thebillshark

Well this is just starting to sound like some kind of plan to make us competitive in the future economy or something.

The plan for LISNR is a $6.9 million campus according to this article, so these purchases could fit in with an ambitious plan like that. https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2017/12/04/exclusive-lisnr-planning-6-9m-headquarters-in-over.amp.html

Agree with IAGuy39[/member]. Given trends at the time whatever replaced OTR probably wouldn’t have added any people and would have been city-deadening in design and would require us to go back and fix it now. Moreover we already have an example from history to look at- Kenyon Barr, the bulldozing of which permanently maimed our city and has definitely put a ceiling on any potential comeback we will make.

Yes I still think it would be a good idea too. https://cincinnatiideas.com/liberty-and-race-underground-garage/ There’s just so much potential development that could be served by a garage in the immediate area in all four directions there. In between two streetcar stops too- i know there are many garages along the streetcar route but one here could be a psychologically obvious option to someone that wants to visit OTR and ride the streetcar. A garage will most likely be part of any Vine Street Kroger redevelopment, so we’ll see if this location would still be in the running if one gets built over there. I also would like to see a parking garage go in above the streetcar maintenance and operations yard. This could serve Findlay Market, Rhinegeist, and surrounding development. They could also enclose and heat the ground floor where the streetcars are kept in order to keep them operating those weeks with below zero winter nights.

Downtown Macy's is down to furs and rugs. You can get 75-80% off rugs worth thousands of dollars. I think the last day is tomorrow.

^Perhaps. However, I know it won’t be popular on this board, but I’m starting to think a height limit of 20 stories would serve us better and modulate projects to our weak demand. We’re gonna have a lot of holes to fill downtown within the next 5-10 years.

That Williams column today was a new low. I’m disgusted he gets to set the narrative at the newspaper with the largest circulation that all my older relatives read. Trying to make Cincinnatians begrudge a small neighboring city right across the river because of frickin’ Hofbrauhaus. Only someone who never leaves their house and never visits downtown Cincinnati or Newport would believe him. Guess what. Smale Park is nice. Sawyer Point Park is nice. Walking across the Purple People bridge is nice. Newport in the Levee is nice. The Aquarium is nice. That’s a pleasant Sunday afternoon. They work well together. How small minded, petty and provincial can we possibly get around here.

Not saying it’s not FC related, but wasn’t there a recent article about this building being a new headquarters for Lisnr?

I would be. In fact I think the main value of the Davis building is setting the (fine) granularity of that block. Granularity may sound like a a nerd-term but it is why OTR feels more vibrant than the CBD and why OTR attracts more entrepreneurs and small developers. It is also what makes the coursely-grained CBD fragile and brittle to huge dead spots when a building goes vacant or otherwise fails to create activity with a variety of uses. https://cincinnatiideas.com/2017/02/07/historic-preservation-a-link-to-a-different-kind-of-economy/

They’ll probably rush out a software fix and get approved to resume testing. Which will be fine until the next software bug or unforeseen combination of software bugs causes the next accident. And then we’ll all get to be test subjects as company B and company C refine their own software versions as well.

I hope they don’t try to widen and put a highway connector through second or third street. Those look like nice streets with historic homes and good urbanism.

My understanding is they don’t need land from CPS in Oakley and under a port authority structured deal they could perhaps avoid these specific taxes that way. But Todd Portune put out a tweet saying the deal would have to address CPS taxes in order to for him to approve it (I guess a port authority deal would have to be approved by the commissioners.)

^you saw a design for the parking? You must have access to info the rest of us don’t. I’ve been following closely and there’s only been a single rendering of a West End stadium released last year where you can only vaguely make out some of the details of where it sits in the neighborhood. There was never a proposal for parking (for a 21,000 seat stadium) beyond a vague “redevelop WCET town center garage” suggestion. They never discussed what streets they would need from the city to build on top of, what the plans were for historic and other buildings within the footprint, or how the stadium would have addressed Central Parkway. Indeed if they had released some shiny renderings for people to drool over they may have had more public support going into these negotiations. The whole process has been bizarre and just about as clumsy as it could be. On the one hand they came with big promises for community benefits- and then balked once CPS wanted taxes at what is an already abated (as I understand it) rate for big developments. Maybe they thought they were already giving away the farm by reconstructing Stargel stadium right across the street for $10 million. On the other hand, some of the community activists would have never been happy with whatever they came up with, and would have dragged FC’s name and brand through the mud at every step of the process, every chance they had. Perhaps FC saw that and wanted to cut their losses early.

