WestBLVD

I'm actually embarrassed that we are getting a casino in our downtown. We now get to join the ranks of Detroit, East St.Louis, Joliett, Gary and other perceived "undesirable " urban cores. Non tourist destinations that have casinos just announce to the world that their location is "crap" and has nothing left to try but a casino. I'm even more embarrassed that we are tearing down viable historic structures to accommodate this casino. I'm with you KJP. Our fabulous planning commission will look the other way and focus their efforts on harassing homeowners in "historic districts" about what kinds of windows and shutters they put on their houses (while the neighborhoods crumble around them). The entire midwest needs to reinvent itself and clean out the old leadership who still think in 20th century terms. The irony of Dan Gilbert's hometown of Detroit is not lost on me. I have been a vocal supporter of putting all of our politicians on a bus trip to Detroit for a night out to see exactly what casinos have done for that once-great city. So far no takers.

Very good point. I wish we could biuld a stand-alone parking tower, like in Chicago. Flood the market with supply so that surface parking is no longer the "highest and best use" in so many downtown landowners' minds. It is a good point except that this new garage represents new supply as a response to new demand. It only diminishes the demand for surface lots if it changes the equilibrium. As this garage is solely for the new Casino traffic it will do nothing to diminish the demand for surface lots. And depending on how well it satisfies demand, it may in fact lead to spillover parking in the E4th lot perpetuating the lack of development on that lot. It's hard to tell right now, but I think the added supply will be much greater than the demand. It could end up hurting public transit use a bit when people are going downtown for a big event and say, "oh let's just drive and park at the casino, they have a huge 6000 space garage that's free if we use our players club card, then we won't have to pay for RTA passes." I think what prevents a lot of people from using public transit to get downtown more often is that a) we have comparatively minimal traffic b) parking is ample c) said parking is extremely cheap and in many cases free. My cost to drive to work downtown + parking is less than a roundtrip RTA fare! The garage is a double edge sword because it brings more people downtown, but makes parking cheaper faster and easier enticing more vehicles to drive downtown until parking equilibrium is reached again. Which of course makes it less pedestrian friendly and less enticing to use public transit.

I see that the JD Byrider on 117th in Cleveland has been torn down. I know there's been a sign out front stating that the 1.7 acre parcel is available. Anyone know if something is going in here or if they are just clearing the parcel for future development?

It does, but this is a 365/24 hour a day business. That comes out to 571 people per hour. That number is about the same as a strip mall with just a Giant Eagle and a WalMart in it. It's also a bit contentious because it doesn't necessarily mean that you will have 5 million new visitors to downtown. e.g. most customers are repeat visitors and many people who come downtown for dinners, games, plays, ALREADY will now visit the casino too, meaning that a decent % of those 5 million visitors are already current downtown visitors. Also as another perspective, a 20 story office building with 150 workers on each floor would generate would generate 720,000 visits to downtown working 5 days a week, 48 weeks per year.

the planning director responded to me yesterday. It seems doubtful that the Columbia stays.

Yes I agree completely. And "temporary" can be used in a more broad sense than either phase 1 or phase 2 ... How many entertainment venues in greater Cleveland have stood the test of time? Galleria, Tower City, The Flats, Euclid Beach, Randall Park Mall, Municipal Stadium, countless theatre complexes, and the list goes on etc, have all been popular for a period of time before dying off. The historical buildings of Cleveland were constructed to last. They offer numerous rehab potentials. Unfortunately once the Casino becomes unpopular or decides it needs to move to a new location (like almost every other major entertainment venue has in the past) we will be faced with a parking garage that cannot be rehabbed into anything else. As typical the city leaders are only looking at short term gains instead of a long term viable plan.

I'm not sure if this has been discussed before, but how exactly will the parking garage situation be with regards to paying? Most all casinos offer free parking. What's to stop someone who works downtown or is going to go see a play/ball game from going in to a free casino garage and then walking to where they actually want to go? And also, how can nearby pay to park garages and surface lots compete with a massive free structure? The "gerbil tube" almost seems like a logical business practice. You would need everyone who parks to be funneled into the casino with exits on the street as "emergency exits only" to make it really inconvenient for non gamblers to park there. This also has the reverse effect of making it harder for people to use the casino as a part of a multi entertainment venue. We have to remember that this is a casino and it is a business with the sole purpose of making money. We have clearly seen that they have no regard for working within the fabric of the city. In my opinion the casino is in direct competition with E 4th rather than complementing it. I think the casino stands a MUCH better chance of luring current East 4th patrons over versus E 4th luring future casino patrons over.

