clvlndr

...as the saying goes: an embarrassment of riches. This is a neighborhood feeding frenzy of development Cleveland has not seen for a loooooooong time. The good news is that it's dense, urbanized, transit and pedestrian-oriented like Cleveland simply hasn't seen.

Actually, that's not true; the question is based on the fact that it appears that we're getting mixed signals between Wolstein's statements to the media and what appears on Fairmount's website. We're just trying to get some clarification.

That got "value-engineered" out of the plan. It's going to be tough enough for the developer to get financing for the apartments, let alone any supportive retail, theaters, etc. Apartments and Retail are supposed to be apart of the next phase correct? So basically we will have to wait on the construction like phase 1? I thought Wolstein was quoted, in the fall 2011 article, as saing that he was shooting for 600 apartments, but that he would start slow with, IIRC, about 175. Are we hearing, that the apts are now on hold? Also, I thought that 1 or 2 major restaurants are part of Phase 1. Is that true? How much, exactly, has been committed to at this moment?

Great to see that AAO has moved on and not let Kasich's lame-brain, 3-C trainicide thwart them... They may yet prove that Ohio is indeed a part of the United States after all, and not a stand alone (frozen) banana republic.

btw, I went past the site today and noticed that interiors for both Barnes & Noble and Constantino's appear close to completion; near ready to move in furniture -- some counters, in both, are already in place, I think (not easy to see when behind the wheel, dodging hail stones and hustling home to beat the larger storm)... Barnes already has signs posted outside. Sorry, no photos...

Sounds very exciting -- I agree with Htsguy, Coral's (potential) involvement makes me cringe... A couple comments re KJP's "scoop": - I'm glad about the idea offices and the "Tech Ribbon", but 27K sq/ft isn't a ton of office space. - I guess we are safe to assume that the proposed 12-story building, a high rise, will be the residential unit. - Any idea of what type of development (residential or commercial) development may spill over to the empty UH lots on the south side of Mayfield -- or is UH, itself, interested in developing this land? - quote: "The Lot 45 development will include improved pedestrian access along Mayfield under the railroad bridges to the planned Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority Red Line rail station and to Little Italy." -- (probably best addressed to RTA): is there any thought of extending the planned Red Line (station) head house, to be located East of the tracks, all the way under the railroad bridge, for a western entrance, as opposed to forcing pedestrians to walk under low railroad bridges (with, I think, 4 sets of freight RR tracks) on a probably claustrophobic Mayfield sidewalk? -- I'm hoping such high-density development at this sight, in the Uptown district, generally, will encourage RTA to extend the Red Line to Euclid in it's current form: heavy rail rapid transit, and not BRT, diesel commuter, etc... but that's for the CLE transit future plans thread, I know.

^^Thanks for the Rider's Digest, Jerry... Once again, for St. Patrick's Day, I would suggest that RTA operate the Waterfront Line so as to relieve the insane crush focused at Tower City as the lone downtown station. It was so ridiculous last year, RTA/CPD had to ban people from Tower City for a time just so they could exit manageble groups to trains leaving TC. Many people could opt for the East 9th (North Coast) or W. 3rd stations, instead.

^Thanks for the map, jmecklenborg.

^ Map please... You Cincy folks know your city so well these references crystalize in your minds... Not so for us folks in NEO... thanks much.

^Actually, the key to successful mass transt is to keep building. Once one project is started, planning should be well underway as to the next project. In places as diverse as Washington, Boston, Chicago and Dallas, this has happened... Even though Cleveland has a pretty good transit system, it didn't develop normally like this. Cleveland's rail system has been developed a piece at a time over nearly 100 years... About the closest thing to perpetual develpment happened with the CTS Rapid (the RTA Red Line), where a few small extensions were developed in the years after the 1955 line went on line... The last Red Line extension was the 4-mile airport extension in 1968... The 2.2 mile Waterfront line (deemed a failure by some), was built 28 years after this... Nothing more is pending (save a .3 mile Blue extension and a rough plan for a 6 mile northeast expansion of the Red Line to Euclid)... Cincinnati shouldn't let this type of lethargy happen. Aggressive planning and movement should be underway -- don't give the naysayers a chance to launch any effective blocking effort, which obviously, they've been doing to hold back the reccent groundbreaking for decades.

It's a horribly dumb proposal... And if they want more parking, preferrably mixed use, there's that ugly surface lot (fortunately much smaller than the WHD sea of surface lots) at E. 4t & Prospect.

