"Women’s haven in Ohio loses takeover fight; Insurance firm to make historic residence a hotel" by Amanda Lee Myers | Associated Press, May 19, 2013
CINCINNATI — For more than 100 years, the Anna Louise Inn in downtown Cincinnati has been a safe, serene place that thousands of struggling women came to know as home.
But after losing a two-year fight with a Fortune 500 company determined to buy their beautiful property and turn it into a boutique hotel — even though it wasn’t for sale — the women of the Anna Louise Inn have to leave the neighborhood.
While most of the 60 women living there are relieved that the fight with Western & Southern Insurance Group appears over, they can’t help but also feel sad and angry....
Western & Southern executives, whose headquarters are across a park from the Anna Louise, offered to buy the Anna Louise for $1.8 million several years ago, less than half its value. The Anna Louise declined and won $12.6 million in federal and state tax credits to renovate the structure, where some rooms are smaller than 100 square feet and all the women have to share bathrooms and one kitchen.
This may surprise you, but I don't mind my tax dollars going for something like that. Better than to banks, wars, Israel, corporations, or lavish political lifestyles.
Days before the renovation was to begin, Western & Southern sued over a zoning issue and a judge ordered an immediate construction halt until the legal fight was resolved. The Anna Louise and its supporters didn’t back down, vowing to fight Western & Southern with everything they had — until last week when they inked a deal with the company to sell the home for $4 million.
Leaders at Cincinnati Union Bethel, the nonprofit that runs the Anna Louise, said they sold reluctantly because they couldn’t afford to fight any longer.
Under the deal with Western & Southern, the women living at the Anna Louise will stay there until a new building for them is finished, in about two years. It will be in a shabby neighborhood on a busy street 2 miles north of where they are now....
This world and country are increasingly becoming unequal, and what we see here is a sector that caters to wealth and f*** everyone else.
The Anna Louise will now be among a bevy of properties in the neighborhood owned by Western & Southern, which developed Cincinnati’s tallest building in 2011 and has renovated a handful of historic properties in the area, including an upscale hotel.
Company chief executive John Barrett has long said it was time for the women at the Anna Louise to leave the neighborhood to make way for economic development.
I'm not even going to respond to that Israeli mind-set.
He plans to turn the building into a boutique hotel and envisions transforming the neighborhood into a hub of activity with restaurants and bars.
‘‘This truly is a win for everyone and will make Lytle Park a destination like no other,’’ Barrett said in a Monday news release announcing the Anna Louise sale.
Unless you are moving down the street.
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