kjbrill

The only reason Tri-County is more accessible is because there is nobody there. You are typically driving around a more than half empty parking lot and garage. A number of years ago it was a bear to get in and out of. It is even noticable the traffic on the feeder streets like Princeton Pike and Kemper Rd is less. In recent years I have only been there to go to the Time Warner Cable store and exchange a cable modem or a settop box. Felt like I was alone. I don't know what the reasons are for the decline in traffic, but it sure is evident. I remember driving from Madeira to Tri-County because it offered more than Kenwood Plaza. Just had to remind myself to never get close to the place around Christmas which was a complete logjam, kind of like what KTC is today.

Exactly. So heed your own advice and don't immediately call projects happening in the city a failure. That's all you hear from suburbanites, and in this day in age, it's always so nice to shut them up when cities are enjoying an immense rebound. And just what exactly does this have to do with Austin Landing, which is about as suburban as you can get? If you have a point I certainly missed it.

I go back to when it was the open air Kenwood Plaza, a place you could go to and shop at quite a number of stores in a short period of time. Then they built Kenwood Mall (currently Sycamore Plaza) across the street. It was also pleasant as being enclosed weather was not a factor. But entrance and exit was easy. Before I moved to Mason I used to do the weekly grocery shopping in the Thriftway at Kenwood Mall. Loved that store, great layout, good selection, reasonable prices, and convenient. Wheel the cart out of the store to a parking place close and not out in East Jesus somewhere. If I remember right Shillitos was the anchor store and we frequently went there. As years went on they got the bright idea to convert Kenwood Plaza into an enclosed mall, double deck much of it, and add more stores. Must have been the same outfit who redesigned Tri-County. Access to the result became more difficult as parking seemed to be an after-thought. As enclosed malls have dropped in favor, they started ripping out the backs of stores to provide a secondary open-air entrance. This further confuses the whole scenario. Where do I park, where do I enter? Then someone decides to maximize on location and cram Kenwood Towne Place on a sliver of land smack next to I-71. We are all familiar with the rusted monstrosity sitting there for years. Even if completed, it is only going to further impact the problems of navigating through Kenwood Towne Center. I will still state KTC is nearing a position of decline. Why? Because people increasingly put a value on their time and the hassle of trying to make a purchase at KTC is just not worth it. It has already brought Tri-County to its knees and will do the same thing here, just may take longer.

But didn't I just read Frontier is pulling out of Dayton because they don't want to compete head to head with Southwest? Sounds to me like the same old games in the airline industry. Support us and we will forget you.

I agree it is the cream of the crop, which doesn't say a whole lot for the crop. Other than the fact it survives, how anyone can say a shopping experience there is any less painful than an impacted tooth is beyond me. My mother passed away 6 years ago. Dillards was the store she always wanted to go to for clothing as she knew it, dating back to when it was McAlpins. Just before her passing was the last time I have been in KTC, and I expect will remain the last.

You want to equate Kenwood Towne Place in the same breath with The Banks? Talk about apples and oranges, a downtown riverbank urban entertainment/residential development versus a suburban addon to a already slipping shopping mall. They really have a lot in common. The only reason Kenwood Towne Center hangs on as well as it does is there is no alternative. Downtown Cincinnati has what two places Macy's and Saks. Ask two dozen people to name another retail shopping destination in Cincinnati and you will be lucky to get 2 replies. But that does not mean Kenwood Towne Place will ever come close to fulfilling its original intent. While it was sitting there being a complete eyesore next to I-71 time were changing as they still are. I still expect part of the tower structure to be demolished and the scope reduced. Why would anyone want to work in an office above a shopping center and have to contend with the congested traffic?

It may not be built and open yet but what has been announced for all 4 corners of the interchange adds up to a lot of retail. Of course announcements are not necessarily reality. People announce things all the time but then come up short on the financing and it all falls through. Time will tell in this case. I did notice some of the announced restaurants have been pushed back by about a year. Caution is better than outright failure.

^^ You mean like the ones right across the road on I-71? This place was ill-conceived from the beginning and I have seen nothing to indicate it will come out like a rose.

