Big news...possible office and/or condo tower at 5th & Broadway:

 

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2015/04/08/exclusive-masons-explore-redevelopment-at-iconic.html?ana=e_cinci_bn_breakingnews&u=rBKE+NOdDo/OyZEQt5nc3JP0aD2&t=1428526389

Interesting that they mentioned one of the potential routes they can take is to build on top of the structure...makes me wonder what kind of plans those entail...

Interesting.  I've never been inside, but it's a cool structure from the outside.  As always, I hope they don't end up demolishing it.

Well considering that the CEOs of the companies adjacent to this site are likely Masons themselves, and that WS is the one that really drives real estate in that immediate area, no doubt this is all part of The Plan. 

Well considering that the CEOs of the companies adjacent to this site are likely Masons themselves, and that WS is the one that really drives real estate in that immediate area, no doubt this is all part of The Plan. 

 

Shame said CEO is completely contempt of preservation.

^WS preserved The Phelps Townhouse and turned it into a Residence Inn.  It also preserved the Guilford School.  And so far it hasn't torn down the Anna Louise Inn, so if it buys the Masonic temple it may also be preserved...  although, while it's a stately building it's kind of an oddity.  It's not the kind of structure that's easy to imagine an adaptive re-use for.  And besides, the owners would likely want a fortune for it.  We probably wouldn't have the Aronoff Center for the Performing Arts if the Scottish Rite weren't so cheap and greedy by refusing to air condition the Taft Theater (it's got A/C now though).

I'd be interested to here what some think a good use of that building will be. That section of town has always struck me as clean and tidy but pretty quiet and reserved outside of office hours and special events obviously due to the strong corporate presence and in the immediate area whose buildings tend to lack good street presence, liveliness, and color. Preserving the building's facade and overall scale would also pose a challenge to getting any kind of vibrant use there. Not saying it can't be done but it could require some pretty creative thinking.

$40M luxury hotel in the works for downtown Cincinnati

 

 

A boutique and luxury hotel developer plans to transform a former Procter & Gamble Co. office building into a luxury hotel in the heart of downtown Cincinnati.

 

Kessler Enterprise Inc., which is known for its boutique and luxury hotels, wants to turn the office building at 299 E. Sixth St. into a 125-room, independent hotel. Richard Kessler, president and CEO of the Orlando-based company, said this would the top hotel in the region.

 

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2015/06/16/40m-luxury-hotel-in-the-works-for-downtown.html?ana=e_cinci_bn_breakingnews&u=mdqxSjVwpbwLHTa+xb7xwQ0dc4b18a&t=1434468905

The buildings current website: http://www.sycamorebuilding299.com/

 

If this project indeed happens, it'll be interesting to see if the elevated walkway (not part of The SkyWalk) comes down.

Based on its location it might be a useful advertising element for P&G employees coming to town. Being directly connected to their headquarters could be a selling point for this hotel.

 

I love that we're getting new hotels left and right it seems, but I wish more of these office conversions were residential to help the mix. This building will be great though as a hotel in conjunction with the conversion of the 580 Building down the street. 6th is going to have a good mix of residential, office, hotel, and entertainment in the coming years.

Cool news.  The article mentions construction possibly starting in "early 2016".  That's pretty fast.

Tear down the skywalk!

I totally read this as Grand Budapest Hotel lol

Its kind of sad how scared sh*tless that developers are to adding condos and apartments to the core in downtown. I know it's all about getting a return on your investments and whatnot, but it literally feels like all these developers just have 0 faith in downtown and the core.

^The company that purchased the building develops hotels, not residential. I am not sure why you are drawing that conclusion.

My guess is the rents are just a still bit low for an explosion of the "middle market" where a lot of people sit that would make these profitable.  Talking $900-$1,200 month per apartment.  I don't think our Mayor is going to give a whole lot to downtown developmers, though I believe he is giving some out so that is encouraging. 

 

Also, I believe it was Griewe mentioned that if the city put some money down for a condo tower, it would be a great test market.  Those rents would be $500 per sq. foot new construction tower.  What were Mercer Commons going for, $350 sq. ft, or maybe $400? 

 

I think before a huge condo tower we will be getting some 3-6 story condo buildings in spots here and there in the core before a condo tower, just because of the cost and price points the city currently has.  If the city is still successful bringing high paying jobs downtown, it will get there soon, and GE moving into their new headquarters next year and the streetcar opening, I think things will only speed up.  Exciting times for Cincinnati's urban core!

