By Gregory Korte
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Five Cincinnati council members say they will support spending $12 million on a parking garage for the Kroger Co., all but assuring that the city's largest employer will stay downtown.

Councilmen John Cranley, David Pepper and Jim Tarbell already supported the plan. Friday, two more councilmen on opposite ends of the political spectrum - Democrat David Crowley and Republican Chris Monzel - added their approval.

With the vote not scheduled until Wednesday, the early support means Kroger will be spared the backroom arm-twisting and deal-making the Convergys Corp. needed to pass its $52.2 million tax-incentives deal at a special session in July.

The Convergys package passed 8-1. Though the vote on Kroger may be closer - four council members remain opposed or undecided - supporters of the garage deal say it was an easier decision to make.

"The dollar amounts are definitely lower. You know Kroger's going to be paying $500,000 a year toward it. And we're not taking from the general fund," said Monzel, who was the only "no" vote when broad outlines of the Kroger garage proposal came to a City Council vote in June.

The 850- to 1,000-space garage at Vine Street and Central Parkway - across from Kroger's world headquarters - would be financed over 30 years from parking revenues, Kroger lease payments and tax-increment financing. TIFs, as they are known, are the same downtown property tax funds City Council has used to pay for a $6.6 million renovation of Saks Fifth Avenue and $29.8 million of the Convergys package.

Kroger's decision to spend $20,000 on a marketing study for its abandoned College Hill store - at Hamilton Avenue and North Bend Road - also helped sway council members caught in a downtown-vs.-neighborhoods debate on city priorities.

Once neighborhood leaders there said Kroger was starting to work with them, some council members who had linked the two issues could now focus solely on Kroger's request for city help in building a parking garage.

Once he did that, Crowley said he became convinced that the benefits to the city in the Kroger deal were much greater than those in the Convergys package.

"We're going to have a 1,000-car garage downtown when it's all over. We're going to have 1,400 Kroger jobs, and their vendors will move into the city also," Crowley said.

Kroger Chairman Joseph A. Pichler said last week he was prepared to move out of Cincinnati if support on City Council went soft.

Crowley said there seems to be more public support for Kroger - a company with 120-year roots in Cincinnati and more than 60 stores in the area - than for Convergys, a 5-year-old technology-based company that provides outsourced customer services to other companies.

Calls and letters to Crowley's office urged him to support the hometown company, he said. And then there were the half-dozen or so people along the route of the Harvest Home Parade in Cheviot Thursday night as he campaigned for re-election, Crowley said.

"Don't let Kroger get away," they shouted.

E-mail gkorte@enquirer.com