When construction of Interstate 74 coursed through South Cumminsville about 30 years ago, longtime businesses and residents fled.

        When drugs and crime took a toll on the family-oriented community in the late 1980s, more people left.

State Sen. Mark Mallory and community leaders look at this empty acreage and see an attractive development of homes, streets and landscaping. (Ernest Coleman photo) | ZOOM |

        Now, community leaders hope that a new $3.7 million housing development will turn that tide. They plan 25 homes, priced $85,000 to $115,000, on 2.4 acres on Herron Avenue between Powers and Dreman.

        Bids go out this fall for utility and site preparation work, which will include extending Herron from Dreman. Several homes will be started in the spring for completion in fall 2002.

        The project should be complete by 2004, planners said.

        “It will be a nice little area, like a South Cumminsville Hyde Park,” said Marilyn Evans, president of the South Cumminsville Community Council and secretary of the nonprofit developer, South Cumminsville Community United for Better Housing.

        “It's going to build our community up to what we knew the community to be,” she said. “Piece by piece, we're seeing the community change back. (This) is going to put another piece in place.”

        State Sen. Mark Mallory, D-Cincinnati, said the project will have a ripple effect on nearby homeowners, who will take better care of their homes, and on other developers thinking of South Cumminsville.

        Perhaps more businesses and residents will return.

        “People don't always have an understanding of home ownership,” he said. “When people own their homes, they tend to take care of them. This is not one house or two houses. It's an entire new development. A year from now — bam!”

        The predominantly black neighborhood has 3,914 residents. It lost 10.4 percent of its populace in the last decade, according to the U.S. Census. Still, the neighborhood has a 55 percent home ownership rate, compared to 38 percent for all of Cincinnati.

        William Thompson, 59, moved to South Cumminsville from Kennedy Heights more than a decade ago. He was about to get married and wanted an affordable home. He says he enjoys it better than more affluent neighborhoods in which he has lived.

        He and his wife, Barbara, are eager to see their daughter Lisa Durret, 35, purchase one of the new homes.

        “It's going to add some stable people to the community. People who will move into the community and stay. It is a nice, friendly, mixed neighborhood where people seem to get along,” he said

Kimmy Trollinger (Ernest Coleman photo) | ZOOM |

        Yet some are skeptical.

        Kimmy Trollinger, 40, lives with his mother at Herron and Dreman, two homes down from the new development. He believes it will inspire pride, making people more likely to take care of their properties and report drug problems.

        But his brother, Coy, 47, who lives a quarter-mile away on Cass Avenue, thinks the new homes and neighbors will bring more trouble.

        “Here comes the noise. Here comes the kids. Here comes the trouble,” he said.

        TLisa Durret wants one of the 25 new homes. “I've never bought a home before. I thought I'd try,” she said.

        The mother of two likes what community leaders are trying to do in South Cumminsville.

        “They're trying to build it up,” she said. “I'm pretty sure it'd be a good start,” she said.

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