Development expands in Cincinnati neighborhood
CINCINNATI — Two new businesses will open in the next few months at Findlay Market, and the developments might reflect more than cravings for barbecued ribs and homemade chocolates. • It’s also the latest sign that redevelopment could be coming to the next key spot in Over-the-Rhine — the blocks north of Liberty Street that so far largely have missed the area’s housing and retail revival.
For more than a decade, developers have plowed hundreds of millions of dollars into the neighborhood south of Liberty Street bordering downtown. Now, fortunes might be starting to turn north, drawn by the streetcar’s development, a growing brewery district and rising realestate costs south of Liberty.
More activity would be welcome news to Findlay Market — a community anchor for a neighborhood eager to shed its downtrodden image.
The market’s nonprofit operator and city officials last week held a news conference to announce that Eli’s BBQ and Maverick Chocolate Co. will open soon in newly redeveloped storefronts.
And in the next few years, more tenants are expected to fill redeveloped spaces as part of a resurgent retail district between Elm and Race streets, said Joe Hansbauer, president and chief executive of the corporation for the market.
“People believe there is positive energy moving in that direction,” said Greg Olson, president and chief executive of Over-the-Rhine developer Urban Sites. Development south of Liberty has proven so successful that most early criticism has been quelled, he said.
“People saw what happened south of Liberty and most people missed (it),” said Olson, whose firm has developed about 250 housing units and manages more than 330 in that part of Over-the-Rhine.
“They say to themselves, ‘I don’t want to miss out on an opportunity north of Liberty.’”
So far, redevelopment north of Liberty is spotty at best. The neighborhood there includes more than 200 vacant buildings, said John Deatrick, Cincinnati’s streetcar-project executive.
The neighborhood is dotted with old industrial buildings and warehouses in significant states of disrepair, yet many of those properties house businesses ranging from woodworking shops to productdesign studios to tire stores. Well-tended homes are interspersed among many neglected ones. Barricades have been erected on McMicken Avenue to deter prostitution and other illicit activity.
The Cincinnati Center City Development Corp. (3CDC), the largest developer in Overthe-Rhine, isn’t talking about its plans north of Liberty. Spokeswoman Anastasia Mileham said the group still has a lot of work remaining on projects to the south.
3CDC’s efforts there include an office-and-retail project at 15th and Vine streets and a $25 million project at 15th and Race streets to add 300 parking spaces, 57 apartments and more commercial space.
Still, it’s no secret that 3CDC has purchased properties north of Liberty, including the Globe Furniture Building on Elm Street, with an eye toward redeveloping them.
Kim Starbuck and her husband, Kevin Pape, are among the newer pioneers north of Liberty. They bought the Crown Building, across Elm Street from Findlay Market, in 2011. A lot of sweat equity later, the couple now benefits from the increased interest being shown around the market.
Their building’s upper office and apartment spaces are fully leased, they say. And Pape said the couple is in talks to fill the restaurant space on the building’s first level.