LOVELAND, Ohio —

A roadblock is on the way for one of the region’s most popular bike trails because a new bridge will take all summer to install.

The Loveland Bike Trail will be closed at a distance from downtown that takes about one minute to walk.

The bridge will be closed for most of March and will reopen, but will then close down again from May until October.

“I don't think it's going to make too many people happy. The timing is not what I would call the best,” said Loveland resident Julie Dolbier.

“That is very disappointing because that is the riding season,” said Diana Hodges-Batzka. “It just means we will be going to the other parts of this wonderful trail that Ohio has.”

That’s the concern. The trail is important to downtown Loveland businesses.

Now, people hitting the trail at Loveland can’t go north toward Morrow and Lebanon, which is the most popular route.

Loveland City Manager David Kennedy said the Ohio Department of Natural Resource’s plan was to replace the bridge in January, but supply chain issues pushed it back to the summer.

“They're doing the right thing, timing, it's not good. It's not good for our businesses, but I'm absolutely supportive of the project,” Kennedy said.

Business owners are remaining optimistic.

“You’re always tempted to think worse-case scenario, but I think, for the most part, if you’re committed to doing good work, people want to come and find you anyway,” said the owner of Narrow Path Brewing Company, Chad Powers.

CINCINNATI — One person is in critical condition as Cincinnati Police investigate a possible accidental shooting in the West End Christmas morning.

Officers located one woman with a gunshot wound at the Gateway Plaza apartment complex on W. 9th Street just after 11 a.m. She was taken to UC Medical Center and remains in critical condition.

Police said the shooting may be an accidental shooting; however, more information was needed. One man was taken in for questioning, but he has not been arrested.

The shooting remains under investigation.

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CINCINNATI —

Local artist, educator and owner of Not Your Average "Paint and Sip" mobile unit, James Reynolds, designed and prepared the mural concept for today's event at Court Street Plaza downtown.

"This season, more than any other, is about appreciating and celebrating our community," Reynolds said. "Our mural will be a wonderful expression of Cincinnati's vibrancy, diversity and fraternity."

The event on Saturday afternoon was created to invite and inspire local residents to come together as a community to share and express their inner artist.

Court Street Plaza served as today's canvas, which produced a community-created mural honoring the city of Cincinnati.

Along with the community-wide mural painting, there were also performances by local musicians, coffee stands, and even take-home crafts, inspired by the new mural.

The free event was one of several community-produced holiday events in the FOUND series. FOUND is a collection of creative and engaging holiday events aimed at bringing the community together in Cincinnati's urban core.

You can catch a glimpse of the new mural at the storefront below the Stanley & More Flats located at 11. E. Court Street.

You can find more events produced by FOUND here.

CINCINNATI — One of the region’s fastest growing companies is relocating its headquarters from Newport to Cincinnati – bringing hundreds of jobs to The Foundry building across from Fountain Square.

Divisions Maintenance Group will occupy the top two floors of the former Macy’s department store building at Fifth and Vine Streets.

Divisions Maintenance Group is a facility maintenance company that removes the snow and cuts the grass at thousands of retail and distribution properties nationwide.

It developed software that efficiently manages a network of technicians and offers property owners a fixed price to cover a variety of maintenance services.

Its web site currently offers dozens of available jobs in sales, data & analytics, engineering and human resources listed in Newport, Ky., but with the change in HQ, those jobs are likely to relocate to Cincinnati.

The relocation means the Cincinnati Center City Development Corp. has now filled more than 90% of the available office space in the former Fountain Place building, which 3CDC spent $51 million renovating after Macy’s closed in 2018.

Turner Construction and Deloitte claimed all but 21,000 square feet of the building's available office space in previously announced deals.

“The addition of Divisions Maintenance Group to The Foundry development is a significant step for the project, Cincinnati’s urban core and the city as a whole,” 3CDC CEO Steve Leeper said in a prepared statement. “Divisions is a burgeoning company who will help fuel downtown’s overall growth. As the center city continues to recover from the challenges of the past 18 months, the introduction of another exceptional company as a tenant to this critical project shows the urban core is continuing to move forward and is poised to be stronger than ever in the future.”

