jim uber

I just noticed there is a dumpster in front of the old Weilert's Cafe. I hope that means someone is starting to develop the property, but I haven't heard who that would be.

There is a little, very plain, Mexican restaurant in Covington in the 700 block of Madison Ave called Taqueria San Miguel. I've been there a few times for lunch - assume they are also open for dinner. it is very good. Limited menu - I suggest you try whatever specials they are having. They always have one or two Mexican soups or caldos, which is a nice departure from the standard places. Don't order tacos or burritos if you insist on the overstuffed variety, as you'll be very disappointed. Friday for lunch I had the chili relleno special which was just fantastic. Nice big chile, very lightly battered and fried, with a rational amount of cheese and chicken (you could get whatever meat you want). Add rice and beans and this was pretty much just perfect! You can get a beer out of the cold case, which fits this place.

The UC student body has been vocal about wanting to get the streetcar Uptown. Perhaps with UC pursuing a new Law School building at The Banks and now a pro-transit leader as Chair of UC's Board, we can start having a mature discussion about getting the streetcar Uptown. Exactly. I also found it interesting that the student body president was making the arguments of affordability and safety. I'm not certain about the nuances of both of these sides of the argument, but I can certainly see that students would have some concerns about where they will live while going to law school at the Banks. They're probably not going to be renting $2.50/sq. ft. + apartments downtown. Effective transit is the obvious solution.

jwulsin[/member] "The stairs to the 2nd and 3rd floor would run up from the front of the building, so they are taking away any potentially viable retail space at 24 W Elder." -- that's not how I see those plans. It appears that there is a fire separation between that new stairwell going up and the remainder of the first floor, while the first floor and basement below are connected commercial spaces. I agree that it's too bad that 1000 sq. ft. can't be big enough. Something else that might make you happy is that the rehab to start on Elm near Findlay is going to be all micro-apartments. So far as I know that's a first for the area and it should be interesting to see how it goes.

Yes as I suspected. Once again statistics are held hostage by interest groups, in this case the home builders association, and the public is clueless.

yes that's it. I was curious so compared their stated square footage to their prices per month; As I recall the result was $2 almost exactly for all of the units. And I agree that the building and units are not special. I'm curious how they are renting.

^ I agree, but I'd also like to know what counts in terms of "single family residential" permits. Does that include apartment units and condos?

The new OTR apts by Grandin (I believe; on republic and 13th) are going at $2/ft.

The problems with MSD and the problems in Flint, MI are one and the same. Like chinkley[/member] said, the problems are financial, and why we have decided we "can't afford" the fix. Lead contamination and untreated sewage overflows are the potholes of buried water infrastructure. They are the only visible signs of cracks in the system that will convince our leaders and ourselves to pay up. We do not have a culture of maintenance, any more. We don't take care of our stuff. You have to believe that the root of this is too few people per infrastructure unit that requires support. The Ohio DOT recent policy announcement of "fix it first" was an amazing positive step in the right direction. It one fell swoop it seems to have acknowledged we don't have the resource base to keep building new infrastructure, and also said that you need to spend money on preventive maintenance and not just fix the worst thing first, cause that saves a lot in the long run. To put that into action for something like the City of Cincinnati, it means double the size of your painting crew, and attack the rust. These are things that my Dad, who could barely use a hammer, taught me, as I'm sure many Dads have done. There are tons of other related problems, like sewage and drainage billing that doesn't make sense. If the costs of the fix hinge upon building a system big enough to handle the largest storm flows, why doesn't my bill charge me rationally for the amount of surface runoff that my development generates and deposits into the combined sewer? I could install a buried tank with holes in the bottom that would return the first 1000+ gallons of rainwater to the earth from each rainfall event, but 1) it'd probably be illegal, and 2) I'd get no rate reduction from doing so. Still, my water bill is just now approaching my cable bill, and it delivers drinking water and takes my sh*t way, every time I ask. But time warner is not the government, so something must be very very wrong.

After UC builds a new law school at the Banks, which now seems likely, that will tie UC operationally to downtown and uptown for the first time. Seems to bode well for future transit connections, especially if Ono gets interested in getting support from the other hospitals.

^ Yeah we did too, on Saturday. I very much liked the interior design. It's dark, woody, full or repurposed stuff, tree trunks connecting the bar to the ceiling, tree limbs crawling over the flat screens behind the bar, cow hide covered bar stools. It sounds over the top, but it works, and is unique. I liked the empanadas and the soups. We had the plain cheese pizza (in my opinion, the only way to really evaluate pizza quality), and it was a disappointment. That wouldn't be a huge deal given everything else, but then again pizza is a pretty big part of their menu, so... maybe they should work on it. I'll go back, probably sit at the bar and have a couple of the empanadas.

