Speaker 1: You want to be an American back half the week,
Speaker 1: got a love it Sloanely seven hundred WLW and a
Speaker 1: big sports weekend head more on that a little bit
Speaker 1: later and news involving Joe Burrow will have that covered
Speaker 1: for you this morning.
Speaker 2: Could be maybe possibly will we see him in action
Speaker 2: against the Patriots of New England on Sunday. So you're
Speaker 2: saying there's a chance before that. The city wants to
Speaker 2: move forward on a plan to finish the banks, but
Speaker 2: the county says we're broke, it's not a priority, and
Speaker 2: we've got more disagreement between the county and the city.
Speaker 2: The plan calls for up to eight hundred million dollars
Speaker 2: in redevelopment over the next fifteen years to complete the
Speaker 2: five remaining lots at the now twenty year old banks.
Speaker 2: And we have a new twist Council unanimously approving four
Speaker 2: million to buy the former free store food bank location
Speaker 2: on Central Parkway that's next to TQL that's causing speculation
Speaker 2: as a possible site for a new arena. All this
Speaker 2: and more. He is the development guy on City Council.
Speaker 2: That would be council Member Seth Walsh on the Scotslane show.
Speaker 3: Soeth, good morning.
Speaker 4: How are you moring, Scott see how Man?
Speaker 3: Yeah, doing well.
Speaker 2: Lots to unpack here, and this is so in your wheelhouse, obviously,
Speaker 2: let's start with this new information about buying the four
Speaker 2: million dollars a lot. I'm looking at the aerial on
Speaker 2: Google Earth of this thing. I'm looking at it, going okay, well, uh,
Speaker 2: it's next to public television, public radio. Across the street
Speaker 2: is Queen City Radio, so it's in the shadows of
Speaker 2: TQL Stadium. But I'm trying to see how you fit
Speaker 2: an arena in there? Can you do it? If CET
Speaker 2: goes away? Although I know they just spent a ton
Speaker 2: of money on their their remodel. The other side of
Speaker 2: this is a Duke Energy substation that's not movable. You've
Speaker 2: got houses behind it. The neighbors don't want this going
Speaker 2: across Central Avenue and keep it on Central Parkway. Is
Speaker 2: this the site for a future arena?
Speaker 4: I mean it could be very well, could be.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's one of the sites, and you know, Scott
Speaker 5: to take a look at it. You know, it's identified
Speaker 5: in the arena study that was done last year in
Speaker 5: twenty twenty four as one of the four cential sites
Speaker 5: for where we could be putting an arena, including the
Speaker 5: existing location. And that's why this acquisition is so important,
Speaker 5: even if it ultimately doesn't become an arena. Let's get
Speaker 5: control of the land so we can have that conversation
Speaker 5: and we can drive this conversation and make sure that
Speaker 5: we are evaluating all the options and we don't ultimately
Speaker 5: get strung out with somebody having control of a valuable
Speaker 5: parcel that we want if we want to put an
Speaker 5: area there.
Speaker 4: So yeah, it absolutely could be an.
Speaker 3: Arena possibility there.
Speaker 2: So moving some stuff right of course, you know, we
Speaker 2: know what's going on with the public public media. CET
Speaker 2: owns the building in the air rights, the city owns
Speaker 2: the land itself. Cost about fifty million dollars to move
Speaker 2: this thing, and you know you got to come up
Speaker 2: with fifty million.
Speaker 3: Dollars to do that.
Speaker 2: If that's a possibility, then certainly you could put that
Speaker 2: right next to TQL Sadam and almost like what you know,
Speaker 2: putting the arena next to pay Corp, which I think
Speaker 2: would be great, But we're not going to do that obviously.
Speaker 2: Because now you can share facilities, you can share infrastructure
Speaker 2: that that's good, But doesn't that then take away what
Speaker 2: we're talking about from the Banks, Because I'm sure that
Speaker 2: the entities at the Banks, and now you're negotiating with
Speaker 2: the county on this, want to keep the arena in
Speaker 2: its present location. A new arena if they're to build it,
Speaker 2: why spend all the money in the Banks. If you're
Speaker 2: going to build an arena in the West.
