inlovewithCLE

Has that ever been proposed to him? My family has a good relationship with him. I can drop a bug in his ear about it if it hasn't been mentioned already. And by the way, I 10000 percent agree with your statement that the city doesn't had enough apartments. That's an understatement. We'd need to have more apartments just to "not have enough" apartments. The two biggest issues that I see in terms of housing is that we don't have enough DESIRABLE apartments in desirable neighborhoods and in many cases some of our housing stock is either outdated or beyond repair. And finally, the older houses that can be saved may need to be saved as a different version of itself. For example, the homes on Heritage Lane on East 105th. Many were originally Cleveland style two families that were converted into one family homes.

What, no Edgewater in that list? I started to add Edgewater. I didn't because the post was about places that can add new housing (apartments, condos, homes, etc) and it seems to me that, with the strip mall and a couple of parcels being an exception, Edgewater is just about built out already. (I'm talking about what's defined as "Edgewater" only here. Cudell is a different story.) I LOVE Edgewater. Working on a move to the neighborhood soon, hopefully. But I figured that it's basically built out already, which kinda limits the room for growth.

I have a question. I hope someone can answer it. It is clear, in my opinion, that Cleveland has some significant neighborhoods of choice now, including (but not limited to): 1. Downtown 2. University Circle 3. Ohio City 4. Tremont 5. Detroit-Shoreway 6. Asiatown 7. North Collinwood I've seen, heard, or read a common refrain in all of those neighborhoods: there is a high (extremely high in most cases) demand to live in those areas, but not enough places to put them in. Downtown has a 97 percent occupancy rate, Ohio City has a 97 percent occupancy rate (and some apartment owners speculate that it could be as high as 100 percent), there's not enough places to live in Tremont, a new development is built in Detroit Shoreway and phase 1 sells out immediately, University Circle is running out of room trying to build housing to match the demand, there's been a large increase in demand for housing in Asiatown (as a result of everything being full in downtown) and North Collinwood can't rehab the houses fast enough to meet the demand and the waiting lists for them. My question is: what can be done to meet the demand? It seems to me that there is an incredible pent up demand in these areas and I think that they would just explode if the demand was met. The demographics are good. The locations are good. The trends are good. But we can't take full advantage of it if there are tons of people that want to live in every single desirable neighborhood in Cleveland and nowhere to put them. It's a great problem to have, but a problem nonetheless. So what can be done to fill these neighborhoods up and meet that demand? Because once the need is met, the demand will most likely still be there, which will then necessitate creating new developments around surrounding neighborhoods to meet THAT demand, causing the neighborhoods to feed off of each other, like downtown, OC, Tremont, and Detroit Shoreway (and possibly Asiatown now) does. What can be done to speed this up?

I like the boulevard concept. i think it would be great for this area

That's NOT realistic

Collinwood's where I'm from. I'm very interested to hear more about this project. Also, do we have a thread for Collinwood projects? I know we have one for Waterloo but I don't think we have one for projects in Collinwood in general (North Collinwood, South Collinwood, Nottingham, & Euclid-Green). With this project, the Euclid Beach Park project that was recently in the news, the Cleveland Range expansion project in Nottingham, and some others, I think Collinwood should get a thread if it doesn't have one currently.

@gottaplan, what was the response when it was pitched to city officials? I do agree that they should at least examine it to see what they have, what could be sold (or in the case of some vacant structures, given away), and what could be consolidated. I'm not a big Columbus fan but I will say that I have seen the effect on the local economy and their downtown (during the day, at least) those government employees have had. Its essentially made Columbus recession proof. That doesn't work quite as well when the government jobs are spread out everywhere. Now we won't come close to what Columbus has, obviously. But the city of Cleveland is (for better or for worse) a large government. I would like to see as many city employees as possible working in structures downtown. Its one of the reason I support the County consolidation so much. It does have an effect on the areas that government entities are located in. That's why CMSD selling their building and moving into downtown office space (also taking more space off of the market, a good thing) makes a lot of sense and if the city could consolidate its many departments and buildings it makes a lot of sense too.

