Avondale Town Center offers model for Cincinnati’s economic growth [Video]

CINCINNATI — Tina Brown wasn’t sure she’d ever see a day when residential and business vibrancy returned to Avondale.

“To see all this stuff come back is just so wonderful,” said Brown, a community health worker through the nonprofit The Community Builders. “It’s like a dream come true.”

Community leaders celebrated the private-public partnership that created the Avondale Town Center on Tuesday morning.

The 11-acre complex spans three buildings. Among other amenities, the mixed-used development created more than 300 mixed-income apartments, a health center with a pharmacy, restaurants, a laundromat and a much-awaited grocery store.

“These new businesses have helped create an oasis in what was for too long a desert,” said Bart Mitchell, president and CEO of The Community Builders.

The project was more than 10 years in the making, following a 2012 Housing and Urban Development grant.

Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval said the complex is a reflection of …