Brutus_buckeye

The difference between the Banks and the places in OTR is the rent is going to be much higher at the Banks which makes it harder for a small business to sustain itself down there. That is why it is full of national chains for the most part and OTR is mostly locally grown places. The other issues are that it does well on game days/event days, but otherwise, it relies on the local residents for business. WIth all the competition on that block along with competing against the rest of the business district establishments there are bound to be some casualties. The biggest thing here is that all parties, the owner, but mostly the city, in its effort to find a small minority business did not place it in a place to succeed. It may have done better at Fountain Square or OTR or somewhere where the overhead may have been cheaper. I think when people trash this deal, it is less to do with the owner, or racist overtones, but everything to do with prudent business practices and the city's lack of ability to approach the issue from a business standpoint.

If you listen to WLW, they actually say that they enjoy Mahogany's and that the food is good. They even defend the owner and say that she was railroaded by the city. I would not call that a racist slant or racist view on their part.

Very true. But if you look upthread, my reason for bringing disposable income into the thread was a question of why major concert acts are passing by Cincinnati. If given only so many routing options in a given time period, the promoter is going to go with the proven winner. In this case, Columbus with its student population, government jobs and competing arenas is winning out. See, I think it is the facility and amenities more than anything. Luxury boxes sell for concerts too and that drives revenue more than the college crowd. I get what you are saying CleBurger, but that may be 1-2% of the equation where the facility carries the majority of it. Nationwide is a much nicer facility. So is the QUicken and YUM as well as Indy's place. Cincy is losing out to Louisville and Cleveland and Indy and none of those cities have the student population of Columbus either. I think you may have merit to your point but only when comparing apples to apples in facilities and right now USBank and Nationwide are not on the same level

Jake makes a good point, ultimately, the disposable income of students, average Joes is irrelevant. That does not support the teams. They need to have a sustainable business class that will sell luxury boxes. The UC renovation is a perfect example of this. It is not the amount of seats they are adding but it is luxury boxes that will increase revenue. If you look at a lot of colleges who do stadium renovations, they are actually getting smaller but adding luxury boxes and high end seating.

You're splitting hairs here.

Again it is a statement based more on feeling than empirical data. Yes, Columbus has more government jobs, but it is a smaller metro so fewer people mean fewer dollars to spend.

Miami students may not trek to Bogarts or a niche venue, but they will trek to an arena show. Hell OSU students would trek to Cincinnati to see their favorite band as well as UC students going to Columbus. It is what college students do.

Ryan: OSU is a huge and yes has more students than UC. But, if you take all the schools in the region (excluding community colleges) the amount of college students is roughly the same. NKU, Miami, Xavier, MSJ students are just as likely to attend a concert at US Bank arena as a UC student. I also think you are selling the OWU and OBU students short in Columbus. Even if OSU has a higher income demographic than UC, the other schools in the region would more than bridge that gap.

Ryan - I think that there would need to be more data to indicate if this perception is true about OSU v UC. Given the size of OSU and UC there are a lot of students from every walk of life that we really don't know what background they are coming from. I would argue that your assertion is definitely true for Miami or Ohio U, but a city school like OSU is going to have a ton of commuters. I think a better way to compare that data is to look at the student population in the entire area. For Columbus that would be OSU, Capital, Otterbien, Ohio Wesleyean, etc. and in Cincinnati, you have UC, Xavier, NKU, MSJ, Thomas More, Miami, etc. - Point being is that the total student population of both areas is pretty much a wash as well as the demographic of those students.

I can think of 65,000 reasons just on campus at OSU alone. CLeburger - College kids do not have much disposable income. Student loans don't count as real disposable income. Besides UC and NKU combined have that many students, so what's your point

Columbus gets more arena acts because there is more disposable income in the market, and they have two competing arenas to keep the rent down. Sure a nicer arena helps, but up until a few years ago acts were still flowing through arenas like Mellon in Pittsburgh, which was WAY worse than US Bank in Cinci. I thought I saw a few months ago that Cincinnati was poised to take over as the largest economy in Ohio with Columbus a distant 3rd? How does Columbus have more disposable income

Jake - was this the author's first visit to Cincinnati?

Have fun with this, this is a total hypothetical game here. No need to be bitter against the Cran man here. For me personally, if I were the streetcar negotiator, in exchange for giving up on the streetcar, I would insist upon the Oasis and Wasson Lines be built. What else would people ask for?

Just wanted to have some fun here with hypotheticals since the streetcar is being built and there is not much controversy over it. But assume this situation. You are the sole negotiator against Cranley on the streetcar project. Cranley has the sole power to kill the project but he knows that it will take a lot of political capital on his part to do so. You are trying to negotiate the best possible outcome for the Streetcar proponents knowing that in the end the Streetcar is going to likely meet its demise. As the negotiator, what do you seek to extract from Cranley in exchange for him killing the streetcar?? Again this is all in fun.

To think we would not have to be having this conversation if we only built the Hippodome in Butler County like they proposed in the 1990s. As a blast from the past, does anyone have any articles on that?

The only way I could see a new arena working in Cincinnati without a major league team as a tenant would be to incorporate it with the convention center. It would allow larger conventions in a connecting space and an arena that connects to the convention center too. This is a pipe dream, but the only way I think it could be financially justified is to have some sort of arrangement like this.

