Downtown’s Piatt Park, Cincinnati’s oldest park property, could get a $7.2 million upgrade with state of Ohio dollars.
On April 16, the Cincinnati Park Board OK’d a plan for the city to lease Piatt to 3CDC so it can seek the state funding. It came the same day 3CDC announced plans to purchase the nearby Garfield Suites Hotel after a decade sitting empty.
If the dollars come through, Piatt could gain an expanded public plaza and drivers could lose access to the road on its south edge.
Renovation is needed, officials involved in the proposed project said, to address “persistent misuse of the park,” involving drug use and dogs.
Changes are needed, too, to make the park safer for pedestrians, less confusing for motorists and more of a connector between Downtown and Over-the-Rhine.
If completed, the park upgrade would be part of a still-evolving plan to activate development in the northern part of Downtown’s Central Business District.
Park has ‘faced challenges,’ 3CDC says
Piatt Park, a two-block site on Garfield Place between Elm and Vine streets, has “faced challenges in recent years” with the loss of office workers in the area, according to Katie Westbrook, executive vice president of development for 3CDC.
“There’s a lot of drug use, just kind of unwanted behavior,” Westbrook told the park board.
Additionally, park users allow their dogs to climb into plant beds and don’t pick up dog waste, her presentation to the board noted.
In a follow-up interview, Westbrook said ambassadors for the development group frequently see “drug and criminal activity” in Piatt.
“With additional development, we can start to address some of that,” she said.
Features that bring more downtown residents into Piatt and better day-to-day management of the park will help combat criminal activity, she said.
Designs would add gathering and green spaces
Westbrook presented two options for Piatt, calling both design ideas and funding estimates “very preliminary.”
Both suggest creating more gathering and green spaces, replacing fountains with kiosks to support park programs and installing a dog park for the neighborhood.
One design calls for removing eastbound Garfield, on the park’s south side.
“We are excited to start partnering with the city and parks on re-envisioning Piatt Park into something new,” Westbrook said.
Public-private partnership could provide new dollars
Cincinnati Parks Director Jason Barron told the board that Piatt has not been updated since the late 1980s or early 1990s.
“I think this is a great opportunity, both to take advantage of the redevelopment that 3CDC is going to try to do and to try to bring another park improvement using state money,” he said.
Park Board President Molly North noted that the department’s list of hoped-for projects “is long and deep.”
“One of the great ways that we can get more done is by working with public-private partners that are really capable,” she said.
Application for funds due this month, with answer in about six months
Any renovation of Piatt will require conversations with multiple parties.
Officials from the Parks Department, city of Cincinnati, Ohio Department of Transportation and 3CDC will need to work out plans, along with Downtown residents and other stakeholders, Barron said.
“But the key thing is, as always, getting the money,” Barron said.
Westbrook said 3CDC would apply for state dollars through Ohio’s Transformational Mixed Used Development grant program later this month. A response would likely come within six months.
If the dollars don’t materialize, the city could terminate 3CDC’s lease for Piatt. The city could also end the lease if 3CDC gets the grant but doesn’t start work on the project within 12 months.
The application for funding is likely to include a number of other projects near Piatt, according to the 3CDC proposal. 3CDC is still working to determine the scope its grant application, Westbrook said.
Several downtown Cincinnati projects have received dollars from that fund in recent years, including FC Cincinnati’s mixed-use entertainment district, Carew Tower’s conversion into apartments and the new Marriott convention headquarters hotel.
Park project could be paired with others nearby
On the same day as the Park Board meeting, 3CDC announced plans to purchase neighboring Garfield Suites Hotel for $3.75 million.
The long-vacant hotel, at Vine Street and Garfield Place, had been up for sale through receivership since last August after years of construction delays and legal issues stifled progress on a previous residential conversion. 3CDC doesn’t have a set proposal to redevelop the 16-story structure, but is considering turning it into a mixed-use development.
The park upgrade and hotel project are part of a larger plan to spend an estimated $128 million for projects in the north part of Cincinnati’s Central Business District, Westbrook told the park board. 3CDC is considering asking for state grant dollars for those as part of its application for funding for Piatt.
The other proposed projects are:
Park first named for presidents, then for brothers
Brothers and Cincinnati entrepreneurs Benjamin and John Piatt donated the land for Piatt Park to the city of Cincinnati in 1817. While they envisioned it as a marketplace, the city never used it as such, dedicating the .0.8-acre space as Eighth Street Park in 1868.
The site became Garfield Park, named for James Garfield, after a bronze statute of the 20th U.S. president was installed in 1887.
It became Presidents’ Park in 1912 after the city added a statue of William Henry Harrison, the ninth president.
The park board changed the name to Piatt, in honor of the original land owners, in 1940.
In 2011, demonstrators fighting income inequality took over Piatt for several weeks, as part of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
More recently, the park has been seen as a haven for persons without homes. A local nonprofit hosts a monthly Potluck for the People to serve that population.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Downtown’s Piatt Park could gain gathering space, lose road in upgrade
Reporting by Patricia Gallagher Newberry, Cincinnati Enquirer / Cincinnati Enquirer
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