WestBLVD

Sometimes I can't help but think these plaza redesigns are a way to move/prevent homeless people from using them. Get rid of any shade trees, planters that act as benches, and put in a wide expanse of concrete. The side effect is that no one wants to use it now and it creates a pedestrian dead zone. I thought the same thing. I wrote a letter to the company talking about how I hope that this brilliant plan would not be done across the street. They said they are just replacing the concrete. At the same time, if such were really the ulterior motive....and if I owned the property and wanted a professional environment maintained, I would not want my employees to be constantly panhandled or deal with camp sites on what is a main corridor. I do not believe that was really ever an issue there, though, but with 9th re-inventing and possible vacancies looming, it could go in that direction. There is already a camper at the old OE building at 9th and Superior. There is no doubt, however, that clearing such could backfire and create the dead zone where no one BUT the homeless go! The pictures above say it all.....But, I will leave it at that...as this discussion could get into a whole philosophical thing with me likely being suspended or labeled something inappropriate. I don't want to derail this thread, so I'll try to keep my comments more random development related. However, I do agree with what you say. As someone who works downtown, there is NEVER a day where I am not approached by someone asking me for money. A lot of downtown office workers are suburbanites who are uncomfortable by being approached by people asking for money. There's a balance between keeping panhandlers off the street and creating great urban spaces for people to leave their office for 15 and have a cup of coffee on a bench and chit chat or sit and eat lunch. There's definitely a big negative in the E 9th corridor with all the development taking place nearby ... a complete lack of greenspace and plaza space for people to utilize. With Perk Plaza being redone, the Mall effectively gone for a few years, One Cleveland Center's plaza gone, and the Penton Media Building's closed for renovation, E 9th workers have no real oasis to get away from their office anymore. The Galleria's outside space has been SO PACKED this summer because it's the only thing left for people to sit at.

Sometimes I can't help but think these plaza redesigns are a way to move/prevent homeless people from using them. Get rid of any shade trees, planters that act as benches, and put in a wide expanse of concrete. The side effect is that no one wants to use it now and it creates a pedestrian dead zone.

^ Good. I hope it doesn't turn into what One Cleveland Center pulled across the street: Here are a couple bad screen shots of comparison, but it gets the point across:

Actually, I see there was a brief discussion on page 88 of this thread regarding One Cleveland Center. Luckily Google Street View has their old plaza just before demo so you can see what it looked like before the conversion to a concrete open space. I'll have to take an after shot tomorrow when I'm at work. I'd hardly call the new plaza an improvement, but at least the signage is nifty!

Not sure where to ask this, but does anyone know what they are doing outside of the Penton Media Building downtown? Are they putting in a new plaza? Also, on a related note for this intersection, who allowed One Cleveland Center to remove their wonderful plaza with benches and flowers and trees for a HUGE expanse of PLAIN WHITE CONCRETE a few years ago? I did a quick search on this forum and found no hits. It's just so bizarre that they would remove a wonderful lush space in favor of concrete. I'm just hoping that the Penton Media Building, across the street, doesn't follow suit this year.

I can't bear to read the comments on any internet news site. However, the tear it down and build something new mentality definitely runs rampant for many in this country. Keeping the facade of this structure the same and building a McDonalds inside of it was out of the question from the reps at the meeting. They need their typical cookie cutter design in this location. It's really a shame because the buildings of this era are so architecturally pleasing and offer almost any adaptive reuse (a la the Columbia building) but because of the god dang car, we have to rip it out and start with a new model. The commercial on bottom, residential on top model was so successful, because it made perfect sense. You could go through countless iterations of restaurant, office space, doctors office, clothing store, convenience store, and everything in between through the decades. But now most new establishments want their own free standing structure built identical to every other in the nation, and when they go out of business 5-10 years down the road, they want the building demolished. It really is easy to see how after a decade or two so many of older architecturally pleasing buildings bite the dust. Too many people say, "well it was vacant for a few years so this is good for the economy." Eventually Detroit Avenue looks like Brookpark Rd and downtown Cleveland looks like Strongsville. Most of the sentiment I got from the meeting was that people did not want this type of STRUCTURE in their town. If the McDonalds kept the theatre's front facade and built their restaurant inside of it, most would not have a problem. Panera, Moe's, and Jimmy John's all built into the fabric of the city, why can't McDonalds do the same?