Its hard to describe. But go on a google map and look at the cities in the list to get a feel. While the western cities have sprawl, it goes from grid pattern to nothing, unlike southern cities. Just zoom in on Atlanta and note the continuous blob of cities that go on forever versus Tuscon or Fresno which have distinct edges to the grid with nothing outside.

Makes sense to me. The NY metro is huge. There is no way that the millions in New Jersey could get to the millions of jobs in Connecticut in under 90 mins on public transit and vice versa. The cities on that list are smaller to medium metros that generally sprawl linearly and not radially. It only takes 10 bus routes spaced every 1.5 miles running north south each hour twice a day to effectively cover most of the jobs and people by that criteria.

What are the "odds" that the Columbia Building can be saved? A few buildings downtown scheduled to be demolished for parking garages have been saved by last minute efforts (think Playhouse square a few decades ago). I think there is enough outcry and support for preservation and not killing our urban fabric that both the Columbia and Stanley could be saved. Is there any formal campaign underway to save this building? If not, there needs to be one set-up ASAP. I'm sure several thousand signatures could be gathered in a few days ...

I'd take Edgewater down to the train tracks. No one refers to Clifton Blvd as being in the Cuddel neighborhood.

Quite a few parking lots exist just to the northeast of the E 9th corridor. I'm amazed that the bluffs parking lot on Davenport hasn't turned into something yet. Sitting on the bluff it has unobstructed lake views perfect for a townhome development. IMO the development along the avenue district would have sold much better had it been placed on the surface lots near the beach cliff, but of course would have spread downtown out a bit more.

I work across the street from the north coast harbor station and have never once used the waterfront line. I have always found the 55 to be faster than taking light rail. However on the days I do take the red line, before elimination of weekday service, I would never consider swiping out re-entering and waiting for a waterfront line when it's an 8 minute walk. The waterfront line added too much time to get to the north coast harbor versus walking/trolley that no one used it despite being near a lot of office buildings. In my opinion the waterfront line could be salvaged with red line trains that stop at tower city then immediately proceeding to north coast harbor. It's the added wait time for stopping and transferring to another train when your final destination is less than a mile away that turned me (and many others ) away from the waterfront line. So in my opinion a loop would be great only if it used the lines we already had, e.g. a continuous red line looping clockwise and a continuous blue line looping counter clockwise.

Argh! I would have gone to that planning meeting this morning but it was already 11 am before I realized it was today! Are people writing emails to Cimperman against the demos of these structures? What about the Cleveland Restoration Society ... are/is there going to be a grass roots campaign preventing these atrocities?

Is there a price freeze or promise to not raise transit fares for RTA? I would imagine that RTA is not immune to these recent jumps in energy costs. How is their budget "faring?" It's been almost 2 years this late summer since the last increase, at what point would a fuel surcharge or fare increase happen again?

Edgewater will be getting another coffee shop soon. I saw signs for Mo Ca in the same building as the Clifton Wine and Martini Bar go up recently. They should have a great outdoor patio space too.

Why not? Very few casinos in the US are constructed inside of historical structures. The Cleveland casino will be built inside of a building that is ~80 years old. Outside of Cripple Creek, I can't think of many other examples of casinos built into rehabbed buildings in a downtown.

I would hate to lose two historic buildings to a parking garage to build at the tail end of the casino fad in America. I was in Cripple Creek, Colorado a few years ago where they had legalized gambling to restore parts of their historic downtown. They kept the facades of their downtown storefronts with the casinos being built behind. A lot of the casinos had already gone out of business. It was a very depressing and eerie feeling walking on a sidewalk of a town with abandoned casinos. Not to say that's going to happen right away in Cleveland, but the bold truth is that no fad lasts forever. I really hope there's a committee that is thinking of ways to adaptively reuse this casino in 5-10-20 years or whenever the gaming industry goes out of style. If these two historic buildings must go, they could theoretically save the facade of the structure? They do have the opportunity to do something truly unique here and I wouldn't be surprised if people are already designing with the inevitable gaming industry decline in mind. Now if only Euclid Avenue could get a few IHOPS, Baker's Square, Discount Tobacco, Sheetz, and a bunch of stores that sell applique grandma's little angels sweatshirts ... then we'd have no problem getting the casino traffic to patronize downtown establishments. ;)

