BigDipper 80

I love Hamilton! (Exclamation point on purpose there). They need to get that gap on the Miami River bike trail finished already... I'd love to see some sort of CVB coordination for the whole Miami Valley all the way from Sidney to Hamilton and market it as its own region.

Sigh... I'm going to have to say this in every thread, aren't I? Anduril went with Columbus because Rickenbacker provides 1) lots of room to expand and 2) already has 700,000 square feet of manufacturing space that they can move into immediately. None of the Greater Cleveland airport sites offer that. It's not a JobsOhio conspiracy.

Yeah the other sites they were looking at were in Texas and Arizona, I don't think they were concerned with politics in the slightest when they were choosing a final location.

The salient point here is the access to Rickenbacker coupled with the fact that there are already a couple of turnkey buildings that they can start moving into. A similar location doesn't exist in Cleveland.

They better make some actual ***** movement on redeveloping it this time, or I'm going to SCREAM!

I literally used to live on Central Avenue and never even noticed this duplex. Good to see it's getting some love.

Dayton bucks the trend when it comes to church conversions. We have at least 3 that are currently condos or businesses, and another one in the Oregon District is about to be turned into a hotel. But yeah, big classic basilica-plan Catholic churches are a bit harder to split up into useable space unless you're just using it as a brewery. Neighborhood Protestant churches have a bit more flexibility when it comes to subdividing them.

14 different Florida airports by my count. Utterly insane. I don't understand the appeal of one particular beach city over the other - they're all functionally the exact same in my view.

I'm still excited for this, but given the speed UD and Premier work at (and their past destructive transgressions around Midtown), I'll believe it when I see shovels in the dirt.

Don't trash talk my Jubie's! An elephant never forgets!!!!

Revisiting "Lancaster Revisited" 11 years later and I have to say the city is looking pretty impressive these days. Sustained population growth, the downtown is looking better than ever, and the historic architecture seems to be mostly fixed up and occupied these days, at least in the core. Not quite the doom and gloom that was predicted in Glass House a decade ago. I plan on going back later this summer or fall to really walk around and soak it all up - it's on track to become a really nice satellite of Columbus and a gateway to Hocking Hills even in spite of the unnecessarily huge US-33 beltway. Now, let's see Springfield take this trajectory......

Yeah again, Dayton is on the route because it's the most direct route between Columbus and Cincinnati. There's nothing particularly political about it, although there was certainly a cost-benefit analysis taken into account about stopping there. Some of y'all need to spend more time on Open Street Map looking at where rail lines actually run. They don't necessarily take the routes you'd expect them to take.

Dayton and Cincinnati don't tend to act as a regional unit and yet Dayton is included in many of the Amtrak updates. And that is because the most expeditious route between Columbus and Cincinnati is via Dayton. As KJP has said many times, it's not that anyone is purposefully leaving Akron/Canton off the table, it's that the existing rail infrastructure is less conducive to adding those cities to any intercity route that also connects to Cleveland or Columbus.

Xenia city council adopts 10-year development plan Xenia’s “neXtplan” has been a year and a half in the making; establishes Market District and Hub District as keys to vibrant urban core. Xenia City Council has adopted the “neXtPlan,” a 10-year roadmap for future development in the city. The document, which comes after a year and a half of dialogue between the city, residents and business owners, is the result of more than 900 interactions with the community, over 20 meetings, and four online surveys, according to the city. The neXtPlan establishes goals and strategies for urban revitalization, parks and recreation, transportation, housing, economic development, and public utilities and services. It replaces the 2013 X-Plan, a previous comprehensive plan that has been largely implemented and/or become outdated, according to the city. More below: https://www.daytondailynews.com/local/xenia-city-council-adopts-10-year-development-plan/U264SIWNAZBIRGHP25CHUQCVF4/

A Canton-Akron-Cleveland only route wouldn't really be under Amtrak's purview in all likelihood; that seems like it would be something that would be more of a state-focused project due to its limited scope and lack of easy/good connections to the national rail network. I'd love to see commuter rail between those cities, but from a pure infrastructure and directness standpoint, 3C+D basically just needs to throw down some concrete slabs in Columbus and Dayton and you could start running trains tomorrow on that route. I'd hate to see perfect become the enemy of good when we finally have some actual momentum to link most of the state with rail transit again.