City West

City West is a new traditional neighborhood development (TND) on the sites of two former public housing projects. The 48 acre site contains over 900 dwelling units (senior housing, apartments, and for-sale townhouses) and approximately 10,000 sf of commercial space. The neighborhood is within a 15 minute walk of downtown Cincinnati. City West is a HOPE VI project and was developed by one of the nation’s foremost affordable housing developers, The Community Builders, Inc.

The developer’s desire was to create a new neighborhood that compliments the historic Italianate context of Cincinnati. Unlike the public housing projects City West replaced, the design team created a place where each resident can identify strongly and proudly with his or her own home. Each family has its own entry, stoop, mailbox, and street address. A variety of façades was designed to give a sense of human scale and individuality to the units using a kit-of-parts which included bay windows, dormers, various door types and window heads, porches, brackets, etc. This also gives rhythm and texture to the street corridor.

Mixed-use buildings were positioned along an edge of the development: the Linn Street commercial corridor. The design team created a boulevard which links existing parks at both the north and south ends of the neighborhood and shaped an urban crescent park at the boulevard's mid-point which is now the neighborhood's center.

City West won a Charter Award from the Congress for a New Urbanism and a National AIA Community by Design award.