6 hours ago, Lazarus said:

 

The whole idea of a merger like this is to increase the number of stores and increase buying scale in order to gain greater control over vendors (like what Wal-Mart achieved 25~ years ago) while keeping overhead almost the exact same.  In short, after a merger, pretty much all of Albertson's office workers could be eliminated, with almost nobody moving to Cincinnati.     

 

 

 

This isn’t true. Cincinnati would gain a nice chunk of well paying jobs at HQ and other locations. In what world do you think Kroger could pick up over a THOUSAND new stores while eliminating “pretty much” all of the Albertsons admin. Common sense folks. Absorbing and maintaining an addition that enormous would keep a large contingent of the Albertsons team very much employed at Kroger Co.

Edited August 30, 2024Aug 30 by 646empire

Vintage on Race, a $6M sports bar, cocktail lounge and restaurant, opens at the Foundry: PHOTOS

By Christian LeDuc – Staff reporter, Cincinnati Business Courier

Aug 29, 2024

Updated Aug 29, 2024 2:35pm EDT

 

Cincinnati is just days away from welcoming a new elevated sports bar, cocktail lounge, restaurant and entertainment venue downtown.

 

Vintage on Race will open its doors to the public this Saturday, Aug. 31. The more than 8,000-square-foot space is located at 500 Race St., inside Cincinnati Center City Development Corp.’s (3CDC) $51 million redevelopment of the former Fountain Place Mall.

 

It’s the latest project from hospitality management firm Further Concepts and Investors, which also operates Baru, Lori’s Road House and the Voices of America Country Music Fest.

 

MORE

2 hours ago, 646empire said:

 Common sense folks. Absorbing and maintaining an addition that enormous would keep a large contingent of the Albertsons team very much employed at Kroger Co.

 

Not after 1-2 years.  It's not like there will be new buying categories...right now two companies have many duplicative people who are easily zapped thanks to the power of computers.  There is no reason to have two heads of avocado purchasing and two heads of grapefruit pricing strategy. 

1 hour ago, The_Cincinnati_Kid said:

Vintage on Race, a $6M sports bar, cocktail lounge and restaurant, opens at the Foundry: PHOTOS

By Christian LeDuc – Staff reporter, Cincinnati Business Courier

Aug 29, 2024

Updated Aug 29, 2024 2:35pm EDT

 

Cincinnati is just days away from welcoming a new elevated sports bar, cocktail lounge, restaurant and entertainment venue downtown.

That seems like a ton of money for a sports bar with concrete floors and exposed ceilings. For their sake I hope that reported $6m includes some of the base building upgrades because that's nearly as much as building out Jeff Ruby's cost and that is a much different experience and price point. 

3 minutes ago, ucgrady said:

That seems like a ton of money for a sports bar with concrete floors and exposed ceilings. For their sake I hope that reported $6m includes some of the base building upgrades because that's nearly as much as building out Jeff Ruby's cost and that is a much different experience and price point. 

 

Yeah.  It's basically a Chipotle.  It doesn't look like a place where people are going to hang out for the full duration of a game. 

Yeah I don't see that place lasting but maybe I'm wrong.

Americans and their expensive buildouts. Everything's a Hail Mary.

Yeah, I'm confused about who this place is supposed to appeal to. The mashing together of a sports bar, high end cocktail lounge, and music venue doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

4 hours ago, Lazarus said:

 

Not after 1-2 years.  It's not like there will be new buying categories...right now two companies have many duplicative people who are easily zapped thanks to the power of computers.  There is no reason to have two heads of avocado purchasing and two heads of grapefruit pricing strategy. 

……. Alrightly then….I would go into other info/input but it’s pointless.

Edited August 30, 2024Aug 30 by 646empire

1 hour ago, Lazarus said:

 

Not after 1-2 years.  It's not like there will be new buying categories...right now two companies have many duplicative people who are easily zapped thanks to the power of computers.  There is no reason to have two heads of avocado purchasing and two heads of grapefruit pricing strategy. 

 

All of that unbridled M&A activity in the 1990s-2010s is why it's so difficult to get office jobs now. It used to be a sure thing to go to college then get an office job right away. Now people look at you like you want to be an artist or musician for a living if you tell them you're going for an office career instead of going into the trades.

59 minutes ago, ucgrady said:

That seems like a ton of money for a sports bar with concrete floors and exposed ceilings. For their sake I hope that reported $6m includes some of the base building upgrades because that's nearly as much as building out Jeff Ruby's cost and that is a much different experience and price point. 

