Michael Morgan of the Over-the-Rhine Foundation has again contacted City Council regarding the unresolved future of school-owned land in his neighborhood.

The issue is the result of a 2003 contract between the City of Cincinnati and Cincinnati Public Schools (CPS) that promised, in vague language stating , to deed land at the site of the former Washington Park School and the School for the Creative and Performing Arts (SCPA) to the Cincinnati Park Board.

The contract, which states that CPS will "use [its] best efforts to investigate the possibility of transferring surplus school properties in Over-the-Rhine to the City to be controlled by the Park Board for greenspace," is widely viewed as unenforceable.

In a letter to Jeff Berding, Morgan claims that by not pressuring CPS to clarify and enforce the contract, the City of Cincinnati and 3CDC are "choosing to diminish the legal rights of the citizens of Cincinnati".

"3CDC does not represent the interests of the community and appears willing to sacrifice the park space in Pendleton in order to assist their development in and surrounding Washington Park," Morgan wrote. "And the City has empowered and approved this irresponsible decision."

Morgan says that the warnings of the Over-the-Rhine Foundation and the positions of community members were ignored and is wondering why the City isn't pushing for clear title to both the Washington Park and SCPA greenspaces.

"In fact, it seems that all legitimate warnings were ignored and 3CDC was given the green light to do exactly the wrong things," Morgan wrote.

Morgan cites a March 7 Cincinnati Enquirer article that states that CPS would only grant a long-term lease for the former site of the Washington Park School if the district could retain the right to take back the land at any time for educational purposes.

3CDC executive director Steve Leeper says that such an arrangement could cause plans for the expansion of Washington Park and a new garage for Music Hall to fall through.

And as it stands now, CPS could sell the land to anyone for development.

Morgan first contacted City Council last September when plans were announced for a 219-space parking lot on the northern portion of Washington Park, a project that was never mentioned in the 2003 contract.

The parking lot has been built, and the Park Board is considering leasing the land to expand the park, even though they are entitled to it by law.

Though he credits the City Manager's office, Councilmember Chris Monzel and both the mayor and the vice mayor with focusing some resources and attention on the matter, Morgan says he is unaware of any substantive findings on the contract language, or of any forthcoming resolutions.

In November, City Manager Milton Dohoney Jr. said that a pledge letter from CPS Superintendent Rosa Blackwell to the Park Board and a City Council resolution in support of the eventual land transfer were adequate to ensure that the spirit of the contract was enforced.

Morgan's letter has been forwarded to the Office of the City Manager, with a report on the matter due by the end of April.

Previous reading on BC:
City reports on Washington Park greenspace (11/19/07)
OTR Foundation asks City to look into CPS contract (10/19/07)

Here are a few random photos I took this month along Calhoun Street in Clifton Heights and near Findlay Market in Over-the-Rhine.

The graffiti was found inside the American Can building in Northside.

These photos have been added to the following galleries:

* Over-the-Rhine: +10 (68 photos)
* Clifton Heights: + 4 (42 photos)
* Northside: +1 (89 photos)

These galleries and those for dozens of other neighborhoods can be accessed via the drop-down menu at the top of the right-hand column.

Please click on each image to enlarge to 640 x 480. Photos will open in a new browser window.

Clifton Heights



Over-the-Rhine




Northside

Building Cincinnati has finished in second place in the blog category in both the staff and readers picks of CityBeat's 2008 Best of Cincinnati voting.

CityBeat staff chose Cincinnati Locavore as the best source of local micro-media, while readers chose Sean Fisher's excellent Buy Cincy as their favorite.

Other local blogs receiving the love were CityKin, Queen City Survey, Lance McAllister's sports blog, Cincinnati Blog and Urban Cincy.

To celebrate, I have added a link to CityBeat's Porkopolis blog to my blogroll.

Thank you to everyone who has supported Building Cincinnati, and please check out these other blogs as well. They're all good.


Milestones

A couple of weeks ago and without fanfare, Building Cincinnati had its 1,000th post.

