Students Round Out Experience, Help Design and Build Non-Profit Pizzeria

In order to gain a slice of real-world experience, University of Cincinnati students first began working back in 2004 to help design and build an Over-the-Rhine pizzeria.

That effort – which recently resulted in the opening of

Venice on Vine

– began because local nuns, the Dominican Sisters of Hope and the Sister of Notre Dame de Namur, were seeking to open a pizzeria as a means to provide jobs and training for hard-to-employ residents in urban neighborhoods.

Because they didn’t have a lot of dough to work with, the sisters turned to faculty and students in UC’s top-ranked College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning to help with the renovation designs and labor required to turn 1301 Vine Street into what it is today, Venice on Vine.

At the time, UC student (now graduated) Emily Wray of St. Louis – who worked on the project from 2004 through 2006 – explained that the students wanted to create a design specific to Over-the-Rhine, “a place that really speaks to and for the community so that it’s not a place that looks like ‘McPizza,” and could be just anywhere.”

Apparently, they succeeded. Venice on Vine, which recently opened for business, just won a Cincinnati Design Award from the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

In their efforts to create a new home for the sisters’ efforts, the UC architecture and interior design students were led by

Frank Russell

, director of UC’s

Community Design Center

;

Terry Boling

, assistant professor of architecture; and Carrie Beidleman, adjunct professor of interior design. The 19th-century building had to be dramatically refurbished for use as a pizza kitchen and restaurant: The students put up drywall, lighting, signage, laying a tile floor, creating a wood mosaic wall, creating decorative copper screens and both a serving and an eating counter.

Travis Wollet, a one-time UC architecture graduate student who worked on the project for about two years, explained, “We laid the floor as a mosaic not only because it was unique, a very rich design, but also because our supplies were all sorts of mismatched pieces of tiles that were headed for the garbage heap. The same with the wood mosaic wall we created. We didn’t have large enough or sufficient quantities of matching wood to do a conventional job. It forced us to be far more creative than we might have otherwise been.”

For instance, the students had 8,000 donated floor tiles to work with; however, the tiles were of varying sizes, textures and colors. In order to use the mismatched materials in the creation of a harmonious design scheme, the students cut each tile intro strips and then fashioned a floor by blending and intermixing the variegated pieces.

Wollet first participated in the project as part of a class, then for independent-study credit and finally, simply as a volunteer. “I stuck with it because I wanted to see it through. We’d shown a lot of care in creating the detailed floors and walls, and I couldn’t be sure someone else would care as much about that original work and see it through. So, I just continued to stick with it,” he said.

Wollet’s personal contributions to the project consisted of building the frame for the pizza parlor’s interior light box, installing the ornate wood panels and metal trim that comprise one wall, laying the backer board for the tile floor, and building the frame for a wall counter as well as painting and cleaning.

The end result is worth all the work, according to Wray, who not only helped with design projects but helped secure donations of tile and wood as well as other materials and services. She explained, “The best part is seeing it all get built. So many projects we might do in school don’t get built. That’s the best part of this project and seeing it realized. It’s real, and it all shows real hand work and individual care.”

Of the new Venice on Vine, Sister Barbara Wheeler simply said, “It’s a work of art.”

“We never thought it would take us this long to open,” she admitted. “But it’s all worked out wonderfully. The time spent in refurbishing the storefront was time we then had to write grants to support our work. And, it gave us time to implement many of the design ideas that students developed for us. We needed their ideas since we [the sisters] don’t have design backgrounds. It was the students’ ideas and enthusiasm that often pulled us through.”

The UC students – most of whom came to the project via UC’s Niehoff Studio which is also based in Over-the-Rhine – completed all construction drawings and bid packages thanks to funding from UC’s Institute for Community Partnerships, supervision by UC’s Community Design Center and technical assistance from KZF Design, Inc., and Brashear Bolton, Inc. In all, about 30 UC students have worked on the project over the last two years.

In addition to the kitchen and dining area of Venice on Vine, the ministry (called Power Inspires Progress) also consists of a catering center as well as a small computer training space. The entire space is part of a ministry to employ and train hard-to-place workers. Students from Miami University also assisted with the project, focusing on renovating the site’s training area – laying a new wood floor as well as installing cabinetry and furniture. 

Venice on Vine, located at 1301 Vine St. in Over-the-Rhine, is open Monday thru Friday from 11 a.m.-7 p.m.