ragerunner

You actually hit on one of the main problems. Townships!!!!! This form of 'government' and its power at the state level has done Ohio a great deal of damage. It has restricted cities from expanding and causing a lot of unorganized development. Liberty township should be a municipality and so should West Chester. Then the residents of these areas will have their own city council and vote within their boundaries. These areas should be taxed to deal with their road problems, lack of parks, services, etc... They should have comprehensive plans that look at the entire 'township' and how everything needs to fit together. Until Ohio and/or the township residents themselves address this issue; sprawl, financing, taxes, public voice, etc... are going to continue to be a huge issue. As far as what makes this project different from an suburban office park or strip shopping center. It integrates office, retail, residential and community gathering place into one pedestrian oriented environment. It may not be integrated into its surroundings (freeways on two sides) but, at least a person could drive to this location and actually shop, work, live, etc... without having to get back in the car to do each item individually.

While I agree locals should have a say in what takes place in their community. I would also say that anyone who buys a home within a 1/2 mile of a freeway, in a rapidly growing suburban area, should expect to see noticeable development over a 10 to 20 year period. The honest truth is, people are afraid of change, especially when its something 'different' than what they are use too. This project is something new to the Cincy suburban market, and has a little density to it. Since its not your typical Kroger strip center with Drees suburban housings surrounding it must be bad? (Because that is what most of them live in.) The Greene in Dayton didn't destroy that suburban area (matter of fact, most of the suburbanites like it now that its built and it at least gave that area a little sense of place) and neither will this project.

Soon you will be sitting out under the stars in the 'town center' listening to the band play while eating some cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory. I am not a fan of suburban greenfield development. But, if we are going to continue to build on greenfields, at least this project has some density, mixed use and is walkable within the project. It beats another strip shopping center, with a tree buffer, than a row of suburban houses, followed by another tree buffer, before you get to the office building, followed by another tree buffer.... America continue to kick itself in the butt, over and over and over....

Looks like a bad situation for the international works and a big black eye for KI and Cedar Fair.

Its about as good as media reporting gets. They at least were right that its a coaster. If its a Dive coaster then the coaster train is going to have a lot of damage when it hits that splashdown pool (since its not large enough for Dive Coaster cars).

I don't know how many in Wilmington work at this facility (I am sure a lot). I do know that many travel from Warren County and around the metro for these jobs. Maybe someone else will step in to utilize the facility in the future. (This could be a challenge with Oil prices like they are though.)

DHL to take back 23 aircraft from ABX Air Business Courier of Cincinnati "ABX Air Inc. will lose 23 DC-9 aircraft as its primary customer, DHL Network Operations, reduces its business with the cargo airline. According to a Thursday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, DHL notified ABX on June 20 that it would reduce the services ABX is providing by 23 aircraft by the end of 2008. That will affect 16 of ABX's scheduled air routes, the airline said. More at: http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/stories/2008/06/23/daily45.html?f=et57&ana=e_du It appears that the cuts backs are about to start? Has anyone heard anything else. This is a lot of jobs.

I agree the architectural elements are very much like Atlantic Station (good or bad?), but its a start. The really good parts of this project is how pedestrian oriented it will be and that it will have a street grid pattern.

Along with this group, Agenda 360 has also made Smart Growth, and Form Base Codes a priority item.

This should help keep the world demand for oil running high even with the US economy going into the dumps. SUVs for all. China's car sales up 17.41% in first five months of 2008 "BEIJING, June 7 (Xinhua) -- Passenger car sales in China in the first five months of 2008 rose 17.41 percent over the same period a year earlier, an industry group said on Friday. According to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM), car sales reached 3.02 million units, including 2.23 million sedans, 179,200 sport-utility vehicles (SUV) and 93,200 multi-utility vehicles (MUV) in the period. Sales of passenger cars, SUV, and MUV in May alone totaled 564,600, up 16 percent over the same month last year. The growth rate was quicker than April's 11 percent. Auto sales in China were expected to exceed 10 million units this year, which would represent a full year sales growth of 14 percent, CAAM said. Auto sales have maintained double-digit growth since the beginning of the year, in contrast to weakening sales in much of the world's other major auto markets." http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-06/07/content_8323219.htm

Columbus Indiana - Sears

Daytona is ridiculous.

It a shame to see these jobs lost in this region. But, its good to see GM finally changing some of their production models. Lets hope ABX doesn't lose all the jobs that are being predicted (6,000?) in Wilmington. That would be a pretty hard hit for southwest Ohio.

I call it vertical sprawl (see Dubai). While some of the resort beach areas might meet this descriptions, many areas have become major pedestrian/mass transit, dense areas. Coral Gables, Coconut Grove, Kendall, Miami Beach, and downtown Fort Lauderdale. Calling it all vertical sprawl is really missing the mark for a lot of areas. Outside of Chicago there are no cities in the midwest that can compare to some of these areas for density, pedestrian access and mass transit.

Nothing like giving a tax break to a company that is just moving jobs around the metro.

CincyDad said, "So maybe the project will be a huge success because all the preppy wanna-bees in the area will probably spend themselves into bankruptcy at a new high-end retail area and buying BMWs and Lexus', and liquidating all the equity from their house that they gained while living on the east coast these past 10 years." First, that sentence made me laugh. Second, you probably are not very far off on that comment. Third, this described about 90% of Florida when I lived there minus all the plastic surgery.

So are you saying its better that they continue to build suburban sprawl in the burbs than create high density walkable places? While I think most on here would agree it would be better to have this project closer to an urban area, I would much prefer to see them build this (if they are going to continue to build on greenfields) than another Kroger/Target strip shopping center and 150 foot lot subdivisions.

While there are pockets of urban areas in Butler county (City of Hamilton and to some degree Middletown) the rest of it is suburban or rual not urban. It may be built up, but only in a sprawling suburban fashion. I would not want to have to ride my bike or walk from one point in West Chester or Liberty Township to another. I can comfortably do that in most of Hamilton.

Parts of South Florida are really become very urban, and dense. They also are developing a good mass transit system. It to bad downtown Miami's street life doesn't equal it huge skyline.

To bad its not $4.00, then Steiner would be building this closer to an urban area.

I do think a large retail project with department stores at this location may just do the Tri-County Mall in and make it very difficult to every redevelop the mall in Middletown. Tenant Guess: Von Maur, Dillards, Bass Pro, Cheesecake Factory, etc.... This projects is just about halfway between the Greene and Kenwood. Question: How high does gas need to go before a developer like Steiners decide building out on the edge of suburbia isn't the best use of money? My guess - $6.00

Agreed, If this project has the same concepts as The Greene, than it will be light years ahead of what was developed at Union Centre. If we are going to continue to build on greenfields, at least make the projects LEED and mixed use. Who knows, they might even be able to create enough density in that area to support transit one day.

Agreed. I am sure the company would be more than happy to sell the land to a government agency for parkland, at the right price.

I would prefer to see them build the outlet mall on this site closer to the city than on the greenfield site in Monroe. Same company.

Looks like what Hamilton has been doing at the downtown Fitton Center for the last 2 years, with some good success. I don't remember the enquirer doing an article on Hamilton's efforts?