After decades of development that saw many West End residents displaced, two Black entrepreneurs are taking redevelopment of the neighborhood into their own hands.
Means Cameron and Tony Jones Jr., natives of the West End and Bond Hill respectively, have long dreamed of fixing up the neighborhood’s vacant buildings and restoring the area to its former glory without negatively impacting the community around them.
This Wednesday, they’ll take the first step toward that goal with the opening of 1901 Baymiller, a fully revitalized three-story building with seven residential apartments—priced affordably at the area’s median income—and one ground-floor space, which will soon hold a food retailer to lessen the neighborhood’s status as a food desert.
Cameron is well-known for creating the coffee shop BlaCk Coffee Lounge downtown, as well as the award-winning apparel brand BlaCkOWned, which can often be seen on the backs of some of the city’s biggest names like Joe Burrow. Jones Jr., meanwhile, owns local construction firm Monopoly Men Construction.
The two have been working jointly as Common Ground Community Development, and have been collaborating with the city, The Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority and local leaders on the 1901 Baymiller project since 2017.
“We met with the community and asked what they wanted to see in the West End, and they told us affordable housing and a source of food. They wanted to see less buildings vacant, and they wanted to be a part of the conversation as we work through this,” Cameron said. “I love that I’m from this community, and I have history in this community. And now I feel like I get the opportunity to envision it for what I’ve always wanted it to be, too, which is revitalized. I’m not just here to see the results, I’m here to be a part of it.”
As his firm handled the building’s renovations and construction, Jones Jr. worked closely with community leaders to ensure everyone’s needs were met.
“The community wanted workforce housing, so we gave them workforce housing, right? It’s not supposed to feel like, quote unquote, section 8 housing. It feels like a home your average person can take pride in. And this neighborhood doesn’t have many food options, and especially not from people who look like them,” Jones Jr. said. “We came out and told the community upfront that we’d go out and find a minority food operator, and that’s exactly what we’re doing. We just wanted to make sure that this development aligned with the people who are there, right? The people who have to walk past this property every day.”
While Cameron and Jones Jr. are still seeking the person who will take over the designated food space on the ground floor—”and if you know anyone, give ’em Tony’s email,” Cameron said—they do know whatever the space ends up being will have a focus on healthier ingredients, just as the community requested. They also intend for the space to be somewhere that local residents gather at, similar to the places the West End was full of decades ago before they were wiped out.
“We wanted to make sure that we took it back to the roots. That we took it back where there was a history of people who look like us, who were thriving, and when this was a vibrant community,” Jones Jr. said. “Some people in their 40s and 50s can remember when the West End looked completely different. We were very intentional about that. We did not want our project to be a spec deal just to make money, you know? We wanted to make sure it had major community impact.”
Cameron says the name of their new company, Common Ground, is two-fold: while it’s named for the commonalities that he and Jones Jr. share because of their upbringing, they also have a common goal to see the city change for the better.
“We want to see people take pride in their neighborhood, not walking past vacant properties or burnt up buildings,” he said. “That’s why we’re celebrating this. It’s not an everyday story that two young African American guys from the community came back to clean it up and do good work for the people. We know that the odds are stacked against us for all type of reasons. We’re from the urban core, and we know how it can swallow you up out there… We know that we’re breaking barriers by doing this, and we’re going to continue doing it.”
