MissinOhio

Then why add to it? It would be nice if some of that new development would actually move south into the city limits of Cincinnati.

I really don't think it's how Ikea would perform in Cleveland, rather how would a Cleveland store effect Columbus and Pittsburgh. With a Columbus store on the North end of that metro, and Pittsburgh store on the north end of that metro, that would put three stores in potentially too close proximity for their liking. And who knows what those stores balance sheets look like. Maybe they're not strong enough to take the blow of Clevelander's gaining their own location. I agree with MissinOhio. Something is very strange when it comes to Cleveland and Ikea. Sure, CLE would impact columbus, Pit, and Detroit sales, but the loss at those three stores would be made up significantly by the huge volume coming from the 3MM local shoppers in the 7-counties surrounding Cleveland. And besides the Columbus (especially) and PIT (i think) are fairly new, so CLE could have been built before those two cities. It is something. Population is stagnant, but still very large (3MM) and bigger than Pit or Columbus. and even though stagnant, spending power has steadily increased over 30 years. So what is it? Cleveland's big bad reputation? That Columbus got a store and Cleveland didn't is a real FU to Cleveland by Ikea. Is that fueling a lack of cooperation or just general disgust from Cleveland towards Ikea? Do some decision makers at Ikea have some personal issues/problems with the city that is affecting their business judgement? Pittsburgh's IKEA has been around since the early 90s I believe. It's located in Robinson Town Centre between the airport and downtown; really nothing special about its location.

I really don't think it's how Ikea would perform in Cleveland, rather how would a Cleveland store effect Columbus and Pittsburgh. With a Columbus store on the North end of that metro, and Pittsburgh store on the north end of that metro, that would put three stores in potentially too close proximity for their liking. And who knows what those stores balance sheets look like. Maybe they're not strong enough to take the blow of Clevelander's gaining their own location. And I have thought about that as well, and you would think it would make some sense until you look at other areas. I know people in the Youngstown area that go to Cleveland more than Pittsburgh just based off the fact that they are in Youngstown's northern suburbs. Plus you have Canton, Akron, and basically the rest of NEO that could do their shopping at IKEA in Cleveland. It's easier for people in Sandusky and Ashtabula to head to Cleveland as well. The other areas I question are Columbus, Cincinnati, and now Indianapolis have their stores. If you have three stores in those locations, Cleveland certainly makes a good point for having their own store. I think Cleveland could easily be a draw for people in Erie, Youngstown and Sandusky. Not to mention NEO's population has been pretty stable over the last couple decades, and NEO seems healthier than Western PA. Just seems strange that so many other cities (and smaller, too) are getting IKEAs. IKEA is not a major deal, but as a younger shopping, it's nice to have some options.

I hate to bring a thread back to life when there's no news, but another Atlanta location was just announced this week for IKEA. So I did a little research and it looks like a location will open in Milwaukee this coming Spring. I think it might be safe to say IKEA may never come to Cleveland. They have been looking for locations in Cleveland for 12 years, but nothing has come to fruition in that time. There are multiple sites in Cleveland they can go after. I wonder what makes Cleveland an outlier to IKEA? A bad economy? Declining population? Just seems odd.

I did read a recent article last month that was mentioning Skyhouse was going to start construction in December. But outside of that article which was talking about the Oakley Stadium site, nothing has been mentioned really since this thing was brought back to life. Seems development has been dramatically slow in Cincinnati.

I saw a tweet earlier today about the MLS picking Nashville where they plan to build a stadium on the fairgrounds outside of downtown. This person went on to wonder why you plan to move the Crew because the MLS' reason was because their stadium was at the fairgrounds outside of downtown. So let's just assume Sacramento gets their team, the MLS moves the Crew, and Cincinnati is not selected. Screw the MLS, they are already looking terrible moving into expansion mode.

I am creating this thread because I want to talk about the different neighborhoods that exist in Cleveland, and their overall health. If there is another thread similar to this, please move it there. But I guess I am questioning the constant negativity Cleveland seems to get from outsiders who try to paint it as Detroit when it comes to abandonment. Maybe it's just me, but Cleveland seems to have a pretty good density of housing that exists all over the city outside of areas like Hough, Fairfax and Kinsman (and even though a lot of it is new public housing, Central too). Yes, there are areas with abandoned houses that line the streets, but it doesn't seem to have gone all urban prairie like large sections of Detroit have or the northside of St. Louis outside of the 3 or 4 neighborhoods I just mentioned. It seems like there are dense neighborhoods with a consistent batch of houses down almost all streets in places like Lee-Miles, Corlett, Mount Pleasant, Buckeye-Shaker (bascially SE Cleveland) and neighborhoods closer to the lake in NE Cleveland. This doesn't include much of the westside neighborhoods that have the consistent density down most of their streets. A lot of these are struggling working class neighborhoods, but with movements popping up with moving back into the city, it seems like Cleveland already has housing stock in place to accommodate newcomers. What are places like Old Brooklyn, Kamm's Corners, Jefferson and West Boulevard like? Will Clark-Fulton start to experience a Detroit-Shoreway comeback?