I'm doubtful it will contribute much to the city. There is a multi-purpose path that goes along the river next to the casino (similar to the tow-path). While it's nice to say that they incorporated the casino with their multi-purpose trail ... it didn't appear that the patrons would ride a bike to the casino. I think a lot of the designs that try to incorporate the Horseshoe casino into downtown Cleveland will all be for show and serve no real practical purposes for the city or the patrons of the casino. With that being said, I whole heartedly support the casino being built here. I would say that 25-33% of all license plates in the parking garage for the Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh were Ohioans, (and a good portion of those had the 18 sticker on the plate). If Ohioans are going to throw their money away in Pittsburgh, might as well do it in downtown Cleveland! As awful as it sounds, in my opinion, they should just find an empty Wal-Mart or Sam's Club with a big parking lot to put the casino in. Would save millions of dollars, the same amount of people would still gamble, we'd find an adaptive reuse for a difficult structure, and the net economic effect for Northeast Ohio would be the same. :P

I took a day trip down to Pittsburgh and of course visited their new casino to get a feel for how they did things. I suggest anyone who reads this forum and has any interest in the ultimate design of our casino to take a day trip to Pittsburgh to not only see what they did but to better understand how a regional casino that's not Indian/Vegas/Atlantic City operates. With all this talk of how to incorporate the casino into the fabric of the city, I can't help but feel it's all in good thought, but a moot point to the clientele base of the casino. The casino in Pittsburgh sits on the river and has a gorgeous view. There is only one place in the casino that has natural lighting ... a really nice multi level lounge area with comfortable seating and beautiful glass windows giving a panorama of the landscape to the southwest of the river. How many people were utilizing this wonderful space in the casino ... 3. Yes, just 3 people were using this space out of THOUSANDS who were gambling in the flashing lights of the nearby gaming floor. Yes, I realize I'm probably stereotyping a bit, but from all the regional casinos I've visited the clientele base is almost always the same. These are not your yuppies who like to eat at nice restaurants downtown or even middle class suburbia who come downtown every once in a while with the kids to see a game or play ... The question becomes for Cleveland then ... Do you design the casino for the clientele base that will most likely patronize the casino? Or do you do design for the city that surrounds the casino? Not to be a debbie downer, but I think it's going to be extremely difficult to get the typical casino crowd to set foot outside of the casino. It really is the million dollar question. So many of the casino crowd just come to gamble and leave and have no desire to do anything else. How do you get at least some of these to set foot outside? I realize that the casino, because of its proximity to the Q and Progressive Field, will draw some extra people during events that will be atypical of the usual casino crowd. But then again, since these folks come downtown already, I can't help but think that the casino could negatively effect some of the neighboring entertainment districts. When I went in to the Pittsburgh casino, I felt compelled to gamble a little. I blew 20 bucks in a matter of minutes and didn't feel to good about it. How did I react afterwards? I just ate a sandwich instead of having a nicer meal downtown... I could see a lot of people who already come to events downtown be intrigued by the casino, walk in, lose cash, and forego a dining experience because of it. So not to get too off topic, but I see these proposals with river view terraces and shops and restaurants and wonder, who's going to use these? Does the Horseshoe casino really believe that it's going to attract a different crowd than other regional casinos in the midwest? Realistically what % of total casino goers would leave the casino during their excursion to patronize a nearby establishment, 2 -3%? What % of total casino goers who do not already come downtown for events/entertainment would leave the casino to patronize a nearby establishment? I'm afraid to actually see what that percentage would be, but it's the crucial number in figuring out what the casino will do to downtown.

I have the fortune of staring at Burke every day. Here is a photo I just snapped a few minutes agos: Last fall there was a constant stream of trucks hauling away fill just north of the runways. It looks like they went down to the water table as it has been full of water ever since. I've always wondered how stable this land is. What kind of structures could feasibly be built on this type of fill? I've always said that putting the fill in Lake Erie so close to downtown hurt us in the end. Everything in that photo from the train tracks north used to be Lake Erie. Lakeside Avenue downtown used to be well, on the Lake's side! Just imagine what downtown could have been like if we we started to fill in Lake Erie from east 30th and points east instead? Perhaps Cleveland's best lakefront plan now might be returning the shoreline back to its original spot. ;) at least the warehouse district, medical mart and convention center would be on the water oh and it force a denser downtown with the relocation of Browns, RH, and GLSC!

