By Bob Driehaus
Post staff reporter

Oakley and Eva Farris are moving uptown after 38 years in one home in Covington's Wallace Woods neighborhood.

Steve and Nancy Frank are saying goodbye to their suburban homestead in Wyoming, Ohio, for city life.

Covington City Commissioner Jerry Stricker is moving across the street and 10 floors up.

They are among the 32 buyers of luxury condominiums in The Ascent at Roebling's Bridge high-rise that workers were to break ground on today.

Daniel Libeskind, the internationally known architect who designed the $55 million high-rise, will attend the official groundbreaking for the project at the foot of the Roebling Suspension Bridge. Gov. Ernie Fletcher was also scheduled to be there.

Builders plan to have the condos ready for occupancy in fall 2007.

The project has already transformed the local real estate market. With an average sale price of more than $900,000, Ascent sales have pumped new life into the market for condos in Covington and Newport and urban Cincinnati neighborhoods like downtown, Mount Adams and Price Hill.

In the six months before Ascent condos went on sale in late August, 46 condos were sold in the urban core, with the highest sale price at $770,000, said Debra Vicchiarelli, chief marketing officer for the Ascent and its developer, Corporex Cos.

"We really believe that we've accelerated the market and the value of the market for condos in the city center," Vicchiarelli said.

The tower's 72 condos range in price from $395,000 to the $4.5 million Pinnacle Penthouse. All but four condos above the 10th floor in the 21-floor building are sold, with buyers having signed a purchase contract and put 10 percent down.

Long-time residents in Greater Cincinnati may have scratched their heads wondering who would buy luxury condos in an area that they remember as blighted and depressed not so many years ago.

But the lure of panoramic views of Cincinnati's skyline and the Ohio River, coupled with the Libeskind's design and the proximity to downtown attractions, has buyers like the Franks counting the days until their new digs are ready.

"Our biggest problem is wondering how we're going to wait two years to move in," Steve Franks said.

That eagerness to move from Wyoming into downtown Covington represents a 180-degree turn for the couple.

Franks was born and raised in Park Hills, but his wife, Nancy, grew up in New York City and didn't want to settle in Kentucky when the couple married, he said.

But a little bit of New York came to Covington when New York resident Libeskind and Corporex unveiled the Ascent.

"She wasn't going to move to the Kentucky side of the bridge. But giving her a New-York style high-rise changed the equations," Steve Franks said.

The couple loves the location. Steve Franks is a financial planner with Wachovia downtown, and Nancy Franks travels weekly from Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport for her job as a management consultant with Accenture, a management consulting and technology services company.

The couple's only child is flying the coop after he graduates Carnegie Mellon University, and the time was right for the Franks to leave the suburbs.

"There are a lot of older homes with trees on Riverside Drive (near the Ascent). There is a flavor to the historic section, yet it's very contemporary. There are so many more restaurants and cultural events nearby," Steve Franks said.

"The problem with the suburbs bit is once you're there, you're there when you get home at night. Here, it would be very easy to walk out and catch a play," he said.

Oakley Farris, a Covington fixture who grew wealthy through decades of real estate development, bought his condo as a surprise for his wife, Eva.

Farris is well past the standard retirement age but is still working full throttle and refusing to divulge his age.

"It doesn't matter how old you are. It's what you do," he said.

Farris struggled to boil down why he chose to leave his Wallace Woods home, but he said his experience with Bill Butler, Corporex's president and chairman, and other factors helped him choose.

"No. 1, I wanted to surprise my wife. And No. 2, I said, 'What the (heck)? Why not?' They say Butler is a very difficult man to deal with, and he's not. He's a good guy." Farris doesn't drive, so he said the uptown riverside location is a good starting point to get around on foot as well as take in the scenery.

"We're getting a view of Cincinnati and also a view of Covington in this particular unit we're in. In as much as I don't drive, it will be even better for me. I can just walk out the door and walk up to the city building (at Seventh and Madison) and harass those guys who are ruining our city," he said with a laugh.

One of Farris' new neighbors will be Stricker, who will be leaving his home of 22 years on Riverside Terrace for a 2,400-square-foot, 14th floor condo.

"It's basically two bedrooms and an office and it's all on one floor. It has a view of the Suspension Bridge to my left and a view of the Purple People Bridge and the Daniel Carter Beard bridge to my right. And out of my bedrooms I can see the city of Covington," he said.

Stricker is confident that the project will be a great success.

"My feeling is when I saw the project originally and as the project has evolved that it was a place that I wanted to be and wanted to be part of. It's going to be one of a kind. You won't find a similar condo anywhere in the United States.

"I lived on the river in a condo for 21 years and have loved every bit of it. I feel very blessed," he said.

Ascent spokeswoman Vicchiarelli said the 32 buyers nearly all have ties to the Greater Cincinnati area. Most live in upscale Ohio communities like Indian Hill and Hyde Park. Others live in Northern Kentucky; one lives in Florida, she said.

The sales team is using images shot from a crane to show prospective buyers the views from where condos will be.

The team determines what type of place customers are looking for and suggest units based on those preferences.

"You talk to people about how they want to live - whether they'll live their year-round, if they'll do a lot of entertaining. Once we figure out what the lifestyle is, and then we figure out the layout," Vicchiarelli said.

Publication date: 11-16-2005