Cincinnati: West End: TQL Stadium

[Guest jmecklenborg]

410 Wade St., a small free-standing garage on the same side of the street as the condo conversions, just sold to a developer for $40,000.  This seller didn't check comparable sales, apparently, or else they'd know that two recent sellers got more than that for similar pieces of land.  

[jwulsin]

1 hour ago, jmecklenborg said:

410 Wade St., a small free-standing garage on the same side of the street as the condo conversions, just sold to a developer for $40,000.  This seller didn't check comparable sales, apparently, or else they'd know that two recent sellers got more than that for similar pieces of land.  

They could have signed a sales contract a long time ago. 

[Lucas_uLsac]

Providing the stadium looks anything like that, I'd be pretty pleased. I'm glad they're going with more neutral grey colors and a more simple contemporary look to help contrast it from its historic surroundings. I just hope they don't ruin the frontage along Central Parkway by setting it 5 miles off the street and 5 stories above it. 

[Guest jmecklenborg]

11 hours ago, jwulsin said:

They could have signed a sales contract a long time ago. 

 

Possibly.  It'll be crazy to see if the Jehovah's Witnesses were conned or if they haul away a wheel barrow full of $100 bills. 

 

So far the biggest sale, by far, was Tri-State's $25 million haul for their warehouse and unused lawn.  The total footprint was about 620x160, or the equivalent of about 50 25x80-foot single-family lots.  They sold for the equivalent of $500,000 per single-family lot.  So FC paid far more in total and by the square foot to buy out Tri-State than they did to build a replacement high school stadium for Taft. 

 

North of the stadium, Vision West End Realty paid the equivalent of $107,000 per lot for the  7 lots covered by the unused cinder block building between Wade and Bauer. 

 

 

 

 

[Jimmy Skinner]

BTW, the Taft Stadium is moving really quickly. I saw bleacher/grandstands going up yesterday and masonry construction for the locker rooms etc moving quickly too.

[ColDayMan]

FC Cincinnati to meet with West End residents, won’t comply with council motion

 

Jeff Berding, president and general manager of FC Cincinnati, said the team will meet as soon as possible with residents of two buildings near its more than $250 million stadium but it won’t comply with Cincinnati City Council’s motion to move residents from one of those West End buildings to another.

 

Berding made the comments during a media roundtable on Thursday afternoon.

 

“This process has certainly been more complicated and involved than I ever anticipated,” Berding said.

 

At the beginning of April, City Beat reported on FC Cincinnati’s purchase of 421 Wade St., and 1559 Central Ave., from Fred Berger. According to theCincinnati Enquirer, a total of 17 people have or will have to relocate from those properties, which are just north of the stadium site.

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2019/04/26/fc-cincinnati-to-meet-with-west-end-residents-won.html

[Chas Wiederhold]

Just my opinion: I think Council is doing the right thing by withholding the zoning approval. It's not like FC Cincinnati is going to stop building their stadium. I haven't thought out what type of precedent a move like this sets, but I think standing up for renters in this situation is a strong moral position.

[Guest jmecklenborg]

We're years into this and construction has begun but the team has never, ever released an actual working site plan or anything but the most vague suggestions for what might be built north of the stadium or between it and the parkway. 

 

We also haven't heard what the team and developers plan for the scattered historic buildings between Wade and Liberty St.  Are all of these buildings going to be demolished?  Is scorched earth the plan?  

 

 

[Cincy513]

If the team owns the buildings I think a good assumption would be that they're going to be demolished.  That way if any of them aren't demo'd you'll be happy.  

[Guest jmecklenborg]

42 minutes ago, Cincy513 said:

If the team owns the buildings I think a good assumption would be that they're going to be demolished.  That way if any of them aren't demo'd you'll be happy.  

 

They could turn the Jehovah's Witnesses church into a credit union with a drive-thru ATM:

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.1120904,-84.52397,3a,35.4y,122.99h,93.19t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sUN0auIU1a7Gx5BfRYIo7cA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

[taestell]

5 hours ago, ColDayMan said:

“This process has certainly been more complicated and involved than I ever anticipated,” Berding said.

 

Cry me a river.

[taestell]

2 hours ago, jmecklenborg said:

We're years into this and construction has begun but the team has never, ever released an actual working site plan or anything but the most vague suggestions for what might be built north of the stadium or between it and the parkway.

