Ram23

Which power rankings? The NFL's have the Bengals in 4th, Steelers in 8th. The Ravens fell all the way to 22nd after the loss to Oakland. http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000536440/article/nfl-power-rankings-week-3-cardinals-climb-eagles-plummet If you're talking about ESPN's rankings, they have always heavily favored big market teams, and thus they aren't as accurate.

But even in that streetview, you're looking up at the building from across the street. The interaction with the sidewalk adjacent the building is fine. I always like looking into the windows of Batsakes and Wendel's (and similarly, The Chong in a less exciting Modern facade down the street). I think simply reopening the second floor levels, occupying the storefronts, and eliminating the auto drop off area would do wonders for the streetscape. As for 6th street, I don't think the opressiveness and monotony are negatives. Department stores wanted to be huge, windowless buildings, why pretend? The issue we're faced with now is troublesome, though - we are tasked with constantly finding uses for buildings that require windowless expanses. The Terrace Plaza missed the boat with the casino, but there are other uses, such as movie theaters, that could still have some potential.

I was alluding to the fact that people once viewed the Italianate buildings that fill Cincinnati as ugly and expendable, much like you view Modernist buildings today. In 50 years when there are few Modern buildings left, people will look back and wonder why we let it happen again.

I can't help but point out this attitude is exactly what led to mass demolitions of Italianate buildings starting in the 1950s to make way for parking lots. "These buildings in OTR are awful, they all look like Bronx Tenement housing." Part of the reason the Terrace Plaza looks so bad today is that it's been neglected and abused for decades. Originally, I think it looked very nice, especially so when considering the use: Another question that should be asked is – would it be replaced with something better? Chances are it wouldn’t.

The Chong Building is an interesting building. I did not know it was formerly a Kroger, but that explains the expansive loading docks in the rear alley. The whole building is owned by the guy who runs the store (whose name is Chong) and has been for a long time. I've always been curious what is on the upper floors.

Some Googling found that it was the latter - owner of a local engineering firm. At very least the plumbing and mechanical systems for that pool are probably top notch. I doubt the chlorine smell permeates the entire house.

http://wvxu.org/post/study-points-more-millennials-driving#stream/0 OKI in Cincinnati is still finding that the Cincy region will see tremendous growth in terms of driving - even among millennials. I still haven't ever seen them explain why Cincinnati is an outlier in this regard.

All of the large firms have worked with 3CDC in the past, but from what I hear not many of them ever want to again. Granted there are only 4 firms in town big enough to do a project of this magnitude so it's not a huge sample size.

3CDC announced the design team for the Music Hall renovation. Notable is a total absence of any local firms: http://www.3cdc.org/2015/09/14/design-team-announced-for-music-hall-renovation/ From what I have heard around town, all of the firms large enough to take on big projects like this one won't touch 3CDC with a 10 foot pole.

I've seen a ton of very liberal friends on Facebook and elsewhere up in arms about the Ex-Im/Kasich/GE situation. I don’t think anyone complaining really knows what it is – they just want to attack Kasich (and Cranley to some extent). I encourage people to at least browse the Wikipedia article before joining the brigade. The Export Import Bank is something that is ideologically right wing – the main criticism is that it puts corporate special interests ahead of those of the average taxpayer. They finance foreign entities who otherwise couldn’t get financing, so that they can buy US made goods, with the intent being job creation. Usually the left wing would be up in arms about that, but they aren’t because they don’t want to take Kasich’s side and admit he is a very moderate Republican.

The whole tone of that article is weird, and it seems like the author is a bit clueless. It reads like a critique of the strategy, but it's a strategy that has clearly worked well for UC. It's almost like the author started out wanting to tear UC apart for their focus on unique architecture, learned it worked out okay, but still wrote the article because he had a deadline. Maybe someday he'll learn that you have to be willing to accept that fact that your hypothesis is wrong and move on, lest no one will ever take you seriously.

That Shell is basically the only place I've bought gas for the last 5 years or so and I have never had a problem. I lived on the corner of Walnut and Liberty for 3 of those years and don't remember seeing the cops that often. That stat seems almost unbelievable. I wonder if they count every call as a call for service – so if 20 people call in about the same issue, they count it 20 times. It’s so busy I could imagine multiple calls every time something goes wrong.

The Bengals destroyed Oakland. They got a couple junk time TDs at the end of the game, but it was 33-0 going into the 4th quarter. I’m glad one of the west coast games is already out of the way so early in the season. Everyone else in the AFC North lost this week, which is always nice to be able to say.

To go on somewhat of a tangent – UC released an independent report today regarding the Tensing shooting: Report: Dubose shooting entirely preventable, never should have occurred The headline is essentially click-bait, but some of the findings will make a murder conviction very difficult, notably this part: If it was indeed a potentially deadly situation for Tensing, he did not commit murder. Whether his poor decisions lead to that situation or not isn’t as important a factor. If Tensing is convicted of a lesser charge, or if there’s a hung jury, the resulting protests would be a huge test for Cranley’s new chief - especially if there is already underlying unrest in the community because of the end of community outreach and the removal of a well liked black police chief.

