June 5, 20196 yr 15 minutes ago, Cincy513 said: If they fill the Macy's space with office users I feel like you can kiss the tower above goodbye. No one is going to want to work in there while the tower is being built. Hopefully it's an announcement of a plan to build out space for the office user along with an addition of a residential tower above. I'm not sure I'd bet on that though. Maybe I'm trying to connect dots that don't exist...but if their is an interested company looking to add employees to the Macy building why would they have to wait until end of summer/to end of year to announce this? Isn't the building already vacant and move in ready right now? Also, Steve Leeper made it sound as if it was a significant amount of jobs. I'm crossing my fingers that it's an announcement for a tower to expand the footprint of one of the current fortune 500 companies already located downtown.
June 5, 20196 yr 2 minutes ago, troeros said: Maybe I'm trying to connect dots that don't exist...but if their is an interested company looking to add employees to the Macy building why would they have to wait until end of summer/to end of year to announce this? Isn't the building already vacant and move in ready right now? Also, Steve Leeper made it sound as if it was a significant amount of jobs. I'm crossing my fingers that it's an announcement for a tower to expand the footprint of one of the current fortune 500 companies already located downtown. The Macy's space is an old shopping store, it's not move in ready for a normal office business. The space is pretty much all open with I'm sure it has old carpet/finishes. It would still take a little while to build out the space for this office user even if they were more of an open office type of company. If they needed a decent amount of offices, conference rooms, break rooms, ect, then that would make the build out take longer. The build out would likely take a couple months at least since it's a huge space. Plus I'm sure right now they're working on a tax incentive from the city/state for these jobs. I'm with you though, I really hope we get a tower built on top. That would be a huge addition to the heart of downtown.
June 5, 20196 yr 51 minutes ago, troeros said: Cincinnati.com: 3CDC's Leeper: Macy's news coming soon for Fountain Square https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2019/06/05/macys-space-fountain-square-coming-soon-3-cdc-steve-leeper/1357365001/ Steve Lepper says a major announcement will come by end of summer/end of year on the office component where alot of quality jobs would be created. That said, who could the company be? And would this be with or without a tower? How many office employees can currently fit with the current available office footprint? Towards the end of Lepper's interview he mentioned in passing that Fountain Place will have a crane. If they were just renovating the existing building I don't think they'd need a crane...
June 5, 20196 yr Apparently 84.51 told employees last week that they are expecting to double their headcount. I wonder if they'll take the office space instead of expanding into the garage of their current building.
June 5, 20196 yr 13 minutes ago, Dresden11 said: Apparently 84.51 told employees last week that they are expecting to double their headcount. I wonder if they'll take the office space instead of expanding into the garage of their current building. Really glad they built a squat 8 story building just a few years ago...*facepalm*
June 5, 20196 yr They are going to have a tower crane on Fountain Square as part of Fifth Third's project starting this summer. They also plan on relocating the stage to the opposite side of the square near Graeter's as part of the overall reconfiguration.
June 6, 20196 yr 2 hours ago, Dresden11 said: Apparently 84.51 told employees last week that they are expecting to double their headcount. I wonder if they'll take the office space instead of expanding into the garage of their current building. Nope they are talking with 3CDC but they don't want to give up any parking decks in the building. Making too much revenue...
June 6, 20196 yr 4 hours ago, Dresden11 said: Apparently 84.51 told employees last week that they are expecting to double their headcount. I wonder if they'll take the office space instead of expanding into the garage of their current building. 85.51 could double their headcount by converting 2 of the parking garage floors into office space. At least that was the original plan as they grew. That being said, getting rid of that parking in the 84.51 building along with adding say 400-500 additional workers in the Macy's building, you have have to think there would need to be some type of expanded parking option in that building to accommodate those workers.
June 6, 20196 yr I agree it was so dumb to make the 84.51 building only 8 stories. They could easily doubled the size and leased out the extra space to other tenants until 84.51 needed it. Also 84.51 are idiots if they didn't get something in writing that they have the right to those above ground parking garage floors.
