/

 

24-26 W. 15th Street: 12 Unit Rehab

 

 

The gentrification progress could have played a part, but I don't think so. One of my cronies tried what looks like exactly the same thing (I wasn't ever in EMC but read their reviews, etc.) in Mt Adams which could not have any more gentrification than it does.

 

I told the promoters of Sprouts in the old Alive One space not to do it. and it failed faster than the blink of an eye.

 

I think people like choosing groceries from a thousand SKU's not 15. And, their wines from an expert or a discount house. And, no one wants to pay $27 for a little bottle of olive oil. Gentrified or not.

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.

 

I recall that the sign they had up in 2010 actually said "rapid transit tunnels".  It definitely didn't say "subway", or "boondoggle". 

The Newest Pack:

 

Page 96

 

https://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/buildings/historic-conservation/historic-conservation-board/august-20-2018-staff-report-and-attachments/

 

24-26 W. 15th Street: 12 Unit Rehab

 

 

 

And a new single-family home replacing the non-historic cinder block garage at 1505 Republic Street.

An of course the new infill project in Pendleton

In the HCB packet notice for 9.24.18 there is an application for the lot at 1118 Sycamore (one of the big lots in front of the Alumni Lofts for a mixed use development. Does not provide much detail beyond that... will have to wait for packet to come out.

Um woah...for the whole lot? That’s been by dream since forever

That would be great to start some development on those lots