The Schmidlapp event lawn, while nice looking and pleasant, is seemingly rarely used. And when it is used that could have been easily folded into the park south of Mehring. 

1 hour ago, JoeHarmon said:

I always though it was foolish to have Freedom Way be essentially the only East-West street.  Theodore M Bary Way should have extended from Race to Main, rather than just Vine (Rosa Parks) to Walnut (Marion Spencer).  Then you could have a full building where Schmidlapp event lawn is.  

 

 

What if it extended between walnut and main though a pedestrian street? I don't think the slope and intersections could be made safe for actual traffic.  

 

1 hour ago, JoeHarmon said:

That is what drives me crazy though.  We just built this huge massive beautiful wonderful smale riverfont park.  Its right there.  You don't need more park space in between The Yard House and that gravel lot.  You need some buildings that tie the east and west sides of the Bank together.

 

 

I agree. I can't think of what to put there though beyond another five on one or some variation. I think an urban target or similar would do very well there since the nearest "large" retailer is going to be the OTR Kroger.

^ Rumor has it, they originally wanted a grocery tenant for the space that ended up becoming Toby's Keiths, then the bowling alley, then Planet Fitness.

11 hours ago, taestell said:

^ Rumor has it, they originally wanted a grocery tenant for the space that ended up becoming Toby's Keiths, then the bowling alley, then Planet Fitness.

I can imagine that. I feel like it's a solid location with all that new residential going up downtown. Surprised they couldn't get a company to sign a lease for it. They could even have a Trader Joes and have the parking lot be some street parking out front in Trader Joes tradition of not having parking 😆

I doubt we have the income base threshold living downtown that a Whole Foods or trader joe would be looking for. 
 

the same goes for target..they typically attract a more wealthier customer base.

 

I would love an urban Jungle Jim’s with multiple floors, but I get the impression that would never happen in a million years. 

12 hours ago, taestell said:

^ Rumor has it, they originally wanted a grocery tenant for the space that ended up becoming Toby's Keiths, then the bowling alley, then Planet Fitness.

 

I talked to a worker in the Radius building when it was under construction who swore he was actively roughing in plumbing and power for a grocery tenant - I think it was the space that's now the Escape Room. I think they have tried and failed numerous times to get a grocery store at the Banks. It's possible they roughed in infrastructure for one without actually having a lease signed.

 

 

Personally I hope that we get an Amazon Go location downtown. Seems like the kind of thing that Bezos would do in order to give a middle finger to Kroger on their home turf.

3 hours ago, Troeros2 said:

I doubt we have the income base threshold living downtown that a Whole Foods or trader joe would be looking for. 
 

the same goes for target..they typically attract a more wealthier customer base.

 

I would love an urban Jungle Jim’s with multiple floors, but I get the impression that would never happen in a million years. 

With a brand new Kroger downtown im not seeing another big brand jumping in anytime soon. Downtown certainly has an income base to support a target or whole foods in general but it’s not in a position to support BOTH a new Kroger and a target or Whole Foods (my opinion). I wouldn’t be surprised to see one of those new Amazon convenience stores open downtown in the near future tho. Also target is putting stores everywhere including downtown Pittsburgh if I remember correctly so it’s definitely not about a particularly wealthy customer base.

 

Side Note: I’ve heard the new downtown Kroger is performing very well.

Edited August 13, 20213 yr by 646empire

Supermarkets want lots of kids around. They are probably going to have to slowly change their business models because there are going to be way fewer kids than there used to be even 20 years ago, especially in areas with high college graduation rates.

There is a festival called “The Wellness Experience” going on today (and yesterday), which shut down 2nd Street immediately adjacent to the Freedom Center. Freedom Way is also shut down. Traffic on 2nd Street seemed totally fine, being forced to detour north at Vine Street. I’d love to see more festivals like this shutting down 2nd Street (and 3rd Street), so that hopefully we can convince the City to remove a few lanes of traffic and make it less of a racing drag strip for cars. 
 

