Ram23

Did Firehouse actually get any money from the city though, or are they leasing the property through the developer? The developer was the one who got that block for $1 but I can't find anything online about what their relationship is in terms of operating the restaurant. But aside from that, there are all sorts of incentives and abatements given out for new development in up and coming neighborhoods like Walnut Hills, but I can't really think of another situation where someone looking to open a restaurant in an already high demand area was handed nearly a million dollars in city money to spend on furniture, fixtures and equipment. It's a more tangible sum, which is part of what is generating the outrage. The remainder of the outrage is being generated in response to the owners own comments.

Mahogany's to city: Let's make a deal Rogers, in a letter from her attorney to the city dated Sunday, proposed that city officials forgive her loan and sell the restaurant's furnishings for $12,000. In exchange, she'll move elsewhere in the city and won't participate in any public protests. If the city doesn't accept the deal, Rogers suggests she would sue the city. I actually think I might tune into 700WLW to listen to them discuss this one. Rogers has completely gone off the deep end at this point, I think we can all stop trying to perpetuate the excuse that the media was out to get her.

The defense really needs some work. I think some of it has to do with the fact that it was Toledo's third game and Cincinnati's first. They looked pretty tired in the third and fourth quarters. Kiel was hitting everyone on the team right between the numbers on almost every throw.

Cranley's not dumb, so he's clearly nefarious. This is Econ 101 stuff. The price should be what maximizes revenue and what the market will bear. According to the studies the city had done, that's $1 or $1.75, and the logical choice would be $1 so more people can afford to utilize it. Charging more than a bus because it costs more to operate than a bus is backward logic because you'll obviously make less money by charging exorbitant fares.

So if you rent an apartment in OTR along the streetcar line you do not get a vote? Correct, you have to be a property owner, not a renter. Between downtown and OTR, there will be a few dozen big players that need to be on board with this prior to it being considered seriously.

Hey, we root for the Browns when they play against Pittsburgh, and the old Browns in Baltimore.

I actually just picked up a pair of season tickets for the "Coach's Corner" seats (which are bad seats at Nippert but pretty decent at PBS) for $100 each. At $16.66 a game, that is insanely cheap. My girlfriend is an OSU alum so originally we were thinking about going to OSU for the UC/OSU game but I decided I'd rather go to all 6 UC home games, and have some money left over for beer, than go to Columbus once.

We are? Maybe he meant 5 days? Last year was one of the worst winters we've had in a long time and there were maybe 10 days that snow made biking unfeasible, but that's just for me because I live on a dead end, narrow, hilly street that never gets plowed. This, along with Cranley's $300 a month parking fee show how disconnected from reality some of these politicians are. It snows 5 times as much in Madison, WI and they seem to make bikes work.

The anchors aren't exciting but I'm pretty pleased with the design. Steiner does a very good job typically. According to the renderings, this will be a new version of Easton in Cbus. If it looks like the renderings look, it will be better, but I'm curious to see if it turns out looking like that given the tenants they've signed so far. Compared to the thing in Oakley, and Rookwood, Liberty Center will be the best looking lifestyle center in Cincy, whatever that means.

I think the big problem here is we were all sold on a rendering that was ridiculously well designed, made the banks look like an actual historic urban neighborhood. Unfortunately said rendering was just a basic concept and had no bearing on reality (probably was used in part to sell the stadium on the riverfront instead of at Broadway Commons) As a result people are hyper critical and really disappointed. I disagree. The Banks phase 1 is some of the worst urban architecture in the country. The Banks is less attractive than virtually any of these similar buildings that are all over suburban neighborhoods in places like Charlotte, NC. I would say the Banks is on par with these types of buildings, but the finishes on the Banks just looks cheap in comparison.

I guess I'm just a cynic. I don't really believe white conservatives in HamCo will vote for a black guy from the city who used to be a liberal. Streetcar or no streetcar. It's not that he couldn't spin a good story, I just think any opponent running against him will destroy that story. Exactly, be it a primary or general election there's no way Smitherman would keep the conservative, white, suburban crowd on board against an actual Republican candidate. Hating on the streetcar won't be enough.

I don't think so, because the Lang Street building is owned by two guys through an LLC. I'm fairly certain the first L protects their own homes. They clearly don't care about these buildings, I'm always curious why people like this own buildings in the first place. Even if they were sitting on them hoping to turn around and sell for a profit in 5-10 years, what good are they if they collapse?

I didn't get a picture, but the building at 1706 Lang Street has had a major collapse, and a big chunk of the top right facade and roof is now laying in the street. It's owned by Tom Vin LLC, they own one other building at 314 West McMicken. Both have a huge list of code violations on CAGIS. Here's a link to the Google Streetview, it was a beautiful building.

It's not so much any one drive, but the realization you'll be doing it everyday, twice a day for the next twenty, thirty, forty years.... Gotta be a better way! Can't believe that's not obvious to everyone. I've found that most suburbanite who work downtown tend to think it'd be great to have light rail. For some reason, they all seem to think the government is poor and could never afford it, yet don't blink an eye when they spend $3 billion on changes to I-75.