The Ohio Tax Credit Authority awarded a 10-year tax credit worth up to $5 million to encourage the creation of 256 full-time equivalent jobs to Ohio. Those new jobs would bring $25.6 million in new annual payroll to Cincinnati, which is an average of $100,000 per job.

“We’re glad that the Cincinnati region will retain Divisions Maintenance Group,” said Northern Kentucky Tri-ED CEO Lee Crume. “We know that the company took the decision of where to expand seriously and explored several options – in the end this is a business decision. 2021 has been a successful year in Northern Kentucky with a diverse array of companies locating and expanding here and there is great momentum in new projects heading into the end of the year.”

CINCINNATI — The 2020 Oktoberfest Zinzinnati is more important than ever right now.

Not only to bring revenue to local businesses struggling during the pandemic, but to bring a morale booster for the entire city.

It’s been a tough six months in the hospitality industry.

“Everything that’s happened over the last six months since March 15, we were shut down from March 15 to May 15,” said Holy Grail owner Jim Moehring. "Everything that we’ve lost is just another layer to us.”

Oktoberfest comes as a relief for Moehring.

“This is one of Cincinnati’s greatest traditions and I’m glad they’re continuing it on,” he said.

Oktoberfest Zinzinnati kicks off Friday night. It’ll last ten days, with dozens of bars and restaurants participating. Plus, people are encouraged to celebrate “In Za Haus,” with German drinks and food at home.

Rich Walburg from Oktoberfest Zinzinnati has your “In Za Haus” night mapped out.

“Put on the Spotify playlist of German songs. Go to Kroger and get some brats and mets,” he said.

Even from home, Walburg said it’s vital to keep the tradition going.

“It’s just as important this year to the morale of this region and to help businesses and restaurants,” he said.

Though people won’t be shoulder to shoulder in the streets and in bars, Justin Wiener, general manager Moerlein Lager House, said the festival is bringing a sense of normalcy to downtown.

“It felt like kind of getting back to some regular things as well, so definitely a big boost for us,” Wiener said.

COVID-19 precautions are still in place, with capacity limits and social distancing at the venues. Wiener said it won’t dull the energy of this Cincinnati staple.

“We’re excited this event is going on and I think it’s going to bring a lot of people to downtown and have some great energy around it,” he said.

“It’s a huge party, people are up. In the past we’ve had bands come in. It’ll be different this year, but we’ll still have a blast,” Moehring said.

The chicken dance is still slated to happen Saturday while the Stein Hoist is next weekend. And through the entire 10 days there will be live entertainment, which you can check out both in person and virtually.

CINCINNATI — As umbrellas and tents go up for the Kroger Wellness Experience at The Banks, a multi-day festival celebrating healthy habits and food, the potential for traffic issues downtown grows as well.

“This is our third year doing it,” Brian Endicott with Meyer Natural Food said Thursday. “It’s extremely stressful and difficult, but in the end it all comes together and turns out great.”

A creative strategist for Laura’s Lean Beef, Endicott and his team plan to pass out close to 6,000 taco samples at this weekend’s event, which is all about helping people find ways to live a healthier life.

“We know there’s several other concerts going on in the area, a couple of Reds games going on,” he said. “So we’re really hoping that we’ll end up with a large turnout.”

But that large amount of people could turn out to be a headache for some drivers. Several access roads to The Banks will be closed by performance stages and streets lined with vendors. That’s on top of several major construction projects downtown and bridges that are closed for maintenance.

RELATED: Buckle your seatbelts for another traffic pattern change on the Brent Spence Bridge

“It’s a little hectic,” downtown resident David Purtell said. “I mean, honestly, it makes it a little bit harder to get back from work and the gym and everything else, so it’s a little frustrating at times especially like during Reds games and they block off the street. So it’s frustrating, but I am excited to see the area growing.”

Kroger spokesperson Jenifer Moore said people planning to attend the festival should plan ahead.

“There’ll be a lot of activities happening,” she said. “So, if you want to, you know you can always drive down. There’ll be ample parking.”

