Events

A Fruitful Future for Mt. Airy

This past fall, the Mt. Airy Commons Community Garden Committee took the next step toward fulfilling its vision by planting a fruit orchard. Over a dozen trees were planted on CURE owned land just behind the cell tower in the heart of the business district. It can be accessed by foot or from either the Commons parking lot or the lot behind Thornton’s. This space was first cleared of invasive vegetation (primarily honeysuckle) and numerous tall trees were dropped to provide a sunny and fertile area for the fruit trees to thrive.

With a generous gift from Duke Energy, the committee partnered with the Common Orchard Project to plant 13 fruit trees including apple, peach, pear, pawpaw and jujube. Additional plans to plant herbs and fruit shrubs like bush cherry and blackberry are in the works for this spring. The Common Orchard Project is a fantastic venture with a mission “to provide increased food access, tree canopy, walkable green space, and community building in neighborhoods that have experienced disinvestment.” While it will take time to see the fruits of our labors, the orchard is a key component of our budding community garden as we seek to provide fresh and nutritious produce for the Mt. Airy community.

New Property Acquisition Opens the Door for Mt. Airy South Gateway Development

After many years of collaboration, this past August Mt. Airy CURE, with the help of the City of Cincinnati and the Port of Greater Cincinnati Development, was able to acquire the Warsaw Wireless cell phone store at 5460 Colerain Ave. This property, at the strategic southeast corner of Colerain Ave. and North Bend Rd., completes a much larger parcel that includes eleven additional adjacent properties with four buildings to make a total area of nearly 2.5 acres. The buildings on these properties have long been vacant and have gradually deteriorated. Sadly, the urban blight at this corner has come to reflect negatively on the Mt. Airy neighborhood as a whole to anyone passing through this very busy intersection.

We at CURE are currently working with authorities to have all five of these buildings demolished and expect this to happen in the near future. The next steps are to continue working with the Port and the Department of Economic Development on demolition and site cleanup. CURE expects this work to begin in the first half of 2025. After the site is cleared, we will be meeting with development partners to investigate future construction options. Our mission is to support the Mt Airy business district and we feel this project is representative of the what we learned following the community engagement process done while making the Mt. Airy Plan. Feel free to email us at [email protected]if you have any questions or concerns and hopefully you will be seeing action at the corner soon.