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Photo credit: Visit Cincy
One of the most telling signs of how far Cincinnati has come in the past two decades is how close it came to landing one of the country’s signature events. The Queen City finished in the top three to host the Sundance Film Festival, falling just short to longtime host Park City and Boulder, Colorado, where the fest is headed in 2027.
Julie Kirkpatrick, interim president and CEO of Visit Cincy, says the festival’s search put a spotlight on Cincinnati’s renaissance without the challenges that come with 85,000 out-of-town guests taking over the town.
“I don’t think we lost,” says Kirkpatrick. “We got everything we needed out of it.”
Cincinnati is officially divided into 52 distinct neighborhoods, but there’s one capturing accolades and the imagination of urban planners everywhere. Over-the-Rhine is one of the country’s great comeback stories and, to borrow a famous film phrase, the stuff dreams are made of.
At the turn of the century, you’d have to be dreaming to think the historic German enclave would be the catalyst for Cincinnati’s revival. Back in the early 2000s, headlines there focused on the fatal shooting of a Black teenager by a police officer, an incident that sparked riots.
In the aftermath of the civil unrest, national corporations based in Cincinnati didn’t turn their back on the city. Rather, Procter & Gamble, Kroger, and others drew a proverbial line in the ashes. It was time to rebuild.
In 2003, The Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC), a tax-exempt, private, nonprofit corporation, was created to not only spur new business but also manage the growth of a downtown business and entertainment district in Over-the-Rhine.
Although it works closely with the city government, 3CDC is not a formal public-private partnership. The City of Cincinnati is, for lack of a better term, the organization’s “biggest client,” according to Katie Westbrook, senior vice president of development at 3CDC. In 2004, the organization accepted the daily, operating responsibilities for two private investment funds, the Cincinnati New Markets Fund (CNMF) and the Cincinnati Equity Fund (CEF), which were designated for distressed and struggling neighborhoods.
The relationship allows for quick pivots, careful planning, and a series of successes building upon each other. “One of the unique things about 3CDC is that we’ve created a lot of solutions for problems that happen in the urban core,” says Christy Samad, 3CDC’s executive vice president of civic and commercial space activation.
To that point, Over-the-Rhine is not a collection of award-winning restaurants, although many can be found there. In nearly a quarter-century, new parks, cultural centers, hotels, grocery stores, and more have been established. The surge in parking garages is proof of how big an asset the neighborhood has become. Indeed, the new businesses, city square, and arts hubs feed into the city by creating opportunities for celebrations, events, and gatherings that attract locals and visitors alike.
“A pretty space is only as good as it’s used,” says Samad.
Image credit: 3CDC
Narrowing down developments to only a few milestones is challenging, but Westbrook says the $48 million renovation and expansion of Washington Park completed in 2012 stands out. “Washington Park was the thing that set Over-the-Rhine on fire in terms of what it is today,” she says.
According to the nonprofit organization, Cincinnati Preservation, property values have surged by 300% there since 2011. Findlay Market alone welcomes more than 1 million visitors annually, making it one of the top five most visited attractions in Cincinnati.
The latest statistics from Visit Cincy show that the region hosted 25.9 million visitors in 2024, and visitors spent $6.5 billion on food and beverage, retail and lodging, up 7% from 2022.
“We’re on a 20-plus-year thoughtful win streak,” says Kirkpatrick, who is also president and CEO of meetNKY, the tourism bureau for Northern Kentucky, where Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport is located.
Not every project has a direct economic impact, which sets 3CDC’s work apart from other developers, notes Westbrook. Such projects include:
Such new amenities are woven into a tapestry that brings together cultural and economic development. Deloitte LLP was the first signed tenant at Foundry; nationally recognized human capital management software company, Paycor, moved its headquarters from a suburb to downtown Cincinnati; and groundbreaking on a new downtown Marriott hotel was scheduled for July.
An anchor for the businesses and restaurants is the Cincinnati Convention Center, which underwent a $264 million renovation completed in 2026.
As evidence of the meticulous nature involved in the planning of each project, there were more than 113 community engagement sessions involving over 800 participants that helped shape the design of the new community center, the 3CDC Westbrook, Samad said. Most studies include evaluating crime patterns, existing facilities, and neighborhood needs before determining what’s next.
Depending on the day, preserving Over-the-Rhine’s historic nature is considered a blessing, but it’s not without its challenges. Because many old buildings can’t be bulldozed, preservation makes redevelopment considerably more expensive than conventional projects. Many projects require both federal and state historic tax credits as well as New Markets Tax Credits. Most projects would not be financially attractive to traditional private developers, Samad adds.
But the investment in the neighborhood also has advantages like allowing promising young chefs to grow into culinary stars in Cincinnati, including Sarah Dworak, Mike Stankovich, and Jeffrey Harris, according to Samad.
Despite the massive amount of work, Over-the-Rhine continues to evolve. “There’s a lot left to do,” says Westbrook. “It’s kind of a never-ending list at this point.”