Lakewood leaders seemed to show minimal interest in saving the building. Many in attendance asked about declaring it a historic landmark so that it can't be demolished. Their response, "that can't be legislated, it takes a volunteer group to organize and dedicate it." The whole audience sort of chuckled and one man of course yelled out the obvious, "umm, we're a group of about a 100 volunteers who are all here to see that this building doesn't come down." I think there might be a grass roots campaign to get it listed as a landmark, however there was a bit of opposition concerning whether it's historic or not, but all agreed that no McDonalds should be put there. With this building, I don't think time is on our side. I could see McDonalds pouncing on this purchase in the very near term. Other concerns brought up was that this new location is so close to a school, which is promoting obesity and unhealthy choices to all the students passing by it everyday. Lakewood is a very active community. I think for starters just having a boycott of their current Sloane Avenue location would get the message across, but it's not as if the people who were attending the meeting would ever step foot near one of those establishments to begin with.

I just returned from the Lakewood public meeting on the potential demolition of the Detroit Theatre so that McDonalds can move their Sloane location there. First let me say how wonderful it is to live in a place where the citizens are so actively engaged. But it saddens me that we continue to tick off one historic structure after another in favor of sprawl car oriented crap. The meeting was packed with a good 150 people in attendance. There were 5 "suits" representing McDonalds at the meeting. One of the men said that they needed to move the Sloane Avenue location because their business was growing and that they needed to accommodate that growth. However, another suit said about 45 minutes later into the discussion that they needed a location on Detroit to accommodate passer by traffic and that was the only way that they could grow/remain viable. I really wanted to call him out on that right there, but the conversation quickly shifted. Regardless, McDonalds is acting a bit shaky in their real intentions. There were many cries that one building after another in Lakewood gets the wrecking ball in favor of modern car designs. Lakewood leaders often cited that they have the ultimate tool in approving in design. However, it is what it is, there's no way you can make a McDonalds that wants a parking lot and a drive through pretty. It's sprawl car oriented crap no matter how much thought goes into it. Considering the average shelf life for a McDonalds franchise is a decade or two, before they tear down and rebuild, or move locations, destroying the Detroit Theatre for a structure that will only be there at most 15 years is an affront to the City and its residents.

Today, you are correct. Which is why people really should be encouraged to carefully examine the costs/benefits. There are always con's in any substantial modification of the status quo. People are going to focus on those con's until someone can demonstrate how they are outweighed, perhaps significantly, by the pro's. So, no matter how far fetched it seems, we should keep discussing the issue. You know Cleveland Heights, as do I. Let's throw Shaker Heights and Lakewood into the discussion as well, because I think they're relevant/similar as well. Sure these would be great additions to Cleveland, and sure, a lot of these citizens in these suburbs are "progressive" and might be open to a merger. But why? Although each one has significant problems/issues, they all do well enough governing themselves. I think their residents realize this and also would realize that by merging with Cleveland, necessarily they will lose some character (it's not a question of "if," but a question of "how much"). They will have to defer decision-making to a central authority and that will change things, perhaps drastically. Even for these suburbs, flaws and all, they have little to gain by rolling under the "Cleveland" umbrella. And I'm not sure why anyone who appreciates or boosts these suburbs would want them merge with Cleveland. If this is just about boosting Cleveland's numbers and improving Cleveland proper, I think the area loses out when suburbs like those are merged. Especially if further out, character-less suburbs like Solon or Strongsville are being "spared" their identity. Earlier in the day I was thinking about the above idea, and trying to figure out how to articulate it. I still don't think I explained my thought process correctly, but it's close enough. I just think that those areas have too much character as individual entities. And I know I may be criticized for saying this, but the inner-ring suburbs that I don't think will be a "loss" for the area if they lose independence would be ones like Brooklyn, Fairview Park, Garfield Heights, Maple Heights, Warrensville Heights, Euclid, East Cleveland, etc. No, it does make sense what you are trying to articulate. There is no reason that Linndale should exist, I think most in the county would agree that this merger would make sense (and on the same vein with Cuyahoga and Newburgh Heights) Cleveland Heights, Lakewood, and Shaker Heights have name recognition and and an identity that anyone from Northeast Ohio and a good portion of the state recognize. If they become neighborhoods they lose a bit of character. Of all the neighborhoods of Cleveland, Tremont is probably the only one that most people in the county are familiar with. Ask someone from Brecksville what they think of the Detroit-Shoreway, Kamm's Corners, or Ohio City and they might not know what you're talking about. On the reverse, it's actually funny how much chatter I hear about how people in Edgewater wish Lakewood would annex them. But from that perspective it makes sense, the area from the Shoreway and north of Detroit looks exactly like Lakewood, except for the Cleveland label. In this example, the people of Edgewater get a better school district and the people of Lakewood get a bigger tax base that more than offsets the additional expense burden. Mergers need these win/win scenarios. But as has been discussed a little bit earlier. It starts off slowly merging certain services one by one until you dissolve the municipal boundary and then ultimately the school district. I think for mergers to be successful, both parties need this win/win