Five NBDSF requests received for 1Q2008 made its appearance as the "B" story on March 20 and quickly slipped into oblivion, overshadowed by three other stories that generated a total of 11 reader comments.

Also, somewhere along the line this website passed 100,000 page views, and the number is increasing rapidly.

While it probably wouldn't be a fair comparison to say that this blog gets 27 times more page views that it did in 1Q2007, I can say that page views for 1Q2008 are up 46 percent over 4Q2007 and 126 percent over 3Q2007.

Trends for unique and returning visitors are even better than that!

Thank you again for reading, and please feel free to offer feedback on how I can improve your reading experience at .

(P.S. I'm still working on that upgrade and redesign, I promise!)

Councilmember Laketa Cole has offered a motion in support of keeping the Walnut Hills Kroger store open.

Kroger has announced plans to close its store at unless it can negotiate a more favorable lease with the property's owner.

The company says that the store has been more expensive to operate than similar stores because Kroger leases the building in addition to paying rent on the land.

Cole wants the motion to encourage Kroger and the property owner to work together on a resolution.

"Studies have consistently shown that across the country grocery stores carrying healthy foods and fresh produce are far less prevalent in low-income and minority communities," Cole wrote. "Given this information and the widespread nature of obesity and its adverse health conditions, it becomes obvious why we need to reverse this trend that shows grocery stores fleeing out urban areas."

Cole thinks that the neighborhood's residents deserve better.

"We must draw attention to this devastating trend and the consequences that it holds for families in Walnut Hills," Cole wrote. "Communities like Walnut Hills need access to the same quality of food those other citizens of this City have access to everyday."

Kroger's lease expires in February 2009.

The motion has not come up for a vote in City Council.

Prospects for affordable housing development over the next few years are glum.

Earlier this month, the Ground Floor blog reported on several ways in which the affordable housing industry is being closed down.

Key in the downturn has been the reduction in 20 percent reduction in the price of low income housing tax credits due to accounting scandals at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, resulting in new mortgage purchase restrictions and making new deals largely unworkable.

This has had several effects:

* Major banks, once buyers of credits, have been struggling with losses and have largely avoided the affordable housing game.
* Developers are less able to finance their projects, and lenders aren't jumping in to make deals.
* The drop in housing revenues has curtailed local governments' ability to finance projects' soft costs.
* The Fannie Mae Foundation and American Communites Fund, which were created to invest in inner-city, low income neighborhoods, are now defunct.
* Fannie Mae is increasingly purchasing mortgages on $400,000-$700,000 homes, which will never become affordable

The Ground Floor blog, which is produced by the Urban Land Institute, says that even with a new Congress coming up we probably shouldn't expect any new affordable housing legislation to hit the streets until at least 2010.

3161 Reading Rd, Avondale
Commercial

DOB: Unknown
Died: March 2008
Cause of death: Illegal framing, electric and plumbing, missing flooring and floor joists, and failing gutters and downspouts. The City condemned the structure in December 2006. During 2007, architects were hired and plan was proposed to rehabilitate the building's 14 apartment units. It was eventually declared a public nuisance in August 2007. The City razed the building, and a criminal case on the code violations is currently in court.

Cincinnati City Council voted unanimously to support Brent Spence Bridge Alternative Four (PDF), sparing the loss of multiple businesses in the Queensgate neighborhood.

The resolution from Councilmember Roxanne Qualls came following a study of all of the conceptual corridor alternatives by the City's Department of Transportation and Engineering (DOTE).

The alternatives were evaluated based on the local street grid, maintaining points of access, potential for reasonable understanding by the public, and potential excess land for development.

Alternatives One and Two were found to be detrimental to existing and future businesses in Queensgate, causing a significant economic loss both in jobs and in the City's tax base.

DOTE also expressed reservations about plans containing only two through lanes in each direction, preferring three.

Alternative Three was ruled out largely due to access issues, the creation of additional signalized intersections, and possible driver confusion and signage difficulties.

