When a
new casino opens at Broadway Commons in 2012, its presence will change the face of the surrounding neighborhood, and could influence the character of Cincinnati's entire downtown.
The exact nature of those changes remains to be seen, but a study announced last week by the community-based non-profit
Bridging Broadway is designed to bring as much of the surrounding community into the planning process as possible.
"Our overall goal is to make sure that the casino development is a catalyst for improving the quality of life for downtown," Bridging Broadway's director and founder Stephen Samuels said. "It's about connecting people and places and developing a district. In doing that, we realized we'd have to be at the front of the research that was taking place."
Samuels said that his group is pooling outside resources to ensure a level of openness and inclusiveness that a cash-strapped city planning department could only hope to provide with a study. The first major step for the study will be one of three "community dialogue envisioning sessions," that will be held in late October, he said.
"People can walk the area and we'll ask them questions about what they see now and what they want to see in the future," he said.
Samuels said he hopes the new district, known as the Broadway Commons District, will become a 24-hour multi-use district where people can "live and work and play." The study could impact everything from the type of businesses that are encouraged on the surrounding streets to the way they are lit. Street performances, public art, and even a place for buskers to play could be included in the recommendations made to the city, Samuels said.
Samuels began working on the casino issue during a class project at the
Niehoff Urban Studio, which led to the creation of Bridging Broadway. His professor in that class, Frank Russell, will be another principle on the study along with fellow UC professor Michaele Pride. Funding for the project will be provided by Bridging Broadway, UC's Community Design Center and the City of Cincinnati. Some UC students will be employed to research case studies of similar development projects in other cities.
Samuels said the study could set an example for major development projects in American downtowns, and he hopes it can help link together Cincinnati's growing districts that are now separated by poorly lit, un-inviting streetscapes.
"We really have the opportunity here to transform the dark spaces of downtown around the Broadway Commons site, so that they disappear, so that it becomes very fluid to walk from Main St. to Broadway commons or from Fountain Square to Broadway Commons or, for that matter, from Fountain Square to Vine," Samuels said. "Let's eliminate the darkness."
Writer: Henry Sweets
Photography by Scott Beseler
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