3cdc had proposed a boutique hotel on 12th next to Zundo in an Historic building that used to be a medical school or something if I remember correctly.  That project seems to have been shelved.

3 hours ago, IAGuy39 said:

^I would bet they get moving quickly on this, like how the new Kroger came about, move quickly from demolition to construction, I doubt it sits around vacant for a long time a la Fourth and Race.

 

 

Heard Julie Calvert on the radio today. Essentially, they are working on the plans for what to do. Don't know if they will expand over Elm or go North over 6th Street. That could be months away. If you don't have the plan for building the convention center expansion, then to me it makes it hard to move ahead with the construction of the new hotel. obviously the drawings reported on last month are far from coming to fruition. My big concern is that they close this asset which is performing, tear it down, and then not have a viable plan for moving forward, or it gets mired in city politics. We are then stuck with an empty lot for a few years until city council gets its head out of its a$$ and figures out a viable plan.

The county and the city just played nice at the banks. Maybe this was part of the negotiation.

18 minutes ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

 

 

Heard Julie Calvert on the radio today. Essentially, they are working on the plans for what to do. Don't know if they will expand over Elm or go North over 6th Street. That could be months away. If you don't have the plan for building the convention center expansion, then to me it makes it hard to move ahead with the construction of the new hotel. obviously the drawings reported on last month are far from coming to fruition. My big concern is that they close this asset which is performing, tear it down, and then not have a viable plan for moving forward, or it gets mired in city politics. We are then stuck with an empty lot for a few years until city council gets its head out of its a$$ and figures out a viable plan.

 

The enquirer reported millennium has a 30 percent occupancy rate, has a multitude of failed inspections, severely understaffed (100 employees for a nearly 900 room hotel?), and is a magnet for illegal and illicit activity. 

 

This place is a problem and neglected property. Not a performing asset.

9 minutes ago, troeros said:

 

The enquirer reported millennium has a 30 percent occupancy rate, has a multitude of failed inspections, severely understaffed (100 employees for a nearly 900 room hotel?), and is a magnet for illegal and illicit activity. 

 

This place is a problem and neglected property. Not a performing asset.

1)  That is still fine. You operate at one tower. You still collect taxes on those rooms to continue to contribute to the overall downtown room pot. Maybe those rooms go somewhere else in the city maybe they don't.

 

2) It is easier to keep an operating property up as opposed to a vacant one. I know it is subject to demolition, but do we want another white elephant like the Terrace Plaza to deal with. Not a problem if they tear it down in early 2020, but again, without a plan, why have an empty lot for a few years at such a prominent corner.

2 hours ago, troeros said:

 

Yeah but most out of town convention folks want a direct access HQ convention hotel. It's stupid.

 

I can maybe speak to a little just as experience doing conventions elsewhere, when you are setting up a booth and up at 6 am for meetings at 7 am the whole time then meetings after until 9 pm, it's nice to be right next to the convention center. They really are a ton of work.

 

I've done shows in Vegas and KC and Bangkok and others, and the one in Vegas is always a major drag because you have to walk a mile and a half to get to the covention center, stand around all day passing out cards, then walk all the way back. You don't ever have any time to actually check out any of the cities at all. Maybe you would go for  a walk down to the park, but really by the end of the day and all the meetings all you really want to do is go back to your room, take a shower, stretch, then go to bed.

 

Long story short, the need for a high class hotel right next to the convention center is necessary.

 

What conventions do help is the hotel tax revenue and some restaurants close by (including famous city restaurants for more power meetings) and it would help the further out hotels I assume a bit in regards to the visitors of the conventions (buyers and manufacturer reps) (though not necessarily).

 

Convention Centers IMO really aren't a massive economic generator besides hotel tax revenue which is an important part of a city's book but it doesn't drive economic development at all really in the surrounding areas, similar to stadiums in a few ways but actually probably help out with employment better with hotel jobs.

