audidave

Out of the Akron area, the only company i could maybe see getting a small hq in Cleveland would be Sterling Jewelers. They are a UK company I believe so they don't really have any serious ties to Summit County. I know they have grown quite a bit over the years with all their mergers. They would probably keep most of their backoffice operations in Akron. It may make sense foe them to have a high profile corporate office in a nice shiny tower on the lake.

(Edit) Goodyear just finished their new hq and aren't going anywhere. First Energy is probably getting a new HQ in the next few years in downtown Akron. I highly doubt they will move North as they have built the electrical infrastructure of downtown Akron to withstand blackouts.

I would say it ranges quite a bit in Northeast Ohio for sunny days. Ytown is very low and getting towards Sandusky is very high well over 100 days according to one website(169 sunny days!!) I'd imagine Lorain communties probably experience close to 100 sunny days. Lake effect isn't just snowfall but cloud cover.

Well by looks of that promo detroit and cinci are in the same boat on the name-change at least. Its better than the other casino name idea TOOL, i suppose.

I thought it was kind of odd to want to only live in Akron. I do agree with the general theme of the article that the city is at a crossroads again. There seems to be more than anything a feeling of a need to identify purpose of place. With the new leadership in place it might be enough to have urbanist focus for making downtown liveable. West point markets might be a partner in that as they are wanting to open mini markets around Summit county. A downtown market is key to expanding residential downtown. The city focus will be at the core still, which it was under Mayor Don, due to the innerbelt revamping and the sewage projects. At least the towpath is at the core as well and new linkages will be made this year to Goodyear Heights along with waypoint finding improvements.

Huntington is indicating they won't entirely decimate Akron. So some kind of large banking function will still be there. Just not anything needing an art deco tower from 1931.

After a day of letting the news of the merger sink in, I've been contemplating what will happen with the tower in Akron. I doubt they will keep that building. There are other offices in Cascade plaza and I believe some computer operations/data center that will likely stay in that complex. The likely scenario is that they vacate the building in 2 years. I'm wondering if this building would be up for a residential conversion to condos or apartments. It has some great views. But with really only 1 building downtown currently that has residential in the YMCA building its hard to make a case that more is needed.

It sounds to me that Blatt was unable to come up with a plan going forward to get where the Cavs need to get to. The talent on the Cavs is ridiculous and the GS game had to be a measuring stick point of where they are. To be so seemingly ill-prepared, that is a coaching issue. Hopefully the new guy has a better understanding of how the pieces should go together and how to take advantage of other team's weaknesses.

I don't think that will be permanent signage. Tony is pretty good at leaving historical buildings with appropriate facade treatments. Look at the building across the street. He added a large clock to the corner to "tell Akron what time it is." It looks like it would've been there 80 years ago. Whatever that tarp sign is made out of would also be blocking 12 windows. I don't see that happening permanently. As long as its not permanent I'm ok with it.

I haven't been in the dirty d in awhile. Nice shots. I like the new public art and the lighting of the bridges. i need to do a sw oh trip this coming Spring.

^An easier idea to implement might be to have shared ownership with the Cuyahoga County Port Authority.

Too bad OU already lost to App St. It was a game they had in hand.

Drove by on West Market the other day and they are finally demolishing the brick warehouse in front of St V. Its been at least 5 years since they talked about extending their campus to W. Market. I forgot what they intend to do with it.

That was a pretty good "bump" for such an old thread.

^Minus the brewery and probably minus the restaurant, that isn't a bad idea.

I totally missed the story about Xilia Pharmaceutical taking over Ben Venue. That is definitely positive news for Bedford. I had figured that facility wouldn't be vacant for long with all the money in Pharmaceuticals and the effort it takes to get a new facility built of that type. They do anti-bacterial drugs. I wonder if they are expecting to be able to grab engineers and scientists from Gojo.

Don't see that happening. Downtown is self sustaining and not a tourist draw per se. Downtown has the nightlife with a good assortment of bars, local restaurants, music venues, and various art galleries. I was at Canton Brewing last week and it's an impressive facility they've opened in the heart of downtown. It was packed on a Saturday night. I don't see that changing much when all other things open by the HOF. There seemed to be a decent amount of foot traffic in that area as well. I figure to enhance it, they will add trolleys to downtown from the HOF when the time is right.

My guess would be Brown st. by UD. Lots of newish restaurants there and general dev in last 5-7 years.

