327

It should be clear by now that the slack in question has nothing to do with preventing development, or some perceived failure to employ iron-fisted zoning... but rather the character of the zoning employed, and the type of development that was actively and successfully sought by TPTB.

Agreed.

http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2009/11/geis_and_coyne_families_float.html Far from just putting a masterplan on paper, this has been a collaborative effort to acheive a certain development pattern. There's a lot more to it than zoning. Midtown Inc really is making its SIMcity fantasy come true. This is how its done. If only they'd had a better fantasy. Geis didn't need a variance, in fact his building corresponds almost exactly with the masterplan. The plan didn't place it right next to a grocery store, but it put a very simlar structure on the north side of Euclid. Now if someone had wanted to build housing next to this grocery store... which is also near a theater and a thrift store... that would have required a variance. Go figure. How many undeveloped sections of the city could boast those three neighborhood assets within 1/4 mile of each other along a new transit line? I don't understand the contention that housing couldn't possibly succeed here. You can't even buy clothes or groceries in University Circle.

Hmm... councilman tries to shoot down apartment plan as too dense... wants for-sale units instead... weren't we just talking about this a couple days ago, how it supposedly never happens? Happening. Right now. Could somebody from UO please run against this guy?

Get used to it... the western counterpart to the STJ transit center is supposed to go there somewhere. I still don't get the plan behind these transit center things. Unless the west side and east side buses converge somewhere, crosstown trips will be awful. The whole point of a hub is convergence, and in that sense, three hubs are not better than one.

Right. Thank you for posting that link, now we're getting somewhere. And the little number codes on page 29 correspond to zoning. Outside the cordoned-off "mixed use" area on the eastern end, 2's for residential are scarce. Lots of 5's for light industry. That's precisely what they call it, light industry. Also 3's and 4's for commercial and business/institutional. See also the color coded maps on pages 43 and 45. It's light industrial mixed with office park, which I suggest is functionally similar. Sometimes it's light industrial with a thin layer of "office" on the Euclid frontage. That's what I understand the Geis structure to be. Interestingly, on page 45, they classify the Pierre's ice cream factory as "commercial," so we can't assume commercial means "open to pedestrians" on those maps. Commercial could mean factory. We've been through this plan before here, and I like many aspects of it. It certainly is thorough and it hits all the right notes. Their position on setbacks and street presence is downright noble. I just fundamentally oppose the ratio of light-industrial/office to mixed-use/residential. But I also understand that one little me can't do much about it. Godspeed, Mr. Geis, and may you be blessed with tenants.

Right. I acknowledged that earlier, and my point is that it should extend westward to 55th. But... not... social service housing, which is fine in and of itself, just less than ideal for "filling in Euclid Avenue."

If that's it in the picture, then yes, it is underway. I stand corrected on its status, though I wasn't certain to begin with. And yeah it's built streetside, for show, per the masterplan, but suburban industrial park is its functon. It's 2011, light industry doesn't involve smokestacks anymore. Light industry is high tech now. It increasingly involves more office work than production. But it also involves single-use structures, with no public access, to which workers typically drive. They close during off hours and have no neighborhood-related function. Yes it will look a lot better than Appled Industrial's HQ at 36th. But it probably won't have any more positive effect on what's around it. And X, that is the plan I'm referring to.

Can't find the PD article now... but Geis' proposed tech center is modeled as a suburban light industrial park, with the intent of competing directly in that market. The Midtown Inc masterplan envsioned something along these lines, a tech center and related spinoffs, and had set aside most if not all Euclid frontage from 55th to 79th for such. It also envsions a smaller mixed-use district on Midtown's eastern edge, roughly where the social service housing is being built. Sounds like Geis' project is not a complete "go" right now, and the same can be said for the mental hospital. So aside from that housing, nothing is being built quite yet.

