Friday, January 19, 2007

New Entertainment District: Fourth and Plum?

The makings are there now and will be increasing soon. Will 4th and 5th Streets be the hub of Cincinnati Nightlife? Granted, this club is going to be a high end niche place, but that high end market can drive things on. What other locations in the area are ripe for opening bars?

This article puts another nail into Main Street as entertainment district concept, but one thing that I am not sure if everyone is seeing with the decay of Main Street is that the Main Street horde split into its own splintered locales. This club will pull the heavy dollars of the "VIP scenesters" who have been highly sought after by many area establishments. Other crowds went their own way to Northside or Covington or Mt. Lookout or even back to Mt. Adams. This club alone will not bring back the horde, but if the volume of bars can match Mt. Street at it height it could bring back many, mostly those who you would classify as the Cin Weekly target market. Yea, that is not a pleasant thought, but that is business. (Thank Zeus for Northside!)

Bringing back the hipster crowd is likely a lost cause. That group overlaps with the creative class and that is of course the key to building up the city. What I think the powers that be still don't get is that encouraging the people that live here to break out of their bubbles and do something is not really that big of a help, at least not a long term plus. Getting people to move here from outside the area is what we need and what in the long run will work. Fourth and Plum will is a good foundation to have. You need a mainstream place for people to go. Just don't let the mainstream flood the vibrancy out of Downtown.

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