audidave

^Hudson has unique shops outside of the lifestyle center is what I was referring to. They have an amazing bakery Great Lake Baking Co south of the square. There are various artsy stores and shops that seem to do well that are not chains. Plus there are other shops over in the main plaza by Acme. There's an excellent wine and beer bar/store called Northend on 91 thats pretty unique and they have frequent sampling events. Last week they had all the Hoppin Frog beers matched to a 4 course gourmet dinner. As far as Macedonia, its big box store paradise: Target, Walmart, Kohls, Lowes, Home Depot, Giant Eagle, Best Buy, Burlington.. Add in the typical mix of stores and restaurants that like to hang in those places. There are plenty of vacancies in the main plaza due to Tops pulling out and some other stores closing.

Personally, I'd rather this go in T-burg than alongside Rt. 8. This will hopefully slow Wolstein's and other developers jets along that corridor. This new development is a mere 5 miles away and potentially biting off a good chunk of whoever they think would be wanting to drive over to Macedonia. I mean seriously Streetsboro is saturated with retail, now Twinsburg will be. There's Aurora outlet mall over there. Hudson has their lifestyle center and other unique shops. Everyone knows Macedonia is already packed with retail. They just built a large new building called "great escape" in macedonia to compete with litehouse i guess.. Who in this area is underserved by a lack of retail opportunities close at hand? Because developers still wish to add 3-4 giant new retail/office complexes alongside rt. 8 going into Boston Heights..

Foot traffic will be all over the Lakefront. Don't forget that by the time the CC and MM are built the Flats East Bank should be complete. There's your entertainment for visitors with a quick hop on the Waterfront line. If thats not enough retail, they can obviously go shopping in a giant mall.

I don't see how "skyline" is improved by smashing a convention center up against Tower City either. Oh sure you'll be able to see it but then everyone will be amazed at how retarded it looks overhanging the river with roads going up and down next to it. I don't really think when people talk "density" they mean directly attaching large structures next to even bigger structures. I'd say that the mall site increases density by a much bigger magnitude than TC site. The Mall site will absolutely increase density on the lakefront, a new doorstep into Cleveland. Thats been the goal of Cleveland as well is to have better access to the lake. By putting the CC at TC there might not be a need for a hotel. By placing it at the Mall there's a good chance a large hotel or 2 will be built and this could add to the skyline.

I was more referring to the architectural renderings that came up from the last study of 2 years ago as finishing "the group plan" http://planning.city.cleveland.oh.us/convention/detail.php?ID=ml I think this works quite fine

The best argument to make to County Commissioners is to "Finish the Group Plan!" My gut feeling is PLJ is for the Mall site just because he seems to be the most logical thinker. No clue how the other two feel. It sounds like Hagan might not be sure which way to go hence the outside consultant. That wouldn't seem to be Dimora's style. I like that the Mall adds another route to the Lake from downtown Cleveland hence "opening up lakefront access". I also like that it forces the county to make serious decisions about some of their office space downtown to relocate them. But this also makes way for adding 1 or 2 new hotels in the vicinity and multiple new restaurants. To me this spreads downtown out nicely. By sticking everything at Tower City you have everything at Tower City. I think this makes Cleveland a much more fun city to visit. To be able to hop off the plane in 5 years to take a train to Tower City and then a short ride on the Waterfront line to the new convention center and hotel complex. A convention goer would be able to do a flyby of Wolsteins Flats with glimpses of Starks developments. That should be a great view from the top of the Mall.

I can't see Summit Co voting for sin taxes to help build a developers stadium. Wild guess, but I'd bet their "other" Summit Co. site is across Rt 8 from where they originally want to place the stadium. :roll:

Not to be entirely ignorant, but is there a streetcar system in Cinci? It seems crazy you guys have managed to create 100 forum pages and I see an article several pages earlier talking about the potential of still funding one.

Don't forget the cost of parking in an urban setting. There needs to be strong urban public transportation if inter-city rail is to connect the cities to make it viable to be without a car. I think Strickland has made a good first step to developing a transportation vision for Ohio. Its not a particular bold step though to say Amtrak should study connecting the 3 Cs. I think its pretty fair to say that funding roads helps the suburbs and funding rail helps the cities. The suburbs have been well off for now 40-50 years.

