BuckeyeBlog

Sixteen-year-old Leonard Brown is “surprised by the sheer size of his new school — 231,953 square feet,” and “he’s most excited about the new gym and classroom technology.”

“I’m just ready to start the new school year,” he said.

Remember that last part, Leonard. You still have to open up a math book.

The city of Toledo is halfway through its $640 million building program, with 23 new buildings of a projected 43 new buildings. As it is, Toledo taxpayers paid only 23 percent of the dough in a 2001 bond issue, with 77 percent coming from the state. Who wouldn’t take that deal? Meanwhile, how many private businesses, the ones we rely on to pay these taxes, have engaged in a similar building program, replacing its buildings willy-nilly? What percentage is 43 buildings of Toledo’s total building count? The story doesn’t tell us, but Columbus shot for one-third of its count (after an embarrassing public rejection of the initially proposed 100 percent replacement).

A bit of a thumbsucker, but still a nice story, about Columbus’s downtown. Are German Village and the Short North areas for cool people, is City Center a vacant pit, and can a woman married to a New Albany doctor afford to throw a party for 70? Yes, indeed, and downtown condos are selling slowly in Columbus and more slowly in Toledo. It’s less news than observation.

But it is what it is. What I want to know is, what is this story doing in the Blade? Are they recruiting Toledoans to come to Columbus?