I LIKE IT. Somebody pitch it to city government.

Likewise, Cleburger. Always been a fan of your posts :) And we're talking shop here, but its still somewhat on topic. WZAK wouldn't be the one to do it because they target an older audience. Their sister station WENZ, however, would be the ones to do it. In fact, WENZ has most recently started doing their own Summerjam in the vein of Hot 97 (just not on the same size yet) so there is a radio venue here to do it. And a Jay-Z or a Lil Wayne or a Drake could definitely do a stadium show. At least two of the three have done stadium shows and Drake's current tour was originally scheduled to BE a stadium tour but he chose different venues instead. So I still argue that, for the really big events, the Q or the Wolstein may not be sufficient.

I agree with this. I've previously mentioned something somewhat similar. I like the borough system idea and I think that's probably the only realistic option was have for city-county consolidation without the state legislature just doing it themselves like Indiana did with Indianapolis (and I'm not even sure if, legally, our state legislature could do that here because of the Home Rule clause in our state constitution).

We're drifting off topic, but "urban" was used as a euphemism for "black music" in order to increase its selling power. Similar to the term "rock and roll", which had a better selling power than "rhythm and blues" or "race records", that's why music that is typically tailored to minorities is called "urban music". Even in the Hispanic community, the radio format that predominately plays things like Reggaeton is called "Hispanic Urban". "Urban" is easier to sell than "Black". And as a black person in the industry, I'm just acknowledging the unfortunate truth. So if anyone was wondering the origins, that's the origin.

If you're talking straight urban then yes, I would never consider outdoors. The urban crowd does their hair, wears heels and comes dressed to the 9's. But honestly, I don't know any urban artists that could pull off a stadium show. Maybe as a package? And that's still a stretch. In fact, in the history of the genre I can't think of any pure urban artist that could pull off a stadium show. There were plenty of crossover groups. The Jacksons, sure. Prince? In his heyday. Lionel Ritchie? Maybe in Europe ;) JayZ had to bring in help from Detroit (and vice versa) for his date in Yankee Stadium. Allow me to quote Snoop "back to the lecture at hand...." A roof on CBS is not game changing in the concert world. I'd be more concerned with NCAA and Superbowls, and the corporate-backed concerts that come come with them. Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj, Drake and a few others. And not to mention a big Summerjam type show like Hot 97 does at MetLife Stadium in NY/NJ. (NYC market being an obvious exception to this dome/no dome debate we're having). Not that a dome would change the game, but a dome would put us IN the game. Without it, we're not even in the game at this point, not even in the conversation.

There were several artists in the urban genre (I'm not going to say who it was, but if you know urban music, you know that there's a select number of those artists that can do a stadium show so use your imagination on that one). I talked to one of the promoters and asked him specifically about Cleveland. And he specifically told me that they weren't going to do it here because the show would be too big for The Q and the Wolstein and that CBS wasn't an option because of the lack of the roof. In particular (and I will share this), there was a show last year for Cleveland's birthday featuring Drake and Bone. If I recall correctly, it got rained out. It wasn't in CBS, it was behind it or not too far from it at one of the Port docks. Well when it got rained out it was a big mess with a big backlash and a lot of pissed off fans and promoters with egg on their faces. That really spooked the promoters I spoke to. Back to the conversation I had with this particular promoter, that incident was brought up and he told me that he would never bring a show to CBS because of the lack of a roof. He mentioned that the rates for CBS were high as well, but that he wouldn't mind that if there was a roof so that he would "not lose his ass" and have a situation on a much larger scale like they did at the Drake show.

when is phase 2 officially supposed to begin?

THAT's the truth, and the entire point. It doesn't have to be this particular dome proposal, but CBS NEEDS a roof or dome of some kind to increase its drawing power. No way around it.

@StrapHanger, really? That IS a stupid rule. Don't some MLS teams currently play in football stadiums though? Were they grandfathered in?