Thanks KJP for the eloquent response. I guess I was thinking that if they are wanting to move what the port has now and do the same thing they've been doing, the airport location would be great. But if, as you're suggesting, they want to be a full blown port with loading and off-loading facilities and multiple warehouses and multi-modal functionality to handle shipping containers, then I can understand creating a trade zone around E.55. This makes sense.

It would be nice to have a rail plan in Ohio. As far as Akron, I don't see it needing to be a destination as part of the Ohio Hub. A rail link with Medina should suffice. I think there should be an Akron Hub of light rail going to Kent, Medina, Cleveland, and Canton. Most of the rail is already in place and in Metro RTAs hands or little used by a railroad company.

I think Burke is the best spot still. Don't forget about Musky's AirPort Concept here. http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,14198.0.html (Looking over that link a little better I guess it doesn't have a built out plan for the port and only seems to come from KJP at the bottom. Hmm) We never found out why Burke was tabled. I thought it was down to 3 locations then all of a sudden they said... and we don't want to consider Burke anymore because we can't have buildings next to the airport... What kind of crap is that?! Its not like the port would be putting in skyscrapers or office parks. There are always various sized buildings by airports I go to.

Hey Mayday you got a pic of my house in that second pic! As a "Macedonian", I'm more of a NIMBY on this issue unless they use brownfields like perhaps Northfield Park should that go under or any spot in retail location in Macedonia/Northfield. I really don't care what city it goes in since I will not be a fan. To develop more needless sprawl with this project in an area that is already sprawled out is wrong wherever they decide to build this stadium. This region is not lacking for brownfields. We probably need to start doing something with taxes on land that hasn't been destroyed. Perhaps charge half the taxes on land that isn't disturbed.

Thats probably not the best way to be running track to Cleveland, through Silver Lake. There are so many at grade crossings along that route along very busy roadways and intersections. That wasn't going to be a commuter line. That was a wine and dine train that goes to Hudson and then back or vice versa. I thought it was intriguing yet pretty lame and potentially dangerous as it would be going across a lot of crossings where a train hasn't passed in 20 years. I wouldn't want to be eating fondue on that train... Definitely the way to go to Cleveland is up the gut through the Cuyahoga Valley. I think it would be possible and preferable to get over 60mph+. Going through Northern Summit Co.'s built out suburbia that hasn't seen a train in a generation come through it and would expect, should one appear, to be rolling at 25-35mph tops. In comparison the CVNP is pretty desolate. People do expect to see trains at the crossings albeit slow ones. Maybe thats the question could newer, faster, commuter trains freely ply the CVSR rails during the weekdays and make space for the slower trains on the weekends?

^Market path is a non-profit retailer of handmade mainly decorative goods from Third World countries. I've never heard of "Middlebury" in Akron. I'll have to look that up. That's usually called East Akron.. I frequent Highland Square mainly at night and with the 4-5 bars that are there it has a lot more pedestrian traffic. I don't check out the residential too much. So that was pretty cool seeing those pics and a good find on Dopler St. I had to google blue sky gallery to find that. Never knew there were businesses over there. Highland Square is still in the middle of a long transition It lost its main diner, grocery store, Mexican restaurant, and several other establishments for a variety of reasons. Because of the density of the area, new stores/restaurants will come back and replace those its just a matter of when. Then people can start b!tching about lack of parking again. Thats when you'll know Highland Square is back to normal.

Sounds like you're really from Akron if you worked at Ken Stewarts. Then you should be hitting Vegitaranean on the Northside. Nearby, Musica is a good space to see bands in Akron. It has an art gallery and coffee shop(Mocha Maiden) attached to it. Right next to that is Crave which is pretty eclectic food and one of the best restaurant websites I've ever seen. Then of course you have the updated Akron Art Museum catty corner to that. Further down Main St., Ohio Brewing in the Oneil's building will be open then. I just found the best Thai food in Akron last night in a stripmall by the Airdock. Its called Siamone. My fave places up north are Melt in Lakewood and The South Side in Tremont. I don't get up there much.. I'm looking forward to hitting up the Beer Engine tho. If you don't want to drive to Cleveland but don't want to be in Akron, you can go to Hudson's Northend wine bar that also has a nice beer bar with 8 unique beers on tap. They sell a nice selection of wine and beer retail.

I would verify that the electric co. is getting the correct information. If you go check your electric meter tomorrow and its spinning quickly then you should realize you've got more on than 2 lights. In the summer time my meter barely moves. Short of hiring someone or getting too technical of gadgets, you could start by working the fusebox/circuit breaker and shutting things down and seeing what rooms in your house are making your meter spin. My guess would be its an old refrigerator or 2 you have.

