Cincy1

This has been discussed previously but due to such arbitrary boundaries, one of the best ways for consistent comparisons would be to simply identify intervals of land area working out from the center of the city. For example, what is the population at 1 square mile, or 2 square miles, etc. For any Ohio (or almost any not named Chicago or NYC) downtown getting beyond 4 square miles would probably be irrelevant as that would clearly go beyond what anyone could realistically consider or call downtown.

I know that Cincinnati's CBD has been defined by boundaries that create a very small .8 square miles ( it is specifically the financial district only). Even with OTR and Pendleton we are looking at a total area of only about 2 square miles, still compact boundaries relative to many cities.

I do not care about this pissing match in particular but there have been several claims that make the overall agenda suspect. I actually think Columbus is alright (and lived there for 5 or 6 years), but I am pretty sure Cincinnati has a larger labor force today than in 1985, for example. This would make sense since there about 350k more people in the metro today. I'm not sure I see where you're getting that Columbus has lost some big advantage on employment growth. Further, I'm not sure what you mean by "employment growth" to start with. If you're referring to the civilian labor force, Columbus has long been the clear winner in that regard. With it comes to labor force, Columbus had the #1 growth of Ohio's large metros from 1985-1990, 1990-1995, 1995-2000, 2000-2005, 2005-2010 and in all years since. In fact, in any combination of years since 1985 Columbus leads in the growth of it's labor force. In the entire 1985-2012 period, its labor force grew by almost 128,000, while every other large Ohio metro had it shrink. If you're instead referring to total non-farm jobs, it's a similar story. The numbers only go back to 1990, but Columbus lead this catergory in 1990-1995, 1995-2000, 2000-2005, 2005-2010 and 2010-2012. It also lead the entire 1990-2012 period. The metro had these jobs grow in all but the 2005-2010 catergory, but had one of the lowest losses in the period. The only time it didn't lead was in the last year, and only one metro (Cincinnati) was ahead by a few thousand. This does not suggest a wholesale change unless it can be sustained.

It looks like Butler is moving on up as a replacement for Temple: Will This Dog Lose His Bite?That's the question now that Butler has upgraded to the Atlantic 10, but why all the doubt? Eamonn Brennan thinks the Butler Way will both survive and thrive. Column »Bulldogs to A-10 »Blog » http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation

Nice - the quotes were probably better than most of the material they make their talking heads read anyway.

Channel 19 just did a story on the city's attempt to purchase the property at the north end of the route as a car barn and pulled quotes from UrbanOhio - a few posters were mentioned. Just kind of funny to watch....

It looks like stages and show times are set, with a few TBD's: http://bunburyfestival.com/music-more/set-times

Nice - another 425,000 square feet for Children's - it looks like this will be used to draw more scientists from outside the region (there are already a few on my street so they must have a good number), which is an added bonus. They have been good to our economy and quality of life.

Damnit I could not resist reading the letter or the comments so I just fed the monster. Glad to see the majority saw the letter for what it was, bs. There was one commenter, Dawn H., from UC who clearly holds some disdain for the city. I was going to reply to her thinking she was a student, but then thought maybe she is older and out of touch. I checked her profile and she is over 70 and has about 6 friends...... Regardless of the impetus or one's view of how we got here, I must say this is the most confident I have felt about OTR in my lifetime. This revitalization really seems to have staying power, and the streetcar would literally blow the lid off the neighborhood. I heard Thom Brennaman (announcing the Reds) on the TV once again pumping up the restaurants and activity a few days ago - he said if you want to eat there to be sure to arrive early or you would be waiting at least 2 hours to get into any establishment like he did. That is about as tangible an example of the progress I can think of, not to mention how much credibility it is given by less "adventurous" Cincinnatians based on who said it and where.

And the next 3 announced: Airborne Toxic Event (Friday), Manchester Orchestra (Saturday) and Gym Class Heroes (Saturday). So Saturday will have Manchester Orchestra and Weezer.....

This will probably be one of the cooler music festivals in Cincinnati since Desdemona. I am looking forward to seeing the lineup fill out, but the headliners are a nice start - can't wait for Death Cab and Weezer. It looks like the 3 day pass will be well worth it for any UO fans out there: http://bunburyfestival.com/

According to my sources this decision is still indeed open - Keystone is actually the first place I thought of when they determined they were not going to the CBD. Hopefully that meets their needs, and I think it is the best location to offer to keep them within the city limits.

