For the first time in history, Northside’s upper and lower business districts are poised to unite. Plans are in motion for a bridging urban development built on local businesses, street-scaping at the intersection of Hamilton Avenue and Blue Rock Street, and a residential and commercial development in the now vacant Myron G. Johnson & Son Lumber Company site.
Fifteen years ago,
Robert Sala bought the building on the northeast corner of Hamilton and Blue Rock. The second-floor windows of Sala’s architecture firm's offices look across Blue Rock into the vacant, grassy lot of the former lumberyard. On the first floor, diners at
Django Western Taco watch the chaotic scrambling among the four turn lanes and accompanying pedestrian “lilypads” at the intersection of the main thoroughfare of Hamilton. That divide brings an acute sense of disconnect from the district beyond Blue Rock.
“As a neighborhood person, I tend to have an interest in development,” says Sala, who moved to Northside in 1990 and has been working to improve his property and play an active role in the community ever since.
He bought the building adjacent to 4046 Hamilton Ave. in 2003; it housed Shoetopia until 2009. He’s now adding a
Robert Fronk frieze to the Django building and renovating the second with hopes of renting it for entertainment space—maybe a microbrewery, an ice cream parlor, a coffee shop. For Sala, the prospects for the new development around his corner are immense.
“It’s finally going to work out to fill out this block the way the grid is meant to be,” he says, referring to plans to reshape the intersection into a standard ‘T,’ and the new development that will create what he calls an “urban wall.”
The irregularity of the intersection at Hamilton and Blue Rock has its roots in the railroad spur that used to cut diagonally through it. Now, as part of the Northside Arterial Project, there is federal funding for streetscaping to “get rid of triangular islands and create a more normal intersection,” says Martha Kelly, principal engineer of transportation planning for the City of Cincinnati.
The $400,000 streetscaping project also involves carving a left-turn lane into the lumber site for traffic to be able to turn off Blue Rock into the shared parking lot of the
American Can Lofts and the pending lumberyard development. The idea is to reduce congestion, particularly with the upcoming closure of I-75, and because the lumber yard development will give more people a reason to turn left.
“Basically, it’s a safety issue,” Kelly says.
Plans have passed through the first three stages of development and are close to finalization, she says. Funding for the project will become available in 2015.
For Sala and his restaurateur tenants, the new geometry of the intersection is exciting. Not only will it be more walkable, but the elimination of turn lanes will open new sidewalk space with potential for outdoor restaurant seating.
“You’ll see people sitting out front, like real urban nightlife, instead of sitting invisible on a deck tucked behind the building,” Sala says.
This extra piece of sidewalk real estate provides an important link from Sala’s property to the vacant lumber site across Blue Rock, which has been a point of contention over the years.
Family owners of the Myron G. Johnson & Son Lumber Company took their business to Queensgate in 2004, and their lot in Northside has been vacant ever since. Sala, then president of the
Northside Business Association, was vocal in preventing Walgreens from occupying the space in 2005. He argued that the pharmacy was not a “mixed-use building,” as zoning codes stipulated the space must be, and that its street-side parking lot would only solidify discontinuity between the upper and lower business districts.
“We have very urban values, meaning no chains," Sala says. "We wanted a neighborhood-type business."
On May 20, the
Northside Community Council approved a development agreement with Indianapolis-based
Milhaus Development for a near $11 million mixed-use building with 100 apartments and 7,500 square feet of first-floor commercial space. Current plans have the building at four stories tall where it meets the street, collapsing to three stories as it extends back in an L-shape toward the American Can Lofts, with which it will share parking. Concrete plans are projected to begin in spring 2014.
“We’re designing it to fit what the neighborhood is asking for: a project that is as unique as Northside is,” says Jake Dietrich, project developer for Milhaus Development. The designs and aesthetics are still fluid, but Milhaus is moving forward in line with Northside’s historic conservation guidelines, which stipulate: “Compatibility of new work to original work is required, but imitation of old work in new construction should be avoided.”
“We’re designing to respect neighboring architecture, and fit the current time period,” Dietrich says. Milhaus Development also recognizes the neighborhood’s priorities and wants to maintain the local business trend. There are plans for a raised outdoor retail plaza around the first floor, with extra space for restaurant tables and chairs at the corner of Hamilton and Blue Rock, a complement to the proposed outdoor space around Django Western Taco in Sala’s building.
“Just because the development’s new doesn’t mean we want to change the types of business,” Dietrich says. “We’re hoping to fill the space with local, neighborhood businesses.”
Aside from being the first new multi-unit development in the district, the building will also bring the first new commercial space and some of the only residential spaces not in older homes.
“The last time we had a new retail space was probably 50 years ago,” says Bruce Demske, owner of
Ellanet and current president of the Northside Business Association. He sees the modern development as a niche for new tenants that may not fit the older retail spaces, and a chance for local businesses to grow in new directions.
“I think this is a good development with a good plan for the site, one that’s committed to the neighborhood,” he says.
The plans for development come at a time of potential. The second round of the successful
CoSign project will add 10 new custom-designed signs to the neighbood over the next year after getting a national boost from
ArtPlace America. Cincinnati City Council voted in February 2012 to give Northside
“Community Entertainment District” status, supplying new, more affordable liquor licenses to prospective restaurants. Add to that the streetscaping, dining on the square,
farmers markets in nearby Jacob Hoffner Park, and the “urban wall” effect linking the two districts, and the once-awkward Hamilton and Blue Rock intersection is shaping up to be the Northside business district’s focal point.
“Northside has a strong sense of place,” Sala says. “I try to constantly improve my building and attract interesting tenants that will contribute to the community.”
With his building in the current lynchpin position, he’s looking for a tenant to make his newly renovated property complement Django and energize the square.
“We don’t need just another office where people put blinds in the windows,” he says. “Northside’s about a village mentality, a place where people know each other and share a collective spirit.”