That concept crossed my mind earlier this evening. A "heights" and "lake" borough could combat some issues and make it a better sell to the general public, while still preserving the unique identity of these inner rings. The region is lucky in a sense that Cleveland has stayed so small comparatively and that suburban boundaries are within 5 miles of the core. This has allowed for inner ring (sub)urban development to be different than that of the central city, but yet still remain a viable/desirable place to live and be entertained, and further makes it that much easier to reclaim the land from desirable suburb to urban core. (Lakewood to Downtown is probably at around 80% completion of this gentrification) Detroit wasn't as fortunate and had their city boundaries almost triple the distance compared to that of Clevelands, which only pushed suburbia farther from the core and made reclaiming the space from Downtown to desirable suburb that much more difficult, if not impossible.

This would be an alley off East 13th Street, just to the north of Euclid looking towards the east.

This would have to be a very short term thing and phased out after a few years, maybe with residents who have been in their homes longer being grandfathered in. If you want this thing to work, eliminate inequalities. How would it be fair to those living in some of the high-taxed, well-serviced inner-ring suburbs to see their level of services decrease, but still pay high taxes? Yeah, I don't think that would go over too well. Look at Shaker Heights, an $8,000 dollar a year property tax on a $175,000 home is typical. In the city of Cleveland, that same $175,000 dollar home would have property taxes of $4,000. The difference, however, on these two homes in the Shaker Schools but in Cleveland versus Shaker is about $1,000. If you were to have across the board equal property taxes (plus whatever school district tax you were in) a lot of the inner rings would see huge property tax declines. Add this to the lost income tax revenue, and I'm just not buying that the reduction in cost of merged services would be offset by the loss of tax revenue. This would mean that a merged city would either have to establish new average property tax rates (effectively raising for half and lowering for half) or cut more services to the new merged community until expenditures equal new revenues. I'm not sure how some other cities have done it, they must have had minor differences in property taxes and no income tax to begin with.

I like the idea of regionalism, but it has to be done carefully. I don't think a city/county merger for Cleveland would be as favorable as Indianapolis or Louisville or Jacksonville. However, selective mergers by Cleveland with some of the inner rings and some suburban mergers (Parma and Parma Hts) would, in my opinion, do more good than harm. I just wanted to throw out there, while there appear to be a lot of pros to mergers, there of course are some cons which can be pro sprawl, loss of jobs, and loss of tax revenue.

