I heard 5/3's air rights expire in 2013. But I'd expect city officials would extend it indefinitely unless someone comes forward with a better plan.

 

A nearby disappointment is the giant 1960's Pogue garage. Its HUGE. Does nothing for the neighborhood, and is so crappy that it's rarely full. If that were torn down and replaced with 70% as many parking spaces, but designed to include residents & moved some parking underground we'd see significantly more investment in underutilized spaces like Fountain Place & tower Place. That would greatly compliment 3CDC's work at the Square & now 5th & Race. Unfortunately its privately owned by someone who doesn't care so 3CDC and the City have little leverage there.

Does 5/3 pay for these air rights?  I can't imagine that the city simply gave them away, unless there was some sort of land swap or other deal back in 1995~ when the air rights were negotiated. 

 

Also, the Tower Place roof garage can only be reached by that old Pogue's garage.  So the city would lose access to its own parking garage during any reconstruction period. 

Does 5/3 pay for these air rights?  I can't imagine that the city simply gave them away, unless there was some sort of land swap or other deal back in 1995~ when the air rights were negotiated. 

 

Also, the Tower Place roof garage can only be reached by that old Pogue's garage.  So the city would lose access to its own parking garage during any reconstruction period.

 

Just like the tower place roof garage is connected via the old Pogue's, couldn't the same concept be done above Macy's with access through the garage being built at 5th and Race?  This way if something gets built above Macy's there would be parking available.  Before the plans are finalized on the Dunnhumby building and the 1000 car garage is put in, it would be nice if they would up that amount either in the 5th & Race location or a combination of the 5th & Race and above Macy's.  Or better yet, they could even just design the garage at 5th & Race where it could be connected across the street to Macy's at a later date, reserved access for when a tower goes in at that location.  They wouldn't have to build a connector bridge until a tower does go up above Macy's. 

Anything you can imagine can be built these days, so yes a parking deck *could* be built above Macy's and could be connected via a bridge over Race St., however the cost would be astronomical, since the pillar spacing does not appear to be ideal for the geometry of vehicles or the precast sections that are typically dropped in place. 

 

You can see the Fountain Place pillar spacing on Google Earth.  Some are on 30 foot centers, which is common for garages, but others are on about 45 foot centers, which would drive up the cost.  If condos were built atop Macy's, a parking deck could be reached by some sort of car elevator, which actually exist in a few places around the world.  An office building would need traditional access, and there is actually room for a helix on the Fountain Place footprint where the ramp leads to the underground garage.  The helix on the Pogue's garage has a 70 foot diameter, and there is an opening of about 100x100 feet around the current garage entrance. 

I'm secretly glad they aren't pursuing a Kroger at that location. It keeps my dream alive of building a big one at the base of a residential tower at Central and Walnut, on the Streetcar line.

^ I've heard Kroger looked at that site for a standalone Kroger and said no because they couldn't fit enough parking.  They wouldn't consider a garage.

One day such considerations will be somewhat obsolete.

The latest monthly update from 3CDC has a rendering example from the architects involved in the project: http://www.3cdc.org/images/editor/March%20Monthly%20Report(1).pdf

That doesn't look like a rendering. I think that's a photo of a building that firm designed. (per the caption)

That's what I meant, an example of the architects work, not of the site. Sorry for the confusion.

I'd assume that they provided that rendering to give us an idea of what the building will look like.  So expect something like that. 

The firm, Gensler, is one of the largest architecture firms in the business (lots of offices), they also pretty good.  I wonder which office they are using, anyone have info on this?

I'd assume that they provided that rendering to give us an idea of what the building will look like.  So expect something like that. 

I read it as "Expect boring glass."

I'm working in Chicago right now. My friend will be on the project next week and I went out with a girl last night who was working on the project. I'm not sure how much I can say but I think the following is harmless:

Design team is working on the massing right now. A model will be produced next week.

The girl I went out with said that it is really short on one side, and really tall on the other. That got me excited... but I don't want to get any hopes up, because this was a few shots in.

^sounds like it could be a pretty cool building!!

 

^Does that make sense in light of the floor plate size they want?

^ my other thought was how would they do that if they have the ability to add 5 floors at a later date?

My roommate might get to take a look at/make the model this week. We'll see if it ends up being like what the girl said.

-appreciate all the info! 

Considering they are still early in the process whatever models are built right now are sure to change.  (I'm probably just bitter,  in the middle of some SD stuff myself)

^ I don't think they'll change by much!!

 

I've heard from some reliable sources that construction is supposed to start by Fall.

Gensler probably does so many of these short high rises that all they have to do is settle on a massing and then apply all the constraints in Revit.

Just spent 15 minutes going through Gensler renderings and buildings. 

 

Here are my two favorites for 5th & Race:

 

 

I love the development going on in Pittsburgh right now. Greenest skyscraper in America is going to go up there, I would love to see Cincy do something as bold architecturally.

Gensler probably does so many of these short high rises that all they have to do is settle on a massing and then apply all the constraints in Revit.

 

I worked at Solomon Cordwell Buenz. They had 3 floors on Michigan Avenue. 1/0th of one floor had a couple of the big boys, who would whip something up, sometimes literally on the back of a napkin. The underlings would do the rest.

Gensler probably does so many of these short high rises that all they have to do is settle on a massing and then apply all the constraints in Revit.

 

I worked at Solomon Cordwell Buenz. They had 3 floors on Michigan Avenue. 1/0th of one floor had a couple of the big boys, who would whip something up, sometimes literally on the back of a napkin. The underlings would do the rest.

Oh god, I just got internet meme'd on Urban Ohio.

Second picture reminds me of CAC a bit.

