As Cincinnati Center City Development Corp. (3CDC) faces mounting criticism over its role in a dispute involving downtown’s Piatt Park, the nonprofit used a city council committee meeting Monday to spotlight its contributions to the neighborhoods it has helped redevelop.
Representatives from 3CDC, the real estate-focused nonprofit, presented to Cincinnati City Council’s Economic and Cultural Opportunities Committee. During the presentation, they highlighted a range of community investments and initiatives aimed at supporting residents and businesses in areas transformed through the organization’s redevelopment efforts.
“The work you guys do is one of the unsung hero parts of Cincinnati,” council member Seth Walsh told the representatives.
However, other community members thought that 3CDC’s work may be sung enough in City Hall. Stephan Pryor, a long-time state and local candidate for office and a member of the Hamilton County Democratic Central Committee, expressed concern at the nonprofit’s potential for expansion.
“Y’all keep letting 3CDC run everything,” Pryor told the council members during public comment. “It’s trash, it’s garbage, and it’s wrong.”
The presentation’s main focus was on 3CDC’s Ambassador program, which seeks to hire community members in a catch-all property management/social work/first responder role. These ambassadors do everything from removing litter and graffiti, to weeding and shoveling snow, to working with the Cincinnati Police Department and GeneroCity 513 outreach workers. Each ambassador is also First Aid trained, and carries Narcan with them.
“The priority we have is to provide safe environments,” 3CDC’s COO and former Cincinnati City Manager Paula Boggs Muething said. She described the ambassadors as utilizing their “community intuition” — an internal sense of how their neighborhood and communities function — to de-escalate potentially dangerous situations.
Prompted by the council members, David Vissman, 3CDC’s Vice President of Operations, also unveiled a bit of the organization’s plans for the future of their Piatt Park project.
“We’re working on community sessions that will be including them,” Vissman said, referring to groups like the Triiibe Foundation and Food Not Bombs; two of the groups whose weekly mutual aid in the public park has caused controversies with 3CDC and the city in the past.
The issue started in April, when it was announced that the nonprofit was seeking a 39-year lease on Piatt Park, which lies in the company’s Downtown Cincinnati Improvement District, from the city. 3CDC argued that they needed to own the park to get state grants, while community organizers argued that the re-developers simply wanted to privatize the park. Things came to a head later in the month, when it was revealed that the mutual aid groups were the targets of emails between 3CDC and city staff dating back to October of 2025, and that the idea of dispersing the groups via permitting was discussed.
At a glance, this potential community session signals a willingness from 3CDC’s executives to listen to input from those that most often use the park; something that the mutual aid organizations and community organizers have asked for since the beginning.
Vissman predicted the meetings would take place next fall.
“It’ll be centered around: ‘What does everyone want Piatt to look like?’” he added.