Thank you. I kept refreshing my email and entering my user name on UO thinking I wasn't going to be able to get back on. So check your spam folders if you have gmail, I had four messages from UO there! Nice to have the site back up and running, especially since SSP doesn't have many Ohio forumers.

It's not about the height as much as it is the site size, and the constraints of staging a crane, and being able to boom out. If you rememebr, Stonebridge in Cleveland was 12 stories, but was still able to go without a tower crane. There was plenty of room to move a crane around and boom. You could have a super tight site however with building on either side that require a crane to be above the site versus on it. Snavely project on 25th and Detroit had to be darn close to needing a tower crane as the utilized that whole site. Site constraints are what I believe it comes down to. Most of the Columbus sites are right on High Street, which is their main thoroughfare and right in the dense university district and busy downtown area. And for this reason I give Cleveland all the credit in the world for the flowering and exciting CSU campus district. Unlike Short North and University District, Columbus is the near 150-year old home to internationally-renowned OSU which has 58,000 students who have historically been residential. Cleveland/CSU created something out of pretty much nothing. Until only a decade or so ago, CSU was a cold, concrete commuter-student jungle. It was a dead zone of fast foods and honky-tonk rip-off joints not really catering to students immediately after Playhouse Square. Those converted mixed-use apt/retail buildings a decade ago at 1900 Euclid was a start... Now it is a lush residential college town of green grass, lots of budding student apartments and dorms and bright, increasingly lively commercial district of old and new mixed use buildings. The movement between PHS and CSU is becoming almost seamless (save the gaudy archway screaming Playhouse Square). The Edge is already up and running and soon (X your fingers) we'll have the 32-story PHS apt tower which will further spill over into Campus District... It's all good! It amazes me to see the transformation at CSU from when I was a freshmen there in 2010. We had the annual Ohio Land Bank conference at the Wyndham (Crowne Plaza) last week and I took a walk that way just to check out the changes I knew occurred. It was packed, pedestrian activity everywhere, and not just from classes letting out. The places that have filled in along Euclid and the added density that is taking place, it was so nice to see. It's obviously not just Euclid as Chester has changed so much as well with student housing and eateries and the new engineering building, and it seems like Chester is about to see a lot more growth. I remember we would always head down to University Circle to that former Mexican restaurant that is now a 5-story? apartment building, and it's hard to think in just 6 or 7 years it was all just massive surface parking lots along the Healthline stops in Uptown, but that's discussion for another area and another thread. Walking back to the hotel it was nice to see continual activity from CSU, PHS, all the way down to 9th.

I like this shot. The height of the crane gives you somewhat of an idea of what the street presence of the building will be.

Answer this... Have you not been paying attention nationally to how every city that meets the requirements of "1 million or more people will be considered" has acted in the past week? I mean every urban internet forum is full of crazy chamber of commerce speeches why their respective city will be the best. Cincinnati's CD forum has given me a good laugh. From Milwaukee to Buffalo, everyone has a reason why their city fits the bill. It's not just Cleveland, no matter how hard you try to make it out to be. It will most likely be a larger city with good transit, cheap, and home to a large talent pool. Although there was a report out today that said the executives at Amazon really want it in Boston.

Yes, I most certainly did read it. And yes, I most certainly do pick out the portions I find fault with to comment on it. I also note that you have a tradition of finding fault with just about everything Ohio does, even when it does the right thing. No actually I don't. I have proudly defended Ohio, and still do on many websites. Just because I have posted here about Ohio's job numbers, I get chastised as not finding the positives in Ohio. I just don't get the crazy boosterism of certain Cleveland posters.

Exactly. This puts doubts in lenders, tenants and everything else connected to nuCLEus. Some people can't see the bigger picture. Lenders have been doubting NuCLEus from the beginning. Where have you people been? You're grasping for something that isn't even there. This puts even MORE doubts in their eyes. This isn't a grasp, it's a fact. No, it's a grasp. Benesch committed well before a Q reno was brought up. So was Live!. A renovated Q was just another benefit, and because it doesn't look so rosy, everything else is doomed. When you guys decide to leave your stratosphere of logic and come back down to Earth, we can have a discussion. Otherwise, NuCLEus is all on Stark. Yeah, that makes you feel so much better doesn't it? When someone lets their emotions control their thought process w/out having even a basic understanding of the economics at play, you get responses like this. And no, it doesn't make me "feel" one way or another. Are you angry then? You can't tell emotion over an internet forum. You do not know me, so don't tell me what I do and don't understand. The economics at play for NuCLEus were in line well before any Q renovation started. Keep trying. I don't need to know you personally to know you don't understand how financing and economics work. Your posts prove it. You're post have proven nothing on how this renovated Q will help NuCLEus. You don't know me, so again, don't tell me what I know and don't know. You're still failing to inform us of how the financing will magically make NuCLEus happen. The major commitments were there. Stark is the one at the helm here. Lenders aren't as likely to take a risk on this project w/out knowing the future of the Q and the millions of people who visit it each year. Again, the lenders have been skeptical from the very beginning on NuCLEus. Even when others committed to this project, Stark still couldn't get things moving. Just because a renovated arena next door may or may not happen, doesn't mean this skyscraper will or won't be built.

