The future of the Fay Apartments is in doubt, and the City is exploring its options should the West Side complex close down.

A recent report issued by City Manager Milton Dohoney, Jr is the result of a March 5 motion by City Councilmember Jeff Berding, signed by councilmembers Chris Monzel and Chris Bortz, asking the City Solicitor to look into any possible recourse that the City has should owner Stern-Hendy Properties, Inc.default on the terms of a sales and operations contract, and what is the likelihood of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) closing the apartments for good.

Fay Apartments is an 893-unit complex of affordable rental units located (BIRD'S EYE), just south of I-74 and west of the community of South Cumminsville that includes:

* 650 units of project-based Section 8 rentals
* 128 units under a Moderate Rehabilitation contract through the Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority
* 112 market-rate units

In 1982, the City of Cincinnati acquired the property from HUD and sold it to Stern-Hendy for $1 per unit in 1986.

Since that time, the City has provided nearly $1.2 million in loans to rehabilitate and upgrade the units.

With interest, the balance of that loan now stands at $4.2 million.

In late 2005, Stern-Hendy had proposed to sell the development to the National Housing Trust, a not-for-profit organization whose goal is to preserve the nation's affordable housing stock.

The National Housing Trust requested a $7 million gap financing loan to assist with its $65 million acquisition and redevelopment cost, which included the $35 million renovation of the Fay Apartments and the assumption of some of Stern-Hendy's debt.

Following the sale to the National Housing Trust, the market-rate units would have been eliminated and the Moderate Rehabilitation contract would have been replaced with a project-based Housing Assistance Program contract.

The National Housing Trust had planned to re-create the complex as a series of smaller "urban villages", with new kitchens, bathrooms, and air conditioning to be installed in all of the units.

Stern-Hendy would continue to maintain the buildings and grounds.

Despite a reconfigured, two-phased housing plan that would have lowered the initial cost to only $20 million, the National Housing Trust couldn't make the numbers work.

On March 6, Stern-Hendy alerted the City that the National Housing Trust had dropped out of the project entirely.

Trouble in the mortgage market is blamed for killing the deal.

As a result of the financial shakeup, large banks, as well as the federally-backed lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, stopped buying low-income housing tax credits, making most affordable housing redevelopment projects impossible.

Although Stern-Hendy promised the City an updated proposal for the complex, there has been no contact between the two parties since.

Spokespersons for Stern-Hendy have said on several occasions that without renovations, they would have to shut their operations down.

"Now this same developer is seeking more - $10,000 a unit," Berding wrote in a statement accompanying his motion. "It's difficult to determine the proper course of action when the only other option that has been presented by the owner is to close down the complex, leaving hundreds of tenants without a home."

The original sale agreement between the City and Stern-Hendy states that the Fay Apartments must be operated as low- to moderate-income housing, under HUD regulations, until the year 2018.

The agreement also says that Stern-Hendy must maintain a minimum number of units on the site, and cannot demolish any units below that minimum without City permission.

If the complex does close, it will likely be by Stern-Hendy's choice.

The property has remained in compliance with HUD regulations and quality standards and is up to City code.

If Stern-Hendy opts to close the Fay Apartments, the City would declare all outstanding notes due and payable and would begin the process of relocating tenants.

"The City Solicitor should be prepared to exercise the City's legal rights to hold the owner accountable to the original agreement while the administration determines the necessary orders needed for improvements in the quality of life for tenants," Berding wrote.

Cincinnati City Council has voted unanimously to sell a building near Findlay Market to a developer who plans to create the area's first market-rate homeownership units.

Urban Studio LLC, formerly known as D. Build, LLC, wants to convert the vacant building at (BIRD'S EYE) into 3 condominiums.

The Urban Studio LLC development team of Matthew Wirtz and Jennifer LeMasters entered into a preferred developer agreement with the City in 2005 after the building was offered as one of 20 properties in the City's RFP (request for proposals) process.

The building is currently a shell, but has had its exterior improved with pale yellow paint and a new multi-level Trex deck.

Wirtz and LeMasters have said that they soon will begin aggressively marketing the condos, and work will commence on the interiors once one of the units is pre-sold.

The pair also own three buildings across the street at 1703-1707 Pleasant Street, which they eventually plan to rehabilitate into condominiums and single-family housing arranged around a common courtyard.

They say that their eventual goal is to provide both apartments and homeownership units along Elder Street and on the streets surrounding the market house.