What a joke. Avril Bleh is complaining about parking in front of their store being restricted for a weekend - I wonder if they and Channel 12 realize anyone in the city can close down parking for any reason whatsoever, be it building a streetcar or bringing in a moving van, getting some drywall delivered, etc. I've gone to the police and closed down parking spots several times. At least the streetcar project team is on top of it enough to give ample warning - by law, the no parking signs only need to be up 18 hours early.

There’s a map of all the locations on this PDF, posted here earlier I believe. What really bugs me is that there aren’t many stations in residential areas (especially in the uptown layout). The system seems to be set up for visitors and tourists, rather than residents. I think they need a balance to make this worthwhile.

The parking lot and entrance to the store are really the only things to dislike about the OTR Kroger. They need to figure out a way to make the parking all on the side/rear along 15th street, eliminate the parking on Vine, and expand the store out to the sidewalk. They would likely have to waste a lot of space on a vestibule in order to get the two entrances and ensure security, but it’d do wonders for the approachability of the store. The current overall site design is awful. I think that store will remain the grocery for OTR, and eventually we will see what was supposed to be built in this development somewhere else downtown. It's only a matter of time before there's sufficient demand for a higher end small format urban grocery store downtown. They would do a lot of business during the lunch hours with prepared foods, a few thousand more residents to increase daily grocery customers is all it will take.

Smitherman will literally say and do anything to advance his political career. He's gone from one extreme politically to the other in less than a decade. I've never seen anything like it. When WLW went from constantly making fun of him in their promos, to giving him hours upon hours of airtime to attack the streetcar was a telltale sign. It happened almost over night. I seem to remember one of their promos with a probably remixed quote of his saying "Christopher Smitherman only cares about Christopher Smitherman."

Though we’ve been dissing small plates over in the “trendy foods” post, it looks like we’ll be getting another small plates place in OTR: New Indian Restaurant Headed to OTR

I had a nice loft, one bedroom apartment for $550 until last summer when I bought my house. It rents for $1300 a month now! Avoid Urban Sites and you can probably find something closer to your price range. A friend I know just snagged one for $600 that was a Craigslist find.

In interesting one to look at anywhere, but especially on the West Coast, is “pork belly.” It was literally not a thing in the US a few years ago, and now everyone is using it, even though it’s just uncut bacon. Some places just use thick bacon and call it pork belly to sound more sophisticated.

You seem to be getting a little emotional yourself. Well I came home from work and it appears that we're now 24 hours into Robin Williams mania. The posts just keeping coming, like 1 out of 3 posts have something to do with this guy. As of this morning, my wall was still at around 25% Robin Williams posts, with a small but seemingly growing number of quasi-feminist posts taking advantage of the death of Lauren Bacall. I finally discovered that you can stop seeing posts about "trending topics," and did so.

All appropriate no parking signs, yes parking signs, etc. were put up before the bollards. I ride the route almost every day. Every appropriate piece of signage is up and in all the right places. There are a couple small things I would tweak, but nothing is missing signage. One thing I think they could do is add some "Pay to Park" signs near the metered areas because people seem to be completely perplexed by the idea of parking, crossing a bike lane, and paying the meter that is directly in line with your car. I ride the route daily as well and there are SO MANY points of conflict where cars don't really have a clue where to park. The No Parking Zone signs at the curb are too far from the parking lane to make sense. Then there's the face that the paint doesn't change in any way at certain driveways and curb cuts. The absence of a bollard is really the only clue you have that maybe you shouldn't park there. Even then, it's not really clear how close you can get to the driveway legally. I think a simple change in paint color or tick mark could go a long way. I ride or drive this route every day as well, and I agree it's confusing. There need to be some street markings to parallel the signage. Breaking the striping up at crossroads and alleys, but not at driveways, no parking zones, fire hydrants, etc. is going to lead to a lot of driveways and fire hydrants being inadvertently blocked in.

Oddly enough, I just spoke with the owner of that property yesterday. They are quite aware of what is happening around them. There are other factors which will play into the development of that site. I mean the market rent for that property has to be far higher now than what the cell store is paying. No wonder the owner of that store was complaining about streetcar construction at Liberty & Elm. He's got to feel the pressure. From stalking the auditor a bit, it seems the guy who owns that property owns a bunch of other Cricket Wireless properties as well. I'm not sure if someone pays him rent, or if he runs the stores too. Either way, the property tax is sure to shoot up eventually, they could be mad about that as their business is likely to decrease as well.

It’s Jezebel, so the hipster, relatively racist/sexist author kept the descriptions to men, but failed to mention they are almost always opposite a similar group of girls, donned in too-short, too-tight dresses, with too-tan skin and too-blonde hair. There’s a window of around 15 minutes or so at Neon’s, in Cincinnati, that one can literally watch the place transform from a hipster paradise to bro bar. I don’t know of a better way to visualize the stereotype of both hipsters and bros than to stand outside of Neon’s around midnight on a weekend.