A billion dollars has bought two sports stadiums and a new highway on the riverfront, but has yet to buy Greater Cincinnati a healthy downtown.

        Even after almost constant attention on downtown development for almost a decade, the area between the Ohio River and Central Parkway still holds a handful of successful projects, decaying older buildings and a political system that many say seems incapable of solving the smallest problems.

        Many U.S. cities envy Cincinnati's riverfront, with about $1.2 billion to be spent on Paul Brown Stadium, Great American Ball Park, Fort Washington Way, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center and other projects.

        But other cities are taking advantage of the current boom in downtown living that Cincinnati has yet to tap, a group of local officials who helped shape downtown development said.

        “I could just cry when I come back from Indianapolis or Portland or some of those other cities,” said former mayor Arn Bortz, now a partner at Mount Adams developer Towne Properties. “Those cities really know where they're going.”

        As the riverfront is completed during the next several years, Cincinnati must solidify downtown as the cultural, sports and arts center of the region, drawing thousands of new residents a year, luring suburbanites and tourists, the group said.

        The stakes could not be higher.

        Just as the whole region suffers when downtown Cincinnati lags, a true revival would make all of Greater Cincinnati better able to compete.

        Not only would that mean more tax revenue and more services for the city of Cincinnati, but it would bring new talent for the region, the kind of people that now may choose to live elsewhere.

        “The long-term interest of the city, fundamentally, is having people live in it,” said former mayor Roxanne Qualls, now working in a graduate fellowship at Harvard University.

        “We are at a turning point because of the economy, and because of all the money that has been invested,” she added.

        The numbers show that Cincinnati needs downtown to flourish more than ever. The central business district still provides about one-third of the income-tax and property-tax revenue to the city. Officials estimate downtown workers and companies pay about $95 million annually in earnings taxes.

        As people move outside the city limits — Cincinnati lost 33,000 people in the 1990s, according to new Census figures — that money becomes more important than ever.

        It comes in a time of shrinking city budgets. Faced with declining revenue, City Manager John Shirey recommended a series of budget cuts earlier this month.

        So what does downtown need? Leaders of the business and political community here recommend pouring new dollars into housing projects and a light-rail transit system.

        “It requires people to put their money where their mouth is,” Ms. Qualls said. “Just look at the riverfront.”

        And instead of concentrating on huge capital projects like a $400 million convention-center expansion, city fathers should write a comprehensive plan — and allocate money to fund it, the group of business and political leaders said.

        “If anybody wasn't a believer in a downtown plan, they ought to be a believer now based on what happened on the riverfront,” said Dave Phillips, the founding chairman of Downtown Cincinnati Inc., the downtown marketing group founded in 1994.

        There has indisputably been progress in downtown Cincinnati, starting with the riverfront. When Hamilton County voters passed a half-cent sales-tax increase to pay for new stadiums in 1996, supporters said the riverfront would be a catalyst for keeping Cincinnati a “major-league city,” even beyond the sports facilities.

        The riverfront plan also includes The Banks proposal for hundreds of apartments, along with stores and restaurants, between the two stadiums.

        “The vision there is spectacular and one-of-a-kind in our history,” Mayor Charlie Luken said. “I expect that in the next five years, people in some of those other cities are going to be saying, "Hey, have you seen what they've done in Cincinnati?'”

        Observers point to several other positive developments. First, Downtown Cincinnati Inc. was formed in 1994, and has installed a full-time staff to advocate downtown projects.

        DCI staff helped design what is now the reconstructed Fort Washington Way, and the organization was behind the Cincinnati Equity Fund, which provides financing to downtown projects that might have trouble getting bank loans.

        The Equity Fund supported the renovation of the Firstar Center, for example, and has pledged funds for the proposed Nordstrom store at Fifth and Race streets.

        DCI also has pushed for dozens of new retail developments here, including the Tiffany & Co. store at Fifth and Vine streets and the T.J. Maxx store near Fourth and Race.

        Those have increased downtown retail sales by more than $160 million a year since 1995, DCI said.

        There are several major arts facilities planned downtown, including a new School for the Creative and Performing Arts near Music Hall and a new Contemporary Arts Center at Sixth and Walnut streets.

        Other accomplishments downtown include a group of Internet companies clustered on Main Street in Over-the-Rhine, done mostly without public subsidy.

        And some new housing developments have prospered with strong demand, including a 45-unit project on Eighth Street developed by Al Neyer Inc. and North American Properties that leased within six weeks.

        Nationally, new residential development is the dominant trend in downtown development, said Betsy Jackson, president of the International Downtown Association in Washington, D.C.

        “Basically, any place that's attempting to attract any residents to downtown is finding both developer and market interest,” she said.

        Said Mr. Luken: “Our greatest asset is the possibility of a neighborhood and having another few thousand people living downtown. Unfortunately, new housing needs a subsidy, and we struggle to cut and paste the financing for each one.”

        To many downtown leaders, that is the simple reality that faces them: Downtown Cincinnati has yet to turn the corner so it can attract private investment on its own, and is not working from a clearly defined strategy.

        That places the city well behind the country's hottest urban areas like Charlotte, Denver and Indianapolis, where developers are building apartments, condominiums and hotels at a record pace.

        In Indianapolis, there are nearly a dozen downtown housing projects in various stages of construction, although many require some public funding, said Terry Sweeney, vice president of real estate development at Indianapolis Downtown Inc.

        Currently, there are 13,000 people living in downtown Indianapolis, compared to about 3,500 in Cincinnati. About 500 units are under construction or have been proposed here, said Kathy Schwab, vice president of retail development at DCI.

        Outside of smaller residential units, major developments in downtown Cincinnati are limited to projects that take years to complete and require millions of dollars in public subsidy, like the Lazarus department store at Fifth and Race streets and the Nordstrom planned across the street.

        The Lazarus project on the old Fountain Square West site took nearly a decade to complete, and there still is no final deal to bring Nordstrom to occupy to a half-block that was demolished more than a year ago.

        The Nordstrom deal relies on about $30 million of public funds, slightly more thanthe Lazarus deal. Even projects currently in planning, such possible office towers from Duke-Weeks Realty and Western-Southern Life Insurance Co. on Third Street, probably will sit atop publicly financed parking garages.

        Other projects, like the Power Building on Eighth Street that was to be converted into apartments, have fallen victim to city bureaucracy and high renovation costs.

        “I think it would be a huge mistake to equate the publicly financed projects on the riverfront with a rebirth of downtown,” Mr. Bortz said. “On each project downtown, we have a guerrilla war.”

        Downtown leaders also have been unable to solve a parking crisis that has made spaces near the core impossible to find.

        Several thousand spaces should open on the riverfront within the next several years, but the damage to downtown's accessibility has been done.

        “Parking continues to be the top concern, for retail businesses as well as for consumers,” said Dave Anderson, who recently left Delta Air Lines, where he was the head of the downtown development task force at the influential Cincinnati Business Committee.

        The inability to attract private dollars, which makes government the main funding source for development projects, still is the core's main problem, a variety of public and private officials agreed.

        In most cases, the revenue from a potential project — from leases or rents — is not enough to cover high land and renovation costs, they said.

        “When you get private investment, that's the sign that (downtown) is viable,” Mr. Phillips said. “As long as you have to have subsidy, it's not viable or you're still trying to change the mix.”

A billion later, Downtown still isn't healthy
Downtown Cincinnati Inc. cites progress