 

Exactly. The least they could do is provide a basic, up-to-date site plan showing where the stadium will go, where the plaza-type areas will go, and where other new buildings will go. The team ownership has basically steamrolled through this entire process, and now that they are facing a slight bit of resistance from City Council and the neighborhood, they are playing the victim.

 

Just like Yvette Simpson was thrown under the bus for questioning Children's Hospital's neighborhood-demolishing expansion, several current council members will be thrown under the bus for "dragging their feet" on the stadium.

 

This is why the business community desperately wants a strong mayor. They want to be able to make one phone call and get it done. They do not want to interact with 9 City Council members. They do not want to have to talk to the community. They want to be able to steamroll and get their project done before anyone has time to ask questions.

[Guest jmecklenborg]

5 minutes ago, taestell said:

This is why the business community desperately wants a strong mayor. They want to be able to make one phone call and get it done. They do not want to interact with 9 City Council members. They do not want to have to talk to the community. They want to be able to steamroll and get their project done before anyone has time to ask questions.

 

 

The right thing to do with these residents is to put them up in nice apartments and pay for their move.  But they didn't do that because they wanted this controversy.  It's a way to make people pick sides and separate the loyalists from the people who actually care about people other than themselves and their cronies.  

[SleepyLeroy]

I wonder if Berding's "We dont want to be landlords we are a soccer team" bit will bite him when they start building hotels or restaurants on FCC land and become landlords. Just landlords of people of their choosing and that line their pockets with rent money. FYI they are a business that happens to play soccer as their product. They are WAY more than 'just a soccer team'. I really want to like this team and support them but darn if they don't keep making that hard.

[taestell]

I had the same reaction to that comment. "We are a soccer team" ... sure, but they're also a major real estate developer at this point, too. They're building a soccer stadium as the "anchor" for this new district, and they surely plan to surround it with new apartments, retail, offices, etc.

[thebillshark]

I am appalled at the number of FCC fans and others online who are eager, even gleeful, for the teams’ billionaire ownership group to evict this 99 year old woman and her neighbors (whose lack or resources gives them very few options)  from their homes because “property rights” or “renters” or somesuch nonsense.  The team made a promise that they wouldn’t displace anyone and they are breaking it. They need to at the very least provide generous assistance to atone for it. 

 

(Berding made the comment yesterday his promise was in response to activists who had spread flyers in CityWest to the west of the stadium, falsely claiming they would be evicted.  But I guess if they had spread flyers to the north, the activists would have been correct?) 

 

Berding’s angry entitlement is palpable in every press conference. He absolutely shouldn’t be the face of this going forward. They should let Mallory handle everything. 

 

Edited April 26, 2019 by thebillshark

[Guest jmecklenborg]

Again, the Cincinnati media is amazingly lazy and doesn't understand politics or real estate or team ownership.  I called this whole thing more than a year ago because they were clearly following the model of the Nashville MLS stadium.  All you had to do is look at what John Ingram was pushing on the Nashville Fairgrounds and there was the formula for what FC Cincinnati is doing with public land in Cincinnati.  Laid bare.  Completely obvious.  

 

Plus, all of the business about Cincinnati Public Schools distracted everyone from the future of District 1 HQ.  All you had to do was look at CAGIS and see that the CPD owns a ton of land -- some of which was inside the stadium footprint -- in addition to the HQ building itself, situated prominently at the corner of Central Parkway and Ezzard Charles.  

 

And now we see that the whole mold and bed bug business with the supposedly cancer-causing District 5 building on Ludlow was an excuse to move District 1 HQ toward District 5, likely the old Permit Center on Central Parkway that was briefly floated as the future home of District 5 but might now become District 1.  

 

In the middle of this is the hapless Jason Williams.  

 

 

 

[climberguy714]

I'm a little confused about the drama associated with the news of this today. Isn't the law for eviction that you have to give 30 days notice and that's pretty much it? Don't know why fc Cincinnati doing it is any different than any other landlord, unless I'm missing something. Is it typical that landlords have to pay to relocate their tenants if they want to change the building to a different use or demolish?

[jwulsin]

9 hours ago, climberguy714 said:

I'm a little confused about the drama associated with the news of this today. Isn't the law for eviction that you have to give 30 days notice and that's pretty much it? Don't know why fc Cincinnati doing it is any different than any other landlord, unless I'm missing something. Is it typical that landlords have to pay to relocate their tenants if they want to change the building to a different use or demolish?

