Jackie Bauer
Jackie Bauer reports for WCPO 9 News with a focus on how development, land use decisions and public investments change property, business corridors and community spaces in Warren County. Her beat sits at the intersection of real estate, local development and local government, with stories that link zoning and tax policy to what gets built and how residents experience their neighborhoods. She joined WCPO 9 News in April 2026 after several years reporting for another television newsroom, and now concentrates her coverage on Warren County.
Development, land use and real estate projects
Bauer’s core work follows major development projects and land use decisions, with close attention to how specific sites are transformed and what that means for nearby residents and businesses.
She has covered a more than $200 million mixed-use project along the I‑75 corridor in Middletown, detailing plans for hundreds of apartments surrounded by hotels, restaurants and retail and explaining how the project is intended to reshape a key gateway into the area. Her reporting on a proposed Restoration Ranch rezoning in Union Township tracks the life cycle of contentious projects, covering the withdrawal of the rezoning request and what that decision means for future use of the property.
She also follows the uncertain future of the Warren County Fairgrounds after property maintenance violations, showing how enforcement, upkeep and investment decisions affect long-standing public venues and the land they occupy.
Historic and character properties feature prominently in her stories, often as focal points for new investment. In coverage of a new bar and restaurant, The Rare, opening in a 150‑year‑old building along the Mason Mile, she highlights both the renovation of a historic structure and its role as a potential catalyst for wider growth on the corridor. Her work on plans for a regional performing arts center in Mason similarly concentrates on how a new cultural facility on city-donated land could drive development and change land use along a major roadway.
Across these pieces, Bauer grounds real estate coverage in concrete projects and specific parcels, connecting zoning decisions, maintenance issues and redevelopment to the physical fabric of the county.
County government, taxes and public finance
Bauer regularly reports on county government and tax policy, focusing on how public finance decisions show up in homeowners’ bills and in day‑to‑day life. In her coverage of Warren County’s approval of a temporary sales tax increase to offset a year of property tax relief, she explains how the change will give homeowners a break on property taxes while raising the sales tax, quantifying the savings for a typical home and clarifying the tradeoffs for residents.
She places these decisions in the context of broader fiscal priorities, outlining how tax shifts relate to county budgeting and investments.
Her reporting on tourism and economic impact extends this public finance lens. In a story on the expansion of the Cincinnati Open and record‑breaking Warren County tourism revenue, she links major sports and entertainment investments to a reported $1.74 billion tourism year, showing how visitor spending and facility expansion contribute to the county’s bottom line.
Together, these pieces present county government as an active force in shaping both the tax environment and the investment landscape, with Bauer emphasizing the direct financial implications for residents and the role public decisions play in enabling or constraining growth.
Business corridors and downtown revitalization
Business corridors, especially in Mason and other Warren County communities, are a recurring focus in Bauer’s work. Her coverage of downtown Mason improvements includes extended interviews with business owners who describe how infrastructure upgrades could increase customer traffic and the anticipated “tenfold” impact on their operations, capturing both the optimism and the dependence on timely public works.
In the Mason Mile restaurant story, she again situates a single business within a broader effort to energize a corridor, showing how a new tenant in a historic building is expected to influence neighboring properties and future investment.
Large-scale projects along major routes also feature in her reporting on corridor change.
The Middletown I‑75 development piece outlines how apartments, hotels and retail are planned to transform a key highway interchange, while her coverage of the proposed performing arts center in Mason describes its placement along State Route 741 and US 42 and the potential to create a regional destination. Across these stories, Bauer frames business openings and infrastructure projects as part of a larger narrative about how commercial strips and downtowns evolve, emphasizing the interplay between private development, public improvements and the health of local business ecosystems.
Community amenities, festivals and attractions
Bauer’s reporting frequently extends beyond bricks and mortar to the amenities and attractions that define community life, treating them as part of the county’s real estate and investment story. She has covered plans for a new playground at Sawyer Point after an arson attack, describing how the redesigned space will replace what was lost and what features are planned for families who use the park. Her work on the Ohio Renaissance Festival notes its return for another year and new traffic improvements, focusing on logistics and visitor experience for a long‑running regional event.
Major events and attractions are also framed through their economic and spatial impact. The Cincinnati Open expansion story connects a premier tennis tournament’s growth to broader tourism gains, while her coverage of Warren County Airport Fest invites readers into the airport’s growth story, showing how expansions and public events aim to familiarize residents with aviation facilities and their role in the county.
In these pieces, Bauer treats parks, festivals and airports not as isolated curiosities but as assets whose maintenance, expansion and accessibility contribute to the value and character of surrounding communities.
4 more real estate journalists.
Aaron Elstein
Aaron Elstein brings a Wall Street reporter’s eye to commercial real estate. He is a senior reporter at Crain’s New York Business, where he covers large office towers, Midtown corridors, landlords, lenders, investors and regulators. His reporting shows how ownership decisions, bank balance sheets, capital markets and regulation shape property values and risk. He also covers banking, finance and Wall Street, including bank mergers and investment firms. Before joining Crain’s in 2003, he wrote Heard on the Street columns for The Wall Street Journal and covered bank mergers for American Banker. Elstein reports by closely reading footnotes, contracts, regulatory filings and legal documents. His investigative work has examined executive payments, pension funds, tax enforcement and tenant harassment. His coverage places deals, disputes and enforcement actions within broader financial and property cycles.
Aaron Moselle
Aaron Moselle covers housing and community development for WHYY’s PlanPhilly, filing for radio and the web. He stands out for connecting market data and government action to displacement, affordable homes, and the daily questions facing renters and homeowners. His core beat is housing affordability and market strain, including high mortgage rates, rising prices, tax assessments, and what they mean for buyers, sellers, and renters. He also reports on preserving and creating affordable housing, neighborhood rehab efforts, major real estate deals, and the effect of property sales on residents. His work often uses direct sourcing, plain language, and service journalism to make policy and finance clear.
Aarthi Swaminathan
Aarthi Swaminathan is a personal finance reporter at MarketWatch whose distinctive beat connects residential real estate with household budgets. She covers housing prices, affordability, mortgage rates, financing, insurance, remodeling and the costs of owning a home. Her reporting examines overvalued and fast-rising markets, ZIP-code trends, second-home sellers, builders, developers and buyers facing higher borrowing costs. She also follows Gen Z buyers, owners trapped in weakening condo markets and neighborhood conflicts over development. Her work pairs data-driven housing analysis with detailed case studies of buyers, owners and sellers. She explains complex market data in clear, accessible language and writes news features, personal-finance explainers, Economic Report stories, The Big Move and New American Playbook. She won a silver award for Best Collection of Work by an Individual Covering Residential Real Estate.
Abbey Ferguson
Abbey Ferguson stands out for reporting how major commercial moves and redevelopment plans reshape the built environment, especially the real estate deals that reveal what land and retail space are worth. She covers Central Texas commercial real estate and development for KWTX, with recent stories on land valuation, major transactions, retail redevelopment, and infrastructure planning. Her work has tracked an $80 million data center site offer in Hill County, a prospective Trader Joe’s location in Waco, and a planning project using artificial intelligence to predict traffic patterns. She writes as a news reporter, staying close to the numbers, public records, brokers, officials, and landowners. Her stories turn contract prices, appraisal data, and listing history into plain explanations of what buyers are betting on and how those deals affect surrounding property owners and nearby businesses.