F
or decades, uptown neighborhoods Avondale, Corryville and Walnut Hills have struggled with the challenges associated with disconnected inner-city areas. But recent discussions about an ongoing $100 million highway project at the intersection of the three neighborhoods have raised questions about ways in which development can help address those struggles — and whether it will at all.
Boosters say the Aug. 6 launch of the project that will connect Interstate 71 to the neighborhoods via an interchange at Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive could enable promising new development. Community leaders in the neighborhoods are cautiously optimistic, though they’re also calling for assurances that development work will benefit the more than 22,000 residents of the long-neglected neighborhoods.
Either way, breaking ground on such a major project means a lot is about to change for the predominantly black communities, which have had a long, hard history with highway projects.
Work on Interstate 75 in the early 1960s moved as many as 20,000 black residents from the southern portion of the West End. Limited by restrictive housing practices, many came uptown to Avondale, Corryville and Walnut Hills.
Less than 10 years later, in 1970, work on Interstate 71 split these neighborhoods, too, but the area did not receive direct access to the highway. Officials at the time said funding shortages meant no interchange would be built there. Community members say being cut off added to the neighborhoods’ struggles, which were already mounting at the time due to white flight from the city and two race riots that shook Avondale in 1967 and 1968.
Since that time, years of disinvestment have left buildings empty and crumbling. High unemployment rates, poverty, violent crime and drug issues have given the communities a rough reputation. Census data shows that 42 percent of Avondale residents live below the poverty line, and the neighborhood has a 40 percent unemployment rate. In Corryville, the median household income is about $19,000 a year, well below the city’s median of about $34,000.
Recently, new development in Corryville has changed the face of parts of the neighborhood, especially near the six-block stretch of Vine Street that runs near the east side of the University of Cincinnati. There, new restaurants, apartments and bars have sprung up as millions of dollars have been invested in the area by developers. The Uptown Consortium, a group composed of powerful uptown institutions like the University of Cincinnati, TriHealth, Inc., Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and others, has played a key role in this development. Many in the community, including some on Corryville Community Council, have applauded the new additions. But others in the neighborhood have questioned whether all the changes have been good.
“To be blunt, the Corryville community has lost the civic right to self determination — the right to decide for itself its own developmental future and to make that decision as a neighborhood,” says Lydia Karlo, a 30-year resident of Corryville who has been active in questioning development there.
Karlo says much of the development in Corryville has been dominated by large developers and that long-time residents haven’t had enough say in what gets built where. She says changes in the neighborhood aren’t always in low- and moderate-income residents’ best interests and expresses dismay at the demolition of older, historic properties in the neighborhood.
“This is why I’m apprehensive about the new interchange,” she says.
Community leaders have worked with the Uptown Consortium for years as it has drawn up development plans in uptown. The consortium has helped secure and finance developments such as the construction of a new Hampton Inn and Suites in Corryville and the U Square @ the Loop in Clifton Heights.
In June, the group released a preliminary plan of what new development accompanying the interchange might look like, calling for the creation of an “innovation corridor” along MLK Drive and Reading Road. That corridor would house new research and medical facilities, according to preliminary plans. But some in the community have questioned whether the jobs created by this development would be attainable by residents there. Avondale Community Council President Patricia Milton pledged to continue working with the group, along with the Ohio Department of Transportation and others involved in the projects around the highway, but also said she would hold them accountable.
“Our residents have worked here, we have lived here, we have survived the blight and disinvestment, the unemployment, the gangs, the health inequality and still we want to stay here and revitalize Avondale,” Milton says. “Our tax dollars are paying for development and our community needs to benefit from the development. Residents have great input and value and we are working and planning for the longevity of the community.”
Milton says a Community Benefits Agreement that assures new development benefits those living in Avondale is a must for future development plans. Among the requests: provisions asking that local workers are hired and paid living wages, that local businesses are included and created in development and that the process provides support to student apprenticeship programs and the Avondale Cultural Arts and Workforce Development Center.
Ozie Davis III isconditionally supportive of the interchange project and surrounding development. Davis leads the Avondale Community Development Corporation, a nonprofit organization working to boost the neighborhood’s economic prospects. He hopes development associated with the interchange will help the neighborhood but has questions about who is accountable for making sure development is inclusive to the residents of Avondale.
Community leaders like Davis and Milton got a boost in their efforts on Sept. 9, when Vice Mayor David Mann asked Cincinnati City Council to create a task force charged with assuring that development around the I-71 interchange benefits residents of surrounding neighborhoods. Mann has said preliminary plans for the area are vague on this point. He said that a recent study highlighted the potential economic benefits of the so-called “innovation corridor” to the city as a whole, but that “there wasn’t the conversation … on the benefit to the adjacent communities from this wonderful opportunity.”
That study, by the Uptown Consortium and the University of Cincinnati, found that the proposed development could bring hundreds of millions of dollars in economic benefits and create more than 7,000 long-term jobs. Mann said council needs to make sure those benefits reach those who live in the area. Community leaders appreciate Mann’s effort and say they hope developers agree.
The Uptown Consortium has said its plans for development around the MLK/Reading corridor are preliminary, and that future plans will address ways to extend economic benefits to neighborhood residents.
“We fully support that,” said Uptown Consortium President Beth Robinson of Mann’s task force proposal. “It’s absolutely important that the city is involved. It’s always been our intention that the neighborhoods be at the table. What makes it so difficult is this is in the preliminary planning stages.”
Community leaders like Milton and Davis are throwing support behind the potential benefits of the new interchange–with some big caveats.
“The Uptown Consortium/City of Cincinnati study of potential economic benefit suggests close to a billion dollars of opportunity,” said Davis, referencing the UC study. “That can’t and won’t happen without Avondale residents seeing social and economic mobility.” ©
This article appears in Sep 17-23, 2014.