327

Whatever. It looks like hell and I'm disturbed that nobody realized how inappropriate it was at an earlier stage. I seem to remember people taking issue with this here when the renderings came out. It's prominent as you're coming in westbound on Euclid, where it serves as a really tacky gateway for downtown. Not a lot of winning CSU architecture recently. This worries me, as they're planning a lot more construction in the near future.

And then came the pastel vinyl siding... blech. I still love this project but holy crap, how ugly.

True. Considering the entirety, it's not like Euclid will ever be single-purpose. Downtown is downtown, and then there's almost no open land on Euclid between the CSU and E55th. It's the 55th-to-CCF section that offers a mostly bare canvas, and even that part is less empty than we sometimes hear. It already has two small groceries and scattered residential. But I still don't expect to see many other uses being developed on that stretch, now that the industrial and institutional stuff appears certain. Everything I've read about the coming developments indicates zero desire on the developers' part to intermix any neighborhood features, and minimal desire by the city to fight them. I expect strictly industrial park type stuff, sprawly and cheap to build, with a preference for suburban land use elements. The idea is to keep rents down and eliminate complications for tenants. If you can't, they'll find someone that will. Pick a town, any town, place yourself at the outskirts, and imagine what you'd see on a dead-end street with a name like "Enterprise Drive" or "Snicklefritz Industrial Parkway Extension." Certain areas of W150th also come to mind, as well as parts of 82 and 91 in Twinsburg. This is the kind of place where "tech" happens... it looks the way it does for a reason, and not because they hate architecture. It's simply a money thing. You and me both.

Knowing this'll go over like a lead balloon... the word "vibrant" as a descriptor of successful urbanity. Vibration has nothing to do with it. Nothing. Too often this word stands in for a detailed analysis of cause and effect. It equates everything, and it oversimplifies complex situations. Every time I'm tempted to use this term I stop and ask myself 2 questions: 1) What are the key features of the situation I'm describing? What makes it good? 2) How did it get this way? What factors drew the "vibrational" element to this picture?

Absolutely 100% yes. How long does the city wish to be financially strapped? Presumably this "handout" would be in loan form, and if said yuppies are indeed highly paid, the city should have no problem getting its money back and then some. Not to mention the consumer spending...! All of these plans, tech corridor included, are aimed at increasing the city's tax base. So if attracting yuppies isn't the goal, then what exactly is the goal? As discussed above, it's not like the city hasn't already been spending money on new housing for this very purpose. We can keep doing it wrong, or start doing it right.

Industrial parks and mental hospitals do not encourage adjacent residential development. They work strongly against it. Not everything goes well together. Propose this stuff for any currently desirable residential area and rotten vegetables will come flying at the stage. This is why I'm no longer advocating residential in Midtown, at least not on Euclid. The potential viability of such is already dropping like a rock. "Mixed-use" does not include biomedical research, or any other kind of industry... residential-yes, offices-yes, retail-yes, entertainment-yes... but not secured research facilities. The nature of that business requires tightly controlled access... not neighbors, not tourists, not street activity. If nothing else, think of the insurance rates. Perhaps biomedical research can anchor the region's economy, but that doesn't mean it can anchor a walkable neighborhood. Tacos are great, and Valvoline is great, but Valvoline's not very good on tacos. So, OK, we'll focus on downtown and UC for residential growth. My point is that we really need to address the lack of modern high rise rental units in those two areas. I think the unmet demand is concentrated in this segment. If we don't meet that demand, it will impair our influx of young entrepreneurs and professionals, and that will impair the development of our tech corridor. I'm not suggesting we stop doing historical renovations. There's obviously a market for that too. But we're not getting to the next level of growth until we address what we're lacking. I know there are several vague conceptual plans out there to build some towers. I'm saying we need to move those up the priority board in a hurry... and in the UC area, we need to push back against the NIMBYs who fight height.

