Sunday, May 02, 1999
How to fell 14-story building unclear, as is site's future
BY LISA DONOVAN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The Neisner Building at Fifth and Race streets has been reduced to a big cavity between a business tower and parking garage, both of which also will be razed in the coming months.
Still to be determined is which method — implosion or wrecking ball — will be used to take down the Fifth & Race Tower and Parkade Garage. City Economic Development Director Andi Udris said the answer could come next week, when a study of cost and safety will be wrapped up.
During what is scheduled to be six-month demolition, started in March, the city will knock down the 14-story tower and surrounding structure to make way for a department store, possibly the upscale Seattle-based Nordstrom.
The entire demolition project includes tearing down the Fifth & Race Tower, the Convention Way walkway between Race Street and the Regal Hotel, the former Neisner Building and the Parkade Garage at Sixth and Race streets. With few exceptions, the area should remain open to pedestrians and traffic.
Mr. Udris said crews must move more slowly than they might otherwise so as not to disturb the businesses nearby.
“It is difficult, because there are adjacent properties,” he said.
Dore and Associates Contracting Inc., based in Bay City, Mich., won the $768,900 demolition contract for the tower and surrounding structures — considered part one of the demolition. The second phase will be the Parkade Garage, closed in February be cause of structural problems.
Mr. Udris has said the demolition of the buildings will pave the way for a more marketable retail spot and better parking.
The city and the Fifth and Race developer, Western-Southern Life Insurance Co.'s subsidiary Eagle Realty Group, have been working to put a retail tenant on the site. The plan was to build a department store and a 700-space or larger garage. A pad atop the structure would accommodate an office tower.
But the deal to put a Maison Blanche department store in the space collapsed this year when the store's parent, Mercantile Stores Co. Inc., was acquired by Dillard's Inc. Dillard's has not picked up Mercantile's nonbinding agreement to put a store at Fifth and Race.
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