People Replace Parking in Downtown Cincinnati

Chris Bentley looks at developer Flaherty & Collins tower project - part of the city’s first wave of high-rise development in decades - and the larger trends that are redefining the city's relationship to parking. "Against the backdrop of downtown Cincinnati’s continual renewal, the symbolism of a luxury apartment tower replacing an aging parking garage is hard to ignore," he says.

“You’re seeing virtually every owner of a class B or C business converting to residential,” said David Ginsburg, president and CEO of Downtown Cincinnati, Inc. “Downtown is the center of the region, but we still need more—more retail, more residential, more workers, more of everything.”

"With a streetcar in development and near-full occupancy rates in the downtown and Over-the-Rhine neighborhoods, Cincinnati is negotiating its parking garage footprint," adds Bentley. "Some say public transit goes part and parcel with the kind of downtown resurgence that this project banks on; as a result, business groups are pushing the city to purge the zoning code of parking minimums, as Nashville has done. So far, city officials would like to maintain 'a balanced approach,' [Odis Jones, Cincinnati’s director of economic development] said."