I agree that the idea of residential in Midtown is dead now. But very little modern high-density housing has been built in downtown or UC. A wee bit has appeared in each, but most of this is for-purchase only, not rentals. What we need is high-rise rental units. Think: Lakewood's Gold Coast... but closer to the big employment centers that draw urban-minded out of towners, who may be here on limited engagements but could eventually be convinced to settle and purchase. No, E75th would not be a great ("safe") place to plop an apartment tower. But downtown and UC are, and I'm suggesting that we prioritize getting new apartment towers built at both ends of the corridor. I believe that balancing our residential options is necessary to ensure the success of the hi-tech corridor plan. We're competing for capital with places that don't have this sort of imbalance. I don't necessarily agree with the idea of this mandatory sequence, i.e. we have to build the entire industrial park before there's any demand for any new residential. That area is already brimming with hi-end employment; what it lacks is housing that entices anyone to move in (non-commitally) and try living near work. People who aren't willing to buy in the city might be willing to rent there. Yes, I believe this demand has been underestimated. But it's critical to recognize that this demand is specific to modern urban rentals. I also don't believe prime plots are nearly as infinite as is suggested, and I mourn the wastefulness of Beacon Place and St. Lukes. There never was any unmet demand for new tract housing in the East 80s, nor at MLK and Shaker. If apartment towers aren't appropriate at those locations, these off-the-shelf suburban-generic for-purchase units were even less so. And now those plots are gone. I suppose it's debatable whether there's unmet demand for high rise apartments in the middle of a major city that inexplicably has none, but it seems quite clear that the family-oriented residential we've been building in that area instead has been thoroughly misguided. I understand that we want families with kids to settle in Cleveland... but come on. That's the last wave, not the first. Let's bring in some singles first. Those are the people who are most interested in city living. Right now we do not have enough housing that appeals to them at their stage of life. *** As for putting all the bio-tech stuff on Main Street, which I find ludicrous based on any and all observable models... I've officially surrendered. That debate seems to be over. At this point, yes, design and siting are the main concerns. Euclid Avenue WILL BE an industrial park, and all previous aspirations to the contrary are dead. The viability of alternative visions is now irrelevant.

My land-use criticisms remain... wrong focus for "main street" and poor utilization of the new transit system. Also, massive lost opportunity to create an attractive and marketable CSU-Case student life district. I'd prefer to see all this health-tech development take place along the proposed Opportunity Corridor blvd, for several reasons. But I'm not blind to the inevitable. This thing has momentum and enjoys the support of virtually everyone in power. The fix is in. All that lip service we heard about developing urban neighborhoods along Euclid is now firmly in the past. The only residential there will be for those who have limited options, or who are moving to Euclid Avenue by court order. As stated earlier, at length, my approach to developing the corridor would be 180 degrees from this. Oh well. "It is what it is." Here's my take on the bright side: Presumably this bio-med stuff will not receive the categorical exemption from property taxes that hospitals get, so Euclid Avenue should end up being more lucrative for the city than under a residential-heavy approach. It's a payoff that's largely unrelated to the HealthLine, but it's a payoff nonetheless. Post hoc ergo propter hoc! More importantly, we have moneyed interests wanting to do this development ASAP, one for which Euclid Ave is ready in the immediate sense. Waiting for the OC to be built could result in missing our open window to get this underway. And there's no doubt in my mind that Cleveland needs its bio-science district to exist sooner rather than later. So OK, we'll have hi-tech hi-$ employment lined up between downtown and UC. The corollary of this is that we expect the accompanying residential to develop at the poles of this corridor. OK, cool. But please let's consider the forms of housing we're focusing on at these poles. Recall the two incoming Clinic doctors who recently asked for advice on finding modern high-rise housing nearby. Each came from somewhere that offered this housing type in abundance... and each displayed minimal interest in historic structures, let alone any of our lovely new "family-friendly" tract housing like Beacon Place or St. Luke's point. Obviously the Uptown project will help in this regard. But assuming our new bio-tech corridor takes off, that'll be a drop in the bucket. It's high time that CMHA stopped dominating the high-rise market in the City of Cleveland, particularly on the East Side. Modern high-rises are an important part of any balanced urban housing market. At the moment our offerings are highly skewed, or rather, squatly skewed. For maximum benefit, this imbalance needs to be addressed in conjunction with the bio-tech corridor.

