Dream Campus Honors MLK's Legacy

Church, Bible college plan $40M campus bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2018/09/12/exclusive-church-bible-college-plan-to-partner-on.html

Two long-standing African-American property owners in Avondale are looking to partner to redevelop their land into a campus that combines faith, education, health innovation and technology in the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. New Friendship Baptist Church and Temple Bible College have formed a nonprofit development corporation, Community Dream Development Corp., to oversee the mixed-use development. The redeveloped site would be called the Dream Campus in honor of King’s legacy.

Leadership from New Friendship Baptist and Temple Bible College are part of this nonprofit.

Steve Reece, a trustee of New Friendship Baptist and graduate of Temple Bible College, is assisting in leading the development. State Rep. Alicia Reece, who also is a member of New Friendship Baptist and Steve’s daughter, is serving as volunteer director of the development corporation.

Alicia Reece said some of the largest land owners in urban, mostly black areas across the country are African-American churches “that have been anchoring these communities for years.”

Leaders from both organizations said they feel like they have been left out of the planning process to redevelop the area surrounding the interchange.

“Both entities have been more than patient,” Alicia Reece said. “They have demonstrated they are good partners, they have endured in exclusion. They have also been more than willing to be a partner but have been left behind.”

Since the opening of the new Martin Luther King Drive/Interstate 71 interchange last year, the surrounding area has drawn a significant amount of interest from developers. Uptown Consortium Inc., a nonprofit community development group for the Avondale, Clifton, Corryville, CUF and Mount Auburn neighborhoods, has purchased more than 155 properties 1/3

for nearly $32.65 million, according to a Business Courier analysis of property records. That includes a number of parcels just east of both the college and the church.

In statement provided to the Business Courier, Uptown Consortium CEO Beth Robinson said both organizations are “important stakeholders in Uptown.”

“We recently met and learned of their concept, and look forward to learning more,” Robinson said.

Temple Bible College, which is located 3202 Reading Road, sits on more than half an acre at the intersection of Reading Road and Whittier Street. New Friendship Baptist, located just north at 3212 Reading Road, sits on nearly 1.1 acres.

New Friendship Baptist has been in existence for more than 90 years. Temple Bible College has trained and ordained hundreds of Cincinnati’s African-American pastors for nearly 50 years.

The concept plan for the Dream Campus would use a portion of properties currently owned by Uptown Consortium in addition to the existing properties owned by the college and the church.

The concept would include a New Friendship Baptist Church Family Life Center, Temple Bible College Interfaith Center, a Black Pastors Hall of Fame and may house a health facility, civic engagement, and entrepreneur and technology center as well as potentially a Martin Luther King-themed hotel. The estimated total investment would be $40 million.

Steve Reece said the group believes this development would be the first of its kind in the country.

Bishop Michael Mack, pastor at New Friendship Baptist, said both organizations want to preserve their presence in the neighborhood while being part of the redevelopment that is expected to happen around the new interchange.

“This campus would be spiritual, educational and commercial,” Mack told me. “We’re not just trying to build a church, we’re trying to build a campus.”

In May, both New Friendship Baptist and Temple Bible College received letters from the Cincinnati Building Inspector’s office that inspectors would be coming to check out the properties. The organizations asked Cincinnati City Council to stop all building code violations on both properties except in the case of significant risk of human injury and start discussions about the development project. City council unanimously approved this motion.

The group has met with a number of council members, including P.G. Sittenfeld, David Mann, Wendell Young and Jeff Pastor, about its concept plan. Now, Community Dream Development is looking to meet with the leaders of organizations that make up Uptown Consortium’s board, including the top executives of the University of Cincinnati, UC Health and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, about their plans for the Dream Campus.

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Steve Reece said the group is looking for a development partner who could help with raising funding for the project and provide construction management expertise.

“We’re looking for a co-developer. We have the idea, the concepts,”Steve Reece said. “We need someone who can help take those ideas and make them happen.”

The organizations also spoke against a planned interim development control overlay district that would cover portions of Avondale, Corryville and Walnut Hills. Reece said the IDC would only be another layer to slow down redevelopment of properties. As the IDC was presented last week, the Dream Campus properties would be part of the overlay district. Cincinnati Planning Commission voted to table the proposed IDC for two weeks.

The group is now kicking off fundraising efforts for the development.

The goal would be to have a ground breaking for the project on Jan. 21, 2019, Martin Luther King Day. The phased redevelopment is expected to be a three-year project.

Rev. Dock Foster, chairman of the board at Temple Bible College, said the organizations together are trying to make King’s dream a reality.

“We’re trying to stay in our neighborhood and do something that on-coming generations can see what we have done,” Foster told me.

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