Vacant downtown office building to be converted into hotel
UC Real Estate Center director tells WCPO the project will add jobs in the city
A vacant office building in downtown Cincinnati will be converted into a 280-room hotel, creating hundreds of construction jobs and permanent jobs, WCPO reported.
Carl Goertemoeller, UC Real Estate Center executive director
The redevelopment of the former Fourth & Walnut Centre will be a $174 million project. It’s expected to create 381 new permanent jobs and 498 construction jobs.
“At the end of the day, it really boils down to job creation, not only the construction jobs used to redevelop the building, but permanent jobs,” said Carl Goertemoeller, executive director for the University of Cincinnati Real Estate Center, at the Carl H. Lindner College of Business. “These projects are extraordinarily capital intensive and on virtually all of them, you need some type of tax abated assistance just to make the numbers work.”
The City of Cincinnati approved a 15-year tax abatement for the project, which will help fill the need for more hotel rooms in the city.
"My sense is that to fully utilize the soon to be redeveloped convention center, those hotel rooms are going to be necessary," Goertemoeller said.
Featured image at top: Downtown Cincinnati. Photo/Jay Yocis/UC Marketing + Brand
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