Latest Banks designs seek to create 'great streets'

Representatives from the development team of Carter Real Estate and Dawson Company presented their latest designs for The Banks project to Cincinnati's Urban Design Review Board on Thursday evening.

In its meeting on March 25, the board had asked designers to address issues they had with some of the building façades, architectural styles, and massing of the buildings that will house the 300 apartments and 70,000 square feet of retail of the project's first phase.

"There are several things that came out of the last discussion," says Trent Germano, executive vice president for Carter.  "We went back and we looked at what we could do in keeping with our visualization of the project that would address those concerns and comments."

Bailey Pope, vice president of design and construction for Dawson, says that the residential buildings are intended to be "contributing"—or background – buildings that can provide the sort of ambience that will be marketable to prospective renters.

A 14-story office building and a proposed 12- to 14-story boutique hotel would likely serve as the landmarks of the first phase.

"We're intentionally deferring to let those be the landmark structures," Pope says.  "I think that all of this [residential buildings] is good quality, and that it's handsome, attractive architecture that people will want to live in."

Germano agrees.

"When we took on this challenge, we knew that we weren't going to be doing architectural icons up and down the street," he says.  "We've tried to create great streets.  That's what's going to attract people down here.  So we've focused on the connectivity of the street and how the street feels when you're on it."

Pope says that this can be achieved authentically by allowing tenants the opportunity to create their own storefronts.

"So we'll have, as you go along here, a lot of variation and variety along the street, which I think goes a long way to create that dynamic pedestrian scale that we're trying to achieve along Freedom Way," he says.

The office building is currently being marketed to tenants and there has been no further development on its design, Pope says.

"Until we have something concrete, it's not prudent to spend any more time to develop the design," he says.  "But I think that it is something that we'll revisit as we come in with additional work."

Germano says that the project remains on schedule, with final designs heading to the City Planning Commission in mid-May and construction of the buildings beginning in mid-June.

Another review session will be held Thursday at 2 p.m.

Writer: Kevin LeMaster