You'd think this development could lure Bloomingdales here since their corporate operation is based in Cincinnati. We'd have the only Bloomingdales in the Midwest outside of Chicago.

You'd think this development could lure Bloomingdales here since their corporate operation is based in Cincinnati.

 

It is?

The correct statement should be their parent company is headquartered here.  Bloomingdales is a subsidiary of Macy's.  But Bloomingdales lists NYC as their own headquarters.

The correct statement should be their parent company is headquartered here.  Bloomingdales is a subsidiary of Macy's.  But Bloomingdales lists NYC as their own headquarters.

 

Valid point, I was being lazy with my comment.

Yay it's almost done.

Vineyard Vines was announced as one of the tenants for the retail portion of the Kenwood Collection back when Saks had signed on to be part of the development.  Now VV is planning to instead open in the former Sterling Cut Glass store at Kenwood Towne Centre, which is a space that has visibility from Montgomery Road.  It will be curious to see how the retail leasing ends up for the Kenwood Collection.  It seems like they are having a pretty rough go of it, despite being right in the heart of Kenwood, and the mall having very few, if any, vacancies.  Office leasing seems to be strong, and the building looks great, so I would hope that they would at least be able to lure a few nice restaurants and larger stores to anchor the development.  With Crate and Barrel and the Container Store already there, it's not like a total retail frontier, so I find the difficulties somewhat surprising.

 

Here is the link to the Vineyard Vines story:

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2015/08/17/exclusive-preppy-retailer-vineyard-vines-plans-1st.html

Thry should have spent money making a very attractive possibly sheltered pedestrian walkway between the developments through that lot;

I would not be surprised if they eventually abandon their retail plan for a medical or specialty office tenant.

Maybe the rent is too damn high.

Thry should have spent money making a very attractive possibly sheltered pedestrian walkway between the developments through that lot;

 

I think the same thing. If they were able to connect it to the mall, I bet it would be much easier to convince new to market stores to locate at the collection. It could have been like the Somerset Mall in suburban Detroit.

 

As for turning the entire space into office, I just don't see that happening because there is already a retail presence established there. Crate and Barrel, the Container Store, and a spa (forget the name) are already there, and appear to be doing well. I think it will have to be more destination type of stores rather than smaller retail stores that do better with the foot traffic of the mall. The Kenwood area is still a really strong retail market, so I think the Collection will eventually fill up the retail portion of the development. I think there were plans for an upscale health club and a couple of restaurants, both of which I could definitely see doing very well. Maybe this will be yet another situation where restaurants will beget retail in a somewhat uncertain/risky area.

 

As much as I am glad that Saks has stayed downtown at the moment, I do wish they would have signed on to anchor the Kenwood Collection, as they originally indicated they would. I think that was our only chance at keeping Saks in the market, because the downtown store really is a bit of a joke. The garage behind it is literally falling apart, and it basically operates as an outdated island. The Chanel boutique inside the store closed and is currently just empty- not replaced by anything else. Saks closed their downtown Pittsburgh store and chose to exit the market completely instead of finding a new place for a store. I fear the writing is on the wall for a similar situation to play out here as well.

^any chance Saks does a deal to go into the Pogues Garage 4th and Race tower? Then they can demolish the Saks building and put a new residential tower there as well. I don't think the city should be knocking itself out doing tax deals to keep department stores like they have in the past though.

They want to leave downtown apparently.

Thry should have spent money making a very attractive possibly sheltered pedestrian walkway between the developments through that lot;

 

Ideally thay would have done a Easton- or Liberty Center-style development on that entire massive parking lot between the two malls. I don't have a problem with the concept of the enclosed shopping mall if it's part of a larger overall development like that. Maybe they still can someday.

Taking a quick look at that site, doing any kind of Easton-esque building walls and street system would probably be more trouble than its worth. Perhaps they could do a nice walkway from one to the other, and a couple small outbuildings at the intersection of the walkway and perimeter road. Other than that, you get into major changes to the mall itself in order to keep everyone happy with their entrances and immediate parking.

