Down_with_Ctown

Hearing that a gigantic parking garage in the heart of downtown is losing money is music to my ears. Please bulldoze this thing, asap. Its footprint is huge and could open up all kinds of development oportunities on Bolivar, Huron, and even East 9th. Having the RMFH just around the corner makes for the potential of a 365 day per year neighborhood. East 4th street needs a little (big?) brother downtown. Thus far, Blitzer's minority ownership of the Guardians has been a smashing success. The club's per-game attendance has shot up over 6k+ fans thanks to innovative ticketing strategies like the $49 monthly pass and other aggressive promotions. This is pure speculation on my part, but after years of the Dolans driving opaque "dynamic ticket pricing" strategies designed to maximize overall revnue viz a viz just putting butts in the seats, I'm guessing Blitzer is behind this major change of direction. The full houses look great on television and it has finally puts to rest the notion that "no one likes to go to baseball games in Cleveland." That was only ever true, if at all, at a certain price point. There's nowehere to go but up for a talented young team (okay, they stubbed their toe a bit this year) with a dramatically upgraded park by Opening Day 2025. Between Gilbert and Blitzer and their respective experiences in sports ownership and real estate development, I think we may finally see a scenario where the full vision of Gateway is realized, even if it's a couple decades late. We may even finally (fingers crossed) get that huge megaproject on Prospect across the street from East 4th! (Stark, eat your heart out, lol.)

Drove by the Medley building at the SW corner of Cedar and East 105th St/.Opportunity Corridor and "Fairfax Market" signage is up on the first floor. No sign or hint of Meijer's, though. Did they pull out of the project?

A week into demolition, the former 20 screen Regal Cinemas at the far east end of the property is already rubble.

Another, underrated aspect of this project is that it will be the first time the Cleveland Clinic has established a presence downtown. That's a big step, and you almost wonder why it took this long. I think in the long run it will be both good for the Clinic and downtown. If things go well, it could encourage the Clinic to soak up some downtown commercial real estate/office space to compliment and/or grow the sports facility. In the post-COVID commercial real estate market, that's a godsend for downtown and the riverfront. I don't expect there to be a 40-story "Cleveland Clinic Tower" in the CBD overnight, but this appears to be a great start for the city.

https://www.cleveland.com/community/2023/09/latest-tentative-date-for-richmond-heights-mall-demolition-is-week-of-sept-18-some-details-announced.html Baby steps.

The local Sun Messenger reported that the developer paid the final deposit and picked up the demolition permit in late August. The city expected demolition to begin as early as the Tuesday after Labor Day. The article also mentioned that the demo will start at the theater (the far eastern edge of the existing footprint, then go southwest to the old Penney’s anchor store before finally reaching the north end of the project (the Sears building). It’s expected to take awhile.

Looks like construction has begun on Stokes West!! Trailer and equipment on site and trees have been cleared sometime in the last few days.

The symbolism of a company with "Cleveland" in its name buying the outfit that that gave the world the Steelers' helmet logo would make me smile. Here we go merger, here we go, woof woof!

Thanks! That's a little more inventory than you'd probably like in the current CRE market. But taking more than half of the office space from the city's 5th tallest tower offline will make a dent regardless. Also good to see us opening up our first (IIRC) major downtown hotel in the post-COVID era. By all accounts, the tourist market has more or less fully recovered. I think the "W" brand will do just fine here as it's new-to-Cleveland and fills a niche amongst our existing brands. Location may be an issue, as the Nine/Twelve District has been pretty dormant for awhile now, and the action is obviously on the other side of Public Square with the SW tower. But our downtown is still relatively small to the point where it's really just one CBD from East 12th to West 9th. I think the W brand will do just fine, especially if/when the land bridge connects the east side of downtown to North Coast Harbor.

I like the timing of this project, as taking a good portion of empty commercial space from Cleveland's 4th (soon to be 5th) largest office tower in this CRE market will help cushion the blow of any whatever exodus of office workers from downtown Cleveland we have had post-COVID. Do we have any idea of how much office space will remain in the tower once the hotel rooms and residences are accounted for?

Had no idea CWRU ranked all the way down at 66th in research grants nationwide. That's far too low for a school with its reputation. True sleeping giant territory here. Got a hunch that Kaler, with his engineering and patent background, may be right guy to finally lead the turnaround. I also like that he explicitly cited the Carnegie Mellon/Pittsburgh research and economic development model. No need to reinvent the wheel here.

