Fergus Street Homeownership Project Architect Alice Emmons has supplied Building Cincinnati with the following elevations and floor plans for the HOME project at Chase Avenue and Fergus Street in Northside.

The Cincinnati Northside Community Urban Revelopment Corporation is in the process of building two LEED-certified, affordable single-family homes. These should be completed by December.

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Elevations


First floor and foundation


Second floor

Previous reading on BC:
Northside HOME photo update, 10/4/07 (10/9/07)
Northside HOME project to be first in nation (10/5/07)
Northside: Fergus Street Homeownership Project (3/14/07)

Attorney Jeffrey Bakst has alleged "gross mismanagement" on the part of the City regarding a recent sidewalk project on Kinsey Avenue in Mount Auburn.

In a letter to City Council dated September 21, Bakst, whose law office is at the corner of Auburn and Kinsey avenues, claims that the City squandered thousands of dollars by not coordinating the nearby sidewalk project with Duke Energy.

Duke Energy is beginning the installation of gas mains, requiring them to rip up brand new sidewalks completed by the City early this year*.

Bakst alleges that "there was no planning done whatsoever" and fears that this type of waste will cause the City to "go down the tubes".

Copies of the letter have been sent to the City's Department of Transportation and Engineering and City Council's Vibrant Neighborhoods, Environment and Public Services Committee.

A report from City Manager Milton Dohoney is expected by late November.

* The sidewalk project went along Kinsey Avenue from Auburn Avenue to Reading Road. The gas main project is going from approximately Auburn and Kinsey avenues to Highland and Kinsey avenues.

Structural and masonry work continues at Beechmont and Roxbury avenues in Mount Washington.

Cole Realty Associates is building the 9,700-square-foot center that will include up to six tenant spaces.

No tenants have been announced.

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Rendering from the Greater Cincinnati MLS

Andrew James Custom Builders is planning three new single-family homes at 3629-3633 Woodbridge Place in Columbia Tusculum.

The homes will feature three bedrooms, three baths, a gourmet kitchen, hardwood floors and an outdoor deck.

All three are priced at $495,000 and are being sold through Comey & Shepherd.

Completion is expected by March.

The half-acre site previously contained a single-family home, which was built in 1958 and was valued at nearly $200,000.


Formerly 3629 Woodbridge Pl, demolished

WINDOWS LIVE BIRD'S EYE VIEW

Around and About recently hit the local blogosphere.

The bloggers describe themselves as "a small family living a big life in a mid-size city". They have been posting about local places with plenty of links to Flickr photos.

I've added it to my blogroll.

RIP: 13 E Martin Luther King Dr, Corryville
Two-family

DOB: 1890
Died: October 2007
Cause of death: Demolished for a future mixed-use project proposed by JFP Group. JFP and their development team had once proposed a hotel for the site, but no further details have been released. The house had no housing code violations.

City Council has unanimously approved a diagnostic hospital for a vacant building in Pleasant Ridge.

The passed ordinance codifying a zoning change to IR Institutional-Residential District means that an unidentified operator can begin a $1.2 million rehabilitation of 5500 Verulam Avenue, which has been vacant since 2004.

The diagnostic hospital will provide behavioral health care for residents of nearby nursing homes, with patients staying for seven to ten days.

Work on the interior of the structure will provide between 21 and 28 large patient suites.

The hospital is expected to employ 85.

Previous reading on BC:
EDC to consider Pleasant Ridge diagnostic hospital (10/23/07)
PC to consider hospital for vacant Pleasant Ridge building (9/7/07)

The City's property tax exemptions made positive gains in 2006.

During the annual meeting of the Tax Incentive Review Council (TIRC), it was revealed that Enterprise Zone job creation exceeded agreement requirements by 6.9 percent and that investment exceeded requirements by 53.2 percent. Other tax incentive programs created 183 percent more jobs than required and 29.9 percent more in investment*.

As a requirement of the Ohio Revised Code, the TIRC reviews compliance on the City's tax exemption agreements and makes recommendations on continuation, modification or termination.

Tax exemption agreements provided by the City include Enterprise Zone, Community Reinvestment Area (CRA), Tax Increment Financing (TIF) and Community Urban Redevelopment Corporation (CURC).

Of the 70 Enterprise Zone agreements active in 2006, 35 were found to be in compliance and 3 expired. Fifteen will continue to be monitored, 10 will be modified (usually dropped a year for not submitting an annual report), and 4 were deemed too new to review. Duke Energy and Ohio Tile and Marble dropped out of their agreements voluntarily, while Delta Air Lines was terminated for not fulfuilling job goals and for not filing the proper paperwork with the county.