Anything besides the current unadorned grass would work for me. But I think the highest and best use here is Class A office space. Develop it, make the CBD more attractive for businesses, continue to repurpose older office space into residential, and put the "greenspace" focus back on Public Square where it belongs. This would involve greening-up Public Square, a prospect that already has some momentum.

Yay! I passed my bar exam. So now it's 327, Esquire. Special thanks to everyone on this forum for helping me develop my persuasive writing skills. The short essays on the exam bear a striking resemblance to UO posts!

"I'd like to build a hotel here." NO! Hessler Street disapproves, lose a turn. "How about here?" NO! Little Italy disapproves, lose a turn. "Short Line RR?" NO! Calabrese disapproves. You may, however, draw from the BRT "Chance" pile.

What? Wait, never mind. I don't wanna know. Regardless, good to see you back. And your timing is perfect since I'm signing off for a while to handle some business of my own. But I'll be back, when the day is new And I'll have more ideas for you And you'll have things you'll want to talk about I... will... too!

Nice piece, KJP. I'd be thrilled to take any one of those trips this year. I think this is the disconnect right here. Support of the people already exists for hi-speed rail. But Ohioans are being asked to run a 20 year gauntlet of lo-speed rail in order to get the hi-speed rail they actually want (and thought they were being sold). It's 2010 and Ohio is being asked to accept 70s quality rail service because other states had 70s rail service in the 70s and we didn't. Even though this is supposed to be a revolution of HSR in the USA... Ohio is expected to begin at the same point those other states did, in some cases decades ago, and follow a slow progression of service upgrades that was followed by other states under 30 years of republican anti-rail policies. BTW you could substitute 80s or 90s for 70s and it's the same point. The fact that other states followed a slow incremental progression during a long anti-rail era doesn't mean Ohio should do the same thing now, as part of a new program targeted specifically at HSR. What's happened in those 30 years? Ohio has gained zero interest in the old-school Amtrak approach. Didn't like it then, still don't. But Ohioans do travel, and they have seen HSR overseas. They love it. They want it for themselves, and even the most conservative among them were happy to hear that HSR development would be a national priority in this coming decade. Only the truly deranged and the professionally interested (highway people) stand against the whole idea of rail in Ohio. The general populace wants hi-speed rail and they want it now. This is an aging state, where people don't drive as well as they used to, and they're more than interested in the amenities that go along with rail travel. And contrary to some people's accusations, the average Ohioan realizes how behind we are in this area and wants their state to catch up technologically. ORDC should have more supporters than they know what to do with, and if they were prioritizing high speed rail they'd have that. But you can barely get them to even say "high speed rail." They're hell bent on getting Ohioans to accept the Reagan approach to rail, developed at a time when HSR was about as distant as Paris. It makes no sense to build a system Ohioans don't want, or only kinda want, and use its popularity to gauge whether Ohioans are ready for the HSR system they've wanted all along. Two different things, one's popular and one isn't. It also makes no sense to spend 400 million on something and not use the best available technology. If the scope of this project requires a tradeoff like using Reagan-era tech to achieve Reagan-era service levels... then the scope needs to come in a little. And the lack of hi-density development in our central cities suggests that hi-speed is even more important here, to make the service competitive with driving. Expecting development and transit to show up as a result of building 3C is the tail wagging the dog. Ohioans are conscious of their own urban layouts when they evaluate different rail proposals with different speeds. They have already determined that hi-speed linkages between these cites, as the cities exist right now, would be great. They resist low-speed rail between those same cities because it at that speed it falls short of the utility they're looking for. Two. Completely. Different. Things. Just how hell bent is ORDC on getting Ohioans to drop their dreams of high speed and swallow this instead?

seanmcl, the meanings you're suggesting are rather attenuated. If this investment doesn't directly carry over to high speed... if high speed requires substantially different equipment... then it's a bit of a stretch to claim that this investment would truly "support the development of intercity high speed rail service" in any meaningful way. It's highly debatable whether this plan even meets the broad purpose of funding HSR's development. What's especially troubling is the extent to which 3C's backers shrug off attempts to examine the direct planning linkage between these two seemingly distinct visions.

