NEOBuckeye

An Amazon distribution center for that part of the Akron area will be a genuine godsend. The surrounding Lane-Wooster, Kenmore and Barberton communities are among the most depressed in the metro. Several hundred to 1000+ living wage blue collar jobs coming in will be a shot in the arm--of the positive sort. This is honestly something that needed to happen years ago, but there's no time like the present. It should also further serve to boost the nascent economic revitalization efforts in Barberton and Kenmore. Now if we could just figure out a second life for the Chapel Hill Mall property.

Go ahead and start one. This is the second Wallhaven development in a decade. Haha It's a trend! Things are picking up!

Isn't there a thread for Wallhaven development? If not, there should be.

There's also a railroad you have to contend with to achieve what you're proposing. In fact, it is the entire reason the road bends to North Howard - to avoid spending public resources via eminent domain to create a public way over a railroad with marginal benefits. For as much as I'd like to see what you're proposing, the costs far outweigh the benefits. I'm still confused. Is the question why a road doesn't go directly into Luigi's from Downtown? Because there is nothing wrong with the way it works now. You're not going to get railroad land via eminent domain. Personally, I'd love to see some kind of pedestrian tunnel under MLK/Rt. 59 that connects Northside and the Main-Market Arts District.

Would the Giant Eagle Market District store be a standalone project or an anchor in a mixed-use expansion of East End into the Goodyear lots and fields? I could see the latter approach serving the East End district much better than the former. The more traditional suburban-style big box with out lots would be a poor choice in a place where density has genuine potential to truly revitalize the old Goodyear HQ Complex/East End district and reconnect it with Goodyear Heights via Goodyear Boulevard.

Gee. Just what Cleveland needs. Two extremely rich libertarians who will likely never need a train, but who religiously believe that no one else should ever want to need one either. ::) They don't even live in Northeast Ohio. What is it to them, anyway?

^Kasich comes off a bit too faux folksy-preachy for me, but particularly so since he got bitten by the White House-seekers' bug. I don't find the notion of sharing a beer with him any more appealing than one with Trump or Clinton, honestly. All three are deeply flawed people, but not at all in a remotely charming or reassuring way, IMHO. Contrast them with Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, who for their own respective deep character flaws at least give off a more authentic "not pretending to be something they really aren't" vibe, which might also at least be partially responsible for their relative successes in politics.

^For the right woman they would. But no one, not even most Trump voters, is going to confuse a CPA from suburban Akron, of all places, for Sarah Palin.

I have been intending to update my earlier analysis and predictions for a few weeks now, but Vox's is about as spot on as I would call it at this time. I still think this race comes down between DeWine and Cordray. Taylor is running desperate and it shows. In her 7+ years as Lt. Gov, she has been VERY low profile, even as "second fiddle" executive positions go. One would think that she would have been positioning herself all along in a much higher profile way for the inevitable end of Kasich's tenure, and to be his clear and away successor. Her behaviors instead suggest someone who has been sleepwalking through two terms, just had their "wake-up alarm" go off, and is panicking now because they have to scramble to secure their next gig, one that they assumed was already in the bag but has slipped out of it, if it was ever actually in it to begin with. Taylor is positioning herself as the candidate of Trump's base, but even if that were otherwise enough to win, it's a look that doesn't suit her well, considering that she was in elected office well before Trump entered politics. As for Kucinich, I would never underestimate him, but the Syrian disclosure will turn-off many in the broader coalition of voters he was hoping to build across left-wing and right-wing ideological camps. FWIW, I do think either DeWine or Cordray will prove to be a much more hands-on and pragmatic governor than Kasich has been during his second term. The state could really use a chief executive who isn't off chasing his long-shot dreams of becoming POTUS.

I'm not against them, per se. Honestly, most Midwestern cities have relatively few skyscrapers to begin with, and no city seems likely to go down the path of a Chicago or Tokyo anytime soon, if ever, to the point where we need to think about regulating them on a mass scale. I'm mostly in the camp of wishing that some of our cities, like Cleveland, did a better job following through on some of their shelved proposals (e.g. Progressive Tower), if for no other reason than the fact that these would have contributed substantially to their character in ways both obvious and less so. At the same time, I also wish Columbus, for example, had adhered better to its 1908 plan. We missed out on what could have been one of the most beautiful capitol squares in the US for a few mostly meh office towers across from the Statehouse on High St that easily could have been built elsewhere around its perimeter. The effect is a statehouse that seems almost incidental to the city and state, rather than a place of import with purpose beyond serving as the seat of state government. Overlooking urban form considerations like this are my only real critique in the construction of skyscrapers, but skyscrapers themselves obviously aren't to blame.