 

Something like the streetcar probably generates (just completely spitballing) but probably 8x money multiplier where a convention center is probably 1.5x money multiplier and stadiums are probably 0.5x AT BEST or most likely a massive negative multiplier like Paul Brown stadium.

Weird, just read a report on convention centers being around 1.5x money multiplier (I must have read something in college and actually remembered it).

 

For sports stadium, it is negative, 83% of economists agree:

 

https://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/page1-econ/2017-05-01/the-economics-of-subsidizing-sports-stadiums/

I've got it.  The City and County will get together and demolish a key piece of real estate with plans to re-develop it as an economic engine for the area.  Sounds strangely familiar to The Banks, which is years behind schedule and an economic failure for most businesses except on Reds game days, because the City and County can't get along.

Edited November 12, 20195 yr by thesenator
grammar

3 hours ago, troeros said:

 

The enquirer reported millennium has a 30 percent occupancy rate, has a multitude of failed inspections, severely understaffed (100 employees for a nearly 900 room hotel?), and is a magnet for illegal and illicit activity.

 

Geesh.  Just wait until The Enquirer hears about The Budget Host.  

 

But seriously, the blue bloods put The Enquirer up to run hit pieces against The Millennium for years.  Their bed bug investigation came up with nothing.  

6 hours ago, thesenator said:

I've got it.  The City and County will get together and demolish a key piece of real estate with plans to re-develop it as an economic engine for the area.  Sounds strangely familiar to The Banks, which is years behind schedule and an economic failure for most businesses except on Reds game days, because the City and County can't get along.

 

Isn't the banks almost at 90% occupancy with their retail tenants. The banks is super popular on weekends and its been a hot minute since a business has closed and in just the past year opened a planet fitness, a Smoothie King, a classy night club/resturaunt in Galla Park, a great ferris wheel that still draws lines, and a pop up retail shop ran by Agar.

 

So I'm not understanding this constant narrative of the banks is this disaster when I consistently see families and kids drawn to smale riverfront park, to the ferris wheel, to canados tacos, to taste of Belgium, etc...

Edited November 13, 20195 yr by troeros

Spend $51M and no new HQ hotel right away? ‘We will all look ridiculous,’ 3CDC exec says

 

 

It will cost $51 million in local hotel tax money to acquire and demolish the Millennium Hotel, according to a financial analysis reviewed Friday by the Convention Facilities Authority, but even if that money is spent, a new convention center hotel could be years away, leaving a large vacant site in the middle of downtown.

 

The initial discussion of a potentially massive hotel project had several members of the CFA, which has to approve any use of hotel tax revenue, asking pointed questions of Laura Brunner, the CEO of the Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority, and Hamilton County Administrator Jeff Aluotto. The CFA is composed of influential staff members from the city, county, business community and other local governments as well as citizens.

 

For months behind the scenes, tensions have been rising among the various players, agencies and organizations that are or were once involved in the hotel initiative. They have alternatively questioned the financial assumptions each has made, the ability to meet those assumptions, the inclusion or exclusion of key contractors and financiers and the basic competency of each other to get the job done. Some of that tension spilled out into the open at Friday’s CFA session.

 

The CFA reviewed an initial financial analysis of the potential use of hotel tax money for the convention center hotel project and the Sharonville Convention Center expansion done by PFM Financial Advisers.

 

The money from the hotel tax is used to fund a variety of public tourism expenses, including debt service on the most-recent work on the Duke Energy Convention Center as well as the Sharonville building. The end of that so-called payment “waterfall” leaves the city and county each with surplus funds each year. In the county’s case, it has more than $12 million today, with around $2 million projected to be added each year. Each must get the other’s permission, as well as the CFA’s OK, to spend those funds. The city has used its funds to finance public improvements related to the FC Cincinnati stadium. The county has not yet committed the bulk of its surplus funds.