 

Which shouldn't be surprising to anyone. Collection is an afterthought to an existing mall that was creating as an insular destination. No good planning went in. No good design is coming out.

The mall and Kenwood Collection are separate owners, so there will never be some idyllic connection between them.

 

I have a feeling Kenwood Collection will end up being what Bear Creek already had planned, which was a dozen or so large retailers to fill up those huge spaces.  Basically, another 7 or 8 retailers the same size as Crate & Barrel or Container Store.  Their plans for Saks plus a bunch of small high end retailers isn't going to happen.

Does anyone have any high quality layout maps of the development? I've never been in and am still not exactly sure how large or how exactly it's laid out

Whole Foods bringing new grocery concept to Cincinnati

 

 

Whole Foods Market Inc., the leading natural and organic foods supermarket, is bringing its new grocery concept to Cincinnati.

 

The company recently signed a lease for a 365 by Whole Foods Market in Cincinnati, according to Whole Foods’ fourth quarter results report. Along with Cincinnati, Whole Foods signed leases for 365 by Whole Foods Markets in San Francisco and Austin, Texas. The leases average 28,000 square feet and are scheduled to open through 2019.

 

More below:

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2015/11/06/whole-foods-bringing-new-grocery-concept-to.html

Whole Foods bringing new grocery concept to Cincinnati

 

Whole Foods Market Inc., the leading natural and organic foods supermarket, is bringing its new grocery concept to Cincinnati.

 

The company recently signed a lease for a 365 by Whole Foods Market in Cincinnati, according to Whole Foods’ fourth quarter results report. Along with Cincinnati, Whole Foods signed leases for 365 by Whole Foods Markets in San Francisco and Austin, Texas. The leases average 28,000 square feet and are scheduled to open through 2019.

 

More below:

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2015/11/06/whole-foods-bringing-new-grocery-concept-to.html

 

Very interesting. I've very curious to see where they put this. Where has there been ~28,000 sq ft of grocery store space available for lease? Presumably, it will be in a space-constrained, high-value neighborhood. At first I thought the <a href="http://www.cincinnati.com/story/money/2015/10/16/developer-309-vine-plans/74047350/">309 Vine building</a> might be the location, but that space is only 11,000 sq ft, and has so much renovation work that it seems too early to be signing a lease. I wonder if The Banks (beneath Radius) could be the space.

 

The news comes from page 3 of the Whole Foods Q4 report: http://assets.wholefoodsmarket.com/www/company-info/investor-relations/financial-press-releases/2015/4Q15-Earnings-PR.pdf

 

The Company recently signed seven new leases for four Whole Foods Market and three 365 by Whole Foods Market™ stores. The Whole Foods Market leases average 50,000 square feet and are located in Ft. Myers, FL; Wheaton, IL (relocation); Sudbury, MA; and Cleveland, OH (relocation). The 365 leases average 28,000 square feet and are located in San Francisco, CA; Cincinnati, OH; and Cedar Park (Austin), TX and reflect stores scheduled to open through 2019.

 

The Courier article mentions that PECO had been trying to land a Whole Foods at the Kenwood Collection, but it seems odd to me that Whole Foods would open a "365" store there. Doesn't seem like the kind of space that would benefit from the smaller format grocery store. And since the "365" brand is trying to focus more on affordable products (compared to traditional Whole Foods), then presumably it makes more sense in a slightly more cost-conscious demographic. Which makes me think The Banks would be a great fit for the 365. But maybe I'm just trying to convince myself since this would be a great addition The Banks. Anybody else have any guesses where this will be going?

the quote says "averages 28,000 ft2", so theoretically the Cincinnati one could be much smaller, and other one much larger.

If the Clifton Market thing fizzles out, perhaps that could be a good site? I know Whole Foods has some really tough requirements for locating a store, and Clifton did not meet those requirements, but I wonder if it might just work for this new model.  The Banks would also be a good fit, I'd think, as there is already plenty of parking integrated in with the development, but I just have a hard time imagining the demographics of that area, even with the resurgence of OTR and Downtown, being adequate to lure Whole Foods.  Kenwood does seem like a market that would make sense for a store, though I honestly think this region could support two more stores- one in the city and one at Kenwood. 

the quote says "averages 28,000 ft2", so theoretically the Cincinnati one could be much smaller, and other one much larger.

