23 minutes ago, taestell said:

 

One of the reasons, if not the primary reason, that the city doesn't want to narrow Liberty Street is because closing Central Parkway to automobile traffic will force all traffic headed to I-71 and I-471 to use Liberty Street.

 

Didn't pg sittenfield go on that big crusade to get enough votes to fund the diet and over ride the veto...what would be thr point of allocating all of that money and going through all of that political hoop jumping if the diet was never going to happen.

If anyone parks south of the stadium site, they would probably be able to take Central Parkway. The entire stretch of CP is not being proposed to be eliminated - just the part that connects ~Ezzard Charles to Liberty.

14 minutes ago, troeros said:

 

Didn't pg sittenfield go on that big crusade to get enough votes to fund the diet and over ride the veto...what would be thr point of allocating all of that money and going through all of that political hoop jumping if the diet was never going to happen.

 

City Council's job is to provide the funding and to provide "direction" to the administration. City Council directed the administration to do the road diet and provided the necessary funding. However, to a certain extent, it is possible for the Mayor and City Manager to ignore that direction and do what they want. I am working on something on this topic. Stay tuned.

2 hours ago, edale said:

This whole stadium debacle has been a joke from the beginning. Had the team followed any sort of normal development process, these issues related to sound, light, and traffic would have been studied and their mitigation would have been planned for. Whenever any organization tried to pump the breaks, the team and their soccer bro fanboys pitched huge fits and acted like any setback whatsoever would be catastrophic. First it was the school board, then the West End neighborhood council, now it's council and the arts organizations that call Music Hall home. This isn't a giant conspiracy against the soccer bros. You can't just plop down a professional stadium in the middle of an urban neighborhood and expect everyone to just roll over and be appreciative that the FCC overlords are bringing Cincy some 'major league clout', or whatever BS Berding the conman is spouting.

 

The thing that really pisses me off about this Music Hall situation, though, is that no one seems concerned over the noise, parking, light effects on the neighboring residents, despite the fact they will be RIGHT across the street from this thing. No one cares about noise until Otto Budig raises a fuss about the impact it will have on Music Hall. This is exactly how people of the West End were treated when I-75 was built through the heart of their neighborhood. They are seen as dispensable and unimportant, and when they actually tried to stand up for themselves by securing a CBA, they were lambasted by the team, their fans, and the media. 

 

We STILL don't even have a final site plan. The team is presenting phony renderings and site plans to frickin' city council! In what world is any of this acceptable or appropriate? The way this whole process has been allowed to play out is shameful but not surprising for Cincinnati.

 

Yeah unfortunately a lot of people weren't around for Berding Episode 1 back in 1996.  As soon as I heard that he was involved with the soccer team back when they formed in 2014 or whenever I was like...here we go again. 

 

They succeeded again in surrounding the whole thing in a false crisis.  They created a false sense of urgency and used that to win concessions. 

 

 

 

FC Cincinnati scuttles orange roof, scales back other development around stadium

 

FC Cincinnati has ditched its plans for a partial roof that can turn orange at its $250 million Major League Soccer stadium and reduced future development around it, team officials told the City Council on Tuesday. The orange glow from the roof had drawn criticism for sticking out in the West End, the historic neighborhood where the stadium will be located in which brick is a predominant feature of much of the housing. 

 

More: https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2019/02/06/fc-cincinnati-scuttles-orange-roof-scales-back.html

 

In the least surprising bit of news, all development on Central Parkway looks to have been removed.

Edited February 6, 20196 yr by tonyt3524

Booooooooooooo.      In the immortal words of Lando Calrissian, This deal is getting worse all the time.

Meh, the less development they put on their own property the better other existing and new places can share in the benefits of having the team nearby.

This last sentence is confusing in the Enquirer today:

 

  Two developments slated to be built by the stadium have been scaled back to one development at Wade Street and Central Parkway.   

 It will take advantage of two lager houses below, the remnants of a brewery. Above that, at street level, would be retail space and on top of that office space.

That last rendering keeps the metal framing shape, but loses the ETFE material, which I'm sure will eventually go away too once they realize it's serving no purpose.  I call it a rendering but it's more like a screenshot of Rhino where someone was told to "turn off the orange stuff layer", but nothing else about the design was updated. The roof canopy is now floating without any connection to the structure and this was clearly done as a quick "see we listened to the community" consolation, but it's clear there is no thought for what the building will look like or how it will function without the ETFE. 

