the urban news for the week ending Sunday, August 24, 2008
 Arena District
Two big pieces of the construction puzzle at Huntington Park are being put in place as contractors hustle to make sure the baseball stadium opens on time next April.
Arts & Culture, City Scene
I've been away from my photography for far too long and this work by Andrew Baasch might just have enough inspiration in it to get my going again. This is great stuff.
City Scene
Office assistants and laborers will bear the brunt of city-worker layoffs ordered by Mayor Michael B. Coleman.
Downtown
Summer was the self-imposed dead for some kind of announcement on the future of the site, but we're in the dwindling weeks of summer without a plan.
Grandview Heights
Grandview Heights City Council approved an ordinance Monday determining the Grandview Yard project area is a blighted area as defined by Ohio Revised Code.
Real Estate Affairs
In central Ohio, one of every three homes sold at a loss in the second quarter of 2008, according to Zillow. That was more than double the number of short sales five years ago.
Single-family housing sales in Ohio dipped by double digits in the second quarter, but still not as much as a widespread national decline, according to a report by the National Association of Realtors.
Franklin County's housing market continued to slide during the first half of this year, and sales records show that condos were hit harder than single-family houses.
A report released Thursday shows 2,118 single-family houses and condominiums were sold in the region last month, down 12 percent from 2,398 in July 2007. The number of home sales contracts fell 9 percent to 2,051, versus 2,249 last year.
Regional Scene
Franklin County's unemployment rate rose to 6.1 percent last month, the highest since 1986.
RiverSouth
The Columbus Downtown Development Corp. is charged with revitalizing Downtown. So Nancy Menefee wonders why it's torpedoing her jewelry business.
Schools & Education
The resolution being considered by the school board makes promises about how long the tax would last, how the money would be spent and how the district would strive to keep costs down.
Columbus schools have maintained their C-level grade on the district's state report card, showing a mixture of growth and setbacks for 2007-08, according to results the state will release next week.
The district has labeled the 1.13-mill bond issue as "no new millage" because it will not raise the current number of mills -- 3.9 -- collected by the district.
Short North
A downstairs bar will serve appetizers ranging from $6 to $11 and an upstairs mini-bar will serve one- and two-bite dishes.
State Scene
About 11,600 jobs were lost in July, dropping the state job total to about 5.4 million.
It's crunch time for the Ohio Department of Development. They have until Sept. 15 to determine how to spend millions of dollars to stimulate the economy.
Transportation & Roadways
The Central Ohio Transit Authority experienced an 18 percent increase in bus ridership on its fixed routes for the month of July.
U.S. urban leaders will call on Thursday for increased investment in roads, bridges and other aging infrastructure, as well as upgrades to public transit systems as ridership soars amid high gasoline costs, the head of a mayors' group said.
Urbanism
Not only is the developer, General Growth Properties, redeveloping the 57-acre Cottonwood Mall site into a neighborhood, but as a focal point, gathering place and town center for the Holladay community of 14,000.
...Business is suffering because the project wasn't well planned, he said. And he worries that his downtown neighbors might be a bit too gritty for his family's taste...
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