Cincinnati’s first-ring suburbs face unique challenges. Changing demographics, economic stability, and issues regarding resources and security are common threads among these jurisdictions.
The ways the 49 Hamilton County cities, villages, townships, and municipal corporations not only adjust but thrive is the focus of this series, First Suburbs—Beyond Borders. The series explores the diversity and ingenuity of these longstanding suburban communities, highlighting issues that demand collective thought and action to galvanize their revitalization.
The cornfields are disappearing in Harrison.
In the farthest westerly reaches of Hamilton County, this suburb is defying the slow growth or no-growth mode of much of the rest of the county. Since 2000, the population of Harrison has nearly doubled, growing by 81% to an estimated 13,878 people, making it the fastest-growing city in the region.
Part city, part suburb, part country, Harrison has benefitted from a commodity lacking in many other towns – land. That has brought people looking to live in a community with a bit more breathing room yet still within an easy drive to the big city.
“People can come out here, they can still afford to buy a piece of land and build a new house on it and get their own castle, which is something everybody wants,” says Harrison Mayor Ryan Grubbs.
He grew up nearby in what is known as Okeana, just over the Butler County line, but spent most of his teen years running around and working in Harrison. He remembers riding dirt bikes through fields where housing developments now stand.
While such growth can be the envy of other cities, big and small, it comes with its own problems. Roads that were once country lanes are now the entryways to major housing developments. Family farms have given way to half-million-dollar homes. And commercial developers are sizing up the town with dollar signs in their eyes.
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Harrison Mayor Ryan GrubbsTo try and get a handle on the growth, Harrison City Council in January approved a two-year moratorium on further housing developments. “It’s purely so we can address some of those major concerns that we're having, primarily roads,” Grubbs says.
But even with the moratorium in place, about 700 houses are still in the works, as their construction was approved before the freeze. In the northeastern arm of the city, along Dry Fork Creek, workers are still busy bulldozing the terrain, framing houses, and pouring driveways.
That section of the city is a sprawling residential community, home to several large subdivisions built over the last 15 to 20 years. Once farmland, the Parks of Whitewater is a 350-home development completed about 15 years ago. Whitewater Trails is a five-year-old development of three-and four-bedroom homes. The Villages of Whitewater is a development of landominiums targeted to the 55-and-over demographic. Trailhead is a “master-planned community” with homes ranging in price from $300,000 to $630,000. In the works is Oakland Hills, a 34-acre development that is in the early phases of site survey and design.
The population boom has naturally attracted the attention of commercial developers. They see opportunity along the city’s main thoroughfare, Harrison Avenue, and along Interstate 74, which bisects the city. Cincinnati-based developer Midland Atlantic Properties
has plans for 22 acres along Harrison Avenue that is currently planted end to end in corn. The developer says plans include a national (unnamed, but believed to be Target) retailer, a small grocery, other retailers, and bank branches in outbuildings.
One of the developer’s retail clients requested a site in Harrison, Midland’s John Silverman
told the Harrison Planning Commission. “They recognize the value of the Harrison market, the growth you have experienced, and the community's efforts to maximize its potential population,” he said.
Another local developer, Madden Development Group,
is interested in building retail and apartments on a 15-acre site just a quarter mile away.
The national franchises that will dominate these developments will contrast with Harrison’s downtown business district, which is housed in a restored collection of buildings that date to the 19
th century. Rebranded as The District, the walkable strip includes a couple of taprooms, a few restaurants, a coffee shop, a bakery, an art store, a plant vendor, and other independent small businesses.
In addition to housing and retail, Harrison’s industrial sector is growing. Its largest employer, JTM Food Group, this year
completed a $100 million expansion to its production lines and headquarters in the city. Pharmaceutical distributor Cencora (formerly Amerisource Bergen)
plans to build a distribution center that could eventually employ 140 people. And Divert Inc., which captures food waste from retailers and manufacturers and turns it into energy, is
planning to invest $88.5 million to create a production facility in the city.
Traffic is growing too in this once-countryfied town. Expansions and upgrades are planned for several roads, including New Haven Road, Dry Fork Road, Harrison Avenue, Campbell Road, Edgewood Road and Carolina Trace, the mayor says.
The rapid growth is not welcome by all residents, some of whom moved to Harrison to get away from the hustle of city life only to find it followed them. Some social media commenters decry any further housing developments. “No more houses, this town is big enough, don't need any more traffic,” wrote one. “This is why I want to move away. They just won't stop building. It's already overcrowded,” wrote another. "Rather it just stay corn and soy," wrote one. "We don't need more housing."
But others make suggestions for new places to dine and shop. “How about an Aldi or Costco?” wrote one resident. “Bring on Target and Trader Joe’s!” wrote another.
Mayor Grubbs himself recalls with nostalgia the days of fishing and dirt biking with his friends in Harrison. These days, his day job is as chief lending officer with the hometown bank, Harrison Building and Loan, a three-branch financial institution that his grandfather once ran.
“Growth makes people uncomfortable,” he acknowledges. “But it’s not our job to stop progress. It’s our job to make people as safe and comfortable as possible.”
To that end, the city is in the process of drafting a comprehensive master plan to guide the development of housing, retail and industry over the next few years. A steering committee composed of business owners, residents, and officials has been meeting and soliciting feedback with the help of American Structurepoint, a Cincinnati-based consulting firm that includes planning and economic development among its services.
The master plan will in turn influence revisions to the city’s zoning plan, which governs where development of housing, retail, and industry can occur.
The steering committee is composed of “a broad spectrum of people who oppose development and who support development,” Grubbs says. “That's what I wanted, because I don't have a problem with opposition, as long as you can communicate it effectively and understand that we may have to work to a respectful position in the middle.”
The master plan process includes a community survey, which is available
here.
The plan, which was last updated in 2018, will be important as a guide to the city’s future, as Harrison’s population is expected to continue growing. The estimates vary, but the lowest, made by the consulting firm, is for the city to grow another 44 percent to 20,000 people by 2050.
First Suburbs—Beyond Borders series is made possible with support from a coalition of stakeholders including the Murray & Agnes Seasongood Good Government Foundation:
The Seasongood Foundation is devoted to the cause of good local government; Hamilton County Planning Partnership; plus First Suburbs Consortium of Southwest Ohio, an association of elected and appointed officials representing older suburban communities in Hamilton County, Ohio.