Ram23

The project was mismanaged from conception, and then ended up even worse because of the economy, but the idea itself is fine and similar projects have worked consistently in most other cities. Looking at forecasts, retailers are poised to spend lots of money expanding in 2013 and Kenwood is the heart of shopping in the region. The retail potential alone will probably make this building break-even for new owners. Basically, the project will be fine once the white collar criminals who were running it originally are gone and forgotten.

I just purchased a round trip ticket to Dallas from CVG next week for just over $1000 via Delta. American was a bit more expensive. It is business travel, of course, which I think may be what drives up the “average” prices at CVG. Companies don’t even hesitate to drop that kind of money for a ticket. If you plan vacations out early enough and shop around for ticket prices, I think CVG is absolutely comparable to other nearby airports, and at least evenly priced when you factor in the time/expense of driving an extra hour or so. CVG has sort of backed itself into a hole in which it gets mostly business travel, which then raises the average ticket prices and gives them even more bad press.

^^ Grammer's also has the look and feel of a place that should be hosting a beard competition. I'd imagine there were some excellent beards in there in 1880.

No. FBCs can produce that type of development because developers go cheap. They are not designed to emulate Stetson Square-style developments. FBCs try to emulate what OTR is like in terms of form. FBCs do not specify style or level of detailing. There are already setback and height limitations in existing code. There are definitely aspects of the current zoning code that should be revisited, and I think many areas should be rezoned and/or have various overlays, but swapping the whole thing out for a form based code will definitely lead to monotony that more closely resembles The Banks or UPA than OTR. This discussion belongs in the codes thread, though, and I think I’ve already had it a few times there. FBC’s are really one of the only qualms I have with Qualls, though.

^ Except that form based codes produce exactly the type of development that people here are complaining about. The Stetson Squares and U-Squares of the world are what form based codes try to emulate.

Dream on, why would any successful business want to align themelves with this debacle? It is going to take more then some court orders for people to gain any recognition they want to be associated with this place. It is a blight which will remain a blight for some time to come. Five years from now, no one will even remember the whole debacle. It'll just look like any other suburban office tower. Except it will probably have a bunch of retail on the first floor or two, and I could imagine it being some really high-end boutique retail. I say that puts it a step or two ahead of most of the fairly depressing suburban office towers.

The Moerlein facility on Moore Street has hosted a few charity type events that I have been to before, not to mention Bockfest. I think they have even been willing to donate their beer for charity too.

Where was it reported, at the meeting? I took some flak for saying the $130,000 was way too high and that this should cost closer to $60,000 on the previous page here.

Yep, I live in OTR and work downtown and shopped there quite a bit. My credit card has good points and rewards through them so it worked out perfectly. I avoid Kenwood Towne Center at all costs, so I doubt my shopping there will continue, unless I just do it online which is tough for clothes. That’s odd, I really find them to be the absolute highest quality of any shirts I’ve ever owned. I’ve had a few shirts for about 6 years now and they still look new. They’ve probably been worn and washed a hundred times. I had cheaper shirts from Express and Uniqlo that end up looking crappy after a few months. I'll miss the place.

Design fees are typically 10-12% of final construction costs, maybe 15% on the high end for this particular project because it's a small, specialized structure. Realistically, I think the entire project could be done for around $60,000 to $70,000, depending on where exactly it is located, and I really think the city should contact some local professionals instead of taking Portland’s word for it.

I work in the architecture field and have done cost estimating for plenty of public restrooms. The single stall standalone public restroom that is shown in the picture could be done for a lot cheaper than $130,000. I think the cost to Portland was somewhere closer to $80,000, but when you add in the shipping, tax, markup, vendor profit, etc. you get to $130,000. Design it and fabricate it on site and you’d lose a tens of thousands of overhead. Restrooms aren’t very complex things, even ones that are vandal-resistant. Saying that this is what it cost Portland so we should be fine with it is lazy, especially when Portland is trying to sell it to us at a profit. I don't think the city did much investigation beyond asking Portland for a price.

These seem way too expensive, and the $25,000 to ship them from 2000 miles away, when they could just be fabricated on site, is a slap in the face to sustainability. Why doesn’t the city have a design competition? I’d imagine a single stall public restroom like this could be designed for less than half of what this model cost.

Check out this thread: http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,24290.0.html Not very many bad suggestions in there, at all.

The trains themselves have a very long lead time, ordering them 2 years out is likely routine, as they aren't something that just rolls off an assembly line - they will be somewhat custom. Even things like the rails themselves will have long lead times (several months) from the time an order is put in by a contractor to the time they can be delivered on site. No part of this project is really that far from ordinary except the uninformed scrutiny it is getting from the Enquirer.

^ He really is a caricature of the term “bleeding heart liberal elite.”

I’ve always found MSA’s, and to some extent CSA’s to be far more indicative of a metropolitan areas population and trends, but these urbanized area stats are interesting to use in comparison, especially for discussions on sprawl.

The parking garage could be worse. It's not bad within the context of the overall street, which now feels extremely urban. If the Shell at the end of the block ever gets replaced, the parking garage will barely be noticeable.

Uptown consists of the group of neighborhoods around the UC campus: CUF, Clifton, Avondale, Corryville, and Mt. Auburn. Link: http://www.uptowncincinnati.com/uptown-area I will also note that according to the auditor, the building Chirsty's is/was in still has the same owner it has had since 1997, and the owner appears to live right around the corner so it doesn't seem like they'll be in too big a rush to sell/demo it, hopefully.

I don't, but it looks like it was taken from the Vernon Manor.

One exception here is the eggs. Kroger actually charges more for a dozen extra large eggs than Madison's at Findlay Market, and they aren't anywhere near as big or fresh. The only things I end up buying at Kroger are canned goods, frozen items, paper products, and cheap junk that I probably shouldn't be buying anyway.

Adblock Plus seems to do a fine job on Facebook for me. What get annoying are the apps; it took me awhile to figure out how to block app invites, and I am still mad I have to block invites from certain people rather than a flat out block-all. I like getting deals and info from businesses I like around town, otherwise I'd be gone from Facebook entirely.

I was there too and everything I ate was great. It is a tiny space, though, even smaller than the likes of Bakersfield and the other places further down on Vine. Across the street at Kaze the bar is open, and the restaurant is supposed to follow in January, and it is massive. It’s great to see so much activity so far north on Vine, and in Kaze’s case, actually off of Vine down a stretch of 14th street that I wouldn’t even walk down at night a month ago.

That’s the thing Mac does to force people to pay up. PC’s have such minute price differences because there is a plethora of options for every single component, from fans to cables to motherboards, etc. and each has a price range from cheap plastic crap to top of the line. Mac’s base components are all of decently high quality, and not customizable in the least, which is why even the cheapest options are so expensive compared to the cheap PC’s. But the short answer is no, unless you get all of the upgrades none of them are worth their individual markups, and “worth” is a subjective word because as a guy who has always built my own computers since I was 10, I know what these upgrades cost.

^ Skyline as a restaurant is better, but judging by just the actual chili Gold Star wins, hands down. I always buy the Gold Star cans/frozen packs to make at home. Neither can touch Camp Washington at 4:00 AM though.

I get this same error intermittently as well, on Firefox.