mikel

Jeff Johnson is a joke. After the way he handled the west 6th street debacle over the summer I lost any respect i had for him. The Hazel site would NOT be a good spot to put condos or townhomes because it is on the edge of a "transitional" area that I just don't think is stable enough at the moment to make townhomes successful. I really do not understand what his problem with the plan is. I think he is just power tripping on this one. I can see why people complain about the city when developers backed by the most respected cdc in the city are turned down for "I need to talk to some people about this".

I agree with this. There is not much of a reason to put market rate housing in the "dead zone" right now because there are plenty of similar opportunities in better locations. Maybe 10-20 years from now this area will be more appealing but I don't think it is at the moment. More office projects like the Geis one under construction right now are really the only viable option I see for the near future.

Every person is guaranteed a bed to sleep in in the city of Cleveland but the problem is that some of the people don't want to sleep in a shelter. Many of the people on the streets have mental problems and will not go to a shelter even if somebody tries to convince them to. I don't feel like homeless people are really that much of a problem downtown Cleveland. Go to San Francisco if you want to see homeless people, they are EVERYWHERE. I do feel like the "transient" population has hurt the Avenue district to some extent but with Cleveland State growing north and more residential development in that area I think it will be come less noticeable.

The "transients" are all there because the biggest men's homeless shelter in Cleveland is at 21st and Lakeside and there are a few social services offices and a soup kitchen in that area. As far as the panhandling goes, I do not think that anybody enjoys panhandling but there are reasons not to have laws against it. Many panhandlers do not have jobs (some do believe it or not and many of them are not homeless) and giving somebody a criminal record for asking people for spare change will pretty much keep that person unemployed forever. It becomes a strain on the police force and judicial system for what is really a pretty harmless crime. It should be illegal to aggressively panhandle and harass people but charging the average panhandler asking for "bus fare" with a crime is not as good of a policy as it sounds.

wow the comments after the article are brutal. Brutally stupid that is. The negative view of downtown Cleveland by suburbanites is ridiculous in my opinion. They literally assume they will be mugged and robbed every time they go down there and demand that parking will be free in a central business district of a large American city. What successful city has free parking in its cbd? If it does it is in big trouble.

^It's a lot bigger

This article does not really make any point that has not already been made a million times and the arguments in it are pretty weak. The argument about people not spending their dollars at other establishments does not really matter to me because casino-goers will be mostly suburbanites who divert their dollars from Applebee's. This does not bother me at all. The author also mentions all of the negative social ills that come along with a casino. I agree that there will be some negative effects but i think they will be outweighed by the positives. The casino is not going to be perfect there are going to be negative consequences that occur because of it. I don't think Ohio voters are too stupid to realize this and that they just decided that the jobs and economic impact were worth the troubles.

It is too bad that the buildings on public square where the Jacob's lot is were demolished. Does anybody know why they were torn down? Just for parking? A part of me almost wishes that teh buildings where the terminal tower is now located were still standing. I love the terminal tower but as far as a livable urban neighborhood the downtown from 1900 would be awesome today.

I am intrigued by the buffet serving "Cleveland style" food.

I walked through tower city today because I don't think I have been in there for about half a year and that time I was only coming from the RTA and walked straight outside. It is a really nice mall with a lot of potential but as we all know the retail options are lacking. I think FCE should have some kind of advertising campaign to get the word out that Tower city is back. I may be getting ahead of myself because none of this has happened yet but if the first stage of the casino goes into the higbee space soon Tower city can start to turn around sooner rather than later.

I think a mall D would be perfect. I would even take a wide pedestrian bridge. I would really take anything :)

Charlotte was the only city that I did not want to get this. I guess the dems think they have a better chance at getting NC than Missouri. The Obama team will be kicking themselves if they lose Ohio though and considering how Dems did in the last election they have a lot of work to do. I do agree that the facilities in Cleveland will be much better in 2016 so we might have a better chance then.

