Sunday, February 27, 2000
Housing project 'connects'
Lincoln Ct. will become less isolated
BY MARK CURNUTTE
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The new Lincoln Court housing community in the West End will be different from the one it will replace.
The new community will connect to the neighborhood and city around it.
The old one was physically isolated, which emotionally isolated its residents, said Willie M. Jones, senior vice president of The Community Builders. The Boston-based nonprofit is the preferred development company of the Lincoln Court project.
The Cincinnati Enquirer got a first look late last week at the overall site plan and building floor plans and elevations, which are expected to be approved soon by city officials and the Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority (CMHA) board.
“I'd be surprised if we have to do more than a few minor adjustments because the design is so Cincinnati,” Mr. Jones said.
The new design reconnects the community to the surrounding neighborhood by extending the street grid.
“What was obvious looking down from 10,000 feet was that grid that defines the city didn't exist in Lincoln and (neighboring) Laurel Homes,” Mr. Jones said. “It was atypical.”
Much of the 60-year-old public housing project of 52 three- and four-story buildings has already been demolished to make way for a new, mixed-income community.
The first residents are to move into the new units in February 2001. The entire project is on schedule to be completed in November 2003.
Community Builders' staff studied the streets around the public housing communities.
“They worked as urban streets,” Mr. Jones said. “People knew who lived across the street, next door and down the block.”
The new Lincoln design will extend Chestnut and Elizabeth streets between Cutter and Linn streets to the west of Porter Middle School.
North of Clark Street, Hopkins Street will be extended between John and Linn streets. The new Hopkins Street will intersect with a tree-lined promenade that will run south of Ezzard Charles Drive to Clark Street and feed into Cutter Street.
The new design also calls for Ezzard Charles to be remade and renamed as a boulevard with tree-filled islands dividing traffic.
The idea on Ezzard Charles is to extend the boulevard from the front door of the Cincinnati Museum Center to the back door of Music Hall.
The Community Builders also wants to “slow down” and “narrow” Linn Street between West Court and Ezzard Charles to make it friendlier to foot traffic and pedestrian-based businesses.
Linn Street also will be home to a bigger and remodeled Lincoln Recreation Center, said Mr. Jones, CMHA Director Donald Troendle and Cincinnati Recreation Commission Director Wayne Bain.
A gymnasium, weight room and locker rooms will be built in a new building. The existing gym will be renovated and converted into a multipurpose room. A bathhouse will be constructed next to the existing swimming pool. A playground also will be built.
The housing authority will contribute $2.2 million of the $2.7 million project, with the remaining $500,000 coming from the recreation commission.
“It's going to be nice for the neighborhood,” Mr. Bain said.
The design for the new Lincoln Court calls for 100 home-ownership units and 400 rental units, 54 of which will be in an elderly-only building on Linn Street between Clark and Hopkins streets. Home-ownership buildings will line Cutter, Ezzard Charles and John.
The building for the elderly will have below-ground parking and a secure garden in the rear.
The home-ownership and rental units — both subsidized and market- rate — will have private entrances, front and back yards and private parking off rear alleys.
The buildings will vary in height, brick and color, Mr. Jones said.
“This had to feel like Cincinnati with the amenities people value,” he said. “It couldn't be boutique or avant-garde. That's a class thing. We have to make it look like a market neighborhood, even though there's public housing in there.”
In 1998, CMHA won a $31.1 million Hope VI grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to re-create Lincoln Court.
The Community Builders has developed several Hope VI mixed-income communities, including former public-housing-only sites in Boston, Louisville and Pittsburgh. In all, since 1964, the firm has worked on 170 affordable-housing projects totaling 14,000 individual housing units.
Last year, CMHA also won a $35 million Hope VI grant to demolish 21 buildings with 970 apartments in Laurel Homes, which is across Ezzard Charles Drive from Lincoln Court.
The city of Cincinnati has pledged more than $15 million to the rebuilding of Lincoln and Laurel.
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