UC grads spur big changes in Walnut Hills

Walking around the gutted Paramount Building in Walnut Hills, it’s hard to envision the taproom and brewery that Marvin Abrinica and Brian Jackson have planned later this year.

But the University of Cincinnati graduates see it all very clearly.

“We’ll have a taproom space of about 2,500 to 3,000 square feet. It will be a pretty good size,” Abrinica said. “But we want it to be warm and inviting — more intimate — sort of the anti-brewery.”

The brewery sits on what residents still call Peebles Corner after the former grocery store that occupied the space. It will be the first brewery in the area opened by minority owners. That’s a big selling point in a neighborhood as diverse as Walnut Hills, Abrinica said.

“As minority founders, there aren’t many people who look like us,” he said. “So if we can start a brewery that attracts a diverse crowd, we feel like we’ve done our job.”

Their venture, Esoteric Brewery, is just one of several new businesses invigorating life in Walnut Hills, one of Cincinnati’s oldest neighborhoods. And much of this investment interest is being spurred by UC alumni.

“We like to think we’re getting in at a good time,” Jackson said.

This investment by UC grads reflects UC's broader commitment to making an urban impact as outlined in its strategic initiative, Next Lives Here.

Abrinica was honored by UC's Lindner College of Business at last year's Cincinnati Business Achievement Awards.

Jackson, too, has strong family ties to UC. His sister, Shira Jackson, is studying quantum physics at UC while his mother, Katrina Jordan, was the university’s longtime director of career development and placement.

“We hope to be a catalyst for other businesses that want to come in and be a part of the community,” he said.

Along East McMillan Street, business after business has ties to UC: Gomez Salsa, Landlocked Social House, Caffe Vivace.

Samantha Reeves, a Cincinnati native and UC graduate in the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning, works as director of real estate and economic development for the Walnut Hills Redevelopment Foundation, a nonprofit group that is helping to steer some of the investment. In a tour of the neighborhood, Reeves showed off some of the latest positive changes in the neighborhood: cafes and restaurants with vibrant facades.

“In addition to the historic Paramount building on Peebles Corner that’s being remodelled, we have a couple storefronts, small businesses and mixed-use buildings,” she said.

Walnut Hills, a neighborhood that borders I-71 and Eden Park, is seeing a “significant and historic transformation,” according to an independent 2016 market analysis by the firm Development Strategies. It has a built-in demand for retail and services. The market study found that most residents by necessity do much of their shopping outside Walnut Hills.

Its assets include its central location surrounded by the city’s downtown, UC and Xavier University, area hospitals and Over-the-Rhine. It’s a walkable neighborhood with historic character (home to the 1804-era Kemper Log House and the Harriet Beecher Stowe House, built in 1832.)

According to the Walnut Hills Area Council, the neighborhood is home to a wealth of architectural firms, artists, musicians and craftsmen. But it also has boarded-up buildings and other signs of blight and neglect. Development Strategies said Walnut Hills faces challenges such as concentrated poverty and unemployment, retail vacancy and substandard housing.

Elizabeth Winters Waite, chief financial officer for the Walnut Hills Redevelopment Foundation, said the neighborhood is trying to capture renewed interest among Baby Boomers and millennials who want to live in walkable city neighborhoods.

“People are moving back to cities. More people want to live closer to where they work so their favorite bar or store is within walking distance,” she said.

She relocated to Walnut Hills after raising a family in the Hamilton County suburbs. Today, she oversees one of the many community gardens where residents grow their own fresh fruits and vegetables.

“It is the friendliest community I have ever lived in. It has much more of a metropolitan feel. Not everyone looks the same or sounds the same,” she said. “Because you’re living in close proximity to other people, you have more exposure to other people. I see my neighbors all the time and they’re friendly.”

Winters Waite said UC graduates and others who open businesses in Walnut Hills are having untold positive influences.

“When you have pockets of poverty and unemployment, nobody has access to the connections that move people forward in their lives,” she said. “How do you make connections to transcend your situation?”