 

Full article below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2019/12/06/spend-51-m-and-no-new-hq-hotel-right-away-we-will.html

Like I said, the worst thing that could happen is they tear down the Millenium and it becomes a parking lot for the next 3-5 years. That would be worse than just keeping it "as is"

Just go back to the plan of building a new convention center hotel across the street

My 3 cents. I'm glad the Millenium is out of a Singapore based owner's hands but I think we should focus on getting a developer to flip the original Stouffer's Inn half to a decent hotel while the North half is demolished. The North site can be used to place the new high-end hotel which could be years down the road and in the meantime the South half can start making money as a nicer renovated version of what it already is. The original Stouffer's isn't bad urbanism either, it's just everything else that is so pedestrian un-friendly.

 

Other ideas below:

12 hours ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

Like I said, the worst thing that could happen is they tear down the Millenium and it becomes a parking lot for the next 3-5 years. That would be worse than just keeping it "as is"

 

Not 3-5 years -- 20 years.

Demolition of Millennium Hotel will take a year, Port CEO says

By Chris Wetterich  – Staff reporter and columnist, Cincinnati Business Courier

 

It will take a year to demolish the Millennium Hotel once the Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority acquires it, the Port's CEO told her board on Wednesday.

 

Laura Brunner, providing an update on the project to the Port’s board, said she expected to ask members to pass a resolution to issue bonds to purchase and demolish the hotel in January. But first, the Convention Facilities Authority and Hamilton County would have to approve the use of the county’s hotel tax money to back the bonds, she noted. The city and the county share the excess money generated by the hotel tax.

 

MORE

It almost seems like it would have been easier to build on the empty lot and get the new HQ hotel up say a year or 2 sooner.

I can see the next couple of years of conventions being pretty sparse at the convention center. 

Cincinnati at its finest 

told you so...Hampton inn at Central park and liberty. Convention Hotel just dreams. its 2030 and man colonized  Mars. The new Disney UP is surrounded by Holiday Inns and TGIFs . Cincy, still fighting for 5 story buildings in otr.

^huh?

5 hours ago, Ucgrad2015 said:

I can see the next couple of years of conventions being pretty sparse at the convention center. 

 

Yeah but Cranley's buddies are all getting rich.  

Millennium Hotel is closing today

It sounds like the Port is hellbent on moving forward with the demolition of the Millennium, even before there is a solid plan in place to replace it. I hope all goes well but this opens up an opportunity for us to have a big hole in our CBD if the convention business slows or if we hit another economic downturn in the next few years.

I would think you would want to keep operating it until a plan is in place but what the hell do I know. As is per usual in Cincinnati, I am sure they will tear it down, and there will be another hole in the ground for 5 years while they fight over how to expand the convention center.

14 minutes ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

I would think you would want to keep operating it until a plan is in place but what the hell do I know. As is per usual in Cincinnati, I am sure they will tear it down, and there will be another hole in the ground for 5 years while they fight over how to expand the convention center.

 

That might be a desirable outcome, compared to "we absolutely NEED to enact this plan RIGHT NOW because of the crisis we intentionally created!"

January 5, 2020:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What IS the white cubic building in the foreground of your last image. I love it, I hate it.

1 minute ago, Chas Wiederhold said:

What IS the white cubic building in the foreground of your last image. I love it, I hate it.

 

I believe it is/was a racquetball club

Yeah - on the wall facing 6th St, it used to have lettering saying "Court Sports / Fitness Club", which you can see in old streetview photos: https://www.google.com/maps/@39.102059,-84.5165279,3a,77.3y,34.68h,116.74t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1shdLeXcwnRVW0Ai65Yrn1AQ!2e0!5s20120901T000000!7i13312!8i6656

 

Anybody have photos of the inside of that building? 

50 minutes ago, jwulsin said:

Yeah - on the wall facing 6th St, it used to have lettering saying "Court Sports / Fitness Club", which you can see in old streetview photos: https://www.google.com/maps/@39.102059,-84.5165279,3a,77.3y,34.68h,116.74t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1shdLeXcwnRVW0Ai65Yrn1AQ!2e0!5s20120901T000000!7i13312!8i6656

 

Anybody have photos of the inside of that building? 

