February 23, 20178 yr The trap is that "it's so expensive already to build crap, why would anyone pay even more for something better?" I think there's a little bit of "who cares if it will sell for $800k instead of the $500k it used to, we're still only going to spend $350k to build it" going on, too. Construction costs have shot up quite a bit in the last couple of years, but not as much as prices in OTR have. There are a few examples of new builds done privately, rather than via developer, that turned out much, much better than some of the developer driven ones. The project on Elm designed by Terry Boling comes to mind, as does the infill up on Liberty Hill designed by Michael McInturf. I think both are multi-family buildings.
February 23, 20178 yr There's one key difference when it comes to those properties. They're owner-occupied. One of the units in each of those developments is lived in by the people who built them. People are way more willing to shell out money for their own residence than for a purely investment property. Also to note, 3CDC used to lose a ton of money per property until very recently. Something to keep in mind when comparing prices.
February 23, 20178 yr Also don't even get me started on Cornices. I feel like they are the most unique and defining part of the Italianate buildings we have, and the ones being built today have almost no character. Specifically for the Towne properties units, the cornices are not actually that bad. The thing that makes the whole thing bad is the copy/paste of one unit to the next. It ends up feeling either like a strip mall, or like a single massive building that's strangely been broken up into identical parts. I agree, tho I have seen that done before in the past with similar row houses. Still, I would love to see someone give a cornice a more unique and modern twist. We have the ability to solar power LEDs, how about some of those in there? Also the general form factor could be extrapolated and perhaps evolved into some new form of aesthetic unique to Cincinnati. Anyway I'm a dreamer, perhaps I'll sketch some of my cornice ideas someday.
February 25, 20178 yr 3CDC has posted some aerials from their Mercer Commons IV / Empower MediaMarketing project:
February 25, 20178 yr IMPORTANT NOTICE for OTR residents: memberships to the OTRCC expire the day before the March meeting. Please join or renew your membership at the upcoming February meeting on Monday at 6pm at the OTR Rec Center to make sure you can vote on important issues in the neighborhood for an entire year! http://otrcommunitycouncil.org/its-time-to-renew-your-membership-to-the-otrcc/ Otherwise if you let your membership lapse, when you do show up for a meeting and sign up you will not be able to vote on issues at that meeting and will need to wait until the next meeting to be able to vote. There are sure to be issues before the council that people will have strong opinions on, and there's no telling when they'll be on the schedule, so you need to plan ahead and join to make sure your voice gets heard! www.cincinnatiideas.com
February 28, 20178 yr 3CDC should pay city full market value for properties, council members say Cincinnati City Council members balked at selling a piece of property in Over-the-Rhine to the Cincinnati Center City Development Corp. for less than full market value, saying that from now on parcels set to be redeveloped for market-rate housing should be sold for full market value. More below: http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2017/02/28/3cdc-should-pay-city-full-market-value-for.html "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
March 1, 20178 yr Cross-posted from the Streetcar thread: Fast-growing logistics company to add dozens of jobs along streetcar line in OTR Mar 1, 2017, 1:08pm EST Chris Wetterich Staff reporter and columnist Cincinnati Business Courier Custom Pro Logistics is set to add at least 40 jobs at a new location in Over-the-Rhine near Findlay Market and along the Cincinnati Bell Connector streetcar line. The company will build its third Cincinnati office at 1707 Race St. for nearly $900,000 in total costs, according to documents filed with the city. Cincinnati competed with at least three other sites for the company’s latest expansion. http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2017/03/01/fast-growing-logistics-company-to-add-dozens-of.html The building they're renovating is in this block of Race, just south of Findlay Market:
March 3, 20178 yr The final piece of steel was installed in the Empower MediaMarketing building on Thursday. That went up fast.
March 3, 20178 yr Author Over-the-Rhine headquarters building topped out Mar 3, 2017, 12:29pm EST Tom Demeropolis Senior Staff Reporter Cincinnati Business Courier The final piece of steel has been set at Empower MediaMarketing’s new headquarters building in Over-the-Rhine. Jim Price, CEO of Empower, said 2016 was a record year for the company after being named agency of the year by MediaPost and having its best year ever in terms of revenue. http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2017/03/03/over-the-rhine-headquarters-building-topped-out.html
March 6, 20178 yr Here is one for you. This guy wants a detached garage and a suburban fence in the most visible vacant lot from Liberty Street at 218 Orchard. Note the existing picket fence. Pre hearing 3/8/17
March 6, 20178 yr That best be denied...we shouldn't be allowing ANY private garages built on vacant lots if there isn't residential included above let alone a detached garage with a suburban fence around the lot.
