CINCINNATI — The DORA (Designated Outdoor Refreshment Area) district at the Banks is coming along, but the changes around it aren't benefiting every business.

Crews were out Friday morning installing the turf, and bringing out patio furniture.

A spokesperson with the Banks says all of these additions are helping to fulfill the vision of what the DORA is intended to be.

Businesses like The Holy Grail Tavern have benefited from the development of the pedestrian-only district.

"The DORA helped with the street, made things busier. We'd see traffic a little bit earlier on," said Denise Koenig with the Holy Grail Tavern. "This year was great. It was obviously better than last year. We had a great Reds season. DORA helped a lot."

Now, seven months after shutting down Freedom Way, the plan is coming into full focus.

Tracy Schwegmann is with the Banks. She says the installation of turf and soft seating was delayed due to supply chain issues, until now.

"Now we're actually able to start to engage folks in that common area space in more of the fashion that we originally envisioned," Schwegmann said.

More permanent fixtures are still on the way, including asphalt art, and seating, making it a more "welcoming" park-like space.

"The DORA district has been a home run since day one. And it was absolutely instrumental to getting people back out," Schwegmann said.

But not everyone saw the ball fly out of the park. Joella's Hot Chicken announced this week it's closing its location at the Banks. The restaurant blamed, in part, the DORA street closures, which the business says "eliminated our ability to conduct delivery services."

"Every establishment is doing Door Dash. Everyone had a very, very, very successful summer. I suppose if they feel like that's part of the reason why they needed to close, we certainly understand and respect that," Schwegmann said.

The DORA district allows guests to take their beverage purchased from one of the 18 Banks establishments, from 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. daily, and walk around 85 acres of public plazas and green space, so long as the drink is in the official plastic DORA cup.

The Banks

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 — The Black Music Walk of Fame is coming to The Banks, and starting this weekend people can get a preview of what the walk will look like.

On Saturday, Hamilton County Commissioner Alicia Reece will unveil the stars that will be in the pavement around the Andrew J. Brady ICON Music Center. She will also show the full renderings of an interactive park which will be put up around the Black Music Walk of Fame.

Reece took the helm of this development because she said Cincinnati's rich musical history is an important part of music history and the city's culture.

"There are so many African American artists who have come from Cincinnati, born in Cincinnati, recorded in Cincinnati, they're not recognized in their own hometown in a permanent way," Reece said. "We're going to recognize them, not only here, but also have people from all over the world come here as a tourist attraction and learn about our rich history."

Bootsy Collins, the Isley Brothers, Otis Williams and the late Dr. Charles Fold will be the first inductees into the walk of fame. Collins, the Isley Brothers, Williams and some of Fold's family members are expected to be at the event.

The preview begins at 2 p.m. Saturday outside of the ICON Music Center, and it is free to the public. Officials said
the plan is for the walk to be open before the 2022 Cincinnati Music Festival.

CINCINNATI — Most of The Banks will convert to an open-container district next week.

Late last year, Mayor John Cranley stood outside Great American Ball Park to announce his plan to turn an 85-acre area between the nearby Heritage Bank Center and Paul Brown Stadium into a designated outdoor refreshment area (DORA). The plan also includes making the stretch of Freedom Way between Marian Spencer and Joe Nuxhall ways a pedestrian-only zone.

A spokesperson for Cranley's office said Tuesday afternoon that, while the DORA's boundaries go into effect March 25, the streetscape changes to Freedom Way will take a bit longer.

The DORA will stretch between the arena and the Bengals' stadium and between Second Street and Mehring Way.

City of Cincinnati (Provided)

According to documents filed with the ordinance approving the DORA, passed by City Council last month, signage posted in the vicinity will mark its boundaries.

"Right now I can pretty much speak for every business down here: We're just going into debt. This is the bright spot coming out of the dark," said Jim Moehring, owner of the Holy Grail Tavern and Grille and one of the plan's chief supporters, on the day of Cranley's announcement.