 

The renderings since day 1, whether in Newport Oakley or the West End, included the orange translucent material. Without that what is the character of this stadium? It has no brick to fit into the neighborhood, no ETFE material to be a modern glowing icon, so what is it? At this point the best case is that it will disappear behind development and be as unnoticeable as possible. 

Edited February 6, 20196 yr by ucgrady

19 minutes ago, Jimmy Skinner said:

This last sentence is confusing in the Enquirer today:

 

  Two developments slated to be built by the stadium have been scaled back to one development at Wade Street and Central Parkway.   

 It will take advantage of two lager houses below, the remnants of a brewery. Above that, at street level, would be retail space and on top of that office space.

 

The ballet parking lot at the corner of Wade and Central parkway is the site of what used to be a brewery.  There are lager tunnels under the parking lot.  You can actually still see the foundation of the building at the perimeter of the lot.  I assume they mean to incorporate the tunnels into the new development.  However, the ballet has a lease on that parking lot.  FC still needs to buy them out of their lease for the parking lot, and the building at some point.

The article mentioned that there would be three levels of parking including some that is underground.  I'd guess they'll retrofit the underground lager houses for parking but it would be cool if they put a bar down there.  

1 hour ago, Cincy513 said:

The article mentioned that there would be three levels of parking including some that is underground.  I'd guess they'll retrofit the underground lager houses for parking but it would be cool if they put a bar down there.  

No they said yesterday they adjusted the footprint of the garage and changed from two to three levels so as to leave the ballet parking lot undisturbed. 

 

But that means they are preserving the lager tunnels then. That’s great news!!!

Edited February 6, 20196 yr by thebillshark

2 hours ago, ucgrady said:

That last rendering keeps the metal framing shape, but loses the ETFE material, which I'm sure will eventually go away too once they realize it's serving no purpose.  I call it a rendering but it's more like a screenshot of Rhino where someone was told to "turn off the orange stuff layer", but nothing else about the design was updated. The roof canopy is now floating without any connection to the structure and this was clearly done as a quick "see we listened to the community" consolation, but it's clear there is no thought for what the building will look like or how it will function without the ETFE. 

 

The renderings since day 1, whether in Newport Oakley or the West End, included the orange translucent material. Without that what is the character of this stadium? It has no brick to fit into the neighborhood, no ETFE material to be a modern glowing icon, so what is it? At this point the best case is that it will disappear behind development and be as unnoticeable as possible. 

 

Exactly. What a farce. How dumb do they think people are? I wish this mess would have gone to Newport.

It's hard to critique the renderings of the stadium since it it keeps changing and nothing is finalized. But I absolutely DESPISE when stadiums create these massive elevated setbacks from the street, completely destroying flow, connectivity, and activity around the stadium. This is part of the reason Lucas Oil in Indy is a failure in my opinion. It's a massive fortress set far away and elevated from the street level. It's such a dead zone when there isn't a game. Nationwide up in Columbus is an amazing example of how a smaller, human scale arena can be done extremely well. I think an urban soccer stadium such as Cincinnati's should try to replicate the successes of Nationwide Arena. 

45 minutes ago, Lucas_uLsac said:

It's hard to critique the renderings of the stadium since it it keeps changing and nothing is finalized. But I absolutely DESPISE when stadiums create these massive elevated setbacks from the street, completely destroying flow, connectivity, and activity around the stadium. This is part of the reason Lucas Oil in Indy is a failure in my opinion. It's a massive fortress set far away and elevated from the street level. It's such a dead zone when there isn't a game. Nationwide up in Columbus is an amazing example of how a smaller, human scale arena can be done extremely well. I think an urban soccer stadium such as Cincinnati's should try to replicate the successes of Nationwide Arena. 

 

Capital One Arena (Long live Verizon Center) also does an excellent job of being located in a Human Scaled Place. They are able to keep 7th and F open during games, would it really be bad for FC Cincinnati if Cincinnati kept Central Parkway open? Perhaps a wider sidewalk or a true plaza could also work?

