audidave

Metro is going to get in the freight rail business. They signed an agreement with an engineer group out of Buffalo to get the section of rail that connects to NS in Hudson ready to go by early next year for $1.2 million. There is starting to be a substantial industrial park complex developing off of Hudson Dr. and Seasons Rd. The positives for this is it makes it far more efficient for the manufacturers in Stow to move product and receive raw material. One said they would open a secondary facility for finishing if they could use rail to move between the two locations. This should take some of the heavy trucks off the road on Seasons rd going to Rt 8 and possibly take a little strain off Rt 8. http://www.akronmetro.org/Data/Sites/2/pdf/july2015boardpacket.pdf

I'm hoping to hear something in the next few months about the Goodyear complex. I don't know any specifics but it sounds like there is movement afoot. That is such a huge building I can't fathom who the tenant(s) would be. Perhaps Orrville is running out of room for all the companies that keep getting bought? With the Goodyear Hall across the street almost completed for residences, maybe it is just natural for IRG to start getting the other building going. But it sounds like there is something more.

Sadly the current building does have a wall blocking the view of the parking lot. I enjoy winding through the west point market as you move through different departments it has a totally different feel. The new building is set as a square abutting the art gallery property. I feel this is a net negative. I get west point will be reinventing itself. A location going from an active experience that doesn't use the typical formulaic grocery layout to one that will in a basic square is boring and annoying. I hope the new wpm plan works great and they add a mini shop in northern summit co.

I'd advise checking out the flats. You could add West side when you are visting ohio city and when you are downtown do the east side. Take the waterfront line? Its a classic Cleveland experience to watch the massive freighters go by mere feet away. A suggestion on food on west side would be to at least check out Crop across from wsm. In univ heights, i really like piccadilly ice cream as its freshly made in front of you with liquid nitrogen. If you like architecture, check out the western reserve university Lewis building designed by Gehry.

This would be great for Dayton. But it seems like too massive of a change. i would think a new county charter would be a better first step. Get rid of county commissioners. Streamline county government, then look at this option.

It sounds to me it would be likely that they would knock-down the power plant within 3-5 years once they do any asbestos abatement. The other area around E.70 Street is all transmission and distribution facilities. They may want to keep that there for a long time. That seems to run right into the I-90 plan. Certainly that can be moved out of the way but that will be obviously some huge expense.

Not sure this is related, but perhaps it is. Metro RTA in their latest board meeting pdf announced that they are seeking to divest themselves of the responsibilty of the rail lines they own. www.akronmetro.org/metro-board-meetings.aspx Essentially, they feel the tracks they own are not aligned with their purpose of transporting people. They want to perhaps sell the tracks or at least transfer the rights to another entity. I think this would be an opportune time for the port authority to step forward. This is now called the development finance authority. The benefit is this entity sees the bigger picture and a longer term outlook with fairly deep pockets. This could help package the land by these tracks to companies. It could also spur the commuter rail on the tracks they control and help in funding that.

That looks like an upset little puppy that it got dumped with even more obnoxious colored red-orange paint.

Lizard will do very well at that location in Golden Gate. They need a large facility for the hordes. I'm sure their signage will make it very obvious they are there. I wonder about the Winks now becoming another Lizard off of Chagrin. That is so close now to the Mayfield location and their HQ on Miles. They should maybe use that site as their concept testing location.

Probably why they are studying the site on East side of 9th St, so nobody would do that math. Not to get too cynical about the bridge and nctc being separated, who would end up being the primary users of the bridge if they were combined? It would certainly get a lot of use 24hrs a day. I also don't think the bridge would cost as much if it is using the nctc as the main point of support. I think that probably is where things got messy with mixing two pots of funds. Plus the need to send out a new ped bridge specification including an undesigned hub.

My sentiments exactly. I would think there could be some pooling of the money on the projects. The bridge seems better funded at this point than the transportation hub. My feeling is this is a MUCH better reason to have a ped bridge than just trying to get to the lake, rrhof, and glsc. I'd love to see these co-exist in planning and development.

