On 6/7/2019 at 8:51 AM, ryanlammi said:

There is no proposed development at the Body Snatcher. Travis is right. The building and a portion of the land will be taken or sold to the city for a realignment of the roadway.

 

The Body Snatcher is likely coming down soon after that damage from the car a couple months ago.

 

 

Not related to Mt Auburn, but i just want the fans to know that while this building is gone, the Body Snatcher lives on. I pass it in Roselawn everyday now since i've given  up driving I-75 during rush hour. To be honest, i though it was a bar earlier (and the first one probably was) but this place looks surprisingly classy despite the name. Whoever remodeled that building did a great job modernizing and updating it as well. Live on Body Snatcher, live on!! https://www.google.com/maps/@39.1977847,-84.4584223,3a,42.4y,260.75h,94t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s4EyauIIn9NITK0yddtldgQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

The City is selling off a decent number of parcels in Mt. Auburn.

 

218 Mulberry Street (bordering the Main Street Steps). There have been a lot of multifamily buildings under construction around Main and Mulberry. I suspect this building will get a multifamily development.



23 Mulberry Street, 2110 Loth, and 2200-2208 Loth are being sold off as well.

 

 

 

I think 2200-2208 has a good chance of becoming a townhouse development considering the multiple joint parcels. 23 Mulberry will probably be an expensive home with downtown/OTR views.

2110 Loth has the lowest chances of selling. It sits next to another vacant lot and a vacant multifamily building. The multifamily building at 2108 has recently been undergoing demo work, though. For several weeks this summer a dumpster was parked outside and they were hauling out the ratty interiors. I haven't seen any work done lately. It was occupied until 2017 or 2018, and there haven't been any permits issued for demo or rehab.

Auburn Ave. widening is in progress. 

 

 

 

 

 

Stabilized:

 

 

 

What address those foundations going in at?

8 hours ago, JoeHarmon said:

What address those foundations going in at?

They’re on Seitz St. 

drew this a few days ago for fun

^that would be pretty cool, wouldn’t mind that at all

Uptown properties has slowly been buying up as much of Bigelow St as they can. Just closed on what I believe was the old mayor's mansion at 1940 and already demolished the large lot at the dead end. Wonder if it will be more single family houses like on Ringold or a combo with multifamily...

2 hours ago, urbangiraffe said:

Uptown properties has slowly been buying up as much of Bigelow St as they can. Just closed on what I believe was the old mayor's mansion at 1940 and already demolished the large lot at the dead end. Wonder if it will be more single family houses like on Ringold or a combo with multifamily...

 

Interesting.  It looks like there is space for 15~ more 25-foot wide homes on Bigelow and roughly 50 on all of the lots south of Dorchester.   The rest of Mt. Auburn has space for about 50 more homes under current zoning.  So the area will be almost completely built-out by 2030 if trends continue and we get 7-8 new homes per year. 

 

When I tell people that Avondale and other areas that nobody pays attention to right now will become unaffordable in an instant sometime in the 2020s it's because people don't realize how little it's going to take to build-out some of the long-forgotten neighborhoods. 

 

 

 

 

 

They're building a large apartment complex on the hillside at the end of Bigelow. It will have a garage underneath it. The entrance will be off of Josephine and Ringgold with a service entrance for fire and stuff on Bigelow.

 

I don't know what going on near 1940 that you're talking about though. I didn't know they were buying properties up there.

4 minutes ago, ryanlammi said:

They're building a large apartment complex on the hillside at the end of Bigelow. It will have a garage underneath it. The entrance will be off of Josephine and Ringgold with a service entrance for fire and stuff on Bigelow.

 

I don't know what going on near 1940 that you're talking about though. I didn't know they were buying properties up there.

There is a walking path on Josephine/Ringgold that goes to this hidden little park area, and then over to Walker street.    Is this apartment complex going to wipe that out?