OK, it has been well over a year since I posted this would become a major retail center and was ridiculed. As time marches on who was right? Anytime you have money thrown at it as this development has the result is predictable. Call it mixed use if you want just because it has a jumble of occupants. But one thing I know it is not is urban. It is suburban sprawl at its best. I still hope the Liberty Towne Square falls flat, simply because it is close to me and we need the congestion/traffic like a hole in the head.

Frankly I consider this the kind of meaningless article not worth publishing. Comparing average airfares, so what. Include some meaningful statistics such as range min. to max. and associated length of flight which equals fuel which equals money. We all know the demise of Comair has greatly affected both the number of flights and I suspect the average city size served by Delta out of CVG. The consolidation into one terminal was a good move. It should help customer convenience. I suspect United is only interested in one thing, ferrying passengers through their Chicago hub. It would be interesting to compare the price of a ticket on United via Chicago to say LA to just a round trip ticket CVG to Chicago. I suspect the just CVG to Chicago ticket suffers as the majority of those are business trips and easily justified as necessities. I remember years ago booking flights through CVG to other destinations and then just getting off at CVG and discarding the rest of the ticket as the result was cheaper. That is the way things work in the airline industry.

The referenced link is simply the publishing of a letter to the editor. There is nothing in it which confirms in any way the validity of what is said. Note it starts off with Just heard but no indication of heard where. I think you will find this is old news. Yes Duke did apply for a surcharge to area customer bills to pay for the streetcar utility relocation but that was shot down by PUCO real quick.

The only real control over Duke is the rates they can charge customers for services, which are negotiated with PUCO. Even there, PUCO must permit Duke to recover investments in increased capacity, modernization, anti-pollution measures, etc. If they cannot agree the matter goes to the courts.

Answer: Feeder rail systems from Cincinnati/OH, Lexington and Louisville to CVG. That is a pipe-dream if there ever was one. Why should either Lexington, Louisville, or anywhere else be interested in a rail feeder system to CVG? Are you also including Indianapolis and Columbus? Sometimes you rail advocates are just plain rediculous.

Dream on, why would any successful business want to align themelves with this debacle? It is going to take more then some court orders for people to gain any recognition they want to be associated with this place. It is a blight which will remain a blight for some time to come.

There are plenty more effective ways for me to learn how to be an architect than to design a glorified Port-o-Let, especially when I'm spending tens of thousands of dollars for the opportunity. A typical graduate elective studio for M.Arch. students at DAAP -- one I took last year -- involved helping design a health clinic in rural Tanzania, on a site with no electricity, sanitation, or running water, using materials that could be sourced locally and assembled by locals with very little training in building construction. And then one or two students from our group had the opportunity to spend their co-op on site in Tanzania to help supervise construction. IMO, such a studio has far more educational value than anything offered by this project. Society has far more important design-related challenges to address than to redesign a modular public toilet that can simply be ordered from a catalog. The suggestion to use DAAP students for this particular project seems to have very little to do with any inherent educational value, and more to do with trying to skim a few dollars off the price by using unpaid labor. I'm a firm believer in learning design by taking on real-world projects that have a clear humanitarian focus, but your attitude seems to be more along the lines of, "Wow, this project is too expensive. Let's just get some DAAP kids to design it for free." Such an attitude is demeaning and insulting to the real issues that get addressed within the various DAAP programs, and it's insulting to practicing architects and designers who expect to get fairly compensated for their work. Before you get on your high horse about a public toilet design not being a suitable project for DAAP, perhaps you can back up your statement concerning ordering a public toilet from a catalog, especially for considerably less than $130,000 per copy. I am sure the City of Cincinnati would be interested in hearing from you.

Cute, a big waste of space but cute.

