thebillshark

To me local pride comes from the history, the buildings, the streets, knowing that these came together to form a functioning, growing and dynamic city at one point in time, a big deal, with a uniqueness that you can’t find out there in Anywhere USA. And even though many things like the highways have dealt it blows this city can still be found and explored on foot and on bike. Without that all the locally-themed t-shirts and wall decorations would ring hollow for me. We definitely lose something with demolitions like this.

To me there is a huge disconnect between the team’s appeals to local pride and their decisions to tear down these historic buildings that lay outside the footprint of the stadium itself. But maybe that just doesn’t register to suburban fans

That screen looks pretty underwhelming

...a meteor could hit the earth and @jmecklenborgand @GCrites80s would be discussing Guns N’ Roses two hours later

I can’t read the link above, but I think the UrbanCincy editorial on this subject from many years back is correct. IMO a full merger of the City of Cincinnati and Hamilton County is not desirable/necessary, but there could be big picture benefits of condensing/annexing smaller municipalities and chunks of townships. However there are no direct incentives for anyone to act on this

I don’t mind road repaving in and of itself, but it will probably will be used as an excuse not to go back and touch that street with additional pedestrian improvements for many years. (“We just got done with that street”)

It looks like this project grew in scope and cost since the last time I read up on it. It now includes repaving Liberty from Central Parkway west to Dalton Avenue, but no safety improvements or traffic calming for that stretch. I’ve said before that safety improvements and traffic calming are just as important along that stretch of Liberty in the West End as they are through OTR, but I wonder if people will use FCC stadium access as an excuse to block that forever now.

You have a good point. I was also thinking redeveloping the airport and perhaps some surrounding warehouse type buildings would draw less NIMBY ire than normal. Moving the airport to the Central Valley would be a distance of about 35 miles from Downtown San Jose which would be like putting Cincinnati airport around Springboro. Denver airport is about 18 miles outside the city. But it still might make sense for a rich worldwide hub of technology region like the Bay Area? Don’t know how San Jose airport ranks compared to San Francisco and Oakland airports

Idea to help solve the housing crisis in the bay area: The San Jose international airport is in right in the middle of everything, less than 2 miles from downtown San Jose. Why not move the airport east across the mountains and connect it with a long high speed rail tunnel? You could then build a larger airport and have highway connectivity to other parts of the bay area and other communities in the Central Valley. Then you could redevelop the San Jose airport with high density housing (skyscrapers) and perhaps just as importantly remove the building height restrictions in the surrounding area that were in place to accommodate the airport flight paths.

I wish we weren’t losing Wade St. and historic buildings for this. From an urbanist perspective getting these garages right is just as important as getting the stadium itself right, but it seems everything stadium related is going to be approved with little discussion from here on out. Will people be able to walk in the area between the stadium and parking garage on non-game days? That could impact the walkability of the area and the extent that the stadium acts as a barrier in the neighborhood.

This is contrary to the main reason for my somewhat off the wall suggestion of an outlet mall in the first place. I’m saying any one story structure would be easier (less cost and risk) to maintain, renovate/repurpose or even demolish over a time span of decades than a more complex structure. I’m assuming those things would be more difficult to do (perhaps only slightly, but perhaps much more so) for a building suspended over a highway than one on ordinary ground. In the absence of an “Amazon HQ-2” style increase in demand for real estate in downtown Cincinnati, we should consider a simpler structure if the numbers at all pencil out.

From Cleveland: https://www.wkyc.com/mobile/article/news/local/cleveland/developer-released-plans-for-outlet-mall-on-cleveland-lakefront-city-officials-saying-no-thanks/95-8fa1623b-b740-4f34-b3ed-398010d75fe5 I’ve mentioned this before but I think an outlet mall may be a “so crazy it just might work” good use of the Ft Washington Way caps. I say this primarily because any structure built over the highway should be simple and utilitarian in nature, to avoid long term maintenance nightmares. 1 story retail (with street-facing entrances of course, unlike the rendering shown on the article) would fit the bill. Plus you would provide synergies with entertainment at the Banks, possible increase in Hamilton Co. parking garage revenues and nearby jobs for urban core residents. The risk would be how long it would take to recoup the massive up front investment in the caps

The density limits should be removed, yesterday. They are artificially stunting the growth of the city and forcing unpleasant tradeoffs in terms of affordability and the types of projects that can be pursued.

Should do an air gondola that goes from lot 28 at the Banks (just south of music venue) to the new IRS development in Covington. That way you would have a unique attraction that also could serve a transportation function

one minor quibble- the new Mercy West Hospital isn’t in a distant suburb, it’s less than a mile outside the city limits

Sounds like the market will sort it out. Looks like the comment section out there in liberal Seattle is just as bad as anything the old Cincinnati Enquirer comment section ever produced.

They’re opening standalone Macy’s Backstage stores, could downtown get one of those as a consolation prize? Perhaps at in the new 4th and Race building?

The garages immediately north of the convention center hold 1,570 parking spaces, according to this diagram from the FCC stadium PD application documents ( https://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/planning/assets/File/Final Development Plan - Stadium.pdf ) (FCC is counting 840 of them as being available during stadium events.) If the powers that be decide to expand the convention center, they may decide that this amount of parking spaces is irreplaceable, thus ruling out expansion to the north over Sixth and then they will say expanding over Elm Street is the only option. So yet another bad urban design choice would be made based off of parking.

^i wonder how fast it can go through those pedestrian areas and if it can average a higher speed through them than on a street with mixed vehicle traffic

Purely anecdotal but sometimes I see decent weekend crowds at Westwood businesses when the weather is bad. I wonder if people stay closer to home in such circumstances.

would make a great cuckoo clock (perhaps incorporating some digital tech features.)

disagree with this. Look up country club plaza in KC. It’s a straight shot south down Main Street from their existing line. Softball on a tee for them to connect to that

^i wonder if they’re thinking a taller building might cast a shadow on the pool area

I’ve walked past that building 100 times and never once thought that the little driveway (which seems more like a courtyard with the windows of three buildings facing it) interrupted the rhythm of that street in any way, in fact I’ve never thought about at all before this conversation. Doesn’t rise to the level of something that needs to be “fixed” by tearing the building down in my opinion.

This looks like an unnecessary project at best to me. -the existing building that’s there is great urbanism. Doors and balconies that are very intimate with the narrow street. -I don’t understand why the the HCB packet material says the existing building can only be a single family home when it looks like it’s set up as a multi family unit -this discussion should be moved to the 3cdc thread since it is part of the Willkommen project. If it wasn’t part of that project, which is providing a net gain of affordable housing units, people would probably be fighting this