Yeah that price point is either exaggerated or outrageous. If it’s true they are in a veryyyy deep hole out of the gate.

11 hours ago, Lazarus said:

 

The whole idea of a merger like this is to increase the number of stores and increase buying scale in order to gain greater control over vendors (like what Wal-Mart achieved 25~ years ago) while keeping overhead almost the exact same.  In short, after a merger, pretty much all of Albertson's office workers could be eliminated, with almost nobody moving to Cincinnati.     

 

 

 

I wouldn't know for sure because I am not an expert or really know anything about Mergers but I would guess it would help the headcount in Cincinnati at least somewhat.

 

But yes, your point stands in regards to keeping overhead costs not the same but it will definitely be a smaller percentage of cost sheet of the business for sure. To me I am split on this because of the buying power and ability to control pricing and supply chains seems like a big negative, while at the same time there is the chance it could help Cincinnati but that change probably, as you stated, not be that pronounced.

1 hour ago, 646empire said:

Yeah that price point is either exaggerated or outrageous. If it’s true they are in a veryyyy deep hole out of the gate.

How many $10 cocktails to make $6 million in revenue? 600,000

 

600,000 / 5 years = 120,000 cocktails per year

1 hour ago, GCrites said:

 

All of that unbridled M&A activity in the 1990s-2010s is why it's so difficult to get office jobs now. It used to be a sure thing to go to college then get an office job right away. Now people look at you like you want to be an artist or musician for a living if you tell them you're going for an office career instead of going into the trades.

 

Yeah.  There are the "strategy" guys and then everyone who just fixes things when something crazy goes wrong.  For example, one of my brothers just had a container of his company's product show up in Australia with just two skids on it instead of 40 or whatever.  The rest were still sitting in the warehouse in LA.  Some total idiot shipped an almost-empty container to Australia.  So now you're figuring out how long an expedited container will take to get there and then figuring out how many skids you need to fly there on a cargo plane in the meantime.  Hopefully you hit a bullseye.  If you do, your boss will take credit.  If not, you're fired.  This is about as exciting as working in logistics gets. 

 

 

Edited August 30, 2024Aug 30 by Lazarus

Every conversation about work in Ohio just ends up going back to warehouse stuff

1 hour ago, IAGuy39 said:

How many $10 cocktails to make $6 million in revenue? 600,000

 

600,000 / 5 years = 120,000 cocktails per year

And then shave lots of that away with inventory costs, theft/over pouring, comps etc lol

Not that it really changes the analysis, but no way they are pouring $10 cocktails at a "high end" place.  High teens minimum, and maybe $20.  

On 8/29/2024 at 4:09 PM, taestell said:

The cart's going up!

Now they just need my avatar up there swinging from it!

On 8/9/2024 at 3:27 PM, 646empire said:

Things progressing at the former Saks Fifth Ave/ New Paycor HQ and Salazar Restaurant 

 

Took some quick snaps of Paycor on my lunch break this week. New steel is going up

 

 

1 hour ago, surpriseitsminh said:

 

Took some quick snaps of Paycor on my lunch break this week. New steel is going up

 

 

This is going to be a massive upgrade to Fountain Square, thanks for posting!

I think you mean the Fountain District.

On 9/6/2024 at 9:35 PM, anusthemenace said:

I think you mean the Fountain District.

Fountain Sector 12B Northeast?

Owner of Garfield Suites Hotel building downtown hit with long-awaited foreclosure

By Brian Planalp – Staff reporter, Cincinnati Business Courier

Sep 11, 2024

Updated Sep 11, 2024 3:04pm EDT

 

The California owner of the former Garfield Suites Hotel, who has now failed twice to convert it into apartments, faces a new foreclosure lawsuit.

 

The 16-story structure at 2 Garfield Place in downtown Cincinnati is completely vacant thanks to the halting, protracted redevelopment effort that began almost a decade ago.

 

Local developers and public officials recognize its importance to the stretch of Vine Street between the Fountain District and Court Street Plaza leading up to Over-the-Rhine.

 

MORE

Garfield Hotel building getting redeveloped and into something much more pleasing to the eyes would be a huge upgrade for that stretch of Vine Street.

Logo is fully installed on the north side of the Kroger tower:

 

1 hour ago, taestell said:

Logo is fully installed on the north side of the Kroger tower:

 

Looks very good and the letter sizing is perfect. 