We can all lament the reduction at CVG, but it is due to some basic fundamental economics. First was consolidation within the airline industry. When Delta merged with Northwest the first problem was identified. Northwest had invested huge sums of money in facilities at the Detroit airport. For some strange reason a number of Northwest executives were elevated to high positions within Delta. CVG and Detroit were too close together. The decision was made to go with Detroit and downsize CVG. Second was the deemphasis of the hub concept. This was largely due to the rapid acknowledgement the regional jet was doomed. The very thing which had made Comair the king of the regional airline industry and the feeder of the hubs was its downfall. With large increases in fuel prices the inefficiency of the regional jet made it too expensive to operate. The very thing which had spurred Comair's development, frequent flights at convenient intervals to destinations like Montreal became its liability, unless fully loaded the regional jet was uneconomical to operate. Even at fully loaded it was marginal. Thus Comair is no more, a huge effect on CVG. I applaud the decision to consolidate airline operations in the newest and largest Terminal 3. This should provide a much more pleasant environment for all passengers. The return of ABX/DHL to CVG was also a simple economic decision. Back when DHL had acquired Airborne Express to make them their US domestic distribution arm, the move to Wilmington was warranted. The number of total flights, particularly domestic and the cargo sorting capacity demanded a facility as large as Wilmington. But when DHL decided they had made a mistake and to exit the US domestic cargo distribution business Wilmington immediately became a liability. The mothballed DHL facility at CVG became a natural to return there as a terminus for DHL's international shipping. CVG certainly has the runway capacity for the type of aircraft they are using. As has been commented, the only reason CVG has an international flight to Paris is the lucrative jet engine parts cargo business between GE Evendale and Seneca of France outside Paris. Rather than a negative attitude, we need to encourage CVG to encourage other carriers to come in there with offerings. But to dream about a return to the glory days when Delta operated a major hub here - not likely. Cincinnati itself just does not produce enough locally generated airline traffic for this to happen. I would be happy if just enough other carriers were brought in to offset the average ticket cost so the perception of overly expensive was overcome. But don't blame Delta. If no one else shows up to challenge them they are only doing what most businesses do - charge what the traffic will bear.

^ Except it is a different company.

Perhaps because you might learn something in the process. But I guess that is not why you are in school?

Yes, Rookwood Exchange and Oakley Station look exactly like the often quoted and maligned suburban sprawl planked right down in the middle of Cincinnati. So why do you expect this is true? May it have something to do with the high-paid business analysts the corporations have working for them to determine where people actually spend their money? Expressing what should be versus what is can be a daunting situation. Those who abhor these developments simply have to organize their collective purchasing power and make it be known what kind of establishments they will patronize compared to those they will not. Apparently the collective word is not yet quite out. But maybe if you install a light rail from downtown to Oakley everything will change.

It is amazing how people speculate what a developer should do with a property they just acquired. They have announced it will be converted to residential use. So some want an old gym to be leased out to a fitness center. That is just great for the increased traffic and disturbance to the residents of the building. I don't know how a swimming pool got on the 5th floor but it is obvious to me that will go. The one plan for preserving a running track around a gym for resident's use is commendable but I believe once the engineers/architects get done with their analysis that will disappear also due to noise, effect on unit space, etc. Those huge hallways and staircases in the pictures already tell me they occupy much of the gross space of the building, reducing the net apartment space. I will not be surprised if somewhere they announce tearing out the stairways and installing elevators with a much smaller footprint. There will certainly be a huge cry then about destroying the architecture. But it is up to the developer to determine their best course of action. Sure anyone can contribute ideas and suggestions. A lot depends on how they will market the property, urban living with close proximity to the streetcar no car required, or upscale with lots of amenities. Not enough has been divulged yet to determine.

Yes I am back. What an interesting topic, a $130,000 public toilet. Does the City intend to only install one? Seems this would make a good civic project for UC's DAAP college. Then farm it out to bid by local fabricators, expecting the prototype to be higher cost than future copies, but put that into the bid. Cost of first unit folowed by cost of duplicates depending on quantity over a specific time span. Same for the installation, bid that out also. Certainly we can beat that $130,000 cost. And if we get a local fabricator maybe they can sell it to Columbus, etc. Certainly shouldn't cost $20,000 to truck it to Columbus.

They upped the number of apartments to increase the profit, it had absolutely nothing to do with the density. Anyone who thinks this is an urban styled development has apparently never lived in an urban environment in their life. I have not, but at least I know the difference.

You are right, I just kind of ran off. Austin Landing and surroundings are a significant development. Anyone who thinks it will not affect everything from Dayton Mall to Springboro, etc. is smoking something stronger than weed.

Why do you say that? Just because the developers several years ago said it would not be a retail development means nothing once the actual occupants begin to commit. When I see a big-box store such as Kohls being one of the first right smack dab in the middle of it, I feel not only retail, but big-box retail. And this does not forbid well for Dayton Mall.