Qualls believes that pursuing Alternative Four will allow for a better assessment of the design to make sure that full access to Downtown, Queensgate and the West End is retained.

The resolution also says the following:

* Expresses opposition to the elimination of access to I-75 North from Freeman Avenue
* Urges the --> --> --> to develop direct access to westbound Sixth Street/US-50 from I-75 South and to I-75 North from eastbound Sixth Street/US-50
* Requests that the design of the I-75/Western Hills Viaduct interchange analyze both the study and design of Western Hills Viaduct replacement and the safety and capacity needs of McMillan Avenue

In the study, some attention was also paid to a future light rail system and how it could best make use of a new bridge and ramp system.

"Consideration could be made to accomodate light rail on the new Brent Spence alignments, freeing the Clay Wade Bailey Bridge of the potential future conflicts," the study says. "This would allow the light rail to travel on the south side of Third Street in Cincinnati to Elm Street, then travel south along the new alignment of the Brent Spence ramp system and bridge to cross the river into Covington, and proceed toward the airport along I-75."

The northbound light rail could share the structure and then travel east along Second Street, eliminating safety and capacity issues along Third Street between Elm Street and the Clay Wade Bailey Bridge.

A collection of all of the proposed alternatives can be found here.

Previous reading on BC:
Brent Spence project releases amended schedule (2/27/08)

A motion to explore an incentive program to convert multi-family properties to single-family homes has been adopted by Cincinnati City Council.

The proposal, which was offered earlier this month by Councilmember Laketa Cole, will now be studied by the City Manager's office.

Cole hopes that the program will help restore communities by replacing blighted, neglected rental units with homeownership - leading to reinvestment and an increased tax base.

Many of Cincinnati's large turn-of-the-century homes have been carved up into multiple apartments, which are often a substandard last option for their tenants.

Previous reading on BC:
Cole: Incentivize conversion of multi-families (3/18/08)

While researching a story on Market Wines for Soapbox, I managed to get a few shots of the place.

Some of you may remember this building, at at Findlay Market, as the former homes of Elder Cafe and the Moerlein Ale Haus.

Thank you to owner Michael Maxwell for his hospitality, and thanks to Matthew Wirtz and Jennifer LeMasters for giving me a tour of some of their buildings.

Please click on each image to enlarge to 640 x 480. Photos will open in a new browser window.

CarMax has closed on its purchase of the former AutoNation site in Forest Park.

The 23-acre site, (BIRD'S EYE), currently has 60,000 square feet of building space and room for 1,000 cars.

The $10 million project, which is scheduled to open in early- to mid-2009, would add 36,000 square feet to the main showroom and create a state-of-the-art service center with an inventory of 500 cars.

One-hundred full-time and 20 part-time jobs will be created.

The purchase price for the property was $6.5 million.

This will be their first Cincinnati location.

CarMax, which is headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, is the largest retailer of used vehicles in the United States with 85 superstores in 38 markets, including two in Columbus and one in Louisville.

Previous reading on BC:
CarMax could fill AutoNation site (11/6/07)

What does one do to call public attention to blighted and neglected buildings?

On Planetizen's Interchange blog, assistant Nate Berg highlights a unique approach taken by the City of Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

The city's borough of Delfshaven commissioned local artist Florentijn Hofman to paint an entireblock of abandoned buildings bright sky blue - rooftops and all - instantly making it one of the most-seen areas of the city.

The idea was to keep the building in its bright blue state until measures were taken to address it.

Do you think this is a good idea? What local buildings would you paint blue?

I'll get us started:


(CLICK)

1120 Yale Ave, Walnut Hills
Single-family

DOB: 1880
Died: March 2008
Cause of death: Bricks falling from the chimney, broken glass, collapsing gutters and holes in the roof. Pieces of the structure were falling onto the neighbor's property. In bad shape since at least 2001 and vacant for several years, it was finally condemned in early 2007 declared a public nuisance in May 2007. The house was razed by the owners.

