Rustbelter

Huh? For the Red Line to serve a new stadium site it would require a new station. It wouldn't be from the Brook Park station. To me this move to the Brook Park station makes a lot of sense, it's right off the highway and people can just just hop on the Red Line to get downtown or the Airport. I could never figure out the need for the STJ "transit center." It should eventually be demolished along with the Wolstein Center when redevelopment of this part of downtown becomes a thing.

This article states that there is an updated Brown's rendering of the downtown stadium too. The Browns have produced renderings of a potential lakefront renovation, but did not release them on Tuesday. One person who has seen the renderings described the lakefront proposal to Signal Cleveland this week as a “dramatic renovation” – “essentially a reconstruction as opposed to a renovation.” The person asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the discussions. While the stadium would remain open-air, it would be wrapped in a new glass skin that shields the interior from the elements. The design change would allow for more open and spacious concourses inside. In the Browns’ illustrations, Cleveland’s proposed land bridge would connect directly to the stadium, the person said. The linkage would create an “open lawn” space outside the stadium for events such as summer movie showings.

^@Htsguy, I have no idea. I know what they should have done, which is have an engineer on board to perform such a study. That would at least give them an understanding of what they're about to get into with ODOT and any landowners where easements may be needed. ODOT has a phased designed process that will not exactly move along quickly, not to mention whatever environmental or existing utility snafus that may come up.

This. No need to make it overly complicated. The marketing gimmick already exists and it can ride the coattails of the Rock Hall expansion. If the stadium ends up moving then just swap out the stadium with apartments under Bibb's plan.

Good video, but it would be interesting to see the site plan. Also wonder if they did any traffic studies and determined if any roadway or highway ramps would need to be modified/added. Nice to see they acknowledged the RTA station. With the upcoming system train unification East Siders could potentially take a train there without needing to transfer. Would need to build a new station though.

I don't have the answers but that is my impression as well. If developers were lining up to build why hasn't the Flats West Bank or the entire NE quadrant of downtown seen any real development over the last 25 years? Some will say because of all the reuse opportunities that exist here but I don't buy that. Not all developers are in the business of adaptive reuse and to me it sounds like an excuse of low expectations. If I thought developers were going to be all over the lakefront site I'd have no qualms about the Browns moving to Brook Park. Reminds me of a conversation I had with one of my buddies from Chicago about the Bears potentially moving to the suburbs. His response: Makes sense, only cities with crap downtowns would need a football stadium there because they can't fill it out with other uses. I imagine in his mind as a Chicago native there are only a handful of American cities that don't have a "crap downtown." The reason the near Eastside lakefront is not desirable (Bratenahl aside) is because it's always been an inhospitable industrial area. Has little to do with weather or some "only in Cleveland" nonsense. It's because industrial interests bought this land before residential developers did in the 1800's and it has stayed that way ever since. That industry no longer exists and we don't have the population growth to drive the redevelopment of it either. Further out from downtown it seems apparent to me that the living by the lake has some sort of appeal because the nicest portions of Collinwood and Euclid are clearly the blocks near the lake.

Doubt if the Brook Park site sees more than a couple hotels and a few bars. Can't see how apartments or any kind of shopping district happens there. Maybe a fancy movie theater or that sought after Ikea if we're getting crazy and Jimmy really pulls some strings. I'm preparing myself mentally for the lakefront site to be barren until about 2040....until then it will be a great space for people to do burnouts at 2:00am on a Saturday night.

I realize they need to work around what's given, but something better should be put between the 'Community Plaza' and the Home Depot & Dave's. Nothing says community space quite like the back side of a big box store.

Bibb's lakefront vision removed the buildings north of the stadium that Haslam's vision had proposed but these would likely be mostly residential. Saying it was just for "rich suburbanites" is ridiculous. In the Bibb concept this would mostly be parkland instead (i.e. for "the people"). There were some other concepts in the years prior to Haslam's or Bibb's involvement that also had housing there. Haslam Plan Bibb Plan

No idea what to think. The City's proposal seems solid but I think announcing it to the public comes across as amateurish and desperate. But I also can't see some sort of urban village being successful in Brook Park...I mean it's not exactly an area people are lining up to move to or spend time in. I'm all for this. Would fix much of what I didn't like about Bibb's vision. It also just makes the most sense for all parties. If this was all just a 4D chess negotiating tactic then kudos to Bibb.

