The Cincinnati Park Board of Commissioners today voted against allowing a nonprofit arts group to build a facility in Burnet Woods, the 90-acre woods wedged between Clifton, University of Cincinnati and Avondale, but did vote to let another, smaller project go forward.
A number of supporters came out to speak for the Clifton Cultural Arts Center’s proposal to build a new home in the woods, but others weren’t happy with plans to build there.
The Clifton Cultural Art Center’s proposal back in May to build a 25,000-square-foot, three-story arts facility on the park’s Brookline Drive elicited some controversy fueled by those who oppose more construction in the park.
After feedback, CCAC commissioned preliminary concepts for a potential building in the park from design firm Emersion Design. It also shifted its focus to two different potential locations: one in a field on the southwestern edge of the park where Clifton Ave. and Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. intersect, and another location in the interior of the park south of its iconic bandstand just off Clifton Ave.
The board voted to reject the CCAC’s proposal 3-2.
In a separate vote, it did give approval to continue exploring plans for an update of the existing, WPA-built Trailside Nature Center by The Camping and Education Foundation, a 50-year-old nonprofit that operates urban nature education programs and camping outings locally and at sites in Minnesota.
The foundation partners with Cincinnati Public Schools and other area public schools to provide nature education and camping experiences to youth who might not otherwise be exposed to environs outside urban areas. It also partners with the University of Cincinnati on two nature education courses.
Camping and Education Foundation President Hugh Haller says Burnet Woods would be a great fit for the organization’s mission.
“Why Burnet? It’s centrally located,” Haller said during initial presentation of the plan in Clifton in May. “If we’re going to reach all urban youth, we need a central location. As much as we’re not embedded in this neighborhood like CCAC is, we really value this neighborhood.”
Programming would likely include boat-building classes for public school students. Those classes generally run about two weeks and teach students about using basic tools. Other classes would include nature systems education for students aided by the facility’s potential geothermal heat, solar panels and other green technology.
The CCAC’s facility would have replaced its former home at Clifton School on Clifton Ave., which the arts organization left when Cincinnati Public Schools reclaimed it for a neighborhood school.
CCAC representatives Nov. 15 presented those initial plans, along with an outline for how it would pay for the estimated $8 million construction costs and its ongoing business plan, to the Cincinnati Board of Park Commissioners.
The CCAC would have used about $1.5 million it received via a settlement with CPS, another $1.5 million in New Market Tax Credits and $5 million it plans to raise from private donors. CCAC Director Leslie Mooney says the group has raised more than $400,000 toward that sum since November.
One potential plan on the edge of the park would have had a facility with a footprint of about 14,000 square feet, with the whole location taking up 17,000 square feet. The other proposed facility in the park’s interior would have been about 10,000 square feet, with the entire site there encompassing about 12,300 square feet. Both facilities would have been two stories tall and would have had 40 parking spaces around them, mostly on existing pavement.
A new facility for the CCAC would have been highly environmentally friendly, the art center’s representatives said, and much of the building would have been built below grade and incorporate materials found in the park, limiting how much they would block views and their impact on the park’s character.
Some Burnet Woods fans aren’t happy with the idea of building in the park. A petition drive has garnered almost 3,200 signatures asking the park board to leave the woods alone. The rejection of the CCAC’s facility is something of a victory for the group.
The park is home to a number of species of birds and other wildlife, including some that are rare or have few other places of refuge in the city, opponents of the development say.
“We’re upset,” Cynthia Duval, head of the group Preserve Burnet Woods, said today about the proposals to build in the park. “We’ve seen these proposals to build in Burnet Woods over and over again. Parks are a promise to the whole city that we will have these spaces where we can connect with nature.”
That group, formed after the initial proposals for building in the park came to light in May, has since incorporated as a nonprofit and has put in more than 100 volunteer hours clearing honeysuckle and completing other projects. They’ve also drawn up a long-term plan for ways to care for the park.
“We’re an alternate solution to what you’ve heard,” Duval said during a presentation to the board today. “And we’re a no-risk option. You have nothing to lose except some honey suckle and litter.”
Some opponents also questioned if the budget for the expensive environmental features of the CCAC’s proposed building was realistic and pointed out that tax credits proposed to help build the CCAC’s new home don’t require that the facility be built in the park.
“I’d like to urge you to leave the mystic, magical, beautiful Burnet Woods as it is,” Sierra Club Miami Group Treasurer Randy Johnson said. Johnson, also a physics teacher at University of Cincinnati, told the board that his students use one proposed site for recreation. “The park is both an oasis of nature and a play place,” he said.
But the arts facility would have allowed more people to use the park, supporters said.
“I’m a parent of small children, and I know there are a lot of us who feel our voices have not been heard,” Clifton resident Laura Roller told the board today. “Parks are for the people and the type of hands-on, diverse programming that CCAC will provide will bring young families to our parks. Bird watching and nature hikes are great, but they’re not for everyone. Without sacrificing the natural environment in Burnet Woods, you’re adding so much to what the park can offer.”
The CCAC would have leased either site from Cincinnati Parks for an undetermined amount, though it is unclear how the proposal would have otherwise helped the parks with looming funding needs.
The suggestions came as Cincinnati Parks looks for ways to fund upkeep and improvements to the city’s parks. The system needs some $58 million in deferred maintenance, parks officials say, and it’s unclear where that money would come from. Burnet Woods has a number of maintenance needs itself, many of which involve differed maintenance.
The board is working to find an extra $500,000 for maintenance in Burnet Woods, as well as similar funding for other parks.
“It’s our job to try and find additional money to support the parks,” Board Vice President Stanley Goetz said today.
“We don’t have any new buckets of resources falling out of the sky,” Parks Director Wade Walcutt said when first presenting options for additions to Burnet Woods in May. “I’m not interested in making changes for changes sake. But if there’s an opportunity for all of us to get more people into the parks, I think that’s worth exploring.”
Mooney argued that the CCAC’s proposal was vital for the woods.
“The needs of Burnet Woods are so great that it is truly an all-hands-on deck effort,” Mooney told the board today.
Changes to the woods have been touchy in the past. When it was initially leased to the city by wealthy Cincinnatians Robert Burnet and William Groesbeck in 1874, the park encompassed more than 170 acres. After the city purchased most of the land outright, it lopped off 74 acres that in 1895 became the home of the University of Cincinnati, which was then seeking to leave its crowded, hill-perched location surrounded by industry at Vine Street and Clifton Avenue. Half a century later, the city gave UC another 18 acres now occupied by the school of Design, Art, Architecture and Planning and other buildings.
Since then, some fans of the park have been increasingly vigilant about proposed alterations. Voters in 2015 rejected Issue 22, a controversial charter amendment suggested by Mayor John Cranley that would have created a fund for big changes to the woods as well as many other parks around the city.
“As painful as the Burnet Woods process was, it was a good process,” board member Kevin Flynn said after the vote. ” It shows that reasonable people can disagree reasonably. I want people to know that it was tough for all five of us up here.”
This article appears in Dec 19-26, 2018.