Mr. Udris said his recommendation wouldn't change the administration's vision for the riverfront.
"It kind of puts everything in kind of a suspended animation," he said.
For the past six months, a development team led by Indianapolis developer Herman Renfro has had exclusive rights to create a plan for a Nordstrom on Fourth Street and a family entertainment district on the riverfront.
Mr. Renfro said Tuesday that General Cinema Theatres, based in Boston, has committed to build a 14-screen riverfront movie theater with "stadium seating" that's sloped so patrons can watch a movie without peering over the head of the person in front of them.
In a report distributed to council Tuesday, Mr. Renfro said the city's share of the first phase of the riverfront plan would be roughly $47 million, and his costs would be about $45 million.
Mr. Udris stressed that the city wouldn't pay any of those costs from any existing budgets. Rather, either the city or Hamilton County, whoever builds the parking garages, would use parking revenues to pay off the garage debt. And rents and taxes paid by the businesses in the development would be used to fund road improvements, Mr. Udris said.
Mr. Renfro, who is not being paid by the city, also unveiled a new three-dimensional model of his riverfront plan to show just how the shops and restaurants he proposes would fit onto the city's riverfront.
All the businesses would be built atop parking garages to raise them out of the floodplain, but none would be so high as to compete with downtown's existing skyline, said Ro Shroff, an architect with Callison Architecture of Seattle who is working for Mr. Renfro.
But Mr. Shroff's renderings and model did not appear to sway critics Tuesday who continue to question whether the city administration's plan makes the most sense for the riverfront.
David Ginsburg, senior vice president of Downtown Cincinnati Inc., the advocacy group known as DCI, urged council to take care of downtown's ailing Fourth Street first and the riverfront later. He suggested the movie theater, which could draw as many as 2 million visitors a year, should be built in downtown's core instead of on the riverfront.
But council member Bobbie Sterne, chairwoman of council's Community Development Committee that discussed the plan Tuesday, was clearly impatient with the criticism.
She said city council has been discussing a plan for the riverfront for the past six or eight months, and nobody has approached her with "any great alternative" in that time.
"What I'm saying is speed it up a little bit and come forward with something that's real," said Mrs. Sterne, who is Mr. Udris' strongest ally for the administration's plan.
Mr. Udris echoed those sentiments in response to questions from Mr. Portune, who said the city would be wiser to concentrate on a convention center expansion and downtown housing than a "piecemeal" plan for the riverfront.
Mr. Udris said it's too expensive for the city to buy land in downtown's core to build the parking that a movie theater would need.
"I am very concerned that many people are being swayed by people's special interests in downtown," he said, rather than listening to the professional analysis that Mr. Renfro has provided.
But Mr. Portune said he's still not convinced that a massive riverfront development won't hurt existing shops and restaurants downtown.
Mr. Winburn said after the committee meeting he doesn't think Mr. Udris' recommendation to hold off on the administration's plan will save it.
"I'm saying we need to hold it all up and do it the right way," he said. "They didn't go far enough."
Mr. Winburn plans to introduce his proposal for more comprehensive riverfront planning at today's council meeting. Council members Dwight Tillery, Minette Cooper and Jeannette Cissell signed off on Mr. Winburn's plan Tuesday. He said he expects to get a fifth vote -- and therefore a council majority -- today.