The process for getting a Planned Development approved (or expanded) requires approval by both the planning commission and city council. That’s why this is different than in the case of just one building changing hands and a new owner choosing to not renew leases (which happens all the time). The additional oversight here is precisely because these larger Planned Developments have significant public impact (infrastructure dollars, impact on surrounding community, etc). 

Edited April 27, 2019 by jwulsin

[10albersa]

11 hours ago, climberguy714 said:

I'm a little confused about the drama associated with the news of this today. Isn't the law for eviction that you have to give 30 days notice and that's pretty much it? Don't know why fc Cincinnati doing it is any different than any other landlord, unless I'm missing something. Is it typical that landlords have to pay to relocate their tenants if they want to change the building to a different use or demolish?

 

The drama is there, not because of any legal reasons, but because this site was chosen specifically by Lindner and they made promises left and right to get it done. They're already showing to be flaky (Just Cookin' and now this) and now council needs to hold their feet to the fire.  Berding not being able to control himself and use the "we are a soccer team" line in frustration just shows how much they don't give a shit.

 

If they didn't want to put up with this crap, they could have built a cooler stadium for less in Newport, but Lindner can't fathom having money go to the other side of the river.

 

I'm so glad we passed on season tickets, I really don't want to support FCC's ownership.

Edited April 27, 2019 by 10albersa
More ranting

[taestell]

As a landlord, you can evict a tenant relatively easy here, unlike other cities/states that have much stronger protections for renters. But that's not really the point here.

 

The point is that FCC wants to buy all of the buildings surrounding their stadium that are largely residential. Then they want to kick out the renters. Then they want to ask City Council to rezone those properties from residential to PD (planned development) which puts those properties in the stadium site footprint. Then they want to build ??? there...as we discussed earlier, the team has not been forthcoming about their specific plans for those properties.

 

Of course, all of this is coming after the team promised that the new stadium would not cause gentrification or displacement in the West End.

 

And the whole point of putting the stadium in the West End is because they wanted an urban location ... but they somehow didn't realize that if they built a stadium in an urban location, they would have neighbors.

[Ucgrad2015]

5 hours ago, taestell said:

As a landlord, you can evict a tenant relatively easy here, unlike other cities/states that have much stronger protections for renters. But that's not really the point here.

 

The point is that FCC wants to buy all of the buildings surrounding their stadium that are largely residential. Then they want to kick out the renters. Then they want to ask City Council to rezone those properties from residential to PD (planned development) which puts those properties in the stadium site footprint. Then they want to build ??? there...as we discussed earlier, the team has not been forthcoming about their specific plans for those properties.

 

Of course, all of this is coming after the team promised that the new stadium would not cause gentrification or displacement in the West End.

 

And the whole point of putting the stadium in the West End is because they wanted an urban location ... but they somehow didn't realize that if they built a stadium in an urban location, they would have neighbors.

I agree with you but I also think at the same time people who live in the area of the stadium should have realized that this would happen. If I lived in the west end close to the stadium development I would assume that at some point during the construction of the stadium that I would have to relocate. Even if they did not buy those properties you’d think that at some soonish point after that, someone is going to want to either renovate or demolish the building. 

[Cygnus]

FC Cincinnati yanks final development plan for now

 

FC Cincinnati has pulled its final development plan from the Cincinnati Planning Commission until its new architect finishes the design for its Major League Soccer stadium in the city’s West End, according to a statement from the club.

 

Populous, the new architect, was hired in March to complete the design.

 

“FCC will pursue final planned development approval for the exterior after the design revisions are incorporated and reviewed by the community design committee, community coalition, community councils as well as our neighbors at Music Hall and the ballet,” the team’s statement said.

 

Cont

[RJohnson]

cincinnati, "let my stadium go, go down cranley tell ol pharaoh, let my stadium go". Quit bickering over someone relocating and a little noise. Instead of roadblocks the city should be happy Cin. was picked and the MLS  decided to build here. Put up signs, widen streets, fix the damn potholes and roads. Then maybe someone will want to open up shop here.

