Let's Do The Math about the Riverfront

I agree that, while the Levee has potential, it needs to have some real home-run hitters and so far it doesn't. I had thought the Cheesecake Factory would be a good fit, but they slapped it in Kenwood. A Rainforest or something like that would help. Bottom line is, it needs more or else it will fail.

As for the Riverfront, I agree that a nice park would have been the best bet. Other cities have them. We do not.

That said...

I think we're forgetting something in all of this. Cincinnati, while I love it, is rather stoic in its ways. And what I mean by that is, we can put all kinds of "trendy" things left and right; at the end of the day, we're still Cincinnati, and we are anything but "trendy." The people who live outside the city don't want to come into the city. And I don't see that changing anytime soon.

Without trying to start an argument here reason, Sawyer Point and Yeatmans Cove are allready park sites where there are summer fest and concerts held on the riverfront.

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For those unfamiliar with the aformentioned Millennium Park in Chicago...

MILLENNIUM PARK

My post worked in a kinda different way.
I'm cool with some greenspace or some sort of city historical park, but THEY NEED TO DO SOMETHING!


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As for the Riverfront, I agree that a nice park would have been the best bet. Other cities have them. We do not.

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">With Yeatman's Cove, Sawyer Point, Bicentennial Commons, and now the new Peace Park, I'd say Cincinnati has done a rather nice job of creating greenspace on the riverfront. Unfortunately, what people notice most is the empty space directly in front of downtown.

People mistakenly think Cincinnati has no plan. Oh there's a plan, and the plan is a mistake. Instead of rehabbing the nation's largest historic district that is Over the Rhine, the plan is to build an entirely new neighborhood on a platform in the middle of a floodplain.

It's ambitious and all, but it is a floodplain. Build the platform and in 40 years there will be major structural damage due to the fact it was built in a floodplain, and these structures seem to have a very limited life span. We all saw the mess that was the Riverfront Stadium parking garage.

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A Rainforest or something like that would help.

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I wish I had kept that bond prospectus. The list of tenants that had signed letters of intent was entirely different than what ended up in the Levee. I don't remember the details, but by chance I happened to talk to someone who worked with the leasing of the Levee, and was told that someone involved with the process screwed up and prospective tenants were lost.

If anyone ever has gone to Columbus to see Easton Town Center should know that the developers are the same. But somehow, the retail mix ended up being entirely different.

Another thing that I remember when reading the bond documents was that the parking was deemed inadequate from the very beginning. I distinctly recall being chastised by a NKY booster and Ft. Thomas friend of mine for criticizing The Levee shortly after it opened because I told him there were going to be significant parking problems.

Coincidentally, there is a letter to the editor in today's Enquirer about the parking problems.