Cincinnati celebrated the completion of Smale Riverfront Park's latest expansion this week, closing out a seven-year project that wraps new sandstone around the Andrew J. Brady Music Center and along the Mehring Way corridor. The finished stretch, which runs from the Cincinnati Lager House down to Paycor Stadium, is now fully clad in the stone finish that park leaders say ties the riverfront together at last.
According to WLWT, the finished phase surrounds the Brady Music Center and marks the completion of a seven-year effort to build out Smale Riverfront Park, which the station calls one of Cincinnati's most recognizable public spaces. More than $4.5 million for this phase came from over 50 local families and corporations, the station reports, funding that stacked alongside years of planning and the Smale family's long commitment to the project.
A Family Legacy Finished
The expansion carries special weight for the Smale family. Cathy Smale Caldemeyer helped champion the project before her death in 2022, and the finished phase honors her role in pushing it forward, per the same WLWT report. Her daughter, Lisa Diedrichs, described this stretch of work in personal terms, saying, “This phase was a labor of love for my mother, who saw this as her commitment to the legacy of her parents.”
City leaders framed the completed park as more than sentiment, pointing to its economic reach. Smale Riverfront Park and the surrounding area generate an estimated $2.5 billion in direct and indirect economic impact for Cincinnati, the station notes. Vice Mayor Jan-Michele Kearney tied that impact directly to quality of life, saying, “vibrant cities are created by vibrant parks.”
From Mud Pit to Riverfront Centerpiece
The transformation did not happen overnight. A donor identified in the report only as Rocky, who gave $20 million toward creating the park, once described the former site bluntly as a mud pit — a contrast organizers highlighted Monday to underscore how far the riverfront has come.
Smale Riverfront Park opened in 2015 as part of the broader development of The Banks, according to Spectrum News 1, and the park has grown in phases ever since. One earlier extension added a 2-acre event lawn meant to double as both public green space and an outdoor concert area, the outlet reported, a project tied to a $6.9 million contract the Cincinnati Park Board approved on April 16, 2020, per WVXU. That same 2020 extension was designed to serve as the outdoor concert space for the music venue then under construction at The Banks, WVXU noted at the time.
Riverfront Work Continues Beyond This Phase
Even as this chapter closes, broader riverfront efforts are still underway elsewhere along the Ohio River. The Cincinnati Park Board has partnered with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on a $2.5 million study of the river's edge along Smale Riverfront Park, aimed at exploring restoration and recreation options while protecting the shoreline from erosion, according to a 2024 quarterly update from The Banks Public Partnership. That study had been underway since January 2023 and was expected to take three years to complete, the update states. The idea of riverfront greenspace in this stretch of downtown actually traces back decades further, with planning documents referencing the concept as far back as 1937, per the same report.
Cincinnati Parks had also been eyeing further growth even before this latest phase wrapped. The agency was already evaluating the area south of the ICON Music Center as a possible site for future expansion, Spectrum News 1 reported in 2021, suggesting the park's footprint along the river may not be finished evolving even now that this seven-year chapter has closed.
