Cincinnati has landed a $2 million state grant to prepare a long-vacant Bond Hill property for new housing, moving the 17-acre MidPointe Crossing site one step closer to construction after more than a decade of false starts. The site, formerly home to Swifton Commons shopping center, has sat largely undeveloped since it was demolished in 2013.
According to WKRC, the city applied for the funding jointly with The Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority, which owns the MidPointe Crossing property and oversees redevelopment efforts there. The grant comes through Ohio’s Residential Economic Development District program, and the money is earmarked for the unglamorous but essential work of getting land ready to build on: site clearing and grading, stormwater infrastructure, and road subbase construction, the station reports.
That infrastructure spending addresses the hurdle that has stalled the property for years. Several private redevelopment plans for the site did not move forward, per the same report, and the new grant funding is meant to cover the preliminary construction needed before any homes can actually rise from the ground.
A State Program Built for Workforce Housing
The REDD grant program that funded the project was established under Ohio Revised Code Section 122.636 to pay for infrastructure supporting workforce housing near major economic development projects, according to state legislative records from the 136th Ohio General Assembly. The Bond Hill award is part of a much larger statewide push: Hoodline previously reported that Governor Mike DeWine’s administration distributed $14 million in second-round REDD grants across 10 Ohio counties, funding housing infrastructure in communities including Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Xenia’s $140M project…