 

mathematically, you're right. But as sub-brand concept for Whole Foods, presumably their goal is to figure out a new model that can be replicated... so it wouldn't make much sense to deviate significantly from the average. But I'd love to be wrong and see them in the 309 Vine building. I've also always thought that the building at <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@39.0997219,-84.5142814,3a,90y,142.59h,97.55t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1spHJ9FjddlzLF8rQ1TVx4JA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656"> 33 W Fourth St</a> would make for a great grocery store. But each floor of that building is only ~10,000 sq ft, so it'd require multiple floors which most grocers are reluctant to take on.

The other thing that I noticed is when they're listing the other metro areas, they list the sub market that the store will be located in.  For the Cincy one, it just says Cincinnati, Ohio - which leads me to think that it will be in the city proper.

If the Clifton Market thing fizzles out

 

They've raised 95% of the needed funds to start construction. I think they have under $300,000 left to raise out of $5.something Million. It's not going to fizzle out unless there is some huge unplanned issue that wasn't known before..

 

EDIT: They've raised 96.5% of the needed funds. 3.5% away.

The other thing that I noticed is when they're listing the other metro areas, they list the sub market that the store will be located in.  For the Cincy one, it just says Cincinnati, Ohio - which leads me to think that it will be in the city proper.

 

I noticed the same. Presumably they would have said "Kenwood (Cincinnati)" if they were following what they did in "Cedar Park (Austin)".

Have a good feeling that we will be seeing this at The Banks

I'd still like to see the 16,000 sq ft TKILTBAG be used for a grocery. Per the The Banks website, Phase II only has 19,000 square feet of space for retail.

While there's only about 19,000 square feet of retail available at Phase 2 of the Banks, while shooting the shit with a random construction worker there awhile ago he mentioned they were preparing the space for a grocery store but they were still finishing up the plans for it. Either that guy felt like lying to a random passerby or a grocery store is planning to go there (it could or could not be this one).

I bet it's either at The Banks or it's at the Kenwood Collection in the old Kroger Fresh Fare spot.

It’s official: 365 by Whole Foods Market coming to Kenwood Collection

 

 

The Cincinnati region’s first 365 by Whole Foods Market store will be part of Kenwood Collection.

 

The new grocery store concept from Whole Foods Market Inc. (Nasdaq: WFM) will lease a 30,000-square-foot space and is expected to open in 2017.

 

More below:

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2015/11/12/it-s-official-365-by-whole-foods-market-coming-to.html

I also saw an article today about LL Bean opening its first Cincy location in the new Kenwood Collection development.  Nice to see them having some success with retail leasing.  The article said that negotiations are underway with several additional retailers as well.

Really? That's disappointing.

I'll never understand the mindset that fights that type of traffic to go grocery shopping.

^ what do you mean? before shopping you can valet park at the cheesecake factory for dinner ;-)

I do 95% of my grocery shopping at the Vine Street Kroger or Findlay Market but occasionally I'll need something I can't find and will stop into the Newport Kroger since my friend lives on the hill above it and I'm over there often. Even there the amount of people driving like crazy through the parking lot, disregarding the people trying to cross to their cars, shopping carts just being thrown every which way, etc. is unpleasant. And traffic over there is nowhere near as frustrating as traffic by Kenwood. I can't imagine a less desirable place to go grocery shopping.

I know we are all amped up for a downtown grocery but I think it will come eventually.  It sounds more and more promising with the Kroger news on their acquisition.  I know there are going to be smaller format stores but these won't be full scale.  Groceries operate on such small margins, but they have to be large enough to draw a big crowd and take advantage of scale buying, that opening a downtown store is all about the economics.  And especially with the way we all wish it to be built out, and I am certain now that Kroger hopes to build out a nice store...  With GE employees moving in, new "auxillary" businesses moving in, new apartments and condos coming online, we should be due for a nice, new, urban format grocery soon.