Speaker 5: End, well, the Banks, regardless of whether there's an arena
Speaker 5: there or not. They already have two stadiums, so it's
Speaker 5: not like we would be taking all the supporting opportunities
Speaker 5: away from there if it did move, which again is
Speaker 5: not even close to being decided. And I think there's
Speaker 5: a very real conversation you have about the arena staying
Speaker 5: at the Banks, and there's some interesting r renderings put
Speaker 5: out about that recently.
Speaker 4: But if it.
Speaker 5: Moved off the Banks, I think that's part of the
Speaker 5: larger conversation we need to have about the Banks.
Speaker 4: This is the front bord to our city and it's.
Speaker 5: The last great frontier of how we can really rebuild
Speaker 5: the downtown right on the river, how people are coming
Speaker 5: into the city of Cincinnati, and the opportunities there. I
Speaker 5: think we need to be envisioning in a way that
Speaker 5: is more than just expecting sports teams spill to keep
Speaker 5: it alive and active.
Speaker 4: Frankly, which is what gets me excited about the plan.
Speaker 2: Is this also maybe leverage because you know, the county
Speaker 2: stand we're broke, it's not a priority. The ferris wheel
Speaker 2: will screw up the Freedom Center on all these other things,
Speaker 2: and you guys so far to the man and women
Speaker 2: on city Council. You want to move forward like yesterday
Speaker 2: on this bank thing, and the County's not going to
Speaker 2: go anywhere. You need both entities to go. Is this possible?
Speaker 2: This four million dollar land by at the free Store
Speaker 2: in Central Avens that a way for you to go.
Speaker 3: Hey, listen, we've got some leverage here.
Speaker 4: I don't see this as a leverage play.
Speaker 5: I see this as having a vision for what we
Speaker 5: want Cincinnati to become and I think for the future
Speaker 5: of Cincinnati for the next ten to fifteen years. To
Speaker 5: really put us on the national stage, we need to
Speaker 5: have an arena and we need to have a thriving banks.
Speaker 4: I don't think it's an.
Speaker 5: Either or, and I think either location, any of the
Speaker 5: locations for the arena helped solve that problem. But we
Speaker 5: can't just build an arena and not be solving the
Speaker 5: banks situation. Yeah, and likewise, we can't solve the bank
Speaker 5: situation and not hav an arena for the city. So
Speaker 5: my opinion on this is this is called vision and
Speaker 5: this is called leadership, and it's not trying to leverage
Speaker 5: or play anybody off each other. It's trying to move
Speaker 5: our city and our region forward. And I'm really excited
Speaker 5: about that because that's what we need. We need that
Speaker 5: type energy right now.
Speaker 3: Seth.
Speaker 2: You can't control what you take your contemporaries over at
Speaker 2: the county are doing by they stretch of the imagination.
Speaker 2: You don't control them. But can you do an arena?
Speaker 2: Can the City of Cincinnati do an arena without county involvement?
Speaker 5: You know a lot of people say no. My answer
Speaker 5: would be, you know, Scott, you and I have talked
Speaker 5: of development a lot. Every development project you begin on
Speaker 5: is hard and it's complicated, and it takes a lot
Speaker 5: of creativity to figure out how you get there. It's
Speaker 5: a lot easier for the counties at the table, But
Speaker 5: if it's not at the table, then that means we
Speaker 5: have to get more creative on how we solve the problem.
Speaker 5: And I think it's something we have to commit to
Speaker 5: as a city in the region and then figure out
Speaker 5: the answers to it regardless. Look at what we did
Speaker 5: with the convention center. Three hundred million dollars. That wasn't
Speaker 5: found overnight, and it wasn't found from one source, And
Speaker 5: that's what I think is going to take to do
Speaker 5: the arena. I would like the county to come to
Speaker 5: the table. I would like the county to be part
Speaker 5: of this conversation. I would like them to be driving
Speaker 5: the conversation. But I also think that the city should
Speaker 5: be prepared to figure out ways to fund it even
Speaker 5: if the county doesn't come there.
