jdm00

I wonder if the Apple store at the Greene in Dayton/Beavercreek had any effect on that. If an Apple store went in at Liberty Center, you'd have essentially 3 of them within about, I don't know, 40-50 miles. With one already north of Cincinnati and south(ish) of Dayton, maybe it would make more sense to have one going the other direction (Downtown or Northern Kentucky somewhere?).

The effect of the insulation is startling even in this state. You can really tell a difference in sound and air pressure in the rooms where it has been blown in, versus those where it has not.

I shop at that Kroger all the time.

Yes, the historic board has to approve your project. Even if you are just renovating a place (as I am), you submit your plans to the board. For old buildings, the main concern is the appearance of the façade and maintaining that. For new buildings, the requirements are a bit harder to quantify, but essentially your building needs to have a bottom, middle, and top, and not be more than a story or so higher or shorter than the buildings you will be next to. (Among other things.)

^IMO the distinction is because the redevelopment on Vine has been done by 3CDC, while they have done very little on Main. Things that have been done on Main have been done over a longer, gradual period of time. I always tell people that Main is a lot grittier than Vine, and I mean that in a good way. There are shops and places to eat and drink on Main that would never be brought over to Vine, because it doesn't fit the aesthetic. In a lot of ways, Main has not been redeveloped as Vine and Race have--it just never got to the level of vacancy that the other streets did, and it has had fits and starts of various small developers, business owners, and residents doing their own projects. If I was being honest, I enjoy walking Main more than I do any other street in OTR. To me, it has an authentic urban quality that the development on Vine just doesn't have (because so much money has been poured into the development on Vine).

The AAC is not quite in that ballpark, according to the NCAA. As you can see below, the Big Ten is just under 13K, the ACC just over 11K, the SEC just under 11K, the Big XII just over 10K, and the Big East just under 10K. Then there is a fairly big drop off down to the PAC-12 and Mountain West in the 7500 range, and the AAC comes in around 6300 per game. http://www.ncaa.com/news/basketball-men/article/2015-07-06/mens-basketball-attendance-numbers-slightly-2014-15 Overall attendance was actually up last year according to the NCAA, albeit by just a few hundred fans. 2015 DIVISION I BASKETBALL CONFERENCE ATTENDANCE Entire Season Conference Tournament Total Games or 2015 Change Total Total Teams Sessions Attendance Average In Avg. Sessions Attendance Average 1. Big Ten 14 250 3,195,137 12,781 -753 7 118,496 16,928 2. Atlantic Coast 15 270 3,069,296 11,368 707 7 141,159 20,166 3. Southeastern 14 249 2,693,919 10,819 466 7 106,521 15,217 4. Big 12 10 174 1,771,483 10,181 -308 5 94,963 18,993 5. Big East 10 172 1,694,688 9,853 142 5 69,695 13,939 6. Pac-12 12 210 1,559,382 7,426 -120 6 70,563 11,761 7. Mountain West 11 179 1,316,788 7,356 -374 5 42,622 8,524 8. American # 11 198 1,244,316 6,284 -2,492 5 45,480 9,096 9. Missouri Valley 10 164 848,871 5,176 -423 5 50,187 10,037 10. Atlantic 10 # 14 230 1,174655 5,107 -451 7 49,419 7,060

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2015/07/28/u-s-bank-arena-plans-huge-renovation.html?ana=e_cinci_bn_breakingnews&u=mdqxSjVwpbwLHTa+xb7xwQ0dc4b18a&t=1438092862 Business courier has a story up. This is unexpected!

The buildings in the square on that picture with the "?????" have been built, though.

Weekly jobless claims at their lowest since 1973. http://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/23/us-weekly-jobless-claims-for-july-18-2015.html

^I actually read something about this very recently on some financial site. Coal has declined precipitously as a result of the transition to natural gas, environmental regulations, etc. And coal shipments make up a pretty significant portion of rail freight traffic. Couple that with a smaller grain harvest and the decline in the price of oil, and I'm not surprised that they would be having issues. Not sure I buy them as a leading indicator of overall economic health, however--outside of the retail sales numbers, other indicators this week have been good. I think we will continue on with this sort of mediocre economic growth for some time.

