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Cincinnati: West End: TQL Stadium


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FC Cincinnati, Music Hall companies have an agreement

 

FC Cincinnati and the companies that use Music Hall have an agreement “in principle” on the issue of noise potentially entering the venerable venue during performances, the Business Courier has learned. 

 

It’s unclear what the details of that agreement with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Cincinnati Opera, the May Festival and the Cincinnati Ballet are, and it is just one pact that FCC likely will have to strike in order to see its development plan and a key land sale clear the Cincinnati City Council today.

 

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2019/02/13/fc-cincinnati-music-hall-companies-have-an.html?iana=hpmvp_cinci_news_headline

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Council OKs land swap deal with FC Cincinnati

 

Cincinnati City Council approved a land swap deal with FC Cincinnati on Wednesday but delayed a vote on the development plan and zoning change for its Major League Soccer stadium while outstanding issues between the club and two other parties are negotiated.

 

The vote was 7-0 to allow the land swap, with Vice Mayor Christopher Smitherman and Councilman Chris Seelbach being absent, although Seelbach said he asked to be recorded as a yes afterward. It came after an intense week of backroom meetings and arm twisting, with incredible political pressure brought to bear by some of Cincinnati’s richest citizens, who either have interest in the club or the arts organizations at Music Hall.

 

A “good neighbor agreement” between the club and the Music Hall companies over potential noise incursion from the stadium into performances was reached earlier in the day.

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2019/02/13/council-oks-land-swap-deal-with-fc-cincinnati.html

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On 2/11/2019 at 1:35 PM, taestell said:

So, with the city leasing some spaces in the Towne Center garage to the Streitmann Center, and leasing out the entire garage to FCC on game days, it seems that the decision has already been made to keep the deteriorating garage around for the foreseeable future instead of redeveloping that block into some mixed-use development that incorporates a replacement garage.

 

The situation with the Town Center garage keeps getting weirder.

  • Cincinnati Public Radio is leaving the building but WCET has not yet announced any plans to move
  • The weird plaza on the north side of the garage will be demolished to make way for a new parking lot for CPD
  • The remaining portion of the skywalk will be demolished, hopefully putting to rest any hope of it ever being rebuilt
  •  The city's agreement with FCC states that "if the city decides to demolish and redevelop the site, the fee will be prorated based on how many games it can be used. Once the garage is redeveloped, the city will make 500 spaces available in the new facility."
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3 hours ago, taestell said:

The situation with the Town Center garage keeps getting weirder.

 

I think it's safe to assume private conversations are being had between the involved parties. As far as I can tell, seems like everybody wants the garage replaced, so it's a matter of figuring out when it happens, where WCET goes, what (in addition to parking) goes into the new structure, and how the ownership is structured. 

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Behind the negotiations: FC Cincinnati, Ballet point fingers

 

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FC Cincinnati and the Cincinnati Ballet issued dueling statements on Wednesday night after the City Council delayed voting on the club’s stadium development plan and zoning change, in part because FCC had not reached a satisfactory agreement with the ballet. 

 

The two organizations are at odds because the ballet has seven years left on its lease of its West End headquarters and an adjacent parking lot with a 10-year extension. FCC owns the property after buying it for $25 million from Tristate Wholesale Building Supplies. 

 

The growing ballet wants a long-term agreement for how it and the club can co-exist and thrive during that period or for FCC to help fund its move from the site. FCC’s planned development calls for redeveloping the ballet’s parking lot, with the club offering to build the organization replacement parking and saying it would otherwise honor the lease. The ballet also has a study detailing how noise from the stadium, which will loom over the ballet’s headquarters, will affect its operation and wants a resolution on that. 

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2019/02/14/behind-the-negotiations-fc-cincinnati-ballet-point.html

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"You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers

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City, FC Cincinnati, Port to finalize deal with West End restaurant owner

 

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Cincinnati City Council will vote Thursday on a deal to aid a former West End restaurant owner displaced by the construction of FC Cincinnati’s Major League Soccer stadium with the city expected to kick in $75,000 of an overall financial package.

 

Monica Williams of Just Cookin’ restaurant, which was located within the stadium footprint, will receive the city aid from an emergency fund, which the city will pass through the Urban League of Greater Southwestern Ohio, according to an ordinance filed by Councilman Greg Landsman.

