Brutus_buckeye

If the economics work, then it is not a boondoggle no matter how many or few tenants you have. I don't think the Duke Energy Convention Center has a tenant yet we are talking about expanding/renovating that building. The logic is the same. To your point, without a major tenant, you likely will need to cut some corners on amenities compared to other arenas like say Detroit or San Francisco. You will not get as frequent of upgrades with the latest and greatest because you do not have the high end rent to justify it. However, much of that is a waste anyway. Do you really need all of that or is a much better arena built to modern standards worth some of the sacrifices to do it. You can build it and get the numbers to pencil out, you just need to do it on a lower scale than say San Francisco or Dallas does.

^ Even though the US/Mexico and Canada receive auto bids, the other countries need to qualify so they will still come play the US Team or the Canadian team in their quest to qualify. I assume he meant that these other teams would try and qualify even if it is only a friendly for the US Team.

But that can be the case for Covington too. an Arena on that site would fairly seemlessly connect with Main Strause

You could do both. An arena the connects to the convention center and serves as an expansion to that center and then a walkable neighborhood around it that serves as a hub of business and entertainment similar to Columbus arena district but on a bit smaller scale.

Not to disagree with you because overall, I agree with your point, but why not? NKY has some options. They have a convention center that they have wanted to expand for years. that same convention center borders one of the largest redevelopment plots in Covington. Why can't they help facilitate in an arena project? There are bonds that can be issued for convention center expansion (with an arena project to assist in that. Couple that with maybe some type of public/private investment dollars and neighborhood redevelopment around an arena district in Covington, and why cant they? Yes, it is a heavy lift, but if people align why cant it be done.

Except realistically, the tallest apartment tower built in the city in the last 20 years has been 20 stories so I cant see anything taller than that.

Office right now is not getting off the ground. Given that there is the public landing and park space along with the recent construction of the Atristry it seems like residential will work best with the development of a mid rise tower or some other types of mixed use property. Maybe some type of entertainment district would be beneficial too. Also, who knows if they keep the arena around in some type of downsized fashion hosting smaller events like the Gardens used to do. After all it is privately owned, pretty much fully paid for, it could still host shows of some sort even with a new state of the art arena. Also, it pretty much covers its costs just by selling ads on the side of the arena given its exposure to the highway.

I dont see how that is necessary. FCC is a natural proponent of bringing people to town. Just like the Casetellini family had power over the Banks development, having Berding as a spokesman is not a horrible idea. Yes, he can be a lightening rod for detractors fairly or unfairly, but he brings a ton to the table in that he has a lot of experience in sports entertainment, he has a ton of experience in the political process, he knows and is well networked with many of the business and community politicians to make such a project happen. Of all people, he brings a specialty expertise to the table to actually get this project to occur.

Cincinnati will not get an NBA/NHL expansion team. There is little incentive for either league to expand to Cincinnati. NBA has a team 90 minutes and 2 more 4 hours away repectively (Det/Cleveland). NHL is pretty much the same, it has a team 90 minutes away from Cincinnati, and 3 more within 4 hours (Nashville and Pitts and Detroit). From each league's perspective Cincinnati is covered. However, that does not mean that Cincinnati will not be able to get a team through acquisition. If as they say Lindner and Whitman are willing to buy an existing team and move it, that would be an opportunity. In that sense, I could see an NHL team coming over an NBA team because NHL markets tend to be less stable and more ripe for moving. I could see a team like Phoenix who struggles in AZ with hockey to continue, or if more issues with the Canadian dollar return like in the 90s then it may encourage teams like Winnipeg or Ottawa to relocate stateside. NBA is harder to predict because smaller cities like Memphis or OKC only have one professional team to support so their corporate markets can likely absorb that lift.

I would disagree with that. If Whitman is involved, it would more likely be Cincinnati anyway. She has connections in Cincinnati, she lived in Cincinnati for a few years (which establishes connection), she obviously has investment interest in Cincinnati so that alone would point to her wanting to invest in a team in Cincy. Also, I would argue that an NBA team in columbus would not work given that the NHL is already there and plays an overlapping season with the NBA. If Columbus did not already have an NHL team, an NBA team would likely work, but you have OSU basketball (which is minor in comparison), NHL Hockey and then NBA, all competing for 1) Same corporate dollars at the same time of year, 2) Competing for local and regional TV exposure all at the same time. It would be one thing if whatever regional sports network carries the Guardians in the Spring/Summer and Cavs in the Winter/Spring. So much of the marketing and attraction of corporate sponsors relies on exposure and being able to have the ability to get exposure in the market is essential. There would be too many conflicts with NHL and NBA in Columbus that could be a challenge for one of the teams in the market (and that does not even take into account Ohio State).

I think the talk of building an arena with the goal of luring an NBA or NHL team should be put to rest. It would be nice to have one, and it certainly would be possible at some point in the future to lure a team if we had an arena, but that should not be the end goal of the arena project. The arena should be built to support major league sports but pretty much know it will house the Cyclones and concerts and other events. It should be there to support large convention needs and needs like NCAA tourney that bring a lot of people to town for weekend activities. It should be about showcasing the city for big events not a permanent home to a professional team. if one eventually comes, it is icing on the cake, and it also becomes easier to attract one when you have a new arena and you have a city that puts on events that bring people from out of town and possibly make them want to relocate.

A lot of the rent raises from student loan forbearance has been factored into the market already. Pretty much one of the reasons why you are seeing such large rent increases the last couple of years. It will certainly continue with forgiveness but it will not cause an additional spike because renters have not been paying their loans since COVID so the market has already adjusted to that. Now, if the Court strikes down forgiveness, it will certainly cause the rental market to slow some since there is less money on the market for higher end apartments.

