^ Jeez.... they could totally have done the inside without the disaster that happened outside. What a waste....

https://www.sibcycline.com/Listing/CIN/1549724/4326-Beech-Hill-Ave-Northside-OH-45223

 

This ostentatious renovation of an ordinary house on Beech Hill added a garage of a contrasting modern style facing Fergus. 

 

seicer[/member] is that your former next door neighbor to the north? 

The fourth and fifth homes of the 5-house Great Traditions development on Fergus are under construction.  Also, there is an ostentatious single-family under construction on a vacant lot on...Chambers. 

 

As recently as 2013-14 Mad Anthony, Apjones, and Chambers were still pretty rough.  Developers got in there and bought some of the worst houses and have turned it around quickly.   

https://www.sibcycline.com/Listing/CIN/1549724/4326-Beech-Hill-Ave-Northside-OH-45223

 

This ostentatious renovation of an ordinary house on Beech Hill added a garage of a contrasting modern style facing Fergus. 

 

seicer[/member] is that your former next door neighbor to the north? 

 

Yes. I bought my house for 130k and sold for 139k. No way they will get anything over 200k. House prices have gone up on the street but it's no Mission Hill.

 

I mean, a girl was pretty much murdered in the house when I lived on Beech Hill.

Interesting.  That house on Beech Hill is under contract at the $389K list price.

(Shakes head.) Someone is going to be a sucker.

First ‘kinda tiny’ house finished in Northside

 

The first “kinda tiny” house in Northside has been completed as a part of a community development group’s program to rehabilitate small, vacant buildings in the neighborhood.

 

Northsiders Engaged in Sustainable Transformation and the city’s Department of Community and Economic Development funded the rehabilitation of 4222 Fergus St., the first of five homes in the redeveloping neighborhood that are 1,200 square feet or less.

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2017/10/31/first-kinda-tiny-house-finished-in-northside.html

 

 

Two new spec houses going up on Vandalia, just west of Hamilton:

 

 

I talked to the guy who is building them.  He is a Cincinnati Firefighter who does flipping on the side and is working as his own general contractor.  He bought these two lots in early 2017 and hired an architect...the two homes are mirrors of each other and separated by 1".  They are 3-bedroom houses with 2-car in-line garages.  The master bedroom is on the third floor and bedrooms 2 & 3 are on the ground floor, behind the garage.  As you can see the living area on the second floor opens into a 2-floor loft space.  Since the houses face north the light levels shouldn't be overwhelming.  He is aiming to list them for $375k. 

 

 

 

 

Bought my home at 4324 Beech Hill Ave. some years ago after it was fully rehabbed for $131k and sold it for I think $136k three years later after putting in about $2k in landscaping. Not bad.

 

4326 Beech Hill, my neighbor, was on the market for around $381k and sold for about $351k. This was literally a flop house, where a drug dealer murdered some girl after she tried to snitch on him. NEVER would I have imagined this house going for as much as it did.

 

Granted I had an abatement so my taxes were absurdly low and at the time I purchased mine, there were very few rehabs on my street. A lot of owner-financed work, too. But has a bubble formed since I moved out just a few years ago!?

Yeah, Northside housing has gone off like a rocket in the past couple years.

As long as the neighborhood is becoming more desirable (in some real, long-lasting sense), then it's probably not a pure "bubble". Individual properties might be over- or under-valued, but that's true of any neighborhood, and prices will adjust as buyers respond. Since Northside is rising up from a fairly low base, adding ~$100k in value might double a property value, but still be competitive for the region. Of course, choosing a neighborhood is subjective, but as long as people continue to want to move to Northside, prices will continue to rise.

 

Yeah I don't think any neighborhoods in Cincinnati are experiencing a "bubble". I think homes in Northside are starting to be valued at what they are worth given the amenities in that walkable urban neighborhood. The neighborhood was still very artist and musician oriented until 5 or 6 years ago. Now the neighborhood has a lot of higher caliber restaurants and other establishments that are going to attract people that have more to spend on a home.

I think the big issue Northside will now face is will it start tearing itself down to build more extravagant homes or will "Northside" (what was in Corryville through the 1990s) migrate to another neighborhood?  St. Bernard is a similar neighborhood physically (as a real business district) but is not in the city (I'm not sure how many people actually care) whereas Spring Grove Village is in the city but does not have a walkable business district.  College Hill is in the city and does have a business district but North Bend Rd. is a full 3 miles north of Knowltown's Corner.