Photo courtesy of project website

The Brewery District's newest condominium development is now in pre-sales and will break ground on April 11.

Seventeen two-story units and two one-story units in The Clyffside at (BIRD'S EYE) in Over-the-Rhine are now available, priced between $124,900 and $229,900.

The project will include townhomes, flats, and industrial-style lofts and will include luxury finishes, rooftop terraces, decks with City views and garage parking.

The 4 PM groundbreaking will coincide with the unveiling of a new Ohio Historical Marker honoring Cincinnati's brewing heritage, the rescheduled Prohibition Resistance Tour and the return of the Moerlein Ale Haus to Findlay Market.

Founded as the Hamilton Brewery in 1845, The Clyffside has housed the William S. Sohn Brewing Company, the Mohawk Brewing Company, the Clyffside Brewing Company and the Red Top Brewing Company.

The brewery buildings date from 1845 and 1887.

Sales for The Clyffside are being handled through the Comey & Shepherd City Office.

City Manager Milton Dohoney Jr. recommends that Cincinnati spends $75,000 to prepare a study and business plan on the Neighborhood Homes Initiative (NHI).

The NHI has been proposed as one solution for the local foreclosure crisis, allowing foreclosed homes to be purchased and made available to non-profit developers.

Funded by $1,245,000 from the City's foreclosure fund, the Greater Cincinnati Redevelopment Partnership, Inc. (GCRPI) would administer the NHI, acting as a wholesaler and making properties available to community development corporations (CDCs), urban redevelopment corporations, private developers and lenders for demolition, rehabilitation or re-sale.

These properties would be acquired from lending institutions, who find themselves with excess inventory and a depressed housing market.

Demand for foreclosed properties so far has been low, and CDCs have been quite selective due to the high costs required to rehabilitate them.

Under one program, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Dollar Homes initiative, CDCs receive no subsidies for rehabilitation outside of the building acquisition costs.

As a result, the City has acquired only 12 properties under this program, involving only four CDCs.

Earlier this month, staff from the Department of Community Development met with the incorporators of the GCRPI to further explore the initiative.

Questions needing further clarification included:

* Are lenders willing to donate or discount properties?
* Are there enough properties to make a significant community impact?
* What organizations and CDCs are willing to participate in the NHI?
* What methodology will be used to select properties?
* How will funds be used, and how can they be leveraged?
* What will be the process for CDC participation?

Some concerns were raised about problems that the NHI might present.

It was pointed out that many lender-owned properties are the worst the neighborhood has to offer, requiring the most money to fix.

Still others felt that the program would somehow "bail out" the banks, who shared the responsibility for creating the problem in the first place.

Funding for the study would come from the Neighborhood Property Redevelopment Program.

If approved, the study would take no more than six months.

Previous reading on BC:
Cincinnati council wants Neighborhood Homes Initiative (2/22/08)

Here's a look at some of the recent construction at the Villages of Daybreak in Bond Hill.

Action seems to be picking up (BIRD'S EYE), south of Langdon Farm Road.

The 60-acre project in Bond Hill is being built by Allen Temple + Tryed Stone Development on the former site of the Huntington Meadows housing project.

The project was the site of CiTiRAMA in 2005.

Please click on each image to enlarge to 640 x 480. Photos will open in a new browser window.





Previous reading on BC:
Poor sales may mean style change at Daybreak (11/1/07)
Villages of Daybreak photo update, 10/20/07 (10/24/07)

Horizon Community Church is close to its $21.5 million fundraising goal for Phase I of its new Anderson Township worship center.

The Madeira-based church plans to build a 160,000-square-foot facility and 1,200-space surface parking lot on (BIRD'S EYE) along Newtown Road.

Phase I, which will include a chapel, atrium, children's spaces, staff offices and a youth theater, is currently in the design phase.

Site preparation is ongoing, with the acquisition of additional fill dirt in progress.

Future phases will include an auditorium, kitchen, and a larger youth space.