(Sorry for the OT post by the way. It's Jake's fault.)

I love soccer, but more people in this country care about European leagues than they do the MLS. And there are intrinsic hurdles to the MLS as it compares to the way the very popular European leagues are run that make it very unlikely soccer will be that way in 30 years. Also, they really should move the season; everywhere else plays soccer from around September 1 to the end of April/early May, and that consistency of scheduling allows for all the best players to participate in the big international events. The other point that is worth noting is that baseball ratings may be in decline on television, but generally ratings for EVERYTHING have declined in relative terms on television. What hasn't declined is revenues: Baseball is making more than it ever has before, and in a world where the most important thing to draw TV viewers is live inventory--anything that will be watched live has an advantage in selling to advertisers over anything that can be DVR'd, and televised sports top that list--no sport can offer anything close to the inventory baseball can. Honestly, the sport that stands to lose out the most to soccer (and to a lesser extent lacrosse) is probably football. It's at a pinnacle right now, but it is facing serious headwinds with the brain injury angle that are affecting the participation levels (and lowered participation levels can't be good for later viewership levels).

And one more observation on the out-of-town aspect: We had a guy coming in for work on Monday and Tuesday who had to book his hotel in the last couple of weeks. He booked the closest hotel he could find to downtown that had any vacancy....in Hamilton.

^^I was downtown the entire time (live and work here) and saw jerseys for Cardinals, Brewers, Mets, Yankees, Tigers, Nationals, Padres, Twins, Cubs, Braves, Indians, Royals, Phillies, Pirates, Astros, and Red Sox, just off the top of my head. I have a 20-game season ticket pack (and see probably 5-10 more games in addition to that), and in my view, there were FAR more out of town fans than we typically see. And the thing that surprised me most, frankly, was the number of people wearing All-Star Jerseys (which of course make it a little harder to figure out who they are fans of). I had never considered buying an All-Star jersey, but I saw dozens upon dozens of people wearing them.

We used to cruise all the time in the small Appalachian Ohio town I grew up in. When I was back the last time, it looks like that has ended--I know the neighboring town put in turn restrictions for certain times that essentially ended cruising there. I don't know if similar restrictions were put in place in my town or not. Of course, "cruising" there meant a very specific thing--literally driving around on the same circuit for hours on end, occasionally stopping off in parking lots to talk to people.

Thank you. Perhaps now is the time to go on offense and get the state historic tax credits programs expanded then. Every year there are many worthy projects that don't receive them. Maybe city councils from across the state can roughly simultaneously pass resolutions in favor of expanding the program. While I agree with the urgency of addressing historic buildings, it's worth noting a surprising amount of the catalytic development to take place in OTR to date has been new construction, starting with the Gateway garage and condos, to the new Mercer Commons buildings. The two new buildings on Vine with Quan Hapa and Elm and Iron in them have been critical to defining their respective street corners. In contrast, the largest "chunks" of historic renovation I can think of are Westfalen on Race and the Mercer Commons buildings along Walnut. Perhaps that just the nature of the beast though, renovations are going to be more onsey-twosy type projects. Hmm. I live in the building with Elm and Iron, and think it's really nice infill, but I think that the catalytic parts of OTR (to the extent any section has been catalytic) is without a doubt the stretch of buildings on Vine from 12th to 13th. All those are renovations, and you have good residential pieces (Trideca, Duveneck) with Bakersfield, Senate, A Tavola, Sloan, Abigail Street, Krueger's, 1215, and the Lackman all in that one block stretch.