^i take it to mean that a lot of people are looking for soup places for lunch. I would agree that it isn't a cuisine. There are a lot of places in Ohio that specialize in soup like Zoup in Cleveland/Solon or Stew Pot in Akron. Certainly Paneras does a bang up business selling their soups throughout Ohio. I would say we have a long "soup season" in Ohio, too.

Ok i understand that map now that i realize its based on yelpers search requests. Still pretty odd that they have hot dog there for wv.

The big thing with microbreweries coming on line is the internet. There was no web presence for breweries back then. Had to use the yellow pages to find them. It was very difficult to be aware of breweries and if you could visit them. We did not have tap rooms in Ohio because the law forbade that. It had to be a brewpub in order to visit and drink on premise except for samples. Most brewpubs were fairly small. Most were pretty inconsistent. The difference is the breweries are better, the quality and variety of ingredients are far superior, the improvement in brewing processes makes beer more consistent. The brewers are better coming from brew schools or more typically a long trial and error home brewing background. Finally the drinking public is much more educated now in the various styles of beer and what goes into them. This is not a repeat of the brewpubs from the 80s and 90s where it was a restaurant fad to slap in a little brewery system. I equate this to where wineries are. There are dozens of them all over the place. I don't see a sudden crash of wineries because they no longer are cool to open.

As far as Pronto! It sounds like the food truck will continue. I had been there a few times. Once for dinner due to great reviews on Yelp. It was pretty good for dinner although a little over-priced. There doesn't seem to be much correlation between what the food truck offered vs what the dinner menu had. I tried their lunch sandwiches which I would assume is the fare for the food truck and felt it was nothing special but they were charging $12-14 for sandwiches. I'll give them that they were the best sandwich shop on that street. It was announced last month that Giant Eagle is going to knock down the gas station on rt 8 next door in order to expand it to a full service Getgo. I wonder if Giant Eagle has purchased this property as well,

Portside Maple Stout is brewed by Portside. Ohio Brewing has Maple Porter which hasn't been brewed in a couple years but is a seasonal. The next seasonal from Ohio Brewing should be out sometime in January is the Double Irish Red.

Pretty sure First Energy is content with being in downtown Akron with that statement and "working the mayor's office". I don't have any visibilty about their operations. I just understand that utilities are fairly conservative and plan further ahead than most any other industry. I agree as well that the hospitals are not hurting for land nor would i expect them to in 3-5 years. The idea behind this original project was more to create a corridor for like-minded bio-medical organizations near these hospitals. There are some medium sized fast growing companies that left akron about 3-5 years ago they were looking to retain. Perhaps those companies will decide to come back from Medina and wherever else if they can get space near the hospitals. The corridor as it was designated makes a whole lot more sense to me once First Energy is added into the equation as a first mover and sort of anchor of this project. It doesn't have to come together all at once. Maybe in 5 years Gojo wants a new HQ. This would be a good spot for them as well as they do a lot of bio-medical with their anti-bacterial products.

You've definitely touched on an important concept. The city and county should announce districts that should have 24 hour services. Yes, it would cost a little more but by focusing that on certain areas, but businesses that are more willing to be situated in non-stop work days would know where they stand. This would encourage more businesses in those districts to stay open longer and there would then be the need to hire more people to handle the extended hours. So why do it? It would create more jobs

Top 10 Ohio beers without repeating breweries Bodhi- Columbus Brewing - Double IPA Oil of Aphrodite- Jackie Os - Imperial Stout Maple Porter - Ohio Brewing - Porter Bushwacker Brown - Fat Heads - Brown Infusion A Coffee Porter - Hoppin Frog - Porter New Stunt IPA - JAFB - IPA Tripel - Rockmill - Tripel Raspberry Leghumper - Thirsty Dog - Porter 1st batch of El Lupelo Libre DIPA - Brew Kettle - DIPA - I had it before it won the best Imperial IPA award in the US. Following batches have been boozy. Peanut Butter Cup Coffee Porter - Willoughby Brewing - Porter