11 hours ago, urbangiraffe said:

Uptown properties has slowly been buying up as much of Bigelow St as they can. Just closed on what I believe was the old mayor's mansion at 1940 and already demolished the large lot at the dead end. Wonder if it will be more single family houses like on Ringold or a combo with multifamily...

 

I always hoped someone would build out more townhomes with Stone facade on Bigelow to match what is already faces Hopkins Park on Auburn and Park Pl

4 minutes ago, JoeHarmon said:

There is a walking path on Josephine/Ringgold that goes to this hidden little park area, and then over to Walker street.    Is this apartment complex going to wipe that out?

 

I believe they are going to keep the walking path on Pueblo street. It might be temporarily shut down as they do construction, but I think they said something about provided some "improvements" to it. Not exactly sure what that looks like.

 

The middle of that block will be fully developed though. If it comes off of Ringgold and Josephine it will be the middle of the development, I think.

And this is all on my recollection of the plan. So I could be wrong in my comments on the path.

The path I was referencing is an extension of Ringgold, rather than Pueblo.  If that is where the driveway entrance to this development is going to be, it will completely change that little hidden park area.  I'll be interested to see how that all turns out.    Infill in this area would be good for Filson Park.  I was jogging around one day this summer,  Zeigler swimming pool was overflowing with people, Filson swimming pool literally had zero people in it, just two bored life guards.

Somewhat related, I have felt it would be worth the cities money to rebuild/extend Pueblo over to Walker Street.  Since some developer just built those Modern homes up on Pueblo that I think went for close to 2 million.   Seems like a good idea to try to get some more of those put in up on the hillside.

3 minutes ago, JoeHarmon said:

Somewhat related, I have felt it would be worth the cities money to rebuild/extend Pueblo over to Walker Street.  Since some developer just built those Modern homes up on Pueblo that I think went for close to 2 million.   Seems like a good idea to try to get some more of those put in up on the hillside.

 

Which mostly seem to be in an odd state of unfinished-ness.  Or the house on Boal that was built 2 years ago that already has scaffolding up repairing the facade.

My friend's stepdad's son built one of those houses on Pueblo.  I'll probably hear the update at Christmas but it has definitely been a multi-year saga. 

9 hours ago, jmecklenborg said:

 

Interesting.  It looks like there is space for 15~ more 25-foot wide homes on Bigelow and roughly 50 on all of the lots south of Dorchester.   The rest of Mt. Auburn has space for about 50 more homes under current zoning.  So the area will be almost completely built-out by 2030 if trends continue and we get 7-8 new homes per year. 

 

When I tell people that Avondale and other areas that nobody pays attention to right now will become unaffordable in an instant sometime in the 2020s it's because people don't realize how little it's going to take to build-out some of the long-forgotten neighborhoods.

It's crazy how few Cincinnati natives know these neighborhoods, even with this one bordering OTR. Ever since I started investing in Mt Auburn 4 years ago I constantly have to explain it as the neighborhood with Christ hospital. That's usually followed by a look of why the hell would you invest there ?

^Ha, people who don't know this stuff tend to think that only the type of dwelling/neighborhood they chose for themselves is where the money is to be made.

1 hour ago, JoeHarmon said:

I'll be interested to see how that all turns out.    Infill in this area would be good for Filson Park.  I was jogging around one day this summer,  Zeigler swimming pool was overflowing with people, Filson swimming pool literally had zero people in it, just two bored life guards.

 

Unfortunately, I think the development is going to have a pool in it for residents. I get why - they'll have sweeping views of downtown from their private pool. 

 

It would be awesome if they would invest some private money into improving/expanding the Filson pool instead of building their own, but that's not going to get them as much extra rental income.

57 minutes ago, urbangiraffe said:

It's crazy how few Cincinnati natives know these neighborhoods, even with this one bordering OTR. Ever since I started investing in Mt Auburn 4 years ago I constantly have to explain it as the neighborhood with Christ hospital. That's usually followed by a look of why the hell would you invest there ?

