“We believe that downtown Middletown is clearly moving in a positive direction as a destination to learn, shop, work and play,” said Phillip Harrison, a member of MPH, or Making Progress Happen. “Most of the members of our group were already downtown property owners, business owners and investors so our investment in this building is not our first effort at helping the revitalization.”

Some of the group’s members already have an ownership stake in downtown Middletown, and he said nearly all of MPH’s members have been looking at similar opportunities in the past few years.

“We’ve been committed to the recovery for years because we truly care about our community and our downtown,” Harrison said. “We want Middletown to once again be proud of its downtown. And we are certainly not the only ones investing in downtown.”

Most recently the building at 1024-1028 Central served as the Middletown headquarters for the re-election campaign of President Barack Obama.

The group wants to bring one, or possibly more, tenants into the building, said Harrison, who owns Art Avenue Custom Framing at BeauVerre at the Square.

“We are looking for potential tenant, or tenants, who would bring a viable enterprise and valued service to the Middletown community,” he said. “It is our hope that our investment in this building will further the efforts at Making Progress Happen in our downtown.”

Cincinnati State’s numbers are better projected

Cincinnati State Middletown is being received better than expected, according to the college’s financial books.

The downtown campus of the technical & community college is 63 percent over its projected year-to-date revenue budget, and is over the estimated credit hours for the year, said Michael Geoghegan, finance director at Cincinnati State.

“We’re projecting 6,000 credit hours for the year and we’ll get close to 10,000,” he said.

For the fall and spring semesters, students have registered for more than 8,000 credit hours. Geoghegan projects students will register for about 2,000 credit hours for the summer semester.

And for the next school year, he projects even more credit hours.

“This year is very challenging because we didn’t have a chance to get out in the high schools last spring,” Geoghegan said. “Once we have an opportunity to get the word out to the high school, we’ll be projecting much greater revenues next year.”

Between in-class and online registration, around 600 students will be taking classes from Middletown. The school started the year with just more than 350 students.

Geoghegan said the “good brand” and course offerings and certificate programs are attractive for students in Butler County, and the surrounding areas.

“We knew it would be a success and (the numbers are) confirming that,” he said. “We’ve had great support for the community.”

By the numbers

Cincinnati State Middletown is having a pretty good financial inaugural year. Here is a look at their revenues through Jan. 31:

Projected annual budget - $1.5 million

Year-to-date actual - $893,000