I'm not sure if this is a bad or good thing? All I know is that I hate these parking lots and the Virgil Brown Center too (because of its form, not its function). Cuyahoga considering buying downtown parking lots near HHS office for $4.75 million

The Green Line should be run as a trolley car north of Shaker Square, then down Fairmont/Cedar, and end at University circle (potentially making a loop). Something like the concepts that many on this forum have come up with. In the longer term future it could then be leveraged to continue as a streetcar down Euclid to replace the BTR(ish) Health Line.

Was recently in Calgary and got a taste of Cleveland's future train cars, as their newer rolling stock is the same as the RTA's future trains. Seemed pretty good to me and I'll be looking forward to Cleveland having a unified system. Side note - Calgary has a lowkey impressive downtown, albeit a bit generic. I'm thinking it has got to be the most built up city center in North America among mid-sized metro areas (it's metro is smaller than any of the three C's, for now). Has a dense skyline with lots of highrises going up all over the place. Their rail system seemed to be well utilized, even beyond rush hour, despite most of it outside of the city center running down the center of highways. Apparently it's the second most used light rail system in North America. The trains in Calgary had pre-recorded announcements so this should be happening when Cleveland gets theirs.

Agreed, this is the last of Cleveland's worries. Maybe it's something to talk about in 2075 when the next Brown's stadium gets built. Downtown and the riverfront are enough to concentrate on for the foreseeable future. Given the site logistics of it being cut off from the rest of the city this would be the obvious type of development to go there, and there's nothing wrong with that. Cities that are successful have areas like this.

Never understood why turning left is prohibited. Only thing I could think of is it being an artifact from when the streetcar used to run here....75 years ago.

If gentrification accelerates it will soon be called 'Circle North' or something like that.

I would have expected a restaurant/bar space similar to Pioneer at the Intro. Kind of wild there isn't at least a simple cafe space on the plaza area. Maybe the old ticket booth can be used as a coffee hut or something?

Yes, but Ohio City today and Slavic Village back then are on entirely different trajectories. To be fair there are some pretty nice spots in Ohio City but it also has enough "warts" to leave me with some trepidation depending on the immediate surroundings. Those "warts" will likely go away, the question is how long will it take and how much BS can be tolerated until that happens.

It will likely sell fast given the lack of inventory...even with a boarded up house next door. I've been house hunting and anything decent sells quick, but maybe less so if it lacks a garage. It seems like Ohio City can be block-by-block. I ended up passing on a pretty good house there because a couple of the neighboring houses looked kind of sketch. More so due to quality of life issues than crime though.

I'm also skeptical about these mega developments but Chicago seems to still be doing well with organic small and medium infill projects.

^ Chicago is very polarized, probably more so than any other American city. Downtown and the North Side are thriving and full of middle to upper class yuppies; this is where all those developments are happening. South and West are not nearly as well off and can be very rough. Not sure if the population is still dropping, but what has happened is the Downtown/North Side growth has been offset by population loss in the less desirable areas. Some areas on the North Side may have even lost population from multi-family housing being replaced by single-family housing through gentrification (Bucktown or North Center for example). There are also immigrant areas but those have largely replaced former working class white neighborhoods over the decades, which I imagine is mostly a net neutral in terms of population over time if I were to guess. Some areas probably don't look rough on the surface due to the housing stock; basically brick holds up better than the wood-framed houses found in other parts of the Rust Belt. But there are definitely areas of major blight; check out Englewood, Lawndale, or Garfield Park for that kind of thing. For example Englewood had a population approaching 100,000 in 1960 and just around 20,000 today. And then there's this: https://heyjackass.com/2023-homicide-map/

Bulls and Blackhawks owners getting into the development game. This would be a real game changer, as the current area is an inhospitable sea of parking lots. Makes sense because due East of there is the West Loop which is currently the hottest neighborhood in the Midwest. Still pretty sketchy to the West though. United Center Owners Planning $7 Billion Campus Around Arena With Housing, Music Hall And More

Really like the look and quality of the Welleon. Per Bond Street's website this is the only building listed in their portfolio, so hopefully they have something else cooking.

Yes, would really like to see this happen. This SHOULD be THE lynch-pin neighborhood the ties together Edgewater with Gordon Square. To my knowledge there is no real action right now from any developers at this intersection....but I'd love to be told differently.

Promising news on Shoreway tower, which looks amazing. Not so good news on 73rd - seems wild to me that this site just can't get off the ground.