A new program from 3CDC will offer small businesses a short-term lease for a storefront on Main Street in Over-the-Rhine.
The non-profit Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation was given $3.5 million last year to expand Over-the-Rhine's Ziegler Park. That expansion is almost complete and is under budget. 3CDC wants to use the leftover money for the Main Street Pop-Up Program.
Cincinnati Council's Budget and Finance Committee considered an ordinance Monday authorizing $485,000 for the project. Lindzie Gunnels, manager of commercial leasing at 3CDC, pitched the idea.
"The key with this program is that we will need to have a dedicated program coordinator to actually manage it, facilitate the daily activities of sourcing tenants, recruiting tenants, managing the logistics of a tenant build-out process, the turnover of those spaces throughout the pop-up," Gunnels said.
The idea came out of a working group that has met about twice a month since August, after nine people were shot on Main Street. 3CDC is part of that working group. The Ziegler Park expansion was promoted as a violence-reduction initiative, and officials say this is an extension of that.
RELATED: 3CDC will expand Over-the-Rhine's Ziegler Park with $3.5M from the city's carryover budget
"Those vacant storefronts lead to a lot of the criminal activity that we see," said Council Member Liz Keating, a member of the working group. "We need to be able to fill those storefronts, have them productive storefronts, but also this is a way that we can give opportunities to minority-owned businesses and small businesses to have a chance, some who may not have the capital to create their own brick and mortar."
There are 26 vacant storefronts initially included, but Keating says there could be more down the road. Some are owned by 3CDC and some are owned by Urban Sites, another regular participant in the working group.
How much will the program cost?
A few council members, led by newest member Seth Walsh, questioned why the pop-up program would cost $485,000.
"I can tell you from firsthand experience, I can tell you from things we're seeing, this budget is bloated and can be cut," Walsh said. "It can be done in a way that we can have the same level of impact, and have money left over to be able to help other neighborhoods who are facing the same issue."
Before being appointed to Council late last year, Walsh was CEO of the College Hill Urban Redevelopment Corporation, which currently operates a nearly identical program for small businesses.
Walsh proposed an amendment to reduce the funding from $485,000 to $405,000. Keating and a few other council members opposed the idea.
Adam Gelter, 3CDC's executive vice president, offered council a compromise — lowering the budget by $25,000 to $460,000.
LISTEN: A discussion on 3CDC's plans to expand development north of Liberty Street
"I think we're very comfortable with that," Gelter said. "I think we can piece together what we need within that budget for sure."
An amendment to reduce the ordinance to $460,000 passed on a 5-3 vote with three opposing: Reggie Harris, Liz Keating and Meeka Owens. (Council Member Jeff Cramerding was absent.)
"We ask every neighborhood to trim their budget because dollars are tight in the city of Cincinnati — why would we not do the same here?" Walsh told WVXU. "The more we peeled back the onion on it, the more clear it became that they didn't need all the money that they're trying to allocate for it."
The ordinance is expected to get a final vote in full Council Wednesday afternoon.
Lack of budget transparency
Details about how the money will be spent are not easy to find.
The ordinance approved in Budget and Finance Committee on Monday includes no budget breakdown; neither does the transmittal, a document prepared by city administration to accompany every ordinance that is intended to offer more context.
The presentation slides used in committee Monday (embedded in full below) offer a bit more information:
Proposed Budget:
- 2-year program coordinator salary: $150,000
- Consultants and Professional Services: $80,000
- Grants for build-outs/start-up costs: $255,000
Only when pressed for more detail did Gunnels offer another piece of the budget: $55,000 of the "consultants and professional services" is for security detail. Responding to additional council member questions, Gelter expanded:
"We had planned this summer to have a seven day a week second shift police detail in Ziegler Park and Main Street covered fully by 3CDC," Gelter said. "We met with [Cincinnati Police] Chief Theetge and other police leadership. They requested that we have essentially two officers in that detail."
The $55,000 would fund the second officer on an evening shift seven days a week. It's not clear what form that security detail will take; it could be off-duty or retired CPD officers hired privately.
Gelter says the $25,000 taken out of the initial ask will come from the consulting portion of the budget.
Budget Committee Chair Reggie Harris wanted to hold the item to allow for more discussion. City Manager Sheryl Long advised against it.
"We're trying to do a lot of things to prepare us for the summer, we already know temperatures are getting warm," Long said. "And what we need is a consistent plan that we are consistently moving towards getting where we know we need to be."
It was not initially clear how the Ziegler Park expansion came in so far under budget.
Last November, WVXU submitted a public records request for a more detailed budget for the $3.5 million expansion. About three weeks later, the city responded: "The City has reviewed its files and determined there are no records that are responsive to your request."
WVXU filed a new request this week asking for the final budget to determine where the nearly half a million dollars in savings came from. In response to that request, the city shared the following budget (summarized below and available in full at this link), as well as a budget they say was available back in November but not located due to a miscommunication among city staff. The original agreed-upon budget is available in full at this link.
Ziegler Park expansion budget summary, as of April 21:
Hard costs budgeted: $2,970,287 (including $289,927 contingency)
Hard costs spent: $2,596,629.27
- Public art: $100,000 (of $100,000 budget)
- Construction cost: $2,185,359.85 (of $2,330,360)
- Site work: $61,269.42 (of unknown budget)
- Furniture, fixtures and improvement: $250,000 (of $250,000 budget)
Soft costs budgeted: $529,713 (including $166,667 contingency)
Soft costs spent: $369,046.25
- Architecture/Engineering (design): $206,050 (of $211,046 budget)
- Professional fees: $40,000 (of $52,000 budget)
- Developer fee (Project management fee): $122,996.25 (of $100,000 budget)
Contingency budgeted: $456,594
Contingency spent: $49,324.48
3CDC Main Street Pop-Up Presentation by WVXU News on Scribd
