Written by Michael Monks, editor & publisher of The River City News
“There is much to be excited about in Hamilton’s urban core. Buildings are being renovated, people are moving in, and the business community is growing. The City of Hamilton is concentrating much of its revitalization efforts on the urban core to make it a place where people want to work, live, and play.”
An optimistic picture is painted by the first line of a 27-page glossy document being used by Hamilton, Ohio in an effort to promote its plans for Downtown revitalization.
I had heard and read great things about some of the activity happening in Hamilton’s urban core and wanted to see it for myself. So much of my work at The River City News focuses on Covington’s Downtown and urban revitalization efforts that I thought there could be much to be learned for comparison purposes by visiting a city of similar size, history, and situation.
Apparently, some city officials in Hamilton felt the same way. When I called last week to set up a meeting with someone from the city manager’s office, Brandon Saurber, the youthful assistant to the city manager said it was “perfect timing”. He and some others from Hamilton had just been in Covington meeting with Jeanne Schroer and others from the Catalytic Development Fund of Northern Kentucky, an organization dedicated to leveraging millions of dollars to trigger residential development in the Northern Kentucky river cities.Â
Hamilton just launched a similar effort called CORE, or the Consortium for Ongoing Reinvestment.
On Monday, I made the trip to Hamilton with Jerod Theobald, owner of flow, a men’s clothing store on Scott Boulevard.
Our first destination solidified the Hamilton-Covington connection: the government towers that house the City of Hamilton and Butler County offices were built in the late 1990s by Covington-based Corporex, the company responsible for constructing the entirety of Covington’s riverfront skyline.
Cleaner, More Welcoming Front Door in Hamilton
The drive up I-75 then across Ohio 129 leads to Hamilton’s High Street, a sprawling four-lane boulevard that leads through the city’s Downtown. It’s an impressive street with a landscaped median that boasts of a triumphant statue of the city’s namesake, American Founding Father Alexander Hamilton. The wayfinding signage is brightly colored and ubiquitous.
Even with an inviting entrance to the city, Hamilton leaders want more from their “front door”. They will soon embark on a $12 million renovation to improve it.
The modern government building, one of the first structures visible upon entering Hamilton, is clean and easy to navigate. On the seventh floor we were greeted by Saurber, the eager assistant to Hamilton’s young city manager, Joshua Smith.
Saurber led us to a sleek conference room and dove right into the details of what his city is doing to redefine what its urban core means to its region.
A lifelong Hamiltonian, Saurber’s pride in his work and in his city was evident. The Miami University graduate left his job with Baker Concrete Construction to work in city government after being impressed by the new city manager. Monday’s tour would be conducted the way the novice government worker prefers, on foot.
Arts, Residences, Businesses and More Leave New Footprint on New Downtown
Our first stop was just across the street from the government building, a newly renovated mixed use trio of buildings collectively called the Mercantile Lofts. Built around 1875, one of the structures was for a long time known as the Davis-McCrory Building and housed commercial businesses for more than a century, including Hamilton’s McCrory’s, a chain of five-and-dime stores.
By the 1990s it had fallen into disrepair and faced possible demolition.
Former mayors Don Ryan, Adolf Olivas, and Tom Nye spearheaded a revitalization effort that saved the buildings and led to their redevelopment, an $8.9 million job twenty-nine one and two bedroom apartments and three street-level retail spaces across the three buildings.
A narrow entrance leads to a sprawling atrium and a stunning historic staircase that leads to many of the units. Saurber had set up a tour of one of the units occupied by Chris Lawson, another assistant to the city manager who works in Hamilton’s planning department. Lawson first started working for the city through a fellowship, part of the compensation of which included living in the new space.
Many of the units feature added balconies for outdoor space and Lawson’s apartment overlooks High Street and other developments Downtown: Miami University – Hamilton added classrooms in an historic building, Butler Tech’s arts program is Downtown, and a few new restaurants line the street, too.
The apartment features all the modern amenities new residents want from an urban living experience from an open floor plan to modern appliances.
The atrium at the Mercantile Lofts
Balconies at the Mercantile Lofts
Lawson’s living room
Lawson’s kitchen
The view of High Street from Lawson’s apartment
More signs of progress for Downtown Hamilton
Lawson joined us for the rest of the tour whose next stop was next door where another neglected building from the late nineteenth century is undergoing a renovation. Known as the Mehrum-Lindley Block, the building’s historic facade was covered in the 1960s by a metal screen in an attempt to modernize it. Like many Downtown buildings it had fallen into neglect and disrepair.
In 2006, Artspace was invited to Hamilton to conduct a feasibility study on whether one of their projects, which lead to artist live/work units, could work in the city.
On Monday, it was obvious that the conclusion Artspace reached was, yes. The metal has been removed and the historic facade is primed to be spruced up, as is the entire building, part of a $10.2 million project. When completed there will be forty-two artist live/work spaces and 3,000 square feet of ground floor commercial space for arts groups and arts-related businesses.
The hope in Hamilton is that an arts district will emerge. Not far from Artspace’s project, Butler Tech School of the Arts is teaching dance, music, theatre, and visual arts in the newly renovated Hamilton Journal-News Building (the newspaper has since moved out of the city).
Future site of Artspace development with the Mercantile Lofts to the left
Utilizing natural resources
The Great Miami River runs through hamilton perpindicular to High Street. Its riverbanks show signs of the city’s past and future. On one side is a long-running industrial setting while on the other a $1.9 project called Rivers Edge is underway. When completed, the city will have a new park, amphitheater, overlook, and bike path.
