$60 million gift from Scott Farmer and family secures naming rights for new riverfront amphitheater

The Farmer name now sits at the center of one of the most consequential arts gifts in Cincinnati’s history, and its impact is only growing more visible.

The Farmer Family Foundation committed $60 million to the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and its concert-promotion affiliate, Music and Event Management Inc., securing naming rights for the new riverfront amphitheater that will open as The Farmer Music Center.

The commitment, the largest private philanthropic gift to the arts in recent local memory, effectively transformed a working “Riverbend 2.0” concept into a fully capitalized cultural project with national ambitions.

That single gift is driving real-time policy decisions at City Hall. Cincinnati City Council is weighing whether to allocate $8 million in city funds toward construction of The Farmer Music Center, a 20,000-capacity venue now projected to cost about $160 million in total.

Council sponsors have framed the proposed allocation as a way to leverage the Farmers’ $60 million philanthropy into a larger public–private partnership, citing estimates of roughly $100 million in annual economic activity and about $15 million in new city tax revenue over the coming decade.

The debate has turned the foundation gift into a live budget question: how much should the city invest to maximize the impact of a private family’s bet on Cincinnati’s cultural future?

At the same time, the physical contours of that bet are coming into focus. The Cincinnati Symphony and MEMI have released architectural renderings and fan-experience details, revealing a tall, vertical amphitheater on the former Coney Island site, with approximately 8,000 covered reserved seats and space for about 12,000 more on a synthetic lawn.

The design package projects a roughly 30 percent increase in live events, adding an estimated 150,000 attendees a year to the region’s concert calendar and positioning the venue to attract major national tours while funneling net revenues back into the orchestra’s artistic and education programs.

With an opening targeted for spring 2027, the Farmer gift has visibly moved from press-release abstraction to steel, concrete, and a defined construction timeline.

For the Farmer Family Foundation, the amphitheater is emerging as the cultural pillar in a broader philanthropic portfolio that has quietly expanded across health care and education.

In recent years, the foundation has underwritten a $2.6 million investment in neurological care at UC Health and a $2.35 million initiative with the University of Cincinnati and UC Health to address the nursing shortage, alongside sustained support for institutions such as Cincinnati Museum Center.

Taken together, those commitments sketch out a three-part civic strategy: strengthening the region’s hospitals, training its future workforce, and now, through The Farmer Music Center, redefining its riverfront as a destination for shared cultural experiences.

That strategy is being carried forward by Scott Farmer, former Cintas CEO and a trustee of the Farmer Family Foundation, together with other family members who have taken visible roles in steering a philanthropy with assets north of $160 million and annual giving now exceeding $40 million.

In health care alone, recent commitments include a $10 million gift to the Cincinnati Cancer Center to accelerate research and strengthen the city’s bid for top-tier national designation, a $15 million gift to Christ Hospital’s Heart & Vascular Institute, and multimillion-dollar support for UC Health and the University of Cincinnati focused on neuroscience and the nursing workforce.

The foundation has also backed park improvements through a matching commitment to Great Parks of Hamilton County and sustained support for institutions such as Cincinnati Museum Center, underscoring a pattern of investments that are less about single projects and more about the long-term health and livability of the region.

As council members deliberate over the $8 million request, the through line is unmistakable. A single $60 million arts gift is now shaping the contours of the city budget, the skyline of a rebuilt riverfront, and the long-term revenue model of one of America’s leading orchestras.

For Cincinnati, The Farmer Music Center is no longer just a future venue with a prominent name; it has become a test case for how transformational philanthropy can pull public dollars, private vision, and cultural ambition into the same spotlight.