Speaker 2: What does that look like relative to financing? Is there
Speaker 2: significant private money involved? As there worth a TQL that
Speaker 2: you can be confident in saying we got enough private
Speaker 2: money to pull that on.
Speaker 5: Well, you're asking a question much further down the line
Speaker 5: than is the reality right now. Again, we're at the
Speaker 5: very beginning stages of the arena conversation. But in the Arena.
Speaker 4: Study it does specifically.
Speaker 5: Call out that modern day arenas are being built with
Speaker 5: about one third of it coming from private money. Yes,
Speaker 5: I mean that is in the tunes of hundreds of
Speaker 5: millions of dollars. So no, this would not be a
Speaker 5: pure public funded project, and it would be a project
Speaker 5: that would require private epsteins to get involved. It require
Speaker 5: figuring out how we keep it occupied throughout the entire year,
Speaker 5: so it's not just sitting there vacant. There's some really
Speaker 5: good questions to it, but again it's something we have
Speaker 5: to commit to. Once you commit to it, it's like
Speaker 5: anything in development. You say we're going to do it,
Speaker 5: and you figure out how you're going to do it
Speaker 5: from there, what.
Speaker 3: Is the timeline in your mind?
Speaker 4: So it's up to me.
Speaker 5: As Jerry said, it would have been two weeks ago,
Speaker 5: you know, we had been doing this. I think I
Speaker 5: think this needs to be the priority of the next
Speaker 5: term for city Council, for the mayor. So I think
Speaker 5: by twenty twenty nine we need to have answers and
Speaker 5: I'd love to see shovels in the ground by then.
Speaker 2: All Right, I'm talking to council Member Seth Walsh of
Speaker 2: Cincinnati City Council on the show. With the news that
Speaker 2: the city's purchased land at near TQL Stadium, speculation is
Speaker 2: that maybe in arena could go there, Seth Walsh not
Speaker 2: rulling that out. Money is the question because typically as
Speaker 2: a county and city enterprise. But we can move forward
Speaker 2: without the county involvement here, which is interesting because Commissioner
Speaker 2: Alsha Reese said on the show, you know, we're kind
Speaker 2: of broke right now, We're gonna have the money, worried
Speaker 2: about tax payers and property taxes going up on all
Speaker 2: this other stuff, and other members said it's not even
Speaker 2: on our radar right now. Denise Dreehouse, the President said no,
Speaker 2: probably not. And that's just the best banks let alone arena.
Speaker 2: The banks have come before in arena if they have money.
Speaker 2: Do the banks they certainly don't have money to do
Speaker 2: an arena. Let's focus on the banks thing. How do
Speaker 2: you move this forward if they're reluctant or just say
Speaker 2: simply we don't have the cash.
Speaker 5: That's a million dollar question, isn't it. The banks has
Speaker 5: never been done exclusively by the county. It has always
Speaker 5: been done through a partnership. I think the conversation that
Speaker 5: needs to be had and is happening now. There's a
Speaker 5: steering committee that brought this plan together. If there's a
Speaker 5: steering committee that suggests these ideas. It is a lot
Speaker 5: of stakeholders, ranging from members of the Bangles and the
Speaker 5: Reds to those who are on the banks. Already two
Speaker 5: members of the city in the county, so it's not
Speaker 5: like that this is not a conversation actively happening between
Speaker 5: the city and the county. What we have to do
Speaker 5: is keep pushing and from a city perspective, continue to
Speaker 5: provide support. You challenge the leaders who are in the room,
Speaker 5: who are doing the planning and making these things reality,
Speaker 5: to go out and find us these projects and these
Speaker 5: developments and then come back to us and tell us
Speaker 5: what it takes to get the to happen. The resources
Speaker 5: exist for development, we see it all the time. You
Speaker 5: don't have to talk about a number of times right
Speaker 5: to do that, we need the projects being brought to us.
Speaker 5: And so there are people including Phil Becker, came presented
Speaker 5: about this who this is their job to go make
Speaker 5: the plan of reality now and that's how this happens.
