JYP

Discussion on city parking meter privatization has been moved to this thread.

Cincinnati Bell subsidiary buys downtown building for $18M Jon Newberry Staff Reporter- Business Courier Cincinnati Bell Inc. subsidiary CyrusOne Inc. purchased the company’s downtown Cincinnati facility at 229 W. Seventh St. for $18 million, according to the Hamilton County Auditor’s website. Cincinnati Bell (NYSE: CBB) occupies about 74,000 square feet of the 14-story, 350,000-square-foot building it sold on West Seventh Street and will lease that space back from CyrusOne, according to CyrusOne’s registration statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Oct. 5 filing said it expected to pay about $15 million for the property. It’s one of 21 data center facilities CyrusOne operates across the country. Cincinnati Bell still owns an adjoining building at 209 W. Seventh St.

Yet another restaurant to leave the increasingly vacant mall: Cassidy Turley sues to evict restaurant from Tower Place Mall Business Courier by Jon Newberry, Staff Reporter Date: Tuesday, November 6, 2012, 12:15pm EST As sparse as customer traffic has been at Tower Place Mall in downtown Cincinnati, it could get sparser. Cassidy Turley, the court-appointed receiver for the largely vacant Fourth Street shopping venue, is suing to evict a Hamilton-based franchisee of Great Steak & Potato Co. for alleged failure to pay its rent. The restaurant has occupied space in the mall’s food court since 1992.

Would LOVE to see some pictures of this...

The Enquirer is in it's death throes as a newspaper. I pay more attention to the Onion. Which ironically is more accurate at this point!

$200K OK'd for Eastern Corridor project The Ohio Department of Transportation has awarded $200,000 to be used for the Downtown portion of the Eastern Corridor transit rail project, Hamilton County commissioner Todd Portune said. Project leaders plan to use the funding to help secure right-of-way access for the proposed rail line between The Banks transit center and the Montgomery Inn Boathouse.

This dog ain't gonna hunt.

My core critique of the casino project is its form and its design all conveys the intent of exclusivity. Road improvements along Reading and Gilbert are meant to enable more cars to get in and out of the casino. There's a reason why these improvements stop there. There is no intent to interact with the area surrounding the casino because there its not the intent of the casino to get people to "spend the day downtown." I'm not saying that people will not explore but what I am saying is that the amount of people that do will be significantly in the minority. And the space in front of the casino that will be a stage and park is a joke. There's a huge difference in feeling between seeing a band at Washington Park next to Music Hall and seeing a band play in front of the casino next to the jail. This is what LIG is talking about. Don't believe me? Go down there and stand in both places. I'd love to know which environment feels beter to the layperson.

parking garage..... Parking garage? Where did you get that info from? There's a huge parking garage already built beneath the streets. Also, parking garages are open to help ventilate carbon monoxide and other exhaust from automobiles. If the glass structure were a parking garage I doubt it would have glass on all four sides. Also, it would be a waste because that corner will have a great view of the Suspension Bridge. It would not make sense to build a parking garage there. My guess is that they plan to build an office tower there, but since they don't have the money yet they just threw in a generic rendering as a placeholder. That way, while they wait for funds to build the office tower, Phase 2 won't have a giant ugly hole in the block like Phase 1 currently does. When the Phase 2 office tower is ready it will be built on top of the three-story "foundation." This is my assumption. I just strongly doubt that glass building is a parking garage unless someone can prove me wrong. The parking garage is the first three floors of the building, similar to Phase 1. The glass tower is a future office building. They'll build the first three stories and leave caps on top for expansion a la Fountain Square West.

"This delusion people are having that somehow tons of people are going to make a day of downtown by going to the casino is absurd. " I disagree 100%. Would love to hear your argument!

