Ewoops

^I think X hits it on the head about people wanting to keep their car if they can. In the places you mention, NYC, DC, and Chicago, it's extremely inconvenient both to drive and park a car. That's not the case in Cleveland. I'm hoping we can provide the best of both worlds, where you don't need a car at all for your everyday life, but there's one conveniently there when you need it, for day trips and the like. This is our advantage over transit-friendly but car-crazy cities. We can be both transit and car-friendly, although we've got work to do in the transit department.

I look down into this building from my apartment, they've been removing the floors and other things during the last week or so. I saw them taking a chainsaw to the roof the other day.

There's one on nearly every corner on U of M's campus in Ann Arbor. At least 4 within a 10 minute walk or so of each other. I love it, my wife can't stand it. I'd definitely place it well above Subway or Quizno's. These are the kind of establishments we need more of downtown. Cheap places to get a quick bite to eat. I'm hoping we get a Potbelly's and a Cosi soon.

Add Fred Nance to the list of recipients, he's Lebron's lawyer as well as managing partner of SSD and DFAS savior.

^I meant that I was more worried about the retail space than the housing, not the parking.

It sounds incredible. My only worry is that the market would not be able to absorb this, the Flats, and the Avenue District all at the same time. I worry more about all of the retail than the parking. Perhaps Stark will be able to create the market. That being said, I think this is the location most in need of this kind of development, followed by the Flats. I hope they all get done! I'm ready to sign up if I can afford it.

I love the idea of making the museum architectually significant, they similar to what Cincy did with it's contemporary art museum. We are going with understated with the Art Museum expansion, maybe MOCA is the place to do something bold at a highly visible location.

It seems like this bridge makes more sense than the one they've planned at NorthCoast harbor. However, I think that with better signage and a lighted pedestraian walkway, that it wouldn't be that bad of a walk over the existing swing bridge. But, as previously stated, it would be a bit of a hike in the winter.

Ken Silliman was named Frank Jackson's chief of staff today.

^I totally agree that something incredible could be done with the West Bank surface lots.

Here's an interesting write-up about Chicago's Millenium Park: The Value of an Urban Park Where Money Grows on Trees Ask people to value an urban park and they might talk about the benefits of recreation or how green spaces can keep city air cleaner and temperatures cooler in summers. Or they might talk about social capital and how parks offer gathering places for conversation and celebrations. But Chicago’s new downtown park, Millennium Park, is adding another value: that of cold, hard cash. Millennium Park opened in 2004 with two big strikes against it. It was four years late. (It was supposed to have opened in the millennium year.) And it was embarrassingly expensive. Originally budgeted at $150 million, the park’s final cost was $475 million. But when people laid eyes on this 25-acre jewel of a park, which is part green space and part art space, none of that mattered. Since opening day, crowds have been drawn to its stunning sculptures and playful architecture. And, it turns out, so are real estate developers. A study this year by Chicago’s planning department estimated that Millennium Park would create $1.4 billion in residential development in the next decade. How? Because the park has created a huge demand for apartments and condos nearby. “Millennium Park has become a status symbol, a focal point, a magnet for the surrounding neighborhood, making properties around the park extremely desirable,” a real estate analyst told the Chicago Tribune. What makes this all the more impressive is that the East Loop area, where the park is located, wasn’t a very desirable neighborhood before 2004. It “was an eyesore with railroad tracks and parking lots,” a development consultant told the Tribune. “Now, it is a premium environment.” Is this a fluke, or could another new urban park have a similar impact? We may find out in the years ahead as Atlanta moves forward with its Beltline project. On the surface, the Beltline is nothing like Millennium Park. It’s a 22-mile circuit of abandoned rail corridors, some in gentrifying areas, others in poor neighborhoods. The idea: Use this corridor to create a ribbon of parks, trails and light-rail transit circling the city. But clearly Atlanta officials are expecting something like the Millennium Park effect to occur near the Beltline. Among other things, they’ll need a wave of development to pay for the park. Under the city’s plan, the Beltline would be built and maintained with tax-allocation financing, which uses future increases in property tax assessments to pay for today’s improvements. No rise in property values, no repayment of the debt. But could the Beltline’s impact be anything like Millennium Park’s? If not, it won’t be for lack of ambition. As the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported recently, advocates predict that, in the next quarter-century, the Beltline’s impact on Atlanta will rank with “the arrival of professional sports teams, the growth of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport ... and the [1996] Olympic Games.” -So my question is, where is the best place in Cleveland to leverage park space to create residential development? Personally, I would love to see Scranton Peninsula utilized as a large recreational park, with softball fields, a public marina, a rowing center, and other uses. You could link it in to the Towpath Trail. I think this would create a ton of residential development in the Flats, downtown, Tremont, and Ohio City. Burke is another option, but I don't think it creates the same linkage opportunities with the rest of the city.

