SWOH

-^Very interesting that they are moving forward with that housing development in city limits. IMO this is happening because of how successful the Brantwood subdivision ended up being on a neighboring property fronting OH 201 (Brandt Pike). They were expecting a 10-year buildout and it happened in about 3 years. Same thing is happening for Pinnacle Ridge in Moraine... these infill subdivisions with the lower-priced Ryan houses are really taking off around Dayton. D.R. Horton is trying the same thing at Wolf Creek Run (right behind Salem Mall) in Trotwood. I'm hoping it turns out so maybe a redevelopment of Moss Creek will happen. I'm normally not a fan of subdivisions, but I am a fan of keeping people in Dayton and the inner ring suburbs over having them move outside the city once they get married and have kids. I'm also a fan of people in disadvantaged communities having access to affordable, new housing in their own community as long as it doesn't come at the expense of historic housing, buildings & neighborhoods with character. It may also help make the case for redevelopment of the former Meijer site within Dayton off Harshman at 201.

LOL @ Cincy developers missing out on Dayton. I'm a fan, overall, of what Crawford Hoying is doing... they did an excellent job with the Delco lofts, Fire Blocks appears to still be on track thanks to them. Water Street, while aesthetically it could use some help, was revolutionary for here and a great strategic move for them to get their foot in the door in Dayton with an easy, low-cost project. I'm actually a fan of this building so I hate to see it go. There's little future for large-block midsized office building downtown anymore so it's the right move, but I will miss the architecture for sure. Especially the glass first floor inset behind the concrete pillars, it's gorgeous.

^That is so true. People forget that the buildings in OTR pre-rehab were downright dangerous to be in. No one, rich or poor, should live in a building where they have to worry about structural damage so bad that it could harm their health... and that doesn't even include all of the unsafe chemicals like lead paint, asbestos, etc. that were in these places.

Was searching for something else and came across this thread... and the posts on the first few pages! They are definitely worth reading... above is one of my favorites to capture how things were. It’s crazy to think how different OTR was 15 years ago! Thankful for how it is now. Redevelopment can do bad things, and certainly gets a bad rap by some, but when you consider how much of our history and character has been saved by the rehabbers it absolutely happened at the right time.

There’s always money in the banana stand

Honestly? I'm late to the party here, but I'd say the driving factor is the lively bar scene there (or was pre-Covid-19). It's on a whole different level than other cities its size... I was there on a Wednesday night in mid-May and every one of its ~50-ish bars was huge and had a line out the door. It was insane! And honestly a lot of fun. The "country music / sterotypical 'southern' (gross... sorry I couldn't help but interject my opinion)" popularity factors in too to make some people more comfortable with going to city bars... but the way I see it, the guarantee of a lively night any night of the week, like a Las Vegas or NYC type of party atmosphere, will keep the development rolling in as long as they can keep it up. I'd look to Miami as an example of how Nashville may look in ~30 years. It'll still be lively, but a bit cooled.

Incredible little corner of the NYC metro... thanks for sharing!

^If done well, that's a really good idea! Historically speaking, there's always been a ton of small businesses all around Dayton... tool and die shops, and support services like plating, machine tool sales, etc. But as an employee at one, I'm finding that there's not a lot of resources to help out and offer guidance if needed. This is in huge contrast to, say, 20 years ago when the professional organizations were a lot stronger before the recession. The recession made a lot of these shops unable to pay their dues for years (like from 2009 all the way into 2013, 2014, even 2015) and in turn they really had to pear down what they do. A resource like this would help a lot of shops that can't afford an Aileron class get the basics they need to make good decisions in this environment.

True. That and with the way growth is going in downtown Cincinnati I don't think filling the vacant Macy's tower space will be all that much of an issue. Hopefully the owners give it a refresh inside and out to make sure it is a solid Class A property.

^ it is a massive transformation... honestly the rebirth of downtown Dayton east of Main to, say, Keowee is probably the fastest growing part of the Dayton region, aside from all of the houses being built out in Carriage Trails in Huber. It's definitely the fastest growing office and restaurant/bar area around. Huge change from 7-8 years ago when we were all just hoping the vacant buildings could avoid demolition... what a great change!

