jim uber

This is (obviously) pure speculation, but I wonder if all this zoom/work from home that's going on will naturally add to the importance of living in an "interesting" place. I mean, for those of us lucky to have avoided unemployment, home isn't just someplace to crash at the end of the day - it's your office, your restaurant, and your hotel. My wife and I are good with the setup, but I think I'd go insane to be single and living out in the suburbs during this mess.

^So happy to hear this. As far as I am concerned, my OTR neighbors who build massive single family homes on lots where 10-20 people once lived, and then complain about neighboring developments with even modest densities, should be ashamed.

"Good schools" seems to be mostly a socially acceptable method of sorting. Voucher systems would seem to go against that view, but I think that voucher proponents would turn fairly quickly into voucher opponents, if the proposal was for a voucher system large enough to disrupt the current sorting.

Impressive! The people who undertake this sort of restoration work are amazing to me.

the scaffolding is for masonry repair. last time I looked they had removed roughly the top 10 feet or so of brick (and were presumably set to re-lay that).

It's here: https://development.ohio.gov/files/media/pressrelease/News Release - State Supports 23 Historic Rehabilitation Projects .pdf

This is obviously wrong. Nobody is paying $100K+ for a residential water service, using a well established technology employed throughout the construction industry.

Yes, what freaks people out is not knowing where to look for parking, causing them to drive around aimlessly looking for a street space. This makes them look stupid to their passengers and causes arguments and stress. And then there is the terrifying act of skillfully executing a parallel parking move, something that has not changed since they took their drivers license exam. The cost of parking is truly secondary. And as for Findlay market vendors, if anything, the last 15 years seems to have shown that if you want the market to thrive, just do whatever the current vendors say will destroy their business.

^ Yes and the NPS recommends, among other treatments, the following for historic masonry: "Applying compatible paint coating systems following proper surface preparation." and "Repainting with colors that are historically appropriate to the building and district." https://www.nps.gov/tps/standards/rehabilitation/rehab/masonry01.htm

I wouldn't call it quiet, in the same way as a suburb where the loudest noise is a lawn mower, but most of OTR is nothing like Vine or Main. Especially the cross streets and minor streets like Republic and Pleasant are usually very quiet. Last week I had a tenant in our Elm St. apartment tell me about her younger sister who moved recently to Current. She had apparently considered OTR but the gist was OTR was for "grown ups."

On the 1500 block of Elm I have had a front row seat to changes in street drug dealing/using, prostitution, and public intoxication/urination/defecation over the past 10 years. 10 years ago it was the Wild West - some truly crazy people, fights, screaming, loud car stereos stopping for a half hour at 3AM... some times I could count 100+ people within a half block. Now, there's rarely more than 6 folks just hanging around, with most of those being extremely resistant drug dealers who've been in and out of prison their whole lives. I think their market has shifted elsewhere, and the ones that are left are sort of the lower rung. The people who are left all know my name and say hello to me when I walk past. Like they're trying to be good neighbors. It's very weird. What I've found most remarkable is the gradualness of the changes. I can't tell you how many times I've thought "that's it, they're gone!" but instead of some sea-change it's moved just about at the same pace as redevelopment - just as gradually. Recently 3CDC bought the L&S market building across the street, along with two lots behind it on pleasant, and another building on Race, from slumlord Aaron Etzler (which I think marks his formal exit from the neighborhood). Something like $850K for everything. Now, once L&S market's lease runs out, 3CDC will boot them out of there. Without a local shifty bodega for cover, that will, probably, be the last nail in the dealers coffin. But, from beginning to end, my guess it will end up being 15 years.

Yeah in Korea they call these places “meal houses” (translated). You sit down but the menu is short and on a wall somewhere. I like them too and it’s part of the reason I am both happy and sad for the new pho Lang thang. My my wife took me to the epitome of this in Korea one time. Not even a menu anywhere. You sit down and within a minute arrives soup and rice. They don’t even speak to you. It was like $1.00 and you are eating with a mixture of homeless folks and people dressed for work. A one story building in the middle of Seoul surrounded by amazing density. Just a matter of time...

Wow but 1000+ jobs is... a lot more people downtown. I mean, that's like 900 more people than were normally in that building when Macy's was there, save for holidays.

Sorry, I’m unmoved. Somewhere between getting kicked in the head by a horse or run over by a stampede of pigs going to slaughter, and achieving the “right” to unfettered and safe movement at any time, our cities died. The occasional need to walk out of bounds and maybe disrupt traffic doesn’t sound at all panic inducing, to me. By the way I was also on Main Street last night and hadn’t given a second thought to it, till your post. Just different reactions I guess.

Wow - "too many pedestrians". I've honestly never ever heard or thought that before in Cincinnati. A happy milestone.

This and other aspects of these guidelines need to be fought vigorously when they come up for approval.

was at Cafe Vivace over the weekend and someone there told me that they were now pursuing a $750K crowdsource financing campaign, which sounded completely nuts to me.

In my mind some people - apparently the OTR Infill Committee - overly romanticize the role of OTR architecture in defining the community. I get the idea these people would be dismayed to be standing on a street corner on Vine street in 1900, because of all the people passing by disturbing their views. You have enough people on the street, they become the city, not the buildings. The infill committee wants an architecture museum, not a real urban community built for people. The strangest thing to me is that these same folks are the ones complaining the loudest about the lack of affordable housing in new infill developments. Hypocrisy...

I'm in, for at least the first couple of hours.

The previous square was an abomination, as was its (lack of) programming. We had a big brutalist stage that dominated the north east corner. There were different levels all over the place. We had the KKK come visit every Christmas. We had an economic development director - I can't recall her name - that was such a moron she wouldn't allow free standing tables and umbrellas cause she thought they were tacky. John Altshuler came and consulted, and thank God he did. I still remember the meeting when he simply said the entire thing needed to be scraped clean and started anew. And that it could then be a great gathering space. That's exactly what happened and it couldn't be more different from before. The fountain was moved precisely because it's a fountain - it didn't deserve to be the center of attention. The center of attention was the public square, and the people and activities it would attract. The old guard who complained so bitterly about moving it (and re-doing the square) were the same people who would only drive by and say hello.

This editorial by John Schneider is awesome (and long overdue - thanks John): Streetcar’s No. 1 roadblock? City Hall Published: March 13, 2019 For no good reason, City Hall has taken over management of the streetcar from the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority. Our city has no experience managing a rail transit system. For good measure, the city appointed a lawyer with no transit experience to oversee the operation. https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2019/03/14/streetcar-s-no-1-roadblock-city-hall.html?u=x26E64qTM4GUjuNBOsoKtMaWVlG&t=1552585459&j=87235371

^ Wow, those tables are so cool.

Yes I was surprised to see this finally happening.

Where are your figures coming from? At least the business courier couldn't find figure post 2017 for employment, when it stood at 1400. They mentioned that it was a goal to get to 1800, but they never said they went to 1800 and then dropped 400 people. The actual material in the article references GE leadership where they talk about how the banks facility and area is a great environment for the type of workers they are trying to attract and need to interact to build complex solutions. These are high paying jobs for people figuring out how to run GE engines more efficiently and safely, and write software that scales to the global enterprise. You don't just put those jobs out in an Evendale office park, any more than you tie one hand behind your back before a fight.

^ wow that's great news. Sounds like buying over on that block, with what's been done already on Race, is no longer a crazy venture. BTW I think you may have meant "west" side of vine.