 

1 hour ago, jwulsin said:

There is a festival called “The Wellness Experience” going on today (and yesterday), which shut down 2nd Street immediately adjacent to the Freedom Center. Freedom Way is also shut down. Traffic on 2nd Street seemed totally fine, being forced to detour north at Vine Street. I’d love to see more festivals like this shutting down 2nd Street (and 3rd Street), so that hopefully we can convince the City to remove a few lanes of traffic and make it less of a racing drag strip for cars. 
 

 

I wonder if they would ever consider adding bump outs on second and third street? 

Reds ownership whined when the city took away 1 lane for 1 block of Second Street for the streetcar-only lane.

On 8/12/2021 at 3:12 PM, JoeHarmon said:

That is what drives me crazy though.  We just built this huge massive beautiful wonderful smale riverfont park.  Its right there.  You don't need more park space in between The Yard House and that gravel lot.  You need some buildings that tie the east and west sides of the Bank together.

 

For that matter, The Schmidlapp event lawn and the proposed park space just south of the Icon are wastes as well.   I know they insist that Smale park extends north past Mehring way, but that is nonsense.  Mehring way is a wide street, and everything North of it is elevated on top of a parking garage.   Ask any normal person walking around down there where the park is and they will point South of Mehring way.   

The space between Yard House and TBD restaurant is park space for the Freedom Center.  It was supposed to be much more than just grass and completed with the original construction, but they did not have the money.  The green space, when viewed from the terrace with the eternal flame, provides an uninterrupted view of the bridge, showing one of the last obstacles to freedom.  I hope that once both restaurants are complete, they can finally try to do something other than patchy grass.

 

The event lawn was supposed to host weddings and events non-stop, but the price tag is too high.  For the price, there should be permanent amenities and not just some grass with a nice view.  I always wondered why they never made an effort to change the pricing to attract more events.  

While not directly Banks related, it is interesting to hear how peer cities look at and view the Banks. 

 

https://www.cleveland.com/news/2021/08/can-the-north-coast-catch-up-cincinnati-is-25-years-ahead-of-cleveland-in-waterfront-redevelopment.html

36 minutes ago, nicker66 said:

 

The event lawn was supposed to host weddings and events non-stop, but the price tag is too high.  For the price, there should be permanent amenities and not just some grass with a nice view.  I always wondered why they never made an effort to change the pricing to attract more events.  

 

Side note, I know the Freedom Center does weddings but it always seemed weird to me. It's such a solemn space. Doesn't feel right to have a wedding there.

On 8/12/2021 at 4:17 PM, wjh2 said:

The Schmidlapp event lawn, while nice looking and pleasant, is seemingly rarely used. And when it is used that could have been easily folded into the park south of Mehring. 

 

I think I would've rather had another mixed-use building there from the beginning but I don't think it's true that it is rarely used. It seems to me that there is an event there just about every weekend from Spring through Fall.

10 minutes ago, DEPACincy said:

 

Side note, I know the Freedom Center does weddings but it always seemed weird to me. It's such a solemn space. Doesn't feel right to have a wedding there.

they also hosted fraternity parties in the past too until it got trashed by a bunch of Miami students.

 

weddings and other events are good for the bottom line and bring in some much needed revenue. The museum center which operates it also hosts large events and weddings after hours too. It is all part of the operating plan for most large museums today. 

 

I would not consider the Freedom Center a solemn space. It is a museum which is design to educate and inform about history, art, other events. There is nothing overly symbolic about the location other than Cincinnati being the key city for runaway slaves to get freedom. However, it is not on some sacred burial ground or anything like that it was built on the site of an old fruit warehouse and parking lot. Hosting an event there is no different than hosting it at the Natural History museum or Art museum. 

