kreed5120 Posted March 20 Report Share Posted March 20 (edited) 3 hours ago, GP1 said: These two apartment buildings stand as monuments to the City of Akron's failure to think of anything to rejuvenate the City other than waiting for the University to do it for them. If I was a new college graduate, the last thing I would want to do is share an apartment building with undergrads that was designed for undergrads. Also, with the cost of buying a house now, young professionals are living in apartments into their 30s. Living spaces have to reflect their needs. Akron needs rental living and activities for young professionals. It's better for the City because these people have a bit more money to spend than undergrads. They bring a good energy to the City. It works everywhere else it's tried. It can work in Akron. The apartments you mention exist in the surrounding Akron area, which is where those young professionals live. I was downtown a few months back on a weekend night. The bar and nightlife scene stinks. It was worse than when I was in college 15 years ago, which wasn't even special back then. If I was 24 and fresh out of college, no way would I want to live in downtown Akron. It needs a major overhaul. Edit: I feel a lot of things are working against downtown Akron that have made it less attractive to be over the last 10 years. 1) Covid introducing more work from home and hybrid schedules. There are less people downtown Monday-Friday so businesses have lost that lunch rush and the people meeting up for a drink or dinner after work. 2) Shrinking Akron enrollment. 3) Students preferring to stay near campus instead of going downtown. There are more food and better bar options than we had within walking distance of campus. Businesses have very little reason right now to expand downtown Akron as the ones in the area are already struggling. I don't know how Barley House has survived this long. The last few times I stopped in it was 90% empty. At the same time even if apartments get built, the young professionals have very little reason to want to live downtown without local businesses that make it attractive to live. They can just as easily live in the Fairlawn or Green area, which is nicer and frankly safer. Also, housing in the Akron/Canton area isn't terrible compared to many other parts of the country. Ohio generally is ranked as one of the more affordable states when you factor in both median income and median cost of living. It's not as dire as the west or east coast where they have limited options on where they can live. Edited March 20 by kreed5120 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZipCat Posted March 20 Report Share Posted March 20 On 3/15/2025 at 11:38 PM, ClevelandZip said: we lived 2 hours away from Akron and visited Quaker Square as something to do. Looking for something to do isn't exactly a relevant thing today. Yeah, you guys drove 2-hrs to Akron to visit Quaker Square because you didn't have much options. Today there's essentially unlimited options for something to do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClevelandZip Posted March 20 Report Share Posted March 20 (edited) 1 hour ago, ZipCat said: Looking for something to do isn't exactly a relevant thing today. Yeah, you guys drove 2-hrs to Akron to visit Quaker Square because you didn't have much options. Today there's essentially unlimited options for something to do. Had plenty of things to do in Columbus… Edit: As others have mentioned, there’s plenty of apartments in downtown with vacancy. Give people reasons to be downtown and maybe more people will want to live there. I think we’re all basically saying that, but destroying a unique building doesn’t contribute to that goal. The “Bad News Brian” kid wants to spend his money on renovating the place. Take the win. Edited March 20 by ClevelandZip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LZIp Posted March 20 Report Share Posted March 20 28 minutes ago, ClevelandZip said: Had plenty of things to do in Columbus… Edit: As others have mentioned, there’s plenty of apartments in downtown with vacancy. Give people reasons to be downtown and maybe more people will want to live there. I think we’re all basically saying that, but destroying a unique building doesn’t contribute to that goal. The “Bad News Brian” kid wants to spend his money on renovating the place. Take the win. Wait..the meme guy bought the building?! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zippy5 Posted March 20 Report Share Posted March 20 TIL that kid bought it and that he's from Akron. Had no idea Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GP1 Posted March 20 Report Share Posted March 20 8 hours ago, kreed5120 said: The apartments you mention exist in the surrounding Akron area, which is where those young professionals live. I was downtown a few months back on a weekend night. The bar and nightlife scene stinks. It was worse than when I was in college 15 years ago, which wasn't even special back then. If I was 24 and fresh out of college, no way would I want to live in downtown Akron. It needs a major overhaul. Edit: I feel a lot of things are working against downtown Akron that have made it less attractive to be over the last 10 years. 1) Covid introducing more work from home and hybrid schedules. There are less people downtown Monday-Friday so businesses have lost that lunch rush and the people meeting up for a drink or dinner after work. 2) Shrinking Akron enrollment. 3) Students preferring to stay near campus instead of going downtown. There are more food and better bar options than we had within walking distance of campus. Businesses have very little reason right now to expand downtown Akron as the ones in the area are already struggling. I don't know how Barley House has survived this long. The last few times I stopped in it was 90% empty. At the same time even if apartments get built, the young professionals have very little reason to want to live downtown without local businesses that make it attractive to live. They can just as easily live in the Fairlawn or Green area, which is nicer and frankly safer. Also, housing in the Akron/Canton area isn't terrible compared to many other parts of the country. Ohio generally is ranked as one of the more affordable states when you factor in both median income and median cost of living. It's not as dire as the west or east coast where they have limited options on where they can live. I'm glad to hear kids are moving and socializing closer to campus. It was my college experience and I had a great experience. I went to a couple Exchange Street bars after a football game last year or the year before and thought they were good college bars. The City is never going to rebound if it can't handle public safety in the downtown area. It's a basic issue that will hold back the City forever if it cannot deal with it. If Fairlawn and Green are offering better living experiences for 23-32 year olds, it shows how far the City needs to go. I lived in Cuyahoga Falls with some buddies after college for two years. When Mrs GP1, the luckiest woman in the world, and I got married, we moved to west Akron on Kenilworth Drive as soon as we could afford a house. The city life was awesome. One bad part of Akron was the 2% income tax. It's up to 2.5% now. That's pretty steep for anywhere. It's not like the City offers premium public services for a premium tax rate. The problems the City has are not unusual or unsolvable. The failure is chronic and habitual. I don't know how to fix that but other cities have. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WeRise225 Posted March 20 Report Share Posted March 20 9 minutes ago, GP1 said: I'm glad to hear kids are moving and socializing closer to campus. It was my college experience and I had a great experience. I went to a couple Exchange Street bars after a football game last year or the year before and thought they were good college bars. The City is never going to rebound if it can't handle public safety in the downtown area. It's a basic issue that will hold back the City forever if it cannot deal with it. If Fairlawn and Green are offering better living experiences for 23-32 year olds, it shows how far the City needs to go. I lived in Cuyahoga Falls with some buddies after college for two years. When Mrs GP1, the luckiest woman in the world, and I got married, we moved to west Akron on Kenilworth Drive as soon as we could afford a house. The city life was awesome. One bad part of Akron was the 2% income tax. It's up to 2.5% now. That's pretty steep for anywhere. It's not like the City offers premium public services for a premium tax rate. The problems the City has are not unusual or unsolvable. The failure is chronic and habitual. I don't know how to fix that but other cities have. Downtown is pretty safe I almost never hear of many issues down there nor have I had any issues ever. Downtown just gets lumped into Akron as a whole and makes it look bad when it really isn't. The city needs to cleanup the surrounding areas though..... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZipsBBjunkie Posted April 1 Report Share Posted April 1 (edited) maybe AD is next Edited April 1 by ZipsBBjunkie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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