Bond Hill office campus hits snag

Rendering from GBBN Architects and the Cincinnati Business Courier

A proposal for a social services campus on in Bond Hill has been slowed due to opposition by some of its neighbors.

The St. Aloysius Orphan Society of Cincinnati (St. Aloysius), a non-profit that provides educational and counseling services to children with behavioral and mental health problems, is proposing a two-phased project for a 16-acre, $20 million social services campus on its site at Reading Road and the Norwood Lateral.

To build it, they need for the City to establish a planned development district (PD). They would then subdivide the PD to construct a new school building, four office buildings totalling 60,000 square feet, and a few hundred surface parking spaces.

The existing school and chapel would remain.

Some neighbors near the orphanage have voiced strong concerns over the traffic the campus would generate. In a November meeting of the Bond Hill Community Council, several in attendance suggested that St. Aloysius should leave the community.

Bond Hill Community Council president Nate Johnson has been actively working to bring these neighbors together with officials from St. Aloysius, and project designers at GBBN Architects and the City's Department of Transportation and Engineering are working on ideas for traffic control.

St. Aloysius hopes that developing the property can bring in enough revenue to allow them to continue operating - and possibly to increase their client load.

If the development is not approved, the land could be sold off to developers. The site's current size and zoning could allow for the construction of up to 348 multi-family residential units.

An approval of the concept plan and the creation of a PD by City Council would put all building on the site under the jurisdiction of the City Planning Commission.

The project has not yet been scheduled for a public hearing in front of Council's Economic Development Committee.

St. Aloysius has been operating in Bond Hill since 1861 and at one time held 88 acres.

Previous reading on BC:
PC to consider St. Aloysius office development (10/25/07)