I see where you're coming from, but this line of thinking overlooks the amount of money that could be saved from the elimination of dozens, if not hundreds, of administration position. It also doesn't take into consideration the fact that many cities have a partial or full local income tax rebate (I don't think that's the right word, but the idea is that some localities, like Beachwood, don't make you pay two different full local income taxes). The income tax figures are extremely tricky because of the multitude of possible scenarios, with some giving full credit and others not. In terms of elimination of positions, is this really what we are striving for as a county? With high unemployment, eliminating jobs doesn't seem like a bonus to me. I look at the 59 municipalities that we have as boosts to the local economy. Mergers between companies almost always mean a loss of someone's job and the merger of a city is no different. In a region that is draining jobs and population, a city merger, which only perpetuates that problem will be a tough sell.

To be honest, I'm surprised that Kasich and republicans haven't been pushing city mergers more. I had once viewed city mergers to be more of a liberal concept, but it seems more aligned with goals of the current governor. A hypothetical city and county of Cleveland would probably mean a reduction of at least $100 million in income taxes for the residents of the county and a drastic reduction in the number of public employees. The current tax structure makes it favorable for an individual to live in the city in which they work. It's beneficial for a resident of Cleveland to work in Cleveland and beneficial for a worker in Solon to live in Solon. Dissolving municipal boundaries removes that tax incentive to live close to work and encourages sprawl. Therefore an individual who lives in Cleveland because they save an additional 2% than living in the suburbs now can live in these suburbs, which are now called Cleveland, and never have to pay that 2% tax. A merger sort of masks the problem. Dissolving municipal boundaries does not mean that the quality of life in those original boundaries gets any better. Sure, the stats of the new city may look better ... lower crime, population growth, higher incomes, but these only hide the problem that may still exist in the original core.

^ It varies by municipality. Some cities give a credit, while others do not. For example, Lakewood gives a .5% credit. This means that a Lakewood resident working in Cleveland pays 2% to Cleveland and 1% to Lakewood. 56% of Lakewood's income tax revenue is collected from those who do not work in Lakewood. Last year Lakewood collected about $10 million in taxes from its residents who did not work in Lakewood. That's just under a third of Lakewood's total revenues for a typical year. Obviously not all of those taxes are from those who worked in Cleveland, but other cities as well, but Cleveland is likely the lion's share of that. So going along with this hypothetical situation. A merged Lakewood and Cleveland would result in a loss of probably 6 million dollars of tax revenue for the combined city. The local income tax rate is confusing enough with thousands of different work live combinations and scenarios if there were ever mergers between cities. The sharing of resources between cities could reduce costs, but might not be offset by the loss in tax revenue. Plus, you are killing off a lot of positions, albeit redundant between municipalities, this would still be a hot topic for debate.

It might end up being a zero sum game in terms of taxes and pooled services if cities merge. Wouldn't taxes have to go up if there were mergers between cities? For example, Susie lives in Lakewood but works in Cleveland. She pays income tax to both Cleveland and Lakewood. Bill lives and works in Cleveland. He only pays income tax to Cleveland. Both cities have a balanced budget with no excess. Lakewood becomes part of the city of Cleveland. Susie now only pays one set of taxes to Cleveland. All the extra income tax she previously paid to Lakewood (along with the 1000s of others) now disappears. That means that the combined tax revenue for the new single city is much less than when the two cities were separate. So the question becomes, does the sharing of resources equal the cost of lost tax revenue or do more cuts need to be made in services or does the tax rate need to be raised? Just a point to ponder ...

I'm feeling quite depressed this afternoon. I just can't comprehend that we are tearing down this building for a parking garage. A parking garage for the folks of Streetsboro and Madison and Lagrange. The same people who talk crap about this city any chance they get won out. Congratulations to all those who comment on cleveland.com, you are the true winners. You can now come and dump your quarters in my downtown while you laugh at what a terrible city this is from the comfort of your close parking garage and safety of your gerbil tube that "elevates" you above the dirt of the city. Another fine day of Cleveland politics. Still much work to be done ahead about final designs. We lost one battle, it doesn't mean we lost the war.