[Pdrome513]

Cincy wasn’t “picked.” MLS has certain criteria for expansion and Lindner invested enough to satisfy them. The expansion “competition” is a ruse perpetrated by marketing professionals who know what they’re doing. We shouldn’t be bullied into a bad solution just because mighty MLS deigned to accept us. Nor is FCC helped by trotting out its petulant scaremonger of a GM to address issues that are sensitive to the community. All Berding does by pounding his fist on the table and getting fussy is make me believe he’s intentionally misleading the public. 

[Brutus_buckeye]

On ‎4‎/‎27‎/‎2019 at 9:57 AM, taestell said:

As a landlord, you can evict a tenant relatively easy here, unlike other cities/states that have much stronger protections for renters. But that's not really the point here.

 

The point is that FCC wants to buy all of the buildings surrounding their stadium that are largely residential. Then they want to kick out the renters. Then they want to ask City Council to rezone those properties from residential to PD (planned development) which puts those properties in the stadium site footprint. Then they want to build ??? there...as we discussed earlier, the team has not been forthcoming about their specific plans for those properties.

 

Of course, all of this is coming after the team promised that the new stadium would not cause gentrification or displacement in the West End.

 

And the whole point of putting the stadium in the West End is because they wanted an urban location ... but they somehow didn't realize that if they built a stadium in an urban location, they would have neighbors.

What city council is doing is disgraceful. Yes, people will have to move. That is inevitable whether FC Cincy owns the buildings or a private landlord. Gentrification is a good thing. It means neighborhoods left to die are seeing reinvestment. You cant reinvest in a neighborhood without turning some of it over. The Buddy Gray, Josh Spring idea of keeping a neighborhood solely for the poor yet at the same time expecting capital come in to support it does not work. You cant have it both ways. 

[taestell]

So maybe the team shouldn't have promised that the new stadium would not cause gentrification and displacement?

[Brutus_buckeye]

^ Why build it if it will not help the area gentrify? You have a crime ridden neighborhood wasting away that needed a catalyst for development and this is that catalyst. A few renters have to move. Whether it is FC or an enterprising landlord, the results would be the same. There is a reason why OTR has become a destination. It is because the smart city leaders realized the likes of Buddy Gray and Josh Spring were a bunch of giant know-nothings and quit listening to them. Now, you have an urban core that is coming back.

 

The key is that you need city leaders that can do the right thing instead of just pandering to a special interest class who constantly comes with their hands out asking for a cut that they are not entitled too thus derailing the potential deal. if I were in Lindner's position, I would have taken my money and stadium to NKY with city council acting as irresponsible as they were and still are.

[RJohnson]

(Cincy wasn’t “picked.” MLS has certain criteria for expansion and Lindner invested enough to satisfy them. The expansion “competition” is a ruse perpetrated by marketing professionals who know what they’re doing. We shouldn’t be bullied into a bad solution just because mighty MLS deigned to accept us. Nor is FCC helped by trotting out its petulant scaremonger of a GM to address issues that are sensitive to the community. All Berding does by pounding his fist on the table and getting fussy is make me believe he’s intentionally misleading the public).

 

Now that is quite a take on this situation. Linder uses payola, the competition was a ruse by people who know what they are doing, etc. If you are right, how did you get this info?  If what you say is true, shouldn't Linder be sued by someone? Maybe Sacramento or, Detroit. Then there is the 99 year old woman who has to be moved. Think of it this way: its gonna be noisy, dusty, smelly. By moving her she may get peace and quiet. 

[Pdrome513]

It's the opinion shared among most people who follow MLS expansion.  There isn't a cap on the number of teams they'll allow in, the bids just have to satisfy certain criteria. St. Louis isn't getting in over Sacramento next round because St. Louis somehow "won" an expansion slot over them. Sacramento doesn't have billionaire ownership, so it doesn't satisfy that criterion. If it did, they would have an MLS team along with St. Louis. What often gets missed in this MLS expansion discussion is that satisfying the criteria is very difficult, so it creates the illusion of competition where there isn't any. That illusion is abetted by marketing professionals (i.e. MLS) who put on a show of pitting the cities against each other to attract interest in the league and get more and better bids, which in turn generates more revenue. 

 

Granted, I don’t have inside info that any of that is exactly the way it is. But it’s the most rational explanation of what rational, profit-driven people would do given the inputs, so it’s what I expect they’re doing. 