The real question is whether or not the hipsters on Main street will walk the four blocks to eat at Margaritaville? Back to seriousness though. Casinos all offer the same basic things (gambling, drinks, live entertainment, hotel (eventually)) so it will be up to Horseshoe to be competitive against Hollywood, Belterra and so on in addition to the regional casinos surrounding Cincinnati. From what I've seen so far, they are making no distinction, at least in the form of the building that will make it stand out from the others. Yes its in the city, but suburbanites around here don't like the city and avoid it as often as they can. That's why there's a giant parking garage. Go in, gamble get out. This delusion people are having that somehow tons of people are going to make a day of downtown by going to the casino is absurd. The folks that do that are in the minority and the impact will be insignificant. Tourists coming here for a convention visit will likely make a stop there but that's about it. And another thing. We need to get over this delusion that the casino will help improve the surrounding neighborhoods such as Pendleton. As long as the casino is built as an island unto itself, ignoring even windows along Reading, there will be no benefit to the folks living across the street.

Finney has filed suit to stop the airport deal/streetcar project with Blue Ash. Paid subscriber article: Suit to seek reversal of Blue Ash airport deal Dan Monk Senior Staff Reporter- Business Courier Just when you thought the path was clear for the Cincinnati streetcar project, here comes one more speed bump. Attorney Chris Finney, a vocal streetcar critic and founder of Citizens Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes (COAST), said a taxpayer lawsuit will be filed soon that seeks to reverse the August sale of Cincinnati’s airport land to the city of Blue Ash. That could impact the streetcar, because the city has pledged up to $26 million in airport sale proceeds to its $110 million planned urban circulator. Cincinnati officials broke ground on the streetcar in February, but disputes over utility relocation and financing changes caused delays that pushed its scheduled completion date into 2015.

I just read the headlines and then get the news from the tv stations or the Business Courier.

But ColDayMan, this casino will be a truly urban casino with giant windowless facades facing the street! Urbanism at its finest!!

The apartment rendering looks good but its a complete deception. The apartments are not oriented towards any of the existing streets and are instead arranged around a completely enclosed street network fronted by parking. Completely suburban in nature: inward facing, auto dependent, big boxes and tons of surface parking. Oakley deserves better. See master site plan here: http://cincinnati.com/blogs/developingnow/files/2011/06/Oakley-Station-Illustrative-Site-Plan-03-31-11.pdf

Seems relevant to OTR's evolution and the debate between homeless advocates and new businesses a& residents. Gentrificationphobia By Matthew Yglesias | Posted Monday, Oct. 8, 2012, at 3:16 PM ET Beth Scott reporting on a recent community forum on development here in DC unearths an unusually explicit statement of a disturbing line of thought:

If anyone has the Cincinnati.com Mobile app you will now notice their intro screen is a aerial shot of the riverfront pre-Banks & Queen City Square development. Just another indicator of how entrenched in the past they are. Can't even get a good picture of what Cincinnati looks like now!

He speaks the truth.

No mention of the streetcar at the special meeting today. Nor any mention of when such a meeting will take place.

The schematic on the previous page is most likely what will go before the City's Design Review Board soon. I am also concerned about the first floor as it looks like the glass is set in from the brick. I'm not sure if there will be an interior canopy effect. Also I am assuming this is the 2nd Street frontage. The second picture from the website shows balconies (I am assuming off Race) that look interesting. And they get points for stepping back some of the building frontage above the 3rd story. Once again this design seems to highlight the main ethos of Cincinnati style infill which is good form and lousy architecture.

http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Ohio_Casino_Initiative,_Issue_3_(2009) "Authorize the casinos to operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, at the discretion of the casino operator and require that the casino facilities shall be subject to all state and local laws and provisions related to health and building codes, but that no local zoning, land use laws, subdivision regulations or similar provisions shall prohibit the development or operation of the casinos at the designated sites."

^The casinos are exempt from local zoning.

Latest update from City Manager divulges that streetcar maintenance facility is under contract: http://city-egov.cincinnati-oh.gov/Webtop/ws/fyi/public/fyi_docs/Blob/2919.pdf?rpp=-10&m=1&w=doc_no%3D%272478%27

This is not the first instance of ignorance coming from a planning student regarding the streetcar. Last month I was out with a recent graduate who referred to it as the mayor's pet project.

I'm pretty sure there's a big difference between 24 feet and 24 inches. Unfortunately, there are no editors to catch that difference... Link smh.