Friday, May 07, 1999
Riverfront park design: fountains, festivals, fun
BY LUCY MAY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Creating a lush, green park for Cincinnati's central riverfront would cost about $65 million, and park planners are looking for public and private funds to pay for it.
New information about the plan and its cost shows some of the features planned for the park, which, perhaps by 2004, could cover more than 50 acres stretching from the new Reds ballpark to beyond the new Bengals stadium.
“It's the largest, most public and cheapest project” planned for the riverfront, said Dave Prather, a Cincinnati Park Board official overseeing the plan. “From our bias, we think it's the best bang for the buck.”
Features include an 8-acre “great lawn” along the river's edge, where concerts and events for 15,000 to 30,000 could be staged next to a 4-acre area with fountains to play in and a large fountain that would cascade right into the river.
The park also would have a festival area for events such as Oktoberfest and Taste of Cincinnati.
But before the park work can begin on the waterfront in 2003, planners will face the task of raising $65 million to convert the riverfront's parking lots to park land.
Similar riverfront development efforts in nearby Dayton and Louisville show the project will take a combination of public and private funds. Park planners think they can make a compelling case that the park is worth that investment.
“Of all the ways our tax dollars are used, we think this is a good one,” said Dave Prather, a Cincinnati Park Board official overseeing the park planning. “There's a lot of support to spend public money this way.”
The park, after all, is the one major feature of the reborn riverfront that will be open to the public for free, and hundreds of people over the past year have offered suggestions for it.
Louisville project
Cities across the country are rediscovering their waterfronts, and Cincinnati's neighbors are no exception.
Louisville just completed the first phase of a riverfront redevelopment project that the city has had in the works since 1991, said Mike Kimmel, deputy director of the Louisville Waterfront Development Corp.
The $58 million project includes a 10-acre lawn that can accommodate 25,000 people, a large children's play area and a series of manmade waterfalls.
The 45-acre project was paid for with funds from the city, county and state, and federal funds covered some road improvements. The bulk of the funding came from private sources, Mr. Kimmel said.
A second phase of the project, to cover 25 more acres, is expected to cost $35 million and be completed in 2005, he said.
Dayton to begin
In Dayton, construction on a $25 million waterfront park is to begin this summer, said Sandy Gudorf, vice president of marketing for the Downtown Dayton Partnership.
The development, scheduled to be finished in time for the community's 2003: Inventing Flight celebration, will be financed with federal, state, county and park funds, money from the Miami Conservancy and $8.5 million in private money.
In addition, six suburban communities have contributed $1 for each of their residents to the project, Ms. Gudorf said.
That kind of regional cooperation, along with the combination of public and private funds, could serve as a blueprint for funding Cincinnati's new riverfront park, said Lau ra Long, executive director of the Cincinnati Business Committee and a member of the advisory board working on the park plan.
“It's very clear the city of Dayton couldn't fund that project on its own,” she said. “It required that regional cooperation.”
As currently planned, Cincinnati's new riverfront park would be made up of a series of green spaces, each with a particular purpose.
The largest of those would be an 18-acre area, most of which is south of Mehring Way and just west of the Bengals' new Paul Brown Stadium. Planners are calling it the “informal green space” and expect it to be the least structured — and least used — of all the park land.
That land also is the only parcel in the plan that isn't yet publicly owned. Hilltop Basic Resources, the concrete company, still owns much of it.
Hamilton County officials have talked with the company about buying the land. But those talks still are preliminary, and the county hasn't made any promises to turn over that land for parks.
The $65 million cost estimate for the park doesn't include money to buy that land, Mr. Prather said.
“You get less of a park” without the Hilltop land, he said, “but that's the least developed part and probably the least populated and the most remote.”
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