Previous reading on BC:
City may sell 1720-1722 Pleasant Street for redevelopment (3/26/08)

Photo courtesy of user

Cincinnati City Councilmembers Roxanne Qualls and Chris Bortz have introduced a motion that all City public rights-of-way be preserved, including alleys.

The new policy would not permit the sale of any public right-of-way unless the contract contains a reverter clause allowing the City the option to regain ownership, or if they right-of-way is a paper street.

A search of City Council records shows that six ordinances requesting the sale of public alleys have come before council in the past two years, and all six passed.

A report from the City Manager's office on the impact of such a move is due before City Council on Tuesday.

Photo courtesy of user

With only 15 percent of today's children walking or biking to school, is there anything that landscape architects can do to change that?

In the April 15 edition of LAND online, a news digest produced by the American Society of Landscape Architects, editor J. William Thompson asks if landscape architects are part of the problem, making their money on the exurban fringes instead of modernizing older schools in walkable neighborhoods.

Saying that today's children have a "nature-deficit disorder", Thompson takes suburbs to task for their physical layouts - the lack of sidewalks, the wider crossings, the faster traffic - which is says is a product of parental fear that one's child could be snatched up by a predator.

He also lays blame on state governments that require minimum acreages for school siting, often requiring school districts to find former farmland or other far-off parcels to accommodate the acres of parking and other "campus" ephemera.

The National Safe Routes to School Program, which has been funded with $612 million in federal transportation dollars for the period 2005-2009, is attempting to show communities how to plan, build, and maintain safe walking routes to school.

Will this program make a dent in our current way of building, and can landscape architects be expected to do more with all of the constraints that we've put on them?

One year ago today, Circle Development submitted its final development plan for Madison Circle to the City Planning Commission, and I highlighted Spring Grove Cemetery's Heritage Foundation Weekend Walkabout tours.

Incidentally, the Spring Grove tours start again this weekend.

Cincinnati City Council has voted unanimously to amend the planned development district (PD-43) created for The Banks in order to make it consistent with the master development agreement.

The amendment sets the height limit of any buildings in the development at 20 leasable floors and 4 floors of above-ground parking, or 24 floors in total.

Council took action to align both documents after receiving a communication last December from attorney Joseph Trauth Jr. of Keating Muething & Klekamp, on behalf of several Downtown property owners, alerting them that PD-43 still contained language that would allow buildings of up to 30 floors.

Both PD-43 and the master development agreement were approved by City Council on the same day last November.

The amendment will have no real impact, as the master development agreement would have automatically prohibited the City from approving any structure taller than 24 floors.

Previous reading on BC:
EDC to discuss Banks heights Tuesday (4/18/08)
Council likely to amend Banks PD (1/21/08)
PC to discuss Banks height limits (12/6/07)
Banks: 24 floors, or 30? (11/19/07)
Dumbest opinion piece ever (11/12/07)

Photo from CFDHistory.com

Cincinnati City Council unanimously approved a motion by Councilmember Laketa Cole to sell the old Engine 9 firehouse to the Cincinnati African American Firefighters Association (CAFA) for $1.

CAFA has expressed interest in turning the facility at (BIRD'S EYE) into a meeting facility for their members and a safe house for neighborhood children, complete with a learning center where students can obtain homework help.

A new, LEED-certified Engine 9 was dedicated in February.

In a letter to council requesting the sale, CAFA president Harold Wright says that Engine 9 is the most significant firehouse to their organization, with many members having been directly involved in its daily operations.

"And most importantly the symbolic remembrance of our fallen brother and CAFA member Oscar Armstrong III who gave the ultimate sacrifice to save the lives of others," Wright says.

In October, CAFA will host a regional conference of African American firefighter chapters, and Wright believes that obtaining the old Engine 9 firehouse would help put a positive stamp on the event.

"This would send a powerful message that the organization and the City of Cincinnati worked towards a common goal, to help CAFA purchase its first building," he says.

Renovations to the building, which was built in 1929, would be paid for by federal grants.

Ordinances and documents required to move forward with the sale are due before council by the end of May.

Previous reading on BC:
Cole wants Engine 9 sold to African American firefighters (3/6/08)
Cincinnati's first LEED-certified public building opens today (2/27/08)

The Pendleton Neighborhood Council will be hosting a building tour of the School for the Creative and Performing Arts (SCPA) and a discussion of neighborhood blight on May 5.