^ I agree-  And in March I was told by a friend close to the project to "think of the CAC turned into an office tower"

Has anyone seen a final design?

Every time I ask my roommate, he just says that it is in massing. I'm beginning to sound like a suspicious nag. I have to imagine it is much further along by now. He did, however, get a full digital file of the city of Cincinnati. My jealousy is rampant.

Those last two renderings both look pretty great!  It's a shame that the Kroger-mart idea for the building's scrapped.  I actually work for Kroger in merchandising - next time I'm in a Q&A session with the head honchos, I should ask about Kroger's plans to re-examine more urban formats. 

Just to be clear, those two images aren't renderings for this project, but are renderings by the same architecture firm for other projects.

 

I'm hoping the new building looks similar though as I think that would raise the bar of an otherwise architecturally boring block (Hyatt, Millenium, 6th & Race apartments, FSW).

Roommate and I went to Do Division Fest today and discussed the projects we were working on at our co-ops. He got to sit in on a dunnhumby presentation at Gensler.  Building skin is the debated topic right now while massing has been mostly settled on. Shorter than we had all hoped. All I feel comfortable with sharing is that it is less than 15, including parking garages. Debates on the skin revolve around taste of the players and the results of these conversations "What is alternative/progressive? What is traditional? What was traditional used to be alternative. What is classical proportion? How can a contemporary building be classically proportional? Why must a contemporary building be classically proportional" and a whole lot of other Vitruvian bullshit that is slowing down the design.

 

There... that was ambiguous enough, I think.

My guess from piecing together rumors I'd heard was 8-10 stories.  If it's 12 or 13 I'll be totally happy actually.  Obviously would rather have had this be a 25 story tower, but such is life.

The rumors are spot on.

Such a waste.  5 years from now I bet people will be saying, well crap, I wish we'd built that taller. 

 

Once I've heard a friend with peripheral knowledge of the project mention that Dunnhumby is keeping the option open of adding 3 more floors in the future.  Has anything you've heard implied that it's being built with the option of further expansion?

Such a waste.  5 years from now I bet people will be saying, well crap, I wish we'd built that taller. 

 

Once I've heard a friend with peripheral knowledge of the project mention that Dunnhumby is keeping the option open of adding 3 more floors in the future.  Has anything you've heard implied that it's being built with the option of further expansion?

 

We just love to do that around here but the future never arrives. The Macy's base for a tower that'll never come is a complete waste of a prime Fountain Square block, while we just learned last week that the PNC tower annex was originally supposed to support many more floors.

 

 

Such a waste.  5 years from now I bet people will be saying, well crap, I wish we'd built that taller. 

 

Once I've heard a friend with peripheral knowledge of the project mention that Dunnhumby is keeping the option open of adding 3 more floors in the future.  Has anything you've heard implied that it's being built with the option of further expansion?

 

We just love to do that around here but the future never arrives. The Macy's base for a tower that'll never come is a complete waste of a prime Fountain Square block, while we just learned last week that the PNC tower annex was originally supposed to support many more floors.

 

 

 

Do other cities have so many buildings that are designed to be added onto vertically later? And how often does that actually happen?

There are several examples around town.  The garage at 7th & Sycamore was built in 2002 to a height of about 4 floors, then two more floors were just added.  4th & Plum Apartments has two floors that were added on top when it was turned into apartments.  The parking garage that was torn down to build Queen City Square was originally built to support a tower on top. 

There are several examples around town.  The garage at 7th & Sycamore was built in 2002 to a height of about 4 floors, then two more floors were just added.  4th & Plum Apartments has two floors that were added on top when it was turned into apartments.  The parking garage that was torn down to build Queen City Square was originally built to support a tower on top.

 

Wasn't that Seventh and Sycamore garage also built to accommodate several floors of residential also?

Do other cities have so many buildings that are designed to be added onto vertically later? And how often does that actually happen?

 

I know of several historic and more recent examples in Cleveland.

The plan would be to expand downwards, and replace layers of the parking garage with office as dunnhumby expands their business.

The 7th & Sycamore garage was built under the premise that residential might be built above, but I don't think that was really ever the plan.  I think the plan was always simply to add more garage floors.  If you look at the layout of the garage, it really wasn't set up for the sort of residential that people expect at the price point that makes residential profitable in a downtown. 

The Western & Southern building at Broadway and 4th was designed to have a tower.  The only time I ever saw a rendering is from a slide show by Walter Langsam.

Oh yeah I forgot about that one.  I still think that there's at least one more I'm not remembering. 

The Bell building on 7th was designed to have additional floors added.

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/print-edition/2012/06/15/dunnhumbyusas-fifth-and-race-project.html?ana=e_ph

 

Construction of the $100 million DunnhumbyUSA    headquarters at Fifth and Race streets downtown could begin as soon as August.

 

New details from the Cincinnati Center City Development Corp., which is developing the project, show it will include 200 apartment units, 40,000 square feet of retail and upwards of 1,000 parking spaces. One thing not in the works is a Kroger grocery store that had been thought to be in consideration for the site.

You beat me to it!  great news!

....and I thought the sidebar about why downtown needs more important was very positive

http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artikkel?NoCache=1&Dato=20120615&Kategori=BIZ&Lopenr=306150015&Ref=AR

 

Fifth and Race project envisioned as newest skyline jewel

BUSINESS EXCLUSIVE: Tower to house apartments, dunnhumbyUSA headquarters

 

 

Usually I prefer the Business Courier articles but the Enquirer killed it on this one.

 

Feels like Christmas morning!  20-30 stories!  Last "official" thing I saw was a fat, ugly 12-13 story box.