1 hour ago, Lucas_uLsac said:

It's hard to critique the renderings of the stadium since it it keeps changing and nothing is finalized. But I absolutely DESPISE when stadiums create these massive elevated setbacks from the street, completely destroying flow, connectivity, and activity around the stadium. This is part of the reason Lucas Oil in Indy is a failure in my opinion. It's a massive fortress set far away and elevated from the street level. It's such a dead zone when there isn't a game. Nationwide up in Columbus is an amazing example of how a smaller, human scale arena can be done extremely well. I think an urban soccer stadium such as Cincinnati's should try to replicate the successes of Nationwide Arena. 

 

Looks like that plaza is about 300 ft long in the rendering which is a lot of street frontage to be closed off most of the time. What they could do is put a one story building in the space marked “lower plaza” and extend it to meet the sidewalk. Its roof could form part of the upper plaza. It could be a bar or a team store open to the public year-round. 

Edited February 6, 20196 yr by thebillshark

1 hour ago, thebillshark said:

 

Looks like that plaza is about 300 ft long in the rendering which is a lot of street frontage to be closed off most of the time. What they could do is put a one story building in the space marked “lower plaza” and extend it to meet the sidewalk. Its roof could form part of the upper plaza. It could be a bar or a team store open to the public year-round. 

That's a much better idea then the proposed "lower plaza."  The upper plaza is fine with me but I don't see any reason for the lower plaza to exist.  And with just a one story building you'd still be able to see the stadium from across the street.  

3 hours ago, thebillshark said:

 

Looks like that plaza is about 300 ft long in the rendering which is a lot of street frontage to be closed off most of the time. What they could do is put a one story building in the space marked “lower plaza” and extend it to meet the sidewalk. Its roof could form part of the upper plaza. It could be a bar or a team store open to the public year-round. 

 

I definitely think that is an alternative option that I could live with. I just hate to see an opportunity such as this to be wasted with a stadium that isn't living up to its full potential. 

 

Is anyone aware of whether this stadium will be able to pull large music acts? I know that's something that Cincinnati has struggled with for a long time, and one that has been in discussion lately. But I don't recall reading anything about the stadium trying to bring in large music acts. If this were the case, I would love to see the stadium roofed in order to compete with all of the regional stadiums. 

The stadium will absolutely not have a roof over the whole thing. It just won't change that much.

 

They are going to pursue musical acts, but it won't be programmed with music every week or probably even every month. It'll probably be the site of a few concerts in the fall after the MLS season ends and maybe a couple during the season. I think the neighborhood is trying to limit the number of events hosted.

Stadium shows are very expensive to stage and risky for promoters.  That's why Mapfre Stadium has a permanent stage and presumably permanent electric hookups. 

 

This FC Cincinnati stadium isn't going to have much more capacity for a traditionally staged concert (one with the stage in the end zone) than US Bank does in an in-the-round configuration (i.e. 16,000 at last week's Metallica concert). 

 

Promotors rarely sell seats behind a traditional stage.  A noteworthy recent exception was the Grateful Dead at Soldier Field in 2015, where they crammed 10,000+ behind the stage.   

 

 

 

City forms a deal for the Police District One lot:

 

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2019/02/06/citycity-strikes-deal-to-sell-fc-cincinnati-land-strikes-deal-sell-fc-cincinnati-land/2792614002/

 

It mentions constructing another parking lot across the street from District One... Would that be where the weird amphitheater/spiral ramp/ghost of Music Hall bridge is now?

3 hours ago, jmecklenborg said:

Stadium shows are very expensive to stage and risky for promoters.  That's why Mapfre Stadium has a permanent stage and presumably permanent electric hookups. 

 

This FC Cincinnati stadium isn't going to have much more capacity for a traditionally staged concert (one with the stage in the end zone) than US Bank does in an in-the-round configuration (i.e. 16,000 at last week's Metallica concert). 

 

Metallica has been big on playing in the round for a long time but a lot of other bands don't seem to like it.

9 hours ago, Lucas_uLsac said:

This is part of the reason Lucas Oil in Indy is a failure in my opinion. It's a massive fortress set far away and elevated from the street level. It's such a dead zone when there isn't a game.

That's exactly what I thought of when I saw that rendering!

3 hours ago, GCrites80s said:

 

Metallica has been big on playing in the round for a long time but a lot of other bands don't seem to like it.

