City officials in Hamilton plan to increase efforts to redevelop the Main Street corridor near the Great Miami River into a hoped-for dining and entertainment district.
After that, in late 2018, the city has drawn a target on the next redevelopment area: Central Avenue in the Second Ward. That leads into Pleasant Avenue, which runs through Lindenwald, the city’s most populous neighborhood.
Redevelopment in the Second Ward and Lindenwald is important because, “We’re investing in amenities to attract a Hamilton-area workforce,” City Manager Joshua Smith recently told City Council. “That is really important to us, especially as we’re trying to ramp up another 1,000 new jobs in Hamilton in 2017, to make sure we have a workforce here.”
The city has seen significant hiring from Barclaycard, Startek, ThyssenKrupp Bilstein and ODW Logistics — more than 800 jobs in 2016 alone. The same four are expected to create an additional 1,000 jobs in 2017.
The city is looking at improvements in the Central-Pleasant corridor between Pershing and Laurel avenues but may alter the focus area moving forward.
Both the Second Ward and Lindenwald have good housing stock that is affordable for young families, Smith said. He also announced plans during his Sept. 22 State of the City address to develop new bus routes through those areas to carry workers to the new jobs in Hamilton, and other jobs elsewhere.
Smith has said he plans to propose in the city's 2017 budget that $3.45 million be given to the city's non-profit Community Improvement Corporation, which will make a loan to the non-profit redevelopment CORE Fund (Consortium for Ongoing Reinvestment Efforts) to reactivate buildings along Main Street between B and D streets.
Bob Harris, president of the South East Civic Association, whose area takes in the Second Ward, said he’s pleased to hear the city is working on the Central Avenue corridor, and also is enthusiastic that the city is developing bus routes to help residents of the Second Ward and Lindenwald.
“I think it’s long overdue,” Harris said. “We should have been doing that some time ago. I definitely want to see the total plan, to see exactly what we’re taking about doing, how we’re going to do it, and the timeline for getting it done.”
Central Avenue “is a good choice” for a corridor to focus on, as would be 2nd Street, Harris said. It would “take a whole lot more” to redevelop 2nd Street than Central, he conceded.
“That’s some serious reconstruction in those areas, it’s going to take that kind of money,” Harris said about the redevelopment seed money. “You want to enhance, or clean up, those core areas.”