Htsguy

^I have never seen the Banks in person so I am hesitant to opine. But that has never stopped me in the past. 😉 I hope we don't look to it as a model as in my mind it is somewhat of a disappointment. I recall when I first heard of it I was so jealous. A huge swath of land along the river between two new stadiums just minutes from the central business district (a lot closer than our lakefront) with great support from the public sector. 25 years on it is still not finished. Lots of meh architecture and revolving developers. The retail is nothing to write home about, mostly restaurants that seem to struggle at times. Connecting it to the rest of downtown seems to have been an after thought. The riverfront park does seems to have been very well done, Again I have never been on site (although I know the city pretty well since I went to school nearby), I have read a bunch about it, especially on this forum were there is a fair amount of moaning and groaning for various reasons from many of the gang in Cincy (of course that never happens here up north LOL). Everybody is entitled to their opinion as much of criticism is subjective (although fact that it still has a number of developable lots after all this time is telling), but again I hope we can do better, especially in terms of architecture.

I guess a small consolation would be that the jobs would be staying in Cuyahoga County rather than going to Lorain (Avon) per the first proposal.

I am certainly not familiar with all of NRP's work, but in the past I thought some of it was really meh. The Collins seems to be an above average project for them, at least in my mind.

^I was under the impression that another company owned it.

Your not wrong. This opinion has been expressed regularly on the forum since the project was first announced.

Agree but my best guess is that it is not even close to being fully funded. Does anybody know for sure?

The legislation passed at Council just now. Three nays. Slife, Kasey and Polensak

^Step one. When issuing an RFP do a better job (that is the county or whatever public entity) of selecting the appropriate developer.

I never thought of that. It makes perfect sense. Makes me hate the Haslams even more if that is possible.

That means very little given that it was in the vested interest of many of the other members to suck up to her.

Google him. He’s a broadcaster based in northern California. I believe he now works for the San Jose sharks. He does these very detailed videos on YouTube delving into stadium funding issues throughout the country as well as other economic issues relating to sports. He’s been going nuts lately over the situation in Tampa Bay. The videos are about 10 minutes long and delve into both the politics and the economics of new stadium builds. I believe he actually did one about the Browns situation a couple of months ago, although I didn’t think it was as good as other he has done and was not as well researched.

@KJP you should send your article with the polling results to Brodie Brazil. I bet he would do a video with the information. This is the kind of stuff he salivates over.

This development needs a large building, at least 300,000 sq feet and preferrable more, to anchor Midtown and hopefully jump start other projects. Something the size of the original collaboration center before that developer stepped away.

I don’t know about that. I see a lot of junk in the Columbus threads. Columbus poster’s complain about mediocre designs and lack of quality just as much as we do

They usually do

Much better than the first conceptual

Yes it is. It originally was not, and was a bit more interesting, but apparently the developer was having trouble making the original design work financially, so it partnered with Geis who was able to drive down costs with it off the shelf product, although of course tailored for the site. Some what similar to what ended up happening at Bridgeworks.

LOL. Maybe it would better to say "unused" farmland if that is actually the case.

I can remember at least four McDonald’s like that downtown at one time or another. Playhouse Square, lower Euclid, Tower city and Galleria.

I have posted this opinion about 10 times since I became a member of UO many years ago. The fact that there is no med mart is of no concern to me. The desperately needed renovation of the convention center, which was lagging year after year because they could not figure out an acceptable funding plan, would have never happen if not for the MM. Basically the county commissions were able to use the concept as "cover" or "justification" to finally get the job done. I am sure they hoped it would succeed (in other words were not misleading the public) but the fact that it did not does not bother me. In fact, it ended ended being somewhat of a win as the county was able to incorporate it into the CC allowing for more uses and additional space.

Actually I believe they was significant opposition by certain members of the student body, but the search committee basically ignored it. I think there was an even bigger uproar by students, faculty and alum to one of the other proposed locations. That was slant walk across the street from the Beta house and then down along High Street. I would like to know what idiot suggested that location. Even more idiotic was that it was apparently seriously considered by the search committee, along with a third location that would have required the demo of Wells Hall.

Also not a big fan of tearing up Cook Field. Lots of fond memories of playing touch football freshman year when I lived in Dennison (in those days Cook was actually the practice field for the football team and we use to watch practice in the afternoon coming home from class) as well as other fun things. I wish I had a nickel every time I walked across it to go to the Res or visit other Freshman in South Quad. I have one vivid memory of forging a path in the snow across it for early morning class with scores of other students the first day of second semester in Jan. 77 when the whole state had been hit by this historic cold snap including southwest Ohio and the temp was -20F without taking into account wind chill. Crunch, crunch, crunch. (I guess this days students would just skip class or petition that they be held on-line). My choice would be to just build a new arena in front of Millett. Seems like plenty of space, next to other sports facilities and the parking is already in place. If they have to rely on the Millett footprint to do this, just do it in phases. Of course, IT IS ALL ABOUT ME, but that's my two cents.

Maybe the renovation will end up being even better than the original. The trick this time is to make sure it doesn't decline again.

After reading the article I did not get that impression at all.

I totally agree with this sentiment. The problem is developers who are able to take on such a huge and potentially problematic project, even with public subsidies, are few and far between. Even those with the knowledge and resources might just be thinking why bother-we can find something to develop with a lot less headaches. I am fearful that this building is going to sit empty for years to come. I hope I am wrong.