The same can be said about the West Blvd station. It's really hard for me to imagine that this station is only 12 years old! There are broken tiles on the floor and rust stains are dripping all over the place. Last summer the automatic doors were broken for 5-6 months with yellow tape over them. It looks like the building hasn't been touched in decades and the rust on the white walls is just disgusting. It's sad that millions of dollars are spent on rebuilding these stations, but yet the simple (and extremely cheap) act of having someone spend 2 hours to clean the rust every couple months or put in a new tile when one breaks makes these buildings look like 5 million dollar dumps. I'm not sure if it's because this is not a "destination" station that it doesn't get the simple needed attention it deserves, but a humorous anecdote to a West Blvd rapid experience: I was coming home after a trip and landed at CLE. I always just take the rapid home (one of the best conveniences of living next to a red line station) But I boarded at a very late evening hour with just a couple other people and one off duty RTA employee. When I started to stand up when the train approached the West Blvd station, the RTA employee yelled over to me: "Don't get off here!" I was quite startled and thought something bad was happening outside. So I said, "What's wrong?" "Downtown isn't for a few more stops!" me: "Oh, but I live here" She had this bizarre look on her face, almost shock that someone would actually take the rapid home from the airport who lived in Cleveland. I guess it's good that she thought she was "looking out" for a tourist who might be getting off at the wrong stop. But how someone could confuse the West Blvd station with downtown Cleveland is bewildering.

To make a comment about the trash at Edgewater ... A good chunk of the trash is unfortunately junk that washes up on shore. There are countless tampon applicators strewn about the beach, bottles, and tons of other plastic junk that ends up down people's toilets or fall into sewers after heavy rains from almost any location from Detroit to Buffalo. This trash is not pretty, but it's obvious it didn't originate from beach goers by its weathered nature. Unfortunately, because of this, Edgewater Park is heavily affected by a sort of broken windows theory. All of this trash that ends up in sewers that isn't biodegradeable washes up along the shore, and because of Edgewater's geographical/hyrdological position, almost any wind direction from 270 to 45 degrees will funnel this trash to the shore. When a person goes to a pristine beach they are more likely to put their picnic items in a proper receptacle or run and grab a piece of trash that blows away from their towel. But at Edgewater, because the beach has so much trash that washes to shore everyday people don't bother to pick up their own litter because, "hey, the beach is already trashed, what's another plastic bag or pop bottle?" Of course this only exacerbates the situation. Next time you are at Edgewater, take a moment to look at each piece of trash along the shore, it definitely makes you realize how terrible plastic is on our ecosystem...

The geography of this area/project really limits what one can feasibly do. Converting this thoroughfare to a boulevard really doesn't allow for much more development to occur outside of an isolated parcel along the 3 mile strip unless we start talking about developing Edgewater Park ... which is obviously a whole other can of worms. I think that the scaled back project achieves the goal that most people wanted, better access to Edgewater Park. We will have new pedestrian tunnels that will connect to the multi purpose trails that already parallel the Shoreway and more street connectivity from the Battery Park neighborhood. Thus, if the route isn't going to a boulevard lined with development, there really is no need to alter the speed limit in my opinion. Baby Steps. I think eventually in the future the time will be right to fully convert this stretch of road to a boulevard lined with appropriate development.

It appears to be reopened as a coffee shop again. That makes 4 coffee shops in a 4 block area. Hopefully they can all make it.

it's going to be a mens clothing boutique.

If the shoreway were ever converted to a boulevard is it possible that part of Edgewater park could be sold to developers? Gasp. I know it's a debateable topic but the parking lots near the pier would be perfect for a boardwalk with restaurants and residential. You wouldn't necessarily remove greenspace, just convert surface parking lots for development and push parking to the shoreway.

I wouldn't be surprised if the shopping mall just becomes a part of the casino, with the riverfront development significantly downsized. In this town you have to allow for plenty of surface parking (even upscale surface parking under the former Tower City Amphitheatre tent!) Didn't this happen in Detroit? I think the Greektown casino went into Trappers Alley which was a shopping mall. Instead of promoting spillover business they just took over the entire space. I havent been in a while, but there wasn't much in the way of neighboring spillover development.