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Wow, those are some beautiful houses!

Call me crazy, but I almost wish there was a permanent park like this on that corner. Or somewhere nearby at least. I think the new plaza/seating area on High & 15th is great, but it's ultimately just a concrete seating area. I think High Street really needs a cool looking park/greenspace like this to better activate the street. Having a cozy, compact, aesthetically-pleasing urban park is something I think most of us could agree is needed in a dense urban neighborhood, which currently doesn't really have any parks besides what's on campus. I think this temporary park will be a big hit and I bet there'll be controversy when it inevitably gets removed in a couple years. Honestly they should've done something ambitious like this at Mershon Plaza to create a proper gateway to the Oval.

Beautiful pictures! Personally, I think Buenos Aires is one of the most aesthetically pleasing cities in the world

Commerce's road diet is already in full swing actually!

I was in town recently and stopped to see the progress on the Front Street road diet... the dedicated bike lanes are looking quite nice!

Elyria's Downtown has really been through the ringer... as if it couldn't get any worse!

Great photos! There's so much potential in Toledo, but wow, their downtown is still so embarrassingly gritty for a city its size.

It's unbelievable how underutilized so many of the older downtowns are in SoCal. Given how crazy the real estate market is there and how sprawly it is, you'd assume there'd be some demand for creating vibrant dense walkable town centers throughout suburban SoCal. These cities have great potential but there doesn't seem to be much life in them.

Thank you! I'm quite busy these days but I do have a list of old photos I plan to eventually make before and after pictures for.

A beautiful little city! A lot of those buildings remind me of buildings you'd see in a place like Over The Rhine. I need to get down there are visit sometime!

Such a beautiful city!

Where were the first few pictures taken? I assume somewhere around Woodsdale? Also, I've said it many times, but I'll say it again: Wheeling truly is one of the most underrated cities for architecture, if not the most underrated.

Not sure what the development's called, but one thing I'll give South Bend credit for is this really great new neighborhood they developed next to that Eddy Street Commons (south of campus) - Just a few years ago, it was an urban prairie eye sour, but now it's a beautiful neighborhood with houses that fit in so well with South Bend's architecture that they actually could be mistaken for being historic. I mean how often do you see authentic 20s-era English Tudor homes built these days?! 2011: 2022:

I have to disagree. Believe it or not, there's a huge amount of students that live in that area and commute down to campus everyday. Plus, the bars along High in that part of Old North are pretty popular with OSU students. It's definitely kind of a gateway to the campus area. I do wonder who the apartments in this development will cater to most though. It seems way too far north for students to justify spending "luxury" apartment costs at.

Everytime I see a historic photo of Akron, I'm in awe at how much Akron destroyed its inner core with urban renewal. Streets like this one would have been incredibly popular neighborhoods/entertainment districts if they survived into the 21st century. It's a real shame because I feel like Akron really doesn't have a whole lot of historic buildings left around Downtown even though it clearly used to have amazing architecture and density down there.

Selah Owner Plans Boutique Hotels & Event Space in Downtown Struthers https://businessjournaldaily.com/selah-owner-plans-event-center-boutique-hotel/ The owner of the longstanding Selah Restaurant in Downtown Struthers has purchased the building next to his restaurant (126 S. Bridge Street) and hopes to turn it into a tiny four or five room boutique hotel with an event space on the first floor. The hotel would be aimed towards visitors to baseball tournaments at Bob Cene Field as well as other Struthers visitors who want to stay in the city rather than have to drive all the way to Boardman for lodging. He is also considering a retractable cover over the alleyway which runs between the two buildings, which he currently uses as outdoor seating space.

New Market Street Parking Garage I was in Wheeling this weekend, and as always, I found some new and impressive stuff in the Friendly City that I wanted to share! There was some questions over whether or not it would actually happen, but I'm happy to report that it appears the new parking garage on the corner of 11th and Market has begun construction! The $19 million parking garage coincides with the residential conversion of the nearby Wheeling-Pitt Building, which will bring 110 apartments to a previously underutilized high-rise building, by providing the parking spaces needed for residents. It also will likely be used by the workers at the new Health Plan headquarters across the street. The thing I like about the garage is that it will contain retail spaces in order to keep the street activated and make it a valuable asset for more than just cars. This is largely thanks to the Mayor of Wheeling Glenn Elliott, who has consistently prioritized good urban planning principles into city projects. The Doris on Main: https://www.theintelligencer.net/news/top-headlines/2022/04/new-housing-option-on-the-horizon-in-downtown-wheeling/ In a complete shock to me, the Market Street Parking Garage isn't the only infill project underway in Downtown Wheeling! The local development group, Woda Development, which has built several new buildings around the city in addition to beautiful residential conversions of historic buildings, is currently constructing a four-story 46-unit apartment building at 930 Main Street. The building's design is pretty cookie-cutter and unremarkable, but any added density and removal of surface lots in downtown Wheeling is a win-win for me! Other Projects: Additionally, the streetscaping project for Main and Market seems to finally be ready to start soon! Sadly the project won't convert the roads into two-ways due to local opposition, but the resurfacing and streetscaping will have a huge impact on Downtown. Lastly, I noticed that a very outdated pedestrian-street in the Market Plaza section of Downtown has been renovated into a much more vibrant and modernized pedestrian space known as 11th Street Plaza. This part of Downtown needs a lot of TLC, but this is definitely a big step in the right direction.