 

The thing is that the construction of just 10 infill houses in a formerly rough neighborhood has the mental impact of 100+ new suburban houses.  There is much less vacant land in the Cincinnati city limits than people imagine there is if current household sizes stay constant.  

 

If the city population increases from 300,000 to 400,000 between now and 2050 (down from a peak of 500,000 in 1950) and half of those people live in new multifamily and half in new single-family homes and on average 3.5 people live in each of those homes, that's roughly 14,000 new single-family homes.  

 

I have never counted how many suitable lots physically exist in the city for the construction of single-family homes, but there certainly is not space for 14,000 new single-family homes east of I-75.  There will be significant new construction from Price Hill north to Mt. Airy after 2030 and right now there are lots listed for $1,500 sitting on MLS for 6+ months.  

 

It would be nice to get multi-family back at Dorchester and somehow recreate the Excelsior Street steps.

 

 

 

I didn't realize those lasted all the way to the 90s. Are there any pictures of them from that time?

^What's crazy is that I don't remember those buildings even though my grandfather's rental property was nearby and I went with him on memorable attempts to collect rent.  As we'd approach the building on Highland, things would get quiet.  He'd take his cane and give the front door a few whacks with it.  Inevitably the tenants would act like they weren't home and it would take a moment or too for conversation to resume in the car as we headed away.  

19 hours ago, oudd said:

I didn't realize those lasted all the way to the 90s. Are there any pictures of them from that time?

I have some pictures from 1987 on slides.  They were vacant and I was taking pictures of severe cracks in the brickwork caused by hillside movement... huge stress cracks.  The owner at the time was Stanley Broadnax I believe.  The city steps went up the wall as seen in the picture, then turned right between the two buildings.. up to Dorchester.  It was cool, but they were not salvageable by then. .. and obviously those cool balconies were not there anymore

Edited December 13, 20195 yr by Jimmy Skinner

The best way we can preserve these really cool alley's and steps, etc. in our city's urban core like OTR -> Mt Auburn, etc. is by continually re-populating the area. Hopefully we don't build over old ones.

 

You see these even in places like Columbia Parkway. There are a lot of steps in Mt Lookout. But they are all in areas with no abandonement so people use them a lot! But even in places like Mt Lookout where they are in great shape, they wouldn't be used nearly as much as they would in OTR / Mt Auburn once these areas are fully built out again.

Thanks for the info.  I always thought those stairs and buildings were a great representation of how magical Cincinnati could look. Is there anything remotely similar in other cities?

I wonder if some of the .2% sales tax could be used to preserve and rehab steps and alleys? Many of the steps are signed like streets, so they may technically be considered streets,

7 minutes ago, Robuu said:

I wonder if some of the .2% sales tax could be used to preserve and rehab steps and alleys? Many of the steps are signed like streets, so they may technically be considered streets,

I would support a TIF district for step and alley preservation.

18 minutes ago, Robuu said:

I wonder if some of the .2% sales tax could be used to preserve and rehab steps and alleys? Many of the steps are signed like streets, so they may technically be considered streets,

the 0.2% is reserved for streets that function as bus routes.

 

7 minutes ago, Chas Wiederhold said:

I would support a TIF district for step and alley preservation.

A community redevelopment organization could come up with a plan to do this using an existing TIF and then city council would vote on the release of funds. 

Edited December 13, 20195 yr by thebillshark

3 minutes ago, thebillshark said:

the 0.2% is reserved for streets that function as bus routes.

 

The steps make bus routes more functional, so this is a shortsighted limitation IMO. I know I have used the bottom portion of the Ohio Avenue Steps to go from the 17 bus to Findlay Market and Rhinegeist.

11 minutes ago, thebillshark said:

the 0.2% is reserved for streets that function as bus routes.

 

...which will allow the funds currently allocated to that task to be re-allocated to Paul Brown Stadium and Great American Ballpark renovations. 