 

Spring Grove is still home to dirt-cheap houses like this: https://www.sibcycline.com/Listing/CIN/1562685/720-Froome-Ave-Spring-Grove-OH-45232

 

Also, what's really interesting about Northside's revival is that it has taken place mostly north of the old rail ROW, which was the high water mark of the 1937 Flood.  Yes, the Mill Creek Barrier Dam has kept the Ohio from backing up since, but even a brief New Orleans-type failure of the dam's pumps would cause the Mill Creek to overflow its banks and possibly inundate everything south of Hoffner St.:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Northside,+Cincinnati,+OH/@39.1574676,-84.5434594,782m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x8841b490e203a9a3:0x15619184aeb125a0!8m2!3d39.1669371!4d-84.5379455

 

 

 

^what’s the status of that rail ROW? Does any of it still have ROW status? Is the Gantry the only significant structure blocking it?

 

(I’m not “blaming” the Gantry for blocking it BTW-I dont know if that could ever be useful again and it goes right through the heart of everything)

I think it's just "land".  It's a shame that it was allowed to evaporate because a nice trail could have been built connecting South Cumminsville and Spring Grove Village.  That thing would have had a lot of rec and utilitarian use.  Besides the gantry, self storage is blocking the ROW and I-74.  I seem to recall there being an overpass built as part of I-74 but I might be wrong. 

Yeah it was abandoned around 1970 when they consolidated all the rail traffic to the south side of Mill Creek.  Aside from the Gantry the only other buildings on the right-of-way are cheap industrial additions/loading docks on Powers and Dreman, and self-storage on Vandalia.  The big missing piece is an underpass at I-74, which may never have been built in the first place considering the timing.  There's also a ton of street crossings, 10 total between I-74 and Spring Grove Cemetery, which is just about a mile.  Three of those crossings also cut right through intersections, particularly Hamilton and Blue Rock.  That's one of the main reasons the railroad was looking to eliminate that trackage in the first place. 

Same view today:

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.1600902,-84.5394477,3a,75y,171.82h,95.92t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sOquE51mmDd0eQZlRqZPsuQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

^Nice to see a current view comparison that doesn't completely crush my soul.

I think the big issue Northside will now face is will it start tearing itself down to build more extravagant homes or will "Northside" (what was in Corryville through the 1990s) migrate to another neighborhood?  St. Bernard is a similar neighborhood physically (as a real business district) but is not in the city (I'm not sure how many people actually care) whereas Spring Grove Village is in the city but does not have a walkable business district.  College Hill is in the city and does have a business district but North Bend Rd. is a full 3 miles north of Knowltown's Corner.

 

Spring Grove is still home to dirt-cheap houses like this: https://www.sibcycline.com/Listing/CIN/1562685/720-Froome-Ave-Spring-Grove-OH-45232

 

 

I've heard Camp Washington and Spring Grove Village are the two places where the old demographic of Northside are relocating.

Northside has a ton of houses as compared to Spring Grove or Camp Washington.  Spring Grove Village has about 500 houses.  Camp Washington probably has fewer than 300.  Northside has over 1,000, so it's more than both put together.  St. Bernard has around 700-800 houses. 

From Saturday Feb 3:

 

Hideous new house on Chambers:

 

Secret house:

 

Apjones & Mad Anthony:

 

 

 

This renovation looks like an Uno's:

 

 

All five homes almost finished on Fergus:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New homes on Vandalia:

 

 

 

Hideous new house on Chambers:

 

 

OMG NO! Someone commit a bit of arson please.

Maybe they can borrow some windows from the new 1437 Elm condo building...

Specialty grocery, deli coming to Northside

 

A specialty grocery store and delicatessen focused on fine cheeses, charcuterie and catering is coming to Northside.

 

Morsel & Nosh, owned by former IT professional Michael Heerkens and his husband, Mark Dreibelbis, is expected to open at 4183 Hamilton Ave. in the spring.

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2018/02/16/specialty-grocery-deli-coming-to-northside.html

This business name was definitely generated by http://hipsterbusiness.name/

Elm & Iron

Ethel & Tank... oh wait that's a real one.

There was some talk last year about putting in a roundabout at the big intersection of Ludlow, Spring Grove, Hamilton, and Hoffner. Anybody know if that proposal has made any progress?

DOTE just released this rendering which deserves a giant facepalm:

 

 

There is no reason the roundabout should be that big. There is plenty of room to fit an adequately sized roundabout in the existing public ROW, maybe acquiring a little piece from the BP parking lot. The idea of demolishing any buildings to build this roundabout is incredibly dumb.

 

This is what happens when highway engineers try to design urban streets. There really was a lot of potential for this proposal, but it looks like we can't have nice things with this administration. It honestly seems like they intentionally over-engineered this roundabout so that people would take 1 look at it and say "no".