Here's an article about San Jose's new 1,700 employee City Hall. Hopefully the County will be equally ambitious in planning it's new 1,200 employee headquarters at ninth and Euclid. http://governing.typepad.com/13thfloor/urban_planning_design/index.html Back to the Future at New City Hall Is this the city hall of the future? That's what Governing asked back in 2000, when San Jose was planning its new civic center. Well, the place opened a few weeks ago. City employees, formerly scattered about in offices all over town, have finally moved in. Five years after seeing this design for the first time, it's grown on me. The complex was designed by Richard Meier, one of today's most well-known starchitects. Meier has lopped the traditional dome off its granite pedestal, and plunked one of glass and steel down in the middle of a sweeping public plaza. That rotunda is primarily a ceremonial space--a grand entry point to the office tower behind it, and to another building off to the right (called "the wing") where the city council chambers are located. The rotunda is where mayors are expected to deliver state of the city addresses, and where, for a price, you can host a wedding or corporate banquet. With front doors that are almost always open to the breeze, the rotunda is also the Grand Central clock of the whole place. "If you want to meet someone at city hall the rotunda is the natural place to meet," says Tom Mannheim, San Jose's public information officer. The 18-story office tower is where 1,700 employees work. The bottom four floors are laid out for customer service functions. Need to pay your water bill or get that building permit: that's where you go. Agencies who get less face-time with the public work out of upper floors; the mayor and city councilors are in the penthouse. The tower also features numerous conference rooms that are open after business hours to neighborhood groups who need places to meet. Technology in the city council chambers allows any pre-sentation, from Power Point to old-fashioned transparencies, to be projected onto large screens that are easy for the public to see. Public seating is stadium-style. Unlike the old council chambers, where members sat high above the audience, here the public sits in the high chair. Citizens speaking at the podium stand exactly at eye level with the council. The civic center has many "green" features. The tower is only 70 feet wide, which allows natural light to come in to offices so that less artificial lighting is needed. A com-bination of sunscreens in the west-facing windows and open-air vents allow natural heating and cooling. San Jose didn't bother to try and get the building "certified" green, however. ("In order to get certified you have to document what you did to the building," Mannheim says. "Documenting that can be expensive.") My favorite feature of this building, though, is that it has no cafeteria. Why do I care about this? Because self-contained cafeterias suck pedestrian life away from city streets and local bus-inesses: you never have to leave the building, so most people don't. San Jose's City Hall resolves that problem in a satisfying way.The building comes with space for street-level retail. The plan is to have three restaurants fill the space: a sit-down restaurant, a deli and a bakery/coffee place. "One of the goals of building a city hall downtown was to revitalize the economy in this part of San Jose," Mannheim says. "Four new restaurants have just opened up, and there are easily another six or seven in the area. And suddenly 1,700 employees have plopped down right in the middle of them." But then again, all I've seen are pictures. We must have some 13th Floor readers working in this place. What's it like? What's your favorite thing about working there? What are the flaws that the architect's press releases and the design magazines forget to mention? Photos: City of San Jose I'm now leaning toward the tear down the Ameritrust Complex and rebuild around the Rotunda camp.

I guess it was the early 90s. Man time flies by. I remember thinking the same thing when they started celebrating the 10th anniversary of Nirvana's Nevermind album.

It's even nicer on the inside. They just completed a renovation in the last five years or so.

I'm a Sandusky native, and it would be a terrible shame to see the State close its doors. It's a jewel in a downtown with incredible potential. They've finally started to make some headway on the residential end, and something like this could set that effort back in a significant way.

Punch, I think that things didn't out of hand in the White Administration until the third and final term. White started out with some very competent people (although not all), and then lost many of them as he became more controlling over the 12 years he remained at City Hall. I think two of the people they mention, Denihan and Silliman, were and continue to be very competent. Remember, we've gotten over the election and have now become enthusiastic Jackson supporters! But you're right, we shouldn't settle for a second coming of the White Administration, we need to get some fresh faces and new ideas at City Hall.