They did a complete renovation on MapleStreet Station dining hall, built in 2014 with seven standalone restaurants, back in 2016/2017. It has been renamed MapleStreet Commons. They converted four of the restaurants to a large buffet dining hall. The former New York style pizza restaurant was converted into a convenience store market. I'm not quite sure what happened to the former Starbucks & sandwich shop, and The reason for the renovation wasn't because of aesthetics, it was because they couldn't get enough students to work the seven different fast-casual restaurants inside the dining hall. Having worked there for a while, I can say staffing was a nightmare... the food concepts were way too elaborate (labor heavy) and expensive to work for the student base. It was $10 gourmet hamburgers, fancy coffee drinks, Winans chocolates, artisan deli/grill sandwiches, etc. The food, despite the price, was great quality and delicious. In a way it's a shame it's gone, the menu was very innovative. But there's no way you can make a place work when you're running a skeleton crew with sky high food prices.

Tying in to the Mendelsons redevelopment... very big news!! JUST IN: Downtown Dayton to get a new hotel with rooftop bar https://www.daytondailynews.com/business/just-downtown-dayton-get-new-hotel-with-rooftop-bar/p5HzkoCbfrdXETRqiQqJaL/

^Awesome news if they get the funding! It's great to see a college want to grow its presence in West Dayton, hopefully WSU and others will follow... would be really nice to see Miami's Urban Leadership Institute shift up here from OTR since OTR is basically gentrified now. Also makes me wonder if CSU or other colleges would have an interest in taking over some or all of the under-utilized Taylor Communications space on Albany Street or the former Seminary further north.

Basically this applies to anything Elon thinks up, but especially the Hyperloop

A week old, but good news for the Dayton Mall area. Hoping Washington Prime can either get the spot filled in soon or demolished to take advantage of the frontage on 741. Elder-Beerman store at Dayton Mall sold in $3.6M deal https://www.daytondailynews.com/business/elder-beerman-store-dayton-mall-sold-deal/LXaBjSfmCoaeRxFCJmhLDJ/

It seems like a dumb point but they really need to put in that pedestrian bridge to Lakota East HS. Teens + wealthy white parents = '80's style mall culture

Just to give you guys an idea at what CVG may be like in a few years, let's look at Louisville (SDF), UPS' hub. I don't have any figures offhand, but the skyview IMO shows well enough that the majority of planes through SDF are UPS, not commuter. Their actual commuter airport is very small compared to the massive cargo hub directly south. Given what Amazon is doing, for better or worse a lot of the work that is being done at the UPS hub in this screenshot will probably be coming up north to CVG, and CVG will look something like this picture. Maybe CVG could morph back into a hub. It'd be good overall for Daytonnati. But I do not think any legislator in OH is going to want that to happen, especially if they could buy out AK Steel Middletown and maybe even convince them to move some production to Mansfield or Ashland KY, which employed a lot of Ohioans and is slated to close.

Good question... Jeffersonville is a hike from any of the three big cities surrounding it but it is the most central location. What would make me say MIddletown is a smarter choice is the fact that CMH is in the beginning process of building a new terminal. Right now they just started on a new rental car garage, but if the whole master plan is executed it'll be a billion dollar project. IDK about CVG but DAY has a master plan too where they demolish terminals A & B, shrink both down a bit, and put them in a V-shaped formation instead of the U shape now. It seems like they are keeping these plans relatively private though vs. CMH, which makes me wonder if DAY has confidence in their funding. That, steel stock prices are crashing, CVG just landed Amazon.... now might be the time to get this done.

Also, CVG is in Boone County but is managed by the Kenton County Airport Board. Why? Because at the time it was established back in the 1940s, Kentucky did not permit counties with under 5,000 residents to sell bonds. So Kenton County, which is home to the City of Covington (and the notorious Covington Catholic High School -- which at some point moved out of Covington to suburban Park Hills), bought the property and built the airport in its neighboring county. That's also why they airport's letters are "CVG" = Covington. I'm not sure who does the appointing to the Kenton County Board, but they definitely are not elected officials but rather a who's-who of country clubbers and "their boys". Also, with regards to Amazon Prime Air - have FedEx or UPS brought fame and fortune to Louisville and Memphis? Heck no. For the most part they're just a bunch of crap odd-hour jobs for people who can barely pass a drug test. When I was driving to work one day this week, I saw multiple Amazon Prime Air jets drifting above I-275 cuing to land on the north/south runways, one after another. Look at those magnificent loss leaders, I thought to myself. Interesting history on CVG, I had no clue! What a bizarre way to get an airport. I'm figuring when it comes to airport jobs vs. Amazon hub jobs it's a wash, IF the airport jobs (baggage handlers, etc.) are non-union. Louisville is doing a bit better than Memphis, but you are right, neither one is a hub of fame and prosperity by any stretch of the imagination... more low pay, new age blue collar jobs, not anything that would qualify for Richard Florida's creative class. I think if there was political will in Ohio I could see a push for some kind of new Cincy airport or combined airport in Ohio. If Ohio/Indiana would have won its combined bid to be a UAS hub a few years back from the federal government, I could see some reason to re-purpose DAY and at least start the push for a combined airport. The Wilmington idea, even though it's not great unless there was high speed rail to connect it into Cincy, Dayton, and Columbus, has been kicked around many times before.