I think a lot of students are realizing that 50k a year for a school ranked in the teens or twenties of the usnwr rankings is not worth it. They can get a 20-25k a year scholarship to go to Case and have just as good of a chance getting into grad school. Case has always been known as being pretty good with financial aid and I think people are realizing that the big money schools ask for is not worth it so they are looking for scholarship money. I think as the article mentions, tripling the number of high schools visited has got to help. I know Case has been recruiting harder in Asia too so I wonder how many Chinese/Korean students are applying.

wow!! the first video fire department drill is amazing. I have wanted to see a cleveland video like these since that San Francisco video was posted here.

I am totally fine if that picture accurately reflects the plans for university circle.

There have been many news stories online in the past month or two about all of the other cities but not about Cleveland. The chatter about Cleveland has been nonexistent. There was a poll on the Daily Kos where readers could vote for what city they thought it should be at and Cleveland was the favorite. I would think if its a finalist that the facilities would not really be an issue but I have to think that the lack of chatter is due to the facilities not being appropriate after a thorough inspection or we got it and the people that know don't see the point in worrying about it. We will soon find out.

I almost see the problem as being the opposite from the idea that these general majors are worthless and technical degrees being great. Will they get you a job? No absolutely not but I think technical degrees have shortcomings too. I think the problem with the education system is that students just want the bling that comes with a certification or degree. Most students in undergrad are not at all interested in learning as long as they get the grades and title after their name. Education has become a consumer society and young people see it as degree+grades+school name=living the good life. American students are not willing to look outside the box and just want to push their way through the system. It has been a wake up call for many students because all the promises made before the recession about how paying a ton of money for a fancy degree would be worth it has turned out to be a lie. Many people I knew in undergrad with technical degrees were not at all what I would consider smart. They worked hard and got good grades but they knew nothing about the world that they lived in beyond their little bubble. I studied abroad in Scotland and every student knew about the latest developments in the Israel-Palestine conflict for example and took a general interest in Politics, world affairs and being intellectual. I could go on forever but here is a start.

They are supposed to announce the location of the 2012 dnc convention later this week or early next week. There were reports in December that Charlotte and St. Louis were the favorites but it appears from recent reports that Cleveland and St. Louis are still in it. Whatever city wins will get a $200 million boost to their economy. I am surprised that there hasn't been more discussion about this considering how big of an impact it might have on the city. I think Cleveland is the best choice politically and although there has not been as much hype about Cleveland winning as Charlotte I am hoping we still have a chance. Maybe the people pushing for Cleveland already know that we won so they see no need to rile up the media. We can always hope :) at least until the end of the week...

I can't wait to take a tour of the place. I am so glad that this building was saved.

Ok maybe that came out wrong. I think the mass exodus to suburbs in the 60's and 70's was an awful thing and I personally do not agree with it. The point that I was trying to make was it seems incomprehensible to a young person today (I'm in my 20's) why this mass exodus occurred. These pictures help me understand the rationale better of those who decided to leave although I still think they were wrong.

here they are! WARNING: Be ready to feel sick! http://www.flickr.com/photos/27484989@N08/sets/72157611381993522/ Looking at these pictures I can kind of understand why people fled to the suburbs. While I love the old architecture and think that the mass demolitions of the 60's and 70's were tragic, fleeing to Maple Heights may crazy today but it made some sense then. The pictures show a dilapidated city with soot covered buildings, liquor stores on every downtown corner, and dirty streets. The suburbs were new, clean, safe, and spacious compared to the dirty city. Cleveland looks a lot nicer today as far as cleanliness goes than it did in the 60's and 70's. Urban living today is a very different experience than it must have been then and I am glad that downtown is coming back.

I know funding is still difficult to get but I would think more downtown residential conversions would be happening when all of these buildings are full. 668 was the last one and it was a huge hit.

I spent many late evenings drinking gross vending machine coffee and as soon as I leave this happens. This should be a nice addition to the library.

It seems like they are still moving strongly towards constructing the north campus stuff soon. Does anyone know what the global sustainable center is?

Haha well thats what i get for skimming an article. Even still $300,000 is what the circle 118 townhomes are going for and this would have 1 more bedroom and no heating bill. I don't think they should have much of a problem selling it.