Caseyc

But why was he patrolling in "Little Bethlehem" (as pretty much everyone is calling it now)???? You really have to seek out the streets like Gage, Loth and Rice. It's not like it's that easy to just cruise through there. I always wonder about that. There are other places in Mt. Auburn I could see as more plausible, but not this isolated hill side encampment.

yeah....such a pedestrian-friendly area!!! Who wouldn't love a stroll on Central Ave between I75 and the convention center?

The Cincinnati preservation community has consistently hewed to the position that this is only temporary and not their final resting place. The Mayor has consistently ignored the preservation community on this issue and basically did this all on his own. Ideally, when the Millennium goes down and an expanded convention center is built in its stead, these could be incorporated into the new structure.

I want Hamilton County to build a new office building downtown and consolidate their employees there, so they can sell off Alms & Doepke and 800 Broadway (Times-Star Building) to be redeveloped into residential. Same concept for the Elm Street Health Center (although the owner of that one is the City of Cincinnati, not Hamilton County). If we had more cooperation between the city and county, maybe they could build a joint office building so that all of these government services are located conveniently in the same building. Either the city or county could build the building and the other could be the tenant. Historic buildings converted to residential and new construction for office buildings seems to be the winning formula in Cincinnati, and this plan would advance both. I would agree. The Health Center on Elm is there because we no longer had use for the historic school, and nobody wanted to live there/make the investment for historic rehab, so it's a by product of that old model of social services re-use, clustering the programs in low income neighborhoods (i.e. the Buddy Grey plan). Now that the neighborhood is seeing increased investment, the city would be well served to see whether it would make sense to maximize this market position and sell the aging building off and do what Travis suggests. It's not particularly well suited as a health clinic, and many of the people using its services drive there (the parking lot is always packed, and they pack Wade Street as well). Just because it's "always been there" (relatively speaking), doesn't mean it "should" be there. This is one of those arguments that the self-annointed Guardians Against Gentrification like to use. What should really be examined is where the citizens that are dependent on the services come from. This is one of my big complaints about the Freestore on Liberty. People drive from all over to go there. Why locate in a congested block on Liberty where they are cramped and want to tear down historic structures in order to expand a driveway? There's no reason to be on Liberty when the vast majority of the people drive in from great distances. Yet I digress. Re the Clinic, I'm just speculating, anecdotally. I don't have information on the clinic's demographics or anything, but rather just observations from someone who has rehabbed and sold two single family homes on Wade Street (one, at 221 Wade, we sold for $599,000, and I will say that a lot of prospective buyers were turned off by the clinic/parking lot. My impression was sort of a "well, then I guess this area is not for you, honestly." The new owner of 221 Wade relocated from NYC. He never saw the clinic parking lot as a big deal at all).

LOVING THE BUCKTOWN AND LITTLE BETHLEHEM REFERENCES!!!!!

It's a very slow laborious process, parsing out the steel, debris, removal etc. The demo of the Western Southern garage seemingly took forever as well. My old office was across the street. So much steel in these things to salvage.

Is anyone else petrified by the prospect that Cranley is going to take the MLS Commish on a "driving tour" of Cincinnati? Let's find that guy's twitter feed and start making suggestions when the date draws closer.

3CDC is involved with development of the new Kroger site. I suspect the deal would get 3CDC the rights to the old Kroger, which would allow them to develop the entire stretch from Vine to Walnut, not to mention the Wielert's and additional building to the north, as well as the four buildings north of the Kroger lot, which they also control. Also, I can't see the new store eliminating a lot of the "bargain" type shopping available at Kroghetto (other than, say. 40's). I would think it'd be more of a hybrid of the more organic/natural/upscale concepts while still keeping the low end. To do otherwise would risk a huge community outrage (assuming the Vine street Kroger gets demolished, as it should).

http://www.soapboxmedia.com/features/092716-soapdish-fall-festivals-relocated-mixed-reviews.aspx One person's opinion.