FWIW, 5xNW looks and sounds a lot like SxSW--the music and creative festival in Austin. I usually just call the area "Grandview" although that technically isn't correct either. What really doesn't help is that what is essentially "Downtown Grandview" along Grandview Ave is actually municipal Columbus north of 3rd Ave. Grandview Heights, which informally lends its name to the broader area, really only makes up a small portion of it.

Peduto gave a nice shout out to Cleveland and Detroit as well. He definitely seems to get the significance of what is happening in Pittsburgh for the rest of the Rust Belt. As Pittsburgh succeeds, Cleveland and Detroit's prospects for new investment and growth will also improve. If Pittsburgh stumbles in its turnaround, however, the prospects and outlook for the entire region will be that much less hopeful.

I think of driverless cars as today's Jetson's flying car. A little less pie-in-the sky, but likely to be just as impractical in reality, particularly given all of the things that can and do go wrong with digital technology. Not to mention maintenance and upkeep, which are likely to be expensive. And network hackers. Need I say more?

I always wondered how the University of Cincinnati ended up with the "uc.edu" domain when the University of California obviously has a higher profile and that much more clout. First come, first served, apparently. The University of California's web/IT people must still be kicking themselves over that one. As for then-Gov. Strickland's "University of Ohio" initiative, there was actually a fairly serious plan his administration was floating near the end of his term to consolidate the NE Ohio universities--Cleveland State, Akron, Kent, and Youngstown--into one regional university system (e.g. "UNEO" or "NEO U"). Supposedly CSU and Akron's presidents were definitely on board with it, and had even talked casually about consolidating and just forming their own "Akron-Cleveland University." The lynchpin in Strickland's plan, though, was Kent, who balked at the idea of giving up their own identity. Not too long afterwards, Strickland lost his re-election bid to Kasich, and all regionalization talks ground to a halt. Kasich and his admin during their seven years so far have never revisited any serious consolidation efforts, and it doesn't at all seem likely that he is going to start them now, during his final, lame duck year as Governor. It will be curious to see what, if anything, his successor chooses to do. The only thing certain is that the current trends in Higher Ed and Ohio's population and demographics are going to continue, and the state system is going to struggle even more in the coming years to sustain itself based upon these issues and the current number of universities it supports.

The present state university system is the legacy of Gov. Rhodes and his notion that all Ohioans should have a public university in their community or at least within a reasonable commute. While it's a very egalitarian policy, it clearly isn't practical for the state and its socioeconomic outlook today, and also considering current trends in Higher Ed. I think as others have also suggested, Ohio really should have and focus on building-up and maintaining 3 major public regional universities representing each of the 3Cs/largest metros--Ohio State, University of Cincinnati, and what would need to be a massively "powered-up" Cleveland State likely resulting from a consolidation of CSU, Kent, and Akron into a regional system (e.g. University of Cleveland? University of Northeast Ohio?). The 3Cs should obviously differentiate themselves somewhat in terms of their research and programmatic focus to the point that they aren't essentially carbon copies of each other. Where this leaves other state universities like Ohio University, Toledo, Bowling Green, Youngstown State, and Wright State long term is uncertain, but I could see some amount of specialization and/or regional consolidation happening among them too--Toledo and BGSU in NW Ohio, as someone suggested. Wright State also maybe becomes "University of Cincinnati at Dayton." This approach probably doesn't support some of the more aggressive satellite campus expansion efforts we have recently seen by OU in Columbus, which really make no sense from a state resource allocation standpoint with Ohio State already being an established presence there.

OSU has done a great deal to lobby the state to prioritize support for them over UC. Former President Gordon Gee in particular made no bones about this. They have long aggressively and successfully asserted their flagship status around the state. UC operates at a number of relative disadvantages, not the least of them being that they are not located in the state capital, but rather in one of its far-flung regions, and in a border city at that. UC probably should be on a competitive level on par with OSU, or at least the University of Pittsburgh, but as long as they are within Ohio, OSU will ensure that they never manage to achieve it.

Looks like Cordray has chosen Betty Sutton for his Lt. Gov. candidate. I predicted he would either choose Sutton or Dayton's Nan Whaley. Sutton is probably the best strategic choice he could have made as a counterweight to DeWine's Lt. Gov. choice of Jon Husted. The main event for the GE is shaping up fast, despite whatever pretenses are being made now to the contrary. I don't take Kucinich seriously as a gubernatorial candidate, nor does Mary Taylor's or Bill O'Neill Lt. Gov choices today suddenly make them legitimate gubernatorial contenders. Kucinich would have been better off running for Congress again somewhere on the West Coast, while Taylor and O'Neill are both likely heading for political retirement after the primaries. I, for one, honestly don't see this presumptive matchup as as a yawn fest. I mean, isn't the apparent want of drama and celebrity in our politics in the vein of Trump, Jerry Springer, etc., what got us into the mess we are in with DJT? If DeWine and Cordray can have a series of rational debates around the state on the real issues, without all of the name-calling, tweeting, and over-the-top bs that we saw nationally this past cycle, we're all the better for it here in Ohio.