Based on its location it might be a useful advertising element for P&G employees coming to town. Being directly connected to their headquarters could be a selling point for this hotel.

 

I love that we're getting new hotels left and right it seems, but I wish more of these office conversions were residential to help the mix. This building will be great though as a hotel in conjunction with the conversion of the 580 Building down the street. 6th is going to have a good mix of residential, office, hotel, and entertainment in the coming years.

 

Whats up with the 580 building? Are any apartments occupied?

No. From what I'm hearing the financier wasn't overly pleased with the corner cutting in order to get the price down and is the type of person who is far more interested in doing a project correctly and that has set it back a bit. It's still very much under construction.

No. From what I'm hearing the financier wasn't overly pleased with the corner cutting in order to get the price down and is the type of person who is far more interested in doing a project correctly and that has set it back a bit. It's still very much under construction.

 

By Financier do you mean the lendor..........was the landlord/developer wanting to cut corners or the lendor? I think the main reason Prime 47 went into

that space was they expected residents in there some time ago.

Much of the money for the project is coming from one man. And he's of the "do it right or don't do it at all" mentality which is good. Rumor is that the contractor was doing a less than stellar job in order to keep costs down which wasn't flying.

 

Take this all with a grain of salt obviously. Word on the street has a way of getting twisted.

Thanks, looks like I derailed this thread. The new hotel looks like it will Class A plus, nice.

The Grand Bohemian in Orlando is pretty nice. A nice addition to any market.

lets hope that skywalk goes. Will be such a missed opportunity if it isn't taken down!

I honestly don't see why it would make a single bit of difference honestly. Let's say it stays. It's not part of the skywalk system, it's purely a connection to P&G. Meaning anyone using it would be going directly to P&G or vice versa. Those people crossing one street on the ground versus 15 feet up isn't going to make any difference. Anyone else in the hotel not going into P&G wouldn't be using the skywalk anyway. It really will make no difference to how much people in this hotel will interact with the rest of the city.

When are they hiring for Concierge and Lobby Boy?

I honestly don't see why it would make a single bit of difference honestly. Let's say it stays. It's not part of the skywalk system, it's purely a connection to P&G. Meaning anyone using it would be going directly to P&G or vice versa. Those people crossing one street on the ground versus 15 feet up isn't going to make any difference. Anyone else in the hotel not going into P&G wouldn't be using the skywalk anyway. It really will make no difference to how much people in this hotel will interact with the rest of the city.

 

Exactly, so lets pay respect to this building's traditional character, get it declared a historic landmark like the developer wants, and get rid of the hideous appendage growing out its side. If for nothing else than to get rid of a relic of a bygone era.

Skywalks connecting multiple buildings in the same complex aren't really a thing of the past. Skywalk systems for the general public are. This wasn't part of that though. This is no different than, say, the two skywalks that connect the PNC tower to its annex building. It's connecting buildings within the same complex.

 

The aesthetic argument I can buy since it isn't attractive, but the typical "skywalks are all automatically awful" type argument doesn't really apply to something that connected two parts of the same office and is completely internal and not open to the public. And being that this hotel will almost certainly cater to P&G employees in town, it very well might serve a useful purpose.

Are you suggesting what useful purpose it may serve for P&G individually is greater than the public, aesthetic benefit it will serve to remove it?

If P&G were to obtain any benefit from the skywalk they would need to maintain a secured entrance since it will now be publicly accessible. I'm not sure expense and risk would be worth being able to provide conditioned space access for their out of town visitors.

Don't worry, the skywalk is coming down.

Are you suggesting what useful purpose it may serve for P&G individually is greater than the public, aesthetic benefit it will serve to remove it?

 

No, I'm saying the comment that you made about it being, "such a missed opportunity if it isn't taken down!" is a bit much since it doesn't hurt the functionality of the city or street and therefore is only bad from a subjective aesthetics standpoint.

 

I personally also want it gone and am happy to hear it'll go away but the idea that anything that connects two buildings above ground level is awful and needs to be removed isn't necessarily one I agree with and think a more individual-basis analysis would be necessary.

