jborger

Why do you say that? They proposed new headquarters for Cuyahoga County on one of the lots just a few months ago. So I think that shows Weston has development on their mind and that's good news for the building they bought near East 4th and Prospect.

I don't understand the concerns. Being able to drive down West 73rd Street to Edgewater Park seems to outweigh any negatives in my mind.

I don't know if I'd call its current state "greenspace".

Hopefully some of this development will spill into the building across West 29th from 2901 Detroit Ave. It's currently vacant and for sale.

If memory serves, Stark Enterprises entered into a option with Weston to build on their lots in the Warehouse District around 2006. When that option expired, Stark wanted to renew but Weston didn't because they wanted to do the redevelopment themselves. There were even renderings floating around. And I think they're still interested in building on their Warehouse District lots if the right offer comes around and/or if they can get funding. Overall, I think 300 Prospect now being in their hands is a good thing and increases the chance of redevelopment.

I think it's a catch 22.

The lights are fairly iconic and unique when it comes to ballparks.

Polls are city property. You have as much right to take something down as the other people had to put it up. I'm sure they didn't request a permit for it.

And with 4 fans on Facebook, I'm sure the opening will be very soft. :)

It's all relative. Velvet Tango Room is now charging $18 per drink.

Well, you can't blame Optima for trying.

They haven't. This is the second phase. The sold units were phase 1. This is phase 2.

Walking down West 6th last night, I was happy to see the ground floor space in the Hat Factory at 1239 West 6th Street is finally getting built out! Looks like it's getting made into office space or something. Snapped some pictures, including a sketch that makes it look like it's going to be new space for MT Business Technologies.

What's the history of that ground floor space with the funky curvy ceilings? I know the space next to it was last a restaurant. Was the curved ceiling space a clothing store?

Overall, this seems like good news to me. This is what the county wanted: a bidding war. A bidding war in downtown Cleveland! It's a delicate balance - you want the county to get as much money as possible, but you don't want this to drag out forever. It is strange to me that Optima increased it's bid by $15 million. They obviously didn't think they were going to get outbid. But this bidding up makes the real estate market seem more valuable. Assuming the Ameritrust building still get redeveloped as the winner plan stated, I tend to agree with Optima: do we need new construction? Huntington is a great fit for the county. Before I was thinking, "Well, Huntington is a better fit but Geis had a better bid." But now that's not the case.

Tremont North starting at $330k. Yowza.

I don't think the cut out is related to a future CC connector. The cut out is part of the parking deck. There's probably a better chance a connecting skybridge would come off the end of the hallway - the long skinny windows to the left of the cut out in the rendering. Otherwise, they'd have to reorganize the parking pattern.

I love Cleveland's history and the great architecture that we had, but I hear a lot of arguments that revolve around "That goes against the Burnham plan," or "That's not how Burnham would have done it." But it doesn't take into account a lot of the changes that have occurred since it was put together. We have suburbs now and downtown isn't the hub it used to be. (imagine the cleveland.com comments if there was a plan to build a "municipal pool" downtown today) The automobile rules. The malls are not a centerpiece of downtown. I don't mind deviating from a 100 year old plan.

Hopefully when the county sells its current headquarters, they can demand someone build an 800+ convention hotel on the spot. Now we wait.

I just don't see the advantage of a skywalk. So people going to work don't have to cross the street? Seems like a weak reason to me. And since this is a government building, I think taxpayers should be upset that their dollars are being used so county workers don't have to go outside like the majority of the citizens they work for do.

Thanks for the openness with your website stats! Very interesting indeed.

So what's the answer? I don't think there's anything that can be done to bring more hotels to the area besides what we're already doing - adding more attractions, bringing more workers downtown, bringing more residents downtown and just giving more reasons for someone to want to stay downtown. The hotels will come when the other things happen. No one's gonna build a "spec" hotel in downtown Cleveland and just hope it will be filled. Is there something else such as above average tax rates that would turn off a brand from being here? Are the suburbs sucking up the good brands? Does someone need to knock on Starwood's door and say "Have you thought about Cleveland?"

mrclifton88, as you were walking through the convention center, did you feel like there were any negatives to being underground. The tall ceilings, lighting and windows look great to me, but I'm sure some people (before being there) ask, "Wait, the convention center is underground??" and be worried about it feeling cave-like.

So from the presentation it looks like the tower will have 8 apartments per floor. So around 200 total for the tower? Gonna be some great views from those upper floors.

And I love the fact that these guys are newer players. For a while, it felt like I was hearing the same couple of names in downtown development.