ccars

I find it hard to believe that surface parking would be a more profitable use than a handful of $400k new construction townhouses similar to the ones up Mayfield and Edgehill.

Hidden parking lots create opportunities for crime, especially in a neighborhood like this one. It would make more sense to completely dispense with the city zoning code's parking requirements and allow developers to rely on street parking alone.

^Much of the reason you see grass yards in new construction is because of drainage concerns. Too much impervious surface can cause premature foundation failures especially in a place like Cleveland where the storm drainage system is poor. In that area in particular, the streets are quite prone to flooding and pooling after a heavy rain. The grass keeps the water from infiltrating the foundations of those more inexpensive townhouses.

IMO, Orchard Hills isn't a very nice park. It looks more like they built a big parking lot in the middle of a hay field. Then again, Geauga County's goals are different because everyone has a mini park in their backyard there. Orchard Hills is basically a really expensive party pavilion. The tree-planting is a good idea, though, so I hope it'll make the space look a little less shabby.

An oil and gas lease is an interest in property. Every time it's sold, somebody -ought- to run a title search. A savvy home buyer is not going to forgo a title search just because the house changed hands a month ago. There's a lot of money at stake, and title searches are not terribly expensive. I suppose Chesapeake might warrant the sale, but who's to know whether they'll be in business to pay off the buyer for defects in a year?

^ Here you go. It's not in -all- of Ohio, just mostly in NEO / SE Ohio. This is where the bulk of the activity is. They're still proceeding in the Mahoning Valley and in the Canton area. I think they recently set up a downtown office campus in some of the available office space in downtown Canton. Chesapeake to Sell Utica Assets By: Zacks Equity Research June 06, 2012 | Comment(s): Embattled Chesapeake Energy Corp. (CHK) is trying hard to minimize capital expenditure through its divestiture program. The company plans to sell 337,481 net acres of Utica-Point Pleasant Trend acreage in Ohio, as per a prospectus released by Denver-based Meagher Energy Advisors. The to-be sold assets include drilling rights in 19 Ohio counties that are mainly situated to its north-east and south-east. Northeast Ohio counties comprise Huron, Lorain, Ashland, Wayne, Summit, Geauga, Portage, Asthabula and Trumbull counties. The southeastern counties are Licking, Muskingum, Fairfield, Perry, Morgan, Washington, Athens, Hocking, Vinton and Meigs. http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/76510/chesapeake-to-sell-utica-assets

They lost their main industry, but that loss did not result in the devastation we've seen here. Cleveland still has steel mills but so what. It's not always about jobs, look at Portland. The manufacturing economy is positively a red herring in this region. We fought and lost that battle in the 70s and 80s, and by that time the Rust Belt cities were already declining. Personally I think you'll find far more convincing evidence that city management in a post-integration society makes a much bigger difference than availability of certain types of jobs. White flight devastated most cities proper--some came back quickly, others didn't. What's the difference between Lakewood and Cleveland? Not much physically. The better schools in Lakewood are the primary driver for building a solid, stable resident population there--something that Cleveland still sorely lacks. Pittsburgh managed to root out corruption and reform its government years ago. We're following in their footsteps with county government reform, and we're now beginning to see the good benefits that they saw from good management.

^ I've got to hand it to them, they're a good example of smart urban renewal and it looks really nice in several places. It definitely has improved in the last five years, but I think Pittsburgh's perennial status as a second-tier city is going to impede a full recovery. It's still a wreck in a lot of places, crime is bad, and the housing stock is expensive and wrecked in most neighborhoods. And there are 18 bridges, 3 rivers, and all the roads are uphill. :>

