MikeInCanton

I am a little surprised the capacity will be just 21,000. I figured FCC would shoot a little bigger given their popularity.

The grapevine hints at an ownership group with a downtown stadium. Time will tell.

Aren't the abandoned subways from the late 20s? How useful could 90 year old stations be?

Canton needs a public university. Relying on UofA and Kent and community colleges isn't working.

The thing that may force MLS to intervene with the move is the discovery portion of the lawsuit. I'm sure there is a lot of stuff they do not want out for everyone to see.

IRG and Maple Street are at least two in charge of building it. And these two together do not have a good track record, and IRG projects have history of the sort of shady issues the HOF has had to deal with. They may have finished projects but not without a lot of headaches of their own doing. There are plenty of firms out there who would have taken the job that don't have a history of losing massive amounts of money in mysterious ways.

I'm not sure if it's IRG alone, but it is the same group and it's having the same problem. They should have found someone else.

I knew attendance would take a dive because of the Austin situation, but I can't help but think the very low attendance so far (47.6% capacity over 3 games) is a really bad look to potential investors (if Ohio wins their suit against PSV and MLS). One has to be very confident the people with the money believe the Crew can be a success just by virtue of getting PSV out and building a new stadium. I understand how peeved people are about the whole thing, but I also believe it would be a bigger F YOU to Precourt if the stadium were packed - I think it would make him look as foolish as he is. What is going on now is not good.

Pretty bad article, in poor taste. The contractor payment has been an issue for months but was resolved. Is there a developer out there that will do a $500 million+ project and have every dollar accounted for? Especially considering this project was always approached as phased. Meaning, build phase I, dangle the carrot for investors in phase II, rinse, repeat for subsequent phases. I think the issue is the HOF should have known better than to hire that firm. All they had to do was ask North Canton how the Hoover project is going to get all they needed. Sometimes the lowest bidder is so for the wrong reasons, and it's important to not let the dollar signs and possibilities put one in a trance. I'll be surprised if the project doesn't have further issues and is not ultimately scaled back. Baker has a history of this behavior, practically single-handily driving the Arena Football League into the ground through his ambition. I never trusted him to lead this and still don't.

Maybe they haven't tried good Grappa. With some marketing, I'm sure they could move bottles at the resort or at Twisted Olive. Seems like a good way to use the leftovers of their wine-making.

Wine-barrel aging is done all the time but not in place of traditional oak aging, usually as a "finish". I am not sure if that's what they mean or if they're going to age them entirely in former wine barrels. The latter may work for brandy but I would not be surprised if the bourbons and whiskies are flushed down the drain once they taste the results (I've heard of this being tried before to not-so-good results). For now, the impression is: gimmick. It's also puzzling to me that they're not making Grappa.

There's probably multiple reasons for that, foremost, I would guess, being the installation of 71 that cut off downtown from the waterfront. One of those mid-century decisions that is largely considered a bad move today. If the city ever capped 71, it would improve the area substantially.

Compared to other possible uses for waterfront property, yes it would be.

I don't doubt that kids visiting downtown to attend ballgames has an impact on their perception of downtown. I was referring to new stadiums spurring additional development. Sorry if that wasn't clear. A boom of development instigated by a new stadium project is pretty uncommon. There are only so many bars and restaurants that can be built and generally I think people are averse to living or staying close to open air stadiums - they're noisy, they bring large crowds and congestion, and shine bright lights until 11pm. I generally advocate for stadiums to be grouped together as much as possible in pre-existing downtown entertainment districts. In ranked preferred location order I'd say: 1. Pre-exiting entertainment district 2. Downtown 3. Suburb 4. Exurb 5. Rural 6. Urban waterfront on a river 7. Urban waterfront on a large lake or ocean

It's not typical for stadiums to have that sort of impact.

Being mass produced isn't a problem in itself. And neither does being different make something aesthetically pleasing. I'd probably favor a row of similar-looking Italianate houses over that street.

I honestly don't know. Not much of a wine drinker.

Not wanting a "single building" aesthetic is confusing to me. Have people conflated poor design with uniformity?

Speaking of bland architecture, am I crazy or is every developer copying this sort of design? This could be anywhere in North America. It is the same bland, mass-produced subdivision mindset brought to the urban landscape. Please. Developers. Stop it. Put some effort into your designs. Hire real architects.

I'd be surprised if they win. Crew Stadium was built privately.

I'm curious to see if the distillery is taken seriously or if it's main purpose is to be there as part of the resort experience.

Maybe I'm alone in this, but late last year I came away thinking Higuain is about spent. He is 33 so I guess it's not that crazy to consider the future without him.

I'm curious why developers are not utilized more in the development of new transit systems. Transit systems rely on neighborhoods with proper population densities and a healthy mix of land uses to be economically viable - meaning there's an incentive to build densely because more units within a space means more potential revenue. The costs can be dispersed into the leases and sales from new developments. I believe this is similar to how it was done in some cities when streetcars were first being installed: a developer would lay down the tracks and place new plots within walking distance of them. The costs accrued were then included in the sale prices or rents of the homes, apartments, or commercial spaces.

I do believe the project proposals for the land have fallen through. As far as the land not being big enough for the Crew...if true, I'd have to ask what exactly they're after. If they want a suburban stadium surrounded by youth fields or a shopping center they can do that in Ohio quite easily. If they want something in the city then they have to accept the limitations. That said, that particular piece of land is quite huge for an urban setting, so the "not big enough" line sounds like some Precourt BS to me.

Neat! I put together a hastily-made stadium development in that spot a few months ago: It does seem like the best spot if something were to be done. I honestly do not know of any other spots near downtown that are viable.