Monday, February 20, 2006
Newport Urban Village
Hey... hope you all didn't miss me too much. Combine lots of new clients at work with a trip to Las Vegas for 5 days, and that equals not a lot of blogging. I'm guessing most of you blog readers were able to survive just fine without me though :)
Newport has been in progress of preparing to re-develop the are just West of the Levee for about the past two years. Part of a Hope VI grant that allows them to disperse low-income housing throughout the community instead of concentrated in project housing. They have now moved most of the families (I think about 40 remain) from the complex, and began demolotion on Friday. This process will continue throughout the summer and finish in July.
They have an RFQ (Request for Qualification) out to local and national developers (sound familiar?). Already Towne Properties and Corporex have expressed interest (sound familiar?). The project has to be built atop parking garages so that it is at the top of the Levee and provides views of downtown (sound familiar?). The project will be on 13+ acres of prime downtown Newport real estate on the Ohio River (sound familiar?). In total the project will exceed the cost of Newport on the Levee and the Aquarium, and be a mix of condos, hotels, office and entertainment (sound familiar?). Newport is looking for the developer to cover costs of the land ($10-15 million), and demolotion another few million. (sound familiar?).
So... basically Newport is proceeding with plans to redevelop their riverfront into a mixed used neighborhood to be built from scratch. I am never one to play the Oh vs. KY, Newport vs. Cincinnati card. But let me say if they succeed in finding a developer to put up front cash to pay for garages and land and develop this site it will make Cincinnati/Hamilton County look like a bunch of fools. Here's a vote for Cincinnati cleaning up their house and getting a developer on board before Newport, and watching bothing of these urban development projects on BOTH sides of the river come out of the dirt at the same time!
Newport has been in progress of preparing to re-develop the are just West of the Levee for about the past two years. Part of a Hope VI grant that allows them to disperse low-income housing throughout the community instead of concentrated in project housing. They have now moved most of the families (I think about 40 remain) from the complex, and began demolotion on Friday. This process will continue throughout the summer and finish in July.
They have an RFQ (Request for Qualification) out to local and national developers (sound familiar?). Already Towne Properties and Corporex have expressed interest (sound familiar?). The project has to be built atop parking garages so that it is at the top of the Levee and provides views of downtown (sound familiar?). The project will be on 13+ acres of prime downtown Newport real estate on the Ohio River (sound familiar?). In total the project will exceed the cost of Newport on the Levee and the Aquarium, and be a mix of condos, hotels, office and entertainment (sound familiar?). Newport is looking for the developer to cover costs of the land ($10-15 million), and demolotion another few million. (sound familiar?).
So... basically Newport is proceeding with plans to redevelop their riverfront into a mixed used neighborhood to be built from scratch. I am never one to play the Oh vs. KY, Newport vs. Cincinnati card. But let me say if they succeed in finding a developer to put up front cash to pay for garages and land and develop this site it will make Cincinnati/Hamilton County look like a bunch of fools. Here's a vote for Cincinnati cleaning up their house and getting a developer on board before Newport, and watching bothing of these urban development projects on BOTH sides of the river come out of the dirt at the same time!