Speaker 5: And when they come to us and they say, hey,
Speaker 5: we've got a building, this is what it takes, then
Speaker 5: we start answering the question how we get there, whether
Speaker 5: that's through subsidies, whether that's through cras, whether that's through whatever,
Speaker 5: we start answering at that stage, says Walsh.
Speaker 2: Denise Treehouse, the commissioned president, said this thing would be
Speaker 2: twenty four up to twenty four stories, and she was
Speaker 2: reluctant to agree with that because she worries about blocking daylight.
Speaker 2: This sounds like I don't know Hyde Park on the River,
Speaker 2: doesn't it.
Speaker 5: And that's my comment that I made during council. Obviously
Speaker 5: we had different meetings to discuss the same topic. But
Speaker 5: downtown is designed to be built big. It is designed
Speaker 5: for these towns ours. It is you know when you
Speaker 5: walk around the banks, as walk around it this morning,
Speaker 5: you know, these eleven twelve story buildings feel small because
Speaker 5: they're dwarfed by the towers that we already have downtown,
Speaker 5: and so I don't agree with that assessment. I think
Speaker 5: that the reality is we need to build height and
Speaker 5: we you know, the bigger we build it, the more
Speaker 5: people are going to live there, the more bustling it's
Speaker 5: going to be, the more successful our downtown is going
Speaker 5: to be. And I think that we need to keep
Speaker 5: that perspective of what is built already feels small and
Speaker 5: it's not.
Speaker 4: If you took what was built there.
Speaker 5: You drop it in say Hi Park, as you were
Speaker 5: just alluded to, it'd be you know, twice the three
Speaker 5: times as tall as what we're talking about building in
Speaker 5: High Park already.
Speaker 4: So it's not small, but it feels small. We need
Speaker 4: to do better on the banks. We need to do better.
Speaker 2: Okay, the specific plans for this thing, it's going to
Speaker 2: be up to a twelve hundred new housing units, obviously
Speaker 2: high rise and condos and stuff like that. There's gonna
Speaker 2: be hotel there, plus retail and entertainment as we mentioned,
Speaker 2: up to twenty four stories tall. The new lease with
Speaker 2: the Bengals allows for the taller buildings. Couldn't do that
Speaker 2: before because they had rights to the airspace or so
Speaker 2: ungodly reason. But you're talking about over these five lots
Speaker 2: doing a lot of different things in that regard. People
Speaker 2: are hearing this and go away in a minute now.
Speaker 2: Unlike what you were talking about with maybe new arena
Speaker 2: in the West End. This is taxpayer money. And how
Speaker 2: would taxpayers feel about subsidizing luxury housing?
Speaker 4: Is it?
Speaker 3: Will they be pushed back in the city on that?
Speaker 4: There certainly could be.
Speaker 5: And again you're we're going down a pathway of assuming
Speaker 5: what is going to be there. What needs to be
Speaker 5: there is housing, and what that type of housing looks
Speaker 5: like is a question the developer needs to tell us.
Speaker 5: I'm a big proponent of just adding density to it
Speaker 5: and what that looks like. Let's figure it out, you
Speaker 5: know as well as I do. The more density you have,
Speaker 5: the less usually end up meeting per minute because it
Speaker 5: can support it. That's why one of the big questions
Speaker 5: I asked was, let's not captus the twenty four stories.
Speaker 5: We keep saying up to twenty four stories. It may
Speaker 5: need to be bigger than that. And I think we
Speaker 5: should be okay with that, and I think we should
Speaker 5: be open to that conversation because we want these projects
Speaker 5: to work, and if money is tight and being we
Speaker 5: want to be protective of the public money. We make
Speaker 5: sure that these can cash flow and make it make
Speaker 5: sense and the developer wants to take it on. I mean,
Speaker 5: ultimately that's the goal here. And if we make it
Speaker 5: difficult for the development to happen, then yeah, we're gonna
Speaker 5: have to come up with a lot of subsidies and
Speaker 5: so there's a balancing act here.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think it's really cool, is my daughter. Last
Speaker 2: month was in Minneapolis visiting a friend in her place.
Speaker 2: Is like looking literally looking over the stadium and the ballpark,
Speaker 2: and I was like, man, that's really really cool to
Speaker 2: be able to look down and you know, and a
Speaker 2: lot of people, a lot of young people especially love that.