I am a little biased on this as a Xavier grad (and season ticket holder), but I do have a graduate degree from UC and have been to quite a few games at the Shoe. I hope they do this right, because the difference in gameday experience between the two venues is really stark. The concourses, amenities, seating, and sightlines are so much better at the Cintas Center that it's almost hard to believe the two arenas were built within ten years of each other (or 9, whatever it was). And since UC's attendance has settled in that 8000-9000 range after Huggins left, it makes sense to bring it down to a number like 10,800. It will still provide a home court advantage (perhaps even more of a home court advantage because it will be fuller percentage wise). By the way, if UC gets the chance to play a season at the Gardens, I hope they do it. I love games at the Cintas Center, but Xavier played at the Gardens when I was there (graduated just before Cintas opened), and it is a truly great atmosphere. Sure, the gameday experience is a throwback (to put it charitably) but man, that place got loud.

http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2015/07/13/exclusive-deal-dead-for-40m-downtown-cincinnati.html?ana=fbk Looks like this project is not going to happen.

^I don't think that's correct. If you're talking about the "Parks District" item on real estate taxes (as seen at the county auditor website), that is the Hamilton County Park District. According to the treasurer's website, that designation indicates funding for the Hamilton County Parks District, not the city parks. http://www.hamiltoncountyohio.gov/treasurer/taxterms2.html I don't see anything in the Parks Board's annual report about receiving funding from the County for the parks, either. Everything is paid for by city funds and donations. http://www.cincinnatiparks.com/images/aboutus/2014_AnnualReport.pdf

Not crazy. I'm not sure what the 12 properties with four people gets for you. As someone who is about to marry someone with a property that is going to transition from being a half rental to a full rental (a duplex), I can honestly say that you will have enough issues to deal with in the tenants. It seems like taking on partners would only multiply the headaches, as well. (All this assumes that you can afford to buy a property or three (whether leveraged or not) without taking on partners.)

There's no doubt that there are fewer viewers than in 1988, and baseball as a whole is less popular. By the same token--and I say this as someone who is a huge sports fan and follows essentially something year-round--the ASG will get way more coverage on Monday and Tuesday night than a typical Bengals game, or even a Bengals playoff game. July is the absolute dead zone for American sports. NBA is done, NFL draft is over but training camp is still a month away, no college football or basketball being played; about the only other event of note going on right now is Wimbledon, which only true tennis fans will pay attention to before the weekend. ESPN will be covering this like crazy, Fox and Fox Sports Net will cover it like crazy, and the ASG will lead those nightly broadcasts. From that perspective, it's a big MEDIA deal, which is one reason that it certainly stands out. In fact, the absolute dearth of sports programming right now is why ESPN always does its sports award show (the ESPYs) on the night after the All-Star game; there is literally nothing else in the sports world going on, once the All-Star game has been played and before regular games resume. Look at it this way: ESPN Radio's national morning show, Mike & Mike, will be here and broadcasting live from the Banks/stadium on Monday/Tuesday. They do that for the Super Bowl, the College Football Title Game, the Final Four, etc. I can assure you, they've never sent that broadcast here for a regular season (or playoff) Bengals game. Maybe if we host the AFC title game some year, they might. But until then, that's why (from a sports media perspective) it makes sense to treat the ASG like a big deal--because it is a big deal for sports media.

^^ Very unlikely. The smallest arena to host any NCAA games in 2015 was UD Arena, which is 13,450 or so, and it hosted the First Four. Every other first- and second-round arena was a pro arena or very large college arena (Yum! Center (Louisville) and Century Link (Creighton)). I haven't looked at all of those capacities, but I would bet that everything hosting had at least 17,000+ seats. I don't think that a 10,000 seat arena is in the mix to host NCAA games. For example, Cintas Center has never (to my knowledge) even been mentioned as a potential host, despite being very modern, high tech, and a great place to see a game. It holds 10,250.

I had the pleasure of a tour inside that last week. Very cool space.

ryanlammi, do you live more near the Vine Street end or the Main/Sycamore end?

I was at the game last night. The new right field jumbotron is up. It's pretty big--at least as tall as the one in left field, I think, but not as wide.