SWOH

Your photo is amazing! Agreed with ColDayMan - even though I don't post over here much I still look at the awesome pictures on this site and the one you took blew me away! Also, sorry about being suspicious earlier - I'm not much of a photography whiz and I don't know how to use Photoshop, so what you don't know you don't trust, right? Dumb aspect of human intuition. Regardless, this should be a "feature photo" of Dayton. It's an awesome shot and makes the city look very dynamic.

^That's excellent!! Tying infrastructure projects of the 1950's and 1960's to the notion of excessive government spending today? Why can't more of our nation's debates be framed like this? Oh wait, I know why. Our two-party political systems. If the Libertarians split, then we could have a real debate here, since Conservatives would be taking the moderate position.

^Ah, thanks for the explanation! If you can't tell I'm not much of a photography expert haha. Mainly I'm just in awe of y'all's ability. Anyways, that is an excellent vantage point! A shot that should be representative of Dayton for sure.

^That's amazing! A little too amazing, actually..... is it photoshopped? The Goodyear is a solid half mile from Good Sam, and just capturing one house like that surrounded by trees seems improbable. Also seems like there would be a lot more landmarks with lots of lights in that path, like MVH and its new tower which somehow didn't make it into this picture... Regardless, neat pic! It makes Dayton look great.

Great graphic, thanks for posting it! It will be awesome to see these changes happen.

Amazing how much better Hamilton is doing than Middletown today. And it's all based on how they placed their bets years ago. Hamilton wasn't as demolition happy, didn't go for malls, didn't have the large boulevards with interstate style interchanges, and wasn't able to hold on to its core industries like paper. Middletown is almost the exact opposite. So while Hamilton's future is looking bright, Middletown is still holding on to many, many ghosts of the past. Even today the vibe in town is early 1990s IMO. So hoping for the best, but I'd still give it quite a few years. Those small positive movements, like what's happening at the Manchester, need to add up first.

At least they got the "colossal" part right.... puts all the anti-hipsters out there to shame:

^Like the "Cincinnati" "Premium" Outlets an exit north haha. Complete with the fugly "Union Terminal" mock-up monstrosity that is their food court. As for this, I don't understand why they decided to go with a 280k sq. ft. retail component attached to Dillard's (another 200k sq. ft.) out of 640k sq. ft. of retail total. That puts over 2/3 of the total retail in an enclosed mall. I thought this was supposed to be a lifestyle center? All they'll be building is the new version of Towne Mall (which btw is 450k sq. ft.).

Quick update - construction of the office building at Water St is progressing nicely, and last time I was through the skeleton was done and brickwork on the outside was in progress. Also, Crawford Hoying is exercising their option to purchase the 250k sq. ft. Mendelsons Building across the street (and right by 5/3 field): http://www.bizjournals.com/dayton/news/2014/10/23/exclusive-downtown-dayton-building-sold-to.html I'm assuming this is a sign that there has been a lot of interest in Water St. Looking forward to seeing their plans here!

More Hamilton News: http://m.journal-news.com/news/news/new-brewery-street-improvements-planned-for-hamilt/nhkpZ/ New brewery on High St downtown and updates on the streetscape improvements. Hamilton is on the move - up! Looking forward to it becoming a very solid urban alternative in the middle of Daytonnati sprawl

^Interesting. I had no clue. Heard of MJ, and plenty of people I know frequent the Masque. But I never hear them mention MJ's. I guess there's a reason.... Oh well. Wishing them the best, the new digs look nice. And Dayton needs a decent, safe club scene (emphasis on safe - nothing scarier than being in an unsafe nightclub - happened to me once in West Virginia....). Masque does an excellent job, hope MJ's can match them.

Here is the article. It's a great read but it is very long, just as an FYI. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/where-the-tea-party-rules-20141014?page=7 Worth it to read it all though. I think it does an excellent job describing 1. Ohio's current economic situation, especially beyond the 3C's 2. Why Tea Party leadership is a horrible idea and how specifically their economic politics are failing Ohioans 3. Why minimum wage reform is important 4. The struggle real people have to endure in Ohio everyday.