 

 

Edited April 30, 2019 by Pdrome513

[cincydave8]

5 hours ago, Pdrome513 said:

It's the opinion shared among most people who follow MLS expansion.  There isn't a cap on the number of teams they'll allow in, the bids just have to satisfy certain criteria. St. Louis isn't getting in over Sacramento next round because St. Louis somehow "won" an expansion slot over them. Sacramento doesn't have billionaire ownership, so it doesn't satisfy that criterion. If it did, they would have an MLS team along with St. Louis. What often gets missed in this MLS expansion discussion is that satisfying the criteria is very difficult, so it creates the illusion of competition where there isn't any. That illusion is abetted by marketing professionals (i.e. MLS) who put on a show of pitting the cities against each other to attract interest in the league and get more and better bids, which in turn generates more revenue. 

 

Granted, I don’t have inside info that any of that is exactly the way it is. But it’s the most rational explanation of what rational, profit-driven people would do given the inputs, so it’s what I expect they’re doing. 

 

 

What? There is absolutely a limit on the number of teams MLS will bring in. Most likely MLS will stop 30 or 32 like the other major leagues in North America. Any city can bid assuming they have the money. Sacramento DOES now have a new ownership group and most likely you'll see both Sacramento and St Louis in for the next round. Beyond that places like Las Vegas, North Carolina, Detroit, San Diego and Phoenix will be the big final bidders. 

 

As far as FCC, I'm not sure what they thought would happen when they bought the apartment building. Clearly it was going to upset people, especially if it's not needed for the actual stadium. The critics of FCC and the stadium will jump on anything to point out how it's a bad deal or whatever, so why FCC would give them something so obvious as buying an apartment building full of low income renters is beyond me. Of course, many of the critics will hate FCC and the final stadium plan no matter what. Jeff Berding also, clearly, needs to just shut up at this point. IMO, FCC needs to either figure out what they're doing or hire a PR firm. 

[thebillshark]

33 minutes ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

^ Why build it if it will not help the area gentrify? You have a crime ridden neighborhood wasting away that needed a catalyst for development and this is that catalyst. A few renters have to move. Whether it is FC or an enterprising landlord, the results would be the same. There is a reason why OTR has become a destination. It is because the smart city leaders realized the likes of Buddy Gray and Josh Spring were a bunch of giant know-nothings and quit listening to them. Now, you have an urban core that is coming back.

 

The key is that you need city leaders that can do the right thing instead of just pandering to a special interest class who constantly comes with their hands out asking for a cut that they are not entitled too thus derailing the potential deal. if I were in Lindner's position, I would have taken my money and stadium to NKY with city council acting as irresponsible as they were and still are.

 

I've publicly spoken in meetings in favor of many developments Josh Spring has been opposed to.  I've even got up and asked angry neighbors to keep an open mind about this stadium.  My (naive) hope was this FCC would have a delicate hand with this stadium and try to integrate itself into the existing urban fabric (after all, they were attracted to the "urban core" in the first place), but it appears that is not turning out to be the case.  Although FCC refuses to lay the cards on table regarding their plans, it's becoming apparent the idea is to bulldoze the surroundings for parking lots.  That's bad.  Like I've said before, those blocks of Wade and Bauer streets and that little stretch of Central Ave. could be equal to any street in Over the Rhine if they infilled around the historic buildings.  

 

As far as helping the existing tenants goes, while there may be no legal requirement to do so, it's the right thing to do.  Assuming a tenant has $1,000 to their name, individuals in the ownership group have a net worth that is literally a million times more.  This money bestows them god-like power to make anything happen, conversely a lack of resources leads to a lack of options for the tenants who must find a new home (and moving is an expensive and stressful process under the best of circumstances.)  Meanwhile Berding is out there bullying a city council that already gave him tens of millions out of the rainy day fund for infrastructure improvements.  FCC is a sports team whose business model relies on people having positive feelings about them (literally cheer for them.)  If I'm going to spend discretionary dollars on tickets and beer at this stadium, I need to feel good about how the stadium came to be in the first place.  

[DEPACincy]

The team isn't entitled to a zoning change. No one is. Go buy a property zoned residential in Mason and try to redevelop it as something else. Tell me how that goes. If the city wants a zoning change they need to demonstrate that it is necessary and desirable. It is very reasonable for the city to consider the needs of the current residents there. 