June 6, 20196 yr 39 minutes ago, Cincy513 said: I agree it was so dumb to make the 84.51 building only 8 stories. The building is unbelievably ugly.
June 6, 20196 yr 45 minutes ago, Cincy513 said: I agree it was so dumb to make the 84.51 building only 8 stories. They could easily doubled the size and leased out the extra space to other tenants until 84.51 needed it. Also 84.51 are idiots if they didn't get something in writing that they have the right to those above ground parking garage floors. Kroger legal team are the idiots in all of this. Remember 84.51 as originally intended for Dunnhumby. It wasnt until shovels hit the ground that Kroger bought Dunnhumby North American operations out, well until they regrouped again. Anyway Kroger being the new tenant could have easily reworked the agreement with the parking deck levels, and left the existing agreement in place. The money spent on those three parking decks to make them easily interchangeable for office use was a budget buster.
June 6, 20196 yr From reading the article and listening to the podcast, it sounds like retail will wrap the entire first floor in retail and office space will be put in the 2nd and 3rd floors. Then at some point down the road a residential tower could be built on top. It is clear they are not tearing down the structure and rebuilding.
June 6, 20196 yr Don't get why they've been hyping this project so much then. Vacant building has new tenants again...woah...
June 6, 20196 yr Yeah, Cranley was FC Cincinnati/Wasson Way levels of excited for what was coming to Fountain Place a few months ago, I'd hope it isn't just getting filled and that's it.
June 6, 20196 yr Cranley got excited when a Domino's opened up in the Mabley garage so I don't usually look to him for being a good metric of "exciting downtown development". “To an Ohio resident - wherever he lives - some other part of his state seems unreal.”
June 6, 20196 yr 39 minutes ago, BigDipper 80 said: Cranley got excited when a Domino's opened up in the Mabley garage so I don't usually look to him for being a good metric of "exciting downtown development". The media used to go ape over every downtown business closing. McAlpin's in 1996, The Maisonette in 2003, etc. Somehow Cranley has been excused as Macy's and Tiffany's left Fountain Square West the vacant property it was back 1991-1997.
June 6, 20196 yr ^Well now it's easier to brush off as "the death of retail" instead of "the death of downtown". “To an Ohio resident - wherever he lives - some other part of his state seems unreal.”
June 6, 20196 yr 2 hours ago, 10albersa said: Yeah, Cranley was FC Cincinnati/Wasson Way levels of excited for what was coming to Fountain Place a few months ago, I'd hope it isn't just getting filled and that's it. It's a MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT!!!! https://www.cincinnati.com/story/money/2019/02/27/mayor-big-news-coming-ex-macys-fountain-square/3002219002/
June 7, 20196 yr 7 hours ago, jmecklenborg said: The media used to go ape over every downtown business closing. McAlpin's in 1996, The Maisonette in 2003, etc. Somehow Cranley has been excused as Macy's and Tiffany's left Fountain Square West the vacant property it was back 1991-1997. Macy's has been struggling nationally for years and we have watched as all other cities our peer size or larger have lost their downtown stores. Plus the Macy's has been a ghost town for years now. It was time to let it go. In the 90s the key to revitalizing downtown was to build a suburban shopping mall in the city. Indy did it to success and got Nordstrom. Columbus did it and had a Lazarus and Montgomery Ward, Pittsburgh went all out to save Horne's. We saw Cleveland lose their downtown department stores and same with Detroit. You did not want to be in that peer group at that time so you threw stupid money at it to keep a dying concept in an area that could not support it.
June 7, 20196 yr It was a stroke of terrible bad luck that caused Cincinnati's retail revival to collapse. McAlpin's was bought out and closed just as Lazarus was about to open at Fountain Place. So Tower Place never benefited from having anchor stores at either end. If McAlpin's had remained independent, the Nordstrom (and earlier) plans for 5th & Race wouldn't have been abandoned. Also, nobody seemed to anticipate that the completion of Cross County HIghway in 1997 would give Kenwood the push it needed to become the region's dominant mall, to the detriment of all others. There obviously aren't a ton of wealthy people between Wyoming and the Indiana border, but suddenly an easy 10+ mile cross county drive from Finneytown, Mt. Healthy, Colerain, and White Oak became possible. Cross County Highway not only undermined Northgate, Tri-County, and Forest Fair Malls, it also undermined downtown.
