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A former jail near downtown Cincinnati could soon house dozens of small business startups.
The former Queensgate Correctional Facility at 516 Linn St. is being redeveloped after 15 years of vacancy into dozens of rentable studios for local creatives and entrepreneurs.
Thomas Gold, a Boston attorney and entrepreneur, owns and operates Lincoln Warehouse and Hide House, in Milwaukee. Both were aging industrial buildings that were renovated in recent years to encompass rows of small work spaces from microbreweries to bakeries, hairdressers, photographers and lawyers.
Gold wants to do the same thing in Cincinnati, but instead of turning a former tannery like the Hide House into productive use as a workspace, he is reviving an abandoned, 147,000-square-foot county jail. He bought the structure under his affiliate company, LinnCinnati Realty, LLC, last November, according to the county auditor’s records. Interior construction is now underway.
Slated to open to tenants in September, the building will feature 150 studios ranging in size from 300 to 800 square feet and rentable between $325 to $795 per month. Like the other properties in Milwaukee, tenants will have the option to sign a one-year lease.
“The goal is to get people who are working at the kitchen table or in the garage who want to get out of there and start their real business life,” he told The Enquirer. “We can be the first rung on the business ladder for people as they try to make their vision become a reality.”
Gold said the studios will be built like a “blank canvas” for business owners to do whatever they want. They will have high ceilings with exposed ductwork, white walls, polished concrete flooring and a bit of soundproofing material embedded into drywall. Most units will have a source of natural light; some will have near-wall-to-wall windows overlooking Northern Kentucky, the West Side or downtown Cincinnati.
During their hunt for real estate in Cincinnati, Gold and his partner, Andrew Bandy of Arrand Development LLC, looked at nearly a dozen buildings to rehabilitate throughout Queensgate and beyond. But the old jail’s size, location and proximity to downtown couldn’t be beat, Bandy said. “I love this area and I love this building for a lot of reasons,” he said. “We wanted to be on the edge of the city’s growth. Where else in Cincinnati is there this much room to grow?” Queensgate Correctional Facility, which closed in 2008 due to county budget cuts, was an 822-bed facility housing low-to-medium security inmates. Originally built as a hardware warehouse in 1938, it most recently served as a day center for the homeless for a stint during the pandemic.
Sitting a few blocks north from the Ohio River in the shadow of the Brent Spence Bridge corridor, it’s on a plot of land bordered by I-75, the elevated portion of U.S. Route 50 and a railroad. There aren’t many other buildings surrounding the old jail; The Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority owns the Hudepohl brewery property next door and Duke Energy has a facility nearby on Gest Street.
Gold and Bandy hope their investment will spur more development for Queensgate, making it denser and, someday, more walkable. “I know Queensgate is not the hot area of town necessarily, but we feel like it could be,” Gold said. “We look north and we’re right in the downtown. It’s a little interesting that it’s not more developed over here.”
The project is estimated to cost around $5 million. Interested tenants can reach out to the development team at TheLinnCinnati@arrandre.com for more information on availability.
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