166 new residents is a pretty big win for Mt. Auburn. I wish Mt.Auburn had some type of business district row with shops and restaurants but I'm not sure if that will ever happen. 

18 minutes ago, DEPACincy said:

 

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.

I would hope some would use the Metro 19 or 24 to get downtown. 

 

I live in this area and one of the best parts about it is the great transit connections and the ability to walk down to the basin in a pinch without having to pay the OTR prices for apartments. 

 

35 minutes ago, troeros said:

166 new residents is a pretty big win for Mt. Auburn. I wish Mt.Auburn had some type of business district row with shops and restaurants but I'm not sure if that will ever happen. 

 

If Mt. Auburn keeps adding residents someone will seize the opportunity.

23 minutes ago, onionfourway said:

I would hope some would use the Metro 19 or 24 to get downtown. 

 

I live in this area and one of the best parts about it is the great transit connections and the ability to walk down to the basin in a pinch without having to pay the OTR prices for apartments. 

 

yeah, I am going to bet most residents of this apartment building end up using a lot of Uber trips.  Maaaaybe walk down, then Uber back up.

Major Uptown project gets key approval

 

Uptown Rental Properties got initial approval Friday from the Cincinnati Planning Commission for a $40 million, large apartment project in Mount Auburn.

 

Some nearby residents concerned about parking, traffic and views objected to the vote, while the Mount Auburn Community Council, Mount Auburn Chamber of Commerce and key stakeholders like Christ Hospital urged support.

 

Commissioners voted unanimously to approve a zoning change for 14 properties and 3.94 acres at the southern end of Short Auburn Street and Bigelow Street between Walker Street and God’s Bible School, as well as residences fronting Josephine Street.

 

The change in zoning from residential mixed and single family to a planned development would allow Uptown Rental Properties to build 182 apartments within two multi-family buildings as well as a parking garage.

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2020/02/07/major-uptown-project-gets-key-approval.html

New dual brand hotel along Reading. Taken 2/9.

New banner on the Flatiron building saying flats and ‘Neighborhood Retail’ coming this summer.

Any idea what the neighborhood retail is going to be?

 

30 minutes ago, Guy23 said:

New banner on the Flatiron building saying flats and ‘Neighborhood Retail’ coming this summer.

Any idea what the neighborhood retail is going to be?

 

 

Body Snatcher 2.0 ? 

Puff.  

We can't forget the Body Snatcher!

On 2/21/2020 at 6:20 PM, Guy23 said:

New banner on the Flatiron building saying flats and ‘Neighborhood Retail’ coming this summer.

Any idea what the neighborhood retail is going to be?

 

Not too long ago there was supposed to be a wine bar going on the first floor and basement. Maybe that's the neighborhood retail they're speaking of...

Edited February 24, 20205 yr by Largue

I was thinking those stone foundations to the west could make for a neat outdoor cafe and wine/beer garden: https://www.google.com/maps/@39.1178498,-84.5095018,3a,75y,38.06h,94.81t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sey47lb8zisyP5c0vk8MHVw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

^There used to be small auto garages here.  They were torn down around 2005.  

On 12/11/2019 at 10:22 PM, 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...

Demo permit was just granted for 1940 Bigelow - guessing more single family homes going in that block since they own couple hundred feet of contiguous parcels...

5 hours ago, urbangiraffe said:

Demo permit was just granted for 1940 Bigelow - guessing more single family homes going in that block since they own couple hundred feet of contiguous parcels...

I thought this would be part of the huge apartment development they’re doing at the end of the street. Is this unrelated to that?

1940 Bigelow is unrelated to the multifamily at the end of the street on the edge of the hill.

I don't know what the plans are for 1940. I would imagine it's a dense townhome development - maybe like what they're building on Ringgold and Slack, but probably not a large apartment building. Though I could definitely be wrong.

 

@urbangiraffe  where have you seen that this building was a mayor's mansion? And does that mean that it was home to a mayor, or that it was at one point in time the actual home the city housed the mayor in? I didn't know Cincinnati ever had a Mayor's Mansion, but perhaps they did.

1 hour ago, ryanlammi said:

1940 Bigelow is unrelated to the multifamily at the end of the street on the edge of the hill.

I don't know what the plans are for 1940. I would imagine it's a dense townhome development - maybe like what they're building on Ringgold and Slack, but probably not a large apartment building. Though I could definitely be wrong.

 

@urbangiraffe  where have you seen that this building was a mayor's mansion? And does that mean that it was home to a mayor, or that it was at one point in time the actual home the city housed the mayor in? I didn't know Cincinnati ever had a Mayor's Mansion, but perhaps they did.

 I thought I had seen it referred to as that before on here, but now that I Google I see it was the residence of the governor from 1872-1874.