She said all the parking garages should be open, but delays should be expected as people try to navigate street closures.

“We’ll have a number of entertainment options for the whole family to enjoy,” Moore said of the health and wellness fair. “There will be free concerts each day beginning at 4 o’clock, so there’s a lot of excitement building for this. Our goal, like I said before, is to really connect the food with medicine so that everyone can see the importance of being healthy and being safe.”

CINCINNATI — Long-anticipated demolition work began Monday on the blighted Millennium Hotel at Fifth and Elm streets, making way for what will be another improvement in downtown Cincinnati's ongoing facelift.

The former hotel closed in 2019 with plans to bring down the aging building last year, but work was delayed, in part, by COVID-19. While specifics of the building that will replace it remain unclear, here's what is clear: If the pandemic has kept you away from Downtown for the last year, you might not recognize it when you return.

"Everything's under construction right now by design," said Mayor John Cranley in an interview with WCPO. "Because of remote work, we've taken advantage of this to dramatically expand outdoor dining. Sidewalks are doubling all across Downtown. We're closing down streets to make permanent entertainment districts at The Banks and Over-the-Rhine."

The outgoing mayor has spent much of the last twenty years at City Hall working to attract big development contracts to the city. He said he anticipates this year's will be a "summer of Cincinnati love" as the pandemic begins to wind down.

"When people come back for the summer, vaccinated and safe, for Reds games, [FC Cincinnati's] new stadium, they're going to be just blown away by the vibrancy," he said.

Walking tour of a new Downtown

Walk one block west from the old Millennium to Race Street, and even a short stroll will showcase multiple ongoing Downtown development projects: The former home of apparel retailer McHahns at the corner of Race and Seventh streets is being renovated into a Towneplace Suites hotel, and the Kinley Hotel -- home of the acclaimed restaurant, Khora -- opened last year just across the street.

Evan Millward (WCPO)

Walk a few blocks south and you'll find Fountain Place, the former home of Downtown's Macy's department store and soon to become The Foundry, which will house a mix of office space and street-level retail space. Once the project is completed, the Skywalk that spanned over Fifth Street will be gone, and sidewalks will have expanded along Fifth, Vine and Race streets.

Continue further toward the river, and you'll find the long-anticipated Fourth and Race development near its final form, where there will be more than 260 apartments and a public parking garage with nearly 600 spaces.

Before continuing down toward The Banks, be sure to look left down Fourth Street corridor, which is seeing its own renaissance lately.

Take Race all the way to The Banks, and you'll find the Andrew J. Brady ICON Music Center, one of two venues that soon will open along the urban core's riverbanks.

WCPO file

The new apartments and hotel rooms are just the beginning, according to retail and real estate experts, especially as companies that once rented Downtown office space might reconsider their leases now that the pandemic has shown just how real a possibility remote working can be for so many businesses.

"I think what we'll see is office buildings being repurposed as either apartments, condos or even hotels," said Josh Rothstein with OnSite Retail Group. "So the strong office buildings will stay strong and all the other stuff, instead of sitting there and collecting dust, will be repurposed and continue to trend that we see Downtown of collecting density."

One example of this can be found at Seventh and Vine streets, where the former Provident Bank and office building has transformed into apartments as The Provident. Three blocks away, at Fourth and Vine, PNC Tower will be restored and repurposed into residences, too.

That's not to say, though, that office vacancy is on the rise during the pandemic. According to CBRE Research, Downtown's vacany rate remained steady at just above 14% throughout 2020.

Cincinnati Office MarketView Q4 2020 by WCPO 9 News on Scribd

Push for convention hotel

While momentum seems to be building toward more people moving to Downtown, there also is a push for getting more people to visit. That's why replacing the Millennium Hotel -- which sits directly opposite the region's largest convention hall, the Duke Energy Center -- with a new facility with more meeting space is such a critical project, according to Julie Calvert, president and CEO of Cincinnati USA Convention and Visitors Bureau.

"The standard is 10,000 square feet of space for every 100 rooms," Calvert told WCPO 9, pointing out that the Millennium Hotel had about that much space but for nearly 900 rooms. For an 800-room hotel, 80,000 square feet of meeting space would make Cincinnati "very competitive" for attracting meetings and conventions, Calvert said.

