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The site: Covington Central Riverfront
A staff-actionable marketing and positioning strategy that arms the City to sell the only currently available multi-development downtown riverfront site in the United States — and to act like a sophisticated private master developer as it recruits developers, investors, and tenants to the 23-acre former IRS site.
BusinessFlare® delivered a staff-actionable Real Estate Marketing Strategy for the Covington Central Riverfront (CCR) — the 23-acre former federal IRS processing site the City acquired and now controls as master developer. The report gives the City a private-developer-grade playbook: high-level positioning across four decision layers (Region, City as Place, City as Partner, and the Site itself), nine concrete site-level marketing strategies, an implementation Action Matrix, and technical memos on the RFP process, a marketing suite, and Land Development Regulation adjustments.
The core diagnosis: Covington already outperforms peer cities on economic development, but too few people know it, and the City had been communicating like a small municipality rather than the sophisticated master developer of a generational riverfront asset. Drawing on stakeholder interviews, competing-site visits, developer and broker conversations, and Placer.ai activity data, BusinessFlare built a Developer/Investor Confidence Matrix and mapped the credible stories each audience needs to hear to reach 'yes.'
CCR is the largest publicly controlled major downtown site on the market anywhere in the region — with unmatched views of downtown Cincinnati, three-bridge mobility, and direct access to the 20-mile Riverfront Commons corridor. The City owns a generational asset but had not yet told its story at private-master-developer standards. The strategy: play offense — 'Unapologetically Successful' — build an expert A-Team for deal-making, upgrade every RFP, pitch, and rendering to private-sector quality, and leverage regional partners and CEO voices to amplify the message.
Open each pillar below to see the diagnosis and the specific actions BusinessFlare® recommended.
Confidence in the region is the first decision investors and talent make, yet many locals do not grasp the strength of the Northern Kentucky River Cities. BusinessFlare recommended crafting a collective subregional story that regional partners and media can amplify.
Covington's quirky, authentic, welcoming brand is strong, but its economic-growth, livability, and fiscal-health stories were under-curated. The strategy positions Covington as first among equals of the urban cities near downtown Cincinnati.
Whether the City was ready to serve as master developer was the single biggest barrier raised in stakeholder interviews. The strategy counters that concern directly with confident, sophisticated, data-backed communication.
The City and partners had not yet fully articulated how rare CCR is. The strategy lists its attributes with confidence and repeats them in every RFP, pitch, and interview until partners repeat them too — an unpaid marketing channel.
Beyond positioning, the report details nine site-level strategies with specific action steps — the operational heart of the playbook for recruiting the best developers and tenants to CCR.
Strategies without tasks, owners, and timelines have limited impact. The report closes with an Action Matrix assigning each task across business-deal, creative, and storytelling tracks to specific partners, plus three technical memos.