I must say that I feel better about this since they are adding a residential component....would still like to see more height, but I understand they are looking for specific design elements. Hopefully Kasich does not try to weasel in on this expansion....

Unfortunately it sounds like they are looking at 40-50k floor plates. This might take up more of the lot's footprint than expected and will likely not have much height to it. At 50k they would only need 5 floors - I am guessing this desire disqualifed the Banks site. Personally, I would have preferred something at least 15-20 stories.

Has someone told Smitherman and Winburn?

Very surprised that Miami is number 1. Granted I have spent most of my time there in South Beach, but it is hard to believe for a place that is usually 85 degrees and sunny on New Year's day.

So TQL, a home-grown Cincinnati company, which moved from Eden Park to Clermont County a few years ago announced today they are adding 1,000 jobs and Kasich decides to show up. This company was adding a 1,000 jobs in the region regardless, and it bugs me that he had to jump on the press conference when he really had no impact. Where is he when companies are thinking about moving or where is his effort on getting new companies here? Great news, but what an ass - I prefer the Courier article because it makes zero mention of him. http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2011/12/15/total-quality-logistics-up-for-4m-in.html

I am not sure of the long term impact of switching to Facebook, but it was interesting to see these few comments on an article about ongoing developments at the banks. I am certain one week ago there would have been 20 negative, asinine comments by now - I had gotten out of the habit of checking them due to this very reason but was curious and found only 3 positive comments. One even makes reference to the missing trolls: http://news.cincinnati.com/comments/article/20111206/BIZ01/312060162/Progress-continues-Banks

^ Also, Tom, the stadium funding was the brainchild of a Republican Hamilton County Commissioner and is a county issue. Just saying.

Personally I want our state to go after some companies to help build our business reputation. I am having trouble reconciling Kasich's pitiful offer for Chiquita compared to this excessive offer for Sears. The per job disparity is ridiculous. He does not really seem to have a comprehensive plan, and I think envisions himself as a modern day gunslinger - probably not a good quality for a governor.

Alright this is starting to make sense...any package over $6.5 million for 330 $100k jobs is giving away the store while a package of $400 million for 6,200 jobs is good business. This offer to Sears is more than 61 times the value of the offer to Chiquita for just under 19 times as many jobs (which I am sure do not have a salary average of more than 100k). Thanks guv - nice effort and I appreciate the wise and economical use of incentives.

^ True, but Aguirre has mentioned he has been here for some time and has established relationships and would have loved to have stayed. He is also a minority owner of the Reds. I would prefer leaders that find reasons why they should go after businesses as opposed to those that find reasons why they should not. See his response to this question: Q: What ultimately made you decide to leave for Charlotte? A: Bottom line, the money we are going to get - $24 million in incentives and $4 million in savings every year (from consolidating offices in California, Chicago, Texas and Florida and real estate/building costs). That compares to roughly $6.5 million of the maximized incentives in the state of Ohio after many, many negotiations and sessions and discussions. Gov. John Kasich got involved - but it just came up really short on what Charlotte and North Carolina did."

I am CVG based. My neighbor works for Chiquita. According to her, this deal has been in the works for months, and "the airline service is bad" is an excuse. Chiquita has ~300 employees based locally. Half of them do back-office admin type stuff and never travel, some travel regularly, and the higher-ups all fly private out of LUK. Chiquita was out shopping for tax breaks and used the airport (and DL) as a scapegoat. It's just unfortunate now that she has to choose between quitting her job or uprooting her family. Hope they like flying US. Read more: http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,3374.480.html#ixzz1fFAepLuc Chiquita Brands International Inc. decided to leave Cincinnati for many reasons, but the biggest one is undeniable: Money. ^^ These two quotes say it all - part of me wishes Ohio had done more (and according to Aguirre the city did not do much either). Ultimately a package that is only worth 27-31% of another will not get it done regardless of air service. I can see that Chiquita is a risky investment, but it is never good to lose an HQ. We will see how this bet plays out and hopefully our "pro-business" governor can score a win for the city (from outside the metro), although I have little faith in him.

One other thing I hope comes out of this - a more regional approach to how incentives are offered. As I have mentioned if a company was poached from one state to another I have no problem going after it to bring it home, but ultimately this is a waste of our resources. It is much more effective to save the incentives to go after a company outside the region and bring them here - this seems obvious, but for some reason our leaders have not adopted this approach.

I agree that flights came into play, but not nearly as much as Chiquita would have us believe. Ultimately North Carolina gave $22 million in incentives. Ohio was only willing to go to the $6-8 million range. That pretty much was that, unfortunately.