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They've editorialized "in favor of this location?" In what way? And does she not realize the Litt thing looked from the start like misdirection? When does the Peter Principle kick in?

I spent several years in this industry and its demise is bittersweet for me. City-centric rail freight seems a lot more sensible going forward. Most in trucking could see the writing on the wall many years back. Deregulation made it very cutthroat and led to the "you can't make money running legal" conundrum. Customers have been less than understanding about diesel price swings, and of course as in any industry, the larger competitors are better suited to ride these waves than the small businessmen are. Also of note... trucking provides opportunity to a lot of people who are so socially crippled they don't hold up well in other fields. We don't necessarily want some of these guys/gals in the general workforce.

Plastic is a fairly broad term... I could spend a good while listing off trade names that more or less fit under the "plastic" heading. In general I'm talking about synthetic materials. When those are made, there is a tendency to maximize out-of-the-box performance and let post-purchase deterioration issues kinda slide. We are a society that lives for today. Consistency? Check. Weight? Check. Insulation? Check. Color choices? Check check check! Lasting beauty? Ummm... have you seen our line of pastels?

We pretty much have to accept this station design no matter what we think. Even in the 1920s and prior, attractive brick building fronts were acknowledged to be "facades." So even though the guts have changed, I'm still not clear on why bricks are suddenly more fake than plastic. That concept isn't working for me at all. What am I missing? And I would respectfully disagree about age showing equally. I do have some expertise in modern material properties. Brick and stone respond better to the elements than rebar and plastic do. Few brick/stone buildings need serious rustoleum help a couple decades (or years) after being built. I used to make plastic products for long-term outdoor use, and it's tricky because there's almost no way to prevent discoloration or adhesive failure. So our pitch was "but it's cheaper!" and our thought process was "so they can keep buying more." Edit: W28th, our posts are crossing in the mail. Are you saying that no actual brick is used today anywhere? All of it is thin veneer? I'm open to the fact that that could be true, but standing on a giant rock it seems like that'd be the last thing we could run out of. And I view all of this as on-topic since we're still talking about a TOD project. I could be very wrong about that, and I'm open to that possibility as well.

I'm giddy over the idea of moving forward so quickly. That 2020 talk isn't likely to generate much support. So many issues are more pressing than what we could be doing somewhere in 2020. Of course, if they start building so soon that gives us a lot less time to do a master plan.

Obviously there's no demo involved here and the debate is largely aesthetic/unwinnable. I have several non-subjective concerns about contemporary architecture and I admit I'm generally against it. I've listed those concerns in a more theoretical thread, whose title escapes me right now. One concern that I would add, especially in this context, is that many contemporary structures I've seen have aged very poorly-- and I'm not talking about aesthetics. I'm talking about rust trails and chipping concrete expanses and peeling plastic panels. Not knowing much about how architecture is done, I can't determine if these are simply risks of experimentation, or if they're oopsies that no competent contemporary architect would allow. But gosh they're everywhere, these oopsies. I can't count the number of modern buildings I've seen crying orange tears out of a chip in a giant concrete windowless wall. It's depressing. And when we're talking about RTA (which we are), we need to look at how the shiny modern health-line accoutrements have held up over 2 years: very very poorly. There's rust everywhere, and someone forgot to account for our climate when they decided to get cute with the "walls." That last concern comes to mind when I look at the rendering for this station. Couldn't it be a little more buildingy, rather than sky-deckish?

