Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority (SORTA) officials were joined by community members and political leaders from the City of Cincinnati this morning in Clifton Heights to celebrate the groundbreaking for the $6.9 million Uptown Transit District.

The Uptown Transit District, once complete by the end of 2013, will create a secondary hub for Metro bus service, and will allow the bus agency to continue to move away from its long-used ‘Spoke and Hub’ system that fed all routes to the Government Square Transit Center in the Central Business District.

Metro officials say that new routes, including the agency’s new Metro*Plus service, will utilize the new uptown transit hubs. Additionally, direct service from Metro’s Glenway Crossing Transit Center will be able to take advantage of the new facilities.

Article Reposted from Urban Cincy

On Thursday Towne Properties partner Arn Bortz led the media on a tour of U Square @ The Loop, the $80 million mixed-use project stretching several blocks adjacent to the University of Cincinnati campus.

The project broke ground in January 2012 and a move-in date of August 1 is scheduled for apartments.

According to Bortz, the project’s street-level retail and upper floor apartments are each 85% leased. The project’s office space has been leased to the University of Cincinnati and talks are ongoing to attract a hotel to remaining space along McMillan Street.

The planned hotel for the site will be competing against a flurry of new hotel developments throughout Cincinnati’s urban core that are adding hundreds of new rooms to the market, including a proposed rehabilitation of Old St. George into a 60-70 bed hotel just blocks away.

Once completed, Bortz anticipates that the hotel at U Square @ The Loop to be approximately as tall as the apartment building on the project’s western block.

The developers also announced that the project achieved Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification, which qualifies the project for a 15-year city tax abatement, due to its proximity to public transportation and a variety of design decisions including choice of windows and use of Energy Star appliances in apartment units.

Bortz also explained that the project’s two city-built parking garages will not be subject to any lease of the city’s parking facilities.

More than 20 retailers have been named as tenants of the 80,000 square feet of retail, including: Altar’d States, bd’s Mongolian Grill, Body Central, Chase Bank, Elephant Walk, Euro Wax, Firehouse Subs, Great Clips, Highway 55, Keystone Bar & Grill, Lime Fresh, Moksha Yoga, Mr. Sushi, Orange Leaf, Rally House, Rue 21, Starbucks, The Brass Tap and Waffle House.

Article Reposted from Urban Cincy