(12-23-2011 10:10 AM)BearcatsUC Wrote: Is the NKY riverfront really doing all that well? Stobart's. Tropicana. IMAX. Howl at the Moon. Omnicare. Waterfront. Huge chunks of The Levee have remained vacant from the very beginning and I've noticed on weeknights street level bars are closed.
You are throwing stones at the economy
et al with those examples, not the riverfront
per se. Omnicare was lured from Newport to Cincinnati with massive incentives (something you oppose, incidentally). Jeff Ruby has had to close several ventures at venues other than the Newport Riverfront (Bootsy's and the River City Casino are just 2 examples) that's the restaurant business--it's quite fickle.
Howl at the Moon is another example--they've shrunk almost 2-fold over the last half decade--the closest Howl at the Moon is in Louisville (there are no Ohio locations)...oddly enough, the Louisville location is just a few blocks from....the Ohio River.
Interestingly, Don Pablo's shrank from a half-dozen locations locally, to only 2...one of those being the Newport Riverfront. On the Cincinnati side, the Montgomery Inn Boathouse has done good business for many years--in no small part due to their riverfront location.
As far as multiplex IMAX theaters...they closed all over the country..not just on the Levee (google "IMAX to close" and you'll get over 500 hits). That's just a flawed business model--in fact, 3-D films are suffering the same fate--fewer moviegoers are willing to fork over the extra $$ to see something in 3D that they prefer to see at home, or in 2D format.
Newport on the Levee is doing just fine as a riverfront retail outlet, and riverboat row has been viable for years. The Levee has essentially full occupancy, which is difficult to maintain in this economic climate.
Newport has made a far greater economic impact for their municipality than the Cincinnati riverfront has for our city, that's for certain.
The question you've failed to answer in all of this is why so many developers are chomping at the bit to develop the Cincinnati Riverfront between the GAPB and PBS if it's such a rotten location? The answer must be...you are wrong in your assumption!
That area would grow at an even greater rate if the Freedom Center were folded into the Museum Center---you'd free up that real estate for more development and potential economic impact.
My point with all of this is that you seem to value symbolism over utility and economic feasibility--otherwise you wouldn't be defending the failed model of the Freedom Center so vigorously...