 

https://books.google.com/books?id=g9vJrsMSnEQC&pg=PA369&lpg=PA369&dq=1940+Bigelow+Street,+Cincinnati,+OH&source=bl&ots=ULs9UGmvmJ&sig=ACfU3U2uTaBYKPGPLuaSmqi6zy8DlDOXaQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjV4ZGc14npAhXLHM0KHeyuBc4Q6AEwBXoECAcQAQ#v=onepage&q=1940 Bigelow Street%2C Cincinnati%2C OH&f=false

May 22 Planning Commission: https://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/planning/about-city-planning/city-planning-commission/may-22-2020-packet/

 

Quote

Uptown Rental Properties is proposing to develop a mixed-use project at the southwest corner of E McMillan and Auburn Ave consisting of a 100,000 square foot hotel, 28,000 square feet of office space, 29,000 square feet of residential space, and 270 parking spaces amongst parking garages and surface parking. To help facilitate this project, the applicant is proposing to purchase and vacate right-of-way to on Macauley Street between E McMillan Street and E Hollister Street. 

 

 

What about the historic house facing Auburn Ave that has been all by its lonesome for the past 2-3 years?  

Hopefully that stone house and the real life Downton Abbey house across Aurburn are safe because both are amazing buildings.  

10 minutes ago, ucgrady said:

Hopefully that stone house and the real life Downton Abbey house across Aurburn are safe because both are amazing buildings.  

 

What is the "real life Downton Abbey house"?

The house at the corner of McMillan and Auburn was the Zimmerman mansion, owned by Helena Zimmerman, the real life millionaire heiress who married a broke English nobleman that Downtown Abbey is based on: 

https://www.cincinnatimagazine.com/citywiseblog/cincinnatis-helena-zimmerman-the-real-downton-abbey-heiress/

 

The reconstruction of Auburn Ave. was completed around June 20.  Cars are now driving on the final pavement.  It looks nice, I suppose, but it was an awful lot of commotion and money to widen the roadway by 24 inches.  

A bike lane would have been nice so i can scooter around more safely. 

It's just going to make cars drive faster on Auburn, unfortunately. They should have done one lane in each direction, a lane of parking (or bike lanes on both sides) and a center turn lane.

Ugh.  $550k for these shared-wall houses on Ringold St.  The developer is making no effort to make the back yard usable...there is no rear door and no rear patio.  The views from the roof decks are lousy.  There is no basement so there is no room for a hobby other than the garage and ground-level "bedroom".  The air conditioner sloppily blocks a side walkway instead of going in the back where it belongs.  Plus, they're stuck sharing a load bearing wall with their neighbor for all of eternity. 

 

So...the buyers are going to have to lay out $10,000+ to move the air conditioner and pour a sidewalk back to a patio and built a privacy fence. 

 

 

 

 

The owner/developer of those properties has an address at 2718 Short Vine, which is Uptown Rents. Does anybody know for certain if Uptown Rents was the developer for these?

1 hour ago, jwulsin said:

The owner/developer of those properties has an address at 2718 Short Vine, which is Uptown Rents. Does anybody know for certain if Uptown Rents was the developer for these?

Yes, they are.

The unfinished foundation sitting at 120 Mulberry that went up for sale after the owner got in over their head is finally being completed.

 

Oct 23 Planning Commission will review proposal about Uptown Rents' "Bigelow Street Apartments" which will include 185 apartments (35 studio, 100 one-bedroom, 47 two-bedroom, 3 three-bedroom) and 272 parking spaces (9 surface, 263 in garage).  

https://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/planning/about-city-planning/city-planning-commission/oct-23-2020-packet/

 

The scale of this project and the topography of the site are pretty wild and hard to get your head around. It spans from Auburn Ave through Bigelow (where visitors can drive through the building into a parking circle for temporary parking) over to Josephine (where guests will drive into the lowest level of a 4-level parking garage). 

 

 

Edited October 16, 20204 yr by jwulsin

I really hope they pull this off well.  Some units will have very good views of the city.

Are there any examples of good uptown rents buildings to go on for this? The only thing I've ever walked away thinking about their properties is that those blue signs are way too damn big.

Edited October 17, 20204 yr by zsnyder

8 hours ago, zsnyder said:

Are there any examples of good uptown rents buildings to go on for this? The only thing I've ever walked away thinking about their properties is that those blue signs are way too damn big.