The project has been approved by both the township and the county.

Previous reading on BC:
Anderson trustees okay Horizon megachurch (7/26/07)
Anderson Twp: Horizon Community Church elevation sketches (6/28/07)
Anderson Twp: Horizon Community Church project update (6/6/07)
Anderson Twp: Horizon Community Church project (5/8/07)

The federal HOPE VI program, administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, has established as a goal the de-concentration of poverty by replacing the failed public housing model with medium-density, mixed-income development.

In GOOD Magazine, writer Siobhan O'Connor uses the example of Chicago's Cabrini-Green public housing projects to ask: When you get rid of the slums, where do you put the people?

While some residents are happy that the blighted towers have been replaced, research has shown that two-thirds of Housing Authority tenants are having their applications denied.

Others, who didn't want to wait years for a new home, accepted Section 8 vouchers and moved to areas of Chicago that are even worse than the projects had ever been.

And many who could stay are being priced out by new development and a change in the neighborhood business mix - not to mention losses suffered by the severing of crucial social networks.

The redevelopment of Cabrini-Green will include 20 percent affordable units and 33 percent public housing, with the remainder selling at market rate.

When the Chicago Housing Authority completes its public housing overhaul, more than 25,000 units will have been rehabilitated or razed.

Locally, where have the former residents of our demolished West End projects gone? How many now live in City West, now that the public housing there is largely complete? What about Huntington Meadows and English Woods? Does the CMHA even know?

1502 Blair Ave, Evanston
Two-family

DOB: 1895
Died: March 2008
Cause of death: No code violations. Demolished by the Walnut Hills Alumni Foundation, likely to create more of a buffer around the campus.

The developers of Red Bank Crossing are seeking a Community Reinvestment Area (CRA) LEED tax exemption for the renovation of a 30,000-square-foot building.

Neyer Properties is developing Red Bank Crossing II as general and medical office space as part of a larger office and retail campus along (BIRD'S EYE).

Within three years, the newly-renovated building is expected to create 60 new jobs with a payroll impact of $2.4 million.

The exemption would cover 75 percent of the increased tax value of the property - or about $1,580 annually - and would be in effect for 12 years.

The developers have registered Red Bank Crossing II with the U.S. Green Building Council as a LEED for Core and Shell project.

The renovation, which is expected to cost $600,000, should be completed by July.

CRA tax exemptions for commercial developments require City Council approval, and the ordinance is currently in council's Finance Committee.

Red Bank Crossing I, an adjacent 40,000-square-foot office building, is fully leased.

The City is considering selling property it owns at (BIRD'S EYE) in Over-the-Rhine to D. Build, LLC for the development of three new condominium units.

D. Build, which consists of developers and architects Matthew Wirtz and Jennifer LeMasters, entered into a preferred developer agreement with the City in 2004 after the City offered it as one of 20 properties in its RFP (request for proposals) process.

Though the project has stalled for a variety of reasons, Wirtz and LeMasters say it's still on track.

Though the building itself is a shell, the exterior has been sealed and painted a pale yellow, and new Trex decking has been installed for all three floors at the rear of the structure.

Work on the interior of the building will start once one of the units is pre-sold, at which point D. Build will finalize a development agreement with the City.

Wirtz and LeMasters say that they plan to market the building aggressively within the next couple of months.

D. Build also owns three buildings at 1703-1707 Pleasant Street, which they eventually plan to turn into condominiums and single-family housing arranged around a common courtyard.

On Saturday morning at 8 AM, the former Zumbiel Packaging plant in Norwood was imploded.

The implosion makes way for Xavier Square, a 20-acre mixed-use development by Xavier University and the Corporex Companies that will include:

* 120,000 square feet of office space
* 100,000 square feet of retail space
* A 90-100 room boutique hotel
* 550-600 student apartments
* 120 market-rate housing units
* A university recreation center, bookstore and health center

Though short in duration, it was pretty impressive. They just needed to hold it a little later in the day.