I love Pittsburgh, but it has a surprising number of rednecks (count the confederate flags on Pittsburgh houses sometime). Yet it's urban density, enabled by its many developed valleys, exceeds that of any of Ohio's Big 3. It's transit is on par if not slightly better than Cleveland's. Its cultural offerings are equal to Cleveland's too. But that redneck thing really bothers me, something I also see too much of in Columbus and Cincy. All 3 C's have a pretty large population of Appalachians and Southerners that moved there for jobs, and Pittsburgh is pretty much the capitol of Appalachia, so yeah, they have it even more so. I deal with my fair share of hillbillies from Pittsburgh at work and I wholeheartedly agree. Every time I find myself in Pittsburgh, some mulleted jackass at a crowded bar eventually tries to pick a fight with me for no reason at all--a problem that simply does not exist in Cleveland. I don't care how nicely they've paved the streets; until their residents learn how to conduct themselves like urbanites who have triple-digit IQs, I'm never going to like the place. Call me a snob, but I feel like we have a lot more in common with New Englanders than we ever will with the Appalachian folk. There's good reason for that--this area was originally settled by people from Connecticut, whereas the original Appalachians were all fresh immigrants from Germany and Eastern Europe. I spent a few months in Marietta a while back and experienced a positive culture shock. Those are people who love Pittsburgh.

Chesapeake isn't the only player in this region; they just happen to have leased the most land. I've seen teams of their people in Mahoning, Columbiana, Tusc and Portage that are still running title on their leased lands. There's activity. Chesapeake recently announced that they were going to dump their holdings in NE Ohio which will mean that the purchasing company will have to perform the same due diligence on the leases as Chesapeake did when they signed them, and they'll only have a few years to drill them before they expire. So either something is going to happen within 5 years or someone is going to lose a ton of money.

The debate we're really having here is whether large public housing projects are an overall success or a failure. Whatever the answer, it's basically a matter of opinion. Personally, I think that the Section 8 program is a much better idea than completely restricted 100%-low-income apartments. An apartment complex like Lakeview Terrace is a "neighborhood" in itself, and it would benefit from a diversity of incomes. In any case, because it's agency-owned, the CMHA has a very limited set of choices as to how to handle the property, imposed by statute. As long as it remains as such, not much is going to be changed.

I saw a snippet on local news that the county executive was holding hearings on how to spend the casino revenue. FitzGerald was pushing a downtown spending agenda. Does anyone have any more detailed information as to what was discussed at that meeting?

With respect to the topic title, I have hard from a friend in commercial banking that several lenders are actually engaging in the practice in refusing to lend at all in entire counties. One such particular bank has stopped accepting lending applications for any house in all of Cuyahoga County, which I find to be quite a severe reaction.

I'm a little late to the game, but I have a few comments... I have no ready source, but I do remember reading that Cleveland and other rust belt cities suffered from a severe overcrowding problem in the first half of the 20th century, when the average home was occupied by 8 or more residents. Much of the "abandonment" that happened between 1950-2000 was the shrinkage of the household size, not the vacation of buildings. (The foreclosure crisis is more to blame for inner-city abandonment than population shrinkage, IMO). So it's important to look at our infrastructure in terms of property values and taxes instead of raw population numbers which can be quite misleading. The purchasing power of an average American is far greater than it was in 1920, allowing homes that once housed extended families to be occupied by a single resident or couple. It had to be. Before Fannie Mae was created in 1938, the most common mortgage was a 50% down payment, 5-year term with a balloon payment at the end. Essentially a homeowner had to seek refinancing every five years, which was one of the chief causes of the Great Depression--the housing credit party ran dry in 1929, just like it did in 2007. Large suburbs of Cleveland as well as the entire city of Miami were built thanks to easy credit and a home construction craze that ended exactly as it did 3 years ago.

FWIW, I've seen it done successfully in Europe. Take a look at Casino Wien, in the city center of Vienna, for instance: http://www.casino-urlaub.at/casino-vienna.en.htm It's very tastefully woven into the old-world style of the rest of the street, and if it weren't for the relatively smallish sign on the side of the building, one wouldn't even know it was a casino. Most large-scale developers in the U.S. (not just casino builders) still think the 1950s formula of shiny aluminum/glass office boxes surrounded by parking lots and fountains is the most successful one (for crying out loud, look at what they're _still_ putting up in Beachwood!), so I will be quite impressed if Gilbert's team is able to break the trend and create something truly revolutionary.