Interesting. St. Louis is a Rust Belt, shirnking city like Cleveland, and yet, they can't expand rail fast enough... "BTW, if someone tells you that rail works in the Northeast because of the density that surrounds it, show them these pictures. It was the development of rail that spawned that density, not the other way around." -- KJP. Words worth remembering. It's also worth remembering that, in Cleveland, (similar to St. Louis), most of our strongest/growing/most promsing neighborhoods are DIRECTLY served by the Rapid: Ohio City, U. Circle, Dowtown (notably E. 4th and Flats East Bank) and Shaker Sq. Detroit-Shoreway is indirectly served -- the southern portion is directly served, although it is still transitional as compared to the north end/Battery Park, which is white-hot (and is transit friendly with Bus Routes 45 and (frequent/24-hour) 26 on Detroit (and a .6 mile walk to from Gordon Sq. to the W. 65 Red Line station)... Tremont is our lone hot neighborhood that isn't either directly served by the Rapid (it's a healty hump through sketchy Abby Ave areas) or a frequent bus line -- RTA does plan to beef up the #81 bus.

Congrats Cincy! Glad to see this is important project is finally getting done and that Cleveland will no longer be the lone rail transit holdout.... more importantly, UO's whopping 552 pages devoted to one thread are not all for naught! :clap:

The parking lot/driving mentality is more a state of mind than it has anyting to do with local geography. Also, Dan Gilbert is not the cause of this; he merely conveniently fits into the negative paradigm we've established/allowed to fester, re mass transit... Consider the absurdity: we have a new casino about to open in the center of downtown that sits on top of our central rail rapid transit hub (and main terminal for the HL out on Public Sq.) and yet, I have yet to see ONE WORD in any PD/Criain's/Scene, etc. about the viability of casino goers using mass transit (not even from Steve Litt, who I really respect)... It's parallel to the post about Hopkins Airport having poor signage for the Rapid which, you'd think, they'd be proud of (hell, until people made a stink a couple years ago, Hopkins visitor's touch-screen guide for Ground Transportation didn't even mention the Rapid... huh!? ... Kinda like the way FCE is silent about mass transit even though the rail hub empties into the lower level of their mall (we know, of course, if Miller/Ratner could wave a magic wand and make the Tower City Rapid station disappear, they would in a heartbeat ... and we know why...) Fact is guys, we don't want to face what Blinker mentioned in his new book about Cleveland: for many people here (too many), mass transit, notably the Rapid, is seen as primarily a tool of the poor and minorities, those dreaded reprobates. Our pols have noted this for years so that, for them, transit issues are a political loser in this town (more on this later under mass transit). Add to this mix the 'Beggars Can't be Choosy" inferiority complex our local leaders suffer from, and in walks wealthy/aggressive Dan Gilbert from out of town with a blank slate on which to operate on: No pol, from Frank Jackson, Ed Fitzgerald or Joe Cimpermann on down is going to speak nary a peep of discord to Gilbert for fear he either scale down is development or, at worst, leave (not likely, but still a fear I believe in the gut of many pols here). So it seems that Gilbert is getting away with a heavy-handed approach to historic preservation (... dare I say, cavalier) that he wouldn't dream of in his hometown, even though Cleveland, obviously, has a much more healthy, mass-transit oriented downtown than does Detroit.

High-low cars could be implemented here by RTA... my only point is Pittsburgh's system is a-typical. It has a lot of stations, more than RTA but in a shorter system, meaning that it picks up/drops off passengers in dribs and drabs, and not the heavy amounts RTA's Red Line does/is designed to handle, at its 18 stations... Also remember the fact that Pittsburgh's cars are LRTs -- considerablly smaller inside, than those huge Tokyus we have on the Red Line... Like I say, it's doable here, but not with out probable operational slowdowns, particularly during crush periods.... it should also be noted that Pittsburgh's LRT is one of the slower ones I'm aware of... Boston's Green Line is slow and congested, too, but at least the Green Line is one of the heaviest LRT's in the nation in terms of traffic, while Pittsburgh's, like RTA's, is one of the lightest... I'm just wondering if RTA is thinking that, after implementing the POP that has greatly sped up Red Line off-peak operations by eliminating individual fare counting, whether they want to risk slowing down service with narrower, tighter LRT cars... just a thought.