Good point, but each design proposal has been progressively more standard suburban stripmallesque. Now some of those 2009 and early 2010 proposals after the recession began look great in comparison. Kudos to the council for sending these designs back. But you have no wonder how long they want this parcel to stay vacant? The GFS as I stated in this thread last year really sets the tone for future tenants and uses. This corner really has turned into a hodgepodge of buildings, I really hope S Euclid doesn't settle on a shoddy design that doesn't at least tie the corner together.

Don't get me started on this project. I wish someone could post a history of the proposed development. The original designs a few years ago were nice mixed use developments. Now we have a suburban strip mall with a big box GFS. Are we really going to end up with eminent domain to tear down one occupied plaza for a new one? What a shame and an embarrassment.

What an excellent piece. I spent four years in southeast Michigan doing my undergrad at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor (about the same distance from Detroit as Akron is to Cleveland). While Ann Arbor is this "bubble" of urban planning in Michigan, southeast Michigan is a suburban wasteland of mile by mile grids cleverly named after each mile of farm field they once bisected. Just zoom on a google map and you'll see this pattern replicated for miles and miles. It's truly an unfortunate situation because the school attracts thousands of talented students from all over the US but yet it's so hard to convince graduates to stay behind for jobs in Metro Detroit. As the article mentions, there is a sliver of possible urban hope in southern Oakland County around Birmingham/Ferndale, but outside of that there are few cities/neighborhoods epitomizing the lifestyle that young educated professionals desire. I, like most other graduates in SE Michigan, had no desire to even look for a job in Metro Detroit. I don't want to hate on the region, because that's not my intent, but Cleveland should consider itself extremely fortunate that it has neighborhoods such as Edgewater, Detroit-Shoreway, Kamm's Corners, Ohio City, Tremont, University Circle, the Warehouse District, Shaker Square because Detroit DOES NOT have hip trendy neighborhoods like these scattered throughout its city limits that it can advertise to young educated professionals. Cleveland is very fortunate to have a tight core and a tight ring of suburbs (thanks Lake Erie!) and has done, in my opinion, a great job of building up its hip neighborhoods to attract the "creative class" ... especially with respect to metros with similar economic shortfalls. However there is one caveat to that, which rings true for any Great Lakes rust belt ... jobs. It's really two-fold, first the actual availability of decent well paid jobs for young professionals, and secondly the location of these jobs. While yes you can tout the urban lifestyle with great neighborhoods such as Tremont and the Detroit-Shoreway to a prospective educated professional considering a job here, but the problem is that so many of the jobs are in the suburbs. Great, you've always wanted to live in an urban environment and found this great loft apartment, with coffee shops, and restaurants, and bars, and parks nearby! Too bad that at 7 am you need to get up and get in your car and hop on 480 and drive for 45 minutes out to 271 to your suburban office park! Such is the story for Cleveland and Detroit and so many other cities. Which is why the young recent college grads crave the Portlands and San Frans and NYCs of the world. Once the big companies started building the office parks and mid rises out near freeway interchanges, it made it that much harder for the urban core to come back. I don't have the number off hand, but I believe that Cleveland's urban core only houses 17% of the jobs in the region (someone correct me on that please) so as much as one touts the urban assets that we have to any potential new comers to the city, chances are they won't be working downtown. We have a great public transportation system that gets people from our neighborhoods and inner rings to downtown, but it's rendered useless when the people who move into these neighborhoods aren't going downtown for work. It truly is a shame. I'll stop my little comment here. But as a young professional, Cleveland needs to somehow get these office parks to come back downtown. In my opinion, it's the number one issue needed to address in fixing the city. The suburban office park has got to stop. But yet we've got Eaton leaving shortly and American Greetings not even considering a Cleveland location ... appears we are just in for more sprawl. :(

If only the Detroit Shoreway could gave scored the Jeni's in Chagrin instead! I found the service and quality to be run of the mill. Malleys in Lakewood and Mitchells in RR offer more premium ice creams and specialties for slightly better prices. Perhaps this shoppe can pull in beach traffic once the tunnels are complete?