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2023/03/10/visit-cincy-asks-to-host-nfl-draft.html I am scooping @ColDayMan on this news since he is usually the first one to break these stories on this board :)

Not quite. There is a process for kicking someone out of office. It is not as simple as a group of people saying he is done once indicted. You still have to respect the fact he was an elected officeholder through the process and that the people chose to elect him. There is a lot of administrative work to kick him out. Not a simple process. You seem to want to keep glossing over the fact that he never would have been speaker without Dem votes. He had 26 Dems vote for him to put him over the top. You may want to believe it true that the GOP is solely corrupt and Dems have no blame for the Householder mess but the facts do not line up to the narrative you want to believe. Facts are facts, and the fact is that he needed strong support from the democratic caucus to put him over the top. There were some bold Dems that broke with their caucus because they knew he was corrupt but they risked the punishment from Dem leadership by voting against Householder. The fact is that the minority leadership whipped their members into voting for Householder to elect him speaker. While you may not want to believe it, the facts are undisputable.

I am not just blaming the dems. there are just as many GOP members with the blood on their hands. 26 GOP members voted for him too. 26 Dems voted for him. All 52 of these members have blood on their hands and are responsible. It is not a GOP or Dem thing. There are a lot of corrupt politicians and they cant shield behind the cloak of one party. Borges was corrupt too. He clearly was in Householder's back pocket, and going to jail because of it. Corrupt officials do not wear GOP or Dem stripes. Borges lost his position in the GOP before the whole Householder thing happened. Back in 2019 he was not in charge of the party, but certainly was peddling influence. Yes he did, and then they learned he was a scumbag. He would have never got the pwoer back without majority Dem support. So no, not letting Democrats off the hook here.

So explain to me how the Dems dont share any responsibility for Householder being speaker of the house when more Dems voted for him to become speaker than members of his own party. If the GOP voted to elect him speaker then it is all on the GOP, but he only had a minority of Republican votes. If Republicans were votingsolely for speaker, then your argument has merit, but the fact is that if it were not for a majority of the Democratic caucus, Householder would never have become speaker. If it were up to the GOP, Householder is never speaker. So, no the Democrats cannot claim purity in this entire event, they are just as responsible. In fact, they are 50% responsible because they gave him 50% of his votes for speaker https://www.cleveland.com/politics/2019/01/larry-householder-elected-ohio-house-speaker.html

You are conflating HB6 and Householder when they are 2 different things. Yes, he obviously had the GOP caucus push it over the line, but that is a separate issue than the fact that the guy was corrupt. The bigger issue is Householder was known in the GOP as corrupt. There are other corrupt politicians. The unfortunate thing about elections is that it makes it hard to get rid of them. You have to deal with them. Just because the state GOP did not like Householder does not mean they can expel him from the party. He won his election and is entitled to be there as representative of the people. However, what they can do is not work to promote him for leadership. That is what they were doing. Now he had a few allies in the party but not enough to get elected speaker. Without speaker, he does not control the gavel and cannot peddle the influence to pass HB6 or other legislation that he championed. When it came time to elect speaker, the GOP caucus was fractured (similar to this past year). The majority of the members of the GOP caucus did not want Householder to be speaker while a small minority did. Even though the Dems are the minority party, they can still vote for speaker. The majority of Dems (sans Brigid Kelly and a few others with scruples) voted for Householder for speaker to give him the gavel despite the majority of Republicans who were against it. So that is why the Democrats share the responsibility for putting him in power. Separate issue. Householder has due process rights. It is not a simple process to expel someone. He did not have many defenders when he got indicted, and remember the Dems have a vote too. They could have stonewalled the process. But his acension into the speakership was because of the Ohio Democratic party. If the GOP got to choose alone, he never would have been there. This is an important fact.

Time to quit watching cable news. It poisons people's brains, no matter what side you watch.

I think you are painting a caricature that you get watching MSNBC or some other cable news program. There are certainly bad eggs in the GOP just like there are a lot of bad eggs in the Dem party too. Householder was certainly a bad egg. Most of his GOP colleagues saw him as that. They cant do anything about his election to the legislature though, he comes from a small town and if the people of that town choose him against the wishes of the state party, there is nothing they can do about that. HOWEVER they can try and keep him from power, and they worked to keep him from the speaker's gavel. It was only because a majority of Democrats in the legislature that he was able to ascend to the speakership. Just like it is Democrats that give money to people like MTG or other fringe candidates in hopes that they will beat the "Normal" candidate in the primary and knock them out. So please stop acting like the Democratic party cares about anything more than securing power too, because based on their actions, they don't.

it is the truth that he was only speaker because of a majority of Democrats who voted for him. If it were up to the state GOP, Householder would have been just another member in the legislature without the power of the speaker gavel. So yeah, the Dems have blood on their hands in this one too.

Housholder is a crook and always known as corrupt. He was elected by the people in his county but the GOP did not like him nor trust him. It is important to remember that the only reason why he was speaker was because the majority of votes he received were from Democrats who voted for him and not the Republicans. So when the speaker was arrested, he was only in that position because of the Democrats who put him there.

If you pay more in taxes, it is common sense that you would see a larger tax cut in dollars than someone who pays less tax. It still means that the wealthy are still paying the lions share of taxes in Ohio. I hate when people act like these numbers are something more than they are and misrepresent them as some windfall to the rich which it isn't

I get the funding gap but the railroad sale funds (if it happens) could not be used to cover the expansion of the convention center as currently written now.

I am not quite following the how the sale of the Southern Railroad is related to the convention center hotel

I wish it were taller too, but it seems like it is around the same height or at least close to the same height as the millenium, correct?