March 6, 20178 yr I forgot to mention that he also wants a covered connector from the house to the garage, like the skywalk but probably in pine.
March 6, 20178 yr I don't have a problem with this. The property tax will be horrendous and the next person to buy this house will build one or two new homes.
March 7, 20178 yr A new record for a vacant lot if this gets the asking price of $150k: https://www.sibcycline.com/Listing/CIN/1527850/207-15th-St-Cincinnati-OH-45202 They are falsely advertising this as a "double lot". It is not. Per Cagis it is a 29x90 foot lot. So wider than a 25-foot lot and significantly wider than a 20-foot lot but by no measure a double lot.
March 7, 20178 yr It is two lots. It's a 29' lot and a 19' lot side by side. From Cagis it appears it's a 29' lot that then was combined with some pieces from neighboring lots to create an L shaped lot. So not two full lots, but a large lot plus 2/3 of a regular sized lot.
March 7, 20178 yr The lot is 49 feet wide at street frontage, and totals 3667 square feet. It might not be twice the size of a lot on some streets, but it is certainly twice the width of 217, 219, or 221 W. 15th Street, its neighbors, which are all about 20-21 feet. A good rule of thumb is 20-25% of total house cost for land. Sounds like it is priced right on the money.
March 7, 20178 yr Okay I now see that. I think the listing description changed because I don't remember seeing a lot dimension when I first looked at it. So the main lot is 29x90 and the side lot is 19x30, which is probably too small to permit a house of its own, depending on the zoning. Even if a small house is permitted on that small lot, it would also hopefully be exempt from parking requirements. Otherwise the "house" would simply be a 1-car garage with a staircase next to it leading to 2-3 400~ sq foot floors.
March 7, 20178 yr ^ Correct, basically no single-family residence can be built in the city on a lot less than 25 feet wide and at least 2,000 square feet. If you do a multi-lot rowhouse development then you get a little more flexibility, but not much.
March 10, 20178 yr Someone was asking about how the Empower MediaMarketing building and how the floor heights of the new building would work with the much shorter floor heights of the historic building they saved. Well, it looks like they made no effort to line up the historic building's windows with the new building's floor heights.
March 10, 20178 yr Ha! Kind of funny, but my bet is this: They create floor to ceiling windos straight through then re-brick in the portions of the floors covering the existing windows.
March 11, 20178 yr They may glaze the windows with spandrel glass so that from the exterior it's not super obvious that the floor plate slices through. Retain the general character of the historic facade but allow for taller ceilings which is a pretty typical requirement for this type of office space.
March 11, 20178 yr An old roofer friend told me that Hukon Mgf, which was in that building for a century or more was a company that specialized in taking flat metal and making it round (semi-spherical). They did this by spinning the flat metal on a lathe type machine and gradually reshaped the metal.
March 13, 20178 yr LEED and Modern Infill Development in OTR My wife and I are the owners of 1514 Race St., referred to as one of the examples of "modern infill". What I wanted to write about here was how LEED also plays into what we are doing and why. First a bit of background is helpful. We lived in London England for 16 years prior to coming to Cincinnati. We lived here back in 1983-1984, and like others now with grown children, we felt the urge to move from our prior more suburban location to something more central. OTR fit the bill. We looked around for warehouse and loft space, which isn't Cincinnati's specialty and then looked at 3CDC redevelopment opportunities. Given our clear objectives were to have lots of light and outdoor space, the (reasonable) constraints of Cincinnati historic preservation moved us in the direction of infill development. LEED comes into play not just because there are tax abatements to be had but energy efficiency and environmental considerations seem to be a natural part of urban building. We have called our building "The Stannary" because it evokes the one of the places we lived in London -- light, vertical, interesting use of materials. . Compare to what 1514 Race looks like in its current state. Ours are the top two floors, and we are renting the others as AirBnB apartments. With LEED, things like solar heating and water retention/management are important things. The former was a bit impractical on a property like ours, but the latter seemed pretty doable. We bought two adjacent lots, which in the grand scheme of a building project wasn't prohibitive. Few people tend to say down the road that they regret having bought a bit of extra land. Having bought 50' of street front instead of 25', this allowed us to leave 5' to 13' on each side of the building to create private space, allow in light, and to allow for water retention systems. We are doing this through a combination of landscape areas, permeable pavers instead of concrete, and a couple of water butts. That's the outside. Inside is a bit more behind the scenes. Much of what is done seems pretty straightforward -- LED everywhere, low-flow plumbing, renewable lumber resource (or recycled), etc. etc. One that I found was a new one were the Mitsubishi Mini Splits for HVAC. They allow you to have multiple zones on a single floor and really seem to help with energy efficiency. We did have an extended discussion with our LEED consultants regarding the type of insulation to use. There were questions about closed-cell vs. open-cell and in the end, we had spray, close-cell insulation throughout the building. The fact is that none of this comes inexpensively, but like others here, the use of good building materials and energy-efficient and environmentally-friendly practices will hopefully pay off down the road. Fingers crossed that the energy bills are much lower than we are sometimes used to. We don't yet know whether LEED leads (pardon the pun) to a good or better rating - Silver or Gold-certified in their terminology. If nothing else, you end up with a place you feel good about regarding its standing in the community and in terms of use of our shared resources. If you are looking for help going through this process, there are local consultants who know all the ins and outs of navigating LEED. Given all the specific steps, it might be worth getting the help for anyone considering the LEED process.