4 minutes ago, Robuu said:

 

The steps make bus routes more functional, so this is a shortsighted limitation IMO. I know I have used the bottom portion of the Ohio Avenue Steps to go from the 17 bus to Findlay Market and Rhinegeist.

perhaps a case could be made in situations like that where they are along bus routes

19 minutes ago, thebillshark said:

the 0.2% is reserved for streets that function as bus routes.

 

Which is kind of meaningless, since any street that has a single bus route running on it would be eligible to receive funds from the "bus tax". As we all know, every bus rider starts and ends their trip as a pedestrian, so there is a much stronger case that pedestrian improvements that help people get to/from bus stops will improve bus riders' lives much more than widening Glenway Avenue or whatever.

2 minutes ago, taestell said:

 

Which is kind of meaningless, since any street that has a single bus route running on it would be eligible to receive funds from the "bus tax" for widening or whatever. As we all know, every bus rider starts and ends their trip as a pedestrian, so there is a much stronger case that pedestrian improvements that help people get to/from bus stops will improve bus riders' lives much more than widening Glenway Avenue or whatever.

A case could be made for pedestrian improvements, I was just saying the 0.2% for infrastructure has to be related to the bus system in some way 

Edited December 13, 20195 yr by thebillshark

3 minutes ago, taestell said:

 

Which is kind of meaningless, since any street that has a single bus route running on it would be eligible to receive funds from the "bus tax". As we all know, every bus rider starts and ends their trip as a pedestrian, so there is a much stronger case that pedestrian improvements that help people get to/from bus stops will improve bus riders' lives much more than widening Glenway Avenue or whatever.

 

Thanks, this is what I was thinking. The rule, as stated by @thebillshark, leaves room for lots of money being spent on things which actually make the city less transit-friendly (as in your example of widening Glenway), but restricts spending on things which would help transit riders (which basically any pedestrian improvement does).

 No I am not saying it couldn’t be spent on things that help pedestrians. I am just saying it has to touch a bus route and not be totally unrelated to the bus system. 

Developer’s major Mount Auburn apartment project tied to affordable housing

 

Uptown Rental Properties plans a major apartment project in Mount Auburn and has agreed to have its tax incentives on that project linked to another development that will consist of affordable housing.

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2019/12/17/developer-s-major-mount-auburn-apartment-project.html

Work has begun on a building at the NW corner of Sycamore and Mulberry. I'm assuming it will be a condo development, but I haven't seen plans. 328-332 Mulberry Street.

EDIT: Historic Conservation Board documents from November 4 here [PDF]. Looks like two townhouses. One at 328 and one at 332. Both with have 3 stories, a garage, and a rooftop deck at the top.

 

 

 

^Being built on spec...each listed at $625,000:

https://www.sibcycline.com/Listing/CIN/1588159/146-Mulberry-St-Mt-Auburn-OH-45202

 

Does anyone happen to know what happened to that house on the north side of Mulberry that is just a foundation?  It's not 2009 anymore so I'm not sure how someone started building and then ran out of money.  They just relisted for $175,000:

https://www.sibcycline.com/Listing/CIN/1637240/120-Mulberry-St-Mt-Auburn-OH-45202

 

 

 

 

 

13 minutes ago, jmecklenborg said:

Does anyone happen to know what happened to that house on the north side of Mulberry that is just a foundation?  It's not 2009 anymore so I'm not sure how someone started building and then ran out of money.  They just relisted for $175,000:

https://www.sibcycline.com/Listing/CIN/1637240/120-Mulberry-St-Mt-Auburn-OH-45202

^The one you linked to is a different property further west.

 

13 minutes ago, jmecklenborg said:

Does anyone happen to know what happened to that house on the north side of Mulberry that is just a foundation?  It's not 2009 anymore so I'm not sure how someone started building and then ran out of money.  They just relisted for $175,000:

https://www.sibcycline.com/Listing/CIN/1637240/120-Mulberry-St-Mt-Auburn-OH-45202

 

^From what I've heard the contractor was in over his head and severe cost overruns caused the owners to stop and just list the property. This is all second hand knowledge so take it for what it is.

