The city of Independence has officially signed off on a revision to a large, mixed-use development within the city limits.
Called the Downs of Nicholson, the development is located at the northeastern intersection of Taylor Mill Road and Madison Pike and is roughly 35 acres.
Many city officials, including Independence Mayor Chris Reinersman, have expressed strong support for the Downs project and hope that it will draw in visitors and new residents.
“In Independence, we are used to leaving town on the weekend,” Reinersman said at a Kenton County Planning Commission public hearing on Dec. 1.
“This is the reason people are going to come to Independence. They’re going to talk to their friends, and they’re going to say, ‘Hey, we want to come out, and we want to go to the Downs,'” he said.
At the meeting, most of the commissioners eventually voted to approve the new concept plans, with only one commissioner abstaining from the vote. The Independence City Council then affirmed the plan revisions by a 5-1 vote at a council meeting on March 6.
The development is a mixture of both residential and commercial property. The completed development will sport 64 patio homes, seven short-term rental cabins, a farmer’s market, a convenience store, a combined brewery and restaurant as well as an event center.
This approved plan is a revision of an earlier concept, which was approved in 2021. The initial plan had nearly 90 patio homes, more commercial buildings, a clubhouse and a gym. It also contained fewer parking spaces.
Reinersman reported on conversations with the owner of the development, Gary Holland of One Holland Restaurant Group, at the Planning Commission meeting. He said that Holland hoped the revisions would highlight the green spaces in the area.
Holland said he is from Independence and that “this is a passion project” for him.
Both the mayor and Holland characterized the development as borrowing the style of a large horse farm, featuring open grassy areas and a rustic atmosphere.
The approvals were not without their hiccups.
One Holland had also requested three waivers of typical building requirements from the commission: two to narrow the size of the streets and one to reduce the number of sidewalks in the complex in keeping with the project’s pastoral theme. Several commissioners expressed worries that the sidewalk reduction might pose a safety risk.
“We’re trying to make something special here,” said Holland in response to the commissioners, although he also said that the sidewalk issue was “not a hill worth dying on.”
After some extended discussion and clarification, the commission eventually voted to approve the waivers related to the streets but denied the waiver for the sidewalks.
The commission also only approved the concept plan on the condition that stormwater infrastructure be concentrated in the non-residential areas of the Downs.
Others have expressed outright opposition to the development.
Independence City Council Member Greg Steffen, who ran on a self-proclaimed “anti-development platform,” has expressed his resistance to the project and was the only nay vote at the council meeting on March 6.
“This kind of high-density residential development is the kind of thing we really need to avoid,” said Steffen at a council meeting on Feb. 6. “I’m all in favor of the commercial side of it because it might be a good feature for the city.”
But, he added, “It’s the type of thing we used to be against, and now it seems to be common to add more and more apartments, as I’ve seen all around the city, which increases our traffic, our crowding in stores and schools, which I know are outside of our purview, but it has that effect.”
He went on to say Independence had annexed the land in question to prevent Covington from pushing further south into undeveloped rural areas. Now, he claimed, Independence appeared to be doing the very thing the annexation was meant to prevent.
Reinersman, a commercial real estate appraiser, admitted that the Downs carried a lot of financial risk.
“I can’t think of a real estate investor who would say, ‘You know what? I’m going to build something of this scale in Nicholson.'” Reinersman said.
But he went on to say that mixed-used development of this kind was something he wanted to see happen in Independence.
City Administrator Chris Moriconi said in an email to LINK nky that ground has already broken on the development. He projected the development would begin seeing openings some time in late 2024.