Mercer Garage Delivers 340 Parking Spaces to Cincinnati’s OTR

By Adrian Maties, Associate Editor

A new parking facility is now open in Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine neighborhood. The Cincinnati Center City Development Corp.(3CDC) opened the Mercer Garage to the public on May 9. The new addition arrives just in ,time as hundreds of new residential units in the area are getting ready to come online.

The Mercer Garage has 340 parking spaces on five levels, with entrances on the east side of Vine Street between 13th and 14th streets and on Mercer Street between Vine and Walnut streets. Parking rates will be $1 an hour up to an $8 maximum on weekdays, or a $3 maximum after 4 p.m. and on weekends. Monthly parking is also available, at $85 per month. The 3CDC will manage the garage, which will be staffed 24 hours a day and monitored by surveillance cameras placed throughout the parking levels, elevators and stairs.

The building is part of the Mercer Commons development, a project that encompasses 19 buildings and 26 vacant parcels on 2.7 acres of land. When finished, it will deliver 96 apartments, 28 condos, 17,600 square feet of commercial space and 359 parking spaces.

The $62 million project is divided into three phases. Phase 1 was financed through the 3CDC-managed Cincinnati Equity Fund, New Markets Tax Credit equity, a JobsOhio loan and a $1.5 million grant from the city of Cincinnati. It also calls for 11 condos in four historic rehabs on Mercer Street, a mixed-use new-construction building on Vine Street with 12 condos and 3,900 square feet of commercial space, and five new-construction townhomes on Mercer.

The Mercer Garage is included in the first phase. It is large enough to serve the entire development. Right now, the structure is exposed to viewing. It will, however, soon be hidden behind new construction on Vine and Mercer streets.

UrbanCincy recently reported that the developers were making preparations for the second phase of the project. The 3CDC will break ground on Phase 2 on May 31. It includes 67 apartments and 10,600 square feet of commercial space.

Photo credits: 3CDC

Miller-Valentine Group’s Summit Pointe Apartments Reopens in Lawrenceburg

By Adrian Maties, Associate Editor

The Miller-Valentine Group held a ceremony on May 8 to celebrate the grand re-opening of the Summit Pointe Apartments, an affordable housing community in Lawrenceburg, Ind. Alan Rakowski, tax credit manager for the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority; Tim Bete, president of St. Mary Development Corp.; and Adrian Colosimo, development risk manager for RBC Capital Markets were among those present at the ceremony.

Summit Pointe Apartments is located at 600 Deer Run. The community features 70 two-bedroom and 14 three-bedroom homes. Its affordable rates are made possible through an efficient financing package including Section 42 Housing Tax Credits provided by the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority.

“Summit Pointe Apartments preserves a local affordable housing option. We are enthusiastic and privileged to serve the families in the city of Lawrenceburg and prove to them that our passion is to positively impact their lives,” Jim Fenwick, president of Miller-Valentine Residential Property Management, said in a statement for the press.

The Miller-Valentine Group invested $10 million to fully renovate the property. The renovation included adding a second bathroom to all two- and three-bedroom apartments as well as a new state-of-the-art fitness center and playground. The Dayton-based developer worked on the project together with St. Mary Development, RBC Capital Markets, the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority, Community Housing Capital and the city of Lawrenceburg.

The $10 million renovation project also helped boost the local economy, creating 128 new jobs for  local contractors and sub-contractors. Jim Fenwick said that “the company is excited to reinvest in Lawrenceburg, a city that we’ve been involved with for almost 20 years. Preserving high-quality apartment homes marketable to moderate-income families is critical.”

Photo courtesy of Miller-Valentine Group.

Wright State Breaks Ground on $37M Neuroscience Engineering Collaboration Building

By Adrian Maties, Associate Editor

Wright State University broke ground on April 25 on a state-of-the-art facility within the biomedical and engineering research hub on the Wright State campus. The Fairborn-based public research university is developing the project in partnership with Premier Health Partners, the largest healthcare network in Dayton. Wright State president David Hopkins, provost Sudaram Narayanan, Neuroscience Institute director Timothy Cope and Premier president & CEO Jim Pancoast were among those present at the groundbreaking ceremony.

The new facility will be located in the heart of the campus and will be named the Neuroscience Engineering Collaboration Building. It will have four floors and 90,000 square feet of laboratory and office space for scientists, physicians, students and post-doctoral researchers. In all, 125 people will be employed at the facility. A 105-seat auditorium will provide space for seminars, workshops and advanced teaching sessions.

The L-shaped Neuroscience Engineering Collaboration Building will be home to the research arm of the Premier Health Partners—Wright State University Neuroscience Institute, a recognized Center of Excellence by the state of Ohio. The 53,000 square feet will also provide a place for engineering and associated faculty to advance their work in medical imaging and sensors.