I've been in the room with some of the promoters when the decision was made. I've worked with several of them in our particular genre. And when a football stadium (CBS in particular) came up, one of the main reasons against it was specifically the lack of a dome or a roof or whatever you want to call it. Many promoters don't want to take the risk. Is it the only reason CBS loses out on some events? No. But it is absolutely one of the leading factors and that IS a fact. Not having a dome or roof hurts the drawing power of that facility. The whole point that I've been making from the beginning of this debate is that the idea that if CBS would just promote a little more that that alone would exponentially increase the days used by the place is just not true. You may get a couple of more dates, but that's it. If you want to increase the drawing power of CBS then it needs a dome or a roof and there's no other way around it. It doesn't have to be this particular dome, but it DOES need a roof or a dome. Without it, CBS will never draw to its potential

@tedders55, interesting point about soccer. I'll bring it one step further, if we could ever get a soccer team that would help knock some available dates from CBS.

@Cleburger, that's absolutely true. I've been in the entertainment industry for a decade. I know a ton of promoters. As a general rule, they don't like being in open air stadiums (NYC & other cant-miss markets being an exception). That's not me talking out of my behind. I'm telling you what I know. If a show gets rained out or snowed out, a promoter could lose a lot of money. Not having a dome or a retractable roof absolutely hurts your drawing power. That's a FACT

@AJ23, And that original reply wasn't to you either, by the way.

@AJ23, this dome would be enough to get more use out of it during the winter months. The whole point is to prevent the elements from screwing your show up. Yeah people will still have to dress like they usually would, but they wouldn't get snowed on and they wouldn't get rained on. That's the most important thing when it comes to attracting more events.

This has been said repeatedly. Even in the summer months, there are some concerts and events that will NOT go to an open air stadium, PERIOD. Its not just because of the snow. Many promoters don't want to take the chance of their event getting rained out either. The Stadium NEEDS a dome. Yes they could use it a bit more than they do now, but as long as its open air its NOT going to get used that much, NO MATTER what time of the year it is. If you're promoting an event that needs something the size of a football stadium, that means you have a significant amount of money on the line. They don't want their event getting snowed out. They don't want it getting rained out. CBS needs a dome.

Increasing the number of members of the board of directors is a guaranteed way to increase bureaucracy, not efficiency. The CDCs should communicate more, absolutely. But what may work in Old Brooklyn may not work in Glenville. That's the point of the CDCs, to have a development plan tailored to the unique wants and needs of that area. A top down, city wide approach is the WRONG thing to do if that means the city dictating to the CDCs what to do. That doesn't work. If you mean a city wide plan in terms of all of the CDCs coming together and making a citywide plan that includes the things that each individual neighborhood needs, then I would support that. Yes, many CDCs don't do their job. But that's not because the system is broken. That particular CDC is. And we do need some consolidation in some areas, but we don't have enough CDCs in others. The Shaker Square/Buckeye area has 2 or 3 CDCs on the one hand while on the other hand South Collinwood/Euclid-Green (where I'm from) has no CDC at all. (North Collinwood has two plus Arts Collinwood, none of whom serve South Collinwood or Euclid-Green) So you have to look at the whole picture from every angle before declaring what they all should do. (As you can probably tell, I've worked with many of these CDCs and understand their inner workings fairly well)

@Mov2Ohio, I agree. I'll tell you one neighborhood I wonder about. I've often wondered why there isn't more upscale retail in Edgewater. I would imagine that they have the demographics to support it, with Edgewater itself, Detroit-Shoreway and the city of Lakewood all in close proximity. I don't know the exact numbers, but I would have to imagine that the demographics are there. The strip mall and old church next to it would be a prime candidate for "Legacy Village-lite" type shopping center and there's a large lot on W. 117th that could be developed as a department store of some kind or even a Whole Foods. The lack of upscale retail in the wealthiest neighborhood in the city of Cleveland has always baffled me. I don't get it. Maybe someone can explain to me why there's no upscale retail in Edgewater.

You do. It's called Kent State. ;) FWIW, I like all the stuff going on at CSU, too. It's a terrific economic engine for downtown. And their's no economic engine quite like Division I football ;). Let's face it, light towers and academics are great--but they don't attract frat boys and their mom's bank accounts ;) No doubt about it