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Kasich just appointed a non-white as head of JFS. http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2011/02/gov_john_kasich_makes_first_mi.html

The malls attached to Vegas casinos do well enough, although admittedly that's a different situation. I'm just hoping the casino's brief stay in the Higbee building makes it more attractive to a (near) future department store tenant.

I do hope the casino leads to more development along Ontario there. Not a lot going on. The Gateway bars are all on the other side of the arena, and it's embarssing how downtown peters out 2 blocks south of Public Square.

Hyperbole, but I'm basing it on people I know and people they know. Maybe it's just random chance but there seem to be more gay people in every Columbus sample. I also saw more pride type events taking place in a couple years living there than anywhere before or since. The sheer size of OSU may have something to do with that.

FWIW, unscientific straight guy opinion... every inch of Columbus seems more gay than Lakewood. I really think the gay Lakewood thing is a misnomer.

I'm stuck on the bar names... Tool Shed? Leather Stallion? Bottoms Up? Mean Bull? Can't say they didn't warn ya.

Twas not love that killed the flats... twas machinations. It would not have been that hard to re-energize the east bank bar strip if the buildings had been allowed to stand. But other choices were made, and so far nobody's had to answer for them. Jury's still out I suppose. And really, the old enternainment area never extended much south of the D-S bridge. The article here is talking about a lot more acreage than was ever part of that, including the Scranton and Columbus peninsulas. I'd love to see it all developed, but when we can't even develop ready-to-roll empty lots on W 6th, that seems like a remote possiblity.

There does need to be a voice for industral interests in the flats. Should it drown out all others? No, but it shouldn't be drowned out either. We will somehw need to find a new balance.

If everyone's going to move near work, then Beachwood will need a lot more housing pronto, and Cleveland will be emptier than it already is.

Not only could it work, it could be huge!

I don't think Eighth & State's point is so easily dismissed. Ohio's economic layout is very different from that of NYC or DC. Here, the wealth is much more dispersed into the burbs-- by choice. And to a growing extent, so are the jobs. Multimodal transit into downtown Manhattan and DC is relevant to a ton of people in those metro areas, because they work there but they're priced out of living there. Even people who don't work downtown, like seanmcl, are still ensnared by the same intense commuting pattern. It's a regional fact of life. Meanwhile, the economic role of Ohio's central cities is comparatively muted. Not entirely, but comparatively. This is why I keep pointing out that east coast rail success stories aren't really relevant to the Ohio market. It's an altogether different animal. The average resident of an Ohio metro area has no interaction with their central city, and couldn't accomplish anything in their lives via transit even if they wanted to. I agree with KJP to the extent that a wholesale change in Ohio's philosophy toward cities and transit is needed. But I think that needs to happen before we'll see sufficient support for intra-Ohio intercity rail. As we're currently set up, the utility just isn't there for enough people. First we need better metropolitan transit systems. We need to connect our downtowns to our economic growth centers, like Polaris and Beachwood and West Chester. We need to improve the prospects for day to day car-free living in our cities. That would lead to transit-oriented redevelopment, which would lead to denser cities, which would then increase demand for intercity rail.

Agreed. Not sure how this project snuck under the radar, but it sure is cool.

Well, no, that's a broad statement, but: 1- It certainly helps that Central Park is lined with residential (I'm guessing they did that on purpose), and 2- We're talking two wildly different scales, in terms of the city and the park. The Mall is insulated from foot traffic. It isn't miles away from it, but it is insulated. I think that's the primary reason it's as dead as it is, and I don't expect major changes in its usage when the renovation is complete. My point here is a response to the city's expressed hope, quoted at the top of this page, that the Mall's renovation will spur housing development. I think that connection is tenuous. But I do like the renovation plans, in general, and I do believe downtown housing growth will continue.

An outdoor elevator would be terrifying. The Nationwide building in Columbus is another example of a glass elevator you can see moving from outside. It even kinda looks like the building in that picture, except that the elevator goes along the side edge.

I'm not talking about the building, just the Mall. I agree about getting the building right.