The TIRC voted to continue the CRA, TIF and CURC agreements without modification.

Voting members of the TIRC include a representative of the Hamilton County Auditor, City Council, the City Manager, the Cincinnati Board of Education and the citizens and act on information provided by the Department of Community Development and Planning.

* Enterprise Zone: 13,581 jobs achieved, 12,707 jobs required (+874 jobs)
$510,202,739 investment achieved, $332,969,455 investment required (+$177,233,284 investment)
* Other tax exemptions: 1,277 jobs achieved, 451 jobs required (+826 jobs)
$347,762,610 investment achieved, $267,808,000 investment required (+$79,954,610 investment)

Models are open for the Park Manor project in Blue Ash, and work continues on the second building.

Kurlemann Homes is building 42 attached landominiums on 7.2 acres at the corner of Cooper Road and Monroe Avenue.

Ten more buildings will be constructed on the site.

The homes are being sold through Sibcy Cline. Prices start at $679,000.

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609 Steiner Avenue, courtesy of HomeVestors

A Cincinnati house has been included in HomeVestors' Ugliest House of the Year contest.

609 Steiner Avenue, in Sedamsville, is among 10 other houses chosen from hundreds of photos submitted by HomeVestors franchisees.

Voting is open until November 15, with only one vote allowed per visitor. The winner will be announced in December.

The house, which was built around 1885, was purchased by HomeVesters in September for $3,000.

Surprisingly, it is not condemned, but it has generated some civil fines for the previous owner.

There is no word on when the Ugliest Signs and Billboards contest will commence.

In the American, writer Timothy B. Lee argues that eminent domain is not a good strategy for urban renewal.

Using the McRee Town neighborhood in St. Louis as an example, he says that "slum clearance" merely shifts poverty to adjacent neighborhoods.

He claims that major problems with the typical urban renewal approach are the net loss of affordable housing units, the clear signal that low-income neighborhoods are no place to start a business, and the tearing of social fabric that makes renewal from within impossible.

RIP: 3024 Vine St, Corryville
Two-family

DOB: 1905
Died: October 2007
Cause of death: Demolished for a future mixed-use project proposed by JFP Group. JFP and their development team had once proposed a hotel for the site, but no further details have been released. The house was condemned in September for an open roof, failed cornice and broken windows.

Vitality Over-the-Rhine has launched an initiative targeted at clean and safe issues and long-term development along the Main Street corridor.

The working group, which is composed of professionals with a stake in the neighborhood, is investigating the feasibility of creating a special improvement district (SID).

SIDs (sometimes known as Business Improvement Districts) are public-private partnerships in which property owners agree to a special tax assessment that will be used for anything from development projects to maintenance to additional safety personnel. Any additional services gained from the assessment are in addition to normal public services provided by the city as a whole.

The most visible local SID, the Downtown Cincinnati Improvement District, has been in operation since 1998 and consists of over 300 property owners.

So far, the group has been measuring the assessed value and frontage of property owners within the proposed SID and have drawn up a draft services plan. They have also teamed up with the law firm Coolige Wall, LPA, who wrote the Ohio Revised Code statute providing for special improvement districts.

Vitality Over-the-Rhine now hopes to work with two of its partners, Downtown Cincinnati Inc. and the Over-the-Rhine Chamber of Commerce, to gather input on the proposed services plan.

After gathering input, the group will work to form a final, comprehensive public services plan that they can submit to City Council for consideration of the SID's creation.

The Vitality Over-the-Rhine District Coordinator explains that to effect the greatest amount of change in the shortest amount of time, the geographical scope had to be limited to a highly-visible part of the neighborhood.

He hopes that this will be a sustainable model which can be duplicated in other parts of the neighborhood.


Partners

The Vitality Over-the-Rhine Initiative has provided Building Cincinnati with this list of project partners:

* Over-the-Rhine Chamber of Commerce
* Downtown Cincinnati Inc.
* Major property owners within our geography
* Downtown Dayton Partnership (Best practices and material support)
* Columbus' Capital Crossroads Special Improvement District
* Columbus' Discovery Special Improvement District
* Coolige Wall LPA
* Liz Blume at the Community Building Institute at Xavier University
* Developers both within and surrounding our geography
* The Over-the-Rhine Foundation
* Cincinnati Police Department (District 1)
* Blue Whitespace graphic design and marketing firm

City Council has voted unanimously to appropriate property for improvements to the Colerain-West Fork-Virginia intersection in Northside.

The $4.9 million project, which has support from the Northside Community Council, will impact ten properties, including two businesses.

