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If you need highways plus transit to CSU, downtown probably is your best option. East 4th St offers one-stop shopping for a lot of its apartments. If you don't consider it too far west, the Clifton area of Lakewood has good highway access and a busline that goes straight to CSU. Check on which other buses stop at the Stephanie Tubbs Jones transit center, because those are all your 1-seat rides.

While the scale of the effort here is impressive, it's EXTREMELY low density for an area so close to downtown. The goal here was not to rebuild a lost city but to create additional suburbs. I would take one renovated jazz club over a hundred cheap sprawl houses. This doesn't look "central" at all, it looks fringe.

My brother lives there and is heavily involved in preservation efforts. Zanesville has a lot of ornate architecture for a town of its size.

Exactly. I've had suburban friends tell me they'd refuse to work downtown if the WHD surface lots were ever built on. You know what? Fine. Addition by subtraction, because we'll never draw a critical mass of urbanites with a city that caters to people who hate it. Those who prefer living far away should not be a city's target market. Or that of its public university.

Fully agree.

I understand the concerns, but PHS could use some smaller venues and a wider array of entertainment offerings. It's always been tilted a bit toward retirees and bused-in schoolkids. And if I'm remembering the sign correctly, Xecutive seems to be aiming for a mature and professional clientele. Perhaps not Frankie-Vali-era mature. But adding some mainstream appeal may be a good thing for PHS in the long term. Regarding 347.12, don't we want "amusements" to be clustered a bit? Under this zoning PHS itself would be illegal. Too many theaters within 500' of each other. Does city hall really need to approve every little thing? This building already was a bar, in a theater district, but the new owner needs to pass through Cimperman and the BZA just to bring in live music? That doesn't seem too friendly from a business standpoint. I could understand if this were in the middle of a bunch of houses, but it isn't.

Word. And check out this bad boy. http://www.startribune.com/local/minneapolis/130268373.html "A Minnetonka-based developer unveiled plans Wednesday to build a 33-story luxury apartment complex in the heart of downtown Minneapolis that would be the first high-rise rental building in the city in nearly 30 years. The Opus Development Corp. project, expected to cost more than $100 million, is the latest in a series of new apartment buildings designed to accommodate a growing number of residents who either can't afford or aren't interested in home ownership... ...Last month, a Chicago-based developer announced plans to build a 36-story luxury apartment building near Loring Park. A $70 million apartment/grocery complex also is in the works for 222 Hennepin Av. S., site of a former Jaguar dealership."

If they're thinking condos, then they haven't read the news for several years. But I agree that something lower and denser is probably for the best here.

Kind of nifty... but if I had a big red X, this is what I'd put it on. Is there some rule that requires imperiled transit systems to blow money on increasingly eccentric shelter designs? This whole thread is a litany of stuff that RTA really needs to do but can't afford to. How many RTA customers were clamoring for solar powered bus stops? It seems odd that we can't afford decent fare machines, but we can afford solar powered bus stops.

That is indeed heartening.

That seems to be the only logical reading of this. The timing of it really is strange, since the rest of us have known for the better part of a year that the port isn't moving. Wolstein can't possibly have just now gotten word. Considering the long timeframe of the FEB project thus far, the port's relocation idea was a flash in the plan. Surely they realized from the beginning that they were building right next to an active port. There's still a possibility of more residential and mixed use in that general area, if the Browns' plan comes to fruition. The port standing pat hardly seems like a dealbreaker for any aspect of FEB. If it is, then the extent of the planning blunders here are truly monumental. But it sounds more like a pretense for putting a whole lotta greenspace where there used to be city. Again.

The sprawly layout remains questionable. As for the senior aspect... there are plenty of ways we can serve their needs without having our major TOD projects revolve around them. If we're building housing next to a rapid station, we should probably target it toward demographics that are more likely to frequent the central city, whether for work or for play.

Most of the progress this week has been in the area immediately west of the tower's base. Foundation for the garage?

I love the office and retail aspects... even the greenspace... but I'm not so thrilled with the low density of the housing component. And why must so many new apartments these days be set aside for senior citizens? Cleveland needs modern rentals for young people too, even in West Park. Young people are what we're actually trying to attract, right? I don't see us doing much of that with "clusterhomes." Look at all that lawn buffer in those pictures, not to mention the surface parking. There's already some nice dedicated greenspace included, so why does the structure-to-lot ratio have to be so low? Look at the "sample developments" on page 37 of the plan. 100% suburban. On page 33 they discuss using Mayfield Heights as a model, and on page 28 they suggest that empty nesters and young professionals are all looking for the same type of housing... single family homes. This plan is only TOD in the sense that there's a train station nearby. And it's not even clear how people on foot are supposed to get to that train station. If you live in the clusterhomes, you apparently have to cut through your neighbors' back yards. And if everything in the development has its own parking lot, how does that foster additional transit usage?