Speaker 2: And that's kind of what you're proposing here. I know
Speaker 2: a lot of cities, major League cities have that, and
Speaker 2: I tend to agree with disass Stars watched on that
Speaker 2: as like it's twenty four to two short, it may
Speaker 2: and not be tall enough in that regard.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, when I walked around downtown, one of
Speaker 5: the things I think about it.
Speaker 4: Maybe it's just because you know, this is what I
Speaker 4: think about. I guess it's like, man, it would be
Speaker 4: so cool to them there.
Speaker 5: When we were designing the downtown, when we were building
Speaker 5: the towers for the first time, and we were creating
Speaker 5: the skyline. That's the opportunity that's in front of us.
Speaker 5: And we're talking about five plots of big acreage writing
Speaker 5: the heart of downtown literally two blocks south of you.
Speaker 4: Know, the core of downtown. We can do that.
Speaker 5: We can build the next one hundred hundred and fifty
Speaker 5: years of what Cincinnati is going to look like and
Speaker 5: feel like and what young people are going.
Speaker 4: To want to be part of. You're right overlooking these stadiums.
Speaker 4: You're you know, going out on Tuesday.
Speaker 5: Night because they're living right there, like really making it
Speaker 5: something cool that people are traveling around the country to see.
Speaker 5: That's an amazing opportunity. Like what's not recited that it's
Speaker 5: not just five parcels. It's like a huge opportunity for
Speaker 5: the next hundred years of Cincinnati.
Speaker 2: Okay, A legitimate question here about the timeline is the
Speaker 2: banks is already twenty years old. The stadiums are over
Speaker 2: twenty years old. At this point, we know everything has
Speaker 2: a certain longevity unless you're talking maybe I don't know,
Speaker 2: the Horseshoe, Fenway Park, Wrigley Field. These are not those
Speaker 2: kind of facilities Great American and pay Corps, respectively. So
Speaker 2: we're already twenty years into this thing. Another fifteen years
Speaker 2: makes it thirty five. At some point, are we building
Speaker 2: something for the future when the future with those stadiums
Speaker 2: may have to change.
Speaker 4: Well, And that's that's the point that I made earlier.
Speaker 5: You know, what we need to be designing the banks
Speaker 5: for as longevity and It needs to not be just
Speaker 5: exclusively is there an arena, Are there stadiums there? What's
Speaker 5: the sport team doing for this day? It needs to
Speaker 5: be designed around a place that people are going to
Speaker 5: want to live and stay and be part of. You
Speaker 5: think about four Street or we're seeing a lot of
Speaker 5: development and activity happening, people moving to it. You know,
Speaker 5: they're there because the buildings are beautiful. They're there because
Speaker 5: they're walkable to everything that you want to do in
Speaker 5: the downtown area. And that's always going to be the
Speaker 5: case with downtown. That's the same question we have to
Speaker 5: be answering with the Banks. It's not just about pay
Speaker 5: Court Stadium. It is about the future of who's going
Speaker 5: to stay and want to live there. Again, that's a
Speaker 5: really cool, exciting opportunity for me.
Speaker 2: It is at the same time, you know, in circling
Speaker 2: back to the question about the arena, with the purchase
Speaker 2: of the property Seth Walsh at near TQL Stadium, then
Speaker 2: a new arena could go there and you could do
Speaker 2: it without county participation, which I think is causing a
Speaker 2: lot of people to maybe give the radio their speaker's
Speaker 2: side eye this morning, their heads on the little side
Speaker 2: eye right now and go, WHOA, that was a bomb.
Speaker 2: How much weight do the Reds, the Bengals and the
Speaker 2: Banks Working Group have in this whole equation? Now we
Speaker 2: know that the contract was needed negotiated to allow twenty
Speaker 2: four stories or more to go up because the Bengals
Speaker 2: would control that. But there's a lot of stuff these lots,
Speaker 2: it looks like, you know, talgating lots and things like
Speaker 2: that that the Bengals have a say in. The Reds
Speaker 2: obviously carry a lot of weight in this equation too,
Speaker 2: as well as those who invested with the Bank's Working
Speaker 2: Group and what's already down there regarding that, whether it's
Speaker 2: expansion of what we're talking about here or the arena,
Speaker 2: how much do they have a saying where or else
Speaker 2: it's going to go and how it's gonna work out.