Just read KJP's article for the first time this afternoon over lunch so I don't know what's new or what isn't. But I'm going to take a stab and *guess* that the big news is the timeline of the project? Construction starting this June and finishing up in 4Q 2024? "New" news or not, it's definitely great news. This project and Irishtown Bend will connect downtown, the Flats, and Ohio City in ways that we probably can't even begin to imagine. I always cringe when developers and politicians drop the "g*** ch****" moniker but in this case, I think the phrase may actually have meaning. So happy for Cleveland!

Van Aken tower crane looking west from the Warresnville/Farsnleigh intersection (and soon to be Shaker Heights skyline).

Didn't have time for pics but I did observe that the sidewalk at the NW corner of Cedar and East 100th St. is blocked off by barrels that protrude into the northern-most right lane of Cedar. Lot of construction equipment is lined up on the NW parcel as well. Perhaps a Pathogen Center groundbreaking is near?

By the time this project is completed, the Clinic will own Cedar (at least between 100th and 105th streets) as much as they already own Chester, Euclid, and Carnegie. That may just be the southern outer bound of its growth, because residential streets full of single family homes and some small townhouses abound south of Cedar. Kind of the same thing they're facing north of Chester with the Hough neighborhood. Just no institutional room to grow. I'm guessing that's why they bought the Playhouse property and surrounding environs. Once the Neuro Institute is done, there is nowhere to grow but to the west. (Not many streets to the east of the campus other than the one-way stretch of Stokes and the railroad tracks).

Agreed. Not getting this project done during the decade-plus era of zero interest rates is going to cost us taxpayers dearly for a long time to come when (if?) this project ever gets started. Maybe there's some hindsight at play in my view, but we made a huge mistake in not striking when the iron was hot. Add in inflation for construction materials, and it's even worse.

The rapidly (and I mean rapidly) rising Aura at Innovation Square project just south of the also in-progress Meijer’s apartment project. View is looking east towards East 105th.

Kind of a bummer to have to wait 3-4 years to learn what will ultimately become of the CPH/old Sears building site, but it may be a blessing in disguise to have that so much developable land unavailable and offline for a definite period. It will support land scarcity in the rest of UC and (hopefully) encourage developers to build more densely. Fairfax, Hough, and even East Cleveland should also benefit. Then, come 2026 or so, this property will be primed for development once the Neuro Institute, Cole expansion, and CID add thousands and thousand of new jobs to the area. Really exciting development path to follow.

Aura at Innovation Square is vertical. Pic is looking east to E. 105th St./Opp. Corridor. This porject is moving quick (so far). Groundbreaking couldn’t have been more than 2 months ago at the most.

Construction signage is officially up at Innovation Square! (Note: this is not to he confused with the Fairfax Meijer project due north at the intersection of Cedar and East 105th).

Looking forward to finally being able to talk about a "downtown Shaker Heights" in the next few years. That's something this region has never had and will be a nice compliment to what Lakewood has out west by Detroit and Warren roads. Inner ring suburbs have been taking it on the chin across the country for awhile now but Shaker Heights is a different animal altogether. Really a unique opportunity for the region to build some density where there once was none.

Well, that didn’t take very long at all. Ground is now completely cleared!

Aaaaand here are the Library Lofts cranes, in the right half of the pic. Not tower cranes, obviously, and I’m not sure what their technical name is in the construction industry, but a nice (temporary) add to the UC skyline. (FWIW, the two cranes here have a twin (triplet) up at the future neighborhood Meijer’s/apartment building at Cedar and 105th. A neighborhood of cranes!)

Artisan is just a classy looking building, and from every angle. It's even better than 1UC, which I also like. Really a godsend for the University Circle skyline, which had been dominated by terrible Cleveland Clinic architecture, mainly the W.O. Walker building (ugh!), but also pretty much anything they built pre-Glickman and pre-Miller. Not a huge fan of Fenway Manor, either, but the more residential high rises we get in this neighborhood elbowing out the institutional crap, the better. Rez developers are all but forced to attract the eye of passerby--potential residents!--and 1UC and the Artisan have both succeeded in this regard. Looking forward to much, much more!

Great news! Full perimeter construction fencing is up on a large plot of land off East 105th Street slightly north of Quebec Ave. This is south of—and completely independent of—the Fairfax Market development going vertical at the SW corner of Cedar and 105th. There is also a construction trailer set up on the western side of East 103rd Street on the project’s western edge. Looks like a groundbreaking is in the offing soon! Also, south bound traffic on East 105th south of Cedar has been blocked off since Monday. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but based on location and the size of the fenced-in property, this would appear to the site of long-awaited Innovation Square development). Here’s pics of the land and fencing, looking northeast from East 103rd St.