1 hour ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

I would not consider the Freedom Center a solemn space. It is a museum which is design to educate and inform about history, art, other events. There is nothing overly symbolic about the location other than Cincinnati being the key city for runaway slaves to get freedom. However, it is not on some sacred burial ground or anything like that it was built on the site of an old fruit warehouse and parking lot. Hosting an event there is no different than hosting it at the Natural History museum or Art museum. 

 

Disagree. The subject matter of the museum is slavery, including an entire wing devoted to modern-day slavery. They have an actual slave pen where humans were kept in bondage while they waited to be shipped down the river. It is a very emotional and overwhelming experience. If that's not solemn, I don't know what is. To me, it would be like having your wedding at the Holocaust Museum. It doesn't matter that the actual holocaust didn't happen on the grounds of the museum.

48 minutes ago, DEPACincy said:

Disagree. The subject matter of the museum is slavery, including an entire wing devoted to modern-day slavery. They have an actual slave pen where humans were kept in bondage while they waited to be shipped down the river. It is a very emotional and overwhelming experience. If that's not solemn, I don't know what is. To me, it would be like having your wedding at the Holocaust Museum. It doesn't matter that the actual holocaust didn't happen on the grounds of the museum.

 

The museum actively markets spaces like their grand hall and balcony for events and weddings. These are spaces that were designed to host events and are not solemn spaces in and of themselves (unlike places like Eisenman's Holocaust Memorial where the space is designed to be inseparable from the subject matter). It's not like they're renting out the the slave pen for a wedding.

1 hour ago, DEPACincy said:

 

Disagree. The subject matter of the museum is slavery, including an entire wing devoted to modern-day slavery. They have an actual slave pen where humans were kept in bondage while they waited to be shipped down the river. It is a very emotional and overwhelming experience. If that's not solemn, I don't know what is. To me, it would be like having your wedding at the Holocaust Museum. It doesn't matter that the actual holocaust didn't happen on the grounds of the museum.

Fort Ancient and Serpent Mound are solemn places. Civil War battlefields (or any battlefield) are solemn spaces. I will even give you that former slave plantations in the South are solemn spaces given what actually went on at that location. In the case of the Freedom Center, its past history primarily involved warehouses for fruit and parking for baseball games along with early houses when the city was founded. While the Underground Railroad is a very significant story to be told in our history, there is nothing unique about the piece of land that the museum inhabits. 

 

It is also important to remember that the museum was in jeopardy of closing a number of years ago becuase its dire financial condition. The merger with the museum center allowed it to continue in its mission to educate people on the history of the underground railroad and to further its mission to promote human rights. Having weddings and fraternity balls helps promote that mission 

1 hour ago, DEPACincy said:

To me, it would be like having your wedding at the Holocaust Museum. It doesn't matter that the actual holocaust didn't happen on the grounds of the museum.

 

I’m a big fan of the NURFC. While I agree that there are exhibits that are solemn and serious, the place does also work as a nice event space that can be uplifting and hopeful. There are also exhibits that rotate through beyond the subject matter of slavery. I’ve attended several events there (both as a guest and as an employee of an invited organization) that were very well done and tasteful. At one point, my former partner and I almost had our wedding there. We were both NURFC members and loved the idea of being able to promote the museum,—not just for its mission, but what it represents to the city and region, as well as ourselves. We loved the place and saw it not just as picturesque venue with good space, but a chance to share something special. 

Comparing it to “having your wedding at the Holocaust Museum,” is a bit dramatic in my opinion.

Ultimately, NURFC wasn’t the venue we chose, but that was mainly due to logistics. 

7 hours ago, Ram23 said:

 

The museum actively markets spaces like their grand hall and balcony for events and weddings. These are spaces that were designed to host events and are not solemn spaces in and of themselves (unlike places like Eisenman's Holocaust Memorial where the space is designed to be inseparable from the subject matter). It's not like they're renting out the the slave pen for a wedding.