My idea which is related to linking the Northside to downtown is lowering 59 by 5-10 feet. This would allow multiple benefits. The main expense would be to raise the Y-bridge on the downtown side by 10+ feet and extend it across the 59 intersection. This would only inhibit left hand turns coming from the North or South. Nobody NEEDs to go left. The main benefit is it would do away with the 2 lights on 59 at the Y-bridge. Those have been highly annoying to me since I was a UA student stopping there and watching the 1 or 2 cars that might go by on 59 while a pack of 20-50 cars are trying to get into or out of downtown. By lowering 59, I believe that it would make it easier to walk across 59, likely with a lit up crosswalk,since visibility will be improved and there will be much less of an impediment to cross with the street lowered It could become Akron's esplanade. The spinoff to this is it could open up better land use than the current parking lots on either side of 59.

I could be wrong, but i think this has to do with the brewery taproom license. There is a rule that a brewery can have a taproom within a mile of the brewery. This keeps the brewery a local craft brewery vs some regional brewery popping up in a dense location miles away from the brewery. So state law not local.

There are bits and pieces of housing sprinkled throughout downtown. It just isn't providing density. Sounds like there could be some movement all around Cascade plaza. Obviously with the Landmark building there is some plan to get that moving now that i think the asbestos abatement is done. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a future project involving the former Ramada hotel and maybe another tower to get converted to residential. This coming Sunday the ABJ will have an article regarding the need for mixed use buildings downtown in one of the things they learned from Akron leaders trip to Greensville,SC. Next week, the likely next Akron mayor is doing a walking tour downtown discussing his ideas for the inner-belt which should also include residential. I think the city realizes now that a tiny placeholder population downtown won't cut it in what people expect for even smallish to medium sized cities.

My vision is a bit different. I think CVSR still keeps its role of being what it is now, it just adds additional excursions to Cleveland on weekends. On weekdays, Metro RTA could run DMUs to Cleveland instead of their one of their northcoast xpress buses. Through the valley is a pretty direct way to get to Cleveland from Akron. If speeds are around 40-50mph it will be as fast as driving.

An editorial in the Beacon Journal from Sunday mentioned this idea among many others of rail going to Cleveland from the Northside station. Not much more was detailed. The main topic was urban renewal of Akron, in particular of the need for the innerbelt to be reinvented. The impetus was a couple top speakers that have been in Akron the last couple weeks. I wonder if this idea sprang from these brainstorming sessions.

It probably would be a good idea to frame the geographical region. Should it not be Northern Ohio? Most of the RTAs are doing well and are starting to look to branch out from their own territory and see what can be done with coordinating with neighboring RTAs, this is the case with SARTA, PARTA, and METRO starting meetings soon to discuss. I think there does need to be an overlay for the Northern Ohio region for a clearinghouse for coordination of these transit agencies, but I also think it should be more so for the various regional planning agencies of NOACA, AMATs, et al. A focus may be in coordinating bulk purchasing for all the transit agencies buses, fuel, and whatever else to reduce the overall price and giving smaller agencies better buying power. But I also think there needs to be an agency that help to manage rail assets of all of Northern Ohio. I know METRO is sitting on a various rail lines. Not sure if this is normal for these agencies. But taking a 10,000 ft view of the region and how to spend the money for inter-county transportation would make more sense than waiting for guidance from Columbus. The agency should have taxing authority for the counties that are involved to add a minimal sales tax for the region. I think it would may be best to have an opt in for all the counties and agencies that want to participate. The state of Ohio is so very diverse by region, that this makes the most sense to have a super regional planning agency in order to coordinate and leverage the resources of the regional planning agencies. An agency that actually cares that there are however many people driving from Stark county to Lake County or Cuyahoga county for work or school has the bigger picture involved in making more informed decisions than those that are just looking at internal cross-county traffic. By making this Northern Ohio, it will have a better view of rail assets of the region that seem to mainly go E-W across Northern Ohio.

Its strange that i was just contemplating the of the art of electric bikes for mountain biking. I was thinking since i live fairly close to some mtn bike trails maybe i should get an electric bike to journey to them instead of driving my car. It does seem very promising technology. So now that i know what to look for, i'll see if there are people using them. The riding times i see online of people hitting the course are double my speed. That seems insanely fast without some electric motor helping, not that i am in peak physical condition. I also know that if there is a way to use technology to get an advantage, people absolutely will. Another thing to note is that a good mtn bike costs around $2500. These cost about the same range.