gay-friendly area south of Toledo?

[railroader]

You may want to look at Levis Commons, in Perrysburg, OH; it is very diverse; has condo/apartment living. Is near I-75, east on Route 25.

[acealive1]

Originally Posted by summer22

I agree Ryan, Indianapolis has Talbott Street, Columbus has Union Station, Chicago has a whole mile of recently renovated bars... how is it that Toledo is completely being ignored by gay-oriented night life developers? I think there's enough of a market here to support some new investment.

columbus has more than union. i forget the area of about 4 streets but its downtown by the convention center and my goodness is it well kept. i was amazed at how quiet it was even at about 10pm on a weekend.

[streetcreed]

Columbus has the largest collection of gay bars and clubs outside of Chicago in the midwest. Minneapolis would be third.

At one time it was like 30 establishments. Now its around 18-20.

[Tobias C]

Kind of on topic:

Ive been wondering....if promoting some sort of LGBT oriented neighborhood or at least little business/entertainment district would be a good move right about now.

Gay village - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

While im not gay, im completely accepting of the community, and I recognize and hope others do as well, that the LGBT community is only growing bigger and "outer". I think Toledo owes it to itself to capitalize on this group of people. Both mutually succeed. Gays can enjoy a more centralized destination for LGBT oriented entertainment, art, etc. I think such a destination would attract a lot of people out there who dont view Toledo as particularly relevant or accommodating to a gay lifestyle. Plus the LGBT community is reliable for contributing greatly to revitalization of urban areas, especially those of cultural significance and in that sense, both the LGBT community, and the City of Toledo benefit mutually. I think it would be a win-win for everyone.

I think most people are aware that theres a decent concentration of LGBT folks residing in the Old West End. I think a great place to promote a "gay village" so to speak, would be somewhere in the Uptown area, so its in close proximity to the already existing popular neighborhood for gays. The Adams St corridor already is home to the most popular gay club, Bretz, as well as several other bars that are pretty safe and open minded. The rest of the gay bars in Toledo are more dive-y and spread out in outlying areas. If they were all in a concentrated area, they could benefit from friendly competition and the overall attraction of such an entertainment district.

Maybe it could be in the area between Adams and Madison, and 20th and 22nd Streets. The new little park they have planned for Uptown would be across the street on 20th. You would already have Bretz as a base/anchor destination, maybe just spread up Adams toward 22nd and Woodruff? Just an idea. I think Toledo would greatly benefit from such a neighborhood though.

[Johio83]

That would be great for Toledo, but I think it has to be a little more organic than that. We can do what we can to support and promote it, but it's something that would only succeed if it happened on it's own, rather than trying to set an area aside.

I think the best way to help anything happen is for downtown Toledo to just keep growing. While I really don't know how the majority of Toledo feels about the issue, the downtown community already seems very accepting. And you're dead on about LGBT contribution to the revitalization of urban areas. They're often sited as one of the first ingredients in the development of an urban area.

[alleghenyangel]

If only the gays will move in and start fixing up the Vistula Historic District. Maybe I will be one of them, if I can ever find a social work job in Toledo.

[Johio83]

Vistula could definitely be a good candidate for the next "it" place. I think a definite "ace up the sleeve" of Toledo is that we have good amount of undervalued neighborhoods just laying in wait. If downtown continues to grow like it has been, and Toledo sees the economic boom they're predicting in the next few years (doubling our exports by 2015), we could really see a lot of the surrounding neighborhoods boom.