 

They literally do rent out the space with the slave pen for weddings. I'm not faulting the museum. I know they need to raise funds. I'm just saying I PERSONALLY would not feel comfortable having a wedding there.

7 hours ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

Fort Ancient and Serpent Mound are solemn places. Civil War battlefields (or any battlefield) are solemn spaces. I will even give you that former slave plantations in the South are solemn spaces given what actually went on at that location. In the case of the Freedom Center, its past history primarily involved warehouses for fruit and parking for baseball games along with early houses when the city was founded. While the Underground Railroad is a very significant story to be told in our history, there is nothing unique about the piece of land that the museum inhabits. 

 

It is also important to remember that the museum was in jeopardy of closing a number of years ago becuase its dire financial condition. The merger with the museum center allowed it to continue in its mission to educate people on the history of the underground railroad and to further its mission to promote human rights. Having weddings and fraternity balls helps promote that mission 

 

This is a weird take to me. I don't understand why the history of the property is the only thing that matters? The subject matter of the museum is very serious and sobering, which is the literal definition of solemn. 

 

And I'm not faulting the museum for hosting events. Just saying I would feel weird having my wedding there. I'm not sure why you seem to be taking that as an attack on the museum's efforts to raise money.

 

7 hours ago, Gordon Bombay said:

 

I’m a big fan of the NURFC. While I agree that there are exhibits that are solemn and serious, the place does also work as a nice event space that can be uplifting and hopeful. There are also exhibits that rotate through beyond the subject matter of slavery. I’ve attended several events there (both as a guest and as an employee of an invited organization) that were very well done and tasteful. At one point, my former partner and I almost had our wedding there. We were both NURFC members and loved the idea of being able to promote the museum,—not just for its mission, but what it represents to the city and region, as well as ourselves. We loved the place and saw it not just as picturesque venue with good space, but a chance to share something special. 

Comparing it to “having your wedding at the Holocaust Museum,” is a bit dramatic in my opinion.

Ultimately, NURFC wasn’t the venue we chose, but that was mainly due to logistics. 

 

I appreciate your perspective. My partner and I are also members and it's my opinion that everyone should visit. It's an amazing asset for our city. While I wouldn't feel comfortable having a wedding there I definitely support them hosting events to keep the doors open and continue to tell the important story they tell.

13 hours ago, DEPACincy said:

it's my opinion that everyone should visit. It's an amazing asset for our city. 

 

Couldn’t agree more and I appreciate your perspective as well! 

The NURFC really is a gem in this city.

 

On 8/24/2021 at 9:43 AM, Brutus_buckeye said:

While not directly Banks related, it is interesting to hear how peer cities look at and view the Banks. 

 

https://www.cleveland.com/news/2021/08/can-the-north-coast-catch-up-cincinnati-is-25-years-ahead-of-cleveland-in-waterfront-redevelopment.html

To change topics. Its interesting that the article written in cleveland about the banks. Towards the end of the article it discusses the blah or boring architecture. Yet at this moment the asshats are letting the management group paint the existing brick apartment buildings of phase one 50 shades of gray. This trend is driving people like me, an architect, insane. Quit painting brick! The maintenance and upkeep is terrible, and if not properly painted will need to be painted again. Was phase one beautiful? Nope, but the brick is timeless and with minor balcony railing swap outs and new lighting and other accessories,  it could continue to look nice for a couple decades. Sorry i needed to vent a second, that paint job is just terrible. 

Exposed brick buildings at The Banks and Newport on the Levee were recently painted HGTV Gray as well.

23 minutes ago, taestell said:

Exposed brick buildings at The Banks and Newport on the Levee were recently painted HGTV Gray as well.

Yeah North American Development should not have painted the brick at Newport on the Levee. The EIFS along the top half where the AMC is located, sure no problem, but all the brick, black too, cant wait for the sun to fade that beautifully. 