Speaker 5: I mean, when you say how much do they have
Speaker 5: to say? Are you talking about the arena? Are you
Speaker 5: talking about.
Speaker 2: Well, well, development of the banks, but also let's factor
Speaker 2: the arena. Let's start with that seth. I mean, can
Speaker 2: they just say, hey, we're you're not gonna put this
Speaker 2: in the West End, You're gonna put it at the
Speaker 2: Banks and you're gonna we're going to tear down the
Speaker 2: tired Heritage Bank Center and maybe it's two years, but
Speaker 2: we're going to put a new one here. And that's
Speaker 2: what we've decided because we're the power brokers. I think
Speaker 2: a lot of people think that's the case inside the
Speaker 2: inside city Hall.
Speaker 3: Is that true?
Speaker 5: Well, when you talk about the arena, and as we
Speaker 5: talked about the arena study earlier, you know a third
Speaker 5: of that, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars that's
Speaker 5: probably gonna have to come from private entities to make
Speaker 5: that a reality.
Speaker 4: And that's gonna be a big part of the conversation.
Speaker 4: If if the.
Speaker 5: Private money that's coming to the table says we're not
Speaker 5: building it at this location, X, Y, and Z wherever
Speaker 5: that is, guess what, It's not gonna be built there
Speaker 5: because you're not gonna get private money.
Speaker 4: If if they're saying that's not where it can go.
Speaker 5: So if the power brokers quote unquote whoever that is
Speaker 5: in this conversation.
Speaker 2: H the illuminati said that's the Illuminati. We'll call it
Speaker 2: what it is.
Speaker 4: Whatever we want to call it.
Speaker 5: If they want to go a certain location, they're gonna
Speaker 5: have to come to the table too. I mean that's
Speaker 5: the thing for the arena, for the banks were we're
Speaker 5: not adversaries here. We all trying to run the same direction.
Speaker 5: And if you have a vision where you want to go,
Speaker 5: you're gonna have to step up to the table with
Speaker 5: the money and the resources and help make that happen.
Speaker 4: None of these are gonna be cheap, but you.
Speaker 5: Know, the future in the vision of Cincinnati is going
Speaker 5: to come at a cost. And I think that's a
Speaker 5: good investment for us because this is something we're going
Speaker 5: to be talking about, you know, for an arena. We've
Speaker 5: been talking about arena for fifty years from the banks.
Speaker 5: Hopefully that's the next one hundred years of success. People
Speaker 5: are proud that we did not saying, man, these guys
Speaker 5: really messed up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, all right, And then I think the same
Speaker 2: is probably true when it comes to the redevelopment down
Speaker 2: there as well. They have a say, but they don't
Speaker 2: get veto power correct.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's exactly it.
Speaker 5: You know, we're all a team, but ultimately we got
Speaker 5: to be looking long term about what's being what's happening here.
Speaker 5: They have a seat at the table. They've been very
Speaker 5: involved in that. MI understandings they're very supportive of what
Speaker 5: the plan is. That's that's exactly what this needs to be.
Speaker 5: All right, team, let's make it happen together.
Speaker 3: Got it?
Speaker 2: Council Member Seth Wall, It's always a pleasure, love the Insight.
Speaker 2: Thanks again for coming on the show and Ed and
Speaker 2: I'm sure we will want to talk. But have a
Speaker 2: wonderful thanksgiving you two. Scott, all right, take care, appreciate
Speaker 2: your time as always. Let me get a time out
Speaker 2: in some reaction maybe here too as well. And that
Speaker 2: sounds like a you know what, a big middle finger
Speaker 2: to the county Commission.
Speaker 3: Don't you like you know what? You guys won't move up.
Speaker 2: We got this, we got this interesting more to follow, Sloany,
Speaker 2: Here's new seven hundred W Dowd, Cincinnati,