 

 

They can jam more people into an arena with an in-the-round stage.  So the upside is more revenue out of a given show from a given venue in the event of a sellout.  But the downside risk is A LOT of empty seats and not just the ones behind the stage. 

 

Hara Arena, according to Wiki, had a max capacity of 7,000 including standing room on the floor.  I saw a concert there in 1995 that *maybe* had 1,000 people there.  SAD!  A lot of empty seats, but if that thing had been in the round, it would have felt like NOBODY was there. 

 

It's not really an option to do an in-the-round configuration for an open-air stadium since the stage needs to have a roof over it to protect equipment.  At Paul Brown Stadium, they set up the stage in the end zone for rock concerts but then set it up on the 50 yard line for the Jazz Festival, facing one side and leaving half of the place empty. 

 

 

 

 

 

Is this the first rendering we've seen that shows the District 1 headquarters being redeveloped? I feel like there are so many secret deals being made behind the scenes between the team, city, and county that the public isn't aware of.

 

 

This site plan already doesn't match the rendering from two days ago. This process is ridiculously non-transparent. There are a lot more historic buildings going away with this plan and every time we see something new, another existing building has disappeared.

 

Sometimes I think jmecklenborg can see conspiracy where there isn't, but in the case of Berding and all this FC Cincinnati business he has been unfortunately prescient.

Anyone could have looked at the ownership of all of the property in the area, as did I, and see the naked lies.  They could see that the team was *definitely* going to the west end months before the announcement, even before the team bought the option on the cast-fab site.  The local media simply sucks at 3-D space.  The only tools I had was the auditor's website and google earth.  I figured it out, emailed several of them, and none of them believed me. 

1 minute ago, ucgrady said:

Sometimes I think jmecklenborg can see conspiracy where there isn't, but in the case of Berding and all this FC Cincinnati business he has been unfortunately prescient.

 

Also, I followed the Nashville soccer news closely, and saw that FC Cincinnati modeled their strategies after what John Ingram did there.  I followed it because my dad is a shareholder in Ingram Industries and now, randomly, owns stock in a MLS soccer franchise.  But all of that information was all public and there was nothing secret in the shareholder letters. 

59 minutes ago, ucgrady said:

Sometimes I think jmecklenborg can see conspiracy where there isn't, but in the case of Berding and all this FC Cincinnati business he has been unfortunately prescient.

 

Let's go to the UrbanOhio time machine...

 

On 5/29/2018 at 11:16 PM, jmecklenborg said:

It's obvious that the city fathers (the blue bloods who fuel local politics) are moving to control the redevelopment of Central Parkway from the bend up to Liberty St. We will likely soon hear specific plans for redevelopment of the WCET studios property.

 

On 5/30/2018 at 10:20 AM, Cincy513 said:

God again with your conspiracy theories.

^Also, the scam in Nashville is much more grandiose than here.  All of the business about MLS wanting to be in "urban areas" was really just an excuse for MLS owners around the country to mix up their respective area's real estate game to their advantage, and much of it with public money and concessions. 

 

John Ingram has been on the Vanderbilt University board of trustees for many years (his dad might have before him as well -- numerous things at Vanderbilt have the "Ingram" name on it).  He actually attempted to have the Commodores move off the Vanderbilt campus to the stadium he'll soon own on the Nashville Fairground site a mile away.  Then, as a Vanderbilt Trustee, he was going to shape what took the place of the stadium and its parking lot in a super-expensive part of Nashville. 

 

Imagine if Carl Lindner, III had just been handed, say, Burnett Woods for free and he convinced UC to move Bearcats football games to his new soccer stadium.  Then he got to shape what was built in the Nippert Stadium pit. 

 

We can all see now why the big money ran Yvette Simpson into the ground over the Children's Hospital thing.  We have seen zero resistance from John Cranley or even a public comment of any kind. 

County’s FC Cincinnati parking study contemplates two garages

 

A study of Hamilton County’s potential parking facilities related to FC Cincinnati anticipates building two garages, one at the club’s Major League Soccer stadium and another at a location the county redacted from its report but is believed to be near Findlay Market.

 

It also estimates that the county would lose money on the garage project under certain scenarios. 

 

County Administrator Jeff Aluotto says discussions with FCC over the parking garages are ongoing and changing. In general, the club prefers more parking closer to the stadium. The county has limited parking resources and wants to leverage the garages to boost growth.