March 13, 20178 yr The most current version of the LEED for Homes standards give even more weight to well-connected urban properties so that the storm water retention and management points, which are really meant for more suburban projects, aren't needed, or at least they aren't penalizing you so much for not being able to use them. Having to buy additional property just to satisfy storm water management is somewhat of an anathema to urban development.
March 13, 20178 yr TLEAVITT; Welcome. I'm a neighbor 2 blocks to the south. Congratulations on the new place. I've been watching it and it looks great.
March 13, 20178 yr Welcome! I used to live one block south of you until about 9 months ago when I moved to NYC. Your home is one that sets the bar for new construction. And you hired one of my favorite professors too so I have to love it haha. I can't wait to see the finished product in person when I'm back in Cincinnati this summer.
March 14, 20178 yr Get a look at 3CDC’s newest condos in Over-the-Rhine Work is wrapping up on the Allison, one phase of Cincinnati Center City Development Corp.’s 15th and Race development. The Allison includes 17 residential condominiums and 4,500 square feet of first-floor commercial space. Heather Stallmeyer, team manager of the Oyler Group of Coldwell Banker West Shell, said five of the 17 units are pending. 3CDC, the developer of the Allison, selected Oyler Group to handle its condo listings last fall. The first closings are scheduled for March 31. More below: http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2017/03/14/get-a-look-at-3cdc-s-newest-condos-in-over-the.html "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
March 16, 20178 yr I know we want to minimize the need for parking in OTR, but because of the sprawled nature of our metro region there will always be a baseline demand. It's been mentioned that a good strategy might be to concentrate parking options in a few structured garages, so that developments spread throughout the neighborhood can incorporate less parking or no parking. With that being said, what does everyone think of this plan? After the Liberty Street narrowing, put in an underground garage bounded by Elm, Liberty, and Race extending underneath Pleasant Street. (Replacing the empty lot and stand alone cell phone store.) Then incorporate dense mixed use development on the two half block parcels above. (Posting this in 3CDC thread because half the land area is already incorporated in 15th and Race project site and probably only they have the resources to do it) 3CDC just closed on the infamous cell phone store for a whopping $1.5 Mil. Hopefully good things to come!
March 16, 20178 yr Looks like there is space for about 14 houses there. Nearby lots have been selling for just about $100k so do the math, although hopefully we get something more substantial there than another cluster of single-family homes.
March 16, 20178 yr Yeah, hopefully they can put up something a bit more substantial, I really like Billshark's idea. Hopefully they don't sit on it forever but, if they need to wait until the Liberty Street Road Diet is done, then they can get more out of the block if they expand the block sizes on the south side.
March 16, 20178 yr Wow. The intersection of Liberty and Elm is going to look very different in five years. Since they will be replacing a former KFC, I propose that the new development be called The Colonel's Flats.
March 16, 20178 yr Does the sale include the city lots that are submerged under the expanded Liberty St.? I seem to recall on Cagis that all of those lots still exist, all the way west to the public housing.
March 16, 20178 yr Does the sale include the city lots that are submerged under the expanded Liberty St.? I seem to recall on Cagis that all of those lots still exist, all the way west to the public housing. According to DOTE, those parcels will be available to the adjacent property owner to purchase from the city. They don't automatically own the parcels, but they will be given the first chance to purchase them from the city.
March 16, 20178 yr Is there a utility of some kind running under the whole length of Liberty St. or could they narrow just this one block right now?