I'm still standing with "Cordray vs. DeWine" for the GE. I don't see Renacci winning the GOP nod at all. He has little recognition outside of NE Ohio, and his attempts to position himself as a Trump-like candidate are increasingly likely to backfire as Trump's own political fortunes and popularity tank. Kucinich will also be on the margins in this race. The Dems' nominee needs to aim to win over a broad political coalition in order to be competitive, something that Cordray seems well suited for, but Kucinich not so much.

^Meh. I was hoping for something a little more local and unique for that corner.

Self-Driving Cars = Flying Cars Everyone who grew up watching the Jetsons is still waiting for the latter, while the former is merely the latest diversion away from action that addresses our transit needs at the most fundamental levels. May as well add the HYPEerloop onto this list as well.

The original plan was apparently for APS to move out of 70 N. Broadway and consolidate its offices into the 400 W Market building, which formerly housed McDonalds' corporate offices, and has since served as temporary "swing space" for schools that were being renovated or rebuilt. APS now owns that building outright. I can see how APS buying the SummaCare building might raise some eyebrows around the community though, particularly when the district was supposedly short of the money and students needed to rebuild Kenmore and Garfield high schools separately. So how do they justify purchasing a relatively new HQ building--and at a major downtown intersection at that--while the district continues to shrink? Administrative bloat, anyone?

We can't get this man out of office soon enough, as far as I'm concerned, although it doesn't seem that DeWine or another probable successor to Kasich is going to be any more friendly towards the overall cause of mass transit. But it's hard to think of another Ohio Governor that has been so openly hostile, or that will be, particularly towards rail. I remember Voinovich as Governor had actually considered advocating for a temporary passenger rail line between Cleveland and Cincy in the event that the Indians and Reds both made it into the World Series. Too bad that never panned out. It would have been helpful to be able to cite as an example, a recent Ohio Republican Governor who saw the benefits of passenger rail and acted on them, in light of one who couldn't be more thick-headed about anything that doesn't involve adding another lane to I-71. It probably helped that Voinovich was a Mayor, and of Cleveland at that. He understood the benefits and usefulness of the Rapid on some level. More than Kasich does or ever will.

^Political infighting in Cleveland and NE Ohio is a major factor in getting things done at any level, but Kasich is as much a sworn enemy of passenger rail in this state as there can be. It's a well-known fact that he waived off Obama's funding for building the 3C line almost immediately after he beat Strickland in November 2010. That was about as strong of a signal that we could have that Ohio would not be seeing any kind of support for rail service, new or existing, as long as he holds the governorship. His actions since then have only reinforced that fact. Cleveland could put together something sound, but Kasich would do his damndest to shoot it down, much like he did for Cincy's streetcar (although they still managed to build it anyway, in spite of him). Buffalo is fortunate to be in New York state for this very reason (as opposed to Pennsylvania or Ohio). Cleveland would enjoy a similar advantage here if Cincinnati had grown to Chicago-esque proportions--and built its subway system--as people once thought it might. There was a time, however, when Cleveland was in a far better position to leverage its political clout and influence in Ohio, much as NYC does today in NY. But that was when the city proper was as about as large as Columbus is getting to be, back when it still had the economic might of being in the heart of the Industrial Belt in its favor.

Richard Cordray is running for Ohio governor, Supreme Court justice was told http://www.cleveland.com/politics/index.ssf/2017/07/richard_cordray_is_running_for.html COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray is going to run for governor of Ohio, Ohio Supreme Court Justice Bill O'Neill said he was told last week by a mutual friend. O'Neill said the friend, whom he declined to name, "openly stated" that Cordray is going to enter the 2018 Democratic gubernatorial primary. The friend called to see whether O'Neill would stick to his past statement that he would stay out of the 2018 Democratic gubernatorial primary if Cordray entered the race. "The person I was talking to last week was saying that [Cordray] is basically trying to get as many projects done in Washington as he can before he leaves," said O'Neill, the lone Democrat on the state's high court. "But they left me with the clear impression that he is leaving." --- So it appears Cordray is tossing his hat into the ring to represent the Dems. We might see a competitive Gubernatorial race next year after all.

Doesn't surprise me. Considering the emergence of Grandview Yard, I figured it was only a matter of time before an effort would be made to develop the Goodale corridor to better connect it with the Arena District and Downtown in general. Plus with immediate access to Rt. 315, 670, etc., the White Castle HQ is sitting on prime real estate.