arenn, I thought you made a number of good points. You noted our over-reliance on the same new economy ideas that everyone and their brother is trying right now. That sometimes doesn't go over well, but it's true. It's not like health care is some kind of revelation, and an economy based around it doesn't sound like any golden ticket. I've been trying to get some hard numbers on incentives offered to get companies here, particularly in the urban retail sector. That would be a very interesting comparison. Though I assume you're talking about landing HQs and major plants... I'd like to see how those numbers play out too, and how the pitch is made outside of those numbers. I think I understand the need for a new "aspirational value proposition" but I can't be certain because I've never heard that expression before. I'm not sure what to do with your take on relations between the city and burbs. I hardly see Cleveland as mugging Avon for money. State/local policies have resulted in significant wealth transfer out of the city and toward Avon, so many here viewed the revenue sharing compromise as a welcome break in that action. If developers support additional sprawl, by building sprawl infrastructure, are they really helping anything? It's not like the exurbs don't already have retail and medical. Sprawl has to turn around sometime, and not every exurb should have a full complement of stores and offices. That's how we got in this mess, largely.

Puritanical conservatism? Maybe. I'm not sure what it is. I can't imagine any European city bulldozing quite as much as we have. Most of them have multiple historic areas left intact, even if there are a few modern buildings here and there. I see Cleveland as being different. We have very few links to our past remaining. I guess it's a matter of proportion.

Cat's out of the bag... I wonder if he reads the *I Love Cleveland* thread? The blog made some good points, and some other points. I'm not happy about Avon or anything that goes on there. The suburbs have extorted money from Cleveland in boatloads. How else did they get there? And no Cleveland is not disconnected from the rest of Ohio, it's just disconnected from the part by Indiana. On purpose. Could you imagine if I had one of those blog things? Great googly moogly. That's why I don't. I make enough enemies as it is, in real life.

Or, look at it this way: The modern style deserves a chance to thrive on its own, somewhere it can make up a whole environment. Shoehorning it into intact historical districts doesn't do justice to either style. Though it would be far from ideal, I would rather have a station there identical to the new one at W117th. Bricks is bricks. It would fit much better than the proposed design, in my view.

I have the same exact opinion of those condos, ccars. I don't quite understand what differentiates Crocker/Wendys bricks from Little Italy bricks. Are we saying the new "old" stuff falls short on detail, compared with the actual old stuff? I would agree with that. And there is something to be said for doing the old style right or sparing it the parody treatment. And I'm trying to avoid stoking the classic old vs new debate that belongs in another thread. But I'm very disappointed in this station design, because given the context it's just obnoxious. It's straining to be different for no good reason. We're talking about a neighborhood that's so serious about its character it won't tolerate anything being higher than the main church steeple. I find that a little on the quirky side, but their heart is in the right place. Little Italy is popular because very few places in Cleveland still look like that, when so many once did. Why must we bookend it with Star Wars playsets? Bringing it back around to general TOD Discussion, why not do the modern treatment somewhere like 79th between the trains? There's a clean slate to work with, almost. Although maybe there's enough left there I might still want to do it old-school. But what about Randall Park Mall, after it's leveled and the blue line is extended. That's a clean slate area needing to shoot for the moon. Brook Park Road, right by NASA! Modern architecture couldn't be any more appropriate for TOD at that station. Anywhere but Mayfield, basically.

I can't help thinking that Tower City is out of the question. MMPI has said as much. So it's over toward the Clinic, or it's nowhere, or it's at the mall. Unless... MMPI drops out and FCE puts together an entirely new deal with someone else. I'm not sure who that someone else would be. It would be a tough sell, if MMPI ends up having to drop out after all they've been through.

What? Are you saying you want everything to be the same? Cleveland is unique bc it is a place of transition/contrast? What other, older cities are not experiencing the same things? Also, it's not about hearing "Italian." It's about preserving the distinct look of that neighborhood. I mean, would it make sense to plop something down in Shaker Square that totally doesn't fit? I think that is totally the wrong approach and destroys and continuity in a neighborhood. Precisely. There are plenty of great areas in Cleveland for pushing the envelope architecturally. I don't feel that this is one of those areas.

^ Nice work.

Coleco had a driving simulator game (Dukes of Hazzard) that was so good it took about 10 years and multiple systems before any driving game surpassed it.

What part of Superior? I'm not aware of any plans for any office tower.