3 minutes ago, ryanlammi said:

 

^The one you linked to is a different property further west.

 

My bad.  

 

 

4 minutes ago, ryanlammi said:

^From what I've heard the contractor was in over his head and severe cost overruns caused the owners to stop and just list the property. This is all second hand knowledge so take it for what it is.

 

Crazy.  This is why I hesitate to build.  I don't trust anyone to not rip me off.  

 

 

There are currently 20 single-family homes listed in the Mt. Auburn zip code priced between $500,000 and $1 million. 

19 hours ago, ColDayMan said:

Developer’s major Mount Auburn apartment project tied to affordable housing

 

Uptown Rental Properties plans a major apartment project in Mount Auburn and has agreed to have its tax incentives on that project linked to another development that will consist of affordable housing.

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2019/12/17/developer-s-major-mount-auburn-apartment-project.html

 

Has anybody seen a site plan or renderings for this project? It's a large project with a substantial parking garage:  "166 apartments and a 261-space parking garage at 1832-1850 Walker St., 1905-1915 and 1902-1914 Bigelow St."

 

Due to the hillside topopgraphy there's about a 70' grade change: low point on Walker is ~776' and high point on Bigelow is 846'. I'm very curious to see how they handle that grade change. 

 

Edited December 18, 20195 yr by jwulsin
typo should be "166 apartments"

261 space garage for 66 apartments? Are they planning on each household having 4 cars? Or are they planning to use this garage for further development nearby and to take advantage of the topography to create below grade parking for multiple future buildings?

Or is that a typo? 66 units on a site that large seems pretty low.

That appeared to be a typo.  The article has been corrected to read 166 apartments.  

 

Quote

The complex will have 18 studio apartments, 71 one-bedroom apartments and 88 two-bedroom apartments and will be a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Silver project.

 

Plus, we get to tear down some historic homes for parking.  Awesome! 

 

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.1160243,-84.5083751,3a,75y,88.12h,90.32t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sD7RejtyI8dVihPsNVK4Khw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

28 minutes ago, jmicha said:

261 space garage for 66 apartments? Are they planning on each household having 4 cars? Or are they planning to use this garage for further development nearby and to take advantage of the topography to create below grade parking for multiple future buildings?

Or is that a typo? 66 units on a site that large seems pretty low.

 

That was a typo (copy-and-past mistake) on my part. It is planned to be 166 apartments. 

At first, I was going to say that is too many parking spaces, but then I realized there isn't really any good way to walk to anything in OTR/downtown from here.  Best option is walk over to Young Street steps and then down, but I don't see many people doing that on a regular basis.  It would be nice if there was a stair case going from the south end of Walker down to Sycamore, or Boal.

 

Kind of surprised they didn't try to buy out 1803-1825 Josephine street and take the property all the way over to Josephine.

 

A bunch of pretty landscaping on Walker St is going to get torn out.  Sucks for the residents on Walker if that ends up being lower level parking garage.

13 minutes ago, JoeHarmon said:

At first, I was going to say that is too many parking spaces, but then I realized there isn't really any good way to walk to anything in OTR/downtown from here.  Best option is walk over to Young Street steps and then down, but I don't see many people doing that on a regular basis.  It would be nice if there was a stair case going from the south end of Walker down to Sycamore, or Boal.

 

Kind of surprised they didn't try to buy out 1803-1825 Josephine street and take the property all the way over to Josephine.

 

A bunch of pretty landscaping on Walker St is going to get torn out.  Sucks for the residents on Walker if that ends up being lower level parking garage.

 

Maybe they'll incorporate steps connecting to Drake Street. But I don't think people will have a problem using the Young Street steps. It's only a 15 minute walk from this site to 3 Points Brewery or MOTR via the Young St steps. It's only about a 10 minute walk to Nicola's.