June 7, 20196 yr By contrast to Cincinnati, Boston's subway system literally converges at their Downtown Macy's. The transfer station between the Red Line (the system's busiest) and the Orange Line is called Downtown Crossing, and you can walk directly into their Macy's from the subway platform without having to walk upstairs to the sidewalk. The perfect subway access means it's much more convenient for hundreds of thousands of people to go to that particular department store than virtually any other, even ones that are physically closer to where they live. Cincinnati's expressway layout converges on Downtown from four directions, but there are also the various ladder steps between I-75 and I-71 that left the door open for nodes to form that would compete with downtown.
June 7, 20196 yr 9 hours ago, Brutus_buckeye said: Macy's has been struggling nationally for years and we have watched as all other cities our peer size or larger have lost their downtown stores. That's a bold statement. All? As Jake mentioned, Boston's downtown store does great. Philly's downtown store also does great. NYC obviously. I'm sure there are lots of other examples of downtown stores thriving. The big difference is that cities that can support downtown department stores probably have real fixed rail transit systems.
June 7, 20196 yr Cleveland has all three of its rail lines and its BRT converge at its downtown mall, and it still lost all of its department stores. Of course, Cleveland has a lot of different, more complex economic issues than even Cincinnati, and its overall retail market has always been weak compared to downstate for whatever reason. Edited June 7, 20196 yr by BigDipper 80 “To an Ohio resident - wherever he lives - some other part of his state seems unreal.”
June 7, 20196 yr 1 hour ago, DEPACincy said: That's a bold statement. All? As Jake mentioned, Boston's downtown store does great. Philly's downtown store also does great. NYC obviously. I'm sure there are lots of other examples of downtown stores thriving. The big difference is that cities that can support downtown department stores probably have real fixed rail transit systems. I think it has more to do with an influx of wealthy urban residents and tourists that support the bigger city urban department stores. We need more residents downtown, and not just more residents, but Residents with spending money. That and tourists. Tourists like to shop and spend money. Cincy food and beer scene is fantastic but you can only eat so much food and drink do much beer before you want to do something else. Cincy retail, aside from the small independent botiques, is practically non existent and needs an overhaul. To many people on Reddit ask r/cincinnati about how they are first time visitors and want to shop but all of the comments direct them to the suburbs or Kenwood mall. Another point, if I'm an urban resident how the heck am I supposed to buy clothes? Living in the suburbs you can swing by Target or go to the mall, and buy something quick. Maybe some new underwear and socks. You can't do that in the urban core right now. I think having a functioning retail scene is almost as import as a grocery store. For years, people asked urban residents how do you buy groceries? Now the question will become, how do you buy clothes?
June 7, 20196 yr 36 minutes ago, BigDipper 80 said: Cleveland has all three of its rail lines and its BRT converge at its downtown mall, and it still lost all of its department stores. Of course, Cleveland has a lot of different, more complex economic issues than even Cincinnati, and its overall retail market has always been weak compared to downstate for whatever reason. But for years Cleveland deemphasized its transit system in favor of endless expansion of highways. I-271, for example, is an even more ridiculous, sprawl-inducing boondoggle than I-275.
June 7, 20196 yr 38 minutes ago, BigDipper 80 said: Cleveland has all three of its rail lines and its BRT converge at its downtown mall, and it still lost all of its department stores. Of course, Cleveland has a lot of different, more complex economic issues than even Cincinnati, and its overall retail market has always been weak compared to downstate for whatever reason. Cleveland's rail system is small potatoes compared to Boston's T. It's so good and parking is so difficult throughout the Boston area that many middle class and wealthy people do not own cars. Meanwhile, pretty much everyone except the very poorest people in Cincinnati and Cleveland own cars.
June 7, 20196 yr Another thing helping retail in major cities is that Wal-Mart culture is much less pervasive. Lots more MTS.
