Map Boy

I think that's a great way to put it X! Like I said, I used to abhor that building, but just look at it...there's nothing as severe or dark as the Ameritrust Tower. And on that note...don't even think about painting it! I'm sensing another category coming up...

call me crazy! come on, I know you want to! I don't know...I used to loathe that building, but now there's something magnificent about it. I'd be sad if it ever came down... (These images are from www.ClevelandSkyscrapers.com)

And the entire population of Downtown Cleveland living upstairs! Seriously...that building is a city unto itself.

I like this thread...let's get it heated up again. I like the idea of new costruction north of the freeway, right on the waterfront line, but I think that will take care of itself in the long run and hopefully add more housing and expand the Warehouse District. So, I vote that one out. The Higbee (and out-of-the-running May Co.) building needs to be occupied, but I don't think the County is the ideal suitor for it. I'd like to think we can get some retail back in there eventually, even if it's not all 8 floors. The Atrium building is an atrocity and needs to be torn down and rebuilt, but again, I think this will be a job for private developers with offices/housing and lotsa retail involved. Which leaves...the Ameritrust property. I like the ideas that KJP mentioned about using the Rotunda as a public space of sorts and sticking the offices in the haunting (I've grown to love it) tower behind it. This one gets my vote! any updates?

yes, to this day, that parking lot is one of the things in Cleveland that depresses me the most! As much as I question the need of another gigantic office tower in Cleveland, it would've been pretty sweet, right? I'm hoping for something a little smaller there when it actually happens (please let it be soon!)...something like, say, what was there before they leveled it for a parking lot? No more than 20 stories, or it can go higher, but with setbacks so that we don't have a total eclipse on the Square...hotel or high end residential with big time retail on the street...or a combination of hotel, residential and office with the first two floors (at least) being retail. Take the new Time Warner Center in NYC at Columbus Circle as an example...prime piece o' real estate, developed extremely well with all uses included...and some swanky retail, institutional uses on the first four floors...niiiiice.

I like the initial response to this post...with maybe an exception or two that consist primarily of flirtation between two posters who will go unnamed...(just playin, guys!) And I agree with MayDay's refusal to accept the comment about the Square being hard to reach by foot. I don't know if any of you read my response on PPS, but I feel that there are definite positives to this being a four-quadrant square, although I can see advantages to melding them into one big square... Of the positives, I believe that the keys are found in the differences in feel and programming at each square. There could obviously be more programming to take advantage of the separation and who knows, maybe there is since I've been there, but for example, we have ONE BIG BLOWOUT every year on the 4th of July when they close the whole thing down and bring in the Orchestra. That, my friends, is amazing. Otherwise, you've got ice skating on one quadrant...a fountain or two, some statues, some pigeons, benches, grass and trees. Each quadrant has its own allure and I wouldn't necessarily change a thing! Does everyone feel that they are used well enough...in sheer number of people? What types of programming do we have for the Squares?

by the way, who knows what the long, narrow building on Rockwell east of 13th Street is?

Yes, the possibilities for connectivity are wonderful...especially if we see this project built well and it succeeds. With new housing at CSU and the market pushing more along the avenues from Lakeside to Prospect, this could really be amazing. I don't know how this will look on here, but this is the neighborhood with the relationship between the E. 12th project and Tower Press.

Yeah, I guess I agree with Punch...I'd like to see more of a neighborhood...maybe with narrowed avenues and such. Problem is that we'd get a bottleneck entering Downtown. Although, that's not such a bad thing. I wouldn't mind a little traffic slow-down as people entered this residential node of Downtown. I know they talked about significant investment in streetscape improvements, so maybe the connections and neighborhood feel would come from that.

Hey all, I got into this discussion a few months back while perusing the Project for Public Spaces archives. They have lots of good things to say about Cleveland and their site is worth checking out, but there's an incisive feature on public spaces that sit in their "Hall of Shame" and Public Square is one of them! Check out the page at http://www.pps.org/gps/one?public_place_id=759 and post your comments here and at their site. As of today, it looks like I'm the only one who's posted a response on their site! Be heard! I know there are tons of great images out there, but I'll start with these four from their site:

Thanks MayDay! I love those bridges! I guess I hadn't checked the CPA site in a while because those are all new to me. It looks really nice! I can't wait to get over there myself. The last time I was in town, the whole thing was buried under a foot and a half of snow (December 23rd). Tell me, though...is that a wooden boardwalk???

Not much detail, but it's just so exciting to picture all of this! It also appears that there are a lot more options for future development sites around these ones. Man, I've been dreaming this up for years...I guess I'm in the right field! If anyone hasn't checked out the Park Works link above for the redesign of Perk Park, you should...pretty cool. I think it'll make a nice change for the residents and workers in the neighborhood. If anyone has any more pics/plans for either project...put 'em up!

By the way, that's part of what HOPE VI was all about...eliminating the stigma attached to public housing by interspersing it amongst market rate housing. The idea is that they look just like the market rate housing and a passerby would never know the difference. I think it's a great idea! Plus, where most large-scale public housing projects of the past created secluded super blocks, HOPE VI set out to re-establish the street grid and re-open neighborhoods to pedestrian flow and commercial corridors.

