New Restaurant Coming to Walnut Hills in 2014

City’s oldest remaining firehouse to be home to Fireside Pizza. Get a sneak peek inside on November 20th.

We’re proud to announce that not only will a great historic asset in the neighborhood be renovated in the coming months, but it will also become a new restaurant serving fantastic food to residents from the neighborhood and throughout the city. Fireside Pizza has joined us at all of our Cincinnati Street Food Festivals and even a Five Points Biergarten with their brick oven on wheels, and we can’t wait for their brick-and-mortar location to open in Walnut Hills!

If you weren’t lucky enough to be at the press conference for the new Fireside Pizza restaurant, we’ve got you covered! On November 20 from 6 pm – 9 pm, the firehouse will be the site of our monthly Meet-up (Facebook Event). Fireside will be there serving up their amazing pizza, and to help you visualize your future dining experience even more realistically, we’ll be serving up cold beer from Mt. Carmel.

Plus, this month we’re having a raffle you don’t want to miss – a free one-night stay at Spring Hill Suites. That’s right, ladies and gents, for just $2 you could be rolling in fluffy hotel pillows. We’re also partnering with the Marines to collect Toys-for-Tots! Please bring a toy (of a value up to $30) for a child up to the age of 14. Every toy donation gets you one free raffle ticket and a warm feeling in your heart.

Here’s a bit more for those interested in the development-side of the Firehouse renovation: Developer FC16 LLC, led by Kent Hardman of Hardman Investment Group, is buying the Firehouse, located at 773 E. McMillan St., as well as the adjacent brownstone and two parcels of vacant land from the City of Cincinnati. The restaurant will be located on the ground floor of the firehouse (brief history of the firehouse), with an apartment on the second floor (More from the Business Courier).

We Have a New Office

As of May 1st, we are officially moved into a great newly renovated storefront space on May Street near E. McMillan St! Our new official address is 2505 May Street, so stop by and say hi sometime. We’re still putting finishing touches on the decor, but you might recognize those murals from the 2012 Cincinnati Street Food Fest! We are enjoying the flood of light through giant front windows, newly finished floors and a lot more desk space for our expanding staff. Look for an announcement about an open house soon, but for now here are some pictures.

Walnut Hills kicks off Urban Awakenings series

Engineering, planning and design firm Bayer Becker is hosting a series of symposiums in 2013, each one focused on a different Cincinnati neighborhood. Walnut Hills was the first to be featured, and we were glad for the opportunity recently to talk about all the good things happening in our neighborhood!

Throwback Thursday: The Hauck Building

Entering 2013 we will continue to highlight the amazing historic building stock in Walnut Hills, in a series we’ve been calling “Throwback Thursdays” on our Facebook page. Over the next few weeks the focus will be on structures along E. McMillan Street that are (or soon will be) undergoing stabilization and renovation. Today, we’re looking at the Hauck Building at 975 E. McMillan St.

Built in 1893, the Hauck Building is a 5-story Romanesque-detailed building, and is part of the Peebles Corner National Historic District. It has a corner tower, sandstone trim, and a decorative stone first floor façade. The building’s original investor and namesake is John Hauck, co-founder in 1864 of the Dayton Street Brewery (later changed to the John Hauck Brewing Company). He was an illustrious man, serving as president of the Cincinnati Reds in 1886, president of the German National Bank, and saving the Cincinnati Zoo by paying off its debts.

Structural stabilization of the Hauck Building is commencing this week, with anticipated completion in Spring, 2013. Plans are also moving forward for complete renovation of the building into market-rate apartments and first-floor retail space, utilizing recently awarded State Historic Conservation Tax Credits. Check out some interior pictures of the Hauck Building below: