By Howard Wilkinson
The Cincinnati Enquirer

The big pieces are in place: the up-and-running Paul Brown Stadium; the Great American Ball Park, where the turnstiles will start spinning in the spring; and the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, about 18 months away.

But many regional leaders and city officials say the revival of Cincinnati's riverfront won't be complete until the spaces in between the major attractions are filled with development that will give people even more reasons to come to the Ohio River banks, the city's "front porch.''

"It is a place that just screams for residential development,'' said former Cincinnati councilman Nick Vehr, now the vice president for economic development at the Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce.

Someday, Mr. Vehr said, the downtown riverfront will become more than a place to go to watch a ball game.

"It will be a cool, dynamic neighborhood where people will want to live,'' he said.

But the unanswerable question is how long it will take for that vision to become a reality.

There is a strategy for further riverfront development. It is called The Banks, and it is a $788 million plan that the Riverfront Advisers, a group formed by city and council officials, unveiled in 1999. But it has been stalled by a sluggish and uncertain economy.

"It is going to be enormously distasteful to everyone who voted for the (Hamilton County sales) tax levy if we end up with two stadiums, a narrower Fort Washington Way and a sea of surface parking lots on the riverfront,'' said Jack Rouse, chairman of the Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority, the successor to the Riverfront Advisers.

The Banks development - a combination of housing, office and retail that would stretch from Paul Brown Stadium to Great American Ball Park - depends on the construction of underground parking garages that would serve as the foundation for the construction of new residential and commercial buildings.

But a shaky economy and fewer-than-expected sales tax receipts have left Hamilton County unable to find the $70 million needed to build the garages and other infrastructure needed to jumpstart the project.

Until the garages are built, city and county park district officials are unable to go ahead with construction of a $70 million Central Riverfront Park, an area of riverfront green space that would be surrounded by the riverfront's major attractions.

"The park is the one thing that is for everybody,'' Mr. Rouse said. "Some people won't go to ball games. Not everybody is going to live at The Banks. But everyone can use the park.''

But the park depends on the underground garages, Mr. Rouse said.

Without the underground garages, the surface parking lots must remain in place to handle the crowds going to Reds and Bengals games.

"If it weren't for that, we could build the park now,'' Mr. Rouse said.

Soon, the Port Authority will choose a primary developer for The Banks project, Mr. Rouse said. The actual development, however, will have to wait "until all the pieces are in place.''

Mr. Vehr said he is convinced that The Banks and the riverfront park will be completed "when the market is ready to allow it to happen.''

"It has to happen,'' Mr. Vehr said. "The riverfront can't be complete without it.''