The $37 million project is made possible by a direct partnership between the public and private sectors and will be funded through $20 million in bonds issued by Wright State, $12 million granted from the state of Ohio and $5 million in donations.  Cincinnati-based Messer Construction is building the center. Chicago’s Perkins+Will architecture and design firm was the project’s architect. Officials hope to finish the project  by February 2015.

Premier Health Partners is also involved in another construction project in southwest Ohio. The Atrium Medical Center, one of the hospitals included in the healthcare network, recently partnered with Edgewood City Schools to bring a new medical office building to Butler County. The 14,000-square-foot building will be located at 5005 Trenton Oxford Road in Trenton, on the school campus. It will house the school’s central registration offices and will bring more convenient medical services to the Edgewood community. The building is expected to open during the 2013-14 school year. It will be owned by Edgewood and financed by leasing space to Atrium.

Photo credits: Wright State University

Florence’s Village at the Mall Sold to Private Investor

By Adrian Maties, Associate Editor

The Village at the Mall, a retail center in the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky metropolitan area, was sold to a private investor this month. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The Village at the Mall, located at 7606 Mall Road in Florence, Ky., was developed in 1991 at the corner of Kentucky Route 18 and Mall Road, just off interstates 71 and 75. The property includes three pad sites totaling more than 10,000 square feet and has two access points, one of them a signalized intersection that also serves the 856,000-square-foot Florence Mall.

The shopping center has 92,764 square feet of space and is fully leased. Its tenant roster includes Five Guys Burgers and Fries, a brand-new Aspen Dental, a new freestanding Vitamin Shoppe, a ground-leased Chipotle, Party City, The Tile Shop, Pier 1 Imports, Dollar Tree, Casual Male and HoneyBaked Ham.

Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Services arranged the sale. Vice president of investments Joel Dumes and associate Charles Bulger of the Cincinnati office represented the seller, a private investment group from New Jersey.

“Well-performing multi-tenant retail properties in the Cincinnati area are being targeted by investors, as household formation and income growth drive retail sales,” Joel Dumes said in a statement for the press. “Northern Kentucky has been outperforming other areas of the metro as tight vacancy gives owners the leverage to raise rents,” he added.

Marcus & Millichap expects demand for retail space in the Cincinnati metro area to pick up this year. Vacancy will fall to 11.9 percent, while asking rents will rise by 1.3 percent to $14.31 per square foot and effective rents will experience an increase of 1.7 percent to $12.13 per square foot.

Charts courtesy of Marcus & Millichap.

Balluff Breaks Ground on $6M Expansion Project in Independence, Adding 24 Jobs

By Adrian Maties, Associate Editor

Balluff Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of Balluff GmbH, based in Neuhausen, Germany, started construction last week on a  $6 million expansion of its U.S. headquarters in Northern Kentucky. Gov. Steve Beshear joined local and company officials in the city of Independence on Thursday, April 11, for the project’s  groundbreaking ceremony.

Balluff is one of the world’s leading automation suppliers, specializing in products for industrial sensing, networking and identification devices. The company’s U.S. headquarters currently employs more than 150 people. It has been located in Independence since 1983, and has expanded twice, in 1994 and 2001. The facility on Holton Drive is the final assembly, distribution and training site for Balluff in the United States.

The new 48,000-square-foot building is expected to be completed next year, in March. It will be a state-of-the-art customer support, training, and sales and marketing center with “green concepts” and worker-friendly features, such as 100 percent employee access to daylight from workspaces. The $6 million expansion will add 24 new, full-time Kentucky resident jobs.

As an incentive to encourage the investment and job growth in northern Kentucky, the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority (KEDFA) has approved Balluff for as much as $450,000 in tax incentives under two economic development programs. The company will receive as much as $300,000 through the Kentucky Business Investment program and as much as $150,000 through the Kentucky Enterprise Initiative Act.

“Balluff has found a successful home in northern Kentucky, with steady growth here over the past 30 years,” said Gov. Beshear in a statement to the press. “We’re proud to have the company’s U.S. headquarters in Kentucky and especially happy to see the company continue to expand, adding 24 new jobs and investing $6 million in the Commonwealth.”

Photo credits: Balluff Inc.

PECo to Buy Dayton Facility, Bring 250 Jobs to the City

By Adrian Maties, Associate Editor

The Process Equipment Co. (“PECo”) has announced plans to purchase a 425,000-square-foot manufacturing facility at 2333 McCall St., near downtown Dayton. The acquisition is part of the Tipp City-based company’s plan to consolidate and expand its local operations.

