audidave

I feel that the purpose of today’s meeting was to get an update from planning commission and to get feedback. They got both it would seem. The architectural firm can move forward on the main building and SHW has a bit more work to do with the other buildings as far as making them better interactive at street level. It would add to the pavilion’s cost by shoring up to build over it yes. But they would not have to foot the bill to build. That could be taken care of a hotel partner.

I doubt that SHW has really put much thought into the “campus” aspect of downtown Cleveland. They are running a company, expanding, getting the Brecksville location built and trying to nail down the main tower itself as far as layout and design. It sounds like SHW got some good feedback today. I would wonder if the activity on Jacob lot is not because of the expected feedback and they are assessing how vertical they can go without serious stabilization. I could see a hotel partner being brought in to build above the pavilion for a boutique hotel. SHW would get what they want and not have to sink more money into the build and get money from the hotel for leasing the air rights above the pavilion.

I suspect we will likely hear rumors of a new First Energy HQ in downtown Akron in the next year or so again. Last time there was interest was before they brought on their recently fired CEO in 2016. If management then felt there was a need for a new HQ then there will likely be a new vision with whatever new CEO comes in. There is currently an Interim CEO. Hard to say what actions the 85 year old Carl Icahn who is actively adding board members to the company is trying to ultimately do. The previous plan was to move onto the closed section of the innerbelt for the cheap spacious land and build an HQ similar to Goodyear’s new HQ. We shall see what changes time, scandals, covid, new management, activist investors, and a new CEO have to say about any of this. It could be a good branding strategy to be building a new energy efficient complex in downtown Akron that has an open and airy setting instead of their fairly brooding basic building they are in currently.

It would seem there’s close to 1500 apartments coming on-line downtown from 2020-2025. I’m looking at Mayflower which has been in a slow conversion for years. Philadelphia Rubber, BF Goodrich complex, Bowery district buildings, City Centre, Beacon Journal building, One Exchange, former YWCA at 146 S High st, and 30-40 new build at Main st by Market. Most of these conversions are 100-150 rooms. City Centre will probably be 200 or so as it was a 250 room hotel. Mayflower is 450 rooms moving from federally subsidized to market rate.

^^^Crappy analogy. A person on an electric bike is going to likely be faster than a person not on an electric bike. Teslas are some of the fastest vehicles on the road. My philosophy is any electric is better than no electric.

Maybe she is taking out the greens? I’d like to hear her side.

Well this plan is at most a distant concept. The Canton engineer and SARTA are looking to get SCATS to do a study for $25k. SCATS let the engineer know its not very high on their list. Probably why they went more public with it to get more support for the study. They said the city and SARTA might pay for the study themselves if SCATS wasn’t going to do it. Its definitely out of left field. What also was odd is they seemed to know the power source of the train, a fuel cell. What made the article even more confusing is it said in a “subsequent” phase they would connect to CAK. So if they think they are going to be transporting people in droves back and forth from the HOF to the outskirts of downtown Canton without an airport connection or real connection to Akron and they can use those tracks to run 30 minute intervals they are highly deluded. In all, It seems more like a Stark State and SARTA wishlist than an NFL HOF village pursuit. That’s why this caught me off guard so much as well. I don’t recall ever hearing discussion from anyone running the NFL village project that transportation was a factor either to the airport or to downtown Canton.

Replicating this from NFL HOF Village thread as it would be important to this rail line to connect to CAK. This article surprised me as i saw it in the Beacon reprinted from the Canton Repository. https://www.cantonrep.com/story/news/2021/07/04/officials-explore-hofx-rail-tie-between-hall-fame-downtown-canton/7785442002/ They want to study adding a streetcar system with the initial basis being the current Metro tracks by CAK that end at Tuscarawas st. They would add a stop by the NFL HOF which makes sense. They might also add a stop near the McKinley memorial. The article doesn’t explain how the streetcar would connect with the airport. Then they want to create new track that runs by Stark State on West 3rd parallel to Tuscarawas and finishing by SARTA’s bus transportation hub at Cherry avenue on the outskirts of downtown. I would think they would want to get closer to their brand new millennial park or whatever its called in the heart of downtown if this is to try to link the NFL village to downtown. If they can get the NFL and federal government to mainly pay for a rail connection from CAK to the Metro rail line that would be a big lift for Akron as well.