The coronavirus pandemic has spelled hardship for entertainment districts like The Banks, dealing with stricter health codes and capacity restrictions.

Moehring said the benefits of the change would outlast the coronavirus pandemic.

The transformation of Freedom Way was part of a larger plan to make pandemic-related expansions of outdoor dining, drinking and entertainment space permanent. Cranley also proposed in December expanding restaurant patios, sidewalks and even closing down some streets to vehicles altogether to cultivate "streeteries" throughout Downtown and Over-the-Rhine.

Two Ferris wheels were supposed to sit on either side of the Ohio River by now, but both projects are on hold.

The SkyStar wheel at The Banks was taken down in 2020 and supposed to be back up by March 5, 2021. Similarly, the SkyWheel in Newport was supposed to be open in May, 2021. There has been no developments on either project though.

Tanya O'Rourke

Todd Schnieder with SkyView Partners, reached out to Hamilton County officials in December, 2020 about the SkyStar wheel and asked to "keep the door open" to the development moving forward in the future.

However, Bridget Doherty, Hamilton County's communications manager, said this was the last communication the county had with the organization. "At this point in time, we do not have a commitment from Skystar to move the project forward," she said.

Creative Commons

Newport City Manager Thomas Fromme said the SkyWheel is a private development and the city only issued the permit to build the wheel.

"That permit expires by the end of July," Fromme said. "We are not sure what their future plans are."

CINCINNATI —

"I was about to get in bed when somebody called to say, 'Miss Katrina, your daughter's shot.' I'm like, what? Like, you know, to me that's one of the worst calls that you can ever get in your life," Trina said.

A bandaged left arm is a painful reminder for Trina and her 16-year-old daughter about what happened Sunday night at The Banks along Cincinnati's riverfront.

That’s where five people were shot Sunday, two fatally. Police said two teenagers engaged in a shootout, with three innocent people caught in the crossfire. The two teens shooting were killed, officials said.

Trina's daughter was among those struck by the gunfire.

"I was hoping that it was really just an arm wound," Trina said. "I was hoping that it was really just a flesh wound."

At first, Trina's teenage daughter thought she'd been hit by a firework that somehow veered off course. Then she realized she'd been hit by a bullet.

The teen said she was on The Banks after spending a fun night with friends seeing a new action movie at Newport on the Levee.

The group walked across the Taylor Southgate Bridge to get a ride home ahead of a midnight curfew.

The teen said a snow-cone vendor caught her eye and as she walked to get a treat, the bullet found her.

Trina, a medical professional, couldn't help but think the worst until she was able to find out how her daughter was doing.

"I don't know what it could have been," Trina said. "Because, you know, me, like, I see it all the time. It can go through the arm and go into the chest. So I didn't really know what was happening."

Grateful her daughter is going to be okay, Trina hopes everyone, including other parents and mentors, will do more to help young people realize the futility of gun violence.

"I actually feel like we (sic) failing on our kids, to be honest," Trina said. "It’s scary. I'm happy that my daughter is still here."

Trina also hopes city leaders will focus more on ways to help young people find meaningful job opportunities. She's a firm believer in the notion that idle hands can lead to very bad outcomes.

CINCINNATI — What was a "troubling" sight for Gov. Mike DeWine was a welcome change for business owners at The Banks in the hours leading up to Thursday's Reds Opening Day game.

"One to 10, I give it an 11," said Kris Keefe, manager at Jefferson Social, which sits at the corner of E. Freedom Way and Marian Spencer Drive in the heart of The Banks' new designated outdoor refreshment area (DORA). He said it's the busiest day The Banks has seen since the coronavirus pandemic began more than a year ago.

Keefe's counterpart down the block at Holy Grail Tavern and Grille, Nick Remsay, agreed that, without the open-container zone just out their doors, there would be a lot of impatient, unhappy fans -- and a lot of lost business.