[thomasbw]

10 hours ago, RJohnson said:

(Cincy wasn’t “picked.” MLS has certain criteria for expansion and Lindner invested enough to satisfy them. The expansion “competition” is a ruse perpetrated by marketing professionals who know what they’re doing. We shouldn’t be bullied into a bad solution just because mighty MLS deigned to accept us. Nor is FCC helped by trotting out its petulant scaremonger of a GM to address issues that are sensitive to the community. All Berding does by pounding his fist on the table and getting fussy is make me believe he’s intentionally misleading the public).

 

Now that is quite a take on this situation. Linder uses payola, the competition was a ruse by people who know what they are doing, etc. If you are right, how did you get this info?  If what you say is true, shouldn't Linder be sued by someone? Maybe Sacramento or, Detroit. Then there is the 99 year old woman who has to be moved. Think of it this way: its gonna be noisy, dusty, smelly. By moving her she may get peace and quiet. 

There's a quote button right below each post.

[Gordon Bombay]

15 hours ago, RJohnson said:

cincinnati, "let my stadium go, go down cranley tell ol pharaoh, let my stadium go". Quit bickering over someone relocating and a little noise. Instead of roadblocks the city should be happy Cin. was picked and the MLS  decided to build here. Put up signs, widen streets, fix the damn potholes and roads. Then maybe someone will want to open up shop here.

 

Mike McConnell? 

[Brutus_buckeye]

1 hour ago, DEPACincy said:

The team isn't entitled to a zoning change. No one is. Go buy a property zoned residential in Mason and try to redevelop it as something else. Tell me how that goes. If the city wants a zoning change they need to demonstrate that it is necessary and desirable. It is very reasonable for the city to consider the needs of the current residents there. 

 

Yes and no. The team is entitled to a zoning change from council because they reasonably relied on that in getting the stadium off the ground and approved in the first place. So to your point about zoning FC has a strong case and a winning case over any zoning change required in the actual footprint and build of the stadium.

 

As to the apartments that are outside the footprint and not necessarily required to be torn down, council does have a say in the zoning there because there reasonable expectation that these buildings were ever in the footprint of the stadium.

 

In other words, council can try and stymie and delay but they are fighting a losing battle on the stadium zoning issue, not so much on the apartment building issue.

[taestell]

They are the same issue. The team is asking for the PD (Planned Development) zoning designation that covers the stadium site to be extended to also cover the other nearby properties they have purchased.

[Brutus_buckeye]

^ Yes and no. When the footprint of the stadium was approved, and rushed through council to allow construction to begin, there was a reasonable reliance that council would approve the required zoning changes that would need to be done in order to complete the project. FC was able to move ahead with the reasonable reliance that they zoning would be approved given prior promises by council. This concerns the actual footprint only (not the apartment building which appears to be an ancillary issue)

This reasonable reliance is what the team will essentially win on if the case has to go to court. City council has no leg to stand on here. They can stymie and delay and cost FC and the taxpayers more money in legal fees to defend a dawg of a case (and hope to settle on their favorable terms), but in the end, it is a losing case for the city.

 

THe apartment issue is a case they can stand their ground on since the stadium can be constructed without the apartment building being torn down and tenants displaced. Now practically speaking, it is probably best to tear the apartment building down, but the city can block the change there since there was never a reasonable reliance that the building be torn down in order to operate the stadium.  

[Pdrome513]

My perception is they don't have time for a court case. They needed this to be done yesterday.  MLS has monetary penalties if the stadium opens late, and the timeline seems scrunched as is. 

[Brutus_buckeye]

^ That is what some in council are trying to hang their hat on to get them to negotiate. Obviously, they prefer not to have a court case as it takes time and will cost money, but with any breach of contract case such as this, the city would ultimately be responsible for the damages.

 

MLS would not yank the team, but whatever penalties they have to pay would be essentially damages the city would be obligated for if they lost in court.

 

Both sides will ultimately agree to work together (hopefully the saner heads will prevail) Fortunately, there are at least 1-2 of the progressive wing that still has some pragmatism.

[taestell]

What contract is being breached? The team was granted a zoning change for a certain footprint and they began to build their stadium within that footprint. They are now asking for additional properties to be rezoned. Planning Commission, Zoning Board of Appeals, and City Council may or may not approve that change. That does not prevent the team from building the stadium on the original footprint. No one is "owed" a zoning variance. If that were the case, it would defeat the point of zoning.

