Ryan Ori

By the time the first passengers boarded Cincinnati’s streetcar in September, its advocates had already been on a wild 15-year ride that included surviving two ballot initiatives to derail the project. The Cincinnati Bell Connector—the streetcar’s formal name, thanks to that company’s ten-year, $3.4 million naming-rights deal signed in August—began clanging through Cincinnati’s streets at a time when construction continues ramping up in the city center.
At this stage of the latest construction cycle, condo projects are much smaller, typically featuring fewer than 100 units. Yet the size and the price tags of the units have both increased, according to a ULI Chicago panel discussion.
For years, a 27-story concrete skeleton, detritus of the financial crisis, loomed over the Chicago River. A reinvention of the project led to a record sales price for the finished apartment tower this year.
The downtown area attracts office tenants, residents, and tourists as it rebuilds.
After years of virtually no construction, seven new office and mixed-use buildings are under development, poised to add millions of square feet of space by the end of 2016.
Resources that drove the old industrial economy—a central location and access to power—plus available industrial space, give Chicago an edge in the data center business.
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