Victorian residential neighborhood, the Old West End. The Toledo Museum of Art, the Toledo Symphony, the Toledo Zoo, the Mud Hens and Walleyes, and other attractions such as the National Museum of the Great Lakes and Imagination Station science museum “for children of all ages” are working together to promote Toledo as an overnight destination. The stunning new Renaissance Hotel on the Maumee River makes that an attractive proposition. Within an hour from downtown you’ll find $1 billion in distribution centers for FedEx, UPS, Walgreens, Best Buy, Lowe’s, Home Depot, Calphalon cookware, Meijer groceries, Menards home improvement stores, and more. John Fedderke is a retired marketing executive who is too young to be Don Draper and too old to be Mark Zuckerberg. He owned an advertising agency and then decided to get a real job to become Director of Marketing for The Blade – One of America’s Great Newspapers – if you read the masthead. There must be some kind of distinction in the fact that he’s celebrating his 48th wedding anniversary this month and has lived in Toledo all his life. Most boring guy in the midwest perhaps. Back in the day, he and P.J. attempted to start a newspaper in Toledo and published one issue before they decided to retire and write a play. Then P.J. got out of town.
We’ve always congratulated ourselves on being the crossroads of America. And it’s true. Trace the I-90 Ohio Turnpike east/west and I-75 north/south. Major railroads follow the same routes, positioning Toledo’s port – one of the largest deep-water ports on the Great Lakes – astride enormous traffic flow in all directions. Scott Spata, Vice President of Home Depot Direct Fulfillment, told Toledo News Now , “Geographically, this gives us reach to all of our customers’ ZIP codes, about 90% of the U.S. population within two shipping days.” And Toledo’s position as a North American distribution hub will be bolstered by the construction of the new bridge between Detroit and Windsor, the largest commercial crossing along the U.S./Canada border, accounting for about 25% of all trade between the two nations. May we suggest a Tony Packo’s hot dog for the road? Just to the west of Toledo along US 23, there’s a necklace of corporate office buildings echoing the suburban growth that makes Columbus traffic such an escargot expressway. Remember the 19.6-minute commute time in Toledo? It’s no wonder that Brian McMahon, president of Danberry National – one of the region’s largest commercial and industrial real estate brokerages – says, “Toledo’s not rusted, we’re just a bit tarnished.” I couldn’t have said it better myself!
40 June 2018
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