 

Can anyone comment on how the new Cleveland downtown store is doing?  I am sure it is fairly busy

Maybe it's just because I grew up close to Kenwood, but I've never really understood the claim about the area having extremely bad traffic. Around the holidays and at rush hour the traffic is bad, but outside of those times, I've never found Kenwood very hard to navigate. If you were to approach this new Whole Foods from the Galbraith Road entrance, I think it would be fairly easy to get in and out.

 

I do most of my regular shopping at the Walnut Hills Kroger, but occasionally will go out to Kenwood for Trader Joes. It will be nice to have this option there as well, although I do wish there would be urban locations of each store. I think the metrics that Whole Foods and Trader Joes uses just aren't favorable to a city like Cincinnati. Income, educational attainment, and population density are all important factors for these chains, and while we have pockets of the city that excell in these metrics, we have few contiguous areas that are highly populated with wealthy, educated people. The East Side block of E Walnut Hills, Hyde Park, Mt. Lookout, Columbia Tusculum exhibits these characteristics, and they have a WF, Fresh Market, and other upscale grocery options. While Clifton, OTR, Mt. Adams, etc. might have populations that would support a Whole Foods or TJ, they are surrounded by neighborhoods that, at least on paper, look to be poor markets for these stores. Until the basin has a few more thousand residents, I think these big, upscale grocery chains will continue to overlook the central city and its nearby neighborhoods.

I've had many times where just getting out of the mall's parking lot becomes a 20-30 minute endeavor on normal weekends. It's not "hard" to navigate, it's just annoyingly time consuming to move very little distance. Sitting at a red light for 5 minutes just to turn left for instance is a pain to then just get stuck in parking lot traffic that has backed up all over the place because the lights to get out of the entire mall complex aren't necessarily long enough to move traffic efficiently.

 

It's far from the worst traffic I've ever experienced (excluding situations after car accidents that would probably be taken by my drive from my friend's place in Bed-Stuy in Brooklyn across the Williamsburg Bridge, across Manhattan on Canal, and through the tunnel into Jersey which took me 3 hours) but since I have other options I'm very unlikely to want to make the trek to this place.

^Exactly.  I find that sometimes there is no traffic, but once in a while you get caught in what you're describing.  I end up just avoiding Kenwood most of the time and then when I have to go to somewhere like Crate&Barrel or the Apple Store where I have no other option, I try to make a day of it and hit all of the stores that exist only at Kenwood.  Maybe that's what they want and I'm playing into their hands!

Yeah it seems like it's either completely fine and there's nothing or one thing sets off everything else and it just stops functioning at all which I seem to have a knack for getting stuck in. My mortgage is through First Financial and I go to the branch on Montgomery and turning left from Kenwood Road onto Montgomery is normally fine but sometimes becomes such a hot mess that it take me my entire lunch break just to run to the bank.

Go in the back way next time and marvel at the easiness of the experience, lol. I've never been stuck in the parking lot for anything close to 20 minutes, but I avoid the Montgomery Rd entrance/exit almost always.  If you use the entrances on the Jewish Hospital side of the mall, it's a much less chaotic experience.  But any area that has a large draw will suffer from congestion and traffic.  Downtown is a traffic mess just about every day at 5pm, pre or post Reds/Bengals games, etc.  Rookwood can also be hellacious to navigate through, especially around the holidays.  It's just always surprised me to see the bad rap Kenwood gets for being a traffic hot spot when it doesn't seem much worse than any other areas that have big concentrations of employers and destinations. 

Kenwood is probably the worst mall in Ohio when it comes to traffic flow.  The front parking lot on Montgomery is made for a strip mall (which makes sense, due to the past history of the site), not an actual mall.  There are far more attended malls in the state with much easier traffic flow.

While growing up I'd go to SouthPark Mall in Strongsville which has quantifiably more traffic than Kenwood but is designed in a manner which facilitates movement of cars.

