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Busy, Welcome to UO! I don't live in Battery Park, but I do enjoy jogging through it a few times a week.

Generally speaking, the goal of the new parking garages that CSU will be building is to replace surface lots that will be built on. If you read the master plan literature, it talks about this.

My boss just offered me two tickets to the game. What a boss!

^The Army Corps will not create any new dike unless they can dump there for at least 20 years. If they could fill it up in 10, then they wouldn't use that site.

re parking: um, the lots for PHS are just on the other side of E.18th from the Wolstein Center. It is not like people are parking in the gateway garages. re site location: Straphanger, are you saying that the WC is poorly located in context to the rest of the city or are you saying that it simply wastes a lot of space within its block?

^it would be nice. The fact that the City owned all of the surface lots on which the Avenue District is being built is a big help to the developer. It wouldn't be as easy to build on surrounding lots. However, the AD is setting a precedent..

http://www.crainscleveland.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080331/SUB1/959969030/1008/TOC&Profile=1008&template=printart New union, education building next as CSU tries to shed commuter rep By SHANNON MORTLAND 4:30 am, March 31, 2008 Michael Schwartz envisions a time when people no longer will drive through the Cleveland State University campus without knowing it, and his $300 million plan to realize that vision is coming to fruition. As the downtown university positions itself to begin construction on a new student union and a new building for the College of Education, it also is planning new residence halls, a parking garage and a baseball field, said Dr. Schwartz, president of Cleveland State. The new construction aims to turn the commuter campus into one that’s more livable for students. The latest round of transformations began March 17 with the closing of University Center, the concrete-heavy building that served as the student union. The 200,000-square-foot building, which is on Euclid Avenue between East 21st and East 22nd streets, over the summer will be demolished to make room for a new $55 million student center, said Jack Boyle, vice president for business affairs and finance. At 138,000 square feet, the new student union will be smaller, but much more usable, with its open and airy spaces, Dr. Schwartz said. “That building was about as uninviting a place as you could imagine,” he said. “Early county jail was the architectural style, not even modern.” When it opens in 2010, the new union will house services such as student government, student life, the bookstore, dining hall and a bar, Dr. Schwartz said. It will be the first Cleveland State building people see as they enter the campus from East 21st Street. “That should be the focal point of the campus,” he said. “It will be a space students can call home. It will be warm, inviting, have a fireplace in the winter time. It will be a place for parties and dances.” The College of Education also will get a new $36 million home on Euclid Avenue at Interstate 90, land that now is occupied by a parking lot, Mr. Boyle said. Construction on the 97,000-square-foot building will begin this spring and the building will open in 2010, he said. Though the College of Education has been a center of excellence for Cleveland State, it hasn’t had its own building, so it has been spread out in several locations across campus, Dr. Schwartz said. When the new building opens, there will be no mistaking the College of Education’s prominence at the university because it will serve as the entryway to the campus from the east, he said. Homing in on a problem Across the street from the new College of Education building, Cleveland State is planning a 600-bed residence hall that is expected to cost between $40 million and $50 million, Mr. Boyle said. Cleveland State is working with American Campus Communities of Austin, Texas, to design the building, he said. American Campus Communities now manages the existing dormitories on the Cleveland State campus and will manage the new residence halls, he said. Early drawings call for the new student housing to be in four buildings that form a rectangle. The buildings likely would be linked with enclosed walkways and shared common areas, Mr. Boyle said. The first phase of that project is slated to open in August 2010, he said. Once that project is completed, Viking Hall, which is a former Holiday Inn on Euclid Avenue that has been transformed into a dormitory, will be demolished, he said. That spot eventually could house a new science and engineering building, but plans are not set in stone, he said. The lack of housing options on the Cleveland State campus causes the university to lose potential students, Dr. Schwartz said. Fenn Tower, which was remodeled and reopened as student housing in 2006, is full, he said. “Parents want to see housing affiliated with us,” he said. “If we had more housing, more students would come here. Our problem is how fast we can get it up.” Cleveland State already is planning even more housing. Along with the planned project on Euclid Avenue, Cleveland State hopes to create a new student residential community that would encircle a new $4 million baseball field, much like the apartment-style Village at 115 that Case Western Reserve University opened in 2005. That project would be built on Chester Avenue on 18 acres of land that now holds about 2,000 parking spaces in surface lots, Mr. Boyle said. Those parking spaces would be consolidated into two or three parking garages, he said. “It’s certainly something we’re striving to do,” he said. “We really need a donor to step up with $4 million (for the baseball field).” Street life Though funding needs to be secured before the Chester Avenue projects can come to life, Cleveland State is moving forward with plans for three new uses for the land between Carnegie and Prospect avenues that now is a parking lot for the Wolstein Center, Mr. Boyle said. On April 1, Cleveland State will begin soliciting bids to use a portion of the lot along Carnegie Avenue to build a new $12 million, 612-space parking deck, he said. The garage would replace the 288-space surface lot, he said. Parking for events at the Wolstein Center is at a premium, with many people having to park on the streets or in the theater district. The middle of that surface lot has been set aside for an $11 million transit center that the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority wants to build, Mr. Boyle said. A portion of the lot that now lines Prospect Avenue would be reserved for additional student housing that might be built in the future, he said. Construction on the RTA station, which will serve as a central gathering point for buses coming from both the East and West sides, will begin next year and likely open in 2011, said Joseph Calabrese, RTA’s general manager. He said RTA and Cleveland State still are in talks about whether RTA would buy or lease the land from Cleveland State and who would provide maintenance to the site. Cleveland State’s multimillion dollar transformation already has seen the opening of a new $29 million recreation center in 2006, the Fenn Tower renovation, the redesign of the outdoor plaza and last week’s opening of the new first floor of the Main Classroom building. The first floor of that 1970s-era building had never been used, Mr. Boyle said. Dr. Schwartz said students and potential students are responding well to the changes. “When we have high schools visit us and (we) take them through the recreation center and Fenn Tower, it’s not difficult to make the point that this is a great place to be,” Dr. Schwartz said.