That's not at all what's meant by "citation," for the very reason you just noted. It really sounds like you're talking about a specific provision of said Act. Oh well, moving on.

The article we're talking about notes that two local congressmen are already intimately involved in this plan "to bring high-speed rail passenger service to the Cleveland-Youngstown/Warren-Pittsburgh corridor." Words have meanings... and Youngstown does not mean Alliance. Period. No more than Cincinnati means Sharonville. I don't think I need to tell my congressman anything here. Could you please cite this "law" you keep saying you explained? Laws have words, and words have meanings. I'd like to take a look.

No it will not. Whether this line goes through Youngstown-Warren or Alliance (?) is a decision to be made politically, not a matter to be determined by studies. If it did go through Alliance a good portion of its intended utility would be lost. This "study" may be helpful in determining a path of least resistance, but that is far from being the sole consideration. Consultants and studies cannot decide for Ohioans what sort of rail system we want to build here.

Goals are not determined by studies. That belies the definition of the word. Goals are determined by leadership, and any goal worth its salt will exceed existing parameters. At the federal level, imagine Obama selling this $8 billion program not as "high speed rail" but as expanding 70s-level Amtrak service to new markets. That's not what happened and everyone knows why. Words have meanings. At this point, it's hard to even have a conversation with 3C's backers because goals for them are somehow non-volitional, MOUs mean nothing, Amtrak statements mean nothing, and speed is unimportant no matter what the market says. Above all, the concerns of Ohio voters mean nothing. They'll take low speed-- indefinitely-- and they'll damn well like it. If the market disagrees, the market needs to be insulted more until it comes around. It's almost as if 3C's backers feel that Ohio needs to be punished, by receiving 70s-level Amtrak service in the 2010s, because Ohio failed to embrace 70s-level Amtrak service back when it should have. This seems backwards, and wasteful, and increasingly spiteful. It's one thing to fight passionately for rail since the 70s. It's another thing entirely if we're still fighting for 70s-level rail service in Ohio, even though it's 2010. And a good day to you sir as well.

But the goal of the federal program is 110. Period. Who's overlooking that? The thing you're saying Larkin overlooked is apparently something ORDC's continuing to overlook as well. Are we doing this offset? Or are we not? Larkin isn't asking for controlling board approval for anything. We are. What are we doing to, specifically, to acknowledge that the goal of 3C is 110 mph service? That charge is that it's not, but that it should be. Is it? Yes or no. If no, then Larkin has overlooked nothing of importance. The question is what speed will we get and when. If ORDC considers 110 mph service to be a secondary or tertiary goal, then ORDC's intransigence has become issue #1. There's nothing to look at, or overlook, until that basic problem is solved. ORDC's priorities need to match those of the feds and of the Ohio market. In a word, speed.

I think a lot of the hope for East Cleveland rests on its very close proximity to University Circle, unfortunately being a separate entity so close to a growing part of Cleveland severely hurts it. There's a lot of prime real estate along Euclid Ave just across from the EC/CLE border, but it will likely never be developed unless it was in Cleveland proper. Why would someone who works in University Circle move to EC and pay an additional 2% of their income in taxes to live in a city that can't provide a lot of basic services? Indeed. So sorry, annexation-haters, but there's no alternative here. The only question is do we want this land redeveloped or not. If the answer to that is more important than maintaining our hateful borders, we'll see the land developed within our lifetime. If the urge to separate this neighbor from that one remains strong, then East Cleveland will continue to languish... as will University Circle. They can never truly be distinct, these two. So drop the hate. It's University Circle's only way forward.

You are correct, Kasich has said that the federal government should give the $400 million to another state, Ohio doesn't want to upgrade its rail lines. This is why Kasich must lose, but I fear it is why Kasich will win.

