Old AmrapinVA

Well said, how are those Pirates doing Evergrey?

Seicer, using your argument, why not just tear down Over-The-Rhine and build another Crocker Park/Easton? Reduces crime, increases land value, and you get millions of $$$ in developement for Cincy. It gets rid of a 'seedy area' as well. Screw the density, history and functionality of the place....as long as there is a giant health food store, it's OK. In all seriousness, alot of you guys are in your 20's and don't know what was there before. To say that the area is vibrant today is more than a bit of a farce. Vacant store fronts (no matter how pretty you make them) speaks volumes of said 'vibrancy', and there are still plenty of them well after this project has been completed. There were no vacant stores in the area around 1990. Beyond the bars, there were cheap eats on High north of the bar strip, a convience store at the corner of 11th and High and a laundromat (all three of which are 10 times more functional to a student than Caribou Coffee, Potbelly, Cingular or EB Games.) I have feeling this project was put together for the residents of Columbus, not so much so for the students going to OSU. That's fine, but in turn, it actually decreases the urban feel of the area because the large amount of foot traffic provided by the students has been pushed away in favor of people that drive from other parts of the city.

^^ I think it's funny that people think this version of High St. is "jumping like mad". The stretch from the Used Kids Records to South Heidelberg in the 80's and early 90's...that was crazy. From what I saw last fall...it was pretty dead compared to times past...and it was nice Saturday night with a OSU home game. I'm sure residential density is up in that area, but commerical is way down compared to times past. Like Metro said, you had 6-8 individually owned shops where now you have one big chain store or one gigantic bar or vacant commerical fronts. It does feel less dense, even with the bigger buildings. Sometimes forethought should be put into urban planning. If you're going to build a large residental project near a college campus, you might want to put some amenities in that cater to college students. There dosen't seem to be alot of that in the area.

Odd thing that when we signed Danny Ferry as a player, it put the Cavs in a bad spot salary-wise back then, too. We couldn't trade Ferry because no one would take his huge contract. And we couldn't waive him because we would still have to pay him. That's a good point about Ferry and his salary as a player. His contract problems, in a roundabout way, was how the Cavs ended up with worthless load called Shawn Kemp. I have no beef with Ferry though, he did something no other Cavs' GM could do....he got the Cavs to the Finals. I just hope that, in two years, we don't see LeBron playing in Brooklyn and the Cavs are still capped out. That scenario pans out and it'll be back to 17 win seasons again.

I went to OSU from in the early-mid 90's and I went back to see the OSU-PSU game this year. As crappy as the bars were back in the day, it's better than this Crocker Park faux/"trying to be upscale" mess they've built. I also hear north and south campus have traded reputations because of this project.

Interesting piece from the Jacksonville Times-Union newspaper on what changes are being made at St. Augustine Airport inorder to accomodate thier first commercial carrier -- Skybus. http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/060607/bus_175015201.shtml

Rando....I don't think I-74 is part of a DC connection. I think it's supposed to run to Charelston, SC...although I might be wrong about that though. I know part of I-74 runs north/south through North Carolina. Sorry, didn't mean to go off topic.

Well, that's the thing. The Cavs are in salary cap hell at this point. Ferry's moves might have done the most damage to this organziation since old baldy himself put the Cavs in PR hell after he punched MJ back in the day. And at least when he punched Jordan, I had a good laugh. Nothing to laugh about with this salary cap mess.

***tumbleweeds blowing in the background*** Hellooooo?.....Hellooooo?......Mr. Starkkk where are youuuuuuu?

Start Gibson at the point and give Z more rest, this playoffs grind is showing off his age. As slow as the Cavs transition game is, it grinds to halt when he's on the floor. It's like LeBron and Co. get down the court, set up the defense and just rotate around until Z is set. It's the "come on old man, we'll wait for ya" offense.

I'm with everyone on having some fun. It's taken 37 damn years for the Cavs to win the Eastern Conference. I think a little partying is in order. :)

Wiz fans here are seething. They think if Arenas and Butler were healthy they'd have the ECF. Classy fans here. :) Lets see if LeBron can break the "curse".

Don't forget....the Cavs stole one last year at the Palace then turned around and couldn't seal the deal at home. I hate to say it, but I still think the Pistons will walk away with this series. I hope I'm wrong. Either way, it's been a damn good series!

As for CAL's grand announcemt, did it really surprise anyone? I don't really think CAL cares about CLE that much. I guarnatee those 711 jobs and this "expansion announcement" will probably go to IAH in a few years, after they get their facilites issues straightened out. As for this idea of "a plan of expansion", that's too funny. EWR never stops expanding....check out the CAL website...it's EWR-to this new place and that announcements never end.

Oh, don't worry, I didn't think you were. And "confit" is a way to prepare duck, not my name. :wink: I still don't think we're talking about the same thing, so I apologize for not being clear. I'm not talking about flights from Cleveland to China because, for the many reasons you've enumerated, I figured we probably won't see them in 2012 or any time soon, although the runway extension wouldn't hurt (which is what I was getting at in my first post.) I'm asking if CLE might see more domestic transfers because of China flights starting elsewhere. (Would there be a correlation? I don't know how the system works.) Something that just came to me: using your Houston-China example, do you think it's possible that Continental would shift some of IAH's European flights to CLE to make room for the new Asia flights? Maybe urbanlife is right, and Continental will answer some of these questions for me. Ah, I gotcha.Well, more flights from the US to China will probably increase everyones transfer traffic...but I don't think it'll be enough to be really noticable at CLE. As for IAH-China, I was just using it as an example of how far CLE will have to go before they can honestly see Asia flights, let alone China. CAL only operates one flight to the Pacific Rim from IAH: Houston-Tokyo Narita. Maybe they'll start a Houston-Beijing/Shanghai down the road, but I don't see it soon. With the FAA process, who really knows? Even with 2 Asian flights I can't see CAL transfering that much up European traffic to CLE.