 

All i remember was that it was started and owned by Pat Matson who use to play for the Cincinnati Bengals in the 70s. 

 

Edited January 10, 20205 yr by savadams13

Port OKs bonds to acquire, demolish Millennium Hotel

By Chris Wetterich  – Staff reporter and columnist, Cincinnati Business Courier

 

The Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority’s board unanimously approved issuing $59 million in bonds on Wednesday to acquire, demolish and secure the Millennium Hotel, another step toward putting the property at 150 W. Fifth St. in public hands.

 

The bonds will be backed by Hamilton County’s share of the local hotel tax. The Convention Facilities Authority must still approve the use of that revenue source and is scheduled to meet this month.

 

MORE

45 minutes ago, The_Cincinnati_Kid said:

Port OKs bonds to acquire, demolish Millennium Hotel

By Chris Wetterich  – Staff reporter and columnist, Cincinnati Business Courier

 

The Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority’s board unanimously approved issuing $59 million in bonds on Wednesday to acquire, demolish and secure the Millennium Hotel, another step toward putting the property at 150 W. Fifth St. in public hands.

 

The bonds will be backed by Hamilton County’s share of the local hotel tax. The Convention Facilities Authority must still approve the use of that revenue source and is scheduled to meet this month.

 

MORE

If it’s going to take a year I am assuming that it will not be imploded but basically disassembled? 

$59 million seems like a lot to get back to a vacant lot. What if they sunk that much into renovation into apartments and built the hotel on the lot to the south? (Apartment conversion could be difficult because of many factors but could $59 million make it work?) 

Edited January 15, 20205 yr by thebillshark

18 minutes ago, thebillshark said:

$59 million seems like a lot to get back to a vacant lot. What if they sunk that much into renovation into apartments and built the hotel on the lot to the south? (Apartment conversion could be difficult because of many factors but could $59 million make it work?) 

I've said it before but I wish they would renovate the Stouffer's Inn portion into either a new hotel or an apartment building while demolishing the northern additions. That way revenue could be made while we still look for a new convention flagship hotel instead of having just a vacant lot. 

So what is the over under on how long this will just be a giant parking lot? 3 years/5 years?

28 minutes ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

So what is the over under on how long this will just be a giant parking lot? 3 years/5 years?

 

Probably less than 2. A dedicated connected convention center hotel is critical for most convention centers in US Cities. Convention Center officials are also very bullish on wanting to expand the center. I think that serves as a dual purpose project and will have a quick turn around time on getting this site redeveloped into a new name brand convention center hotel with an expanded convention center underneath the hotel. 

My opinion, they are spending way too much money on this to not have it move forward right away.

 

What is the precedent again exactly that people are nervous it will be a lot for awhile? Fourth and Race, Dunnhumby site? I don't know what the public portion of Dunnhumby was, but I have to think, it wasn't $59 million? I think Fourth and Race started at 10 million then dropped to 5 million maybe? (I am not counting TIF).

 

 

3 hours ago, thebillshark said:

$59 million seems like a lot to get back to a vacant lot.

 

It just blows my mind that the same "fiscal conservatives" who lost their minds when the city proposed renovating the City Hall courtyard at a cost of $4 million, or say that the streetcar's $4 million/year operating cost is going to bankrupt the city, but don't make a peep when the county votes to spend nearly $60 million to acquire and demolish a building when there's not even a firm plan in place for its replacement.

18 minutes ago, taestell said:

 

It just blows my mind that the same "fiscal conservatives" who lost their minds when the city proposed renovating the City Hall courtyard at a cost of $4 million, or say that the streetcar's $4 million/year operating cost is going to bankrupt the city, but don't make a peep when the county votes to spend nearly $60 million to acquire and demolish a building when there's not even a firm plan in place for its replacement.

 

I mean they have a firm plan I thought? Aren't they weighing the 3 options of the various hotel rooms with one option being a convention center expansion beneath and the other two options with no convention expansion with less rooms? There was an info graphic published by the business courier not to long ago regarding this. 