2 hours ago, taestell said:

Logo is fully installed on the north side of the Kroger tower:

 

We need the dancing guy balloon on top!

On 8/21/2024 at 6:23 PM, anusthemenace said:

yeah but this is perfection. Its a beautiful building withlut the signage.

Not to revise a settled thing, but i just saw this original proposal in the Enquirer Archive. Glad they refined it more, and also funny the included the Federal Building and then just made the city a generic office park of sorts. I originally thought this was a proposal for Queensgate but there was writing on the back calling it Block A at 5th and VIne. 

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2024/09/19/apartment-conversion-downtown-lpk-garfield-place.html?utm_source=st&utm_medium=en&utm_campaign=me&utm_content=CI&ana=e_CI_me&j=36781809&senddate=2024-09-19&empos=p4

Conversion of the LPK building in the works. Lol at $5.4 million in total construction costs. I toured this building when it was for sale and it needs a lot of work, new mechanicals, elevator updates, new roof. I'd guess 2-3 times that amount, easily. Will be interesting to see what demographic they're targeting. It's such a pretty building and would be a good candidate for historic tax credits, but it looks like they didn't want to deal with the pain and added costs of going that route. Hopefully it goes well, this area could really use some new life breathed into it.

Quote

Lol at $5.4 million in total construction costs. 

 

 

I think he is missing a 0 in his estimated price!

1 hour ago, dnymck said:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2024/09/19/apartment-conversion-downtown-lpk-garfield-place.html?utm_source=st&utm_medium=en&utm_campaign=me&utm_content=CI&ana=e_CI_me&j=36781809&senddate=2024-09-19&empos=p4

Conversion of the LPK building in the works. Lol at $5.4 million in total construction costs. I toured this building when it was for sale and it needs a lot of work, new mechanicals, elevator updates, new roof. I'd guess 2-3 times that amount, easily. Will be interesting to see what demographic they're targeting. It's such a pretty building and would be a good candidate for historic tax credits, but it looks like they didn't want to deal with the pain and added costs of going that route. Hopefully it goes well, this area could really use some new life breathed into it.

 

Bring back The Blue Wisp. 

 

It was the greatest thing in DT Cincinnati and it was replaced by...an ATM:

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.104261,-84.514908,3a,32.4y,187.51h,88.86t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sVy8y3YlStrrM9B77VnXhxA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MDkxNi4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Ashley Builders Group to convert historic downtown Cincinnati building into 52 apartments

 

A unique and historic building downtown will be transformed into dozens of apartments following its purchase by a local builder earlier this year.

 

The eight-story, 99,552-square-foot Doctor’s Building at 19 Garfield Place off Piatt Park, the longtime home of Cincinnati's fourth-largest marketing firm, LPK, is expected to be Cincinnati’s latest office-to-residential conversion.

 

Villa Hills-based Ashley Builders Group, the fifth-largest homebuilder in the region and a firm with ample experience developing in the urban core, purchased the building from a partnership of current and former LPK principals Jan. 11 for $3.7 million. Mike Sullivan, of Cushman & Wakefield, represented the seller.

 

LPK’s current lease of around 53,000 square feet of office space in the building runs through November, according to Bill Kreutzjans Jr., principal at Ashley Builders.

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2024/09/19/apartment-conversion-downtown-lpk-garfield-place.html?utm_source=st&utm_medium=en&utm_campaign=me&utm_content=CI&ana=e_CI_me&j=36781809&senddate=2024-09-19&empos=p4

 

Hopefully a full renovation of Piatt Park will happen in the next few years.

21 minutes ago, taestell said:

Hopefully a full renovation of Piatt Park will happen in the next few years.

 

Seems like a prime project for 3CDC.

 

Would be nice to see park-like improvements radiating out from Piatt Park - connecting Court Street/Library, Fountain District, Convention District, Washington Park...

3 hours ago, The_Cincinnati_Kid said:

 

 

I think he is missing a 0 in his estimated price!

This terracotta building at 4th and Race was last occupied under owners who tried to cheap out on repairs. It didnt go well, the terracotta failed and it's been unoccupied for decades, though it is finally in the works to come back. An owner who may be trying to make a quick budget redo is horrible to the integrity of the exterior, especially one like this. Me worried.

