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Mount Washington residents have wanted an expanded Kroger store at the intersection of Beechmont Avenue and Corbly Road for years. Note to residents: Be careful what you wish for.
Kroger, facing competition from a new Biggs superstore a mile down Beechmont Avenue, began rebuilding its Mount Washington location last summer, expanding from 28,000 square feet to 60,000. Months before, when word of the expansion first spread, the news was welcomed by the community.
As the summer passed, however, residents gasped at the two-story brick wall growing at the corner of Beechmont and Corbly. The store’s entrance faced the rear parking lot while the corner walls — although partially decorated with awnings, greenery and benches — reached the sidewalks, creating an imposing presence at the intersection.
“Ninety percent of the people complained (about the walls),” said Nancy Hirschauer, manager of the Mt. Washington Bakery, located across Beechmont Avenue from the Kroger store.
It’s been the biggest controversy Mount Washington has seen in years.
“I appreciate having Kroger in the community,” said Chris Humphrey, a 13-year neighborhood resident. “I’m not crazy about the way they built.”
Ken Peck, former president of the Mount Washington Community Council, received several phone calls from friends and neighbors in the summer to register their concerns about the construction. Then a letter pointed him out in a community newsletter, and several calls turned into a couple of dozen, in addition to community council meetings full of upset people.
But that wasn’t the case in March when the community council held a public hearing on the Kroger project, according to Steven Kurtz, an administrator in Cincinnati’s planning department.
Whenever someone wants to build a new store or driveway or put up a new sign in one of the city’s 13 neighborhood business districts, he or she must submit to an environmental quality hearing, which is separate from the city’s building code review. Despite the term, the hearings focus mostly on design guidelines such as how large signs can be and what the building exteriors can look like. Each hearing is mediated by a neutral third party — in this case, Kurtz.
A couple of the business districts, such as Hyde Park, have their own environmental quality committee to track significant projects, Kurtz said.
“You rely on the community to come in and make these points,” he said.
But citizens can’t force a business to meet their demands at the hearing.
“It’s a guide to development,” Kurtz said. “It’s not a mandate.”
At the Kroger environmental quality hearing in Mount Washington on March 11, only two citizens spoke, and both favored Kroger’s plans, according to Kurtz.
Dotty Reef, who lives two doors away from the new store, has followed Mount Washington issues for years. Although she missed the public hearing on the new Kroger, she said no one from the community examined the proposal closely before construction began.
“We didn’t really have anything to say about it,” Reef said.
Kroger spokesman Steve Jagers said the company considered several site plans for the building, but the existing plan was the only way to expand the store without tearing down housing. The old store, built in 1977, was already facing Beechmont Avenue.
“We had never anticipated so much concern for a Kroger store being built,” Jagers said.
Back before the Kroger complaints, not many people came to the community council meetings, which is an all-volunteer organization. Now, however, there aren’t many empty seats.
“If we got eight or 10 or a dozen, that was pretty good,” Peck said. “And now we’re in the 40s, 50s and 60s.”
On one recent council meeting at McNicholas High School, about 40 people received a preview of the planned Ohio Department of Transportation reconstruction of Beechmont Avenue in Mount Washington that’s scheduled to start in 2001.
Chris Humphrey, a 13-year neighborhood resident, had been interested in helping the community council carry out its work for a while. But she didn’t become a regular attendee until August, when she visited the council’s informational booth at a local street festival and heard about the Kroger fallout.
In order to quiet the complaint calls, Peck stepped down from the council presidency and is serving the last year of his term as a regular council member.
At least one resident doesn’t fault Peck and the community council for what happened.
“I think that they did the best job they possibly could do,” Humphrey said. “The bottom line is that there are too few people doing too much work.” ©
This article appears in Jan 19-25, 2000.