This article surprised me as i saw it in the Beacon reprinted from the Canton Repository. https://www.cantonrep.com/story/news/2021/07/04/officials-explore-hofx-rail-tie-between-hall-fame-downtown-canton/7785442002/ They want to study adding a streetcar system with the initial basis being the current Metro tracks by CAK that end at Tuscarawas st. They would add a stop by the NFL HOF which makes sense. They might also add a stop near the McKinley memorial. The article doesn’t explain how the streetcar would connect with the airport. Then they want to create new track that runs by Stark State on West 3rd parallel to Tuscarawas and finishing by SARTA’s bus transportation hub at Cherry avenue on the outskirts of downtown. I would think they would want to get closer to their brand new millennial park or whatever its called in the heart of downtown if this is to try to link the NFL village to downtown. If they can get the NFL and federal government to mainly pay for a rail connection from CAK to the Metro rail line that would be a big lift for Akron as well.

My thoughts are that Cbus is so car centric combined with being an easy demographic representation of America that it is a self-fulfilling representation of anywhere USA. What is interesting is that typically Its outsiders from coastal states bringing new restaurant and bar concepts to try in Cbus. The last 3-5 years, it seems that Ohio breweries and restaurants from other parts of Ohio are making a splash by adding operations in and around Cbus. I can think of Swensons right off the bat for fast food. Jackie O’s, platform altho maybe short lived, Saucy, and various Cinci breweries have opened operations. Seems that there are taco places from both Cle and Cinci that have opened in Cbus area. Townhall and Cosmic Daves subs have arrived. Winking Lizard and Skyline came in a while ago. To me Columbus is getting a lot more hospitable an option to live with all my favorite local chains opening. So in this regard Columbus is improving from a city chock full of random coastal chains or home grown chains that are everywhere else to the best of Ohio chains that can go toe to toe with big chains so much they can expand to Columbus to compete in one of the toughest markets. In short, Columbus is becoming a melting pot of Ohio.

It doesn’t really say anything in the article about plans. It just says that the planning company will tell them what they learned on July 15th. So essentially what they are going to say is that nobody is making more land available once we get past the golf courses that have all closed. The rest of the valley is surrounded by national and metro parks. To me the city needs to allow certain sections of the valley, mainly in liberty commons to go vertical. I predict the valley will be even more popular once there is a train stop for the CVSR in the next year or 2. The shops will then up their game. R.Shea now has patio seating in the parking lot with nice temporary cedar fencing.

Sounds like this is finally infrastructure week(Crazy that indictment week and infrastructure week happen at the same time). Biden just finished a speech in Wisconsin doing his infrastructure speech. They must be pretty certain the bipartisan bill is going to go forward. Its definitely needed after letting things languish overall for 20-30 years.

It seems to me that experience is a bit of a red herring in deciding on a mayor as its not experience easily gained. If lack of experience meant someone 18-22 sure that would be pretty young for being a mayor. On the flipside, is the city being run so well now that a young, inexperienced person will goof it all up by their decisions? To me an older person running will mean status quo. I’d like to see someone come in and yank out the patronage people and replace them with competent managers. Have a new mayor question why things are done certain ways and explore other options than ‘well its always been done this way’. Someone as studied as Bibb in economics understands that improvements can be made everywhere and constantly.

^I’m pretty confused about the map above. It looks like it is co-mingling the red and blue/green/waterfront lines. Or you feel that a subway below with another train directly above would ever be approved. I see it as either the redline option with subway or the waterline loop being finished as 2 best significant transit ideas for downtown. The redline might cost several hundred million dollars more but might be the better long term option.

^Well we’ll find out for sure this year won’t we. If there is another wild spike throughout the upper plain and mountain states 2 weeks after the rally this year I’d say its no longer “could haves”. They are likely not people that care to get vaccines at least the majority.

I would also add that there will likely be a bit of a kill off of white rural males over next couple years. Rural hospitals have closed especially in states that have not passed the ACA aka Obamacare. The same rural whites especially in the south are really not getting vaccinated. I would expect a bad fall/winter for them when new variants come to Florida and spread from there via their hootenannies and shindigs. Baptist churches will no doubt spread covid far and wide. New variants might likely target a new age group as the over 75 groups will likely be at herd immunity. The virus can then become more aggressive. Interesting if Sturgis Harley festival becomes the start of the annual covid kill off.

