REDS VS THE BENGALS!
HOW COLLEGE HILL BLOOMED
has been a revelation as the Bengals’ director
of strategy and engagement. She was instru-
mental in finally bringing a Ring of Honor to
the stadium and is laser-focused on improv-
ing fan engagement.
It doesn’t stop there. Think about Zac
Taylor popping into local bars and handing
out game balls after playoff victories. These
are the things that help bond a fan base with
the local team.
In general, the Reds have done a tremen-
dous job of promoting their glorious past,
but the club is on a two-year streak that can
only be characterized as a public relations
disaster. You already know about the on-
going Phil Castellini fiasco, but every time
Krall speaks he says something else that
frustrates a dwindling fan base.
There is a way to sell the Reds’ current
plan, but it will require a coordinated PR
strategy. Phil should never be seen in pub-
lic again. Krall must stop talking publicly,
and the Reds need someone who can clearly
communicate the team’s strategy and high-
light their successes. (I’m available to fill
that position, by the way.) The Reds also
need to be honest with fans about their past
failures, admit that they haven’t lived up to
their promises, and commit to listening to
feedback.
Making the case for the Reds shouldn’t
be particularly difficult. Thanks to trades
engineered by Krall, Cincinnati’s minor
league system is stacked with prospects. If
the team plays things right, this could be a
competitive team sooner rather than later,
and winning ultimately cures everything. As
we’ve seen from the Bengals, victories com-
bined with a real focus on the fan experience
can bring dynamite results.
“I’ve lived in Cincinnati my whole life,”
says WLW’s Elyse. “This has always been
a baseball town. I mean, Opening Day is a
holiday! But now, for Bengals home games,
you can’t even walk The Banks because of
how crowded it is. Every home game feels
like a playoff game, and every bar in Cin-
cinnati is decorated in orange and black
stripes. I’ve been going to Bengals games
for years with my dad, and I’ve never seen
anything like this. It all comes down to win-
ning. Cincinnati fans are fans of winning.”
The Castellinis don’t have to be Cincin-
nati’s sports villains. Redemption is pos-
sible. Just ask Mike Brown.
7 4 C I N C I N N AT I M A G A Z I N E . C O M A P R I L 2 0 2 3
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 55
invested in business district develop-
ment, most of it homegrown. The latest
new venture is the Big Chill, a neigh-
borhood bar owned by College Hill
residents that will, when the weather
warms, also include a walk-up window
for soft serve ice cream.
The Big Chill occupies a building
in the heart of the business district
that was once so old and nondescript
it was referred to merely as the Name-
less White Building. Its development is
part of a $9.5 million project in the 5900
block of Hamilton Avenue that also in-
cludes locally owned breakfast, lunch,
and brunch destination Sleepy Bee Café,
which opened its fourth Cincinnati loca-
tion in August 2022 at the site of an old
furniture store.
“The neighborhood has always been
near and dear to my heart,” says Sleepy
Bee owner Frannie Kroner, who grew up
in College Hill, has family there, and just
moved back to the neighborhood from
Northside. The new location also serves
dinner Wednesdays through Saturdays,
as the Sleepy Bee transforms into “The
Smoky Moth” in the evenings and fires
up its wood-burning oven for flatbreads
and other dinner fare.
That block also includes the re-imag-
ination of an old bowling alley, Mergard’s,
which in later years had been taken over
by a discount shoe store. The building
will feature 14 apartments, to be priced
affordably, and new offices for the neigh-
borhood’s not-for-profit developer, the
College Hill Community Urban Rede-
velopment Corporation (CHCURC). The
new digs will be a far cry from the days
when the organization operated out of a
coffee shop or the rec center. CHCURC
has evolved into one of the city’s most
active, well-staffed, and best funded
neighborhood redevelopment groups
and is the prime mover behind the
business district’s transformation.
Community development corpora-
tions (CDCs) can be a powerful tool to
revitalize urban neighborhoods, and,
as the name implies, they derive power
from their communities. Not every Cin-
cinnati neighborhood has the benefit
of one, and not every group has the re-
sources needed to effect such transfor-
mation. “Organizations like that reinvest
in the community,” says Seth Walsh, who
led CHCURC for six years. “They’re the
community at the end of the day.”
CHCURC was the first CDC in Cin-
cinnati, established in 1975 by a church
pastor and other neighborhood champi-
ons. One of its first successes back then
was redeveloping a parking lot behind
the building that now houses College
Hill Coffee Co. at Hamilton Avenue and
North Bend Road.
Like a lot of organizations that de-
pend on volunteer help for their suc-
cess, CHCURC’s level of activity rose
and waned over the years but finally
emerged as a force after a tipping point
in the early 2000s. Kroger shuttered its
neighborhood grocery at the Hamilton
and North Bend crossroads; across the
street, the popular Shuller’s Wigwam
restaurant closed after 80 years in busi-
ness. “The community had a panic mo-
ment,” says Walsh. “Was there anything
to be done to prevent the business dis-
trict from declining?”
Walsh recalls the story as he’s heard
it from neighborhood residents. He be-
came the full-time executive director
of College Hill’s CDC in 2016, and his
leadership is credited with getting much
of the business district’s visible success
across the finish line. He leveraged that
action into an appointment to Cincin-
nati City Council, when he was named
in December 2022 to fill the seat left
by Democrat Greg Landsman, who was
elected to Congress.
The Kroger/Wigwam wake-up call
led to a community reckoning. It started
with a backyard barbecue to which a
couple dozen civic-minded residents
were invited.
COLLEGE HILL IS A DIVERSE COMMU-
nity, both racially and economically. It