Maybe not make-or-break, but I would call this area a rather big deal. It connects our two hubs and it just received a huge transit investment. Most nearby cities have a similar dual hub arrangement and we're all racing to redevelop the in-between corridor. Columbus already won that race, and Cleveland probably had the biggest challenges facing it going in. Looking at its parallels in Cbus, Cincy, Pittsburgh and Detroit, how do the plans for our corridor compare? I don't think any of those cities wants to put an industrial area between its two hubs, not even Detroit. We're alone in making that choice. My crazy pipe dream of not doing so here is based largely on those regional competitors. But I realize that there's very little chance of altering the current plans. They've been in the works for years and changing them (starting with the master plan) would set back redevelopment. All that said... I think there is still time to change course. It is crucial to the city's future and possibilities do exist. Yesterday I saw an article here that Toledo, after years of local disinterest, is getting Chinese investors to develop its riverfront...

How much of a walk are we talking about for bus transfers then? Encouraging excercise is one thing, disrupting the logistcs of our entire transit system is another. At least supply a plan B.

Your conclusion is correct, Hts121, nobody's going to find a residential developer for Midtown. Not now. And this stretch isn't nearly as long or as empty as it's often described here. 30-40 blocks? From 55th to 79th there are maybe 5 or 6 idle lots. Virtually none at all beyond those streets. Demolitions could add a few more, but not a dozen. One (more) hospital and one competitively-sized tech center will dominate it. And the new housing isn't even going on an empty lot, they tore down historic structures instead.

The rail station at Tower City can't be moved, so Public Square will always need to be the city's main transit hub. That doesn't have to be a bad thing. There are ways we can add green to the square's quadrants without expanding them.

I agree that solving the problem will take more than banning it. This city has thousands of abandoned homes, surely something could be done. Empty homes... homeless people. Shouldn't be so difficult. Other (fully occupied) cities don't have the same option. But I do support a panhandling ban, and enforcement of it, in areas like E4th and the front door of the visitors bureau. They're doing themselves more harm than good by chasing people away from the city.

I don't understand how effort spent planning it as industrial equates to effort spent acheiving an alternate goal. There can only be one official plan for any given parcel. I realize you and I disagree on the role of urban planning, but why should developers expect any help from the CDC and/or city for projects that don't fit the published master plan? What incentive was there for developers to propose residential projects in an area already planned for something else? If the CDC/city has already articulated a goal for an area, it seems like that can reasonably be expected to influence developer activity. Why not look to another plot in a different area? If nothing else, it's a "path of least resistance" analysis. Are you aware of a previous Midtown masterplan that resembled my "SIM city fantasy" and failed? Does the current official plan also amount to a fantasy? If that's the case, then those things are a horrendous waste of money.

50 years is an awfully long time to wait for the Corridor investment to pay off. All its concrete will need replaced by then. At this point, I accept midtown "vibrancy" as a lost cause for our generation. It's a little late for lining up developers now. Midtown Inc has spent a lot of time and money planning it out as an industrial park. Their master plan called for a small mixed-use/residential portion in the 70 streets, which technically, in a sense, we're getting. Soon Euclid Ave will be just as happening as the north end of W25th St!

Yeah I don't think there's much he could have done on this one.

Awesome

Tons of great news in that article, St. Luke's is also getting a new rail station.

The only one assigning sinister motives here is you. The purpose of the thread is to discuss issues related to the apartment market that get too broad or too technical for other threads. Like the meaning of new, and the notion that it might entail different value judgments for different people. That filled half a page, and there's no reason to clog news threads with it. We here tend to prefer older buildings, and would prefer seeing more renovations, if only for preservation alone. I'm squarely in that camp myself. But the idea that renovations and new builds are fungible within the apartment market is another matter. I don't think that's true in any market for anything, and real estate is no exception. I was also hoping to get into some of the issues raised by StrapHanger and Hts121 above. The Crains article from yesterday raised some others. Haven't gotten to read the entire market report that someone posted yesterday in FEB - http://www.tcg-mm.com/marketresearch/MM2011NationalAptReport.pdf - but what I have read is interesting, and that's also the sort of thing this thread would be for.

