Buckingham's New Over-the-Rhine Development Now Open

A vast mixed-use development, the largest in Over-the-Rhine, is now open nearly a decade after plans for it first surfaced under a prior ownership group.

Contrast OTR offers 276 apartments and 11,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space along the Cincinnati streetcar line on the north side of Liberty Street between Elm Street and Central Parkway.

Indianapolis-based Buckingham Cos. is the developer behind the $65 million project. Contrast includes studio units starting at $1,374 per month and one-bedroom units starting at $1,500. The community also offers two-bedroom and three-bedroom units, with the largest, a 1,398-square-foot layout, renting for $4,907.

Parking is available in a structured garage with 194 spaces. Amenities include bike storage, a resident lounge, kitchenette, coffee café, dog spa, outdoor pool, grilling area, fire pit, fitness studio, package concierge with cold grocery storage, and coworking spaces.

Elevar Design Group served as the project architect.

The community is split into two buildings on either side of Logan Street. The seven-story building on the west side, bounded by Central Parkway, houses 127 units and occupies the site of a former Boys & Girls Club building.

The five-story building on the east side wraps around three historic buildings fronting Central Parkway to the south. It houses 149 units and features the community’s amenity spaces.

An art alley runs through the eastern building, providing pedestrian access from Elm Street to Logan Street. A Cuban artist was contracted to paint a colorful mural on the alley walls, and the developer plans to program the space.

The western building opened in September, and the eastern building opened in early November.

Laurie Mann, regional manager at Buckingham, described leasing momentum as strong. “We have strong leads,” she said. “We think it’s going to really take off.”

The Contrast name emerged through Buckingham’s assessment of Over-the-Rhine as dynamic, creative, and eclectic, according to Justine Massonnier, senior vice president of development operations.

“You see it as you experience the building — the architecture, the massing, the site development, the interior design, the contrast of classic finishes with eclectic artwork and colorways,” Massonnier said. “There’s a lot of creativity that went into this project, in how we created connections to the street while maintaining private areas. That meshing of public and private is part of it.”

Buckingham, a vertically integrated development firm, performed in-house design work and served as builder. The firm emphasizes quality, long-term ownership, and incorporating art throughout its communities.

“It’s not something we include last minute, as an afterthought,” Massonnier said. “This is something we do in every project.”

Danielle Levi and Josh Rothstein of OnSite Retail Group are listing the ground-floor commercial space, which wraps the corner of Liberty and Elm streets. It is open and configurable for one or multiple tenants.

The long and checkered history of Liberty & Elm

Plans for the site first surfaced in 2016, when Source 3 Development proposed a $25 million project that included a new six-story building at Liberty and Elm and rehabilitation of the Central Parkway historic buildings. It did not include development on the Boys & Girls Club site.

Community members pushed back on the height, size, and design. Source 3 later reduced the height to five stories. After a year of debate, Cincinnati Planning Commission approved the project in December 2016.

At that time, and into Buckingham’s involvement, the project was known as “Freeport Row.”

A groundbreaking was scheduled for March 2017, but Cincinnati City Council withheld approval of measures needed for the project to proceed, including a 15-year property tax abatement. After further concessions regarding height, exterior materials, and color, council approved the abatement and related measures in May 2017.

Community groups — including the Over-the-Rhine Community Council, Over-the-Rine Foundation, Over-the-Rhine Community Housing, and the Greater Cincinnati Homeless Coalition — continued to oppose the project over the lack of affordable housing.

Site work began in May 2019 but halted during the Covid-19 pandemic. In October 2020, the development team, by then including Kean Ventures and Buckingham, applied for significant concept plan changes, envisioning 300 apartments and incorporating the Boys & Girls Club site, resembling the current layout. That plan still included renovating the Central Parkway buildings.

“Over-the-Rhine is a neighborhood we looked at on several occasions previously,” Massonnier said. “So when this opportunity came to light, we jumped on it, because we wanted to do a project of this scale. It’s the largest development in the neighborhood. We felt we were the right developer to do it.”

A fight at city council over affordable housing continued into February 2021, when council approved a 30-year tax-increment financing incentive on the condition that 10% of units be affordable at 80% of area median income and that the developers seek low-income housing tax credits for 22 additional affordable units.

Litigation followed. OTR Adopt, a nonprofit real estate company, appealed a Historic Conservation Board decision to the Zoning Board of Appeals, which dismissed the case. OTR Adopt then appealed to Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas, arguing the dismissal was illegal on procedural grounds.

The lawsuit lasted more than a year before being dismissed in December 2022, in part because construction had already begun.

Buckingham acquired the development site in November 2022 for $4.5 million. It did not acquire the three Central Parkway historic buildings at that time, and they are not part of Contrast.

In May 2023, Buckingham acquired the largest of the three buildings, at 224 W. Central Parkway, for $900,000. The company still owns the building and has been seeking to sell it.

Model Group acquired the other two buildings in June 2024 for $765,000 and is incorporating them into its Reid Flats affordable housing project.

Having abandoned development plans for the Central Parkway buildings, Buckingham did not include affordable units in Contrast, and therefore did not receive tax-increment financing benefits, only the original property tax abatement.

“Development is an art, not a science, and we stuck with it. Perseverance is probably our best talent,” Massonnier said, reflecting on the challenges of developing during and after the pandemic. “We believed in this project, and we were resourceful in solving for cost escalations, interest rates, and other challenges to bring it to fruition.”

Buckingham, which also developed Woodburn Exchange in Walnut Hills, is exploring additional opportunities in the region, including urban mixed-use and suburban projects, from garden-style apartments to rental townhomes.

Massonnier described working with the city as “a lengthy process” but said it ultimately proved successful. “We were very successful in our interactions with the city of Cincinnati, and we would do it again.”

By Brian Planalp – Staff reporter, Cincinnati Business CourierNov 17, 2025

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