A Designated Outdoor Refreshment Area, or DORA, officially opened at The Banks on March 25, but it comes with some important guidelines to help keep COVID-19 at bay during one of Cincinnati’s favorite weeks.
In a DORA, you can walk around a defined space with a boozy beverage in hand. The Banks’ 85-acre DORA spans from Paul Brown Stadium to the Heritage Bank Center and to the south sidewalk of Second Street and north sidewalk of Mehring Way. (For a size comparison, Great American Ball Park takes up 29 acres.)
It is operational 11 a.m.-1 a.m. daily (alcohol sales end at midnight), during which time visitors may purchase their adult beverages in a branded DORA cup from participating businesses and traverse the district.
As such, the DORA will also be operational for the Cincinnati Reds’ Opening Day on April 1.
This year’s citywide Opening Day extravaganza will again look different due to COVID-19 regulations, with no Findlay Market Opening Day Parade in sight and a greatly reduced stadium capacity at Great American Ball Park.
But the question is, with this new DORA in place, what will The Banks look like? Miami spring break?
“Unlike previous years, there’s obviously no parade, there is no Reds Community Fund Block Party, the DORA district is not doing anything to program or promote or publicize anything in particular that’s happening down at The Banks (during Opening Day weekend),” says Tracy Schwegmann of The Banks Community Authority. “The DORA district tomorrow is exactly the same as the DORA district today.”
“We are sensitive to the health protocols that are still in place and not wanting to put things out there that say, ‘Hey come on down. We’ve got a big, crowded event that we want you to be a part of,'” she continues.
But despite some cooler temperatures in the forecast, they’re still preparing for an influx of fans.
“There are a variety of things we’re putting in place, both physical and visible, as well as educational to further enforce some of those health recommendations and enhance the safety of the environment,” Schwegmann says.
Schwegmann says they’ll have picnic tables spread across the DORA for pods to park themselves, along with socially distant circles spraypainted on the Schmidlapp Event Lawn. Somebody will also be walking around the district offering free masks to people who aren’t wearing one.
“That serves as a gentle reminder that if you’re not eating or drinking, you should be masking up,” she says. “It’s a little challenging in the sense that this is an ‘outdoor refreshment area,’ which means people will be eating and drinking, so how that mixes with masks can be a challenging dance.”
COVID-19 safety messaging will be up on the Reds Hall of Fame outdoor screen, and there are also plans to enact geofencing around the DORA (which could be operational by this weekend) that will send a reminder to phones using The Banks’ WiFi about social distancing and masking.
The city has also permanently closed Freedom Way from Joe Nuxhall Way to Walnut Street to make a pedestrian walkway. Bars and restaurants have been able to extend their outdoor seating to the former curb, and will be following and enforcing Ohio Department of Health guidelines.
On March 30, Cincinnati City Councilman David Mann submitted a motion requesting information from the city on COVID compliance within the DORA over its opening weekend to see “what additional enforcement or education may be appropriate to minimize the risk that the DORA will become a major source of new COVID cases.”
“We all look forward to the day when we can move around mask free without social distancing. That moment is getting close, but we cannot risk causing a setback with a surge of new cases. Soon, just about everyone will be vaccinated and we can declare freedom from the COVID nightmare,” Mann says in an emailed statement. “In the meantime, the Health Commissioner and City Manager should review whether DORA rules should be modified temporarily.”
Schwegmann assures that the city is “our partner on this project.”
“DORAs are not put in place as a party zone, but more as an economic initiative to really help businesses down there,” she says. “That’s really the spirit behind it, quite frankly. We are in constant communication with the city. The police have been great partners of ours; we’ve been working with them for a year to put this in place and structure it in a manner that makes sense from a public safety standpoint.”
But regardless of their planning and messaging, the onus of COVID safety is a personal one.
“We think it’s important for folks to take that personal responsibility and evaluate what their health risks are and make those appropriate decisions to put themselves in the best situation possible,” Schwegmann says. “Everybody knows what the risks are, everybody knows (what measures) they can and should be taking to keep themselves safe and healthy.”
This article appears in Best Of Cincinnati 2021.