If they are still weighing 3 options, it is by definition not a "firm plan". The Convention Center isn't even sure if they need to expand -- they just started studying it in October and probably won't know the answer for a few more months. So we don't know what size the new hotel will be, whether a convention center expansion will be incorporated into the new building, and whether the city would even agree to the Elm Street closure that may or may not be required to build the expansion.

17 minutes ago, taestell said:

If they are still weighing 3 options, it is by definition not a "firm plan". The Convention Center isn't even sure if they need to expand -- they just started studying it in October and probably won't know the answer for a few more months. So we don't know what size the new hotel will be, whether a convention center expansion will be incorporated into the new building, and whether the city would even agree to the Elm Street closure that may or may not be required to build the expansion.

 

Regardless if the demo requires a full year from once the process begins, they can surely finalize their firm plan once demolition is nearing to completion...

6 hours ago, troeros said:

 

Regardless if the demo requires a full year from once the process begins, they can surely finalize their firm plan once demolition is nearing to completion...

Fourth & Walnut Center has been in design and financing phase for more than 3 years and still hasn’t started.  Finding a developer and generating a design will take far longer than 1 year.  I’d bet closer to 5 years as parking than 3.

11 hours ago, thebillshark said:

$59 million seems like a lot to get back to a vacant lot. What if they sunk that much into renovation into apartments and built the hotel on the lot to the south? (Apartment conversion could be difficult because of many factors but could $59 million make it work?) 

Renovation would cost far more than $59 million and the basic shell and lack of historical significance is not conducive to an upscale hotel or apartments.

31 minutes ago, thesenator said:

Renovation would cost far more than $59 million and the basic shell and lack of historical significance is not conducive to an upscale hotel or apartments.

actually you could spend more than $59 million on a renovation and still come out ahead because at the end you’d have a asset worth more than a vacant lot 

1 hour ago, thesenator said:

Fourth & Walnut Center has been in design and financing phase for more than 3 years and still hasn’t started.  Finding a developer and generating a design will take far longer than 1 year.  I’d bet closer to 5 years as parking than 3.

I disagree. I 100% expect a groundbreaking on a large new convention center hotel by summer/fall 2021. They simply cannot wait that long to get this project done. Big conventions book host cities years in advance, if they take 5 years like you said that would put the hotel completion in the mid to late 2020s there for the city realistically would miss the entire decade of large events and that’s definitely not happening. Also they already have a developer/s and design will not take that long. At this point it’s really just about money. The question posed above is a tricky one because my gut says there is still a significant chance the hotel will end up getting built by/on the 3cdc lot like originally planned and they will decide to use the millennium hotel lot for convention center expansion only, which if that happens I could definitely see them not breaking ground on a separate convention center expansion for 4-5 years. 

Interesting idea, build a new hotel on the 5th and plum lot, convince the convention center they don't need to do an expansion, and then give the space where the Millenium is over to 84.51 for expansion.

As everyone has said before, we can only hope city leaders have something big in the pipeline or else this razing makes absolutely no sense.  This is a potentially huge project and we'll all be keeping close eyes on the outcome for when we hit the voting polls again.

Whoever designed the 84.51 building was a complete idiot.  It was built way too small.  84.51 apparently has the right to take over the parking garage floors that are above ground, but supposedly 3CDC doesn't want to let them do that so they can continue to make money off the parking.  Why they didn't just make the building 3-5 more floors tall is beyond me.  They could have just rented out that space until 84.51 needed it.  

12 minutes ago, Cincy513 said:

Whoever designed the 84.51 building was a complete idiot.  It was built way too small.  84.51 apparently has the right to take over the parking garage floors that are above ground, but supposedly 3CDC doesn't want to let them do that so they can continue to make money off the parking.  Why they didn't just make the building 3-5 more floors tall is beyond me.  They could have just rented out that space until 84.51 needed it.  

I wonder if the current building can support additional floors.