What has been the impact of The Roebling being closed to cars? Would permanently closing it to vehicular traffic be a good thing for The Banks and Covington? This is an honest question, as I'm not sure what the impact has been (especially on Covington). 

4 hours ago, savadams13 said:

 

To change topics. Its interesting that the article written in cleveland about the banks. Towards the end of the article it discusses the blah or boring architecture. Yet at this moment the asshats are letting the management group paint the existing brick apartment buildings of phase one 50 shades of gray. This trend is driving people like me, an architect, insane. Quit painting brick! The maintenance and upkeep is terrible, and if not properly painted will need to be painted again. Was phase one beautiful? Nope, but the brick is timeless and with minor balcony railing swap outs and new lighting and other accessories,  it could continue to look nice for a couple decades. Sorry i needed to vent a second, that paint job is just terrible. 

I dont know why they would want to paint it the same color as everything else. The differences in color help give the area character. Bland as the architectual style may be, to me, it is less about the quality of how things look from the air and more about how it achieved connecting downtown and also creating vibrancy on the street. I think it did a good job of integrating the buildings with the street and park and creating a walkable area.  The biggest issue is the blah ness of the architecture, but it is somethign i am willing to tradeoff in order to have a functioning neighborhood in that area that had forever been a wasteland. 

2 hours ago, jwulsin said:

What has been the impact of The Roebling being closed to cars? Would permanently closing it to vehicular traffic be a good thing for The Banks and Covington? This is an honest question, as I'm not sure what the impact has been (especially on Covington). 

The short answer is that it's impossible to get a fair reading because the BSB has also been closed to Northbound from Covington, so traffic has been terrible due to Clay Wade being the only connector from Covington (north of 12th) and Cincinnati.

 

Long term, especially if/when BSB gets a sister, maybe it could be studied to remove vehicle traffic, though in the meantime I just wish they would build a physical height barrier to prevent large trucks from ever driving over it again. I miss the connection of the Southbank Shuttle too so some sort of transit connection would be nice instead of making it another pedestrian only bridge like Purple People. Maybe @thebillshark's gondola idea if the bridge can't hold the weight of modern transit anymore.

Traffic on the Taylor Southgate Bridge has been horrible in the PM rush hour, and I'm not sure whether the closure of the Roebling or the new roundabouts in Newport are to blame.

I know I was late to meeting up with folks in OTR a few weeks ago because I had tried to cross the Roebling (closed), tried to cross the Clay Wade Bailey (gridlocked), and then tried to hop on the BSB only to find the ramp closed. I did a loop at the MLK interchange only to ... sit in traffic. Earlier, when I was flying over the Taylor Southgate, it was practically empty in comparison to the congestion closer to the BSB - and the "Big Mac" bridge was operating normally.

43 minutes ago, wjh2 said:

Hopefully this can get off the ground and operating by sometime next Summer for Reds season. It will go a long way towards stretching the area west. 

 

Now add some more residential south of GE and another hotel by PBS. 

 

I think this one is definitely happening with it being a well known and financed local company. 
 

From the article:
 

“Anderson said he has all the zoning approvals in place and is in for building permits with the city of Cincinnati. Anderson received approval for the new restaurant building at the Banks a little more than a year ago. He hopes to start construction in September with a goal of being open in May 2022.”

Folks, restaurant discussion (including The Banks) should go here --> https://forum.urbanohio.com/topic/242-cincinnati-restaurant-news-amp-info/

16 hours ago, taestell said:

Traffic on the Taylor Southgate Bridge has been horrible in the PM rush hour, and I'm not sure whether the closure of the Roebling or the new roundabouts in Newport are to blame.

 

The roundabout at the end of the bridge has been there for awhile and there were no issues until the BSB and Roebling closed.

On 8/24/2021 at 9:43 AM, Brutus_buckeye said:

While not directly Banks related, it is interesting to hear how peer cities look at and view the Banks. 