"We had a line at our door at 8 o'clock," Remsay said. "The inside filled up very quickly because we are at 50% capacity still, because of COVID rules."

The Banks came under close scrutiny just days prior, when its first weekend showcased spring weather and large crowds packed into Freedom Way just outside the stadium, without practicing what some would consider appropriate social distancing and face-covering during a pandemic. A spokesperson for The Banks, Tracy Schwegmann, acknowledged that visitors weren't taking advantage of the DORA's full, 85-acre footprint, but said she expects, with time, that will change.

"It's an enormous footprint," she said. "We certainly want folks, as they come down to the DORA, to be mindful of those health recommendations that are in place to help keep you safe."

Late Thursday morning, crowds began arriving at The Banks but stayed mostly within the immediate vicinity of the ballpark, leading folks like DeWine to say during his routine COVID-19 briefing that afternoon: "They’re outside, and that’s the best thing I can say -- they are outside. But more people wearing masks would certainly make me feel a lot better."

Keefe and Remsay said they saw the potential the DORA holds for the neighborhood post-pandemic.

"We're just very excited about the future," Keefe said. "Once all the COVID restrictions are (done), what these places are going to look like down here with the big screen on the outside of the stadium, and all this extra capacity, it's really exciting. It'll be a lot of fun."

CINCINNATI — Hamilton County health leaders said they have seen "no increases" in COVID-19 cases in the weeks after the launch of the designated outdoor refreshment area (DORA) at the Banks.

"Over the last month and a half, we have seen looking countywide, which includes residents in the city of Cincinnati and Hamilton County residents as a whole, we have no increases in cases over the last couple months, which is great news," he said.

Earlier this month, Gov. Mike DeWine expressed concern about unmasked people attending crowded events at the Banks possibly spreading COVID-19.

Kesterman, citing CDC guidance, added it is 18 times less likely to spread COVID-19 in an outdoor environment than in an indoor setting. This week, the CDC announced that fully vaccinated people do not need to wear masks outdoors around small groups.

Hamilton County recorded 137.99 cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 people last week, down slightly from 146.3 the week of April 15, according to state health department data. Since the pandemic began last spring, 869 people have died of coronavirus, Hamilton County Public Health reports.

Kesterman said the county has made "significant" strides in its vaccination efforts, and 41% of residents have received at least a first dose.

Health officials encourage everyone -- especially young people -- to get their COVID-19 vaccine in order to get "back to normal" this summer. Since last week, Hamilton County Public Health has run small vaccine clinics in schools.

“Originally, we had a supply problem -- we no longer have a supply problem,” said Hamilton County Commissioner Alicia Reece. "So we're able to have it available at a lot of different locations and in a lot of different ways."

The county is hosting three walk-in clinics at the Hamilton County Board of Elections, Woodlawn Recreation Center and Sharonville Convention Center. For details and times, click here.

Find more vaccine clinics in Hamilton County with this interactive map.

Relief for small businesses, venues available

Hamilton County leaders encouraged small business and venue owners affected by the COVID-19 pandemic to apply for financial relief through two federal programs.

Bars, restaurants, caterers, food trucks, breweries and other businesses are eligible for relief through the Restaurant Revitalization Fund. The program will provide eligible businesses with funding "equal to their pandemic-related revenue loss up to $10 million per business and no more than $5 million per physical location."

Grant recipients are not required to repay the funding as long it is used for payroll, rent, food and beverage expenses and other eligible uses no later than March 11, 2023.

Registration for the application portal begins Friday at 9 a.m., and applications open Monday, May 3 at noon. For more information, click here.

Venues affected by pandemic restrictions can also get relief through the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program, which will provide $16.2 billion in economic help to this industry. Live venue operators and promoters, theatrical producers, live performing arts operators, museums, movie theater operators and others are eligible for this program.

Applications are now open for this grant. Click here to learn more.