Had a disastrous attempt to ride it on Saturday around 1 in the afternoon. I had three out of town visitors in for MPMF, and thought we would do a loop from 12th and Main and get off downtown and go to Maplewood. When we arrived at the platform, arrival time was pegged at 22 minutes. Credit card reader did not work, nor did validation. Eventually we were able to get our unvalidated cards. And waited. Arrival time clicked down to 3, then back up to 30. So we waited. In the interim, a technician did arrive to work on the machine (a card was stuck in validator). During the interim, the arrival time switched to "Delayed." After about 45 minutes, maybe more on the platform, a train pulled up. Doors opened, and everyone on board shook their heads "NO!" Children looked out in in fear of the crush. There was literally no room to even squeeze/push our way in. Tried the other doors as well. We walked to Maplewood.

I like the fact that the art on the parking garage in the rendering is a replica of the mural that the Wades/Urban Sites demolished when they tore down the garage at Melindy and Clay. I do NOT like the fact the OTRCC and Foundation keep carping on issues like it being to big and dense. We need taller buildings and more density in our infill, not more 2 and 3 story townhomes.

If you don't want to go to MPMF (or even if you do), go to our adjacent Fiesta de la Zarigüeya: Music & Beer Festival in Pendleton. Basically we are in the pocket park uphill from the WNKU stage. Great sight lines despite the screen (because, well, uphill). $50 for three days gets you all the Rhinegeist you want. $25 for a night. Even if you do go to MPMF, it's cheaper to drink over here. And the park is way more pleasant. Right across from Cafe Urbana and Nation.

I was waiting at Gomez last night around 7 and observed what has become the standard operation for the northbound leg: long wait for streetcar, then a packed streetcar goes by, followed--2 to 3 minutes later--by almost empty streetcar. But everyone knew this was going to happen. The southbound route down Walnut is a crawl. I know that they moved all the bus stops that they could, but with all the testing that was done, you think this could have been better game-planned. A few months ago, we were walking past the CAC. Streetcar went by and I hit a stopwatch. We went to Pi and sat outside, ordered a beer. As we waited, one, two, and finally the streetcar I timed went by, almost 30 minutes later. With months of empirical evidence based on testing, you would have thought they had the data to gameplan better. I guess not.

wait wait wait.....ALTAR'D STATE CLOSED??!!??

People will be surprised how big it is inside. The mezzanine is quite large, and there are an additional four bathrooms up there. You also have additional lounge/flex space provided by the former office which fronts 12th Street and the upper beer garden. Those have garage doors which open up, and the thresholds have been widened with concrete and topped with old repurposed joists to add seating/table area.

I happened to look in Bay Horse today at lunch. It looks pretty good, the old bar, tin ceilings and old tile floors look great.

Those were the fun days. That was Jeff Cappel, who I thought for the most part operated out of his mother's basement in Blue Ash, although I could be mistaken.

I was just talking about this debate the other day. As I recall, Jake was heckling The Dean. Good times.

Queen City Radio photo link for non-WCPO Insiders. Opening within a week or two: http://www.wcpo.com/entertainment/entertainment-photo-gallery/first-look-inside-queen-city-radio-bar-and-beer-garden

The latest on Alumni Lofts and Pendleton. http://www.soapboxmedia.com/features/082316-soapdish-historic-pendleton-back-to-life-casey-column.aspx By the way, Lucious Q plans to start construction next month. I'll leave out the part where they expect to be open in January, because there is no way that's happening.

"The JACK Train!" "The JACK-a-Loop"

To be honest, tho, that's about a mile or two from Walnut Hills High School, North Avondale Montessori or Fairview-Clifton German Language School. If you are ever at Liberty and Reading between the hours of 4 and 6 pm, the endless stream of pill hill workers driving to their homes in another state is staggering. Sadly, I don't see that changing.

The problem there is that altering the brick "pedestal" will jeopardize historic tax credits. I'm mean, it's pretty much a given based on what I have heard. That said, however, plans for Terrace Plaza are in the works.

But without those two lots we wouldn't have the MOST AWESOME MIDPOINT VENUES EVER!!!!

It is on top of the carriage house in back of the Hauck House.