UC, North Fairmount Partnership Means Business Date: March 24, 2000 By: Mary Bridget Reilly Phone: (513) 556-1824 Archive: General News Cincinnati's North Fairmount community has no barber. No baker. No laundromat. No post office. No dry cleaner. No fitness center. No hardware store. No....well, you get the idea. "North Fairmount has no real business district. Often, people have to go out of the neighborhood to meet their needs. Instead of investing within their own community, the residents have to travel and spend outside of it for so much," stated Lois Broerman, executive director of the North Fairmount Community Center. However, thanks to a working partnership with the University of Cincinnati's Community Design Center and UC's Center for Economic Education, that will soon change. Frank Russell, director of the university's Community Design Center, and UC architecture students recently completed plans for a new 10,000-square-foot retail/office building intended for what is now an empty lot at the corner of Carl and Beekman streets. It will house a 1,000-square-foot laundry and other entrepreneurial businesses vital for the community, perhaps including accounting and catering services. The diminutive size of the site -- one acre -- called out the creativity of the design center in drafting the ideas for a community green space and the free-standing laundromat side-by-side with a two-story office/retail structure, according to Russell. "We own the property already. We now have the plans in hand to show prospective donors. We need to raise $300,000 to break ground. The total cost for the project will be around $800,000, but if we can raise the first $300,000, we can arrange more traditional financing for the rest," said Broerman who will use the UC plans to approach the Greater Cincinnati Foundation and other local foundations as well as the City of Cincinnati and the State of Ohio. She hopes to lure retailers to the new space based on an analysis by UC s Center for Economic Education which shows high demand in the neighborhood for women s, children's and infant's discount apparel even though North Fairmount and its surrounding neighborhoods are among the poorest in Hamilton County. Women outnumber men 54 to 46 percent in the neighborhood and children under 15 years of age comprise 39 percent of its residents. Hence, the community has strong demand for women's and children's apparel. That same study, funded by UC's Institute for Community Partnerships, showed strong demand for recreation facilities as well as auto repair shops since, compared with the entire market in the area, North Fairmount residents were more likely to drive (57.7 percent) or car pool (19.1 percent) than to travel by public transportation or walk. This high auto ownership rate could spell success for any local auto repair business, explained Broerman.