MVRPC & Dayton City Leadership - please take notes...

As a follow-up to a previous post about what Dayton can do to improve our urban landscape and attract more people to visit and live here, this is a perfect example of a city doing it right...

Indianapolis - known more to be auto-oriented (think Indy 500) than pedestrian or bicycle-oriented - is undergoing a huge downtown street project that will actually REMOVE automobile lanes and replace them with what is called the Indianapolis Cultural Trail - "a world-class urban bike and pedestrian path that connects neighborhoods, Cultural Districts and entertainment amenities, and serves as the downtown hub for the entire central Indiana greenway system."

According to the website, this fantastic project is made possible by a large public and private collaboration led by Central Indiana Community Foundation, the City of Indianapolis and several not-for-profit organizations devoted to building a better city.

Here are some pre-construction and mid-construction photos - as well as post-construction renderings of what it will look like when completed.

G.S. Outfitters says goodbye

One of the few remaining retail businesses has decided to close shop.  G.S. Outfitters - located on Third St just east of Patterson - will be going out of business.  According to the DBJ article (below), a developer has offered to buy the property and the owner decided to take the money rather than continue to battle the big chains, Internet shopping and downtown's uncertain future.

Dayton Business Journal
Link: Downtown retailer closes to make way for development project

A venerable downtown retailer -- another victim of shoppers' attraction to suburbia's "new mall world'' -- is closing to make way for a commercial development project that is already in the works, a top store official said Tuesday.

GS Outfitters, described as "Dayton's LL Bean," will shutter its operations at 401 E. Third St. by Thanksgiving. A going-out-of-business sale starts Thursday...

...the buyer has a comprehensive plan for "a good, imaginative reuse" for the property, which includes three buildings and a large parking lot with between 60 and 70 spaces. Schultz said he could not elaborate other than that it will be a "non-retail" project. The buildings will not be demolished and will be readapted for the new use...

While this is more sad news for downtown, it is nice to know that the property is getting redeveloped right away rather than left to sit vacant like many other properties.  If anybody has any ideas as to what the new developer has in mind, do tell...

"I wish we were more like..."

I often hear about the inferiority complex that we have here in Dayton.  Of all the places I've lived in, Dayton's complex is certainly one of the most noticable - but I've never lived in or been to a city that DID NOT have an inferiority complex.  I suppose it is human nature to think that the grass is always greener on the other side.  Here are some cities I've lived in and their inferiority complexes:

The Geography of Nowhere

At the Get Urban event the other night, the name James Howard Kunstler was brought up so I decided to put some stuff up here about him as well as an interesting video of his presentation (below). 

Kunstler wrote a book over a decade ago called The Geography of Nowhere - about the "tragic sprawlscape of cartoon architecture, junked cities, and ravaged countryside where we many Americans live and work".  If you are a Planetizen reader then you've heard of him.  He is unmistakably and adamantly opposed to the out-of-control sprawl of generic and characterless development that has plagued this country, and he is unapologetic about his disgust with what our society has become.  In fact, after listening to him one could question whether or not Kunstler even likes this country, but I suspect his harshness and provocative stance is meant to instill shock and get people thinking.  Somehow I doubt his negative tone is winning the hearts and minds of the masses that have actually chosen to live in the places he rips on, but he doesn't seem to care much.

Get Urban - What is next?

This past Thursday night we held the Get Urban Miami Valley event that we've been promoting here for the past couple months and it was a huge success!  We had over 200 people register and a total of around 230 in attendance.  The room at the Webster Street Market (a perfect venue for this sort of thing) was buzzing with many current urbanites and urban-curious folks who were there to hear more about why anybody would actually CHOOSE to live in the City of Dayton over the burbs.  Our featured speaker Kyle Ezell gave a great presentation on what it means to "get urban" and he gave most of us a lot to think about in terms of changing a culture that for decades has valued suburb and exurb living over an urban existence.

First Big Tenant signs at Ballpark Village; Mead Tower Owners Not Smiling

This story began with an article in the DBJ in which Thompson Hine - Dayton's largest law firm - was thinking about possibly relocating to Ballpark Village if in fact that development were to come to fruition.  Well, it didn't take long for them to go from thinking about it to actually signing a letter of intent...

Dayton Daily News
Link: Law firm signs letter of intent for space at Ballpark Village

Law firm Thompson Hine has signed a letter of intent to lease office space at Ballpark Village.

The firm said it is the largest tenant to agree to take office space at the development at Monument Avenue and Riverside Drive.

By March 2009, the 110-employee firm will occupy the entire top floor of a new office building at Ballpark Village. The firm will also occupy part of the floor immediately below, taking a total of 45,489 square feet, the firm said.

This is some bittersweet news (as Phillip over at The Gem City blog says), as it means that Ballpark Village is a step closer to reality, but at the expense of yet another large business moving out of the Mead Tower (now called 10 West 2nd).  In fact, that means that Dayton's second largest building will pretty much go completely dark since MeadWestVaco (the only other large tenant) has already left.  (CareSource is taking up several floors on a temporary basis until their new building is finished next year.)  That is scary and sad, but it also means that there is opportunity to get new businesses in there.  A big issue with 10 West 2nd is the parking garage across Ludlow - which is run down and not very secure.  While the city is building a new parking garage on Main it should really look at doing what needs to be done to bring the Ludlow garage back to life. 

It is also interesting that the DDN article noted that the new office building for Thompson Hine would be the first to be built in BPV.  It sure sounds like there is a lot of news coming out about new developments in the BPV saga as of late - hopefully it is a sign that this pipe dream of a development is actually going to happen.