I don't have time to read that whole blog right now. But from what I did read, I don't think it's all that far off. I didn't notice much commentary in it regarding Cleveland's physical attributes, so I don't care if the author has stopped by to see them. The blog was trying to nail down a difficult problem, one we can't nail down ourselves, and one we exhibit a bit of denial about. Some of its insights were spot on, like the failure of regionalism here and especially the misguided attempts at development.

I don't know, but I love Dr. Berkman's attitude.

I agree. My point is that regardless of our positioning on the modernity curve, Cleveland is way behind the curve in terms of preserving its historic neighborhoods. From that perspective, the encroachment of modern architecture into Little Italy is troubling and perhaps something to be avoided. Example: I really like those space-age periscope looking houses they're building by the west shoreway. They're modern and they look great in my opinion. It helps that there are several of them together. So even though I prefer traditional materials and designs, I would hate to see someone put a brownstone right in the middle of that development. It would ruin the effect they've created.

I think Coleman and Abram are extremely likely to be starters. I loved our draft top to bottom. Reviews have been mixed and I don't know why. All month ESPN has been talking about how everyone in the top 10 wants to trade down and it's soooo impossible. Then we're the ones who get it done, and suddenly it's just a terrible idea. Yeah right. The logical next step of "nobody wants to pick in the top 10" is that the value on those picks has dropped and maybe next year's first has become an unreasonable price for one. The Browns found a reasonable price in a dynamic market, when no one else could, and they should be commended for it.

The fact that nothing in LI looks like a health-line station is part of what we're trying to preserve. The density and topography wouldn't sell as well if every building in LI, or even 1/3, were replaced with contemporary styles. I have no problem with an ambitious station design and I love observation decks. But Cleveland has all the bling-bling glass and chrome structures it needs. More than enough. If at all possible I'd like to see Mayfield Rd get something that meshes well architecturally with the rest of LI. By that I mean call the brick store and place an order.

This is a great way to boost Ingenuity Fest. I hope the combined event works out and becomes annual.

I'm gone for a week and look what happens. Give up on Cleveland? Ha! Never! Instead, I'm moving into city limits so I can vote against Frank Jackson. I might even pick an opponent and campaign for them. After that I run on my own. Onward and upward. I'll make sure the Lorax and Punch and all their friends can come back here. Seriously, we can't let garbage like this discourage us. It's not their town it's ours. Their time is done. Maybe we won't get our medical mart. Maybe we will but not like we're expecting. Either way, these bastards will eventually retire or be forced out in disgrace like McFaul and Richard Nixon. The sooner the better. Cleveland gets fixed as soon as we fix it. This is fascinating. What exaclty would FCE do with the mall? Build on it? Scrantonize it? We've had it long enough to realize it has limitations as a public space. Its vastness seems like overkill. To be honest I'd love to see some density there instead. That would go a long way toward reducing the compartmentalization of downtown. The same can be said for having a convention center there and keeping the grass roof... but not to the same extent, I don't think. That's where I'm at with this project now. I still think the TC site would be insanity. I've never been opposed to a midtown/uptown site and I'm still not. And I'm starting to think my universal answer to concerns about the mall is: Screw the mall, it's never worked well, let's try something else there entirely.

??? I'm looking at a picture of it. It looks like the cheapest park imaginable. You can't get more simplistic than a grassy knoll surrounded by sidewalk. I'd call it a treelawn, except there aren't enough trees. There are a few small structures of indeterminate nature. Get rid of those, and we don't have to buy much besides fill dirt and grass seed. What would I do instead, you ask? Something more like a garden or a grove. And if sight lines are a problem, I'd tell the CPD to get out of their cars and defend any citizens who wish to enjoy their new garden. I do not want any more blank prairie installed within city limits. The idea that we need empty barren parks because there's no other way to be safe is borderline psychotic. Build properly landscaped parks and defend them with pride.

I'd like to see something more mid-market in that TC space anyway.