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2019/02/20/city-fc-cincinnati-port-to-finalize-deal-with-west.html

"You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers

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I have a feeling that the Enquirer is going to really start pushing this narrative that Cincinnati has an "anti-business climate" and it's the libruhls on City Council who are to blame. You can tell that the Chamber is behind this effort as they recently announced that they're going to start giving each city council a letter grade to score them on how "pro-business" they are.

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Yeah, Council is just soo anti-business that GE is moving hundreds of jobs from the suburbs to downtown. WTF does anti-business even mean? In a city that is largely dependent on its earning tax, I don't think any city official is "anti-business."

Edited by edale
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10 minutes ago, edale said:

Yeah, Council is just soo anti-business that GE is moving hundreds of jobs from the suburbs to downtown. WTF does anti-business even mean? In a city that is largely dependent on its earning tax, I don't think any city official is "anti-business."

I think a large part of this is because they keep cutting staff at their downtown location, and it's easier to move personnel to the downtown location to avoid paying back huge tax incentives Cincinnati gave them.

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Yeah I assumed that might be part of the reasoning, too. But would GE have even opened the operations center in the city if it was a bad business climate? They already have the massive operation in Evendale, and could have easily built out space there for the new operations center.

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I love how Jason Williams started out by attacking AOC. He's basically just a political hack at this point, not that he was ever much of a serious reporter. 

 

I've been a supporter of this stadium and using the funds to help build it but having it delayed by a week or two to make sure all parties involved are happy isn't bad business or extortion. It's good governance. 

 

This is just another example of The Enquirer finding some new way to shit on the city and running with it to get suburban clicks. 

Edited by cincydave8
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13 hours ago, ryanlammi said:

I think a large part of this is because they keep cutting staff at their downtown location, and it's easier to move personnel to the downtown location to avoid paying back huge tax incentives Cincinnati gave them.

Where are your figures coming from? At least the business courier couldn't find figure post 2017 for employment, when it stood at 1400. They mentioned that it was a goal to get to 1800, but they never said they went to 1800 and then dropped 400 people.

 

The actual material in the article references GE leadership where they talk about how the banks facility and area is a great environment for the type of workers they are trying to attract and need to interact to build complex solutions. These are high paying jobs for people figuring out how to run GE engines more efficiently and safely, and write software that scales to the global enterprise. You don't just put those jobs out in an Evendale office park, any more than you tie one hand behind your back before a fight.

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They didn't drop all the way to 400 but they fired a lot of people and stopped hiring.  I know people that work there and even after they brought a couple hundred people from aviation last year they're still not using three floors in the building.  They're bringing more people from aviation down so they don't have to start paying back money to the city.  Once their stock cratered they stopped hiring so they were never going to get up to 1,800 employees downtown.  

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How does Jason Williams think cities like NYC, Boston, Seattle or anywhere in California manage to get businesses?  He's a completely biased hack and I don't even read his articles anymore.  I'm sure he managed to knock the streetcar in that article like he always does.  

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FC Cincinnati, ballet strike a deal to move stadium plans forward

By Chris Wetterich  – Staff reporter and columnist, Cincinnati Business Courier

Feb 21, 2019, 1:48pm EST Updated Feb 21, 2019, 2:29pm EST

 

 

FC Cincinnati and the Cincinnati Ballet have struck a deal to co-exist for the time being. The agreement cleared the way for the Cincinnati City Council to approve the club’s development plan for its Major League Soccer stadium and needed zoning changes on Thursday afternoon.

“This good neighbor agreement protects the integrity of Cincinnati Ballet for the next 17 years should we remain at our current location on the corner of Central Parkway, as the agreement addresses many of our issues relating to parking, access, noise, operations, and others,” the ballet’s statement said.

 

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7 hours ago, Cincy513 said:

How does Jason Williams think cities like NYC, Boston, Seattle or anywhere in California manage to get businesses?  He's a completely biased hack and I don't even read his articles anymore.  I'm sure he managed to knock the streetcar in that article like he always does.  

 

You can't make a man understand something when his paycheck depends on his not understanding it. Our mayor went to college in one of the most dense and transit-rich cities in America and he doesn't seem to understand either of those things either.

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Guest jmecklenborg
8 hours ago, Cincy513 said:

How does Jason Williams think cities like NYC, Boston, Seattle or anywhere in California manage to get businesses?  He's a completely biased hack and I don't even read his articles anymore.  I'm sure he managed to knock the streetcar in that article like he always does.  

 

He just isn't a very smart guy.  Listen to him on the radio or watch his videos on youtube and it's obvious that he's just not that bright.  That's why somebody whispered in the Enquirer's ear to make him the local politics reporter. 

