April 3Apr 3 45 minutes ago, 646empire said: All these mega block buildings are starting to make me sad. Blame the amount of regulations developers have to follow to build anything. Mega blocks are just the easiest way to comply with them. It would be nice to have some more diverse building styles, but until those regulations are loosened it'll be bland 5 over 1's all day everyday.
April 3Apr 3 2 hours ago, 646empire said: All these mega block buildings are starting to make me sad. Agreed. Fine grain Cincinnati architecture is now relegated to pockets.
April 4Apr 4 14 hours ago, anusthemenace said: Wasn't there a recent proposal to revise the cities zoning codes? Are you thinking of Connected Communities? https://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/planning/connected-communities/
April 4Apr 4 Wow, that's a lot of beds and apartments and will support a ton of people in this corridor. While I would prefer higher rise and even more apartments, it is still going to be a very significant increase in density and build up of the streetwall. Hopefully, the materials end up being good and it looks nice on hoof. I think the set backs are OK, on the schematic, because of the big increase in population on that block. I also think the block directly across McMillan could hold some higher density in the near future. 8-12 stories maybe. While I do think moving east on McMillan will still continue as a high density/midrise corridor, this may also help with private investment going south on Vine Street. Not necessarily for students but for the general population. I am sure there will be a lot of young professionals at Christ Hospital, Good Sam, UC & Childrens that would love to call that area home. While the business district is still heavily student centric, it has a lot of amenities that would attract more young professionals and with the new BRT coming online, you could really get right out of college and to work at the institutions without a car, while having access to OTR / Downtown as well on the BRT. Overall as well, the buildings have some decent height, they are mid rise and not high rise, but like in my urban economics class in college, density begets density, and I think the area will continue to go more vertical, it already is. There is just still a lot of underutilized land on the corridor that can go mid rise. My guess is the block across the street ends up being more vertical when it does get redeveloped since a tighter space.
April 4Apr 4 Also a question on this mega block development: I had thought that it would extend further down Vine Street. Is that where a revamped park will be put now?
April 4Apr 4 18 minutes ago, IAGuy39 said: Also a question on this mega block development: I had thought that it would extend further down Vine Street. Is that where a revamped park will be put now? Yes - the corner of Hollister and Vine will be a new park. See the parcels highlighted in blue that are still owned by the City of Cincinnati. I haven't seen any specific designs for what the park will look like.
April 4Apr 4 On 4/2/2025 at 4:23 PM, anusthemenace said: It was actually kind of a handsome building under the odd covering. Im glad you said that, i don't ever remember seeing the Arched entrance on this building, and I had some dental work there years ago. I was really surprised to see the building gone.
April 4Apr 4 On 3/28/2025 at 10:37 PM, Dev said: This is featured in the planning commission packet released today for next Friday. Staff is recommending the zone change to PD be denied. During conversations with city staff, the site plan has changed a bit to included specific pedestrian circulation from the sidewalk, but they would not put the building at the corner of the lot, as requested by staff, because it would negatively impact traffic flow to the drive-through: Was anybody able to attend/follow the planning commission meeting this morning? I'm curious how the Commission voted on the proposed Planned Development for the Chick-fil-A.