The building is located on 30 acres in the Westview Industrial Park. The Dayton City Commission approved the sale on April 3. According to 2NEWS, the old factory was sold for only a dollar. Some surrounding land was also sold for $600,000. But the sale is not final. In the next three months, PECo will inspect the building. The company can cancel the deal if it considers repair costs to be too high.

The manufacturer of large precision-machined and fabricated components said the consolidation is contemplated to occur in three phases and could require as much as $10 million to be invested  in relocation renovations, including the installation of power and HVAC systems. It expects the consolidation to be completed by the end of 2014.

Right now, PECo has four facilities in the Tipp City and Huber Heights areas and 181 employees. The new building will allow the company to consolidate all of its employees in one location while doubling its capacity to meet the growing demand for its manufacturing products and services. The contract includes a $750,000 Ohio Job Ready Sites Grant and a commitment by PECo to employ no less than 200 employees at the new building. Over the next five years, the company expects to hire an additional 250 employees. In 2013, PECo was recognized as a “Top Workplace” by the Dayton Daily News and Springfield News-Sun.

Albert Naggar, PECo’s owner, said in a statement for the press that “we are excited to serve as a driver of economic growth in our community. We have confidence in the growth of our business. Dayton’s Westview Industrial Park is the most appealing location for PECo’s consolidation because of the economic partnership that the city of Dayton has fostered with PECo.” Dayton’s mayor, Gary Leitzell, added that he is “thrilled to have PECo bring its world-class engineering and manufacturing to Westview Industrial Park.”

Photo credits: The City of Dayton

Port Authority Starts Demolition at Bond Hill Site to Make Way for $75M Redevelopment

By Adrian Maties, Associate Editor

The Port of Greater Cincinnati Development started work on Thursday, March 28, on a project that will redevelop the site of Cincinnati’s first multi-store open-air mall. Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory, Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls, City Manager Milton Dohoney, Jr., Laura Brunner, President, CEO, Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority, and Hamilton County Commission President Chris Monzel were in attendance as construction crews started tearing down a vacant restaurant and the 32-foot billboard-style Swifton Commons shopping center sign.

The 400,000-square-foot Swifton Shopping Center opened in 1956, just six miles north of downtown in the center of the Greater Cincinnati region. It was acquired by the Allen Temple Real Estate in the late 1990s and renamed Jordan Crossing. At that time the property had less than a dozen commercial tenants.

The Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority acquired the 25 acres in Cincinnati’s Bond Hill neighborhood from the Allen Temple Real Estate Foundation on Feb. 19. Now the economic development agency will prepare and market the site for private development of office, residential, retail and a future hotel. It will do so with the help of a $6.2 million commitment from the city of Cincinnati and its Focus 52 program.

The massive redevelopment project is expected to cost $75 million. It will be one of the city’s largest redevelopment efforts outside of the Central Business District and Over-the-Rhine in recent years. Construction at the site is expected to begin next year.

Mayor Mark Mallory called it an important day for the Bond Hill neighborhood. “This redevelopment represents the city’s first investment injection from our new Focus 52 program fund, created just for transformational projects such as this one,” he said in a statement for the press.

“Today represents the first step in a several-year process to convert this key intersection back into a vibrant place to work, shop and live,” Laura Brunner said. “The Port Authority is prepared to be creative in how we work with the community to achieve a development that creates jobs and a sense of place.”

Photo credits: Google Maps.

111-Unit Apartment Tower Planned for Downtown Cincinnati

By Adrian Maties, Associate Editor

Developers NorthPointe Group and North American Properties plan to build 111 apartment units above the 7th and Broadway Garage in downtown Cincinnati. BuildingCincinnati.com, a Web site dedicated to promoting awareness of Cincinnati’s built environment, reported that the city’s Urban Design Review Board (UDRB) got its first look at the project on Friday, March 15.

NorthPointe Group and North American Properties want to build a seven-story apartment tower over the eight-story garage, adding more than 120,000 square feet. It would include studio, one-bedroom, two-bedroom and penthouse units, ranging in size from 600 to 1,700 square feet.

The garage was built in 2003. At that time, it had only five stories but also included structural supports that would have supported a proposed 12-story, 166-unit condominium project. In order to accommodate the parking needs of more than 600 Procter & Gamble employees, the garage was expanded in 2010, when the last three stories were added. As a result, the number of residential floors that could be added was reduced.

John Senhauser Architects is designing the project. It will be an L-shape structure, with steel frame construction, glass curtain walls and lightweight ridged metal paneling systems.

According to the Cincinnati Business Courier, the high-end apartments will rent for about $2 per square foot. The project is expected to cost about $20 million.