Watch WCPO 9 News anchor Evan Millward's live conversation with Calvert in the viewer below:

Changing Downtown, Pt. 2: What's at stake in replacing Millennium Hotel?

"That really puts us right on par with Columbus, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Pittsburgh," she said. "It will open us up to all sorts of different meetings of different sizes. We could host multiple meetings at a time either here or at the Duke Energy Convention Center, at different hotels, so it's a game-changer for Cincinnati. That's for sure."

Calvert estimated a new convention hotel would bring an additional $18 million in economic activity to the central business district each year.

Rising tides lift all boats... and costs of living

But the new developments do come with a cost: namely, swelling rental rates. According to the real estate marketplace, Zumper, the average cost to rent a one-bedroom apartment in Downtown is $1,445 per month; the average for a two-bedroom is $2,095. That's high -- especially for two-bedrooms -- when compared to similar apartments in downtown Indianapolis and downtown Columbus.

WCPO

The city's need for affordable housing has never been greater, according to advocates with the Greater Cincinnati Homeless Coalition, who have successfully petitioned city voters to place an initiative on November's ballot that would establish a $50 million annual affordable housing trust fund.

"It's about Cincinnatians using our tax dollars, that we pay in, to benefit Cincinnatians in our neighborhoods," said Joshua Spring, the coalition's executive director.

Lann Field heads up development for the Cincinnati City Center Development Corporation, also known as 3CDC. She said the group is working to bring a mix of market-rate and affordable housing units to its work throughout Downtown and neighboring Over-the-Rhine.

"I think it's important that we provide a wide range of housing options for all different income levels, but there has to be also acknowledgment of the challenges of doing that and the realities of the cost of development and things like that," she said.

3CDC currently has seven development projects in design or underway throughout Downtown and OTR, and the Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority has dozens of projects on its resume.

It's a feather Cranley has pinned to his cap.

"All of our solutions get easier if we continue to grow jobs and people in the city," he told WCPO. "Bottom line is, you're growing or you're dying. For 70 years, the city was essentially dying in the sense that it was losing population and jobs. Now it's rising again."

CINCINNATI — A police pursuit ended in a crash Downtown that sent three people to the hospital, according to Cincinnati Police.

Police at the scene of the crash said officers witnessed a black SUV engaged in drug activity at Eighth and Linn Streets. They initiated a traffic stop, and the vehicle fled. Police believe one of the occupants in the SUV discarded drugs during the pursuit.

The black SUV crashed into a silver SUV at East Eighth and Walnut Streets before 8 p.m.

One person in the silver SUV was taken to UC Medical Center, and another was taken to Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. Both have minor injuries, police said.

Police said the driver of the black SUV, who has warrants out of Texas, was not injured. The passenger in the suspect vehicle was transported to UCMC as a precaution. Authorities did not release the identity of the driver or the passenger.

CINCINNATI — An artifact of a bygone era in Downtown's history came down Wednesday when crews dismantled the skywalk path crossing over Sixth Street from the Millennium Hotel.

The dismantling was part of the larger demolition project underway on the site of the shuttered, blighted hotel, which began last month.

The city began construction on Cincinnati Skywalk nearly 50 years ago. When engineers considered it "complete" in 1997, the so-called "skybridges" stretched more than three miles across Downtown's most central streets, just a few dozen feet above street level.

IN-DEPTH: How does Skywalk fit in today's Downtown?
PHOTOS: Take a walking tour through Cincinnati Skywalk

In 2002, the city began dismantling them due to lack of maintenance and nuisance complaints. By 2017, there was little more than a mile left of the $16 million investment.

At its peak, the skywalks connected what is now Duke Energy Convention Center through the heart of Downtown, past Fountain Square, all the way to Riverfront Stadium, by way of the Atrium buildings at Main and Fourth streets.

Beyond being, as then-mayor Charlie Luken once said, "dark and yucky," critics of the Skywalk argued they discouraged foot traffic on Downtown streets, leading to a vacant landscape for businesses with street-level storefronts.