The two-hour event begins at 6 PM with a brief introduction to Pendleton by neighborhood council president David White, followed by a quick history of the area provided by neighborhood resident Chuck Downton.

The tour of SCPA, which was formerly the old Woodward High School, will be led by SCPA artistic director Dr. Isidor Rudnick.

Following the tour, a discussion of blight, vacant structures and landlord issues will be led by Ed Cunningham, supervisor of existing building inspections, and Jennifer Walke, community development and planning analyst, from the City's Department of Community Development.

Both will be on hand to discuss specifics and to raise awareness of the available funding programs that their department provides.

Parking is available in the SCPA lot at , Over-the-Rhine.

RSVP by May 2 to David White at

This rusted CSX bridge near Spring Grove and Ralston is representative of the condition of many others in our region Photo courtesy of the Camp Washington Community Council newsletter, March 2008

The March 2008 issue of the Camp Washington Community Council newsletter (PDF) has brought up the idea of a City-wide effort to beautify our many neglected railroad bridges.

Community organizer Joe Gorman reports that his neighborhood has joined the hundreds of other communities throughout the country that are dealing with rusted railway bridges owned by the CSX Corporation.

Gorman uses as an example the CSX bridge near (BIRD'S EYE), which is rusty, has crumbling concrete, and drips water onto whatever passes below.

"I wish we could do an inventory of blighted bridges in Cincinnati and how that affects neighborhood revitalization," he says.

So far, CSX largely has chosen to pay fines instead of maintaining and painting its bridges.

Keep Cincinnati Beautiful has offered to paint some of the bridges, and was told that they could - as long as they provided their own paint and labor.

"In Philadelphia, City leaders have embarked on a bridge-painting effort that is artful, fun, and important to the aesthetics," Gorman says. "Perhaps we can lead a city-wide effort to beautify bridges here in Cincinnati."

CSX has over 25,000 bridges in the United States, though no public inventory is known to exist.

"Could you imagine if those bridges got painted because of some thing cool we did in Cincinnati?" Gorman says.

Change or die.

That's the advice given by Richard Longworth in Caught in the Middle: America's Heartland in the Age of Globalization, reviewed recently on Next American City.

The book chronicles the rapid change in the Midwest - of rural economies that are becoming increasingly automated and corporate, and of urban economies that have been undergoing a long period of deindustrialization.

According to Longworth, we Midwesterners are our own worst enemies. We cling to mediocrity, crave normalcy and stability, resent outsiders, and resist any challenge to our comfortable world view.

Longworth chooses Chicago as one city that has weathered this kind of thinking, still able to attract the young and the creative, even through periods of job loss.

The suggestion for the rest of us - be less provincial, work regionally, and compete globally.

Yeah, right. Here in Cincinnati, someone from Hyde Park can't even agree with (or relate to) someone from Price Hill.

By the way, where did you go to high school?

A working group created by Lieutenant Governor and Ohio Department of Development (ODOD) director Lee Fisher to address issues with the Ohio Historic Preservation Tax Credit (OHPTC) has submitted its suggestions for the future of the program, including ideas on how to handle the dozens of unfunded projects.

On March 13, ODOD announced that the initial $120 million in funding for the OHPTC program had been exhausted and the two-year pilot program would be closed, after only 37 of the 115 submitted applications were approved.

The legislation creating the OHPTC, Sub. H.B. 149, set a cap on the number of projects per year, but not on the dollar amount.

As a result, some developers were put in the precarious position of having obtained fee simple ownership of their properties to qualify for the program, then having the source of funding for their projects pulled.

After hearing concerns from applicants and stakeholders, Fisher appointed a working group on April 3 to begin looking at language for a proposed new tax credit program and to identify possible sources of financial assistance for projects that were left out of the money when the former program was unexpectedly closed.

Among the suggestions of the working group, which included local members Chad Munitz of 3CDC and Tim Voss of Middle Earth Developers:

* Investment in Ohio will come with effective incentives, a high level of confidence, and fewer restrictions. States without dollar caps see the highest level of investment and participation.

* Approve all qualified projects waiting in the queue with the $120 million in funding expected to be allocated in 2009-2010. Because the development community has lost confidence in the program, a re-worked tax credit program will not be effective until this is resolved.

* Change the requirement for ownership from fee simple to "master tenant". Doing so would attract more projects.

