Keep Cincinnati Beautiful announces newly-renovated home, ‘Imagine the Impact’ campaign

CINCINNATI (WXIX) - A long-vacant building in Walnut Hills is getting a second life and a new purpose as the home of Keep Cincinnati Beautiful.

The renovation is all about giving the group more space to clean up neighborhoods and grow a greener Cincinnati.

In 2020, Keep Cincinnati Beautiful made the decision to “double their impacts” around the city. They then launched the “Imagine the Impact” campaign to make that happen.

This means more trees planted, more students reached, and more trash collected all around the city. In order to accomplish those big goals, they needed a big move.

Jonathan Adee, the executive director of Keep Cincinnati Beautiful, says the building once served as an automobile dealership in the 1920s and ‘30s, designed by architect Harry Hake. The building has been sitting empty for decades.

Thanks to community support, it’s been brought back to life to help the organization grow its work towards a cleaner, greener Cincinnati.

“We needed to be bigger,” Adee said. “We needed to clean up more trash. We needed to engage in illegal dumping where it was happening. We needed to put in more urban pocket parks.”

Adee says that restoring the building was the spark for the whole campaign - doing it in a way that’s not only environmentally sustainable, but also preserves the history of the space too.

The new facility features conference rooms for groups to gather and learn, outdoor green space, and offices.

Keep Cincinnati Beautiful has raised almost $5 million of its $6.2 million goal. They plan to move into the building by the end of June.

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