 

The proposed 593-space parking garage at the stadium site is shown at the southwest corner of Central Parkway and Liberty Street, the current site of Tristate Wholesale Building Supply and the Cincinnati Ballet headquarters. Tristate, which owned the land and sold it to FC Cincinnati for $25 million, is vacating its part of the site located on the western part of the parcel. 

 

Full article below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2019/02/08/county-s-fc-cincinnati-parking-study-contemplates.html

And more people attend games in urban areas here's a chart I made a few years back of average MLS attendance vs. miles from city center

Edited February 9, 20196 yr by thomasbw

Why is Cincy ballet so obsessed with there current location? I feel like they could easily expand with more frontage  and a more high tech up to date facility.

 

My girlfriend used to be in the Cincinnati ballet company and complained many times about how outdated everything was... especially compared to other big cities ballet companies.

 

So as to why the ballet is so die hard about this location is sort of head scratching to say the least.

They aren't die hard about it. They wanted to move as recently as a year ago. They even went out of their way to alert the media of the beginning of their site-selection process. As to what's happened since then, well, it's pretty clear. I don't blame them for wanting something of a payout from FCC, it's just unfortunate the process isn't a bit more backroom (and a bit less front page.) A public fight really doesn't do either organization any good, though obviously they made the calculation--likely a correct one--that FCC's reputation is the more delicate and susceptible, and that's very much part of this as well. 

Edited February 9, 20196 yr by Pdrome513

Despite handing out 10s of millions to various entities, FCC is handling this in a way where they’re not getting credit for cutting a fair deal or even being generous due to the chaotic process and sometimes high pressure tactics they are employing (for example the decision timetable they gave to the school board.)

 

Even moving Just Cookin’ has been flubbed- a situation where they could have bought some really good PR for themselves (team helps local African American woman-owned business) relatively inexpensively if they handled it correctly. Why hasn’t FCC just opened the checkbook and paid for the build out of this Linn Street location described in this article, no questions asked? https://www.citybeat.com/news/blog/21041303/west-end-business-owner-pleads-with-cincinnati-city-council-its-emotional-for-me-right-now This business owner’s situation is the real life personification of the all the fears community members and politicians have about FCC coming to the West End. They should set her up in a good situation and make a darn reality show about it. 

Edited February 9, 20196 yr by thebillshark

2 hours ago, troeros said:

Why is Cincy ballet so obsessed with there current location? I feel like they could easily expand with more frontage  and a more high tech up to date facility.

 

My girlfriend used to be in the Cincinnati ballet company and complained many times about how outdated everything was... especially compared to other big cities ballet companies.

 

So as to why the ballet is so die hard about this location is sort of head scratching to say the least.

 

So there's more to a ballet facility these days than a wood floor, a wall of mirrors, and whatever that rail is? 

 

My entire personal experience with ballet was once delivery a bunch of pizzas to a very large ballet class.  Like 100+ girls. 

 

 

 

if the ballet needs parking why not put the ballet in the parking garage that will replace the ugly building. One floor, as much room as you could want. no one  needs to move,  everybody wins even the 100 ballerinas. its a city garage and city ballet.

Edited February 10, 20196 yr by RJohnson
add info

So, with the city leasing some spaces in the Towne Center garage to the Streitmann Center, and leasing out the entire garage to FCC on game days, it seems that the decision has already been made to keep the deteriorating garage around for the foreseeable future instead of redeveloping that block into some mixed-use development that incorporates a replacement garage.

On 2/9/2019 at 3:09 PM, troeros said:

Why is Cincy ballet so obsessed with there current location? I feel like they could easily expand with more frontage  and a more high tech up to date facility.

 

My girlfriend used to be in the Cincinnati ballet company and complained many times about how outdated everything was... especially compared to other big cities ballet companies.

 

So as to why the ballet is so die hard about this location is sort of head scratching to say the least.

 

Why is it "head scratching"? The Ballet signed a long-term lease for the building and parking lot and probably made major investments in the building knowing they would be using that building for almost two more decades. If the landlord wants to break the lease, they need to pay the Ballet for the investments that have made to the building.

 

It's a similar situation as Paragon Salon downtown. They signed a lease for a retail space inside Pogue's Garage and invested over $1 million into renovating that space. Then a few years later, the city said they wanted to tear down the garage for a new development (4th & Race) and Paragon would have to leave. Ultimately, 3CDC paid Paragon to move so they could demolish Pogue's Garage.