Of particular note is a turn-of-the-century apartment building at the corner of Virginia and Chase avenues. That building, which is owned by an absentee outfit out of Miami, has been ordered vacant by the City and will likely continue to deteriorate until its inevitable demolition.

Intersection work will include:

* Wider lanes on the Colerain Avenue northbound approach
* An additional left-turn lane from Virginia Avenue
* New pavement, curbs and sidewalks
* New signals and lighting
* Improved storm drainage

The realignment will also allow West Fork Road and Virginia Avenue to share signal phasing instead of working independently of one another.

The City currently has $3.2 million in Federal Surface Transportation Program grants and is currently seeking Ohio Public Works Commission funds. The balance will be funded with City capital funds.

The intersection plan was identified as Priority 1 in the Transportation System Management plan, which was developed by ODOT, the City and the communities of Northside, College Hill and Mount Airy and approved by City Council in 2000.

Design of the I-74/I-75 interchange as part of the --> --> -->Mill Creek Expressway project --> --> --> had temporarily put the project on hold.

The project is expected to begin in spring 2009.

WINDOWS LIVE BIRD'S EYE VIEW



Portion of 1863 Chase Avenue, facing demolition

* Easements not included

Work continues on the five-story, 1,600-space parking garage at the Kenwood Towne Place development in Kenwood.

Bear Creek Capital is building the $180 million project along I-71, next to the Kenwood Towne Centre.

Tenants will include Crate & Barrel, Fresh Fare by Kroger, Ethan Allen, Container Store and LA Fitness.

A 10-story tower will hold 250,000 square feet of office space.

Also pictured below is the muddy site of the former Parisian store and garage at Kenwood Towne Centre. A 140,000-square-foot Nordstrom is scheduled to open there in 2009.

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Visit the project website

Photos have just been added to the Skyline and Covedale galleries:

* Skyline: 15 photos added (47 total)
* Covedale: 7 photos added (12 total)

Click on the photo above to go to the Skyline gallery. The gallery will open in a new browser window.

University of Cincinnati News features a video of the return of UC's Solar Decathlon house, which finished fifteenth out of twenty entries in the international competition.

Previous reading on BC:
UC Solar Decathlon team finishes 15th (10/23/07)
UC Solar House Send Off this morning (9/28/07)

RIP: 819 Mann Pl, Avondale
Two-family

DOB: 1900
Died: October 2007
Cause of death: Owned by neighboring Southern Baptist Church. It was probably cheaper for the church to have an empty lot than a house. If there's some sort of expansion project for the church, I haven't heard about it yet.

Rendering courtesy of Cole + Russell Architects

Cincinnati City Council has voted unanimously to enter development and service agreements for the $55 million Midtown Centre project in Oakley.

Seven Hills Development is planning 300,000 square feet of Class A office space, a 100- to 200-room hotel, 10,000 square feet of restaurant space and a 1,400-space parking garage on four acres at the corner of Marburg and Alamo avenues.

The developers requested the issuance of $13.2 million in Tax Increment Financing (TIF) bonds via the creation of a Midtown TIF District to help fund both the four-story garage and the acquisition of the Midtown Self Storage property.

The project site was previously part of a 25-acre TIF district created in 2002 for the Center of Cincinnati, the proposed Millworks, and a Vandercar Holdings office development that was never built. City Council amended that TIF district to include the Midtown Centre and extended the TIF's expiration date from 2032 to 2038.

The bonds will be secured by a letter of credit purchased by Seven Hills Development and will be serviced by revenues generated from the project. Estimates are that the office development could create up to 1,250 jobs and generate $1.1 million in annual earnings taxes.

Cole + Russell Architects has completed the preliminary design. A more detailed site and design plan still must be presented to the City.

Seven Hills Development plans to break ground in early 2008 and to have the project completed in 2010.


Project site: Click to enlarge


Rendering courtesy of Cole + Russell Architects

WINDOWS LIVE BIRD'S EYE VIEW

Construction continues on the Redstone of Kenwood office building on Montgomery Road.

Scott Street Partners is constructing a 160,000-square-foot Class A office building on 8.4 acres southwest of Kenwood Towne Centre, across the street from St. Vincent Ferrer.

CNG Financial Corp. will be the anchor tenant. They plan to relocate 225 employees to two floors of the building next summer.

The project used to be known as Sycamore Square, when it was first announced with the Maisonette as the anchor tenant.

You can show your support for the continuation of overnight excursions aboard the Delta Queen this afternoon at 12:30 PM.

