Cincinnati City Manager Sheryl Long told developer Kingsley + Co. in writing on April 17 that its conduct did not represent that of “a good partner or developer.”
Forty-seven days later, on June 3, her office released $2.5 million in city housing money to the same company anyway.
The reversal ended what amounted to a Kingsley incentive ban almost as fast as Long imposed it. The public record does not yet show whether the two conditions she set for lifting that ban were ever met. Long’s letter went to company founder and former Cincinnati Bengals safety Chinedum Ndukwe. It’s short, and it’s direct about what she expected before Long said she would recommend additional city incentives. Whether the city actually cleared its own bar before moving that funding forward is the open question at the center of this story.
What Long’s April 17 Letter Actually Says
Long addressed the letter directly to Ndukwe. On the first page, she wrote that Kingsley had failed to maintain its properties. She said the company had failed to respond adequately to code enforcement, too. Long named two properties specifically: the former St. Mark’s Church in Evanston and the historic Hoffman School building on the Evanston/East Walnut Hills line. Both, she wrote, had created blight and public-safety hazards. Hoffman School had been cited multiple times, according to the letter, including for what appeared to be construction debris dumped from other Kingsley projects. Separately, Local 12 reported that Long told Ndukwe his company’s behavior was “creating hazardous situations.”
Long’s response went beyond a warning. She directed city staff to conduct a compliance audit of Kingsley’s existing agreements with Cincinnati. Under a section titled “Future Incentive Requests,” she wrote that the company’s conduct did not represent that of a good partner or developer. She said she could not recommend any further incentives until two things happened: the code-enforcement issues got resolved, and the compliance audit got finished. Any outstanding request or award not already under contract, she added, should count as negated. She would not revisit her position, she wrote, until the audit was done.
That’s the two-part test behind the Kingsley incentive ban, in the city’s own words. Neither part came with a deadline.
The Kingsley Incentive Ban Ends After 47 Days
By June 3, something had changed enough for the city to act. Assistant City Manager Billy Weber said the city manager “has determined to release the planned $2.5 million investment” from Cincinnati’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Kingsley + Co. needs that money to finish financing Kinsey Lofts, a planned 52-unit senior housing building on Reading Road in Walnut Hills. Weber’s stated reasoning cited “progress made to date on addressing outstanding code compliance issues.” He also cited Kingsley lining up the rest of the project’s financing…