How do you spend $1 million renovating a salon space? Am I that clueless about the physical needs of a salon? Can equipment not move with the business?

5 minutes ago, ryanlammi said:

How do you spend $1 million renovating a salon space? Am I that clueless about the physical needs of a salon? Can equipment not move with the business?

 

I have no idea why it's so expensive but Paragon claimed they invested $1.3 in the Pogue's space in 2006 and 2007, and the cost of building their new location on 5th Street was estimated at $1.2 million.

45 minutes ago, taestell said:

 

I have no idea why it's so expensive but Paragon claimed they invested $1.3 in the Pogue's space in 2006 and 2007, and the cost of building their new location on 5th Street was estimated at $1.2 million.

 

They catered to alot of Bridal parties, they had multiple bridal suites in there space, full kitchen for catering, plus numerous spa and treatment rooms with plumbing and equipment. Million dollars goes quickly once you figure in higher end finishes to the space. 

4 hours ago, ryanlammi said:

How do you spend $1 million renovating a salon space? Am I that clueless about the physical needs of a salon? Can equipment not move with the business?

this is the smartest thing ive seen said on this forum. $1m. hell we could build a wall for that amount.

3 hours ago, savadams13 said:

 

They catered to alot of Bridal parties, they had multiple bridal suites in there space, full kitchen for catering, plus numerous spa and treatment rooms with plumbing and equipment. Million dollars goes quickly once you figure in higher end finishes to the space. 

 

I think it's a fairly large space, too. I could see it costing $250 / sf all-in if they do have high end fixtures, furniture, finishes, etc. The mechanicals and plumbing are going to be quite a bit more expensive than most other businesses, as well. This is particularly true in an older building, where some of the base systems might not support the loads a salon requires.

$1m only buys you about a mile of guard rail along a highway.  Not lanes, not shoulder, not jersey barrier, just regular metal guard rail.  A million dollars.  

 

Similarly, anyone who's familiar with residential construction costs has no clue what commercial construction costs are like.  Standard commercial kitchen?  Easily $100k in fixtures and appliances alone.  "But you can buy a whole house for that!"  Yup.  

6 minutes ago, jjakucyk said:

$1m only buys you about a mile of guard rail along a highway.  Not lanes, not shoulder, not jersey barrier, just regular metal guard rail.  A million dollars.  

 

 

Off-topic, but one of the big costs in HSR is barrier fencing.  SF to LA is 300~ miles, so CAHSR will require about 600 miles of 12~ft fencing.  So at least $1 billion worth of fence. 

i said, a wall not the wall. let me see, $100000 a chair x 10 with mirrors tile floor and silk walls= $1,000000. I will not be able to have my hair done at this place.

With how decrepit the old garage was, I could see spending a million dollars on the place. I actually went to that salon a few times, and as others noted, it was very large. Maybe they also factored in the cost of moving to that $1million total.

Councilman says FC Cincinnati land agreement is a bad deal for the city

 

 

The land deal the city has struck with FC Cincinnati to pave the way for a Major League Soccer stadium in the West End is a bad one because most of the financial concessions the team has made represent money it would have owed the city anyway, Councilman Chris Seelbach said on Monday. 

 

“This is a mess,” Seelbach said as a two-and-a-half-hour committee hearing on the deal, which could get a council vote on Wednesday, concluded. “There’s no real thought out plan to make this entire stadium work.”

 

Other key council members, including P.G. Sittenfeld and Greg Landsman, appeared open to aspects of the deal provided negotiations between FCC and several stakeholders in and near the West End where the stadium is to be built are fruitful. 

 

In council's budget committee, Seelbach and Councilman Wendell Young voted against the deal, which turns over part of the District 1 parking lot owned by the city, while Landsman, Sittenfeld and Councilman David Mann voted to move it forward with the understanding that they do not believe the aforementioned negotiations are complete. 

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2019/02/11/councilman-says-fc-cincinnati-land-agreement-is-a.html

^Again, I wonder aloud that the media never asked these questions 12 months ago.  It was all completely obvious that they'd be coming after the District 1 parking lot if you took even 10 seconds to glance at Cagis, Google Earth, etc.