Thursday, September 23, 1999
Covington plans new apartments on choice site
3 blocks from river, next to historic area
BY CINDY SCHROEDER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
COVINGTON — City officials have agreed with Towne Properties of Mount Adams to build 86 apartments targeted at middle- and upper-income renters near the southern end of the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge.
Agreement came after more than a year of on-again, off-again negotiations.
By spring 2001, plans call for the $9 million, four-story, U-shaped apartment building to occupy a site at Third and Greenup streets that's now home to a city parking lot and Bensons Inc. catering business. Towne Properties hopes to break ground by March.
Covington officials see the project as capitalizing on the demand for city housing with river views, as well as creating a more vibrant downtown.
“I think people now realize that to have the real vibrancy you had in the downtowns of the '50s and the '60s, you have to have not only the worker and the shopper, but the resident,” said Tom Steidel, Covington assistant city manager. “Cities can add all the retail they want, but they still need people living there to support existing businesses, and attract others.”
Covington CommissionerJerry Bamberger agreed.
“We've been looking for ways to bring residential development to the downtown area,” Mr. Bamberger said. “This will mean more people on the streets of Covington. It'll help the businesses that are there, and it'll be a magnet for others to come into the city.”
Although Towne Properties has not developed any projects in Covington, it has done residential projects elsewhere in Northern Kentucky and downtown Cincinnati, including the Gramercy, the Greenwich on the Park, the Groton Lofts and the Lofts at Shillito Place.
“The attractive part of the project is that you can walk across the bridge and you're in downtown Cincinnati,” said Alan Bernstein, whose Bensons Leasing Co. owns more than half the site where the apartments will be built. “You can leave your car in the garage and walk to offices, shops and restaurants. What better place to live?”
The design will be unveiled Friday. Developers and city officials say it will complement the historic neighborhood.
“The design is very neighborhood-oriented,” Mr. Steidel said. “I think when it's finished, people will think that it's been there for a while.”
Arn Bortz, a principal in Towne Properties, described the project, which will face Greenup, Second and Third Streets, as “a very traditional row-house design that will be sensitive to the adjacent (Licking Riverside) historic district to the east.”
Through a variation of brick colors and other details in each section, the apartments “will feel more like row houses than one building,” Mr. Bortz said.
Parking will be provided for more than 120 cars on site through a combination of garages and spaces in a courtyard accessible from an alley to the east.
Seventy of the 86 units will be two-bedroom apartments or two-bedrooms with dens, ranging from 1,100 square feet to more than 1,400 square feet, Mr. Bortz said. The rest will be one-bedroom apartments ranging from 850 to 950 square feet.
Monthly rents will range from $850 to $1,350.
While some Covington officials initially sought luxury condominiums for the Third and Greenup site, they say the developer convinced them that the market was more suited to apartments.
“We're hoping that this will be the first of many major residential developments to come in the downtown area,” said Covington Commissioner Butch Callery. Across the river, the advocacy group Downtown Cincinnati Inc. has lobbied for new riverfront housing to be built between the Bengals' Paul Brown Stadium and the new Reds ballpark.
But luxury riverfront housing has not always been an easy sell.
In Cincinnati, high-rise condominiums in the Adams Landing project near the Montgomery Inn Boathouse initially were slow to sell, after opening in November 1992.
Linda Grassmuck, sales manager for Adams Landing, said the project's problems were caused by a softening in the market and overbuilding.
Ms. Grassmuck said the developer wanted to put up 40 units initially, but Cincinnati officials requested that they build all 80 at once.
Though Adams Landing sales were slow at first, they have been “really great” during the past two years, Ms. Grassmuck said. She said only two units will be left to sell after she closes on four others between now and early October.
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