^UGH. That is disgusting. If they can't design a properly-scaled roundabout... there's zero point in this. That over-sized behemoth would be FAR WORSE than the current configuration since it would require demolishing so much of the building that form the streetwall.

 

 

You don't want it dropping to Level of Service B, do you?

Is this designed just to spur a neighborhood fight?  This is the dumbest thing I've seen proposed for this city in a long.

 

I drive through this intersection many times per week.  It's not a mess.  Everyone knows how it works.  And it's central to the character of Northside. 

For reference, here's the original design proposed in Sept 2017, which would have been a 1-lane roundabout and wouldn't have torn down any buildings:

Look at the "inner" circle of the roundabout in the new DOTE rendering. If they reduced the diameter to ~200' instead of 250', that would be the "outer" circle of the new roundabout. So you can see there would be plenty of room to build it without demolishing any buildings.

 

Is this designed just to spur a neighborhood fight?  This is the dumbest thing I've seen proposed for this city in a long.

 

I think what happened is that city council members asked DOTE to design a roundabout for this intersection, and DOTE intentionally came back with an oversized roundabout that would require building demolitions in order to squash the idea. There are no high level people in DOTE right now advocating for traffic calming or complete streets.

The whole point of it was to be a traffic calming pedestrian friendly point. I guess if no one wants to walk anywhere near it it is a success in their minds. Barf.

 

taestell[/member] - where did you get that DOTE proposal? Any chance they did two alternatives? One with two lanes and another with only one lane?

 

 

^ It was posted by Pat LaFleur of WCPO on Twitter. I have no idea if there were other alternatives presented, I don't think he's published a full article about it yet.

The 250' inscribed diameter just seems like a giant F-you. The Federal Highway Administration doesn't recommend dual-lane roundabouts that large, even in RURAL areas. In urban settings, the largest they recommend for dual roundabouts is 180'.

 

See page 20 of: https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/00067/000676.pdf

 

 

 

^ That diameter appears to be for the inscribed circle, so it doesn't include the lane widths. Even with four 10 foot lanes, the outer diameter should only be 220 feet.

 

If you went with a single lane roundabout and 10 foot lanes, you'd have a total outer width of 150 feet, which could easily squeeze into that site with no demolitions.

Maybe I'm reading the diagram wrong, but the drawing on page 5 looks (to me) like "inscribed diameter" refers to outer diameter of the outer travel lane. See also: https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/tools/data_tools/mirereport/136.cfm

Well, there you go. I was assuming "inscribed diameter" just meant the center island, but apparently it does include the lanes.

This could be an insidious plot aimed to purchase parcels by eminent domain, then have the city sell them to a Cranley donor for $1 apiece. 

What on earth. I thought the idea was to slow down cars and improve pedestrian safety?

The 250' inscribed diameter just seems like a giant F-you. The Federal Highway Administration doesn't recommend dual-lane roundabouts that large, even in RURAL areas. In urban settings, the largest they recommend for dual roundabouts is 180'.

 

See page 20 of: https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/00067/000676.pdf

 

 

I was just about to post that exact reference.  This is absurd.  The only reasoning I can think of that it's so large is to get the approach roads to work with the tight angles, but still. 

The 250' inscribed diameter just seems like a giant F-you. The Federal Highway Administration doesn't recommend dual-lane roundabouts that large, even in RURAL areas. In urban settings, the largest they recommend for dual roundabouts is 180'.

 

See page 20 of: https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/00067/000676.pdf

 

 

I was just about to post that exact reference.  This is absurd.  The only reasoning I can think of that it's so large is to get the approach roads to work with the tight angles, but still. 

 

They didn't like the project so they made it completely unsuitable for the area

They didn't like the project so they made it completely unsuitable for the area

 

The White Castle and the BP gas station introduce some strange driving, but also force everyone to slow down.  I honestly don't see very many accidents in the intersection, and when I do, they are minor, not full-speed T-bones with flipped cars like those commonly seen at Clifton & MLK. 

If non motorist safety was a priority, then this would be a one-lane roundabout, something like so (note I am not a traffic engineer, and it's a little messy in places, but this should be the goal).

 

If non motorist safety was a priority, then this would be a one-lane roundabout, something like so (note I am not a traffic engineer, and it's a little messy in places, but this should be the goal).

 

 

 

The one-lane roundabout makes sense as the Northside community is also looking to remove the rush hour parking restrictions along Hamilton.

I would love to see fewer rush hour parking restrictions. I was just downtown, and traffic was completely gone around 530, but I couldn't park at practically any meters because they all had 4-6 restrictions. Hardly anyone uses those lanes because there's always a single car parked in that lane during the restrictions, so you usually get no additional volume.