I don't mind the center ramp, I actually think it's a neat element that makes the garage unique in Cincinnati. What's truly awful are the ramps from 4th Street that make the sidewalk veer through an awkward, downright scary tunnel. A couple months ago I saw a woman pop a squat and pee while I walked through there, which wasn't a surprise as it has never not smelled like pee there. The garage results in what is probably the worst designed sidewalk in the CBD.

Agreed, particularly the area around Findlay Playground, and parts of the Vine Street hill itself. Of course, walking up West Clifton is fine, but you still have to navigate the area around Findlay Playground which is one of the few areas in OTR where open air drug sales and prostitution still occur (mostly at night). I sometimes take the Ohio Street steps to Race Street rather than Vine, but by this time of year the steps are overgrown (on a related note they found a body by those steps about a month ago, I probably walked by it half a dozen times without realizing). They had a couple step clean ups last year but I don't remember seeing any this year. Central Parkway to Ravine is also a nice walk if you're heading to the west side of UC's campus. I occasionally take the Emming Street steps with bags of food from Findlay Market, which can be a rather daunting task. Aside from the conditions of the areas - the hills themselves are a detriment to many people.

Anecdotally, I'd say half the people who leave this store walk, go to the bus stop (improved access in this new site plan), or take a cab (I don't see any accommodation for this). The current lot was never more than about 80% full, even on busy shopping days. However, the size of the store is almost doubling, and both zoning regulation and Kroger's standards likely call for the amount of parking that is proposed. As a rule of thumb, structured parking costs 3-4 times the cost of surface parking. There has to be a compelling reason to build it - surprisingly this is often the time it takes shoppers to find a spot and/or walk from a lot to a store, rather than land value. The developer here probably sees no reason to sell any land, and no reason to build multi level residential or commercial space (though I'm not sure why? maybe they expect the land value to continue to increase and be sold in 10-20 years as Jake suggested).

A lot of times urban retailers install two sets of doors -- one for people parking in the garage/lot and another for pedestrians -- but over time the managements decides it's easier to reduce it down to one entrance, so they lock the pedestrian entrance. I walked past this development in Atlanta last year and they had put signs saying "please use parking garage entrance" on the street-facing pedestrian entrance. ::eyeroll:: The existing Walgreen's had two sets of doors. I don't recall the set that opened into the plaza's "Breezeway" ever being open. The Kroger actually has a set of doors that open up to the breezeway, too. I think they are covered up with fixtures and merchandise now. If you stand in the checkout lanes and look forward, the doors are there behind the seasonal merchandise. If they do have multiple sets of doors, they would have to have multiple security guards on staff at any given time.

In high school I briefly dated a girl who was a waitress at a Frisch's. I worked at a nearby car lot and got off before her, and would sometimes stop by on summer nights and enjoy a piece of pie and cherry coke until she closed. I can second Jake's earlier statement that the crowd in any given Frisch's around midnight is very, very strange. This particular location was near a highway, so you had the added element of a steady flow of truckers. In hindsight, I was probably contributing to the weirdness to some degree. And we can debate about the salad bar, but the tartar sauce is definitely the bomb, I think that goes without saying.

From the other views on the Business Courier's website, it looks like that corner (northwest) is the Starbucks, so it may have it's own entrance on the corner where the glazing is shown coming down to the ground. I hope there are still plans for the outbuilding along Corry to the corner of Jefferson. Meanwhile, I have to figure out where to buy my groceries now. This Kroger was pretty much the only one I've gone to for most of the last decade, minus the few years I lived in OTR. I guess I'll be back at the OTR Kroger for a year or so.

http://virtuallibrary.cincinnatilibrary.org/virtuallibrary/vl_citydir.aspx The city directories are another good choice - they list names and occupations. Unfortunately, they are only sorted by last name like a phone book, so you usually have to run a text search for the street name and then look through addresses (the way the OCR text recognition works makes it tough to search for "123 Elm" as the spaces usually don't transcribe correctly). It can take awhile but I did it for my house and found out it was originally occupied by a husband and wife tailor/seamstress team. The three daughters eventually became seamstresses as well.

I gave up trying to read it. I feel embarrassed for the Enquirer's editors. This is one of the most cringe-worthy articles I've ever attempted to read.

Macy's is currently pouring more money into renovating that Herald Square store than they are renovating/building all of their other stores combined. Obviously the higher up, the less money they make per square foot, but they are still cleaning up everywhere in that building. The Cincinnati Macy's probably does okay because costs are very low, partly due to subsidy. Of course, one could say every suburban mall location is heavily subsidized because of the free infrastructure provided and maintained for them.

You mean like these: Above ground wires are awful for street trees. Street trees tend to have a life span of 15-20 years because they are simply cut down (and maybe replaced) when they start to grow into the wires. The trees in front of my house are a prime example, they were probably replaced about 5 years ago, whereas the rest of my street has trees that are much older (because the wires are higher).

There are sites like the Pogue's Garage, and even the currently empty Ingalls Building and/or Terrace Plaza that would be perfect for condos. The Banks needs some more diversity, and residential needs to be spread around the CBD.