Typically, I am all for more height, but in this case getting into a historic neighborhood I think keeping the 10-12 MAX would be advisable. I am also disappointed by MORE parking and not including any residential in this “complex” of buildings. Hopefully we will see that as part of the yet to be announced Hargett Street side of the complex.
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I agree with you on both counts. Probably a little high for that plot, and need more mixed use. TIA would look better with some resi included.
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I wish they had done 20 stories on phase 1-2 and then 12 here. With that said, I’d still take 18 for phase 3.
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If memory serves, they thought they were going to get rezoned for 20 stories when they were planning One Glenwood and they were going to build a parking pedestal. But they didn’t, they got rezoned for 12, and that is why they built the parking garages separately.
They think the high parking ratios are part of the reason why their projects have leased so quickly, so I don’t see them changing that strategy.
Agreed it would have been better if the earlier stages were 20 and this was 12, and also agreed I’d take 18 here
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Maybe the old lady that owns the 2 historic homes next to this site will finally sell and they can be turned back into single family homes, offices or maybe restaurants!
My understanding is the old lady lives at the beach but not sure if this is true or urban legend…either way whoever owns them needs to spend some money!
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Or moved or torn down and replaced with skyscrapers. This is like 500 feet from Union Station - some of the most important real estate for the future sustainability of the city.
I’ll allow that as houses, they are pretty special - but giving up that much real estate that close to the key station of the $2b rail project for single-family residences is unacceptable in my book.
Relocating would be great but finding a lot to put them on would be a challenge.
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Technically they’re multi-family houses. I believe both have like 4 tenants each. Your point is still pretty valid though. It’s a lot of real estate with very low density given it’s location.
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What’s the time horizon on closing the at-grade crossing on Hargett? It’s only 500 ft now, but it would be about a half-mile walk to get to RUS from there unless a footbridge is part of that closing.
I’m all for moving those houses. As @OakCityDylan points out, they are multi-family residences, and they’re closer to the affordable end of the cost spectrum (as are other low-density, multi-family properties nearby).
Every time we lose that type of housing, it seems like it’s gone forever. Hopefully new developments can offer a range of price points to keep the downtown population diverse and interesting. But I’m not holding my breath.
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You and I have two very different (maybe opposite?) definitions of “sustainability.”
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Maybe so? 
Agree to disagree I guess?
The notion of generating some waste today, to save/prevent a much larger amount of consumption in the future, strikes me as a potentially reasonable sustainability tradeoff.
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Just curious…if everyone had electric cars and all electricity was generated from non-carbon based sources, would you position still be density at any cost? How about if you add in a 50% reduction in commuting needs a permanent result of COVID’s experiment? I think something like 90% of combustion engines will be done for in 10 years and commuting is talking a grand hit…where’s the need to ultra densify? What if the carbon equation objectively favored leaving all buildings as is? Would you go along with it? I realize, of course, that roads still need built and habitat preserved for wildlife, water quality etc, but the calculus of 20 years ago no longer exists and the ‘just right’ level of development and redevelopment does not feel like its the same.
The answer for me is yes, I would still favor density. I like living in areas that are designed in proportion for people, not machines. Just because cars are electric doesn’t mean they don’t pose hazards in other ways, and neighborhoods are more vibrant when you interact with your neighbors face to face (mask to mask for now, I suppose!) rather than behind glass.
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Clearly, a move toward driving less, environmentally friendly energy sources, etc. are objectively all better than the pre-pandemic status quo. I don’t think that anyone can argue that point, but for many it’s just a lesser version of bad. As an example, a suburbanized World still requires an outsized amount of resources to maintain it, and all of those processes and sources are not carbon neutral or efficient in comparison to a more compact infrastructure model.
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@Kevin I can appreciate things just being a preference and I very much agree cars are a hazard and destroy the environment just by needing to be there. Tesla still enables sprawl. Where I was going with this was in no way to support cul-de-sac laden 2 acre lot style living, but rather, Over The Rhine level density (2-6) vs 10-40 story living. In glass skyscrapers I find it hard to interact with neighbors. From the 5th floor, I can still open my window and the sparrows can come to my bird feeders. In my opinion, there is a sweet spot and we’re really stripped down to just owning preferences once environmental considerations are satisfied.
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You are pretty much describing the Paris model. The city is filled with 7 floor and below buildings and sports a density that we can only hope to ever achieve. The buildings are pushed to the street and donuts in the middle create respites, parking and green space for their residents. This model is played out throughout Europe.
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Barcelona too. It is a nice scale.
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I’ve never been to Cincinnati, but I have read great things about the Over The Rhine neighborhood. I’d like to check it out sometime.
I think it has some architectural similarities to the French Quarter in Nola, which is a fantastic level of density IMO. Very dense and vibrant, but it maintains a human scale.
And back on topic, Two Hillsborough is looking great! Looking forward to the courtyard between the buildings.
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The problem with Paris model density is that it is two-dimensional. there is no way to achieve that here while simultaneously preserving historical detached neighborhoods like Cameron Park, Cameron Village, Boylan Heights, Oakwood Etc. If you build 2-7 stories along streets like Hillsborough, Western, and Wake Forest, but leave in place the single-family neighborhoods behind those buildings, you will never achieve anything close to Paris or Amsterdam or whatever level density, (Even with adus.)
Arguing against high-rises and for mid-rises on the basis of Aesthetics is a valid thing to do, but for that argument to be fully informed, you have to recognize and admit the vastly greater amount of land area that would have to be redeveloped in order to achieve truly city-level density with only mid-rises.
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I agree, not every place needs to be Hong Kong. DC for instance has great density, despite their strict height limits.
However, I do think that building tall should not be discouraged. In fact it should be actively encouraged because of all of it’s benefits, and the negative externalities that it helps avoid (whereas right now we are instead subsidizing sprawl). On balance, I have to agree with @orulz’s original point. Public transit is an efficiency and it’s use should be encouraged. The fact that there are two old, even possibly historic SFHs here isn’t nearly reason enough to discourage building tall on land so close to the train station. They’re almost literally within spitting distance.
I see limiting the accessibility and usefulness of public transit, and density in the inner core in general, a much greater waste than moving or demolishing old SFHs. There are tens of thousands more of them within a few miles of downtown; their marginal historical or nostalgic value can’t be allowed to hamstring what modest efforts we actually are making to densify.
I personally prefer a living arrangement more similar to what you described actually; between 3-10 stories, somewhere where I can walk right down to the sidewalk without needing to take an elevator. But if there are hundreds of people who want to live in a 20-40 story tower next the train station, I definitely encourage them to do so. That’s potentially hundreds of cars off the roads and dozens of acres of land that won’t be bulldozed elsewhere, all for just letting people live as densely as they are asking to in the first place. It increases my air quality, increases the viability of the public transit system, decreases the number of cars I have to encounter as a pedestrian. And, since it’s alleviating some of the demand for living closer to the center of the city, it should actually help to keep prices for the slightly less dense housing further out that I want from going up as quickly in price, since those hundreds of people would just be competing for those instead as their “second choice”.
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