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Shopping Centers Today -> October 2001
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CINCINNATI IN MIDST OF RETAIL REVITALIZATION
By Debra Hazel
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| Much of the retail development in Cincinnati has focused on the Ohio Riverfront area, where a mixed-use development called The Banks is planned. |
Race riots generally turn off investment in housing and retail. Los Angeles has taken almost a decade to recover from the 1992 Rodney King unrest (SCT, May 2001). But that isn’t the case with Cincinnati.
As public officials, financing institutions and development companies gather for ICSC’s Greater Cincinnati Alliance Meeting, being held Oct. 16 to 17 at the Hyatt Regency Cincinnati, they will find that the Easter weekend riots of 2001 have not deterred development plans in this still-growing city and its surrounding areas.
“Every city that has gone through unrest had been on the downside; we’re on the upside,” said Stanley Eichelbaum, SCMD, president of locally based Marketing Developments Inc., an ICSC trustee and a co-chair of the Alliance Meeting.
Unemployment in June totaled 4% for the city, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and more than 30 new residential or retail projects, including restaurants, were announced over the summer, he noted.
City government has made funds available to help businesses damaged during the unrest, and is working on the social issues that helped it arise, according to City Planner John Shirey. This allows Cincinnati, in partnership with the governments of nearby towns in Kentucky and Indiana, to concentrate on its years-long effort to revitalize the region’s housing and retail.
Much of the work has been focused on the Ohio Riverfront area, which has been linked more closely to Cincinnati’s downtown by the construction of better surface connectors along Fort Washington Way, the main thoroughfare connecting I-71 and I-75.
“It was just awful, very high risk, with a high accident rate,” Shirey said. Improving the road also allows easier access from nearby Newport and Covington, Ky., on the other side of the river.
Cincinnati’s largest development is The Banks, a mixed-use complex incorporating housing, specialty retail, boutique hotels, offices, parks and pedestrian plazas on the city’s riverfront between the upcoming new football and baseball stadiums. Proposed by the Cincinnati Riverfront Advisory Commission in late 1999, the project is now in the requests-for-qualifications phase. The project is expected to open in phases from 2003 to 2006.
Another city focus has been encouraging residential development in the downtown through tax-increment financing. Eventually, that should help retail, commercial and entertainment development, Shirey added. Major retailers also are looking at various city neighborhoods.
“All of these chains are going to look at downtown. They’re all in some areas in the market and are anxious to see what happens,” said Charles Townsend, principal of locally based developer/brokerage firm Anchor Associates, a Chain Links member that represents The Gap, Old Navy, Borders Books and Best Buy, among other retailers.
Nearby areas also are benefiting. Columbus, Ohio-based Steiner + Associates’ 500,000-square-foot Newport (Ky.) on the Levee near the new Newport Aquarium, opening Oct. 3, is bringing restaurants, shops, a Gameworks, a 20-screen cinema and an IMAX theater to the other side of the river. A pedestrian bridge will join existing vehicular links in allowing people to go to and from the Cincinnati ballparks and Newport.
“It’s the right time: So much is going on along the Ohio riverfront,” said Barry Rosenberg, Steiner vice president.
The project will service a growing and more affluent population. In the past five years, Ashland, Omnicare and Fidelity Investments have joined Toyota’s North American headquarters in locating in the region.
“There’s been a lot of development in urban areas, and some talk of upscale retail for Northern Kentucky,” added Michael Hammons, president of Covington, Ky.-based Forward Quest, which is working on more than 40 different projects focusing on economic and urban development. Higher-end residential development is well along in Covington.
All of this bodes well for the October meeting, and for the region long-term.
“It’s great,” Townsend said. “Tell everybody to come.”
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