April 4Apr 4 The answer is yes. Planning Commission approves standalone Chick-fil-A near University of Cincinnati https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2025/04/04/planning-commission-vote-chick-fil-a-uc-mcmillan.html
April 7Apr 7 Video from the Planning Commission's 4/4/2025 meeting: https://archive.org/details/city-planning-4-4-25 The argument made by Uptown Rents (and accepted unanimously by the Commission) is that the site currently feels like an extension of the "onramp to I-71", and the current conditions are so hostile to pedestrians that no housing (or any other development) could succeed here. I'm not mad, I'm disappointed that nobody on the Commission seemed to consider that a) this PD makes the area more hostile to pedestrians, and b) there are measures (outside the scope of the PD) that the City should be taking to make this area less hostile to pedestrians. Jonathan Wilker, planner with McBride Dale Clarion, on why he thinks the auto-centric nature of the Planned Development is appropriate for this site (starting around 35:30): Quote There's a large swath of general office zoning that cuts through Mt Auburn and this property. And that was primarily for large office and institutional uses and that's just not the pattern that we're seeing. The transition of the Union on Taft is a good example of that. The point is that we think that the OG zoning is not what reflects the current market conditions. ... This is a transportation corridor. McMillan St carries more than 13,000 vehicles, one-way. It's a four lane street. It's basically an onramp to I-71 once you pass this intersection. So we like to talk about pedestrian accessibility, but this is really an auto-oriented corridor. And we think what we've done is provide a use that blends both of those. That accommodates pedestrian access while providing a use that meets the auto-centric and transportation corridor elements of this plan. You have an additional 15,000 vehicles on William Howard Taft. This is not the pedestrian heart of Mt Auburn. This is an auto-oriented area that's a transportation corridor. Right after you cross this intersection is the bridge over Auburn Ave [sic] so not a pedestrian area. Around the 56th minute, Dan Schimberg spoke about how the CP Cincy apartment complex across McMillan has struggled due to the location: Quote We are multi-family developers. We are dense, urban infill developers. If I could build a successful multi-family development here, we would do that. The building across the street was built by the Jacobs Family in 2012. It subsequently went bankrupt in 2014. And since then, it has been owned by six out-of-town investors. And it continually fails. The location of the building behind the Chick-fil-A which used to be the Christ Hospital office building is in a very different location. It sits 45 feet higher. And when you walk out the front door, you're on William Howard Taft, many blocks closer to the University. It's really deceiving. So we would love to build multi-family here as the zoning provides but it simply won't work. As a fourth generation Cincinnatian who holds on to all of our investments long-term, long-term sustainability for us is critical. I don't just build something, sell it, and then move on to a different city. I can sit here and honestly tell all of you that this (Chick-fil-A) is the highest and best use for this site. We have churned and churned and churned for this site, and I urge you to allow us to move forward with this. Commission Dansby asked specifically about mixed-use: Quote You have a beautiful site here. It's a blank canvas. You mentioned that you did some due diligence to find the highest and best use. I'm just curious: there's no other way to do a mixed-use development there where you can have a Chick-fil-A and housing above that simultaneously? What were some of the roadblocks you ran into? Schimberg replied: Quote We really did not feel that this busy corner intersection was an appropriate space because of noise, because of traffic and essentially if we build dense multi-family here, then there's no parking available because we would be building a building on top of the property that is here. To give you a little sneak preview, the property that is to the west of this that is currently owned by Christ Hospital. That large blank canvas that you see just to the left. We are obligated to buy that in four years. And we will be developing that. And that site - and there are some nuances here - we will be adding housing to that site. And they're not equivalent. Being right at a corner, busy, noisy intersection. And the site to the west, we can build dense multifamily up on William Howard Taft and look for a different use like a hotel or something. This (Highland and McMillan) corner is quite constrained because of topography, because of the noise, because of the busy intersection. 15,000 cars a day whizzing by someone who lives eight feet away is really, really difficult. There are just much, much better sites. And honestly, with the building to the south and how it has struggled. We've been offered to buy that building over and over again as it has failed from one person to another. And but for the critical shortage of housing and UC's master lease of that building, it would have been bankrupt again. So we have really studied this. I love building dense, multi-family housing. That is what I do. We simply feel it would not work on this site. Billy Weber asked Schimberg why he thinks the building across the street has struggled. Quote I think there are two primary reasons. One is there is a psychological barrier when students leave that building and have to walk uphill, substantially uphill. When you walk up McMillan towards Auburn Ave, it rises substantially. So you've got students living further away than almost any other student housing when you measure it by miles. You're walking against traffic on a very busy road. And the roads and the places they're walking past: Paris Street, I'm drawing a blank on the next street, and the area behind it as you go down Highland Ave, is really pretty blighted. There's also a package store the owners of Staggerlee's built on the other corner which really