Whether a "conversion" is equivalent to new construction is a matter of opinion. In some people's minds, functional simlarity changes nothing. It's not an issue to me but it is to others. Maybe it's a matter of style, maybe it's a personal preference for things that are new, maybe a combination of those and other factors. Taste is subjective. But no matter how strongly we feel that people should view the two as interchangable, not all of them will, so it seems prudent to at least recognize a distinction. It's tough to discuss the subject of new apartments if the meaning of "new" can't be agreed upon.

It's not the same market, because the demand for rehabs and modern units doesn't entirely overlap. Some people strongly prefer one over the other. MTS, for example, hates modern stuff. But many people have the opposite preference, and some have noted in the relocation threads here that our apartment offerings are really skewed toward rehabs. Seems to me that every time I even mention the issue, you or KJP says something like this, but your position is never really laid out. You say the economy is bad and lenders aren't lending, but we all know that, and that's not really responsive to what I'm attempting to discuss. I'm trying to be respectful and courteous toward you, and to follow the rules of the forum. If you think there's no place on UO to have this discussion, even its own thread, that's your prerogative. But you are getting out of control with the personal insults.

What information of mine are you challenging? What presumption? On what grounds do you characterize my argument as baseless? I humbly request that you give me something to work with other than "I think you're wrong, shut up." Frankly that's rude. Why are you demanding citations from me for data that is readily observable? The existence of entire buildings? You want a journal article or something? We can all count. My point applies citywide, not just downtown, but of the new-build housing projects downtown it lines up like this: Rentals: Crittenden For sale: Pinnacle, Avenue Dist loft bldg, Avenue Dist townhomes That's either 2-1 or 3-1. Am I missing something? Because otherwise, it is fair to say that most of the residental structures built downtown recently are of a for-sale nature. Citywide there have been acres and acres of for-sale housing built during the past 2-3 mayoral administrations. Why you are attempting to make a controversy of its existence is beyond me. It's there for all to see. The city's effort toward attracting families and homeowners is no secret either. It's not an allegation on my part, it's an openly stated public policy. It's the overt motivation behind the tax abatement scheme and has been discussed at length here and elsewhere. With the most recent completion (to my knowledge at least) being 668 Euclid, I would have to say you are missing something. 668 isn't new construction. As with condos, some people want rehabs and some don't.

What information of mine are you challenging? What presumption? On what grounds do you characterize my argument as baseless? I humbly request that you give me something to work with other than "I think you're wrong, shut up." Frankly that's rude. Why are you demanding citations from me for data that is readily observable? The existence of entire buildings? You want a journal article or something? We can all count. My point applies citywide, not just downtown, but of the new-build housing projects downtown it lines up like this: Rentals: Crittenden For sale: Pinnacle, Avenue Dist loft bldg, Avenue Dist townhomes That's either 2-1 or 3-1. Am I missing something? Because otherwise, it is fair to say that most of the residental structures built downtown recently are of a for-sale nature. Citywide there have been acres and acres of for-sale housing built during the past 2-3 mayoral administrations. Why you are attempting to make a controversy of its existence is beyond me. It's there for all to see. The city's effort toward attracting families and homeowners is no secret either. It's not an allegation on my part, it's an openly stated public policy. It's the overt motivation behind the tax abatement scheme and has been discussed at length here and elsewhere.

Even though it sounds like a good idea, they still need money to do it that and banks are not giving it out. That answers for 2 years, but not for the previous several decades. Tons of new housing was built during the 2000s and almost none of it was apartments. It's been a policy choice on the part of city leaders (some more than others) to eliminate rental units, replace them with owner occupied sf homes (detatched and otherwise), and generally move toward a suburban growth model. The politics behind this, if not the entire discusson, is probably best suited for another thread. But I think its a talk Cleveland needs to have.