BigDipper 80

This is all great news for Sandusky. Honestly just by virtue of location and relatively small size, Sandusky has the most/easiest complete-turnaround potential of any city in Ohio.

In slightly more hopeful news... State legislators touring Dayton Arcade today http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/state-legislators-touring-dayton-arcade-today/SZokhGuTtEKlw9FKal5xqN/

Honestly, I was surprised anyone agreed with me at all, because I knew I was painting that statement with reeeeeally big brush strokes! :lol: All that I really meant by that comment was that Denver struck me as more architecturally similar to a Columbus or a Dayton than what I was expecting. Curtis Park would be right at home next to Italian Village, and Victorian Village could easily have been located along 17th Avenue in Denver, and the scale of the commercial streets struck me as similar in a number of places. The two cities definitely function pretty differently though in terms of development and transportation. (And Denver's pretty flat, too!)

But but but it snows! Who cares what your built environment looks like when you get the pleasure of sitting inside in your air conditioning year round, right?

^the technology behind wooden coasters has changed dramatically in the past 20-ish years. Most modern wooden roller coasters, especially by those built by GCI (who are building Magical Forest) are butter-smooth. And a lot of wood coasters actually have inversions and 90 degree banks these days.

The new dunnhumby building in Cincinnati was actually designed like this - most of the floors of the parking garage can be converted into more office space when 84.51 needs to expand.

Yeah, IDK how I feel about this... at what point in history does historic preservation start including sh*tty 1960s rusted metal facade wraps? :-D

Long video but an interesting watch:

I just noticed they broke ground on the above project. There's a fence up and they've been moving dirt around.

Is there documentation floating out there for the 271 project? I'm sort of curious how ODOT is going to weave the express lanes through the 271/480 interchange, or whether there will just be a break, forcing everyone to merge into the local lanes for a couple miles before they pick up again south of the interchange.

Yeah there really aren't too many traffic bottlenecks anywhere where a cyclist would realistically be here, and half the time you don't even need the bike lanes downtown because you have the whole street to yourself. But I've been very impressed with the amount of people who actually get around by bike here, I always see people commuting around on the Link bikes or even just recreationally on the trails along the Miami.

Good to see some rehabs coming to Price Hill- It's a neighborhood that has always mystified and intrigued me, and I get that they're trying to capitalize on the views of downtown with the Incline District, but it still feels like they're trying to create a new business district from the ground up when Warsaw and Glenway are right down the street. With how disjointed Price Hill is I'm sure it's hard to get anything cohesive to develop over there, but I'm also not fluent in "West Side" so maybe I just don't get it.

Dayton's been doing a great job with road diets recently. They just finished narrowing Fifth Street between Wayne and Keowee, Brown Street now has bike lanes along it (although it's inexplicably still 35 when it should really be 25-30 now), and downtown has a lot of bike lanes that help compliment the region's incredibly robust bike trail network. It's been nice seeing so much proactive work from a smaller rust belt city.

Yeah, I think a rail line up to Carmel would be a boon for that Meridian corridor. There are some great Chicago-esque rowhouses and apartment buildings just north of downtown and I'd love for that area to start seeing Mass Ave-type development.

Glad to see businesses slowly marching further north and West from Fifth Street!

Yeah if Grosse Pointe can pull off an urban-ish grocery store along Kercheval, an actual city with an actual downtown shouldn't have any issues. I wouldn't be surprised if it's because the City isn't pushing back hard enough on getting one built the right way or have too many other random barriers in place.

They meant First and St Clair. It's the grassy lot across from Memorial Hall.

Ewwwwww, good for DAY getting a new flight but ewww Myrtle Beach.

I'm glad it isn't turning into a carbon copy of New Texas Giant, at least what we've seen so far. At any rate, I'll bet in 2018 the CP&LE Railroad will manage to steal back the top ridership from Gatekeeper! :lol: Between this ride and Maverick, Frontiertown is going to be forever doomed to being absolutely slammed with people.

Yes!!!!!!!!! I've been saying for YEARS that CP needed to partner with Cleveland restaurants and up its (frankly terrible) food offerings. Maybe they can convince Michael Symon to open a B Spot at the park too.

Agreed - I was very impressed when I was out there how dramatically the light rail network was transforming the city, most notably in LoDo. But even in the areas where the trains don't run, the city was densifying and promoting walkability on a scale we don't often see out here. I'm sure the Colordan's health-but sensibility plays into it a lot as well.

I don't know if I'm alone in this observation, but Denver actually reminded of a dirtier Columbus. Its layout feels very Midwestern in certain parts of the city, and the architecture in some of the oldest neighborhoods could easily be confused with similar buildings in any of the Villages. I really need to get out to SLC one of these days, I feel like even though their built environment isn't as stellar as other cities, they understand how to really do transit and complete streets a lot better than some of its peer cities out this way.

The Solon/Aurora area has a pretty sizable Asian population and good school districts if that is important to you. However you will have to drive absolutely everywhere if you live out there, whereas Shaker Heights definitely feels suburban with larger houses with large yards but it is still possible to walk places or take the train downtown. I have a feeling that it's going to be harder to find a place to rent in Solon as well, as it's mostly owner-occupied houses out there. Shaker is definitely more rental-friendly. If I were you I probably wouldn't even look at Westlake, it's essentially exactly the same type of place as Solon (newer houses on cul-de-sacs, having to drive everywhere) but further from Warrensville Heights - 30 minutes or more commute-wise. I echo everyone's sentiments about AsiaTown - it's not as large as, say, Chicago's Chinatown, but it isn't at all "touristy" and has everything you'd probably need in terms of specialty ingredients/live fish/etc.

A lot of cities are building terrible infill right now. Most of what I saw in Denver recently was barely better quality than the Banks (albeit taller and glassier), and the neighborhoods from Curtis Park to Cherry Creek had some truly abysmal residential infill scattered throughout. That's not to say we should be shooting for crappy infill, but it seems that nationwide people are generally more willing to pay for a location than for good architecture right now, with a few exceptions scattered around.

I'll be down in Cincinnati next weekend - I'll grab a pic if I remember and no one else posts anything before then.