327

I haven't criticized a single thing that's on your list. The one thing I did criticize has also been criticized by others. And I don't think my point is invalidated by the overall benefit of the project. It's not like we're ordering a steak dinner here... this renovation represents a lot of taxpayer investment, and I'm allowed to be only 80% thrilled with the result. That's a long way from saying I don't like the project.

Not even Charlotte, the capitol of NASCAR, would do something like this. I'm a "friend of racing" too but this is nuts.

The modern expectation that college studnets work for free in order to get experience violates the 13th amendment. It's a lot easier to do if your living expenses are somehow paid for. Regressive in the extreme.

Get over it. Union membership has declined steadily for decades, even here. In other news, real wages have followed a similar downward progression and low wage employees now have to pay for their own health care and pensions. Employers have gotten everything they've asked for in this regard, yet the flood of non-union jobs they promised has not followed.

Bar crawls in Parma are lotsa fun. Culturally, Parma is known for Camaros and Van Halen. I see that you asked about Avon Lake, rather than Avon (I was describing Avon above)... Avon Lake is similar to Avon but a little older and denser and more blue collar. And of course it's on the lake.

Best of luck! Keep at it and you'll do fine. It took me a whole month to get back to normal though.

Solon and South Euclid are east side, while Parma is often considered south side. Solon is almost a city unto itself, but without a downtown or anything else you might consider urban. It has neighborhoods for the upper and middle classes and it has a large modern industrial sector. Parma is the most urban of the burbs you listed, home to about 80k people of most every walk of life. The northern 1/3 of Parma is indiscernable from Cleveland proper, though notably less diverse. As you go uphill it gets increasingly suburban. South Euclid is a standard middle-class suburb. The other places you mention are on the west side. Bay Village is older and somewhat insular (some call it snooty), but it's very well-kept and features an impressive lakeside park. Westlake is south of there and more spread out. Similar to Solon, with modern industry and a wide mix of suburban housing types. Westlake features the recently built "lifestyle center" of Crocker Park, which is the new "it" retail destination for the west side burbs. Avon is further west, in Lorain County, and is the least developed of those you listed. However it is being developed very rapidly as we speak. It used to be semi-rural but now has a lot of modern cul-de-sac housing. All of these areas are considered desirable, particularly Solon, Bay Village and Avon. But as others here have indicated, they all trend older and are very family-oriented. We don't get a lot of requests on this board for that kind of thing, but Greater Cleveland offers a great deal of it if that's what you're looking for.

Seconded, with gusto.

If the thread isn't about downtown retail, then it isn't about the ground level Euclid frontage of the title structure. That there is a downtown retail space. Hence the windows, which are apparently so troublesome now. Technically the thread title includes "residences" so perhaps only the upper floors are fair game. When historic renovation tax credits bear no relation to the historic purpose and usage of the structure, then maybe that aspect of the program could be reexamined. Maybe, instead of outright bans, there could be an incentive arrangement in which larger credits are available when structures are put to their highest and best use. In many cases this would be the historical use. Form follows function. One would think that the goal of the program is not just getting buildings repaired, but also reinvigorating the state's urban cores. This latter objective requires at least some attention to what made our urban cores functional in the first place. Based on what our architecture tells us, an appropriate balance of retail, office, and residential seems to be important. Moreover, there's a discernable pattern in the locations and combinations of these elements. We don't have to follow that pattern, but if we don't, we're taking a big chance on reinventing a very old wheel.

I'm glad the space is filled, but the idea shouldn't be simply to fill space but to maximize potential and create some kind of synergy. Between this and PNC, that's a lot of downtown Euclid Avenue that's stone cold dead to pedestrians. When we allow stuff like this, we can't complain that there's no street life. This space was designed and sited for retail and retail alone. What's the point of having a wall of windows on Main Street if you intend to block them off? Those windows are there to attract interest from random passers-by, and now nobody (who doesn't work there) has any reason to pass by. A poor fit for the landlord, and the tenant, and most of all for the city. Private workspaces at street level are antithetical to anything we'd call street life. The more proprietary the business, the more acute this problem becomes. Our current development schemes all seem to ignore or deny this crucial issue.

Lakewood also has the Winchester and the Phantasy. Coventry has the Grog Shop, which gets indie stuff plus some bigger acts. The west side doesn't have any venues like that. But Now That's Class is a great place. My brother's band just played there earlier in the week.

All who panhandle are not homeless, Not all those who wander are lost.

