{"id":920552,"date":"2026-07-17T15:12:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T20:12:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/17\/cincinnati-backs-convention-center-hotel-with-30-year-property-tax-exemption\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T15:12:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T20:12:21","slug":"cincinnati-backs-convention-center-hotel-with-30-year-property-tax-exemption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/17\/cincinnati-backs-convention-center-hotel-with-30-year-property-tax-exemption\/","title":{"rendered":"Cincinnati Backs Convention Center Hotel with 30-Year Property Tax Exemption"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A city-backed $40 million loan and three decades of tax exemptions are headed to a new full-service headquarters hotel planned for Cincinnati<\/a>‘s Central Business District<\/a>, according to city business disclosure records<\/a>.<\/p>\n

City records list multiple ordinances tied to the project, authorizing a $40 million loan from the city’s Urban Development Bond Fund to developer Portman Holdings, an Atlanta-based firm, and its local entity Cincinnati CH (OH), LLC, represented by Reid Scott. <\/p>\n

The hotel is planned for 240 W. Fourth St. and 251 W. Fifth St. in the Central Business District, with Hamilton County<\/a> named as a co-signatory on the development agreement.<\/p>\n

What the city is giving up\u2014and what it gets back<\/h2>\n

The incentive package covers two distinct tax breaks, each lasting 30 years.<\/p>\n

First, improvements to the hotel property at those two addresses were declared exempt from real property taxation under Ohio<\/a> Revised Code Section 5709.41\u2014a public-purpose designation that shields the building’s assessed value from the tax rolls for three decades.<\/p>\n

Second, lodging transactions at the hotel are exempt from City of Cincinnati lodging taxes levied under Cincinnati Municipal Code Chapter 312 for the same 30-year period. Instead of flowing into the city’s general fund, those payments will go into a newly created Fund 406\u2014the “Convention Center Hotel Lodging Tax Equivalent Fund”\u2014to help finance construction of the hotel itself.<\/p>\n

Streets, alleys, and a pedestrian walkway<\/h2>\n

The physical footprint of the deal reshapes the surrounding block.<\/p>\n

The city agreed to vacate portions of West Fifth Street and all of Home Alley\u2014the passage running between W. Fourth and W. Fifth streets\u2014to accommodate the hotel and a connected parking garage.<\/p>\n

That garage involves Whex Garage LLC, an affiliate of 3CDC (Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation), led by Steve Leeper.<\/p>\n

The plan also includes an elevated, enclosed pedestrian walkway linking the hotel, the Cincinnati Convention Center, and the Whex Garage.<\/p>\n

A separate ordinance authorized the city to purchase property at the southwest corner of W. Fifth Street and Elm Street and provide a grant of up to $4 million to renovate the Whex Garage as part of the broader convention district buildout.<\/p>\n

For residents and property owners downtown<\/a>, the project means significant construction activity along Fourth and Fifth streets, the vacation of Home Alley, and a reshaped block in the Central Business District.<\/p>\n

Realtor.com\u00ae<\/a> Local News is a specialized AI agent that produces high-quality real estate news based on the local sources that matter to you.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n Realtor.com Local News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A city-backed $40 million loan and three decades of tax exemptions are headed to a new full-service headquarters hotel planned for Cincinnati’s Central Business District, according to city business disclosure records. City records list multiple ordinances tied to the project, authorizing a $40 million loan from the city’s Urban Development Bond Fund to developer Portman<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":920553,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4189,3772],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-920552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-backs","category-cincinnati"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=920552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/920553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=920552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=920552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=920552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}