I understand the need for parking in an area like LI, but asking each location to have their own lot is downright anti-urban. The time for zoning reform is right now. The math behind that ordinance presumes absolute car-dependence... in a dense area flanked by two train stations and populated by college students. It is madness to leave laws on the books that work against our every goal. This type of ordinance is also why that new housing between Euclid and Chester fronts neither.

I agree with Gramarye. I hate to say it's a zero sum game, but to some extent it is, based on finite demand. This is robbing Peter to pay Paul. Ohio's suburban big-boxes are already doing better than their mom & pop counterparts, which are predominantly within cities and small towns... this policy will only exacerbate the problem. Wake up, small business. These people are not your friends.

I'm not sure it's that important to keep counties within single districts. In fact, that approach is used in districting for the Ohio GA and it favors rural interests over urban ones. If Cuyahoga = Holmes, the people of Holmes gain disproportionate influence. That's no small part of why Ohio cities lag behind their nearby counterparts. With as many cities as Ohio contains, one would think our legislature would have an urban focus, or at least a balanced one. Nope... and that's intentional.

Getting merger votes would be easier if the two city administrations were openly supportive. That seems less likely with East Cleveland, where the people in question have more to lose. Based on my recent dealings with them, I think they really intend to make a go of it as an independent city, and this recent big announcement is the centerpiece of that effort. They're also trying to prevent anything undesirable from locating within their borders. Though I wish they would consider the big picture in terms of regionalism, I do like their attitude and I think Cleveland could learn something from it.

I live on the other side of Clifton about a block down. Fantastic neighborhood, scenic and walkable, with the easiest commute I've ever had.

Great post, inlovewithcle. This should be a front-burner issue for both cities.

These new stations are a welcome sight, and the one on Puritas really does look nice. The area around the 55th station is probably too industrial to encourage much non-industrial spinoff development. It features active scrapyards, a distribution hub with associated truck traffic, and a very loud press machine that neighbors complain about. If the city pushes ahead with the East Side Market at 55th and Woodland, that could increase the number of arrivals and departures from 55th. Right now it seems like most people using that station are RTA employees.

I wish the hospital could build a garage or two and open up the W25th frontage for development. That surface lot is almost as bad as the ones downtown.

totally awesome

I assure you I'm quite real. How about a dog park? That would be a nice amenity for residents, and it would have some curb appeal. Maybe a parking deck with some ground floor retail. And is there no possible way to reuse the building that's currently there? Any of these choices would have a more positive impact on nearby properties than the current proposal. So maybe the ultimate pedestrian environment is still a ways off... but it doesn't follow that we should take actions that detract from that goal. We do agree that that's the goal, right? How does a power plant contribute to it? How might it take away from it? The vacant building is already there, no sense judging that, but this is an action yet to be taken. I think actions should be evaluated on their merits, not accepted on the sole basis that they're actions. That cemetery is historic, and the free clinic may not be ideal there but at least it's an amenity. It's open to the public and anyone might conceivably walk to it. There's no reason for anyone to ever walk to a power plant, unless they work there. You don't patronize a power plant in person. That's why I think it's such a bad fit for Main Street. So yeah, I'm against it. What am I for? I'm for planning out Euclid Avenue and University Circle with a clear goal in mind. I'm for developing and applying public policies to serve that goal. That includes questioning the propriety of developments like this, when they seemingly run counter to that goal. I'm for goals.

I am being real. We shouldn't put a power plant anywhere on Main Street, certainly not adjacent to a "showpiece" section. And not when there are other sites better suited. We're not talking up or down on the power plant, the issue here is location. Seems like all the needs this project serves, wattage/jobs etc, can be met without putting it there. We only have this one chance to rebuild Euclid Avenue, and that kind of opportunity deserves a bit of discretion. The current approach seems cavalier. What you're saying I need to read, to get to your point, is this. This right here. And then your "point" is followed by this. Why exactly must I read that? Moreover, the statement you're calling an exaggeration really isn't one. Said public figure did in fact block a project on a vacant lot. On what grounds is it your duty to tell everyone I'm not to be trusted? The vacant lot had to be preserved to offer any chance of anything else going there. And the apartment project was an actual going concern, a done deal but for the interference. So unless and until this other project materialized, the alternative to those apartments was a vacant lot. And some might find those apartments to be a far better fit for the area than a power plant. Yet the apartments encountered administrative resistance, while the power plant on Euclid sails through. I think that's crazy, you think I'm crazy... which is fine, I just wish you weren't such a dick about it. I don't fill my posts with baselsss... whatever, but you fill entire pages with open insults. They're not even thinly veiled. I hadn't posted here in probably a week and within a couple hours, on a Saturday, you jump in with that. Just drop it already. You apply that same attack to everything I say, beyond the point of obsession.