inlovewithCLE

I totally agree. That's how I look at it, personally. I want Cleveland to be competitive, not only with cities like Chicago but also suburbs in our area. (I'd actually prefer if Northeast Ohio would all work together but if that's not going to happen, then the city needs to compete). Whatever it takes to get people working, living, eating, or enjoying entertainment options in the city, do it. Plus, I think our market is big enough to sustain it. If I had to predict, what I think would happen is that as the Casino grows and attracts more outside visitors, the restaurants that prop up around it will most likely be too "touristy" for the locals, who will likely stick with East 4th Street. That tends to be the case in other cities that have a homegrown and tourist population.

Has there been any developers with any plans to build according to the plan? I don't expect homes for purchase because the market is so bad, but this has to be a great area for upscale rental, wouldn't it? I'm actually quite surprised that one of the most affluent neighborhoods in the city hasn't seen much more new developments over the last couple of years. Is that because the neighborhood is affluent and doesn't need as much as other neighborhoods or has it just been because of a lack of focus or lack of desire by developers?

Has there been any movement on this plan?

I was on Euclid Ave today and I noticed what looked like some preliminary construction on a big vacant building across the street from Lake View Cemetary, on the Cleveland/East Cleveland border. Anybody know anything about this?

Say it ain't so.... I HATE HATE HATE firestone! I wish we could have gotten housing on the sidewalk. West 117th sure is becoming an ugly, traffic-clogged street with all these auto-centric, single-use buildings. You have to admit, Firestone IS an upgrade over JD Byrider though. lol. I'm in that area a lot and I thought it would be great if we could get some new housing. But where would it go? Maybe where that vacant church is at. A few townhomes or townhome-style apartments (since the housing market is still in the tank) could possibly go there.

Hey, has anyone heard any updates with the Browns' lakefront plan? It looked pretty good and football oriented development has worked in other cities before. I'm curious to see if any of it has moved forward at all.

Thanks for the list of departments. I was planning on doing the same thing when I got home but now I don't have to worry about it. :wink: But so looking at these, even if you take away ALL of the ones where you have "unlikely to relocate" written, that's still a big chunk of people. That would have to be at least half of the 8,000 people workforce. So either way its cut, the County is going to need a ton of space, which could be a good thing for downtown if they either take a building like the old Huntington Building (although I'd prefer if that became apartments since we have a shortage downtown and waiting lists all over the place) or tie their office needs with economic development and have a developer build not just some static office for government (that's the last thing we need) but something that also includes stores, restaurants, etc. which was the original plan for county government's relocation in the first place. I'd actually prefer that, if the county went the development route, that they didn't own the building at all and just had a 10 or 20 year (or however long they deemed necessary) lease on the building. Other than places of historical significance like City Hall, I've never been a fan of governments being real estate owners. It costs too much money and in most cases, other than the exception I mentioned, its unnecessary, So whatever they do, I hope they just work with a developer and don't buy a building. And its funny you mention the County Airport as "unlikely to relocate", lol. I don't know how far along they are in the process or what the steps are, but I do remember that late last year the county and the city began exploring the possibility of merging their airports together and having one unified airport at Burke. So even the airport may very well "relocate". lol 8-) Oh and KJP, what do you think will happen to the County Council? I've been in the council chambers in the Justice Center. It is extremely small and crowded. I'd have to believe that any new building would include new council chambers and offices, no? I doubt they stay at the Justice Center.

Thanks! 8-) But you gotta believe though that at least most of those employees would end up coming downtown. There's no way they wouldn't bring half of those employees (at the very least) downtown when they own or lease around 50 properties(!). I think just for consolidation's sake that most of those employees will end up downtown, whether they necessarily need to be in a downtown office or not. The key thing that Ed Fitzgerald said was that they wanted to become user friendly and give people who need to do business with the county the ability to do all of their county business from one location. That says to me that most of these employees are headed downtown.

400,000 sf would be too much for 1,000 employees, even with the common areas you described. A good rule of thumb is to add 15% to usable square feet to get rentable square feet which will account for common areas. I'd say it should be under 250,000 sf. Side note - I believe 200 Public Square has the highest factor in Cleveland to convert useable to rentable. They are over 20%. Hello everyone! I'm new here, but I just wanted to say that this site is fantastic and its wonderful to be able to read and have intelligent conversation about the future of CLE. Now, as to the topic, I think your numbers as far as county employees may be a little off, my friend. According to a Crain's Cleveland Business article that came out this week, County Goverment does not employ 1,000 people. It actually employs 8,000 people. That's a gamechanger as far as their office space needs. "The county employs about 8,000 people and owns or leases space at about 50 different locations countywide. County offices are spread throughout downtown Cleveland." http://www.crainscleveland.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110809/FREE/110809834