Is it just me or do people not understand the issues that the Eaton site faces? This site will never be integrated into a large development because it is surrounded on three sides but a multi-story concrete wall and a set of rr tracks on the 4th side. I also don't see why people are saying that the rest of the lakefront will end up looking like a corporate campus. Where did anyone ever suggest that it would? To me, that biggest issue with this plan is that there is not an ga between the phase II and phase I at the tracks that would allow a street to be built through those tracks at a later date to integrate it with future neighborhood development to the north in the port land. The RTA loop is a dead spot and it will remain that way unless tens of millions of dollars are spent to remedy it. I'd rather spend those tens of millions on other projects.

Andrew, On your next trip up, be sure to check out Jay Ave, Whitman, West 31st, Mabel Ct, Franklin and Clinton.

^I can't really see either, but my guess is that they are also working on the interior parking garage. I ran by the site today and they had a second massive and temporary crane on site. I'm wondering if they were hoisting the A/C structure on to the roof.

Yeah, let's get rid of Eaton. let's also get rid of Progressive because they are in the burbs. And Hyland Software, those Westlake bastards, get out of this region now!!

X, At first, I didn't agree with you regarding how the streets meet the park and the waterfront. Now that you reposted them, I agree with you. I don't dislike the new waterfront design, but I liked the old one better (except for the phase two buildings).

^UH really has no room for surface lots. They are seriously landlocked. But that doesn't keep them from building some surburbo-fabulous front lawns!

The idea with the green space is that they could hold festivals on the closed off road (between the two traffic circles) and have it spill onto the green space. I'm sure there are other reasons (people think all green space is good; public funds are used for the project therefore there should be some public space, etc).

:)

Welcome to OU! Cleveland.com forums=lowest common denominater.

^this is a product that is not available currently in the area-- a built out, mixed-use neighborhood with access to water, transit, large corporoate offices, retail, entertainment, neighborhood retail--and there are not surface lots dotting the landscape. It will have a "finished" feel to it that I think will be more enticing to the average buyer. So many of our other projects have this "just wait another five years and this place will really look nice" feel to it (Avenue, Stonebridge, Ohio City and other neighborhoods. With the hotels, offices, residences, and retail, this area will have unique amount of foot traffic that Clevelanders will not be used to. Additionally, I think that this area will be attractive to buyers because it will not have the "poor urban element" that scares some people away from other parts of downtown.

I liked an older version of the plan where a pedestrian mall bisected building #4. This created a sort of grand entry into the park, opened up some interesting views and perspectives, broke down this super block, and made the place more quaint. This roof top garden will keep some residents from venturing out into the riverside park. I'd also like to see a gap between building #4 and the 2nd phase building to its immediate west so that a street could eventually cut over the tracks and connect to future development on the port land. FEB cannot become a disconnected island when the port gets built up in future decades.

^the parking garage will be about 4 stories or so and will take up the southern half of the lot (will face onto Carnegie). The northern half of the lot will be saved for future development (CSU housing, field house, rta???)

^your previous statement appeared to infer that Cleveland should not have any development because of the declining population. That's how I read it. :) In regards to Columbus, it definitely has a lot less "historic" buildings than Cleveland and Cincy. In regards to Cincy, it seems that people just dropped the ball and didn't take advantage of a good opportunity. Cleveland had a champion who was very organized and determined.

Cleveland also was the largest city in the 1920s. Therefore we probably have the largest historic footprint of the three Cs (providing more opportunities for redevelopment). We have the largest downtown in the state. There are a lot of good development opportunities in the city. Reading an article on population decline won't explain the complicated development patterns that we see in Clevland. Downtown office leasing is brisk, more and more people are moving downtown, and the downtown is seeing more development than it has seen in decades.

Jonathan Sandvick is the expert on historical renovations in the state. I'm not surprised at all that he has so much work. He's a very interesting guy. Very religious and devout.

CSU's new parking garage on Prospect at E.22nd is going for its final review today at the City Planning Commission meeting. edit: oops, this should be posted on the project thread (but I'm too lazy at the moment).

if any posters are present at this week's City Planning Commission meeting, then I'd love to hear any feedback concerning the Flats East Bank masterplan that is supposed to be presented. Recently, I've seen a plan for the Flats that is about 2 months old (and I think that it has changed slightly since then). I saw that a 20-story residential tower is planned next to the river and close to the RR bridge crosing the river. It is separated from the bridge by another 5-story residential building. There is a pedestrian mall that will empty into the new riverfront park. The cinema will have ten screens. The office tower will be on W.10th. There will also be some office combined with the cinema. The Heinens will be about the size of the OC Dave's and will be adjacent to the RR tracks just south of the RTA loop. The only surface parking in the entire plan will be just east of Heinens, immediately south of the tracks, north of Front St and east of that connector bridge to the port. That's all for now.

Congrats to the Jesuit team!!!