US Bank is still fine for a Hockey arena but not as a basketball arena, and still it is dated by even modern Hockey arenas. Exterior is poor and the interior has narrow concourses, limited skyboxes, and limited ability to reconfigure in its present footprint. I don't know if the proposed location mentioned next to Lytle Place is an option because US Bank is small by arena standards today. That said, I cant see anything major happening there until a major tenant is in place. It was built because the Stingers came to town in the 70s so there was a major tenant. The last renovation in 97 was for the Cyclones when they played at a higher level, however, the debt service on that renovation threw the facility into bankruptcy only 4 years later. Minor league sports will not finance the construction of a major arena, and UC cannot carry the bill the same way Louisville or UK can because there is no competition in town. UC, even in good times only averaged 12-13k a game. Plus college bball averages about 15 home games a year as opposed to 40 for NHL or NBA. That means there are a lot more concerts, needed to fill the arena with decent crowds. Minor league teams can help cover the costs but do not bring in a large enough gate to justify the cost of the arena. Cincinnati would need something that would draw about 17k fans around 40 times a year to justify it which we do not have that type of base right now.

What other airlines are left to establish a hub in Cleveland? With the consolidation that has gone on, Delta is in DET, MSP and even CVG is a small hub status so they are out. US Air and AMerican are merging and they have Philly and Chicago hubs. Southwest has a different model and I thought Pittsburgh was almost a focus city for them. Frontier could be an option but from what I understand they have financial issues. Jet Blue? Possibly a flight or two but I cant see Cleveland as a focus city. Maybe Air Canada or something?

^ What could he say about it that looked encouraging? I am sure the mayors office has seen the writing on the wall for a few years now and trying to work behind the scenes to address it (either with new carriers or assurances from United). The city has no power in this situation. Even if they said they would punish United financially in some way, that would not change their decision.

The first part of this statement is patently untrue. The second part is very subjective, but outside of the worst "rush-hour" times, security takes 10 minutes or less in 90% of my trips. Security for 10 minutes of my time is a fair trade-off. The Point being, the days where you could pull in the garage 15-20 minutes before your flight and still catch it are over. It is much more of a hassle now. Business travelers adapt because they have to adapt but having the choice to fly from Cleveland to Akron or Toledo vs drive is an easy choice to make with the additional time spent in the airport. Add in the fact that some company budgets will not support flying those short distances anymore because of the additional costs too. Only if you don't know what you're doing :) I routinely go from my bedroom to my gate at Hopkins, start to finish, in 30 minutes. If you're already checked in, no baggage, TSA Pre, etc it's not that difficult barring anything unusual happening.... TSA Pre-approved helps, most flyers are not. Many business flyers are not because they are not necessarily road warriors.

The first part of this statement is patently untrue. The second part is very subjective, but outside of the worst "rush-hour" times, security takes 10 minutes or less in 90% of my trips. Security for 10 minutes of my time is a fair trade-off. The Point being, the days where you could pull in the garage 15-20 minutes before your flight and still catch it are over. It is much more of a hassle now. Business travelers adapt because they have to adapt but having the choice to fly from Cleveland to Akron or Toledo vs drive is an easy choice to make with the additional time spent in the airport. Add in the fact that some company budgets will not support flying those short distances anymore because of the additional costs too.

I think flying to places like Akron/Canton, Youngtown, Dayton, Columbus, Toledo from Cleveland was a luxury and convenience that ended with 9/11. When you go could to the airport 20 minutes before your flight, breeze through security and hop on the plane for a short flight, it made the trip worthwhile. Now, you have to arrive 2 hours ahead of time for your flight and going through security is a hassle. People who would take those flights today fly charter flights thus eliminating the demand for them. Personally, I do not fly anywhere less than a 5 hour drive for me because it really wont save much time between the commute to/from the airport and the hassle of checking in security. THis assumes the option of a non-stop flight.

You can have a hub anywhere, that is why Charlotte is a hub city. However, where the hub is duplicative, you do not get the economies of scale. When CLE was a Continental Hub, there was CLE, NEW and HOU. Cleveland served the Northern cities and Continental traffic flooded through there. It was still a smaller hub for continental and there were few non-stop international flights from CLE. When you had the merger, United had a much larger hub in Chicago which is essentially only an hour flight from CLE so it only made sense that the traffic would go there. The CLE hub is a victim of geography more than anything else. There are just too many cities close to it with hubs for other airlines. This was the same for Cincinnati, Detroit was a much larger airport and they had a huge state of the art terminal they opened that was superior to what was in Cincinnati. There was no need for CVG, MSP, and DET to be so close together. CVG while still technically a Delta hub shrunk considerably. It was a victim of geography too. So was Memphis being so close to Atlanta. I think Charlotte is going to shrink a bit after the American merger because American has Miami, a much larger city and international gateway as the Southeast presence. They are not going to need to have Washington, Philly, Charlotte and Miami as major hubs, plus Dallas has a strong Southern reach too. I think Charlotte survives but it will shrink like CVG and other smaller hubs.

Quimbob - It creates additional excitement and is a draw for people. It creates a tailgate type atmosphere.

Keep in mind that the pictures you see are going to be a mixture of the beautiful pre-1960s esplande and the horrific redo that followed. The renovation you are referring two was actually the second in ~40 years. The "new" Fountain Square is a huge improvement over what preceded it, but doesn't come close to the original. Horrific is a strong word. The old Fountain Square was a great space and a great design for the time. The new one is much better. You do not get to where we are today without the space that existed in the 1970's. When it was an esplanade it was really not a great public gathering space. What they did in the 1970's was make it more of a public square which promoted a public gathering. The 2006 renovation just enhanced that. Calling the old one horrific is a bit much.