A press conference and rally featuring U.S. Representative Steve Chabot will be taking place at the National Steamboat Monument (the big paddlewheel outside of GABP).

Earlier this month, Chabot introduced a stand-alone bill, H.R. 3852, which would grant the Delta Queen and exemption from the Safety at Sea Act until 2018.

The fate of the Delta Queen would be divorced from the Coast Guard funding bill, where action has stalled.

Speculation is that this event will get national media coverage.

Organizers of the Save the Delta Queen campaign are hoping for a crowd of over 1,000.

Previous reading on BC:
Help save the Delta Queen! (8/17/07)

In January, I posted about run-down houses owned by City Council candidate Steve Pavelish on Zier Place in Over-the-Rhine.

On Tuesday, Pavelish gave his side of the story on the Enquirer's Today at the Forum blog. He argues that the City has made it impossible to improve those properties and that the City needs to do a better job helping rehabbers do good in neighborhoods.

RIP: 1976-1978 Eleanor St, Mount Auburn
Single-family

DOB: 1875
Died: October 2007
Cause of death: A damaged roof, missing and falling bricks, and failing gutters. Parts of the building were in danger of collapse, so it was condemned in January. The owner planned on making repairs, but her contractor told her it was a lost cause. The City went forward with pre-prosecution (she didn't show up), then demolished the building and sent her the bill.

The City Planning Commission will consider today a concept plan from the St. Aloysius Orphan Society of Cincinnati (St. Aloysius) to develop 16 acres of its Bond Hill property.

St. Aloysius is hoping for a zoning change from RM-2.0 Residential Multi-Family to PD Planned Development District, which will allow them to subdivide the land into six parcels for a social services campus containing the following:

* Along Reading Road, the current school and chapel would be joined by a new school and two surface parking lots, which could accommodate 200 cars

* At Reading Road and Joseph Avenue, a two-story, 15,000-square-foot medical office building

* A three-story, 20,000-square-foot office building with 120 parking spaces

* A 15,000-square-foot office building with 119 parking spaces

* A two-story, 10,000-square-foot office building with 35 parking spaces

* More parking around the current group homes

The project, at Reading Road and the Norwood Lateral, would be completed over two phases.

St. Aloysius hopes that developing its property can help bring in enough revenue to further their mission as a non-profit social service agency for children and their families.

The development plan was first presented to the Bond Hill community in January. After hearing concerns about the traffic that this development might generate, representatives of St. Aloysius paid for a traffic study, which it presented in August and then again in September. Community fears about traffic were still not entirely alleviated.

However, if the rezoning is not allowed, it is entirely possible that the land could be sold off to developers. Current zoning would allow for up to 348 residential units.

City Council approval of the concept plan and the creation of a PD would put the project under the scrutiny of the City Planning Commission.

City staff has recommended PC approval.

St. Aloysius Orphanage has been at its Bond Hill site since 1861.

WINDOWS LIVE BIRD'S EYE VIEW

The first phase of Linden Pointe on the Lateral is largely complete.

Al Neyer Inc. is building the $105 million office and retail project at Montgomery Road and the Norwood Lateral, which will include 600,000 square feet of office space, 30,000 square feet of retail and two free-standing restaurants. Buildout of the ten buildings is expected in 2011.

Pictured here is a 100,000-square-foot office building and the retail portion of the project.

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Also, the Cincinnati Business Courier has reported that Steed Hammond Paul has signed on as the development's first tenants. The Citizens For a Better Norwood blog has covered this story as well.






Visit the project website

Previous reading on BC:
Linden Pointe on the Lateral: Still no tenants (10/2/07)

The City of Bellevue has introduced an economic incentive program to help revitalize and encourage new growth within the city.

The URCDA Economic Development Incentive Program, which has an initial outlay of $200,000, will be used to address public infrastructure, facade improvements, parking creation, and public-private partnerships and is applicable to both commercial and residential projects.

Applicants are required to show their ability to complete their projects and must be able to demonstrate short-term and long-term economic impacts.

The program will be continually funded through payroll and property tax revenues from the improved properties.

The first program grant has been awarded to Don Messer, who plans to rehabilitate the old Sylvia Theatre at 318 Fairfield Avenue into a "home concept center".


318 Fairfield Avenue, courtesy of the Campbell County PVA

Over at the CityKin blog, Mike has posted an interesting study in street trees.

Street trees are a necessary and often neglected component of the pedestrian streetscape.

RIP: 3506 Hillside Ave, Riverside
Single-family

DOB: 1904
Died: October 2007
Cause of death: A one-alarm fire on August 9 that caused $35,000 in damage, which was more than its assessed value.