Paris, London, and Amsterdam will be a start, but I'm not holding my breath for flights to Asia any time soon. I'm really more interested in a possible increase in domestic flights, depending on which airlines are allowed to fly to China. What say you about that? Confit, I'm not putting CLE down. I'm just saying that even if CLE had a long enough runway, it dosen't guarantee service to China. CAL would establish IAH-China service before CLE. (BTW, Newark-Shanghai got approval). Right now, in order for CAL to generate enough interest for Asia through CLE....we need a larger domestic transfer presence, like you said...and stable year-round CAL service to London, Paris and either Frankfurt or Amsterdam. On top of that CLE would need a European carrier to create competition...like a Lufthansa. You'd think if international service reached that level at CLE (along with the improvement in facilites), Asia would start to become a no-brainer. Problem is, right now Cleveland has one daily seasonal flight to London, along with one daily seasonal flight to Paris coming in '08. While better than no international service, it's pretty weak compared to quite a few airports, CVG included.

Even without the runway extension, I wonder if we could expect increased traffic at Hopkins due to shifted domestic flights. Cleveland could build a 15,000ft. runway and it wouldn't guarantee an Asian flight. There are lots of airports that have 11,000-12,000ft. runways for decades and never seen an commerical passenger flight to Asia. Typically cities in the East establish a multi-city presence in Europe before setting their sights on Tokyo and other Asian cities.

Surprise . . . Hopkins flies high with travelers Airport ranked 4th in J.D. Power's survey Wednesday, May 23, 2007 Susan Vinella Plain Dealer Reporter Some of us grumble about our airport, but frequent fliers say we have it pretty good. For the second consecutive year, travelers surveyed by marketing research giant J.D. Power and Associates ranked Cleveland Hopkins International fourth among the nation's midsize airports. Could we be wrong? They rated us better than the likes of Tampa, Baltimore-Washington and Pittsburgh with its fancy Airmall. Our overall score of 698 out of 1,000 points even puts us ahead of some of the big boys, including Los Angeles, Newark and Orlando. Yes, our escalators don't always work and we patch carpets with duct tape, but 210 travelers passing through Hopkins between May 2006 and April 2007 overlooked most of that in rating us on nine categories. They gave five stars to the shopping, and four stars to the eateries. They consider the place generally accessible and clean. The only midsize airports that got better marks were Kansas City, Sacramento and New York's LaGuardia.

Short answer yes it does. Probably because of its newness (1999) and was probably built with intentions on one day getting an NBA franchise. Oklahoma City's Ford Arena has a seating capacity of 19,675 (Cle:20,600, Cin:12,800) and also has the oh so important Box seats, 3300 of them. I know the NBA wants its locker rooms to have enough room for all the modern locker room convieniences plus room for the media. I don't know where OKC stacks up in that regard. According to wikipedia the Hornets spent $200,000 in upgrades for the arena as well. I've been to Ford Arena, it's as nice/big/modern as Quicken Loans or the Verizon Center. M to O brings up a good point about the players amenities, though.

You need to roll back and read some of the previous posts in this thread. Smith is actually trying to find ways to improve the airport while lower landing fees. Opening up the ownership of airport shops to competition to create an outside source of revenue will help. Actually keeping track and collecting fees and taxes due the city will help as well. For some reason this wasn't done for the previous 20 years. Mind you...CVG fares have more to do with Delta and their price fixing scheme than anything with landing fees. CLE landing fees are higher than CVG's. Delta knows it has Cincy travellers by the balls with the lack of competition, and it squeezes every red cent out of passengers there. NW does the same at MSP.

The current runway configuration is rough...although adding the third 5/23 runway was a big help for CAL in terms of ATC traffic flow control. Also Hopkins is lacking a quality facility to handle even small widebody jets. From what I hear repeatedly, the customs facilites suck as well. Also, for a city that gets tons of snow, there has been real trouble in running an efficent de-icing pad. Although, I know that's improved a bit with the new central de-ice location. The reason CLE scores high is because you can get in and out of the airport rather quickly compared to most other mid-sized airports. If you land at the D concourse in CLE, you can be at a downtown hotel in the about the same amount of time it would take just to leave the airport property if you arrive at the D concourse at Dulles (then you have a 30 mile ride into the city). Transfering is easy too...at some airports (like Kansas City) you have to leave the secure area in order transfer, none of that BS in CLE. One more beef: Outside of the Hopkins Sheraton....there really isn't a nice hotel near the airport. If the Ford plant closes completely.....an intermodal yard along with a string of mid-rise quality hotels where the Ford parking lots straddle Engle and Snow could really do wonders for the area and the airport. But I don't think Brook Park pols have that type of vision. They love those EZ Park folks.

Vegas I would agree with that too.

Where did the PD get that 11.3 mil figure? That's about 500,000 short of the actual pax totals for 2006.

If Seattle were to move...Okla. City would make the most sense at this point. So this whole section of the thread of an NBA team moving to Dayton, while interesting, is kinda a moot point.

The third quarter was a killer. The Cavs played solid defense the entire series until those crapola minutes. It was like the team was just standing around watching Kidd throw 3's. Then when they finally clamped down in the 4th it was too late. They better get their heads out of their butts and play a complete defensive game in NJ.