OTR, Pendleton park includes pool, 400-car garage

It looks like Over-the-Rhine’s Ziegler Park will get a pool, two sets of restrooms, a playground and sprayground, and be extended into the Pendleton neighborhood where a 400-car underground garage will be constructed and topped with a massive lawn.

Construction could start by year’s end, according to park and planning officials, who led the final community input session Monday night at Woodward Theater.

“I’d say the whole project can be fast-tracked,” said Adam Gelter, executive vice president for development at the Cincinnati Center City Development Corp. (3CDC), which has helped spearhead the redevelopment plan.

Attendees of the input session shared overwhelming satisfaction with the plan Monday, including the garage, which had provoked some anger when introduced.

“Not everyone will support it,” Gelter said, but he hoped planners had responded to some of the concerns, like preserving mature trees in the area and checking on rumors that people had been buried there.

Folks in the audience smiled and cheered design details, like a pedestrian walkway that will connect the park to the Main Street business district and a pool with three distinctive features, including a diving area, five-lane lap pool and zero-depth entry that someone can walk, or roll, right into. They’re even talking about constructing a climbing wall that rises out of the pool and arcs over a portion of it.

Officials said the park will be manned with “customer service” employees, one in the garage and one in the park (like the city has in Washington Park), around the clock.

The presenters got a round of applause at the end of the meeting, though some concerns were raised, including one from Main Street business owner Julie Fay, who owns Iris Book Cafe, Urban Eden, and also lives in the neighborhood.

“I like the plan. The design is quite nice,” Fay said.

But she would like to see more parking in the plan that is closer to Main Street, for customers who want to stop in somewhere real quick, as well as business owners and workers who are handicapped or older.

“These businesses operate 52 weeks a year,” Fay said. “If there’s a way to tuck cars in ... I’d like to see a nod given to Main Street businesses.”

Park planners said they also listened to a request at the last meeting to get more opinions from people who use the current space at Ziegler Park.

They interviewed 55 people, said Ryan Geismar, an associate for Human Nature, a Cincinnati-based planning firm working on the project.

Some reported drug activity or described the park as an “outdoor saloon,” Geismar said.

“They wanted more lighting and security,” Geismar said.

Right now, about $11 million is secured for the project, which is estimated to cost about $30 million. That plan includes the parking garage that will serve as parking for future residents at the Alumni Lofts, the former School for Creative and Performing Arts building under renovation to become apartments.

In return for residential parking, the development company will give the land to Cincinnati Park Board.

Ziegler is on the list for redevelopment funds – $5 million in the most recent proposal – if the Cincinnati parks levy passes in November.

The park plan is also a project finalist for Transform Cincinnati, a “Shark Tank”-esque program that puts people with potential development ideas before potential investors.

Now that the community input part is done, 3CDC and other parks planners will draw up a final plan, which still needs to be approved by Cincinnati’s City Planning Commission, Historic Conservation Board and City Council.