* Do not restrict or penalize projects that chose to begin construction during the tax credit review process.

Earlier this month, a group of five developers filed a writ of mandamus with the Supreme Court of Ohio to compel ODOD to address projects still in the queue, saying that they have a "clear legal right" to have their applications approved.

A summons and complaint has been served to ODOD, Fisher, and state historic preservation officer Dr. William K. Laidlaw, Jr., but no arguments have yet been heard in the case.

The Ohio Historic Preservation Tax Credit is equal to 25 percent of qualified renovation and rehabilitation expenditures, refundable when the project is complete and generating tax revenue back to the state.

The 91 submitted applications that were not withdrawn or denied represent over $1.1 billion in construction for Ohio.

They are also believed to create more skilled labor jobs than new construction, and have the added benefit of ridding municipalities of buildings that are drains on their communities.

Estimates are that every dollar the state invests, four dollars are leveraged from other sources.

On Friday, the Cleveland Plain Dealer featured an editorial calling for the removal of the $120 million cap and a reinstatement of the program.

"Many, if not most, of these projects in urban cores around the state won't get done without this credit," the editorial says. "More than half of the states in this nation have such a credit. And they've got it for the same reason Ohio put it in place: It makes money."

Little has been discussed locally about the tax credit program - or preservation in general - in the Cincinnati Enquirer, the City's newspaper of record.

The stories of the writ of mandamus and of a recent pledge drive to save Meiners Flats were ignored*, and the article on preservation that appeared yesterday was pulled from the AP wire.

CORRECTION: I have been informed that the Enquirer did post this article about the writ of mandamus on April 14.

* Aside from a guest editorial by Margo Warminski

Previous reading on BC:
Ohio developers file writ with Supreme Court over tax credit program (4/11/08)
Cincinnati, SW Ohio projects may receive historic tax credits after all (4/3/08)
SW Ohio largely bypassed by failed tax credit program (3/18/08)

During the first event of the Green Bags Eco Lunch Series, I was treated to a tour of the LEED Silver-certified home at (BIRD'S EYE) in Hyde Park.

The $1.525 million new build by John Hueber Homes includes 11 rooms, four bedrooms, four full baths and 2 half-baths, as well as a two-car rear garage.

A full, finished basement includes a bar and wine rack and is expansive enough for a family room, game room or media room.

The house also incorporates such eco-friendly features geothermal heating, a water purification system with low-flow fixtures, Energy Star windows, appliances and fixtures, orientation toward natural light, and oak floors grown sustainably by an Appalachian collective - all with the added bonus of a 15-year tax abatement.

The property has been on the market for 14 months.

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















Previous reading on BC:
ENCORE debuts eco-lunch series, real estate blog (4/23/08)

The Banks Blog has made its debut, thanks to the efforts of Brianne Fahey and Suzanne Hanners of Live Green Cincinnati.

"The plan is to walk down the street to take interesting weekly photos of The Banks, and pepper it with clever (and with any luck, funny) anecdotes and observations," Fahey says.

A post yesterday compared The Banks with the Scioto Mile project in Columbus:

"Cincinnati and Columbus compete like two siblings. If I may make a bold prediction, I think that our sibling rivalry and state-sharing will lead Ohio to become one of the most exciting states in the union within the next decade (or so)."

Heady stuff! Let's join them as they chronicle the progress of this exciting project....

A new study released by the Cato Institute says that, over the last 15 years, cities in the United States have spent $100 billion on new rail transit projects and claimed that it would reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but that these projects never meet their promised reductions.

The Urban Land Institute's Ground Floor blog outlines Cato senior fellow Randal O'Toole's argument about why rail transit is ineffective at reducing carbon dioxide emissions, including:

* That rail transit does not operate in a vacuum, often requiring feeder buses with low ridership, increasing emissions and costs per passenger mile

* That powering buses with hybrid-electric motors, biofuels and electricity and using smaller buses on less-popular routes is more effective

* That less fuel will be wasted by building roads, instituting variable tolls, and coordinating traffic signals

* That switching 1 percent of commuters to switch to hybrid-electric cars will cost less and save more energy than getting 1 percent of them to switch to transit.

A blog called Raze the Ladder says that O'Toole's findings are flawed because his fuel efficiency numbers include both urban and highway driving, transit's ridership and efficiency numbers have been driven down by decades of subsidies for drivers, and he fails to take into account the lower environmental impact that transit allows - namely, urban living.

