Jeff

I sort of like the idea of old SROs...they add some character and keep a downtown from being too yuppie-sanitized (as well as providing housing to poor or down-and-out folks). I lived in something pretty close to one during my Sacramento days. I see one of my favorite little dive bars, the Bay Horse, is next to that hotel.

I like the stretch of Main south of the Courhouse. Some neat stuff there, like a greengrocer, Ohio Bookshop, the "rude tie shop", The Bay Horse (classic dive bar), an art supply store, and so forth.

The Elder Beerman at the Dayton Mall has a pretty good sportswear section...Nautica, Hilfinger, Polo, others....higher end sportswear brands. As far as I recall thats not what Sears carrys. I think Elder Beerman also owned the EL-Be shoestore chain, which was in towns that their department stores weren't in.

Sounds like a Martin Mull skit. Anyone remember Fernwood Tonight? Set in fictional Fernwood Ohio? But..Dacron...I like that!

So that Spanish Revival building on the corner is part of a bigger picture? ...this developement could be a real innovative, contextual thing, or it could be just another strip center (but in an urban setting).

The person who posted on Middletown mentioned a local department store there, too. Actually local department stores where quite big even into the 1970s. In Louisville there was Stewarts (the flagship local deparment store), Bacons, and Ben Snyders, as well as Shilltoes and LS Ayres branches. I seem to remember a Blochs in the mall in Springfield in the late 80's...from Indianapolis, I think?

Thats how I remember it in Chicago...plus those two-wheeled grocery carts you could use to carry stuff home. Also, in Germany, that was the pattern too...frequent trips to neighborhood grocers, bakers, butchers, and weekend markets.

If anyone wants to see the actual mobility study with data on Ohio(and other eastern US) metro areas here is the link to a clickable map Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo, and Akron are featured. The study compares congestion for these citys with the national average for comparable metro areas.

Interesting! Nice shots of that Marathon Oil adminstrative complex. Wow..a massive corporate HQ building right in the middle what looks like a fairly typical Ohio county seat town.

....a good place for a supermarket...a real supermarket...would be that open area thats between I-75 and the county jail, I think. I think this was going to be the location of the Reds stadium? That would have enough area for parking & a real supermarket, like a big Kroger or Cub Foods or something similar. These mass market high volume supermarkets usually have lower prices, and this would be beneficial to the poorer folks who live in Over The Rhine.

Monte, are you serious? Another aquarium?

Seriously..that block of Third, between Jefferson and St Clair, has some real interesting little shops/tenants...a real mix. A high "realness factor" on that block.

Oh,thanks dfly...thats a neat location..a block away from the original site on 3rd and main, and on the NE corner,too. Incidentally, that vacant lot was once the site of a neat neo-romanesque commercial building, that was featured in a MHS calender, and also in a rendering in an old "city magazine" from the 1960s as an example of potential reuse. I think the building was torn down in the late 60s or 70s...for that tiny parking lot. So, this looks like a great reuse of that site. Funny to see the proposal has what looks like a rooftop beergarden on top of the Wright Corner! I need to print this out and show it to Tommy (the bartender there)...he'd have a laugh.

This bridge is hot...a great addition to Toledo. I think the first cable-stayed bridge lI saw was the one across the Ohio @ Huntington WVA. Theres another brand new one, also across the Ohio, at Owensboro, KY.

I have mixed feelings, too, about reading that article. Especially the line about "problem tenants"... So, El Diablo is closed? I recall that was a popular place at one time.

I have mixed feelings, too, about reading that article. Especially the line about "problem tenants"... So, El Diablo is closed? I recall that was a popular place at one time.

..thanks...sounds like that would be great for a downtown, especially if they are one-of-a-kind specialty stores..the only ones in the area. I think there is a bit of that going on in the Lazarus building, with Tiffanys and Brooks Brothers on the ground floor. ...I guess Cincy already has something like this, tho, in that Rookwood shopping center by the Joseph-Beth bookstore.

I recall the fate of OC downtown was in disucssion when I visited Toledo around 10 years ago. At that time OC was going to move from its big skyscraper downtown...the discussion was to relocate to a suburban campus in Monclova Township, west of town near the airport or to a site near downtown called "Middlegrounds". I guess the decision was to relocate to the Middlegrounds site and build that lowrise "campus" HQ.

...what exactley is a lifestyle center? I understand this to be a shopping center, but what makes it different from a normal shopping center and why would it be bad or inappopriate for a downtown?

Hmm...This is news. A new entertainment district on Jefferson? There used to be quite a few nightspots off of Jefferson....Bostons Bistro in the Eve Feldman Apartments, the State Door Musical Bar (Daytons, and possibly Ohios, oldest gay bar), 1470, which was this sort of gothic/"industrial" disco, the Buckhorn, and the corner of Jefferson and Third (now closed), and the venerable Century, on Jefferson between 3rd and 4th. Across from the Century is Cold Beer and Cheesburgers, sort of a sports bar/food place.

Thanks Cincinnatus, Actually the concept sounds sort of neat...you could stroll the skywalk from Lazarus to Nordstroms to Saks then to that little shopping mall in the Carew Tower complex, and back to Lazarus (or more likely start at the shopping mall as thats where the parking is)...sort of a shopping loop. In retrospect, yes, I do agree with richNcincy that they should have kept the original building, but the orginal concept sounded like a fun shopping experience.

..Well, what about it? To me, one of the things that makes downtown Cincinnati special is the amazing denisity. So, I;m curious about the story on the parking lot along 5th Street, west of Race, across from Saks and the Hyatt. I recall this was the site of a low-rise modernist building that was connected to the skywalk, and the skywalk level had a bunch of smaller restraunts and fast food places, so the place must've been pretty active during weekday lunchtime. Ground floor I dont recall much of, but it seemed to be pretty much rented out, too. So, why was this building torn down, and not replaced? One would think this would be a good site for a new building.

Id like to hear about that Toldeo bridge C-Dawg mentioned. It sounds pretty impressive.

Really? What would they replace the revenues with? Or would they?

It would be neat to get Santiago Caltrava to design a bridge here in Ohio...are you all familiar with his work? He has designed some really neat bridges over in Europe.