March 16, 20178 yr From what I recall all utilities are under the north side of the road which means the road diet would be less challenging here than in other scenarios. I'm not sure how they'd go about a single block road diet, but it sure would put pressure to complete it fully and I'd be in support of that. I can't imagine 3CDC wouldn't push for those parcels in this scenario. That's a big site and could house a serious amount of development. Increasing that by 10% would be a big deal. I also doubt that we'd see single family homes here. They wouldn't sell well. If 3CDC can't get their townhomes on a quiet side street to sell for what they want they stand no chance by Liberty. I'd imagine we'll see a large mixed use development with a garage behind/under it here.
March 16, 20178 yr Is there a utility of some kind running under the whole length of Liberty St. or could they narrow just this one block right now? I don't think there are any utilities running under the "new" lanes of Liberty Street. When DOTE talked about the narrowing, they wanted to do it as quickly and cheaply as possible. A new sidewalk would be built on the south side and the existing pavement would be re-striped but the project would not "touch" the northern sidewalk at all in order to cut costs. If there were underground utilities that would need to be moved, the whole thing would be cost prohibitive.
March 16, 20178 yr I just counted on Cagis and right now 3CDC just bought 18 developable 25-foot lots. If Liberty St. were narrowed back to its original 25~-foot self, they get 8 more lots. So they're more likely going to get the equivalent of 22 lots. The Mercer Townhomes are boring designs without usable back courtyards. They look like the junk "slot homes" they sell in Denver and Nashville. 3CDC blew it there, they needed underground parking so that the houses could have had nice rear courtyards.
March 16, 20178 yr Wow. The intersection of Liberty and Elm is going to look very different in five years. Speaking of that, has anyone heard what's up with the Liberty and Elm apartments? They were supposed to go in front of the zoning board of appeals this morning.
March 17, 20178 yr Looks like a work in progress (the balcony is obviously incomplete). Must have gone through the HCB at some point.
March 17, 20178 yr 3CDC starting next wave of development, including a few ‘micro’ condos Developers recently started work on two residential projects in Over-the-Rhine that will be part of Cincinnati Center City Development Corp.’s seventh wave of condo development. More below: http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2017/03/16/exclusive-3cdc-starting-next-wave-of-development.html "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
March 17, 20178 yr Gosh I am so happy these are getting done, the buildings on E. 13th are some of my favorite in Over The Rhine and and they've been boarded up for so long. The buildings on West 15th are really unique as well. I wonder if they are going to rehabilitate the large building across the street from there soon, as well. Just curious, does anyone know if this building is getting rehabbed? Looks like it might be last few times I drove by. This is my absolute favorite building in all of Cincinnati, I wish I had the money to buy and rehab myself. Maybe when I retire in 36 years I can buy it ;-) I would love to know the history of this building (1420 Elm Street) https://www.google.com/maps/@39.1107676,-84.5187608,3a,75y,46.8h,107t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sbSV1bQa3Xt0CS5Pve_mBkA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1
March 17, 20178 yr Speaking of that, has anyone heard what's up with the Liberty and Elm apartments? They were supposed to go in front of the zoning board of appeals this morning. I've been wondering as well. Have seen anything on it at all. “All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.” -Friedrich Nietzsche
March 17, 20178 yr Removing the chimneys and cutting the windows in half looks goofy IMO, especially on a corner where everyone can see it. And I thought one of the requirements for these roof deck rooms was that you wouldn't normally see them from the street. I think some bad precedents have been set and almost anything is allowed now.
March 17, 20178 yr Speaking of that, has anyone heard what's up with the Liberty and Elm apartments? They were supposed to go in front of the zoning board of appeals this morning. I've been wondering as well. Have seen anything on it at all. Looks like we have our answer: The city’s planning commission and zoning board of appeals have approved Source 3’s final development plan, but the OTR Community Council will weigh whether to take the matter to court through another appeal. 3CDC acquires big parcel on Liberty Street By Chris Wetterich The Cincinnati Center City Development Corp. has acquired a half-acre property at Liberty and Elm streets along the streetcar line but does not yet have plans for it, according to a spokesman for the non-profit developer. 3CDC bought 1566 Elm St. for $1.5 million and closed on the sale earlier this month, according to Hamilton County auditor’s records. “All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.” -Friedrich Nietzsche
March 17, 20178 yr ^Yes, that is being rehabbed into what appears to be a single-family house. I think IAGuy39[/member] was talking about the beautiful 4-story building at 1420 Elm, which is being renovated into 8 condos: https://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/buildings/historic-conservation/historic-conservation-board/july-11-2016-staff-reports-and-attachments/
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