Agreed! I guess I never really thought about the west side of the street too much before I got into this discussion. It really would pull the whole thing together. And if it's one parking garage with a retail front, so be it! Although, I would like to see more housing... This development will pull the south end of W. 25th Street together so well with the north end and the new Superior Viaduct area, which then connects you to the East Bank via the rotating red bridge (sorry, don't know the name) and the riverside promenade, which then brings you to the Warehouse District...and on and on...lovely! Also, there's the new bike lane and promenade on the Detroit Superior Bridge...I know it's winter out, but has anyone gotten to enjoy that yet? I haven't seen any pictures other than the original renderings.

Well, we're agreed then! And as I mentioned earlier, Cleveland needs to capitalize on every last opportunity is has to use Federal $$$. It appears that there will be less and less of it over the next...say...four years.

sorry, didn't realize they changed the name, though that makes sense... glad to hear that things are going relatively well...I do remember the neighborhood around there being pretty rough and thinking about how nice it would be to reconnect downtown with Union Terminal via contiguous neighborhoods. cursed freeway!!!

The current project's numbers look like this: - Located on the 12-acre former Riverview Public Housing Site - 416 units of housing (phase I) - 81 replacement public housing units (20%) - 335 for sale units - Predominantly (89%) 1 and 2 bedroom units - New community facilities - Approx. 10,000 square feet of retail on West 25th St. - 267 surface parking spaces, 480 (or more) garage parking spaces. - 266 dwelling units (phase II) - 400 + garage parking spaces - New public park/overlook on West 25th St. Economic Impact - Phase I estimated at $110 million - 2,000 construction jobs - Phase II estimated at $70+ million - 650+ construction jobs Affordable Housing Program - 81 replacement public housing units serving households below 60% of area median income ($35,000). - 40 of those units will serve households with incomes below 30%, or $17,610. - 35 affordable homeownership units, serving households below 80% of area median income ($42,000). As far as I can tell, that's a great mix of subsidized v. market rate units and it creates nearly 700 units of housing total where only 143 sat (all subsidized) for nearly 40 years! Plus the park and new retail and a significant chunk of funding from the feds (get it while it's still there!) and jobs to boot! And it should be handsome... The following two images are of Cincinnati's Laurel Homes development...a HOPE VI project...and are quite attractive and fairly dense by Cleveland standards. I don't know the response to the project yet, as I was last in Cincinnati in 2000 and these weren't finished yet, but I'd be interested to hear it from those of you who are down there.

Oh, I definitely feel you on that, but do we know if there has been any interest in the site over the past 50 years as to potential development? It's possible that because the government owns and runs the site that alternatives were never considered, but I have to imagine that others (like us) were daydreaming about this for years! I guess the bottom line to me is that there are so many places in Cleveland that seem ideal for large-scale development, but that none of them are actually getting done. So, when something like this comes up and it appears fairly certain that it's going to be seen through, I'm all about it! Plus, here's me looking on the bright side some more...I know that the drawings are just drawings, but the development looks to have a decent level of density. We're looking at 3-5 story buildings throughout and a couple of more significant structures on the north and south ends. And there's the promenade, which will be great and can serve as that link to the flats and all of the development potential down there that could ultimately connect the two sides of the valley! Maybe there's a private developer who can build higher density across the street on the hospital lots? That way, there won't be a proliferation of that high-rise wall that already exists along the Ohio City bluffs. Just some thoughts

hot! There's a nice stretch of E. 12th street that already exists, so I can already envision the types of growth that could occur. Wasn't there a planned redevelopment of Perk Park that I believe sits adjacent to this site? That could add to this development nicely!

well, that sounds exciting!

any progress reports of note? I'm sure it's mostly just tearing things up right now, but I just thought I'd ask! and man, it's got to be hard to work out there with a jack hammer in the middle of the cleveland winter!

Anyone have an update of the Shaker Heights master plan process? I know there's been construction along several of the priority areas. Any photos???

How many times have I looked at this part of Downtown Cleveland's periphery and envisioned this sort of thing??? I can't even begin to count! This would be spectacular and I only hope it can progress positively. I've seen large-scale residential developments of this type developed very well...namely the Hoyt Street Yards project in Portland, OR (see http://www.hoytstreetproperties.com) and I desperately wanted the same to come to Cleveland. That's something I never got, by the way...Portland has had the nation's worst unemployment rate since I graduated in 2000. I moved there that year...so I should know. However, there is this unprecedented building boom all over town! It's crazy how much housing has been built there over the past 10 years. Which begs the question that I've seen on this site several times before..."If we build it, will they come?" Which comes first...the jobs or the people? I feel like there are so many people like myself out there who are just itching to return to Cleveland. But the chief thing holding us back is that we feel like the city would disappoint us upon our return. If we put a message out there, as Portland has done, that we're optimistic, we're growing, we're exciting...people will come back!

gotchya! it's a nice pic...I still can't get mine to appear!

Hey guys, I was referred to this thread after posting a comment about the Brookpark development in another spot... I'm not surprised about the lack of housing here and not disappointed either...for the same reasons that several of you have cited already. I think it is better suited for commercial and hotels, given its proximity to the airport and its current popularity as a park-and-ride spot. And to me, this definitely qualifies as "TOD," even without the full mixture of uses. This is because people drive here to commute and any development around it is going to lure more people to the station and encourange more usage. We're building density around stations and that's an important step. As we all know, many of the RTA's rail stations are kept well-hidden and often residents nearby don't even know of their existence. This happens in a lot of cities, actually. Increasing interaction and business at the site will only serve to make the whole mass transit idea more feasible and practical in a city where having a car is just so easy. I like this project a lot...a step in the right direction for sure.