 

This is reason #99 why losing the Cincinnati Post was a big deal.  It's pretty easy for a local force to influence one paper but a lot tougher to smother two of them. 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
Guest jmecklenborg

You have to admit that it'll be pretty incredible if the Jehovah's Witnesses simply refuse to sell and the lower sliver of this scene remains unchanged. 

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 3/5/2019 at 10:29 PM, jmecklenborg said:

You have to admit that it'll be pretty incredible if the Jehovah's Witnesses simply refuse to sell and the lower sliver of this scene remains unchanged. 

 

Is the theater still not demolished? Does FCC still not own the building yet to tear it down?

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19 hours ago, troeros said:

Populous have designed some very sexy stadiums recently. Gives me some hope for the West End. Also, can't wait for monday to see the updated renderings!

 

As nice as some have been, I think it is important to recognize that sometimes the initial and final products are wildly different, as can be seen with Audi Field.

https://www.si.com/planet-futbol/2016/01/27/soccer-stadium-renderings-design-changes

 

I hope we still get a very nice stadium, but I personally feel the first design for Audi Field was so much more appealing than the final product.

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3 minutes ago, TraderJake said:

I hope we still get a very nice stadium, but I personally feel the first design for Audi Field was so much more appealing than the final product.

 

It's always more appealing in the rendering. This is actually a big problem with the architecture industry today IMO. For example, t's really easy to render ETFE on an entire stadium for an image or two. Getting it to work in the project and getting the client to pay for it is a different story. Usually the realities of a budget cause the designs to fall flat compared to their conceptual artistic imagery.

 

But the issue with competitions is that the most provocative imagery usually wins. This climate causes firms to create renderings for extravagant structures that they know will never pan out that way in the end...

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FC Cincinnati has new architect for its $250 million West End stadium

 

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FC Cincinnati has selected a new architecture firm to work on the construction phase of its $250 million West End stadium.

 

Kansas City-based Populous, which is one of the largest firms in the nation and a top sports architecture firm, has been selected for this next phase of work. Meis Architects had created the stadium design.

 

Lizz Summers, vice president of communications for FC Cincinnati, said Meis Architects delivered a “groundbreaking” design. Now, Populous is coming in for the building phase of the project. She said Populous is experienced in MLS and soccer-specific stadiums.

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2019/03/29/fc-cincinnati-has-new-architect-for-its-250.html

"You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers

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I have heard from two sources that Dan Meis over promised and under deliver multiple times to the ownership team.  The overall design and aesthetic ended up not being what ownership wanted  from the design. I can only hope that Populous will create something impactful. My thinking is it will be something that can be  paired down and made affordable when construction cost balloon...

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Understand that they are highlighting the stadium in the renderings, but would really love to see a render with the background buildings colored in too. 

 

The number of "people" in the in-stadium shot looks way too high to me as well.

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There are more renderings on Business Courier that show it with the orange 'turned off' showing the silver form of the building. I don't know how to embed images from their tricky slideshows:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2019/04/04/fc-cincinnati-releases-new-stadium-renderings-as-a.html?iana=hpmvp_cinci_news_headline#g/452217/3

 

It also states "LED lights will backlight the PTFE membrane and function from dusk until 1a.m. each day according to the documents".

Edited by ucgrady
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  • 2 weeks later...

Final FC Cincinnati sound study: Changes needed to stadium, Music Hall

 

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The final version of an FC Cincinnati stadium noise study concludes that measures will need to be taken at both the stadium and within Music Hall to eliminate the possibility of patrons hearing outside noise if games or concerts are occurring at the stadium at the same time as performances.

 

According to Music Hall’s noise study, the proposed ribbon design of FC Cincinnati's new stadium is "essentially ineffective as barriers to noise propagation.”

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2019/04/15/final-fc-cincinnati-sound-study-changes-needed-to.html

"You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers

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40 minutes ago, troeros said:

 

Interesting. Wouldn't mind honestly to see the police station land redeveloped honestly.

 

Not a terrible idea, probably create another substation for District One somewhere in OTR or CBD besides the closet in The Banks. If they were to use the Permit Center site, hopefully they would buy the Rest Inn and demolish it. 

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New and Updated renderings are out. 

West Side Entrance:

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Stadium originally looked like Bayern Munich's Allianz Stadium to me but is now starting to give me Tottenham Hotspur Stadium vibe. 

Edited by cincydave8
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