adds to the unsavoriness of the corner. So we're really trying to put a use there, a really high-grade use, of a company that keeps their property clean, highly utilizes it, well-lit. We think there's many factors. William Howard Taft is about 50' higher than McMillan. And when students walk out the front of the old Christ Hospital building, there's grass and there's trees. And they're walking with traffic and it's all level. It's a very different experience of their commute to school. When asked if the site should only be targeted to students for potential housing, Schimberg replied: Quote No it doesn't. But... I'm working with the Port Authority currently, looking at building affordable, workforce housing. And there are sites nearer the Cincinnati Public School headquarters and the Vernon Manor and other areas that we think are more suitable to affordable, workforce housing which I think is critically needed. I can sit here and testify to you that it is of high interest for us to build dense, affordable workforce housing in this area. We have plans to do so. I want to build a lot of it because there are a lot of jobs coming to the Innovation Corridor. This (McMillan/Highland) is an inappropriate corner for people to live for dense, affordable workforce housing in my opinion. Commissioner Dansby was soooo close to recognizing that McMillan needs a road diet when he expressed concern that the Chick-fil-A might be so popular that the traffic will spill out onto McMillan or Highland, creating a safety issue: Quote Being a Bearcat, I've traveled down this road (McMillan) quite often. If you're headed east towards Walnut Hills, and you go past Auburn, at that point, honestly, when you see those four lanes, everyone automatically hits the accelerator. They're headed to 71. They're moving pretty quickly, a lot faster than if they were closer to Clifton. My concern is that -- Chick-fil-A has a great business model. And every time I go past a Chick-fil-A during peak hours, I'm always going around other cars who are trying to get in the line to go to Chick-fil-A. A lot of times, that happens to be in a shopping center where people are going 15-20 MPH, much slower than the 35 and going up for the people looking to get on an interstate. My concern is that being in the lefthand lane, in a fast lane, that if the traffic spills out, now we have a whole nother level of traffic to deal with with people trying to get into Chick-fil-A, with people going around the people trying to get into Chick-fil-A and get on the highway as fast as they can. Do you, from a DOTE perspective, have any concerns with the amount of traffic we are going to see stopped on McMillan? DOTE's response was that they're not concerned about too much traffic backing up. And the only "cheap and easy" suggestion they have to improve that intersection is to make the left (curbside) lane of McMillan a left-turn only lane onto Highland, so that no thru-traffic will compete for space with cars turning left into Chick-fil-A or onto Highland. It is beyond time for McMillan to get a road diet. Both for the sake of current residents on McMillan and for the future potential development sites, traffic along McMillan needs to be slowed down so that the average vehicle speed (not the posted speed limit) is slow enough for pedestrians to feel safe on the sidewalk. Walking and cycling options need to be made more attractive. At a minimum in the short-term, curbside parking should be allowed to create a buffer for pedestrians on the sidewalk. Longer-term solutions should include bike lanes, street trees, and bumpouts.
April 7Apr 7 Construction begins on energy-efficient apartment project Uptown A new mid-rise apartment project in Mount Auburn has gotten a name, a groundbreaking and public financing for sustainability features. Uptown Rental Properties, in partnership with North American Properties, is developing the Arc at 2443 Auburn Ave. The project site is directly south across East McMillan Street from the Arc’s sister project, called the Point. The Arc will be a five-story, 56-unit multifamily building with around 200 beds. It is almost identical in the massing and unit count to the Point. Both projects aim to provide off-campus housing for University of Cincinnati students. More below: https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2025/04/07/uptown-rentals-arc-apartments-energy-efficient.html "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
April 8Apr 8 Quote The location of the building behind the Chick-fil-A which used to be the Christ Hospital office building is in a very different location. It sits 45 feet higher. And when you walk out the front door, you're on William Howard Taft, many blocks closer to the University. It's really deceiving. No, it's a different side of the same block. And right, developers are always trying to deceive people. The building across the street was built by the Jacobs Family in 2012. It subsequently went bankrupt in 2014. And since then, it has been owned by six out-of-town investors. And it continually fails. It doesn't "continually fail" - certainly not because of its location. Buildings sandwiched between wildly successful buildings go bankrupt every day in Manhattan due to ARMs, balloon payments, defaults on equity lines of credit, etc.
June 3Jun 3 Neyer's defaults, debt compel listing of historic Flatiron Building in Mount AuburnA court-appointed receiver has put the Flatiron Building in Mount Auburn up for sale with a base asking price of $800,000.The distinctive historic building at 1833 Sycamore St., formerly home to the shuttered Flatiron Cafe, is owned by Neyer Holdings Inc., Tom Neyer’s commercial real estate firm, through NHC Flat Iron LLC.Jeff Lane, of Prodigy Properties, was appointed receiver in late February 2024 for the Flatiron Building and several of Neyer’s other business assets in a foreclosure and breach of contract case brought the same month by the lender, Milford-based CenterBank.More below:https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2025/06/02/mt-auburn-flatiron-tom-neyer-debts-lawsuits.html "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
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