Rapid transit lines in other cities that parallel RR lines suffer the same problem... Have you ridden Chicago's Orange Line? It takes Chicago visitors from Midway Airport through that city's industrial underbelly which mirrors the similar aiport-to-downtown run on our Red Line. New York, Boston, St. Louis (and others with paralleling rapid rail lines) have the same issue.

OMG, somebody from RTA please PM me as to when Charlize is riding the Rapid! Just don't tell my S.O.

That may be a valid (happy) concern as the Red Line gets busier and faster boarding (more like a true heavy rail rapid transit)...

Pittsburgh's PAT's a very unusual rail system. They have 5 high-platform subway stations (I understand the 6th, Penn Station, is no longer being used), and then outside of downtown, a slew of close-spaced, neighborhood stations (south the Mt. Washington(?) tunnel); most of which are low, short platforms (often by the sides of crossing streets), many having only space for one car (so that passengers intending to exit at the station must be on that 1st car). A few of the South Hills suburban stations are high platform, but most aren't. Cleveland, on the other hand, has a distinct heavy rail line, and 2 distinct LRT's which, historically, have been separate; even operated by separate agencies until 1975. It's confusing enough that the Blue/Green lines have the Pay Enter-Eastbound/Pay Exit-Westbound system, vs. the pre-paid POP the Red Line utilizes, without the added confusion of which door commuters must enter or exit based on the line station the train is at... ... is all this worth the hundred or so Shaker passengers who want to use the Airport? btw, regarding your comment that Pittsburgh carries more rail passengers: Wikipedia listed RTA ridership as on its rail combined 34 miles as: heavy (19,300) and light (10,800), or 30,100 combined -- and these are old numbers prior to the dramatic increase on the Red Line with the more modest increase on Blue/Green. Wikipedia PAT's "T" 25-mile LRT 25,200. Are these numbers wrong?

^Wow, THAT'S long... No wonder 2 & 3 car-trains can handle such large crowds: St. Patrick's Day (yikes!) and Browns' games, to name a few... With such high capacity, explosive growth in ridership (which promises to grow even more when projects like Uptown, the casino, Medical Mart and FEB go on line), and the much more efficient operation thanks to PPOP (for the 1st time I can remember, the Red Line operates like a real rapid transit all day and not just during rush periods), I'm more of the mind not wanting dual height cars... If RTA decides to go that route down the road, I'll have no problem with it. However, as the Red Line is balancing out it's East and West Side operations (with the opening of Uptown and improvent of E.55 and Univ. Circle stations) adopts its own identity of being a true heavy-rail, high speed/high capacity operation, it becomes more operationally distinct from the LRT Blue/Green Lines, other than the obvious fact they share tracks, stations and maintenance facilities. I know the idea of a 1-seat through ride from Shaker Heights to the Airport is tantalizing, but I just don't see that the expense (and propable confusion among riders) of operating dual height trains is worth the few extra passengers such a service may attract -- and I say that as a Shaker resident who would clearly stand to benefit such a service as a frequent airport user..

Sorry DontGiveUpTheFight, I don't believe you need to build roads around rapid transit in order to enhance TOD -- that's only a Cleveland thing, in all other cities, the rapid transit, alone, is enough to stimulate TOD growth. In fact, in Cleveland given the current mentality of planners, they would just as soon run BRT in competition with the rapid with the idea of replacing rail with the buses to 'save money.' I'm sure planners are thinking this for the Opportunity Corridor, which I'm opposed to ... I'd prefer we work on developing TOD rather than enhancing our already overly built road system.

Are the Tokyu cars bigger (longer) than most more contemporary rapid transit cars (sans Chicago's where we know the ancient, tight el curves limit their length)? I mean, in comparison to New York's or Boston's Red Line, or Toronto's (which I haven't ridden on since childhood)... Tokyu's seem extremely large, long, esp... How long a train will Mayfield accommodate? It seems the system has varous lenghts (E. 105, 1 car; Tower City 4, at least; E. 55 appears no longer than 2, etc.)

Friggin' knuckle draggers.

You're right, Andre, the exterior of La Vogue Sq. is Moorish. Inside is what I was looking at which is kinda Art Deco with a Moorish echo.

...^ definitely a rare RTA 2-way station: lots of commuters (from) as well as serving as a major destination (to). MOCA is well situated to generate traffic; I'll bet more people will take the Rapid to MOCA than the HL, which stops at its front door.