June 7, 20196 yr A lot of Canadian cities have thriving downtown malls, and most of them are accessible via rail transit. Eaton Centre in downtown Toronto is a massive mall that literally stretches between two subway stations (Queen and Dundas). If you have to drive to a mall, you might as well drive to one surrounded by massive parking lots rather than one where you have to navigate a confusing parking garage and then pay to park.
June 7, 20196 yr I don’t think we can compare New York, Boston, and Philly’s downtown retail scenes to Cincinnati. Totally different situations. That said, I can think of a few peer-ish cities that have downtown department stores. Portland has a ton of retail downtown. Indy has lost a few department stores recently, but I think has a few remaining. Minneapolis, New Orleans, Salt Lake City all have department stores, too. For all this discussion, Cincy does still have Saks downtown (for now) and we only lost Macy’s last year. All things considered, Cincy has fared better than most of our peers in this department.
June 7, 20196 yr 55 minutes ago, edale said: I don’t think we can compare New York, Boston, and Philly’s downtown retail scenes to Cincinnati. Totally different situations. That said, I can think of a few peer-ish cities that have downtown department stores. Portland has a ton of retail downtown. Indy has lost a few department stores recently, but I think has a few remaining. Minneapolis, New Orleans, Salt Lake City all have department stores, too. For all this discussion, Cincy does still have Saks downtown (for now) and we only lost Macy’s last year. All things considered, Cincy has fared better than most of our peers in this department. No you're right. But he said our size or larger and those three popped into my head because I used to live in the Northeast corridor. Thanks for adding the peer cities to the list.
June 7, 20196 yr Hell, Spokane has a downtown Nordstrom. In America, aside from transit-rich cities, it's a crap-shoot. "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
June 7, 20196 yr Hamilton had a downtown Elder-Beerman until 2009, somehow. “To an Ohio resident - wherever he lives - some other part of his state seems unreal.”
June 7, 20196 yr 4 hours ago, taestell said: A lot of Canadian cities have thriving downtown malls, and most of them are accessible via rail transit. Eaton Centre in downtown Toronto is a massive mall that literally stretches between two subway stations (Queen and Dundas). If you have to drive to a mall, you might as well drive to one surrounded by massive parking lots rather than one where you have to navigate a confusing parking garage and then pay to park. as an aside, downtown Toronto has just one large old-style department store left--the Bay--and even then it's not as big as Eaton's and Simpsons were, both gone for years, the two great stores that were rivals (like Macy's and Gimbel's in NY). I don't think the new Nordstrom's is that big, is it? Also, the Toronto suburbs have enormous malls in addition to Eaton Centre, but the irony of this, at least according to family members who live in the area, is that the selection is not as great for all sorts of goods as it is in the US. http://www.mainstreetpainesville.org/
June 7, 20196 yr The downtown Nordstrom in Toronto at Eaton Centre is quite large, by American standards. They also have another flagship Hudson's Bay at Yonge and Bloor and a Holt Renfrew. "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
June 7, 20196 yr I think Canada has some kind of strange inventory laws that keep stores from keeping as much stuff around.
June 7, 20196 yr 1 hour ago, BigDipper 80 said: Hamilton had a downtown Elder-Beerman until 2009, somehow. My old boss worked in accounting for Elder-Beerman back in the 1960s. He told me that on Fridays they'd back up the armored truck and pay everybody in the office with cash in envelopes.
June 10, 20196 yr On 6/7/2019 at 8:12 AM, DEPACincy said: That's a bold statement. All? As Jake mentioned, Boston's downtown store does great. Philly's downtown store also does great. NYC obviously. I'm sure there are lots of other examples of downtown stores thriving. The big difference is that cities that can support downtown department stores probably have real fixed rail transit systems. Boston, NYC, Philly, San Fran, etc are different animals. Peer cities like Cleveland, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Minneapolis have all lost all or some of their downtown department stores. All of those cities have fixed rail transit too. Rail or no rail, when you have a huge downtown with a critical mass of downtown workers during the day and residents throughout and then mix in some tourists, you can make the retail viable whether you have rail or not. I think Indy proves this (yes, I know Simon probably heavily subsidizes Nordstrom down there) as they are a huge convention town and are running out of towners through their downtown mall constantly.