And that’s just phase one. A second phase, not yet fully planned or funded, calls for a private development that would include mixed-use office and residential spaces as well as a pavillion, cafe, spiral mound, and river walk.
Amphitheater under construction at Hamilton’s RiversEdge project
RiversEdge
RiversEdge
​The riverfront development is part of the German Village Historic District, one of six neighborhoods that make up Hamilton’s designated urban core. Sauerber explained that this project and this area is what city leaders hope will become appealing to the coveted young professionals seeking a new urban living experience.
Examples of the city’s Victorian architecture abound and new homeowners are scooping up inexpensive properties and turning them into gems, including the city manager who recently sold his home in another part of town to become one of the first pioneers in the up-and-coming neighborhood.
The Lane-Hooven House, an 1860s Gothic Tudor home owned by the Hamilton Community Foundation
The river is dotted with sculptures, as is most of the city (In 2000, the State of Ohio designated Hamilton the “City of Sculpture”). Its most iconic landmark is what the locals call “Billy Yank”, a young Civil War soldier waving his cap atop an exploded shell.
Billy Yank
Crossing the Great Miami River requires taking a weaving path that showcases more sculptures of everyday people taking in the city’s greatest natural resource, the river. On the other side of the bridge, High Street becomes Main Street and the Central Business District becomes Rossville, a more blue collar part of the traditional Downtown.
Rossville, a separate city until the mid-1850s, is described in official city documents as “essentially a second Downtown”. Main Street is lined with historic buildings, some occupied, others vacant, some renovated, others in disprepair.Â
The four of us stopped for lunch at True West, a coffee shop that is planning a second location in the other Downtown of Hamilton.
True West Coffee
Rossville
Sculpture and park in Rossville
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Newly renovated building on Main Street
New Family Dollar store under construction in Rossville
Passion, pride, and innovation are winning the day
Both Saurber and Lawson are incredibly proud of Hamilton and speak passionately about its promise. “I see a city that is a blank canvas that is attractive to individuals that want to imprint themselves on that urban fabric,” said Lawson.
Back at City Hall, Jerod and I were given bottles of water. Bottles of tap water. It turns out that Hamilton has the best tasting tap water in the world, as voted on in 2010. The City sells its water in stores. Water is one of four utilities owned and operated by the City of Hamilton, including electricity, natural gas, and sanitation.
Because the city already has the infrastructure underground, Hamilton is close to being able to provide free wi-fi to people who work, live, and visit in its Downtown.
With urban pioneers and some committed city staffers, Hamilton is poised for great things. Lawson summed it up best with a paragraph he wrote for the pamphlet describing the newly established CORE fund, mentioned earlier:
“Since its founding in 1791, Hamilton has had to reinvent itself countless times, from outpost to fort, from river town to industrial manufacturing giant. The story is that of a dynamic city comprised and adaptive, creative and thriving enterprises and people who meet the needs of changing times. We are in a similar phase of reinvention today, where we are inspired by Hamilton’s storied past, but not defined by it. Our remarkable past is a story written upon our invaluable landscape of natural resources, geography, human capital, and most importantly, our ingenuity in writing those new chapters in Hamilton’s history. The CORE Fund is Hamilton’s new chapter, a new generation’s approach towards the remaking of Hamilton, not separate from history, but one determined to create its own. Since 1791 this has been a city of pioneers and trail blazers, with the CORE Fund we can again assist this century’s pioneers in discovering the ageless Hamilton spirit.”
The takeaway
To me, so much of the current situation in Hamilton seems so similar to Covington. It’s an aged industrial town on a river that is finally getting up after falling on hard times. A lot of the buzzwords being floated are the same: new market tax credits, revitalization, riverfront redevelopment.
Hamilton is even dealing with a budget crisis that involves back-and-forth negotiations with a fire department facing layoffs. The city recently went through a Management Partners-esque study to streamline its efficiency and budget concerns.
In a lot of ways Hamilton is ahead of Covington. So much of its progress is visible whereas here, our future is still mostly on paper. Ground is being moved in Hamilton, people are living in new lofts Downtown, schools are already educating in the urban core. And, wow, is Downtown Hamilton clean. There were no vagrants and there was no trash or cigarette butts to be found. Banners proudly hung from the decorative light posts proclaiming what city we were in. A lot of credit goes to its equivalent of a business improvement district, something some in Covington are working hard to create.
Hamilton’s City Hall also seems more active, inviting, and on the same page.Â
And then a lot of ways, Covington is ahead of Hamilton. Even if it is just on paper. We have an $80 million urban college campus in the works, a $25 million boutique hotel is on the way, and the Catalytic Development Fund is close to announcing some more big development news.
Covington also may have an advantage in its active citizens with groups like the Awesome Collective of Covington that serve as ambassadors of city pride.Â
City Hall will have the opportunity to improve customer service and efficiency when it moves into its new location on Pike Street and may even trigger some development nearby.
It was a thrill to see another small city waking up and redefining itself and I look forward to watching the success here at home and up I-75 over the coming months and years. I’m very optimistic for both and hope we can inspire and learn from each other.
-Michael Monks, editor & publisher
More photos:
Welcome Center in Downtown Hamilton
Hamilton’s former City Hall, “Heritage Hall”
Empty office space in Hamilton
Hamilton’s Downtown YMCA is still in operation