5949 River Road, Sayler Park
Heavy manufacturing/warehouse

DOB: 1959
Died: April 2008
Cause of death: Containing four buildings with a total of 20,000 square feet, this property was sold in late March by the Delhi Foundry Sand Company for 100,000. The smallest of the buildings, at 1,440 square feet, had been vacant and open for several months and was razed by the new owner.

Led by residents of Walworth Avenue, the Columbia Tusculum Community Council (CTCC) has asked to have their concerns about the proposed 75-unit Village at Walworth Avenue townhome development addressed.

Residents of the CTCC are still awaiting word on a list of questions supplied to the developer Miller-Valentine Group, the City's Department of Transportation and Engineering (DOTE) and the Cincinnati Park Board.

To build the development (BIRD'S EYE), they would need to acquire 2.4 acres of wooded land owned by the Park Board, which would be replaced by 2.5 acres of common park land within the development.

This would allow them to develop the project as detached townhomes on both sides of Walworth, rather than clustered, attached housing on only one side of the street.

The CTCC voted to support the sale of the park land, if permanent public access could be provided to Riverside Drive from the outset of construction.

Several public hearings will be held before the land sale can be finalized.

Questions submitted for consideration mainly concerned the traffic impacts during and after construction, including:

* The need for feeder streets, especially when the number of residences on Walworth will more than double
* The accommodation of emergency vehicles on a narrow, dead-end street
* How traffic flow will be managed for the intersections of Delta, Walworth, Riverside and Kellogg
* The impact of a street widening on existing properties
* Supplying enough resident parking on the eastern end of Walworth to make sure it isn't absorbed by Precinct patrons

Residents also wonder about construction noise and dust, and wonder if narrow streets such as Hoff Avenue and Andrews Street can handle the heavy equipment.

Greg Long, supervising engineer at DOTE, says that a traffic impact study will have to be completed before most of CTCC's questions can be answered.

Issues have also been raised over the land itself, which was previously used as a railroad switching station.

Some are questioning whether there may be some environmental contamination, to what degree, and whether this will affect their properties during construction.

Not only are residents worried about a construction timeline that could last 4 to 5 years, but are also worried that a housing slump could leave the site cleared and undeveloped for years.

And other than knowing that there will be 75 units, the locals don't know much else about what to expect from the project as far as size, scope, or timeline.

Andrew Holzhauser, president of the Columbia Tusculum Community Development Corporation, says that the neighborhood response has been generally positive, and that Miller-Valentine has acknowledged the concerns.

"They'll have to get them worked out with or without the Walworth residents because no bank will give them a loan, nor will people buy the houses, nor will City Transportation & Engineering approve if traffic and other issues aren't resolved," he says.

Doug Hine, president of urban lifestyles for Miller-Valentine, believes that the project will build upon the nearby Columbia Square development by adding residential density.

The project has not yet entered the design phase and is at least a year from beginning construction.

Prices for the units are expected to be between $400,000 and $600,000.

The City of Forest Park has chosen the Kentainer Demolition Group to raze the vacant Kmart/Daffin property on Waycross Road.

Kentainer, which had previously been hired by the city to demolish the 680 Northland building, was chosen in a council work session on April 14 and was approved by the City Council on Tuesday.

Kentainer bested six other bidders for the contract, coming in with an estimate of $139,000 - nearly $10,000 lower than the next lowest bid and nearly half of the highest bid.

Demolition will involve removal of the buildings and parking lots at (BIRD'S EYE), as well as site grading and seeding.

The city saved money on the contract by having its Public Works and Building departments perform some of the preparation work, including a full environmental audit, the removal of fluorescent light bulbs and exit lights, the removal of mercury thermometers, the removal of underground car lifts and the removal of the Freon-containing HVAC units.

The Kmart property has been vacant since 1994.

City officials see this site as an opportunity for a mixed-use gateway project that will eliminate blight and create a more positive impression as one enters the city along Waycross Road.

Ideas for redeveloping the site have included marketing the Kmart/Daffin site in a package with adjacent Thriftway/Civic Center Plaza site, owned by Phillips Edison & Company, to create a much larger project, with infrastructure financing coming from the creation of a tax increment financing district.

No demolition date has been announced.

Previous reading on BC:
Commissioners okay Forest Park annexation (8/3/07)
Forest Park: Kmart redevelopment (5/23/07)