jdm00

That's an interesting article. It says that Toby Keith's got a $5.5 million loan that has no priority to it (i.e., local governments will be last in line to be paid off if the place goes under).

I have no inside information, but I'm guessing some of it has to do with historic tax credits. Only so many credits are awarded during each go-around, and they make the financing of a rehab project much more doable.

Question for Browns fans: what are you reasonably expecting in terms of record this year? (Full disclosure: I'm a Bengals fan, and expect the Browns to be somewhere in the 4-6 win range this year.)

I thought the giant pile of tires--which looked like they were from some seriously old cars--was interesting.

Yeah, I think we can support all of them. And some of the other stuff is starting to arrive--on Vine St now there's a dry cleaner, pet store, and bicycle shop. Keep it coming!

I'm starting to worry about overstauration with the restaurants...between Zula, Anchor, Quan Hapa, and whatever the Japanese place in the Color building is going to be called, that's 4 new ones slated to open in the next few months!

Yeah, it is definitely not cheap. The bar is very nice! It's sort of quiet and sleepy over there, but that could be a plus to some travelers. They really did a nice job on the conversion.

Ah yes- My bad I only thought of the 4 standard hotels. the Residence Inn is an extended stay, the Cincinnatian is sort of our comparable to a boutique hotel and I guess the Garfield is split about half extended stay and half regular rooms. Either way, considering occupancy is somewhere around 67-69% I think it's a little crazy to expect 4+ new hotels to open and no one to do poorly or go out of business. Like I said, if the Millennium closes that's great, but beyond that occurring I don't see how we're going to add another 25-30% in available rooms without someone shutting down. A couple things. I think you are selling the Residence Inn short by dismissing it as "extended stay." I'm not kidding when I say it may be the nicest hotel downtown right now. Also, I am not sure where you get that there is an increase of 25-30% in rooms coming. There are over 2800 rooms in downtown hotels right now (including the 21C). I don't think that the Enquirer building renovation and a Banks hotel (which has not even come close to being announced) are going to add 800 rooms to that stock. Also, it appears that at 67-69% occupancy, there's plenty of money to be made. An admittedly brief Google search turned up this link, indicating that PWC determined back in 1998 that the break-even point for hotels was 55% occupancy. http://www.hospitalitynet.org/news/4000978.html I'm not sure that adding another hotel or two necessarily means one of the existing hotels will go out of business.

Yeah, I had no idea where someone was getting "4" for the number of hotels. And 21C opens in the next 3 months, so we will be up to 8. (I think I listed them all upthread even...)

I agree with your point generally, but tennis players have made the Olympics a fairly big deal. I don't think this would be as good for Murray as winning Wimbledon--no British player has won there in 75 years, and you could see the level of expectation/desire he has to win in his speech after he lost--but I think it's a big deal. At least as big as any non-major, and maybe as big to him as winning the Australian or something. Plus, I think a lot of them took this Olympics even more seriously because it was at Wimbledon.

This 10 game losing streak for the Tribe has been brutal.

^^I think Eighth and State is being purposefully obtuse on this issue, as he consistently has. You can point out it was fully funded in 2008 till you're blue in the face, and he will just ignore it, as he does any post that points out the factual inaccuracies of his positions.

Not really. Cleveland has 3720 hotel rooms downtown: http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2011/04/downtown_cleveland_hotels_pin.html Even counting the rooms at 21C, the 8 downtown hotels (21C, Residence Inn, Milennium, Hilton, Hyatt, Garfield, Westin, Cincinnatian) only have 2842 rooms. Seems like there's room for more. http://www.cincyusa.com/accommodations/

I think it's just the circumstances that have people suspicious. So he got "jumped." But it doesn't sound like it was a mugging or there was any theft of any kind. Factor in the fact he's been drinking, and the "I just got randomly jumped" story becomes tougher to sell. (I say this having no idea what actually happened; just trying to explain why Seelbach is taking some heat.)

That's exactly why the Reds need him. Stubbs recent hitting surge allowed the team to pass on Victorino. But Paul is the only left-handed bat the Reds have on the bench. In the late innings of a critical game, you will want Paul facing the other team's best righty instead of Stubbs. So far Paul has excelled as a pinch-hitter, going 4 of 8. Stubbs has a lefty-righty split of .298/.210. I agree with all that, but you said the Reds have a "glut" in the outfield, which implies (to me at least) that there are more good players than spots to play them. I think they're just about where they need to be in the OF--Bruce playing everyday, Ludwick playing most of the time, and Stubbs/Heisey splitting the rest of the time. Paul is not (and should not) competing for playing time the way Ludwick/Heisey/Stubbs are. But I agree it's nice to have him on the bench.

Sounds like BP is out for a little while. Ugh. Only silver lining is that middle infield is one of the positions we actually have some minor league depth to callup if need be (Henry Rodriguez, Didi Gregorious). We'll have to see.

Xavier Paul is a bench player and pinch-hitter, nothing more. There's a reason he was out on the street when they signed him to a minor-league deal. I sure as heck hope he doesn't take any at-bats away from the other outfielders. It's amazing to me that Bruce is still our youngest outfielder. Feels like he's been here a long time--in a good way.

Is there any way I can take a look at those drawings? Procrastination is a legitimate strategy. It is my opinion that Duke doesn't want this project - ar at least they don't want to contribute to it - and they think that biding their time will lead to the best outcome for them. If it doesn't get built, Duke saves all the trouble of moving the utilities. If it does get built, Duke at the very minimum puts off spending any effort on this project for as long as possible. The city should not expect every other party to drop what they were doing and help them out. because it just doesn't work that way. Really? You understand that this is a *public* utility, right? It's not like they can just sit back and refuse to work with customers and municipalities where they do business because they disagree with a project. Would it be okay for Duke to "procrastinate" when it came to, say, repairing the power lines at a Catholic Church? Or in a predominantly African-American neighborhood? After all, if they procrastinate, they can "put off" any effort and save themselves some money. Maybe the "problem" would just go away by itself then.

(In the tape, he admits he has been drinking.)

Here's a link to the 911 call: http://www.wlky.com/news/local-news/kentucky-news/Seelbach-relative-assaulted-makes-intoxicated-911-call/-/9718420/15886298/-/lydi6w/-/index.html Any chance that the news story yesterday was his effort to get out in front of this?

Whatever time is saved missing crosswalks and waiting to cross a street is proably lost because you have (and had) a far more limited route--the skywalk is not nearly as direct as the route you pick on the street. And the fact that you are spending much of the time in the various buildings doesn't mitigate the fact that you don't actually escape the weather in the skywalk. If it were climate controlled the entire way, that woudl be one thing, but they aren't. You get out of the elements for awhile, then right back into it. To me, I'd rather be either inside or outside. There is no "sort of out of the elements"--it sounds like "a little pregnant" to me.

They can be helpful in the rain, but as far as the heat or cold go, I find most of them are not helpful at all. Many of them are not air conditioned or heated, so it's essentially just as intemperate as walking outside. Sometimes it's worse, especially in the summer; the Skywalk from Chemed/First Financial to Atrium Two is generally about 15 degrees (or more) hotter than the outside. It's like a furnace because of the greenhouse effect.

Basically he can bring a lot more in trade because he still has team control at a reasonable price for next season. You get more for players that are going to be around a bit than for a straight "rental player."

Yeah, the Reds, Bucs, and Cards are all playing really well right now. Not gaining much ground on anyone, but not losing any ground either.

Yeah, I think it's going to be a Cincinnati-centric sports bar. I'm sure I'll watch some games there. Did Lavomatic open back up?