"The city will retain ownership of the surface of the Mall, which it wants to become a much more vibrant public park and a catalyst for other development nearby, especially housing." I think that's really what's needed to animate the mall. While people like to talk about the benefits of preserving a master plan that's over 100 years old, the fact is that mall space doesn't have anything to "feed" it. It there was a 30-story apartment complex whose main entrance spilled out onto it, you'd have people riding bikes, running, walking dogs, reading, eating, etc. But you have a bunch of civic buildings whose entrances/exits don't even face the mall. Where would it go? Maybe they have a loose concept of "nearby," because there's not much land to work with in the mall's immediate vicinity. I just don't see much potential for so-called vibrancy here. The entire civic center portion of downtown wasn't set up for that. So we should make the Mall the nicest oversized courtyard it can possibly be. Maximize the potential it does have. Looks like current plans do just that, which I'm fine with. More trees and less concrete are good moves. But I really think we should temper our expectations... the only concentrated activity on the Mall, post revamp, will be planned fesitvals and spillover from CC events. Just like now. If downtown's population tripled, I'm sure that would increase Mall traffic somewhat. But most of the traffic increase would be around the new housing/retail/etc., rather than on the Mall, and I strongly doubt those people will have all moved downtown because we replaced one grassy field with another one. Thus my main objective for this project is to keep the budget within reason. So far so good!

The Wet Spot

Great idea! Someone recently mentioned that there aren't a lot of nighttime glamour shots of our skyline. Hard to do when so little of it lights up.

If I'm the mayor of Cleveland Heights, I'm in full agreement. Bring on the revenue. But from a more regional perspective, even if that region is just the east side burbs, this really seems like retail overload.

Agreed. http://tax.ohio.gov/divisions/estate/index.stm As Ram23 said, there are no taxes on an initial amount (which is actually $338,333). Thus, I don't think the Average Joe is paying ANY estate tax. (The median net worth of Americans 65 and over is $232,000 as of 2009.) And even someone at DOUBLE the median net worth would only lose ($500,000 - $338,333)*.06 = $7,660 out of the estate to taxes (no federal estate taxes are paid on any estate worth less than $3.5 million), which equals about 1.5% of the estate. I;m not quite sure how the children are "bearing the burden" of anything when they receive $466,000 in assets (without any work required to receive it) and in turn only owe the government 1.5% of that amount in taxes. And considering the net value of the assets received is still $458,340, I would hardly say the estate has been "depleted". Oh, and newsflash......if I work my ass off and make $500,000, I pay a hell of a lot more in taxes than the inheritors of said estate in my example. So in short, your post was full of wild inaccuracies and misconceptions. Also, you keep referring to double taxation. However, you seem to ignore that money is always taxed once on the way in and once on the way out. This is why the sales tax isn't higher. Even proponents of the Fair Tax push for a sales tax MUCH higher than what we have now. Our taxes are simply distributed between the "inward taxes" (income, capital gains, etc.) and "outward taxes" (sales tax, estate tax, etc.). Just because I have paid income tax on money I have earned doesn't mean I am exempt from paying sales tax on that same money when I spend it. The same should apply for gifted money or money left to other through an estate. It needs to have the "outward tax" applied to it still. Agreed.

We've had some fantastic downtown retail news in the past couple weeks.

If Ohio democrats had turned out for the midterms, we'd have both Strickland and a more favorable legislature, and we'd have 3C. 3C should have been the perfect wedge issue to motivate democratic voters but that didn't happen. Pro-rail liberal democrats didn't get behind 3C. That's why we don't have it, not because of lies or lobbyists. Most republican voters were already against it on a conceptual level. What was any lobbyist going to tell them that they didn't already believe? But democrats, who were perfectly aware of 3C and Strickland's support of it, were not motivated to turn out. This wasn't a issue of countering the other side, this was an issue of rallying the base. The next democratic candidate for governor needs to be armed with a rail proposal that will motivate rank and file democrats. For the most part, those voters don't live in Crestline or Sharonville. But thousands upon thousands live in the northern tier of the state. If getting passenger rail into Cincinnati is such a logistical and political conundrum, then screw it. At least initially. Develop a plan that provides maximum service to the areas most likely to assure its political success. That means serving Toledo and Youngstown before Cincinnati, and certainly before serving every right-leaning car-dependent small town along the way. It probably means serving Columbus too, but only in a way that's competitive with driving down 71. And that pretty much means non-stop.

^^ serenity

There's no sense in discussing anything if we already have all the answers, and if those in charge are 100% right 100% of the time. The current crisis in real estate, to me at least, suggests otherwise. Why do discussions of policy always amount to "magic wands" of some sort? There seem to be only two options here: accept everything the way it is, or be some sort of loony. I don't want to discuss magic, but I would like to discuss policy if that's OK.

There is a difference between new build and rehab, market wise, and the Crittenden is the only recent apartment building I can think of downtown or anywhere nearby. Every other new build unit I can think of is for-sale. And my comment about for-sale units vs apartments referred to new units constructed citywide, particularly those constructed with public financial support. It seems like the scarce financing tools we have available aren't being properly targeted toward our needs. I would be interested to know why both the city and its prvate developers continue to build for-sale units in a market that's already awash in them and which needs apartment units so badly. There is certainly a value to rehabbed apartment units, but it isn't clear to me why that is the only way we can get them to market.