I think Kolsch is an under appreciated style. There are other under appreciated styles out there though. I'd say bitters or ESBs are fairly easy drinking but rarely seen. I'm not a big "light" beer drinker but I enjoy a well made lager like drinking some of the beers from hoffbrauhaus or over at Penn Brewing in Pittsburgh. I think those beers are phenomenal. I don't know that any brewery in the Cleveland area is making great lagers. I'm not a fan of the dortmunder. I can drink a small glass but then just feel full and not want any more. I trust there are much better options down in Cincinnati. I wouldn't mind seeing Hudy up here or better yet Rheingeist. There is a brewery opening in Canton that is promising to make "rustic" hearty beers from yesteryear in their historic building. That should be opening in January or February. I'm looking forward to that. I believe that means primarily lagers they will be making. UPDATE: Looked this up again after writing this. The Canton Brewery is releasing beers at 6pm tonight in downtown Canton at the Auricle.. I'm going to pop in to check it out. They will have 3 beers from their brewery. It sounds like one will be an IPA. I'll report back the details.

I thought I'd bring this topic back to life since this is the topic of Akron city government and a bit on the various Akron threads. I'm starting to get my head around the concept that the city is wanting to implement. My understanding is it will really only be the last mile of the innerbelt will be moved to Dart and Rand. This will be a great spot for a large corporation that wants a slick new high profile spot. First Energy just announced they are exploring moving from their current location without saying where in downtown they would move to. I believe they were implying they are looking at building anew. This is the likely impetus for the recent push back to the front burner for the city to get this done. I could see in the near future where Akron General, Akron Childrens, and First Energy have office towers on that section of the innerbelt. Parking decks on the bottom 3-5 levels so that one could very easily access these complexes from downtown Akron since the trough would filled in by parking decks. I don't know that there are that many good options to build a signature headquarters in downtown Akron for a large company. Yes there are handfuls of parking lots strewn throughout Akron. Tall buildings are going to be pretty much located between Market and Exchange and really between Market and Bowery. Without knocking some things down, really not a lot of options. Interesting reading my previous post from 4 years ago, it didn't quite make sense to me. Now with likely throwing First Energy in and re-evaluating how close the innerbelt is to Cascade Plaza, I'm on board.

As an active beer participant, these are pretty exciting times. For people that drink their bud and miller, its pretty trivial. The world is being turned on its head by the small craft brewers of the U.S. The quality of ingredients and the variety available to anyone to brew has been the main force. New hops are still being discovered and others interbred to form new hops. These aren't subtle differences. Its nice to let people see for themselves in single hop beer packs like currently offered by southern tier. They have a single hop brewed cascade, columbus, and centennial. i haven't tried them yet but i'd recommend anyone interested in how hops alters the beer to check it out. So with a little bit of know how, anyone can now make a world class beer right in their own home. The craft breweries are also fighting against this trend. Which is why they keep pushing more experimental beers or beers that push the boundaries. Its also not a local thing or fresh beer thing anymore. Beer now travels better than ever due to better cans and understanding how light affects beer. Even 5-10 years ago people felt a beer probably wouldn't taste what it should taste like if it came from several thousand miles away. Now if i buy a beer from bear republic, i'm fairly certain its going to taste pretty close to what i would get if I were in California. E Rocc, your tastebuds don't deceive you. I was at a blind xmas beer taste test last week and out of 17 beers, jingle bell got first place.

What about this company outside of Akron. Looks like they're updating they're product line from 3 wheels to 4 wheels. http://www.myersmotors.com Maybe this is a totally different sales model.

Well that is their brewpub not their production facility. Hopefully there wasn't too much damage. It looks like it was upper floors from the video.

I agree. There could be easily 2 walkways coming off of the transportation center or none. Just have a staircase going down from it. I'm thinking of the lodo area in denver by the train station. Coming from across the river and over the tracks there is the option of a staircase or an elevator. I think the architect of the convention center should be involved to create a direct walkway to the transportation center. It doesn't need to be a world class design. From there if people want to have another bridge or two from the top to go wherever the that is fine to allow the over the top connector ideas. I'll be happy taking steps.