Cincinnati City Council on Wednesday voted to approve a zone change that will allow a homeless shelter and two other social service agencies to move from Over-the-Rhine to Queensgate, the mostly industrial neighborhood west of Downtown.
City Gospel Mission, a faith-based homeless shelter that’s been trying to move from its current Elm Street location since 2003, plans to break ground this fall on its new facilities at 1805 Dalton Ave. and 1211 York St., according to a news release from the nonprofit. Both facilities, which will be a combined 50,000 square feet, are located on the same 1.7 acre site.
The project is expected to cost between $7 million and $8 million and could be completed as early as fall 2012.
That is, if legal challenges don’t slow it down.
A coalition of Queensgate business owners has opposed the move, arguing that the industrial neighborhood isn’t a safe or appropriate location for City Gospel Mission or the two other social service agencies that will relocate with it – The Lord’s Gym and Jobs Plus. The Lord’s Gym aims to help men grow spiritually while pumping iron. Jobs Plus is a faith-based employment agency for some of the region’s most difficult to employ people.
On Wednesday, a lawyer representing the two businesses immediately adjacent to the project’s site wrote a letter to the city solicitor asking him to file a taxpayer lawsuit to stop the project.
“They’re trying to enhance Over-the-Rhine, which is laudable and good,” Peter Koenig, a partner with Buechner Haffer Meyers & Koenig Co., said in an interview. “But they’re trying to do it on the backs and at the expense of businesses in Queensgate.”
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