The Greens brings hotel, FBI headquarters to Kenwood

The Greens at Kenwood is a new $100 million project featuring a new office and hotel campus located right off of the I-71 ramp near Kenwood Towne Center. The campus will consist of two Class A LEED certified office buildings, a 160-room hotel, a structured parking garage for more than 800 cars, and a $47 million LEED Silver certified FBI division headquarters.

The FBI building broke ground in November 2010 and will be completed by the end of 2011 while the rest of the campus is scheduled for completion by 2015. Neyer Properties, the commercial real estate developer behind this project, used a new advanced technological 3D animation tool to demonstrate the plans to the public.

"I think it's a kind of an enhancement to demonstrate this project with 3D animation because in today's world, one has to provide a picture of what it will look like through animation so people can touch it and feel it before it's built. The quality is much better and people can visualize what it will look like in the future," Dan Neyer, President of Neyer Properties, explained.

The project features a large amount of green building characteristics. Neyer Properties plans to install solar photovoltaic panels on the roofs, which will reduce overall operating expenses for tenants. Daylight and light shelves will be installed over windows to maximize the amount of natural daylight in the building, reducing utility bills more than 30 percent compared to traditionally constructed buildings. Also, the reuse of water for irrigation purposes on campus and use of energy recovery wheels to reduce the amount of exhaust in the air during construction are both important green qualities.

The Greens will not only help Kenwood as a neighborhood but also Cincinnati as a whole, Neyer explained. Having the FBI headquarters located in Kenwood demonstrates that the neighborhood can compete for other national institutions like the FBI and large corporations. Being visible along I-71 gains The Greens exposure to over 140,000 cars per day, demonstrating that Cincinnati has the ability to grow.

"Having strong architectural buildings along I-71 signifies to people coming in or through Cincinnati that it's a vibrant town with a lot of energy and positive attributes along the way. It speaks volumes for the entire region, not just Kenwood alone," Neyer said.

Writer: Lisa Ensminger