Caseyc

Spent some time at Arnold's supporting the Soapbox stage (courtyard was full). Went to Know (up and down), Below Zero, New Stage Collective (kind of dead, and no booze?), and Southgate House. Quite a lot of people spread among many (17) venues. You need to either (a) plan ahead and meticulously execute your plan with drill seargent precision; or (b) just go with the flow. It's hard to get everywhere you need to be with short set times. The scions were great. They were like a convoy rolling up Main. Just hail one and they pull over. We didn't even bother with the prearranged pickup points. Tonight and tomorrow will be different and I suspect they will be much more busy.

what time tomorrow is the CC update?

speaking of Walnut between 4th and 5th, has anyone mentioned that Balboa's is opening another operation in the old Walnut Street popcorn space? if not...well, there ya go.

Fire up troops! Observations from my office window.....Hot on the heels of the "beehive of activity" represented by two surveyors and a white van from last Friday, we now have new construction equipment arriving at the banks site. Looks to be the beginnings of a crane...large excavator etc. stay tuned.

the streets are being ground down, and then resurfaced, to correct the mess made by the utility cuts. The are alternating from Boal to Milton, so when they work on Milton everyone on Milton moved their car to Boal, etc.

this link (from above) seems to have a lot of decent options for rentals downtown. http://gototown.com/cgi-bin/viewcat.cgi?Category=Stay;Subcategory=For%20Rent what are the Renaissance Apartments at the Power like? I park near there a lot (such as last night)...close to Arnold's...Silverglades on ground floor for convenience items.

this would be an absurd and ill-advised choice....just sayin'. Lot of good suggestions here re downtown etc. As someone mentioend above, Hyde Park and oakley have a lot of decent medium sized apartment buildings if that's what you are looking for. But Deerfield...no. no. no.

Lot of variable facts and circumstances there....e.g. a few of those are just cars in an alley (temporarily?); the last one is Mercer Commons construction/excavation, I do believe....

Metropolitan has been stalled for a long time. A local developer (Eric Larson) claimed he had a plan for it around 6 years ago and nothing panned out. One problem is it has no available space for parking and it's irregular shaped lot (triangular) leaves no room. It was also once toxic with radium from the painting of watch hands and faces. The Wurlitzer needs a lot of work, just like a lot of these buildings. I can't imagine it has reversed the decay in the seven or so years since I went inside. On the bright side, this photo is in the middle of a lot of activity, with the newish Y, restored Opera House, restaurants and bars pretty much on that block. Also just a few blocks to Comerica Park, Harmonie Park or Campus Martius. Of course the wondrous "Person Mover" sails right by and has a stop nearby as well.

Before the do anything, they need to get the Noise Issue squared away with the residents above. Currently, there are rumors circulating of a Duveneck Flats rebellion due to poor sound insulation. Supposedly it is being addressed.

Keep an eye on Javier's downtown this week. I saw him saturday night and he said they should be opening up the (very nice) bar this coming Saturday...maybe they've posted info at the restaurant.

FYI- there currently is a Baba Budan's coffee shop in phase 1. Also, there is a fitness center in Scripps Tower that a lot of people use, however the east end of 4th could certainly use another.

W&S Realty owns a bunch of the buildings in and around that area that are pretty much vacant/mothballed. For example, the east side of lower Broadway (South of the U Club). Not the one immediately adjacent (the medical arts building that was being renovated this summer), but the old Police Station (very cool space) as well as some Italianate homes lined up in that alley around the corner from the station. Would be very cool if they did something interesting with those holdings.

The big square holes on the south facade will be covered outdoor porches. The back side (north) will have balconies attached, similar to what they have on the American Building.

nice to see that a startup weekly "soft news" urban cheerleading quasi-lifestyle e-zine like Soapbox would scoop both the Enquirer as well as the BizCourier......ahem..... :roll: Or maybe it's just a concidence that this comes out a few days after the Soapdish piece posted above.

judging progress, they have gouged a strip of about 3 more spaces out on the east edge of the interior, and 3 more on west wall. They are also delicately taking down the wall closest to the adjacent new building to the east with bobcat/jackhammers etc. To minimize the potential for falling debris damaging that building. Like I said, this type of demo is a tedious and messy process. Not to mention the fact that all of that stuff has to be hauled away. I think it looks pretty cool, regardless of what some yayhoo at the Reds game thinks.

taking down this thing is a mangled mess. I just looked from our 29th floor balcony at Atrium II....just a twisted wreckage of concrete and steel. ugh. I measure progress on how many parking spaces they have taken out. At this point, it's around 5 to 8 spaces (depending on whether you're looking at the east side or the west side.

It is tempting...yes, but it's something I must resist. Then again, the following comment "I can't recall the last time I saw a smiling child downtown," is really really hard to resist. I mean, come on now.

I'm telling you...(and I see this every day from my office), this is it for the dig. No more archeological ruins. They have also started to roll out a strip of what appears to be some sort of black membrane/tarp, and have gravel covering a portion of that. who knows. Just call 'em as I see 'em.

curiously enough, looking at this today I would say they are done digging up old Riverfront. They look to be just smoothing everything out now with bulldozers.

good to know!

You're sure about that? Not what I was told.

scratch that....2 backhoes digging up concrete chunks again. Nothing to see here...move on.

looking out my window, there is no activity whatsoever. The 6 remaining pieces of heavy machinery are sitting alongside each other. No people either. It looks like there are a couple of small trenches remaining, but I don't see much in the way of foundation/concrete left to extract. That's a change, as there usually is a constant buzz of activity. I suspect the preliminary site work is pretty close to completion.

Judging solely by the window frames, it looks like all Section 8 at the moment.