There is nothing for P&G in the old building and I would think that after the whole Greenpeace thing they would like to reduce the number of possible ways into their HQ that are unnecessary.

Don't worry, the skywalk is coming down.

 

Yep - Photo Provided by City of Cincinnati

Oh dear lord people quit bashing the skywalk.  None of you even remember what Downtown was like when the skywalks were built.  It was thriving far beyond what exists today.  Three or four department stores, 100 unusual shops on the ground and on the skywalk level.  Thousands of people on the streets (and on the skywalks), all of the time. 

Don't worry, the skywalk is coming down.

 

Yep - Photo Provided by City of Cincinnati

 

Was part of Cranley's budget to save on city bandwidth usage by compressing jpeg images to 1990's levels?

Don't worry, the skywalk is coming down.

 

Yep - Photo Provided by City of Cincinnati

 

Was part of Cranley's budget to save on city bandwidth usage by compressing jpeg images to 1990's levels?

 

If so - Cranley probably got the idea from the miserly Urban Ohio restrictions :)

Oh dear lord people quit bashing the skywalk.  None of you even remember what Downtown was like when the skywalks were built.  It was thriving far beyond what exists today.  Three or four department stores, 100 unusual shops on the ground and on the skywalk level.  Thousands of people on the streets (and on the skywalks), all of the time.

 

I was going to ask a question along these lines (and maybe put it a bit more softly)- do skywalks really detract that much from the urban fabric and subtract that many pedestrians from the street, or is it just that the decades after they were completed unluckily coincided with urban decline and doughnut hole downtowns caused by other factors?

It's simply a coincidence.  Nobody's accusing the underground PATH tunnels in Toronto (which is a much larger network than our skywalk network was at its peak) of having killed off that city's downtown, since that city has had explosive growth during the "skywalk" era. 

 

I'm old enough to just barely remember the big Christmas displays and visiting Santa in the downtown department stores.  But also old enough to remember buying shelving and carpet from one of the department stores when it went out of business, and then of course monthly news stories about store and restaurant closings downtown that continued for 15 years into the mid-2000s.  Newcomers don't know what natives have been through. 

 

When the skywalks began to appear in downtown Cincinnati, downtown had 75% of the retail sales volume in the metro. By the time we began taking them down that number had plummeted to like 15% or something.

 

Also when Cincinnati brought in HR&A after the riots to develop a urban core revitalization plan that eventually led to the formation of 3CDC the top critique was the skywalk system. I think the consultant said something about how the city looked dead to people driving by because everyone was in the skywalks.

 

There were other issues with the skywalks such as unclear ownership and maintenance, issues with panhandlers loitering in and below the skywalks, etc. 

This name makes me think of the Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson movie)

When the skywalks began to appear in downtown Cincinnati, downtown had 75% of the retail sales volume in the metro. By the time we began taking them down that number had plummeted to like 15% or something.

 

Also when Cincinnati brought in HR&A after the riots to develop a urban core revitalization plan that eventually led to the formation of 3CDC the top critique was the skywalk system. I think the consultant said something about how the city looked dead to people driving by because everyone was in the skywalks.

 

There were other issues with the skywalks such as unclear ownership and maintenance, issues with panhandlers loitering in and below the skywalks, etc. 

 

I don't think the Skywalks were the issue since they were empty too most of the time. They definitely hurt the street traffic but businesses were not anymore successful on SKywalk level then they were street level. The key to the revival is that there are now people living in the city whereas in 1995 the only place to live downtown was the Metropole and Lytle apartments.

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2015/07/13/exclusive-deal-dead-for-40m-downtown-cincinnati.html?ana=fbk

 

Looks like this project is not going to happen.

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2015/07/13/exclusive-deal-dead-for-40m-downtown-cincinnati.html?ana=fbk

 

Looks like this project is not going to happen.

 

 

Wow.  That was fast.

Anyone want to pool our money and buy the building for $10M?

Damn.

 

"Poffenberger said the developer wanted to get an extension to buy the building, but the seller wasn’t willing to keep extending the closing date."

Almost sounds like they have a better deal in the wings and were willing to let a foot dragging deal go to get it.

The hotel bubble has burst! More apartments now! (My initial overzealous reaction)

I don't know if this says anything about a hotel bubble, but I would definitely be pleased if apartments came out of this deal instead.

No Wes Anderson reference jokes, lol.