Downtown progress
So, I was having lunch yesterday at Palomino with Jennifer Nagel, exec director of the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra. We asked for a window seat, so we could overlook the new Fountain Square, to be opened with great fanfare next weekend, Oct. 14.
Well, it still is pretty much a hard hat area, with construction cranes hard at work, and workers scurrying around like there's no tomorrow. I'm just wondering how it can possibly be done in time -- and if so, where are they going to put the entire Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra?
Then as I walked back to the office through a very empty Carew Tower, which is rapidly losing tenants, it wasn't a very heartening experience. We can all hope the developers and city planners will pull through as planned, with loads of wonderful boutiques and restaurants to fill these empty spaces. But how many actually have signed contracts at the moment?
So today I picked up my New York Times and saw the story, "Meet Me in Revitalized Downtown St. Louis." There, a downtown shopping mall is being turned into mixed-use retail and condos. Across town, a $650 million "Ballpark Village" is being planned around the new Busch Stadium, home of the Cards. The old Post Office building, now condos, has 60 new retail establishments -- restaurants, bars, banks and stores, that have opened around it.
Let's revisit the stories of two weeks ago in the Enquirer. Let me know how you think we should revitalize our downtown -- and get it done. E-mail me at jgelfand@enquirer.com, or post a comment here.
posted by Janelle Gelfand at 11:24 AM
4 Comments:
at 10/05/2006 01:37:00 PM 
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at 10/12/2006 05:32:00 PM 
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at 10/15/2006 12:34:00 PM 
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at 10/16/2006 12:18:00 PM 
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Post a Comment*Apparently some of the revitalization is stalled due to lack of available liquor licenses. Amazing that so little advance thinking took place over the years to allow this to happen.
Think I'll just keep hanging out on the other side of the river.
Yes, I read that as well about the liquor licenses.
It indicates that a lot of thought was put into the cosmetic, superficial reworking of Fountain Square, but not the practical realities.
Another reality...we need services downtown. A dry cleaner that's open on Saturday past noon, multiple options for buying real groceries -- one cannot exist on the Walgreens food aisle alone! Yes, we have Findlay (thank goodness) but we need something south of Central Parkway.
Being a native of Cincinnati, and having lived other places, I think I see some old, old, characteristic flaws at work here:
1) An institutional inability to think comprehensively (liquor license comment, above, points to this).
2) Transportation, transportation and transportation. It needs to serve the old Cincinnati neighborhoods and boundaries efficiently and frequently, and stop worrying about how people will get out to distant suburbs. Those people have very effectively deserted Cincinnati proper, and presumably have other forms of transportation - often two cars.
Therefore, there should be inexpensive, parking at the perimeter of the city (West End? Camp Washington?) with free/inexpensive city shuttle buses into downtown at least for events and possibly all the time. We were just gouged TERRIBLY for parking when attending Tall Stacks, making the orange and green $1 parking signs a flat out lie. No cohesive thinking.....
3) Ancillary services as described by the drycleaning comment, to create a whole, small WALKABLE town as it used to be. Man does not live by expensive, showy restaurants alone, but rather only on birthdays and other special occasions. We usually want a good hamburger at a reasonable price while we're on our way to shop for a pair of shoes.
4) The perception of crime and the reality of crime.
Perception:
Fox News sounds like the police blotter - no analysis of City Council decisions or police reactions, nothing. And Fox is now mainstream in its popularity and can't be shrugged off as tabloid, though it may be.
Reality:
A police presence which is proactive in its community policing: walking a beat, developing a strategy which even involves the Federal agencies of the DEA, AFT, etc. to stem the tide of actual incidents. Has our new mayor (for whom I voted) published a crime reduction program? If he has, I am unaware of it. Our city has had a bunker mentality since 2001 where we can go to be defensive about our collective failure that year. That's our essential conservatism showing forth - we made no changes that I am aware of, except for some police oversight committees.
Thinking about the core of the city, not just obsessively about "downtown" would be smart also. When downtown has events, why aren't there complimentary activities simultaneously in Eden Park at Mirror Lake, for example, with shuttle buses to and fro? (Ten minutes?)
I hope that this is not too political for a cultural blog, but again, they are too closely intertwined to be separated.
Baby, if you've ever wondered ...
It starts with a love of the city.
Too many people have stopped loving.
...wondered whatever became of me.
How many times have you heard it called "The Nast"? That is what people think of Cincinnati.
I'm livin on the air in Cincinnati ...
Bring a friend the next time you go downtown. It's actually really nice there. :)
I love the Queen City!!
... Cincinnati WKRP!! :)
Seriously though, if people could make it a point to go downtown once per month, I think they'd be all around happier. We're focused on our McLives ... not spending quality time with family and friends, which could be happening downtown. We just need to make sure that when these people do come down, that there are things for them to do, places for them to go, and people for them to see.
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