A Minneapolis-based developer has set its sights on a 12-acre wooded lot along Hamilton Avenue in North College Hill, proposing seven three-story buildings that would bring 192 apartments priced for workforce housing to a site that has sat empty since 2010. The land at 6550 Hamilton Ave once held Regency Village, a long-term care home demolished more than a decade ago, and some community members have already raised concerns about the scale of the project.
Roers Cos. is asking North College Hill for a planned unit development zoning change to move the project forward, according to Local 12 News. The site is currently zoned R-LD, or Residential Low Density, which under Chapter 1143 of the city's zoning code limits development to single-family homes and requires both Planning Commission review and City Council approval before a PUD overlay can be granted, per the City of North College Hill's zoning code. Without that change, the current plans cannot proceed as designed.
Community notices shared with North College Hill residents lay out granular details of the proposal: seven buildings offering one- to four-bedroom units, 409 parking spaces, and a single access drive positioned next to the neighborhood's Dollar General, according to a notice posted to the North College Hill Senior Center Facebook group. Roers Cos. also plans to build a clubhouse on the site, the report notes. That single ingress point, combined with the density of nearly 200 units, is likely to be a focal point when traffic and parking questions come up at future zoning hearings.
A Long-Vacant Lot With a Health Care Past
Before it sat empty, the property operated for decades as Regency Village, Ltd., a licensed 24-hour skilled nursing and care facility, according to the NPI Registry. The facility was torn down in 2010, and the 12-acre wooded lot has remained undeveloped ever since. Commercial listings for the property note it sits within a federally designated Qualified Census Tract, a status that can unlock tax-credit financing advantages for developers building income-restricted housing, per Crexi listings.
The apartments would be priced for people earning 60% of the area median income, the workforce housing threshold that, under Ohio Housing Finance Agency guidelines effective this past May, caps eligibility at $42,150 for a single person and $60,150 for a family of four. Those limits reflect state-administered federal rules set by the Ohio Housing Finance Agency. That pricing tier is designed to serve a segment of the local workforce that earns too much for deep subsidy programs but still struggles with market-rate rents.
A Suburb Where Affordability Pressures Run Deep
North College Hill is home to roughly 9,600 residents with a median household income of $64,655, and an individual poverty rate of 20.6%, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates. Those figures underscore why workforce-priced units could find demand in the suburb, even as some residents push back on the project's footprint. Regionally, more than 50,000 households across Greater Cincinnati spend over 30% of their income on housing, a metric tracked by the city's own CincyInsights dashboard that points to sustained regional demand for units capped at or below 60% AMI.
The proposal also fits into a pattern of new multi-family construction along the Hamilton Avenue corridor. Just south of North College Hill, Cincinnati's College Hill neighborhood broke ground on the 31-unit Station Court development in August 2023, following the earlier opening of the HaNoBe apartment complex, according to the Cincinnati Business Courier. Roers Cos. itself is no stranger to fast Ohio expansion: the company entered the Columbus market in May with plans for a 152-unit apartment complex on South High Street, part of a broader statewide push. Roers ranked fifth on Affordable Housing Finance's 2026 list of the nation's top affordable housing developers, managing a portfolio topping 16,600 units valued at $4.5 billion, per Tax Credit Advisor.
What Happens Next
For now, the North College Hill proposal remains in the zoning process, with Roers Cos. needing sign-off from both the Planning Commission and City Council before construction could begin. Whether the density, parking layout, and single access point near the Dollar General survive community input and municipal review will determine if the vacant Hamilton Avenue lot finally gets redeveloped after sitting untouched since Regency Village came down in 2010.