 

Granted, it's also hideous and one of the least pedestrian friendly places in the Cleveland region. But Kenwood isn't much better in that regard.

Kenwood is probably the worst mall in Ohio when it comes to traffic flow.  The front parking lot on Montgomery is made for a strip mall (which makes sense, due to the past history of the site), not an actual mall.  There are far more attended malls in the state with much easier traffic flow.

 

You're doing it wrong if you try and enter the mall from Montgomery Rd. with all the other sheep.  Like other posters said, Kenwood Towne Center traffic is fine year round if you enter from Galbraith Rd.  For all you city folk coming from the south, try turning right off the Montgomery Rd. exit and then turn left on Galbraith.  A sea of parking and zero traffic will greet you.

 

A competent business is not going to open up one of its very first stores in an unproven market.  Kenwood is the lowest risk investment in the entire region since it has a proven 24/7 population and wealth surrounding it.  Don't count out a future downtown store, but for one of their first three (!) in the country, they need to play it safe.

 

With that said, LL Bean and Whole Foods 365 obviously prove that Liberty Center is another disposable retail development in the distant sprawl. 

When is the new LL Bean store expected to open? The Courier article didn't mention any timing, or if it did I missed it.

After news broke that L.L.Bean Inc. planned to open its first Cincinnati retail store at Kenwood Collection, officials with the outdoor apparel and gear company didn’t comment on their plans.

Now, Freeport, Maine-based L.L.Bean revealed details of its Cincinnati store, including the anticipated opening. The outdoor retailer is scheduled to open in fall 2016.

 

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/morning_call/2015/11/l-l-bean-reveals-details-of-first-cincinnati-store.html

EXCLUSIVE: Kenwood Collection lands largest office tenant yet

 

The Kenwood Collection finalized a deal for its largest office tenant yet.

 

Merrill Lynch, the wealth management division of Bank of America, is moving some of its Cincinnati operations to the Sycamore Township mixed-use development along Interstate 71.

 

Merrill Lynch signed a long-term lease for more 50,200 square feet of space. As the anchor office tenant in the Tower at Kenwood Collection, Merrill Lynch will have signage on the south side of the building.

 

Cont

The first "365 by Whole Foods Market" opened today in Los Angeles:

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-365-store-opening-20160525-snap-htmlstory.html

 

Over the next two years, they plan to open a dozen more stores throughout the country, including at the Kenwood Collection.

 

A few tidbits from the article:

The high school teacher said she welcomed another local grocer that had "Trader Joe's prices" but "better quality."

...

Expect a greater amount of non-organic produce and meat sold in smaller packages. Shelves will feature less variety than a typical Whole Foods, and there won't be any butchers slicing cuts of meat to order.

...

On average, a 365 store will be about 30,000 square feet compared with 45,000 square feet for Whole Foods stores.

...

There also will be fewer employees — 365 stores will have about 100 workers compared with the 250 to 500 at Whole Foods stores.

...is that last part accurate? 250-500 workers for a store that only averages 45,000 square feet? That seems highly unlikely. What in the heck would all those people be doing? Even if that's three shifts worth of people, that still seems incredibly unlikely.

 

Edit: According to this http://www.fmi.org/research-resources/supermarket-facts there are 38,015 grocery stores in the country employing 3,400,000 people and they have an average square footage of 46,000 square feet (how convenient!) which is about 90 people per store. Does Whole Foods somehow work with employing 3-5.5 x as many people as a typical grocery store?

The rendering in this article shows two new additions jutting off both the left and right of the building (westward into the parking lot):

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2017/05/11/exclusive-kenwood-collection-bringing-home.html

 

 

But there's no mention of the additions in the article, so I'm not sure if the rendering is wrong or if the article just didn't mention it.

 

 

They cut out a chunk of the building to create that plaza. The building used to be flush all the way across the front but they removed a huge chunk in the middle centered on the tower to create that plaza (and also reduce square footage since they were having leasing problems but they'll likely never make that claim publicly).