[Brutus_buckeye]

There are 2 zoning issues. The one you cited asking for additional properties to be rezoned. That was withdrawn but it is certainly the part that the city has leverage on and control of.

 

The second issue is the right of way on the actual stadium footprint. Essentially, cant build the stadium without the zoning change for this area. This is where the team has the leverage. This is the main issue for the team at the present. The other zoning matters they can deal with later.

[DEPACincy]

9 minutes ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

There are 2 zoning issues. The one you cited asking for additional properties to be rezoned. That was withdrawn but it is certainly the part that the city has leverage on and control of.

 

The second issue is the right of way on the actual stadium footprint. Essentially, cant build the stadium without the zoning change for this area. This is where the team has the leverage. This is the main issue for the team at the present. The other zoning matters they can deal with later.

 

Can you point us to where anyone on council has said the ROW is an issue? My understanding is that it is the additional properties that are causing a stir, not the ROW. 

[taestell]

It's a little confusing because Berding & Co. keep changing what they're asking for. As I understand it there are currently two issues at play:

 

The final development plan for the original stadium site does not need any further approvals by City Council. It only needs additional approvals by Planning Commission. However, the team has "pulled its final development plan from the Cincinnati Planning Commission until its new architect finishes the design for its Major League Soccer stadium." So, no matter how much politicking City Council does, it does not stop the team from continuing to build its stadium on the originally approved footprint.

 

The only thing City Council has left to approve is the proposed amendment of the PD footprint. This amendment previously included the Jehovah’s Witness church and the apartment building where they're evicting the 99 year old woman, but they have since removed those buildings from their request. Now they are only requesting that "city right-of-way needed for stadium construction" be rezoned. Until I see evidence that the team cannot construct the stadium without this city ROW being rezoned, I don't believe them.

[Ram23]

This may have been posted but I hadn't seen it yet - all of the documents FC has submitted for the original PD and the amended PD are available here:

 

https://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/planning/planning-projects-studies/fc-cincinnati-zoning-change/

[ColDayMan]

 

Cranley: FC Cincinnati stadium development could help double urban core’s population

 

 

Development surrounding FC Cincinnati’s under-construction West End stadium could spur dramatic population growth there and combine with downtown and Over-the-Rhine to double the combined population of those areas of Cincinnati’s urban core. 

 

That was a key message Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley talked about Tuesday morning at the Business Courier’s annual Commercial Real Estate Developers Power Breakfast at the Duke Energy Convention Center. 

 

The West End has about 6,600 residents today, but that could increase by 10,000 or so, Cranley told the crowd of more than 600.

 

At the same time, neighboring Over-the-Rhine has about 8,000 residents. That’s up from 5,000 in 2000, but it’s much smaller than the population of 30,000 in 1970. He believes it can grow to 15,000. Likewise, he believes downtown can grow from its current population of between 8,000 and 9,000 to about 15,000. 

 

“You’re talking about 45,000 people in an all-walkable urban core area,” Cranley said. “I think that will continue to create the livability that makes this a great place to spend a weekend and a great place to live.”

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2019/04/30/cranley-fc-cincinnati-stadium-development-could.html

[RJohnson]

crystal balls, prophets, and soothsayers. This town is full of them. If by chance in some weird dream, the city and FCC can't reach an agreement. The city will no longer talk about "infill", rather "fill in" will be the topic. The city will need to dredge the mill creek for dirt, then seed the Liberty/Central Parkway acreage. Augusta North. Remember when no one wanted the streetcar. It was marketed as the keystone to the redevelopment of OTR. Now we have a streetcar, granted its really a large Lionel set, but now OTR is busy busy and will continue to growl The new stadium will do the same.

[Guest jmecklenborg]

They're talking about all of this population growth and then they doubled-down on the water main in the unused subway with its station right smack in the middle of all this action.  

[JoeHarmon]

Stadiums do not drive develpoment.   Sports teams like to say this, but there is zero data to back it up.  Whatever population growth OTR and the west end see over the next 10 years would have happened regardless of the stadium.  

[taestell]

How perfect of Cranley to give the stadium sole credit for adding tens of thousands of residents to the urban core, but continue to claim that the streetcar has had zero impact on any resident or business deciding to locate in the urban core.