June 10, 20196 yr On 6/7/2019 at 9:55 AM, DEPACincy said: But for years Cleveland deemphasized its transit system in favor of endless expansion of highways. I-271, for example, is an even more ridiculous, sprawl-inducing boondoggle than I-275. Part of Cleveland's problem was that they were the victim of consolidation in the department store industry. St. Louis had May HQ, Cincy was obviously Federated and even Mercantile, Columbus had the original Lazarus and Indy has the Simon company there. All, as good corporate citizens tend to do, subsidized the downtown store in their home market at the time. Cleveland lost their hometown chain when Dillards purchased them. That hastened the department store demise in downtown Cleveland.
June 10, 20196 yr On 6/7/2019 at 9:16 PM, BigDipper 80 said: Hamilton had a downtown Elder-Beerman until 2009, somehow. Oddly, Richmond, IN also had one until the chain went under....complete with parking garage.
June 10, 20196 yr ^It had a skywalk to the parking garage, but I believe the garage is city-owned. The City of Richmond actually owned the department store building for most of its life, selling it a few years ago. Hamilton's Elder-Beerman was built in 1968, and I believe Richmond was about 4 years later in the area of downtown destroyed by the massive gas explosion. It was a hard blow when Hamilton E-B closed in 2019, but now that the building has been redeveloped into retail and office space, its probably for the best that it closed earlier and the transition time is behind us.
June 15, 20195 yr On 6/9/2019 at 10:01 PM, Brutus_buckeye said: I think Indy proves this (yes, I know Simon probably heavily subsidizes Nordstrom down there) as they are a huge convention town and are running out of towners through their downtown mall constantly. Nordstrom in Downtown Indy closed in 2011. Carson Pirie Scott closed last year. Put a fork in Indy's Downtown Department store scene...even with Simon propping it up, it's gone.
June 15, 20195 yr Anchors in most malls pretty much haven't paid rent in a long time. Once Wal-Mart clothing became acceptable and a very large portion of jobs are done in uniforms. All those secretarial and sales positions that got replaced by e-mail, health care and warehouse work clobbered department stores. People don't think about Cintas running Bloomingdale's out of business but it totally happened indirectly. Edited June 15, 20195 yr by GCrites80s
September 10, 20195 yr Saw this marketing brochure online. Looks like they are trying to attract an office tenant to replace MACYS on the first floor. No matter how flashy this is though those views of the building on page 5 make it look downright dumpy. https://images1.loopnet.com/d2/qgbacrNjcPOyamIhGl8R1-iFc6FTPeg4P9YhvxnAgbU/document.pdf
September 10, 20195 yr Thats really dissapointing. That better not be the news weve been waiting months to hear.
September 10, 20195 yr 10 minutes ago, seaswan said: Thats really dissapointing. That better not be the news weve been waiting months to hear. I just dont think 3cdc has the resources to work on so many projects at once...they already have 4th and Race, OTR projects, Downtown Convention Project, etc....
September 10, 20195 yr Yeah its just that when 3CDC acquired it there was a ton of hype around redevelopment, I'm pretty sure Cranley said there would be "exciting news" in the fall. A bit of a letdown if you ask me
September 10, 20195 yr I'm not really if there is a long term plan that for that site. There have been rumors that a new fountain square tower was still on track, but I'm not sure how that would be possible if you lease the entire building to office and retail.
September 10, 20195 yr 16 hours ago, SleepyLeroy said: Saw this marketing brochure online. Looks like they are trying to attract an office tenant to replace MACYS on the first floor. No matter how flashy this is though those views of the building on page 5 make it look downright dumpy. https://images1.loopnet.com/d2/qgbacrNjcPOyamIhGl8R1-iFc6FTPeg4P9YhvxnAgbU/document.pdf The Fountain place redevelopment is a done deal from what I’ve been told. Last I heard it will be “multiple floors of office space” and “hundreds of jobs”. That brochure is only being used to market the retail spaces not the office space (it’s already leased).
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