On Saturday, January 22 Bridging Broadway hosted a community dialogue to examine the impact of the area around the new 20-acre casino site, north of E Court St., between Gilbert Ave. and Reading Rd. This was a sold out event that gathered architects, urban planners, students, and community members, including city council member, Laure Quinlivan. Stephen Samuels, the president of Bridging Broadway, led us by first introducing the surrounding neighborhood and an assortment of inspirational images. The purpose of this meeting was to come up with a vision or 125 different visions for how the casino will affect the historic neighborhood of Over the Rhine. We had to envision an Over the Rhine that was a home to the casino, the jail, and also residents. After dividing into groups led by an architect and an urban planner, we created collages from cut out magazine images that portrayed how we wanted the site and the surrounding areas to mold together. From these collages each group established repeated themes, such as adding roundabouts to slow the traffic from the highway, making connections to the business district of downtown, and Over the Rhine, as well as to Newport. The majority of the groups were concerned with keeping the neighboring area of Pendelton welcoming for residents. It was surprising to be among so many individuals that were for the street car. The casino has the potential to connect the different communities of Cincinnati; The casino will attract the suburban residents to experience the Over the Rhine/Pendelton area, and aid in its growth towards being an attractive place for residents as well as visitors.
This meeting with the community was absolutely perfect timing to get our minds thinking more about how we want to develop our project and gear it towards the residents of the community. We are excited to take some of the ideas we heard on Saturday and incorporate them into our design.
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