Please click on each image to enlarge to 640 x 480. Photos will open in a new browser window.





Previous reading on BC:
Xavier moving forward with Hoff, Xavier Square (3/19/08)
Blume to discuss Xavier Square on Thursday (3/11/08)
Site features Xavier Square interactive map (2/14/08)

Cincinnati City Council has adopted a motion formally recognizing the Incline District in East Price Hill.

The motion, from Councilmember Laketa Cole, recognizes the boundaries of the Incline District as .

Properties along the northern side of Warsaw and the western side of Elberon are also included.

Approval of the motion means that the sub-neighborhood will be recognized on all City maps and planning documents.

The boundaries were approved by the East Price Hill Improvement Association (EPHIA) on December 17.

The push for the establishment of the district comes as City Lights Development has announced Incline Square, a $50 million mixed-use development near the Queens Tower that will feature condominiums, restaurants, offices, a medical office building and a revamped park and promenade.

EPHIA believes the new designation will help them better market the district to developers by focusing attention on a much smaller area.

"Price Hill is too large and too diverse to accurately describe to outsiders all that is within," EPHIA president Michael Wigle wrote in the EPHIA motion.

Wigle believes that the establishment of the Incline District will instantly give people "a sense of nostaligia" - and hope.

"The excitement around the name 'Incline District' stems from the unique aspect of this historical neighborhood," Wigle wrote. "Marked by incredible architecture, beautiful parks, natural borders, and of course, proximity to the historic Incline and the panoramic views of the Ohio River and downtown, the Incline District is an important designation because it helps to create a sense of place within the broader neighborhood of Price Hill."

In an ironic twist, City Lights Development recently razed what is believed to be the Rees Price mansion at 767 Mount Hope Avenue.

The neighborhood is named after Price, and it was his funding that built the incline.

Previous reading on BC:
East Price Hill: City Lights is not dead (4/10/07)

Is sprawl good for us, as Randal O'Toole of the Thoreau and Cato Institutes would have us believe?

In the March 8 edition of the Toronto Star, writer Christopher Hume explores the mental health effects of live in both suburbia and in densely-populated urban areas.

Hume writes about O'Toole's belief that Americans demand suburban sprawl because of our deep-seated needs for safety and privacy.

But research shows that the long commutes, loss of free time and loss of social capital can be damaging to suburbanites' mental health.

In making comparisons to urban living, Hume seems to go to great lengths to stress the social dislocation that occurs in large, dense, low-income housing projects - even arguing that, even though many of these blighted towers are being razed for mixed-income, medium density developments, residents continue to suffer from stress, anxiety and depression because they remain poor.

Completely missing from the conversation is the idea that one can live in a dense urban district and not be impoverished.

The commonly held and widely shared idea that "urban = poor" is absolutely killing our cities by causing disinvestment, avoidance, or, at its worst, disinterest.

5931 Pandora Ave, Pleasant Ridge
Single-family/Church use

DOB: 1936
Died: March 2008
Cause of death: Owned by the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. There were no building code violations. It was likely demolished for parking for the Nativity of Our Lord Parish church or school.

As part of an interview for a Soapbox story last week, Jared Wayne of Bloomfield/Schon + Partners was nice enough to give me a tour of the American Can building in Northside.

The building is part of the Factory Square project, which will house 96 market-rate loft apartments and 27,000 square feet of retail/office space.

The windowless structure is fairly clean - if not watertight - an has an assortment of old machine tools that the developers plan to incorporate into the units as furniture and art.

As you can see, it has been hit pretty hard by taggers and there is evidence of some of the concrete remediation work that's being done.

Please click on each image to enlarge to 640 x 480. Photos will open in a new browser window.










Previous reading on BC:
American Can applies for brownfields funds (10/10/07)
American Can named local landmark (8/8/07)
Scooped on the American Can story (7/19/07)
Northside: American Can Factory Square (5/16/07)
Northside: American Can Factory Square (3/17/07)