On 3/12/2024 at 8:15 AM, The_Cincinnati_Kid said:

CIG Communities buys downtown Cincinnati office tower, plans residential conversion

By Brian Planalp – Staff reporter, Cincinnati Business Courier

Mar 12, 2024

 

CIG Communities plans to convert a nearly vacant office tower in downtown Cincinnati to residential units.

 

The developer purchased the former URS office building at 36 E. Seventh St. from Neyer Properties at the beginning of March for an undisclosed price, Gregg Fusaro, partner at CIG Communities, told the Business Courier.

 

The 200,000-square-foot, 27-story tower was 77% vacant upon closing, according to a CIG news release, which characterized the property as “prime yet underutilized.”

 

MORE

 

An Update on this from this month's Downtown Residential Council Meeting

 

159 Apartments

Conversion construction begins January 2025

Will take 18-20 months

On 8/9/2024 at 3:33 PM, Rabbit Hash said:

He also mentioned that he has been in talks to relocate a F500 company to Cincinnati. 

 

Barrett is a frustrating interviewee to listen to. I know the deals he works on are so complex, but he is overly cryptic at times, IMHO.

 

He's claiming it's a done deal:

 

“We have one Fortune 500 company which has agreed to come here, but they will not let me announce it,” Western & Southern Financial Group CEO John Barrett said Thursday as the speaker at ULI Cincinnati’s Legends in Real Estate event. “Until they say it, it ain’t here. But it’s coming.”

 

Barrett again declined to identify the company or give an expected time frame when I talked to him after the event.

 

The company would bring between 60 and 200 employees to its Cincinnati headquarters, Barrett said.

2 hours ago, taestell said:

 

He's claiming it's a done deal:

 

“We have one Fortune 500 company which has agreed to come here, but they will not let me announce it,” Western & Southern Financial Group CEO John Barrett said Thursday as the speaker at ULI Cincinnati’s Legends in Real Estate event. “Until they say it, it ain’t here. But it’s coming.”

 

Barrett again declined to identify the company or give an expected time frame when I talked to him after the event.

 

The company would bring between 60 and 200 employees to its Cincinnati headquarters, Barrett said.

With only between 60-200 employees which 500 company could it be? Wonder if the company could work with W&S and build a dual headquarter tower for both companies. 

26 minutes ago, Ucgrad2015 said:

With only between 60-200 employees which 500 company could it be? Wonder if the company could work with W&S and build a dual headquarter tower for both companies. 

I’ve heard this mentioned before on this forum but just wanted some context— does W&S need a tower? Like have they outgrown their current location or something 

It might be Gerber Life Insurance Company. 

3 minutes ago, unusualfire said:

It might be Gerber Life Insurance Company. 

Could be. W&S bought them in the not so distant past.

49 minutes ago, TheCOV said:

Could be. W&S bought them in the not so distant past.

The Company that is in the works would have to be a stand alone company its can’t be part of W&S and listed on Fortune 500. Did Gerber split off again or something?

Great American is vacating a few floors at Great American Tower. Wouldn't that be the likely landing space?

3 minutes ago, Cygnus said:

Great American is vacating a few floors at Great American Tower. Wouldn't that be the likely landing space?

Or The Banks office building. I think I read that GE has agreed to help lease its old space as part of the agreement for killing off the ops center. But Great American Tower makes sense too with Barrett so in the know on this.

Edited October 2, 2024Oct 2 by 646empire

New signage-logo Looks great!

Edited October 4, 2024Oct 4 by 646empire

did the top of that building look like that before with the almost metallic coloring?

30 minutes ago, ryanlammi said:

did the top of that building look like that before with the almost metallic coloring?

You know what I thought the same thing when I was taking the photo, maybe they cleaned the top while installing? I certainly don’t think they put up new facade.

Edited October 4, 2024Oct 4 by 646empire

39 minutes ago, 646empire said:

New signage-logo Looks great!

Contractors, power washed, cleaned and prepped the panels prior to installing the new signage. Just imagine if Kroger did the entire building. It would look a lot better than it does now. 

2 minutes ago, savadams13 said:

Contractors, power washed, cleaned and prepped the panels prior to installing the new signage. Just imagine if Kroger did the entire building. It would look a lot better than it does now. 

Wow they did a fantastic job!

1 hour ago, savadams13 said:

Contractors, power washed, cleaned and prepped the panels prior to installing the new signage. Just imagine if Kroger did the entire building. It would look a lot better than it does now. 

Makes me excited to see the former Macys HQ exterior fully cleaned before tenants move in.

Edited October 4, 2024Oct 4 by 646empire