 

https://www.cleveland.com/news/2021/08/can-the-north-coast-catch-up-cincinnati-is-25-years-ahead-of-cleveland-in-waterfront-redevelopment.html

 

Hopefully, Cleveland can see the banks as a lessons learned and really focus on not rushing things. I do hope they can wait out for a plan that isn't centered around their football stadium, and be able to prevent giving too much power to non-locals or a football stadium..

 

The article doesn't really talk about the Riverfront Transit Center, even though there's a picture from one of the stairwells. I wasn't around the area when the banks were getting developed, but how did paul brown stadium get the half-cent sales tax increase passed but metro moves flopped? I know opinions have changed on public transit over time, but a stadium that gets used maybe 10 times a year at most over what would've been a nationally known transit system?

The stadium tax was passed in 1996. The MetroMoves vote came in 2002. The theory that I have heard from people that were involved in local politics at the time is that many Hamilton County voters were not happy about how things were going with the stadiums (construction over budget, bad lease agreement, etc.) and weren't about to turn around and give "the government"* more sales tax revenue to build another megaproject. (*Even though one project was run by Hamilton County and the other one would have been run by SORTA — most voters aren't that detail-oriented.)

 

But I think the biggest factor is that there was a general anti-downtown attitude at that point in time. This was a year after the 2001 riots, three years before the renovation of Fountain Square, several years before 3CDC started renovating buildings in OTR, and five years before ground was broken at The Banks. Transit also was still largely seen as a social service for people who couldn't afford cars. I first started getting involved in local politics around 2007-08 and even at that time, there was still a very strong anti-downtown attitude and people sincerely believing "don't go there or you'll get shot." Anti-city groups saying some pretty horrible stuff about how criminals are going to break into your house, steal your TV, and take it home on the train. It's hard to overstate how quickly attitudes changed in the last decade.

53 minutes ago, taestell said:

The stadium tax was passed in 1996. The MetroMoves vote came in 2002. The theory that I have heard from people that were involved in local politics at the time is that many Hamilton County voters were not happy about how things were going with the stadiums (construction over budget, bad lease agreement, etc.) and weren't about to turn around and give "the government"* more sales tax revenue to build another megaproject. (*Even though one project was run by Hamilton County and the other one would have been run by SORTA — most voters aren't that detail-oriented.)

 

But I think the biggest factor is that there was a general anti-downtown attitude at that point in time. This was a year after the 2001 riots, three years before the renovation of Fountain Square, several years before 3CDC started renovating buildings in OTR, and five years before ground was broken at The Banks. Transit also was still largely seen as a social service for people who couldn't afford cars. I first started getting involved in local politics around 2007-08 and even at that time, there was still a very strong anti-downtown attitude and people sincerely believing "don't go there or you'll get shot." Anti-city groups saying some pretty horrible stuff about how criminals are going to break into your house, steal your TV, and take it home on the train. It's hard to overstate how quickly attitudes changed in the last decade.

I also remember that there was a lot of people on the west side opposed to it because there was no real route to the west side. I believe there was a route that sort of went up the 74 corridor but there was not really any service to the Delhi or older Western Hills areas of town and there were a lot of people over there that felt there was no benefit to them. 

4 hours ago, taestell said:

 

But I think the biggest factor is that there was a general anti-downtown attitude at that point in time. This was a year after the 2001 riots, three years before the renovation of Fountain Square, several years before 3CDC started renovating buildings in OTR, and five years before ground was broken at The Banks. Transit also was still largely seen as a social service for people who couldn't afford cars. I first started getting involved in local politics around 2007-08 and even at that time, there was still a very strong anti-downtown attitude and people sincerely believing "don't go there or you'll get shot." Anti-city groups saying some pretty horrible stuff about how criminals are going to break into your house, steal your TV, and take it home on the train. It's hard to overstate how quickly attitudes changed in the last decade.