That is actually something within the Ohio.com website. Any time I paste over from there its in duplicate. This started perhaps 4 months ago.

I think it helps that I don't have satellite, cable tv or a wii game system to have something always turned on. I do keep my mini mac on plus my plasma is always running a low charge. I'm thinking about getting an old style phone so I can use that if the power goes off. Yea I have gas stove, furnace, and dryer. I take more of a hit in the winter on gas so I'm also thinking about getting a small electric heater to heat my upstairs bedroom. I'd also attribute my low electric bill to not being in the house a lot. This past month I had 200kwh besting my previous February of 217. Thats a great suggestion Boreal about the drill chargers. I had one small one on in my garage probably for a good 2 months now and just turned it off per your suggestion. Also thought I'd make a suggestion on a solar radio/flashlight with a dynamo. I listen to this radio in the summer. Its on sale from the manufacturer for $20. Plus it can recharge certain brands of cell phones. http://www.solarstyle.com/

Did a bit of research last night on electricity production. I was trying to find out where things stand as far as electricity loss in transportation of electricity. I found out its around 7.5% loss. I thought it may be much higher approaching 20%. I then looked at the DOE's report about electricity production from 1949-2006. Its pretty surprising to me that coal fired production has absolutely skyrocketed every year pretty much. What puzzled me looking at the charts is why has production increased 35% from 1988 to 2006? People are buying more and more efficient appliances and lighting. Yet statistics still say the avg households kw/hr is anywhere from 700-950/month in a 4 person household. Given the fact that whatever your spending in electricity a month directly correlates to production of coal powered electric plants, how are you controlling your electrical usage to decrease your bills and clean your air? My avg kwh/month is 145 according to my latest First Energy bill. I do have the latest in energystar appliances but obviously use them infrequently. Shockingly I only have 3 lights out of a total of 45+ bulbs in my house are fluorescent. I guess I realize enough to use those sparingly..

^^Buckeye1.. Actually you are incorrect. There IS Great Lakes beer! Great Lakes is one of the eateries by the Frontier airlines terminal.. http://www.akroncantonairport.com/akroncantonairportterminalservice.htm

I backtracked from their Canton station. It goes right by the airport but on the other side of I-77. Theoretically it would be easy to put in a little station there and have people dropped off by the airport parking lot buses. The hard part would be working with CVSR, Metro, Sarta to decide whether that makes economic sense. CVSR might have to drop their S. And significantly change their purpose and culture.. Maybe just give up that section of track to a Metro/Sarta entity. This is definitely something that should be looked at and studied. It makes sense that none of those organizations are going to consider it on their own. It will have to be the airport that pushes them. What could be better for a regional airport than to have instant access to 2 downtown cities. Just an overlooked asset waiting to be re-used... The city mayors will both be interested in having increased traffic downtown. It probably makes sense having commuter rail going in between Akron and Canton anyways by the amount of traffic going both ways on 77. Great idea mrnyc!

Airport gets ready for 10-year upgrade Akron-Canton to unveil $110 million capital plan By Marilyn Miller Beacon Journal business writer Published on Sunday, Mar 02, 2008 Officials at Akron-Canton Airport, which has enjoyed a doubling in traffic in the last 10 years, will unveil a $110 million, 10-year capital plan next week to an annual meeting of architects and engineers. Nearing completion of $60 million in improvements begun in 2001, airport officials said they will travel to Westlake on March 12 to the Cleveland Engineering Society's 56th Design & Construction Conference to reveal their plans for the next decade. CHOPPED Marilyn Miller can be reached at 330-996-3098 or 800-777-7232 or [email protected] http://www.ohio.com/news/top_stories/16158062.html

Yay Beer! Well there is only one person that is deciding where to locate this stadium: Scott Wolstein. Unfortunately he probably doesn't own any wetlands in Richfield or Akron so he probably won't build there.

There are dozens of potentially good soccer stadium spots throughout Summit County. Perhaps the Rubber Bowl, Rolling Acres area, Chapel Hill area, Summit Fairgrounds?, and many other locations that offer inexpensive land options. Richfield is the equivalent to Macedonia as far as central location-wise with easy access to a multitude of highways. They could easily use one of the large empty truck terminals. Not like Richfield hasn't been used before for a major sports team in a growing league..