Stonebridge is a lot closer to the projects and major service center for the homeless. I guess I would advise not going too far south on 65th, towards Lorain, because it seems like a lot of the crime in "Detroit Shoreway" takes place in that area rather than near Battery Park. The same could be said for Edgewater really, don't go too far south. Sounds to me like you know what you're doing.

Halle Building sounds good too. Make it so! Don't forget that America came to know this building throughout the 90s as Drew Carey's workplace. And Halle Berry is named after it. Seems like a natural fit for our visitors center.

I have many bones to pick with recent mayors but this isn't one of them. Housing prices here haven't fallen enough to catch up with demand. Same goes for retail and industrial land. As McCleveland noted above, we've been building outward when we no longer had any backfill demand for the areas left behind. I happen to think the demand is there, just not for the housing that currently exists. Supply and demand no longer work when prices are held artificially high. We've got situations all over town where "demand isn't high enough to pay the rents" so storefronts lay empty. That makes no sense. If demand isn't high enough for a certain price, you don't waste resources for decades on end, you reduce the rents until they meet demand.

The CDC in this area is, for my money, the best in town. My purpose is not to malign them but to propose a more coordinated citywide approach to development. Less shotgun... more bazooka.

Two different kinds of growth, one good one bad. Cleveland was lucky to have grown at a time when people built elegant structures intended to last for centuries. Sun belt, not so much. Why this same philosophy didn't apply to Cleveland's residential sidestreets is unclear to me. I'm sure the feverish boom aspect had a lot to do with it, and lets not forget how much of our apartment stock has been torn down. It wasn't always like this. And at least we're left with a solid skeleton of commercial strips on which to rebuild.

For one thing, the approach needs to be broader in its scope. Enough with the CDC's. I'm not saying get rid of them, because they go great work, but they have too much power and they prevent the city and county from rolling out a more comprehensive plan. As someone mentioned in the SE Cleveland photo thread, we gotta stop viewing every couple blocks as a separate principality. Whatever happens at Gordon Square is also important to Ohio City and Edgewater... or is it Cudell... anyway we gotta think bigger, more integrated. They all wanna be a separate and independent nightlife district. Somewhere we really do need "a few boutique shopping stores for women." Maybe one CDC can't make that happen, but with a combined effort maybe they could. Neighborhood retail is a big enough problem that it needs to be addresed on a larger scale, starting at city hall.

I guess I'm suggesting that the city, county and state investigate new development approaches. Money exists even it I don't have it. Although... wouldn't it be cool if I did. And what we're talking about isn't impossible if other cities have this stuff, and some do. When in doubt you start with the goal and you work backward from there until you find a path to it.

There's nothing wrong with knowing the basic makeup of your city, and Hts121 clearly knows it. Even in the "information age" it's still possible for people to learn things through observation and analysis. These are skills we need to hang onto. I'll never accept that we have to trust outside sources more than we trust our own eyes and ears and minds. It's not about who cites the most data. Right is right. This is not to say that everyone is always right, just that people can be right without letting experts and statistics speak for them.

Good points EC. I don't understand people opposing the wine bar... I like bars... but it's also frustrating to me that more neighborhood service businesses aren't opening, even in areas that have been redeveloping for years now. Imbalance persists. But the Capitol Theater is a major step forward, any way you look at it.

I do too. Correction, from earlier: The new ribs place will be near 128-129, about a block from Popeye's. And I really wish "Seafood with Soul" would open up more often. A sign as cool as theirs shouldn't go to waste. It's got a crab wearing sunglasses.

The housing stock sucks. Cleveland doubles suck. For one thing, nobody here can afford the kind of gas bills they tend to involve. I don't see Buckeye recouperating until a lot of the housing is replaced. Lakewood, though structurally similar, is holding on well... but it has a lot of good apartment stock and a lot of stable single-family streets. Plus it has tons of white people, which keeps at least minimal investment flowing in. The same thing that happened to Buckeye and other parts of the east side will eventually happen to Lakewood unless our economy changes. On a regional scale, yes jobs are a major problem. But I still don't buy that lack of jobs in the immediate vicinity is the cause of Buckeye's ills because there are just too many good jobs nearby. The problem is the housing stock. Buckeye can't house the middle and upper class that Lakewood does. Thousands of people have good paying jobs within a couple miles of Buckeye, but they consistently choose different housing further away... including Lakewood. It's hard for people to choose urbanism, even if they might be inclined to, when the urbanism we offer is so halfass and so poorly maintained. This problem is compounded by racism and the lack of investment opportunities that accompany it.

That's perfect! Make it so.

Coventry is great to live in, but it's pricier and harder to get at than Lakewood is. Definitely more upscale than Lakewood.