Opinions on what downtown Toledo needs have been as bountiful through the years as vacant storefronts are today.
For Jessica Bosworth, a 23-year-old college-educated professional, downtown worker, and apartment dweller, the answer is simple: grocery stores.
The Fort Wayne native said necessity forces her to shop as though she lived in the suburbs: hopping in the car and driving to a supermarket for items as simple as skim milk or fresh fruit. And sometimes these trips are even to the suburbs.
Errands aside, Miss Bosworth, who has lived in the Commodore Perry Apartments since graduating last year from Ohio Northern University with a degree in accounting, said her experience downtown has been fine.
But, she admitted, the entertainment and social options are not entirely what she had hoped.
"It leaves something to be desired - I can say that for sure - even if I can't put my finger on what it is," she said recently.
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080427/NEWS16/804270...
The wacko Mayor and his crew want to build even more apartments and even more nonsense that will do exactly what these have done.
When is enough, enough?
The nonsense driving all this is "if they build it, they will come". What really happens is that we're still in the middle of a Hyper-Credit Bubble, and combined with Municipal Largesse, that's the only thing which drove downtown re-residentialing. Obviously, the credit bubble has a lifespan and once it's truly over, downtown residential living will take a new downturn.
Czarty and his ilk will continue to promote downtown residences, since that is perfectly in line with the "construction mafia" that has existed for decades. It suits their needs to have government support the building of useless residences. And of course, the consumer is fairly stupid, so it was a certainty that people would "buy" (i.e. rent money from a bank, i.e. take up a mortgage) these things.
But the SMART money has refused to follow along. The smart money is BUSINESS. Business has refused to follow into the downtown with infrastructure ... grocery stores and the like. There's nothing Czarty and his ilk can do about that, other than running a very expensive and stupid thing like the ESM.
About the only thing that the municipal government could do is to take the next step in artificially pushing downtown living. That step would be the outright formation of a combined grocery and department store. There's no skill in local government for such a venture, but the lack of retail skill didn't stop Toledo politicians from forming the ESM, did it? The outright opening of a "big box" municipal store (along the water in East Toledo or something) is the next step, if Czarty and his demented followers dare such a thing.
"You can't mix low-income people with high-income people, unless they're the same education level," said local businessman Manos Paschalis,
This is where the downtown apartments got it wrong during their development in the late 90s. Taking federal money forced them to accept low-income, subsidized housing, which completely turns off a very large percentage of potential renters. My fiance was actually looking at moving downtown, and one of the first questions we always asked was, "Do you have low-income housing." I have numerous friends who asked the same question. Right or wrong, it's a question that is asked by most potential renters, and if the answer is "yes" then it turns into a big negative motivator.
I feel confident in saying that if 100% of those building's apartments were market-rate then the management companies would not be losing money and the city would not be paying down the loan.
Remember the editorial chastising the Masons about moving out of downtown Toledo that was in the Toledo Blab on June 19, 2007?
Here is part of that Toledo Blab editorial regarding the Masons moving out of downtown.
"It was a move opposed by this newspaper as far back as 1965, when we lamented what amounted to a selfish sabotage of community efforts to rejuvenate downtown Toledo."
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070619/OPINION02/706...
Now the obvious question I have is why, after 43 YEARS, are you still trying to "rejuvenate" downtown Toledo? Since 1965 (according to the Toledo Blab article) why are Toledoans STILL trying to beat that dead horse? You'd think after 43 years of trying to "revitalize" the downtown area, SOMETHING would have happend by now.
Maybe it's time to give up on Toledo. Looks like your "leadership" can't get it right and you people keep electing the same morons who have failed you for 43 years. You must like the stagnation and being just another rust-belt, has-been town.
Now the obvious question I have is why, after 43 YEARS, are you still trying to "rejuvenate" downtown Toledo? Since 1965 (according to the Toledo Blab article) why are Toledoans STILL trying to beat that dead horse? You'd think after 43 years of trying to "revitalize" the downtown area, SOMETHING would have happened by now.
LCBM - that in a nutshell is the Toledo/democrat/union way of doing things - To continue doing the same thing and expecting different results (ie, Einstein's definition of insanity)
Thing is, I do believe downtown CAN be rejuvenated - but it'd take us doing the exact opposite of what we're doing now. Get the politics OUT of it, not smack dab in the middle of things - Look at who's trying to accomplish shit. Now look at their resume!! Any experience there?? Any history of past successful enterprises??
Seriously, if you personally owned the land (which you do) would you hire these people to make the business decisions?
Exactly how much do people get paid to state the painfully obvious?
And fyi one of my letters of recommendation was for a project I was involved with in the 90's. In Pickerington, Ohio there was - as was there in many places, alot of commercial building going on at the freeway exit. About 4 miles from the historic downtown. The downtown was really suffering so we decided to turn it around :-)
Everybody said it wouldn't work, but we went to old fashioned, plain old (computer free) event planning and advertising via a cooperative pool of money from a business association formed for this purpose. The GOVERNMENT had nothing to do with this.
We had carriage rides and shops open late with alot of Christmas decorations, 5k runs with lemonade stands and ice cream socials. The business owners operated cooperatively and when shoppers and diners arrived in town they were made to feel valued and wanted.
I didn't really get to see the full results of my labor until a year ago I was in Columbus and decided to go and see what it looked like ten years later. Wow, I was so happy I just sat in my car kind of tearing up and grinning.
They have new old fashioned street lights, new sidewalks (brick) planters and a field that was just kind of a catch for run off water is now a little park. It's just beautiful.
I know this can be done. I've done it :-)
...to Sisyphus, Ohio.
You keep rolling that rock up the hill the same way every time, then wonder why it rolls over you. Then do the same thing again and again and again and again....
Brilliant! That's a nice match....