Lol. Yeah, I hate those blue signs. Uptown Rents recently built a series of more upscale apartment buildings on Wellington Place called One41 that have amenities like a pool, dog park, etc. They rent for ~$1200 for a 1-bedroom and $1700 for a 2-bedroom. Even if you don't like the architecture, at least they don't have the dreaded big blue signs. 😂😂

 

I don't have any details on the rent targets for the new Bigelow project, but I suspect that they're hoping to get slightly higher rents on Bigelow due to the more dramatic city views (though One41 also has pretty cool views looking down the "Vine St cut" in the hills). 

 

 

1 hour ago, jwulsin said:

Lol. Yeah, I hate those blue signs. Uptown Rents recently built a series of more upscale apartment buildings on Wellington Place called One41 that have amenities like a pool, dog park, etc. They rent for ~$1200 for a 1-bedroom and $1700 for a 2-bedroom. Even if you don't like the architecture, at least they don't have the dreaded big blue signs. 😂😂

 

I don't have any details on the rent targets for the new Bigelow project, but I suspect that they're hoping to get slightly higher rents on Bigelow due to the more dramatic city views (though One41 also has pretty cool views looking down the "Vine St cut" in the hills). 

 

 

Looking at old street maps before One41 happened there were some pretty dense buildings on this plot of land. What was the reasoning to building this instead of renovating those buildings? 

It was an old church building of some sort that had been used for medical offices, or maybe it was originally built for that purpose, I'm not sure.  Either way it was a fraction of the size of the new apartments, and buildings like that aren't generally convertible to residential (think a double-loaded corridor with numerous 8'x8' rooms on each side).  

 

More broadly speaking though, single-family homes are sacrosanct.  The only place where building dense is allowed is areas where it's already allowed, so 4-plexes and small apartments get demolished and rebuilt as Texas donuts like this (I know technically it's not, but the overall scale is right), while the single-family homes are left untouched.  The clash in scale causes opposition to any and all "density creep" into the single-family neighborhoods, but the supply constriction it causes results in greater pressure for denser development at whatever sites can be secured, so only large-scale projects are viable.  

 

This is why the large condo building at Observatory and Shaw in Hyde Park replaced a bunch of 4-plexes and a rather handsome art deco apartment on the corner that had at least eight sizable units, but I think the actual number was nearly double that.  https://goo.gl/maps/GSsQ2kuGPCJ8m5bx6  The new building has 30 luxury units, replacing no less than 24 relatively more affordable units, and likely reducing the total density.  It could've been built just a block away, or even closer to Hyde Park Square just in another direction, in the space occupied by 6-8 single-family homes, but we can't have that.  

4 hours ago, jjakucyk said:

It was an old church building of some sort that had been used for medical offices, or maybe it was originally built for that purpose, I'm not sure.  Either way it was a fraction of the size of the new apartments, and buildings like that aren't generally convertible to residential (think a double-loaded corridor with numerous 8'x8' rooms on each side).  

 

More broadly speaking though, single-family homes are sacrosanct.  The only place where building dense is allowed is areas where it's already allowed, so 4-plexes and small apartments get demolished and rebuilt as Texas donuts like this (I know technically it's not, but the overall scale is right), while the single-family homes are left untouched.  The clash in scale causes opposition to any and all "density creep" into the single-family neighborhoods, but the supply constriction it causes results in greater pressure for denser development at whatever sites can be secured, so only large-scale projects are viable.  

 

This is why the large condo building at Observatory and Shaw in Hyde Park replaced a bunch of 4-plexes and a rather handsome art deco apartment on the corner that had at least eight sizable units, but I think the actual number was nearly double that. https://goo.gl/maps/GSsQ2kuGPCJ8m5bx6  The new building has 30 luxury units, replacing no less than 24 relatively more affordable units, and likely reducing the total density.  It could've been built just a block away, or even closer to Hyde Park Square just in another direction, in the space occupied by 6-8 single-family homes, but we can't have that.  

I am talking more about this. Looking through street view it looks that these were torn down before one41 was even being planned. Now it’s more of these would have been really nice if had been renovated. 

2 hours ago, Ucgrad2015 said:

I am talking more about this. Looking through street view it looks that these were torn down before one41 was even being planned. Now it’s more of these would have been really nice if had been renovated. 

I have been curious about the same thing. If you look at the pictures, those buildings had clearly been vacant for some time and were not in good shape. Judging by appearances though, that little mini-neighborhood looked very dense and if renovated/developed it might have been able to support a similar amount of units to One41 just to the north. I wonder what the reasoning was for tearing down so many large and (seemingly) historic buildings. Is/was there some plan to building something on that site? Were they just too dilapidated for any renovation to be feasible? So far as I am aware that land is still sitting empty and unused.

Edited October 17, 20204 yr by GZC13

^that’s the “Glencoe Hole” (lots of stuff on google.) It was actually rehabbed once on the 60’s but by the 90’s had fallen into disrepair again according to Wikipedia. Torn down in 2013. I think if it had survived a just few more years it may have been saved now that so many developers have experience with historic projects, tax credit financing, etc. 

