Posted June 1, 200916 yr The Hannaford designed Mansion at 3725 Reading Road is set for a demolition hearing at 9:00 A.M. on June 12, 2009 in the Main Conference Room, First Floor, Business Development and Permit Center, 3300 Central Parkway. One of the few Frame houses designed by Hannaford (most were stone). This home was built in 1884 is in the Shingle style with Queen Anne detailing. It was built for Walter Field who was the president of the American Cottonseed Oil company. The property became the Jewish Hotel in 1912 and later a rooming house. The photo is courtesy of the Hamilton County Auditors office. The exterior does not look that bad! Cincinnati is following the Detroit urban renewal model of Blight=Bulldozer. It didn't work in Detroit and it needs to stop in Cincinnati The house is listed on the National Register.
June 1, 200916 yr Reading Road through Avondale is fantastic architecturally (minus some bad strip centers). Or at least is fantastic provided they do not keep tearing things down!
June 1, 200916 yr Apparently, the building has its interiors intact (woodwork, etc...) as well. Really, not worthy of demolition at all. The neighborhood surrounding it is probably the biggest impediment to redevelopement.
June 1, 200916 yr There is a remarkable turn of the century Craftsman shotgun down the street from me that the city is planning on tearing down because it is a 'blight", and a Second Empire Victorian cottage and a large Italianate and the list goes on. I have 20 properties in my neighborhood on the city hit list for VBML or demo. At the rate the city is bulldozing we wont have any architecture left! None of these homes in my neighborhood have any serious structural issues. Some inspector , somewhere, thinks it "looks bad" and nobody would want to restore it. Nevermind I'm putting 200K into a period restoration a block away or the people around the corner who have just started prepping their house for a 4 color preservation paint job. We have 1.2 million dollars of restoration going on by a dozen people in my neighborhood and the city doesn't see the potential in any of these houses. The biggest enemy of neighborhood turnaround is the City of Cincinnati.
June 1, 200916 yr Apparently, the building has its interiors intact (woodwork, etc...) as well. Really, not worthy of demolition at all. The neighborhood surrounding it is probably the biggest impediment to redevelopement. hey now. I live in North Avondale just up the road and into Rose Hill. Agree there are problems in the immediate surroundings, as well as fronting Reading. I agree probably not viable as a home but perhaps as some sort of office. Most of the architectural trasures and stained glass were stripped out of it a while ago. The guy that lived there had people stealing him blind....in fact, he may have been blind. It was an unfortunate situation and the placerepidly fell into extreme disrepair.
June 3, 200916 yr Looking at Reading Road I think a 'Complete Streets' project would do wonders for the revitalization of this area. There are so many great mansions in disrepair through this neighborhood. I think that marketing this area to Xavier profs. and hospital workers would be hugely beneficial. This area is not dense enough where single rehabers can make a huge difference.
June 3, 200916 yr BDRUF, I agree. If you go not that far from where this house is there is some restoration going on. I know every year in INdianapolis The St Margarets Guild does a decorator showhouse as a fundraiser for a local hospital. They bring in local designers to redo rooms and it is widely popular. You have to think that perhaps some group in this city could redo it and do something like that. People love decorator showhouses. I do period interior design myself and have worked on few. With donated goods and services this place could not only shine but draw attention to the area as a whole and perhaps nudge a turnaround. There are some dedicated preservationists working on some houses over there. Redone I think you could find a buyer for it, either someone workinga t one of teh hospitals or the college or even as an office for say a small insurance company or a realtors office.
June 3, 200916 yr I split off several posts from this thread and merged them with the newly created "Blight=Bulldoze" mentality thread which can be found here - http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,19291.0.html. Thanks for the great discussion so far everyone.
June 3, 200916 yr Blaubaum the city owns a great deal of the buildings in OTR that while boarded are falling apart because the city is sitting on them waiting for some "prefferred developer". The longer they sit, the more costly they are to restore and vacand boarded buildings stifle restoration . I did a quick check of auditors office and I left out vacant lots, city owned buildings part of Findlay, and institutional buildings such as churches and parks the city holds, I didnt do all the streets in OTR just a few. You may find this interesting: ELM:1717,1718,1722,1814,1824,1826,1828 Pleasant: 1552,1610,1611,,1612,1626,1630,1713,1716 Race: 1544,1601,1717,1811,1804 Vine:1714,1735,1737 I did not include properties owned by the housing authority maybe a dozen or so more. The city easily hold 30-40 lots in OTR So to say the city doesn't hold much property would be an error. The city needs to start marketing these properties to preservationist and business entities willing to restore them. I can tell you I have been looking for some time for a building to restore to put our Historic interior design and antiques business in and there isn't much available North of Liberty right now. What is available usually is 'investor owned' and has a condemn or VBML against it making restoration extremely difficult.
June 3, 200916 yr But what demand is there? As much as I want to see these properties saved and preserved, there is little demand for sustainable, marketable units surrounding Findlay Market given its relative isolation, the lack of car parking (this is still an automobile-dominated city) and the general environs that exist only a block from the market. If the market and its units were south of Liberty, it would be taken up in a heartbeat. North of Liberty and near the West End? Sorry :( That's the same issue I have with this location on Reading. Structurally, it's sound. Marketability, it's not. It's in a depressed locale of Cincinnati, not near anything that's appealing to anyone outside of low-income, in an area with a much higher crime rate, and is just too large for its once-intended function. It is best left subdivided into apartments or condominiums, but in this depressed real estate market, that would be too much of a gamble.
June 3, 200916 yr June 3, 2009 Architectural gem may soon be 'nuisance' By Barry M. Horstman, [email protected] NORTH AVONDALE - She's 125 years old and a national treasure - with a certificate to prove it - though like most centenarians, she's beginning to show her age. http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20090603/NEWS01/906040315/1055/NEWS/Architectural+gem+may+be++nuisance+
June 4, 200916 yr couldn't some sort of grassroots campaign be put together to try to save this building? Sort of like what is being done in Price Hill where the citizens work to rehab the houses.
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