I think it looked like the Gallagher Building is finally being renovated last time I drove past - that will hopefully add more apartments. But yeah, we desperately need more Downtown residential. It appears that Downtown residential units are almost completely full, so the demand is there. Currently there's like 2-3 highrises for sale on Central Square, I wish someone would just buy them and turn them into apartments or just devote a much smaller area to offices. The part that really concerns me is that a lot of the bars never came back after COVID, I just hope that trend starts to reverse itself. In a way, this is a perfect time to rebuild all the Downtown streets because of this, so hopefully after it's done Downtown will get a second wind.

Electric Bikeshare Coming to Youngstown https://businessjournaldaily.com/design-review-approves-concept-for-bike-share-stations/?fbclid=IwAR21UmOIo_SEC5pw2B-p41VIIRXwqNf7K78E4QSsjg2k3egPxP6Hs4WtUQk A local electric bikeshare startup, YoGo, will be bringing 15-30 electric bikes to three (maybe four?) docking stations in the Downtown area. The three planned stations are: Penguin City Brewery/Youngstown Flea area, Realty Tower/Central Square, and West Federal/YBI area. There is also another planned for Wick Park (as mentioned below) but wasn't mentioned in the article. Hopefully they open one up at YSU because if not, that's a major oversight. New Bike Shop Opens in Wick Park https://businessjournaldaily.com/new-bike-shop-on-wick-park-gets-up-to-speed/ A new bike shop, CycWard, has opened up in the former RIchard Brown Methodist Church on Elm Street in the Wick Park neighborhood. This will be the first bike shop in city limits in recent memory. The article says that eventually the store will sell coffee, which I'm not sure how I feel about that considering there's already a great coffee shop one block away (Culturehouse Coffee) and I doubt the area can support two of them. Hopefully they stay primarily as a bike shop - but either way, the space is beautiful! There will also be a docking station for the new YoGo Electric Bike Share which is coming to Youngstown soon and CycWard will help maintain them.

Penguin City Brewery Opens Downtown: https://businessjournaldaily.com/the-taps-are-flowing-at-penguin-city-beer/ Penguin City Brewery has opened its new taproom in a restored warehouse on East Federal Street on the eastern edge of Downtown. The building will also be home to DOPE Cider House which will open in August as well as Cockeye BBQ which will open in November.

Steelite Anounces Downtown Youngstown Headquarters https://businessjournaldaily.com/steelite-announces-youngstown-hq-plans-to-maintain-new-castle-operations/ In an increasingly rare positive Downtown-Youngstown story, tableware supplier Steelite has announced that they intend to move their corporate headquarters to Downtown Youngstown from New Castle. Steelite currently operates a showroom in the Commerce Building on East Federal Street. They have entered an agreement with the Youngstown Business Incubator to occupy a large part of their campus, taking up most of the Taft Technology Center and second floor of the adjoining Semple Building. The headquarters is slated to bring 70 new jobs to Downtown Youngstown, which is huge given how many offices never went back to in-person work. Steelite says they came to this decision due to the great response their clients had to their Downtown Youngstown showroom location and the proximity to the DoubleTree Hotel, which is within walking distance. Overall I'm pretty excited for this - Downtown Youngstown desperately needs stuff like this to happen.

In yet another blow to Downtown Youngstown, OH Donut Company (formerly One Hot Cookie) is leaving Downtown and moving to Poland.... Downtown has really been struggling post-COVID which is a huge shame considering how vibrant the downtown area was becoming before the lockdowns. https://businessjournaldaily.com/oh-donut-closes-downtown-youngstown-location/

I couldn't agree more. I grew up in Boardman and the northern parts (the older parts) have some charm, but the bulk of the township is so painfully suburban. I can't imagine why people find sitting outside on 224 to be charming, but hey, some people do I guess! I wish it could have opened in Downtown Youngstown or something instead. Or that Boardman could make a main-street type area along Market Street near the South Side with restaurants like this.

There's been a fair amount of development on the east side of Boardman around the South Avenue I-680 exit recently. At the former K-Mart site, a new plaza was built recently which is home to Mission BBQ and Coolah, a fast casual Indian food chain. Recently, Condado announced that they'll be occupying the middle spot. They already put in a nice garage-door style facade for the store which will allow for the front patio to be more connected with the rest of the restaurant. I'm pretty surprised that Condado decided to open a Youngstown area location - I wish it was in Downtown, but this works too! Next door to this plaza, there is a new Swenson's being built which is Swenson's first restaurant in the Mahoning Valley. Down the road on South Avenue across from Sam's Club is a new development called "The Enclave at Boardman" which plans to bring over 40 townhouses to the area. The 3 bedroom units are currently listed for $245,000.

The amount of demolitions in Elyria is insanely depressing to me. I guess they just don't see the potential in it that we do! Even with all the new empty lots, Downtown Elyria still has so much potential. I could see it having similar success to Newark's downtown if they played their cards right.