Blinker, Do you think Silliman is a potential Chief of Staff candidate? If not, who do you think might do a good job in that position. Punch, I wouldn't think of Triozzi as the guy who got Jackson elected, he held a campaign function for Jackson on the West Side, and only three people showed up.

Punch, I'm not sure what they saw in him. I talked to a lot of people who fit into that category that were supporting him though. I got into Cleveland a little late, and didn't see much of his campaign. I think he was actually offering some big ideas, as opposed to other candidates.

Kilpatrick was re-elected? Wow. . .

Triozzi was a municipal judge who seemed to have a strong following with the young professional, new urbanist crowd. Sadly, in Cleveland, that crowd's not yet big enough to win in a city-wide primary. Blinker, what role do you envision for Silliman? I'd like to see Jackson approach Deb Janik about a role in the administration. But she's at GCP right now, and I doubt she'd leave them so soon after accepting that job. Any other recommendations for Jackson's Cabinet? How about recs, along with what position you'd like to see them in. I'll start with a few: Law Director: Triozzi Chief of Staff: Silliman or Janik (I would say Ronayne, but I think that ship has sailed) Development (including Planning, Community and Economic Development, this was Silliman's role in the White adminsitration): Silliman (if Janik is chief of staff) or Chris Warren (economic development director under White) Technology Czar: Thomas Mulready (there had to have been a reason he endorsed Jackson)

Silliman, per a conversation last week, is not 100% behind the Mall Site. He is leaning that way, but said that he could be convinced otherwise should Forest City commit to a world class design and to keeping up and improving Tower City. I'm not sold on casino gambling, but think that other big ticket projects, while their economic impact is questionable, are not failures and have had a huge psychological impact on downtown. I agree that projects geared toward tourists and suburbanites should take secondary position behind those geared toward existing and potential residents, but wouldn't want to imagine what downtown would look like had the stadiums, Playhouse Square (another big ticket project geared toward tourists and suburbanites) and other big ticket projects not taken place. Companies and people locate downtown in part because they want to be near the action. Without those projects, many more businesses might have given up on downtown, and there just aren't that many people willing to make a reverse commute in order to live downtown. I think we would have less residents and businesses in the area. While there may have been wiser public investments, I don't know that the necessary political will and capital existed to get them done. Further, these are the type of mixed uses that make downtown neighborhoods unique. I'm not saying they're a cure-all, but their effects have been positive. Even after the novelty has worn off, they attract millions of tourists into downtown every year, and tons of money coming into from outside of Cleveland proper. That being said, this type of project should be done with in conjunction with residential neighborhood type projects, not instead of them.

Would the CC, in conjunction with an attached casino (at the old Higbee's building, thereby forcing conventioners to walk through the mall to get to the casino) make any difference? I can see wives shopping while their husbands gambled. It seems like the combination of the CC, a casino, and the attached hotels would make it a weekend shopping and gambling destination, and might even help the city attract a few more conventions. I guess this is a moot point unless Ohio approves casino gambling at some point in the near future.

I don't disagree about why they called it the Avenue District, it's a matter of the "feel" they were trying to create by naming it after those avenues. It doesn't really work for me, because they're naming it after east-west avenues when the neighborhood already has a distinctively north-south stroll appeal, due to the lineage of Reserve Square, Chesterfield, and Statler Arms, not to mention the Lake at one end and Playhouse Square at the others.

I agree with everyone about Tower City, that its future prospects are linked to the downtown population's growth and demographics. However, what impact do you think that placing the Convention Center on the TC site would have on TC? Would we see an instant improvement in the retail offerings?

They're going for a Park Avenue feel at the Avenue District, they want it to be the area for upscale folks who want to live downtown, but don't want to be right on top of the noisy entertainment districts. I think the "Avenue" moniker is meant to inspire thoughts of a Park Avenue lifestyle. Still, it is a little confusing, even though everyone refers to it simply as "Tower City," it still refers to itself as the Avenue at Tower City. I think they should have named the Avenue District something else. We should create our own Park Avenue with a uniquely Cleveland name and feel. But I think it will be successful with the crowd it's marketing itself to, due to its proximity to Playhouse Square, clubby places like the Union Club and the CAC, and the East 9th business corridor. I hope they are able to link East 12th to Playhouse Square in a way that makes it feel like part of the same neighborhood. That, and completing Perk Park for the rich ladies to walk their poodles should be priorities.