Thought y'all might get a kick out of this:

Thanks for posting this! Those shots are amazing. Makes me realize the building is in rough shape, but not visually awful at least. No apparent structural issues, but there's only so much pictures can show. What's going against the Arcade is it's awkwardness. Can't easily convert it to residential, aside from the Merchant building. Office vacancy rates are still about 30% downtown, so no need there. Only hope I see is institutional, like an aquarium or a historical museum. The library would have been nice to see go there, but I can also see why it did not. So at the end of the day, what's really needed is an end use and a levy to support it, like what's being done with Union Terminal in Hamilton Co. Hoping for the best!

Glad to see this, hoping for the best! Issue with Middletown is AK. No one wants to live near it. Shut it down, move the Cincinnati and Dayton airports to the site, and Middletown would be doing a whole lot better.

^Yep, seasonally this line would get a ton of use from Miami students. Saying that 1,000 Miami students are from Chicago is probably a conservative estimate, and probably all of them would take advantage of this service at some point in time. Heck, I'd do it just because I could get homework done to and from home haha. Right now, a number of students take a bus from Oxford back to Chicago every holiday (like Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc.). They have routes that go to different clustered suburbs, like I think one goes to Joliet, one to Schuamburg, etc. Miami could probably discontinue the bus service if there was a dedicated train line, since students could easily get to Union Terminal in Chicago and take the metro lines on out to wherever they are from (they run quite deep into Chicagoland). But yeah, wouldn't want to slow the line down too much. I know it runs through both Hamilton and Oxford, which both would make great stops, but aside from that probably not the best idea to stop anywhere else between Cincy and Indy? Connersville might be big enough to merit a stop, but aside from that.... I don't know.

Thanks weatherphotographer! And yeah, will be very interesting to see what happens here. It's prime real estate, couldn't get a much better location (aside from Water St. or Deeds Park IMO) in the city.

You are beyond delusional. Wake up and grasp the fact that this development is anything but exciting. The tenant list is awful. I will say the tenant list is.... disappointing. Nothing groundbreaking. Heck, whether we like to admit it or not, IKEA was groundbreaking. Easton Town Center was groundbreaking. The Greene, given Dayton's market size, was groundbreaking. This isn't. But on the positive side, at least Steiner does seem to do a good job with their developments. Admittedly, it would be nice if The Greene did a better job integrating with Indian Riffle Park across the street, but overall it's well done. Also on the wish list would be a larger residential component, but at least that's an easy fix for whenever the day comes that the apartment complex due south of The Greene comes up for sale. And Steiner, overall, isn't doing that bad of a job here. I saw earlier there was mention in their statements of a pedestrian bridge across 129 to integrate with Cincy Children's and Lakota East HS. Great move. I'm hoping traffic calming measures will be implemented at the intersection of Hamilton-Mason, Wetherington, and this (which I assume will have a main road that is directly across the street from a Wetherington road). If I was really getting optimistic, I'd be seeing another pedestrian bridge across I-75 that went to a section of offices and apartments, with nice sidewalks and maybe even a bikeway that lead right to the Voice of America park. That's what it could be, if it was done well. Steiner is about 2/3 of the way there. The 1/3 that's lagging is the reliance on retailers. Stop building F$%^ing malls and start building places people want to be, if you're going to build anything at all. Steiner's formula is closer than Mills', but there's still a big gap.

Chalk it up with their failed "downtown village". West Chester is Mason's slum cousin.

^This I'm excited to see. The Arcade Seafoods space is a great spot. And I never got a chance to try out Agnes All-Natural grill before (at either of its two past locations), so I'm looking forward to making it over to this space once it's done. Also - note on Cold Beer and Cheeseburgers - the new spot is a significant improvement over their old place. It's nice and clean, and it looks good. I can imagine there will be a lot of foot traffic going there.

I honestly think Cranley is "trying" to do better now. Just stupid-trying. Like his Burnet Woods proposal? Overall not a bad idea. Bier garden in Mt. Airy forest? Horrid idea. Surefire way to get more drunk drivers, or it will just be a looming boondoggle conservatives can point to later... or is that what he really wants? (realization of that motive while typing btw. Cranley might be championing large, doomed projects just so this city doesn't move forward in the future. And so they will overshadow any streetcar success. Thoughts?)

^Yeah, it's looking really good. It will be very nice to check it out and how it changes the feel of downtown once it is done!

Dude they be poppin' .... out in Liberty Twp. And my sarcasm looks really dumb on a different page haha.

Speaking of Hipsters.... Pabst is now a Russian beer brand. Go figure. http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/09/19/349868640/iconic-pabst-beer-brands-sold-to-russian-company