News that Childrens hospital will buy the Austen bioinnovation building which they are already in. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.beaconjournal.com/amp/5181151001 Unfortunately they will also demo the trolley barn for more parking. That block is becoming quite the mixed use block. Apartments will be going on top of the parking garage by the Austen building in the next year. The owner is going to make half of Maiden lane a pedestrian walkway which it practically was already and add a canopy over it for live shows outside of Musica. The owner mentioned to me he is interested in opening a distillery in his complex which includes various businesses as Akron Coffee Roasters, Chill, Nitelite, and various bars, restaurants, and performance venues. Across Market street at Akronym it was announced they will add a biergarten around the parking deck from their location fronting Main st at what is called Commerce Park. The best patio deck in Akron has reopened further down High st at the new El Patron formerly Nuevo.

I can see Hudson being a very viable option as the city is contemplating what to do with the land directly next to their tracks. They have the First and Main walking pedestrian village right there and probably 30-40 acres of undeveloped land next to the tracks. Voters turned down a plan to put in apartment complexes there the past year. Hudson would be a perfect stop. Macedonia has built up their areas next to the tracks in the past 5 years with a veterans park and apartment complexes and it really isn’t as accessible anymore as commercial property has backed up against the tracks or major roads run along side it. Macedonia is just sprawling suburbia that isn’t very walkable.

Possibly a move to Cleveland since its 3 companies with most of it based out of NEO. 4500 working for NEO companies and 1200 working for the wildly dispersed in 21 countries Prince of Houston. That seems pretty tricky merging 3 companies at once.

If a connecting county would help out in paying for the expansion, I can see where that might be attractive. Otherwise it should be where can there be the most bang for the buck.

Yes. That is why i would be surprised if the Democrats lost a seat in Ohio at the end of the day. I suppose if a poor Democratic candidate ran in the Ytown area and a solid Republican did it could easily happen. That might be the play is to run Amy Acton for Ryan’s seat. There are going to be a lot less weird shapes because of the new rules. So Marcy Kaptur won’t have 90% of Democrats in her district reaching over to Cuyahoga county from Toledo, her base.

^yes. This is at the top of the hill across Theiss from the Summit Metroparks mtn biking area at Hampton Hills. There are various proposals for this property. Certainly one proposal is to flatten the whole property and slap in 130-150 homes or so. I think that is obviously a non-starter. There was a proposal for building 60-80 or so homes for $200+ and keeping many sections with the trees they have now. Essentially just building on where the land allows and keeping the hilly sections untouched and protected. I think that works. To me the main thing the cities have to deal with is water run off. Way too much impervious surfaces above the valley which is actually the real problem as it drops high speed into the valley 150 below. The parks have already taken over all the golf courses throughout the Cuyahoga Valley. I’d like to see a bit more mountain biking developed perhaps in the former valley view golf course. There are miles and miles of bridal trails all over the valley. There is only one section for mountain biking at Hampton Hills, which has proved popular, in the whole Summit Metroparks system.

Nothing has changed in ROW ownership in Summit county. There supposedly an effort underway to add a station in the Merriman valley by the CVSR. I don’t know the timeframe of that as there has been no new info in probably 2 years.

They gave up about 2 months ago. They were a fairly decent team in January. They definitely did not want to make the playoffs. So they sat Drummond. Had they played people that could’ve played they would be a solid .500 and above team. Now they get some ping pong balls.

Its pretty crazy that there are two possible downtown locations for serious passenger rail train stations that have similar cost scopes. There are some serious external concerns in regards to other projects that are going to affect land use in the area of the lakefront location: the future of Highway 2 over or under the Cuyahoga, a proposed landbridge over the tracks from the convention center, a future transportation hub for greyhound buses, possible land use in area for parts of justice center/ parking, future of lakefront stadium. I’m thinking the combination of the above makes it a more ideal situation to have a hub at CUT. What about having the typical evening 3am service continue going through the same location in Cleveland and any new service starting at CUT?