Price Hill Will’s executive director is beaming while sipping coffee at the East Price Hill coffee shop, Urbana Cafe.
From his vantage point through the giant window, he has a view of construction on Warsaw Avenue in East Price Hill. It’s a celebration of his work during his inaugural year as head of Price Hill Will, which is working to revitalize the Price Hill communities — West Price Hill, Lower Price Hill and East Price Hill.
“We are close to finishing our Warsaw Creative Campus,” he said, discussing the five-year revitalization project his organization has been working on.
The overall plan, he said, is to go block by block, renovating Warsaw Avenue to make it more business-friendly and safe for residents. He added that the Warsaw Creative Campus will be a vibrant community space with affordable housing units and storefronts for food and creative-minded businesses.
“We want to just keep moving down this block,” Robinson said. “We want to redevelop, revitalize, bring back to life the entire Warsaw Business District.”
Redevelopment has been needed on Warsaw Avenue, Robinson said, retelling a bruised history of the street and the Price Hill community.
“Cars have moved too fast, it’s been too unsafe, there’s been unsavory activity, there’s been an association with this place that it isn’t where you wanted to necessarily bring your family or bring your business,” Robinson said. “What we’re doing is turning that around through real development, through real community activity, through real investment in the arts, safety and community engagement with affordable housing and historic revitalization.”
The Warsaw Creative Campus includes a $10 million city-funded street project and a $13 million renovation project. Funding for the campus includes multiple rounds of Neighborhood Business District Improvement Program grant funding and tax increment financing dollars, historic and new market tax credits, and loans and development support from Cincinnati Development Foundation, Fifth Third Bank, The PORT and Local Initiatives Support Coalition. Robinson said the project will be completed in two phases.
With this money, Robinson said Price Hill Will has rehabilitated six commercial buildings, which will eventually house eight businesses and 23 affordable housing units. The project’s first phase is expected to be completed this month, with a campus grand opening in July.
This campus renovation, shaped by the community’s diversity and housing needs, aims to help families find affordable housing in Price Hill while supporting growth in the business district.
The creative campus has attracted and hopes to continue to attract artists and businesses such as My Cincinnati, the campus’s first tenant, and other creative-minded organizations to East Price Hill.
“We believe in using the arts to develop our youth, our residents and then using it to activate and bring to life commercial and community reinvestment like this,” Robinson said.
Daphney Thomas, a Price Hill community resident since 2009 and the latest business owner to open at the Warsaw Creative Campus, said she thinks the new space will attract people from across Cincinnati.
“I think the redevelopment is attractive to businesses because people love new, vibrant spaces,” Thomas said.
For Thomas, creating a vibrant space, something she felt the area desperately needed, will help shape a new, creative collection of people who work and live on Warsaw Avenue.
“Even the naming of it indicates that this is a space where things are happening, innovation is going on and people are coming together to convene to celebrate a myriad of different things,” Thomas said.
Thomas’ organization, the National Commission for Black Arts & Entertainment, is a membership-based organization with the vision of bringing together Black artists of all genres to support, elevate, celebrate, develop, teach and learn from one another. It uses art as a catalyst to create community impact, as Price Hill Will does.
“We look forward to bringing some of our programs into Price Hill, with things such as our free breakfast and art program, where we provide free nutritious breakfast and bag lunches to families and children in the community,” Thomas added.
Robinson said that because of the community’s diversity in East Price Hill, art can be an equalizer.
“Art is a universal language,” Robinson said. “I’ve been in communities across the country. There are diverse communities everywhere. But Price Hill has a unique diversity because you’re talking about the largest immigrant community in the city.”
Price Hill’s collective community is one of the most diverse in Cincinnati. The area has a significant number of Black, Appalachian and Asian American residents, according to Robinson and Cincinnati neighborhood data.
“The African American population is one that has been rooted in other neighborhoods,” Robinson said. “They’ve moved here over time; they have been pushed here. A lot of the stuff in Over-the-Rhine, some of the stuff in the West End.
“At the same time, we have a lot of Appalachian people,” he added. “They have been here for a long time. So you’ve got a mix of very different cultures here.”
Robinson said the arts can speak to everyone, which is why Price Hill Will focuses heavily on arts and culture as part of its revitalization efforts, helping cut through language, racial and economic barriers.
“Everybody wants to be able to go to a local coffee shop or diner, right? Everyone wants to feel safe when they cross the street and that’s what we’ve invested in heavily,” Robinson said. “It is a misnomer that our communities don’t want development or don’t want to be revitalized.”
The Warsaw Creative Campus, a portion of the Warsaw Business District, sits between two parks, across from a library and a Cincinnati Recreation Center.
“That’s what we call building bridges,” Robinson said with a smile. “I’m talking about East Price Hill. We work in West Price Hill. We work in Lower Price Hill.”
For Thomas, a longtime Price Hill resident, this revitalization is a spark for her community.
“We’re really excited,” Thomas said. “It’s now an opportunity to actually deepen the roots, and not just live there, but also bring the work that means so much to the organization and me into the community.”