Not that anyone on this board needs this confirmation, but I was happy to see that the new development at "Hillman Point" -- a.k.a. Wade and Elm St. in OTR -- joins the list of new developments using proximity to the streetcar as a key amenity of the neighborhood: http://www.hillmanpointotr.com/street-car-route/

On the topic of this off-topic, I've been using Simple bank for about a year now, mainly because of the features of their phone app. In the spirit of jmecklenborg[/member] talking about the benefits of automatic payroll deduction, the Simple bank app supports any number of "Goals." It's a really easy way to automatically and without thinking hide your money from yourself and put it into useful categories. I know it doesn't make logical sense, but it really helps me for pretty much any budget item that doesn't come on a monthly frequency. For example, water, real estate taxes, and auto insurance. My water bill, for example, requires me to automatically save almost $3/day into that goal. It just gets deducted from my balance (or in their terminology, what is "safe to spend"). I find it very helpful that when I pay my water bill, I just spend it out of that goal, and it's totally evened out. I also find it's useful to express some of these costs in this way. For example, water is more expensive for me than auto insurance. I didn't have any idea about that before.

Yes hiding money creatively is a key to savings. My wife puts every single $5 bill she gets into a big crock with a lid. She never ever looks and in fact she buries it under paper so that she can't see how big the pile is. Every spring we have fun dumping it out and counting maybe $750 to use toward a vacation. It saves money cause that's 750 that doesn't goon the credit card.

ryanlammi[/member] in case there are others as ignorant as I, could you post information about how one becomes a member of the OTRCC? Also, slight correction - I think that Carries place is developing only 7 of the units at the W 15th location, with the remainder north of Liberty (W. Clifton?)

^ Yes I'd agree. I also wouldn't expect them to fund construction. But if you are the chairman of the Board, you choose public words carefully, I think. I'd have hoped for a more progressive, move-the-needle stance from him, something more like "A strong transportation link between the Banks and Clifton will be needed in order to make this work, and UC is dedicated to working with community leaders to craft and promote the right vision." Or whatever. Something like that would be much more progressive than what was said.

From Thomas Humes, UC Board of Trustees Chairman "For those who hope the university will help fund an Uptown extension, “I don’t think that’s in the cards,” Humes said. “I don’t know where we’d get the money to help support it. Obviously the streetcar is an expensive thing to do.” This was in the context of UC moving some of its programs to Downtown -- http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/print-edition/2016/01/22/uc-move-to-the-banks-would-increase-presence-in.html In the rest of that article, there's talk of a still premature grand plan for UC to have a major presence at the Banks. It would be very expensive, of course, and the transportation issues between the Clifton campus and downtown are obvious. I just don't understand Humes statement in that context. Of course, it could just be a negotiating position.

^What a ridiculous comment; Club Venus is at 12 E 5th St in Covington. ;-)

^ You may have meant starting this year (2016, fall). It will be interesting to see what the plans look like, for such a significant development on a significant corner. They said that "The apartments are planned to have a fitness room, cyber café and a 2,400-square-foot community room on the top level." Seriously, do "cyber cafes" still exist? I know I'm overreacting, but statements like that make me think about old dudes sitting with their architect and saying "Where's the cyber cafe going to go - we've got to have one!"

^ no fire, just some significant structural stabilization. They rebuilt floor systems and the bay windows, and probably much else. It's currently boarded up, though, presumably awaiting the right developer.

^ no problem - thanks for doing this. It is actually a 4 story; the attic loft space narrows down to the eyebrow windows you see in front.

^ A nice idea. The Schmitthenner building is at 1527 Elm, however, not 1727.

Well, maybe, but honestly those white lines are soooo generous that you'd have to be a really terrible parallel parker in order to exceed them. If I were that far away from the curb, I'd be thinking about getting clipped by a car going by, let alone a streetcar.

Yes. The developer must be paying those fees to the association. So they must be thinking its still worth it to wait rather than drop the prices significantly. They might also have pressure from existing tenants not to do so.

There's a fair amount of rehab going on near my office at Pike and Madison in Covington. This stretch of Madison and even going south is pretty complete and has some very nice signature buildings. I don't know prices but I bet they are a steal compared to OTR. But as has been discussed, the downside is that it just feels isolated, especially after 5. The long time retail establishments like Motch Jewelry have hung on by name recognition and customer loyalty, and are probably just hoping the repopulation wave comes in before their existing customer base is gone. Likewise for the new retail shops that have opened recently. Thank God for Braxton brewery and Gateway college -- the new Covington Hotel will be a great addition. This whole area just feels like it would explode with a well designed streetcar transit option connecting to the Banks. But given what we went through on the Ohio side, and the strength of the NKY tea party, it makes me shudder to even contemplate. And I'm usually optimistic.