Edited October 17, 20204 yr by thebillshark

It was super oddly disconnected from its surroundings once in it despite extremely close proximity to them. Very detached. But I honestly think that had it survived a few more years like you say, that could have actually been its draw. A pocket neighborhood with its own vibe could be marketed in creative ways today. I don't recall there being many/any retail storefronts, but maybe built a handful, a coffee shop, a little corner store, a restaurant or two, and a craft brewery and you'd probably find success drawing people in and making it known. It was a really unique place but also felt like you were in a completely different world when in it. Like an abandoned Appalachian town in West Virginia that was left to rot when the local mine or industry closed up shop. Too bad it didn't make it.

It probably would have made it a few more years if it was not next to the hospital.

The units in those row buildings were very strange.  They were one narrow room per floor (maybe 13x20) and linked by super-narrow and super-steep staircases.  They looked similar to OTR buildings on the outside but were very different.  I imagine that getting a queen-sized mattress up to the third floor room was a crazy task, if not impossible. 

Parking and the terrain were also challenges. These didn’t have back alleys for automobiles and the steep terrain adds difficulty to walking any distance, even up to Auburn Avenue. 
 

I wonder if they could have torn down half of it to save it- For example replace the center block with a parking garage with a retail space or two (and an elevator). But even then access to some of the old buildings would have been difficult.
 

 

9 hours ago, thebillshark said:

I wonder if they could have torn down half of it to save it- For example replace the center block with a parking garage with a retail space or two (and an elevator). But even then access to some of the old buildings would have been difficult.
 

 

 

I think the only way it could have worked would have been as dormitory-type housing for artists, a summer camp, or something like that.  People with $1,800/mo to plunk down on an apartment weren't going to tolerate a place that weird outside of New York City. 

 

 

 

Major Uptown Rental Properties apartment project gets final OK

 

Uptown Rental Properties received the last approval it needs from the city to begin building a 3.5-acre, $40 million apartment project in Mount Auburn.

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2020/10/23/major-uptown-apartment-project-gets-final-ok.html

 

2448 Auburn Ave - the mansion with some sort of ties to Downton Abbey - has officially sold to the uptown properties family. Guess we can kiss that one goodbye along with everything across the street that will be torn down for the new mega development of hotel/office/residential.

Maybe the city should let all of Hannaford's buildings get demolished, what a shame. Unless they also bought the Holy Name Church that lot isn't even big enough to do anything meaningful on so what's the point of demolishing a historic building with both architectural and cultural importance? 

The adjacent building at 121 E McMillan is a vacant former dentist office and surface parking (streetview), that sits on nearly 3 acres. That is the site that needs to be redeveloped. I really wish Uptown Rents would buy that lot, add a bunch of apartments, and then maybe they could turn 2448 Auburn Ave into a "club house" with shared amenities for the residents.

3 hours ago, jwulsin said:

The adjacent building at 121 E McMillan is a vacant former dentist office and surface parking (streetview), that sits on nearly 3 acres. That is the site that needs to be redeveloped. I really wish Uptown Rents would buy that lot, add a bunch of apartments, and then maybe they could turn 2448 Auburn Ave into a "club house" with shared amenities for the residents.

 

I have visited someone who lived in those rowhomes (112-122 McMillian) up the street and it just struck me how out of place they were but yet how perfect they would be in that area with the proper infrastructure.

^Adding curb bumpouts on McMillan and allowing 24/7 parking in the curbside lanes would help. Making McMillan 2-way would be even better. But the biggest problem is the huge parking lot surrounding Christ's office building that sits on 8 acres and creates a huge dead zone all the way to Highland. The building itself is a poorly designed and isn't an efficient use of space. It would be great to replace those Christ offices with a better-designed facility (ideally somewhere closer to Christ), and open up those 8 acres to a better design. I  hope Uptown Rents is talking with Christ about how to make that happen, because it would be best for everybody if a deal can be worked out. 

It's funny how close all of these places we're discussing are — 2448 Auburn Ave, CP Cincy, Park Tower Apartments — but they feel so far apart because there are so many auto-oriented buildings and parking lots and pedestrian-hostile streets. I really wish Uptown Consortium had a vision for remaking Taft/McMillan as a walkable mixed-use corridor. With all of the development happening south of UC and in Walnut Hills, this could become a great continuous corridor if you filled in the central area with more urban development. Then, put some kind of frequent circulator on Taft/McMillan from Hughes High School to the former Anthem site (with connections to north/south bus routes at Vine, Reading, and Gilbert) and you would have something really great.