I hadn’t realized how the timeline of the two proposals ended up. It makes much more sense how, unfortunately, metro moves would be seen as more of a tax grab than an great proposal with what was going on in the metro.

Forgot to mention I walked thru The Banks and it looked as tho construction has begun on the new restaurant building next to Yard House. Very happy to see that!

On 11/1/2021 at 4:37 PM, 646empire said:

Forgot to mention I walked thru The Banks and it looked as tho construction has begun on the new restaurant building next to Yard House. Very happy to see that!

Do we know what it is? Or is it some huge mystery?

18 minutes ago, Rabbit Hash said:

Do we know what it is? Or is it some huge mystery?

Jeffrey Anderson group will be doing there own concept restaurant called "Filson Queen City Kitchen and Bar" that's a fricken mouth full. 

 

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2021/08/26/new-restaurant-to-be-built-at-the-banks.html

Edited November 3, 20213 yr by savadams13

1 hour ago, savadams13 said:

concept restaurant called "Filson Queen City Kitchen and Bar" that's a fricken mouth full. 

Agreed. The name is too long. But fortunately, later in the article it was referred to it simply as "The Filson" and hopefully that becomes the name/branding that sticks. 

14 minutes ago, jwulsin said:

Agreed. The name is too long. But fortunately, later in the article it was referred to it simply as "The Filson" and hopefully that becomes the name/branding that sticks. 

Only issue with that is copyright laws since there is a well known outdoor clothing company called Filson already

Developers pitch 'Redlegs Landing' concept for riverfront boat dock

Park Board 'sorting out' new dock wrinkle

 

 

The Cincinnati Reds could become the naming rights sponsor of a floating hotel that would serve as the head boat for a riverfront dock, under a proposal submitted to Cincinnati’s Park Board Thursday.

 

It’s the latest in a string of surprising twists for a project that city officials have been unable to complete despite three bidding competitions since 2015 to find companies willing to build and operate a “transient boat dock” on Cincinnati’s central riverfront.

 

The latest competition, which began in May, resulted in two bidders – H. Hafner & Sons and Queen City Riverboats. Each presented their proposals to Park Commissioners Thursday.

 

The Redlegs Landing concept came from Queen City Riverboats. It wants to convert a riverboat casino into a floating hotel, or “floatel,” that would be moored in front of the National Steamboat Monument on Mehring Way. Docks would extend west from the four-story riverboat

 

Cont

Haven't had a chance to watch the whole video, but yesterday's Park Board meeting is online and includes full presentations from both of the respondents (Queen City Riverboats and H Hafner & Sons). 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtFKJe9-Bic

 

 

25 minutes ago, Cygnus said:

Developers pitch 'Redlegs Landing' concept for riverfront boat dock

Park Board 'sorting out' new dock wrinkle

 

 

The Cincinnati Reds could become the naming rights sponsor of a floating hotel that would serve as the head boat for a riverfront dock, under a proposal submitted to Cincinnati’s Park Board Thursday.

 

It’s the latest in a string of surprising twists for a project that city officials have been unable to complete despite three bidding competitions since 2015 to find companies willing to build and operate a “transient boat dock” on Cincinnati’s central riverfront.

 

The latest competition, which began in May, resulted in two bidders – H. Hafner & Sons and Queen City Riverboats. Each presented their proposals to Park Commissioners Thursday.

 

The Redlegs Landing concept came from Queen City Riverboats. It wants to convert a riverboat casino into a floating hotel, or “floatel,” that would be moored in front of the National Steamboat Monument on Mehring Way. Docks would extend west from the four-story riverboat

 

Cont

 

This smells and screams shady. When Mrs. Castellini speaks out like that to say she cant vote for this project ever. She wants nothing to do with whatever muck Bob and Phil have gotten into...

I love this idea! 

That pastiche of Steamboat motifs at that particular spot is already out of hand. Lose the bits on the stadium, itself, and this might not look like an amusement park.