For CVG/DAY, the key would be getting an airport large enough to be a “hub” airport rather than regional airports like CVG and DAY are now. CVG used to be a hub before the hubs got consolidated even further into what we have now. I personally see demand for it, even though Detroit is relatively close, because DET, ATL, Dulles, and Ohare are the closest hubs to the north, south, east and west respectively. There is a void for Cincy, Dayton, Columbus, Indianapolis, Louisville, and Lexington. Combined that’s like 10 million people that don’t have a hub airport within reasonable driving distance, and in turn pay a whole lot more for longer flights with connections. Normally I’m very anti tearing up green fields to build new crap for “economic development”. But I still am bearish on AK Steel and their Middletown mill. If that ever closes, between it and the supporting Suncoke land there’s more than enough room for an airport there, in what would become a brownfield. And there’s already all kinds of rail infrastructure there that could be repurposed into light rail to Cincy and Dayton. But for all I know, in 50 years air travel may be replaced by bullet trains.

This whole thread is pie in the sky, but.... Building some kind of new combined Cin-Day hub airport would be pretty awesome tbh. And there's a ton of incentive for OH politicians to do it... take tax revenue away from KY while growing jobs in OH. It's the same petty cross-state competition that always happens, but with CVG essentially getting Amazon's air hub it would not be a death knell to it. And with all the distribution centers being built by DAY, I could see it staying open in a smaller capacity to handle freight and maybe a couple passenger flights, similar maybe to places like Lincoln, NB.

It seems like parks would be most usable if the Race St. and Walnut St. bridges were included in the park space too... limiting traffic across FWW to Elm, Vine or Main. It'd require conversion of all of those to 2-way streets, and to make it better maybe the Streetcar track could be taken off the Main St. bridge and go on the Race and Walnut St. bridges only.

Not to float wild conspiracy theories, but I have to here given how many Cincinnatians are giving the Bengals the middle finger this year... (that and my current avatar is a guy with a boot on his head, so wild conspiracies are bound to happen). The Bengals' agreement is up in, what, 2026? I see the market for MLS continuing to grow and the market for the NFL continuing to shrink while the league keeps exploring things like teams in London. Is there a possibility that FC Cincy can pull off Atlanta-style attendance in a renovated PBS if the Bengals were to leave town? And if that happens, what would happen to FC Cincy's new stadium if they jumped ship to PBS?

Thought this interview on Fresh Air today was incredibly interesting: https://www.npr.org/2019/11/06/776747102/we-re-all-struggling-writer-saeed-jones-reflects-on-identity-and-acceptance There's a lot of takeaways from it, but being a biased Ohioan like I am I thought his discussion on Columbus (which starts around the 27:00 minute mark) was enlightening. Saeed Jones moved from NYC to Columbus' Short North a couple months ago. He is an author, poet, and Buzzfeed editor, and has said (paraphrased) that Columbus is a refreshing place to live because everything is easier to do than in NYC. Errands are easier to run, rent is lower, and there's more of a community. He said Columbus is the gayest city he has ever lived in, including SF, and that the literary community is great too. I do not have a WaPo subscirption so I have not read this article, but it would be worth the read as well IMO: https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/forget-new-york-for-writer-saeed-jones-columbus-ohio-is-the-place-to-be-a-literary-star/2019/10/22/7d0deb60-ef58-11e9-8693-f487e46784aa_story.html

Norwood is an interesting case... like an urban version of Moraine up in Dayton since both are former GM towns, largely built around (and for) the GM plants. When GM left Moraine, there was talk of the town going bankrupt and having to dissolve for quite a while... I don't think that talk died down until Fuyao came in tbh. From an outsider perspective, it seems like with all of the development that has happened in Norwood recently it should be doing great.