Monday, November 01, 1999
Landing's future looking brighter with city's help
New restaurant, clubs on the way
BY CINDY SCHROEDER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Courtney Carter, left, and Ellie Bauer, both of the East End, dance at the Yucatan Liquor Stand at Covington Landing.
(Saed Hindash photo)
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COVINGTON — As Covington Landing's sole original tenant, the owner of TGI Friday's has watched the fortunes of the two restaurant and entertainment barges change as often as the Ohio River levels.
For a couple of years after its August 1990 opening, the TGI Friday's at Covington Landing — the world's only floating Friday's — was the highest-volume restaurant in the chain, its marketing manager said.
“Then part of the novelty wore off, Covington Landing fell into bankruptcy, and other tenants started moving out,” said Bob Conway Jr. As vice president of the Bistro Marketing Group, Mr. Conway holds the franchises to 25 Friday's restaurants, including the one at Covington Landing.
Even though the Friday's at Covington Landing was still profitable, Mr. Conway said publicity over the landing's financial problems confused many customers about Friday's status, prompting many to stay away.
While Friday's was able to survive the lean years, thanks largely to aggressive marketing, and by adding free valet parking at lunchtime, most tenants weren't so lucky.
Within three years after the landing opened, the bars, fast-food restaurants and shops filling the lower level of the barge known as the Wharf had closed.
Stobart's, a fine dining restaurant, also had the unfortunate luck to open just as the white tablecloth restaurant industry went into recession, becoming the first in a long line of tenants to vacate the barge ajacent to the Wharf.
It now has been two years since Covington Landing was purchased in bankruptcy court by the city, and Covington officials hope improvements the city has made will preclude a third anniversary. This week's opening of a fine dining restaurant at the landing is viewed by city officials as the best sign of a promising future.
As further evidence that the landing's fortunes are about to change, city officials and other supporters cite the following:
• The city has made nearly $500,000 worth of improvements to Covington Landing.
Those include repairing and improving the hull on the Wharf, which leaked in several spots; adding new ramps to move up and down with the changing river levels; and erecting barriers at the end of the complex to keep debris from getting trapped between the landing's barges and the shore.
“The city's really doing a lot of things to improve it,” Mr. Conway said. “They're trying to fix a facility that hasn't had much done to it for 10 years.” He had no argument from Bill Hilliard, who operates Applebees at the landing.
“I think the city has tried very hard to improve the property and the surrounding areas, and we very much commend their efforts,” said Mr. Hilliard, the executive vice president of Thomas and King Inc. and the second largest franchisee in the Applebees chain.
• By the city's assuming control of the landing, which was dogged by financial problems from the day it opened, debt payments have been lowered to the point where the complex can make money, and it's now attractive to potential buyers, said John Frazer, who has operated the Yucatan Liquor Stand at the landing for five years.
While the city has no offers, three or four parties have requested information on the landing in recent months, said Covington City Manager Greg Jarvis.
“Before, (the landing's) debt structure was such that you could have plowed $5 million into the thing, and it would have just been money up the flue,” Mr. Frazer said. “Its problems were more than any one developer could overcome. Donald Trump couldn't have made the damn thing work. But the city can, and the city will.”
• Explosive development on and near Covington's riverfront.
In recent years, Covington has seen the development of the Northern Kentucky Convention Center; the RiverCenter office towers; and a number of hotels, including the Embassy Suites and a Marriott Hotel within sight of the landing.
This week, Pisces, the new restau rant, is set to open, and its owner plans to open an upscale nightclub for baby boomers by the new year.
“With all the development that's occurred down there in recent years, we have a ready market,” Mr. Jarvis said.
“The new development has been extremely beneficial,” Mr. Frazer said. “It's helped offset some of the loss of traffic from the Fort Washington Way (reconstruction).”
• The city has agreed in principle to Mr. Frazer's planned renovation of the lower level of the Wharf. The improvements call for adding Bell Bottoms, a disco dance club, at one end, and the Millennium nightclub at the other, catering to an older, more upscale, executive crowd.
The barge's lower level also would be reconfigured into more compartmentalized spaces, instead of an open, carnival type atmosphere, Mr. Frazer said. And rather than relying on common restrooms, which have upset Covington Landing tenants and customers alike, each facility would have its own restrooms under his plans, Mr. Frazer said.
• With plans to transform Covington's West Riverfront into a development that would include a restaurant-entertainment complex and office towers, the city hopes to link that area to the landing via a pedestrian walkway that would continue all the way to the Waterfront restaurant, said Economic Development Director Ella Brown-Frye.
“There needs to be something to tie the two areas together,”said Jeff Ruby, the Waterfront's owner. “Even in Over-the-Rhine, you can park your car in one spot and go from bar to bar. But if you want to go from Covington Landing to the Waterfront, you have to valet or self park, spend some time at one location, then get in your car, and pay to valet or self park in another location.”
Pisces will join Applebees, Friday's, Yucatan and Rialto's, an upscale martini bar, in the landing.
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