Marcus & Millichap expects the steady job growth across Cincinnati to sustain demand for apartments this year. Deliveries for the past two years have been the largest since early 2000, and builders are expected to complete 1,000 new units in 2013. As new supply exceeds the demand growth in the metro area, apartment vacancy will increase slightly to 4.5 percent. It will, however, still remain near the lowest point in more than a decade. Asking rents will reach $759 per month and effective rents will rise to $726 per month, increases of 3.4 percent and 3.7 percent, respectively.

Rendering courtesy of NorthPointe Group via BuildingCincinnati.com.

Charts courtesy of Marcus & Millichap.

Capital Investment Group Breaks Ground on The Lofts at Ivy Pointe

By Adrian Maties, Associate Editor

Capital Investment Group Inc. broke ground on Monday, March 11, on a $13 million apartment project in Union Township, a thriving community on the outskirts of Cincinnati. It is the first urban apartment development in Clermont County.

Clermon County Commissioners David Uible and Ed Humphrey, Capital Investment Group co-founder & managing partner Kathleen Bergen, Capital Investment Group partner David Bastos and Union Township Trustees Matthew Beamer, Timothy Donnellon and Robert McGee were among those present at the groundbreaking ceremony.  The Clermont County commissioners approved a tax exemption this month for the project.

The $13 million apartment complex, to be called the Lofts at Ivy Pointe, is being developed on a three-acre site at 4380 Eastgate Blvd., near its intersection with Aicholtz Road. The building will stand four stories high and will bring 133 efficiency and one- and two-bedroom residential rental units to Union Township.

Each apartment will feature granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, vinyl plank flooring, patios or balconies, ceiling fans, nine- or 10-foot ceilings, kitchen islands and a washer and dryer. Tenants will enjoy such community amenities as a club room with wide-screen TV, pool table, card room, cyber café and full kitchen with high-top tables and seating,  a fitness center, a computer room, a swimming pool, an outdoor firepit,  an outdoor kitchen and grill,  an outdoor theater room and landscaped garden areas.

The multifamily community is located about 20 miles east of Cincinnati, in close proximity to the headquarters of Total Quality Logistics, Jungle Jim’s and the planned Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. It was designed to attract young professionals. Since 2000, Clermont County has witnessed a 10 percent population growth that has added 20,000 new residents.

Thompson Thrift Construction is the project’s general contractor. The Lofts at Ivy Pointe is expected to be completed by March or April 2014. Rents will range between $800 and $1,200 per month, according to Clermont County’s official Web site.

Capital Investment Group Inc. built the SouthShore condominium tower in Newport, on which it is currently working on a second phase. The $15.6 million apartment building will be called Vue 180 and will include 93 high-end rental apartments along the Ohio River.

Photo credits: Capital Investment Group Inc.

$400M Horseshoe Casino Opens in Downtown Cincinnati

By Adrian Maties, Associate Editor

Ohio’s fourth and final full-service casino, the Horseshoe Casino Cincinnati, finally opened on Monday evening, March 4. More than 5,000 people witnessed the spectacular fireworks display. Among them were Gary Loveman, chairman, president & CEO of Caesars Entertainment Corp.; Dan Gilbert, chairman of Rock Gaming; Kevin Kline, senior vice president & general manager of Horseshoe Cincinnati; Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory; Celebrity Chef Bobby Flay; Grammy-award winning artist Michael Bolton; and others.

Rock Ohio Caesars L.L.C., a joint venture between Rock Gaming L.L.C. and Caesars Entertainment Corp., started work on the $400 million casino project on Feb. 4, 2011. The 354,000-square-foot complex is located on a 23-acre site, a former surface parking lot, in downtown Cincinnati. It houses approximately 2,000 slot machines, 87 table games, a 31-table World Series of Poker® room, high-limit gaming rooms, an Asian gaming room that pays homage to Cincinnati’s sister city Liuzhou, China, and a VIP players lounge. Horseshoe Cincinnati is also home to Jack Binion’s Steak, Bobby’s Burger Palace, Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville, The Spread buffet, The Rock Bar & Lounge, grab-and-go food and beverage options, a 24-hour Starbucks, a gift shop and 33,000 square feet of meeting space.

The project created more than 2,000 construction jobs, and 1,700 people are now employed at the new casino, 93 percent of them from the greater Cincinnati area. Horseshoe Cincinnati is projected to create $100 million annually in gaming tax revenue and attract six million visitors to downtown Cincinnati each year.

“Horseshoe Cincinnati represents the urban casino concept we have developed and has been quite successful for us in Cleveland, where we opened a little less than a year ago,” said Loveman. “To date, that property has attracted more than four million visitors and has injected millions of dollars into the local economy. We expect no less from Horseshoe Cincinnati.”

Caesars and Rock Gaming are also developing a Horseshoe casino in Maryland. Called Horseshoe Baltimore, the $350 million casino is expected to open in 2014.

Photo credits: www.horseshoe.com