Portland and Cincinnati are remarkably similar in many respects. Granted... but we're talking about a particular aspect as to which they are, presently, two wildly different places. There's no "oh come on, let's at least put one single streetcar in Portland" movement.

Again, what speeds do we expect to get out of the freight RRs? Specifically. Either we have chosen to plan for this or we have chosen to ignore it. If not the 90 from the MOU, what speed are we expecting? On one hand all of this is set in stone... on the other hand, major issues (like top speed) have yet to be negotiated. Both can't be entirely true. What if the RRs balk at a speed increase, somewhere down the line? Clearly they felt they needed to preserve the option. Then we really are in conflict with the federal program. At this point we need to see a breakdown of exactly how 3C gets from here to 110 mph, mile by mile. Anyone who thinks 327 is the only guy harping on speed is a psycho living in a dreamworld. Speed is THE issue for 3C thus far, and the only answer we keep hearing is "Amtrak lied" or "that's not a real contract" or even worse "who cares about speed? You shoudn't." You do not tell the market what to care about... it tells you. If we want to compare with Seattle/Portland... then the goal should not be to get trains rolling in Ohio ASAP, the goal should be to determine what aspects of Seattle and Portland paved the way for rail's success. Maybe "paved" is the wrong word there. Anyway, we're putting the cart (intercity) before the horse (local transit). Seattle and Portland are not valid comparables when talking about Ohio. Riders in those cities can accomplish much more in a shorter period upon arrival. These cities are known throughout the land for being progressive and having solid mass transit programs. Ohio's relative lack of transit means either local transit should be addressed first, or that intercity needs to sweeten the deal with speed. Speeds that worked well enough in coastal metros are not similarly useful in Ohio. At this point, only 3C's biggest supporters seem confused about that. Everybody else is on the same page. Interest in high speed rail is high, interest in low speed rail is low. This money was intended for high speed rail projects. I've never heard of a project where the priorities of the feds funding it, and of the people voting on it, were considered so meaningless.

The MOU distinction is something but the issue remains. Are we saying it's to be taken as BS because it's an MOU? Non-binding is different from never happened. If conditions are still to be negotiated with the freight railroads, it seems significant that this figure has been agreed upon. It contributes to a sense that in order to achieve 110 mph service, we don't upgrade 3C, we practically rebuild it. Just how much speed do we expect the freight RRs to accomodate? Whatever the nature of Larkin's document it's a live question. I really don't get the impression that this ARRA project was meant to spur another decade or two of the Amtrak approach for anybody.

Larkin made one point and one point only. ORDC signed a contract with CSX that limits shared track to 90 mph. Any higher speed will require a "sealed corridor" which seems to be at odds with the federal program requirement of working directly toward 110 mph capability. This is either true or it isn't. I hope it isn't. If it is, it sounds like a serious problem and a departure from what's been represented. The piece also includes an email suggesting ORDC is not sufficiently motivated to prioritize high speed. I'm inclined to agree. I maintain that we should be focusing on sealed track due to its ultimate necessity. Is 3C worth doing, or better than nothing? Yes, but that's not the issue. Is 3C a good move? That's the issue. Not a dime of the appropriation has been spent yet, right? I still have a hard time believing the feds would force us to build this, or cut us out in the alternative, if we came forward (soon) with a more plausible approach to their 110 mph goal. Ohio is still too politically important to screw us or screw Strickland. Regulations schmegulations, Congress makes deals all the time. Adminstrative process is a default. It's there for small issues as designated by Congress. It's not designed or intended to force policies on people. If ORDC were willing to open up this conversation a bit... I think it might discover an Ohio that's more than ready to embrace a future of high speed rail here. An immediate future. The only thing that hasn't advanced over the years is the philosophy behind the 3C plan. The tree has been shaken from Washington. We needed it. This should be the beginning, not the end, of the conversation about passenger rail in Ohio. The two sides in this debate need to start listening to each other. I don't see any losers in that equation, everybody wins.