Smith was Hamilton’s city manager from late 2010 until April 2024, when he was appointed to lead the BCFA. The Marcum opened in 2018 where Mercy Hospital once stood, specifically the hospital’s parking lot. The hospital building property is now where Marcum Park and RiversEdge exist.
CMC was the lone developer to submit plans for the site of the historic Manchester Inn and the adjacent Sonshine building. The 103-year-old former hotel has been vacant for years, and the developer proposes replacing it with a development similar to the Marcum and its sister project, Rossville Flats, another CMC development that features market-rate apartments and retail space that opened in late 2023.
The Middletown project, which would have between 100 to 125 apartments and 10,000 and 15,000 square feet of retail space, would be called “The Manchester.”
The Marcum project in Hamilton was “critical,” Smith said, to Hamilton’s future success because the city nearly lost its only hotel, the Courtyard by Marriott, at the time. They didn’t have enough things to do, such as bars, restaurants and activities.
RiversEdge opened in 2012, and Marcum Park was dedicated in 2017.
The goal was about “reactivating space” and connecting the dots between developments, which started at the corner of North Third and High street when Smith arrived in Hamilton in 2010, and then it “was really about establishing momentum” by leveraging one good development after another.
“I’m a firm believer that if you stack one good win after another, you’re going to be successful,” said Smith. “People seem to want to strive for perfect, which I think is a foolish exercise, because you’ll spend all your time trying to get something perfect and you’ll miss out on the next 10 opportunities.”
Constructing Rotary Park, improving the McDulin Garage and investing in downtown properties were some of the strategies Hamilton employed to guide the city toward the vision community leaders and stakeholders envisioned.
“Once you start connecting those dots, the bigger picture becomes a little bit more apparent,” he said
While the business development has been key for Hamilton’s resurgence, the growth came because of the people involved, said Rafael Salem, co-owner of The Pour House, where Smith met with Middletown leaders on Monday. The Pour House is one of the ground-level businesses at The Marcum.
“The growth in Hamilton has been the people,” he said. “It’s not any one, two, three, four things. It’s everybody getting together and making this happen. There’s a real sense of community here ... There was a point in time where I gave up on Hamilton. I didn’t want to come back to Hamilton if it wasn’t for family or business.”
Now, Salem and his wife, Toni, who have other business interests, build on Hamilton and spent the past four years re-investing in the Pour House with their pedal wagon and recent expansion.
Salem said Hamilton’s investment in itself has given him and Toni “a huge sense of community.”
Credit: Michael D. Pitman
Credit: Michael D. Pitman
CMC Properties property manager Pete Montgomery said what’s been key to their two Hamilton developments, and what would be key to the proposed Middletown project, is the first retail tenant.
“Getting that first anchor retailer is very, very important,” he said. “What it does is a domino effect.”
The city has not made an official decision on CMC’s proposal nor have they made plans for demolishing of any downtown building. However, in a straw vote at the Dec. 2 council meeting, the council unanimously supported continuing negotiations with CMC Properties.
The proposed timeline for the development has construction starting in 2027 and finishing in 2028.
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