You say “savvy investors and developers never pay retail on taxes” which might be true but it also contradicts the rhetoric that this time it’s different and FC is most interested in being a community partner. Yesterday’s deadline stunt contradicted it as well. Like I said yesterday fully paying into the school system would have made every subsequent step in this process easier for them. You don’t have to convince every neighborhood activists (you will never please some people) but you have to put together something that city council can approve and makes them look rational to most people for supporting.

Yes, when you think about it it makes no sense that FCC came out today with a 5 pm deadline because they had to close on property today. Is there some other billionaire investment group that is going to snatch it out from under them?

I don’t understand FC’s hardball strategy today. Even if they got school board approval they would still have to face the negotiation of a community benefits agreement and a vote on city council. By satisfying the school board or even being generous they could give political cover to council members to support them even if they can’t come up with a community benefits agreement that makes everybody happy (which they most likely won’t be able to.) Unless they need to show that this step adequately “hurts” to manage expectations for the community benefits agreement and council approval.

I think the IRS site has several advantages over the Newport site. It’s larger- looking at the Newport site after they completed that new highway, a stadium looks like it would be a tight fit. IRS site would probably be easier road/highway access as well. Plus closer proximity access to the Banks parking/ amenities like I mentioned before, and synergies with NKY convention center & Covington’s small CBD & huge parking garage/transit center there. Don’t know how the IRS site could be added to the discussion at this point without people losing their minds though. The people automatically rejecting a NKY site because “but it’s not Cincinnaaaatiiiiii” are making a juvenile point that shouldn’t be listened to in this discussion. It’s a fake trade-off in a discussion with lots of real trade-offs.

It’s still on schedule per the latest status: https://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/dote/dote-projects/liberty-street-safety-improvement-study/

It’s unclear to me if they’ve established the feasibility of bifurcation of the tube yet. With so many of the technical details (and thus economics) unknown, isn’t drawing lines on maps (outside of the blogosphere) a pointless exercise?

What would the failure modes look like on these things? Would there be a “push pod” traveling at a slower speed that goes out and forces the travel pods forward if the vacuum seal failed in the tube? Would passengers have to wait for it to travel 200 miles to arrive and start pushing? What if more than one pod was stuck in a tube? What do the oxygen systems look like for the pods since they will be traveling through a vaccuum? What would happen if they failed?

Monday's meeting of the OTR Community Council is the one you have to renew your membership at for 2018 or else your voting privileges lapse. That means if you show up to join/renew at some other meeting this year, you will have to wait one month until the meeting after that to be able to vote. If you are an OTR resident, it's a good time to consider joining if you want to be able to vote on any specific issues that may come up this year. Monday's meeting will also be at Memorial Hall due to work being done at the Rec Center.

^with the power players and local and state governments involved you’d think they could move that deal through the process on schedule though.

Why was the Covington IRS site discounted so early in the process? If this whole conversation was taking place just a year or two in the future, closer to the date it will be vacated, it would be the obvious choice. Enormous site, closest to the Banks and it’s 8,000 parking spots, filling a vacant space in downtown Covington they’ll be desperate to fill, could be integrated with an expanded NKY convention center, close to bars and restaurants on both sides of the river, close to gorgeous Suspension Bridge link. The West End discussion has me thinking past the point of sale to how it could work, but it is putting a square peg in a round hole compared to the Covington site that will be available soon.

Anything along or near I-71 is going to thrive because of proximity to jobs: https://cincinnatiideas.com/2016/07/25/why-west-siders-should-be-rooting-for-streetcar-success-more-than-anyone/ (I also think this post makes the case for a West Side Bridge to the airport)

I think the hyperloop is dumb but I also think it’s dumb this proposal bypasses Toledo. Which brings me to a thought- given that you wouldn’t want to be slowing down and speeding up all the time in the hyperloop you probably wouldn’t want to daisy chain cities together but instead build parallel tubes (maybe stack them up in the same right of way) to connect pairs of cities together. For example in a Cincinnati to Detroit right of way, have a pair of tubes for Cincinnati to Dayton, a pair of tubes for Cincinnati to Toledo, and a pair of tubes for Cincinnati to Detroit. A Cleveland to Chicago right of way could have a pair of tubes for Cleveland to Toledo, Cleveland to Detroit, Cleveland to Ft Wayne, and Cleveland to Chicago all stacked together. The tubes for the smaller cities would branch off from the main right of way when they got close to those cities. It also makes sense because probably acquiring a right of way that doesn’t curve would be the highest cost. If this thing goes as fast as they plan, then the main right of ways could be established in unpopulated areas without significant losses to travel time. Hope Elon reads UrbanOhio cause that sounds like a good idea I just had of I do say so myself