No one is saying it's going to kill nuCLEus. However, it does hurt it's chances of happening. Get it? How? Obviously you don't get it. Stark has the say here, not a renovated Q.

Exactly. This puts doubts in lenders, tenants and everything else connected to nuCLEus. Some people can't see the bigger picture. Lenders have been doubting NuCLEus from the beginning. Where have you people been? You're grasping for something that isn't even there. This puts even MORE doubts in their eyes. This isn't a grasp, it's a fact. No, it's a grasp. Benesch committed well before a Q reno was brought up. So was Live!. A renovated Q was just another benefit, and because it doesn't look so rosy, everything else is doomed. When you guys decide to leave your stratosphere of logic and come back down to Earth, we can have a discussion. Otherwise, NuCLEus is all on Stark. Yeah, that makes you feel so much better doesn't it? When someone lets their emotions control their thought process w/out having even a basic understanding of the economics at play, you get responses like this. And no, it doesn't make me "feel" one way or another. Are you angry then? You can't tell emotion over an internet forum. You do not know me, so don't tell me what I do and don't understand. The economics at play for NuCLEus were in line well before any Q renovation started. Keep trying. I don't need to know you personally to know you don't understand how financing and economics work. Your posts prove it. You're post have proven nothing on how this renovated Q will help NuCLEus. You don't know me, so again, don't tell me what I know and don't know. You're still failing to inform us of how the financing will magically make NuCLEus happen. The major commitments were there. Stark is the one at the helm here.

Absolutely not! But this deal was negotiated in good faith with Gilbert. He has learned that small forces of loudmouths can sink it. So how willing do you think he'll be the next time around to make the same offer? Those small forces that went to Detroit to protest were not doing themselves any good. This is all political. The people who think that this takes away from investment in the neighborhoods don't get it either. Look at what Dan Gilbert has done for Detroit. He can certainly do more for Cleveland. Investing in some basketball courts and recreational centers? Not even close. I think Cleveland deserves better deals. I am not against this renovation, but Cleveland has been left out to dry too many times. In fairness Gilbert is from Detroit so it makes sense he invests more there. You want to tie the Cavs to investing in Cleveland more OK I won't argue that. But then we should also ask those folks sitting up on the Heights plateau and beyond looking down on Cleveland to invest more in the city like Gilbert is in Detroit instead of sitting on their hands in Gates Mills or Shaker. Oh I most certainly agree. I even said I understand Dan Gilbert's passion for investing in his home city earlier. But they're not asking for money to renovate the Q. Other projects, we need to start getting on them about. This one is about the arena.

Exactly. This puts doubts in lenders, tenants and everything else connected to nuCLEus. Some people can't see the bigger picture. Lenders have been doubting NuCLEus from the beginning. Where have you people been? You're grasping for something that isn't even there. This puts even MORE doubts in their eyes. This isn't a grasp, it's a fact. No, it's a grasp. Benesch committed well before a Q reno was brought up. So was Live!. A renovated Q was just another benefit, and because it doesn't look so rosy, everything else is doomed. When you guys decide to leave your stratosphere of logic and come back down to Earth, we can have a discussion. Otherwise, NuCLEus is all on Stark. Yeah, that makes you feel so much better doesn't it?

Absolutely not! But this deal was negotiated in good faith with Gilbert. He has learned that small forces of loudmouths can sink it. So how willing do you think he'll be the next time around to make the same offer? Those small forces that went to Detroit to protest were not doing themselves any good. This is all political. The people who think that this takes away from investment in the neighborhoods don't get it either. Look at what Dan Gilbert has done for Detroit. He can certainly do more for Cleveland. Investing in some basketball courts and recreational centers? Not even close. I think Cleveland deserves better deals. I am not against this renovation, but Cleveland has been left out to dry too many times.

Exactly. This puts doubts in lenders, tenants and everything else connected to nuCLEus. Some people can't see the bigger picture. Lenders have been doubting NuCLEus from the beginning. Where have you people been? You're grasping for something that isn't even there.

I agree, Cleveland should pay. I think a renovated Q will be great. Not that the Q is bad right now, and no one was really complaining last year when it held a major event. But it's nice to have new things, right? Invest in it, Cleveland. At the same time, I think the owner should do more. There are a lot of bad stadium deals around the country, and I think Cleveland needs to be smart about this one. With what Dan Gilbert has done in Detroit, he can certainly do more for one arena rehab. As we type on this forum now, Dan Gilbert has gone from paying for 1/2 of this out of his pocket, plus renovating a bunch of community centers with new basketball courts, to paying $0.00 and not doing a thing. IMO if the negotiations restart eventually, his deal is going to get worse because he will be in the drivers seat. Cleveland should continue to settle then?

The thing hasn't even broken ground. Please tell me how the Q relates to NuCLEus.

I agree, Cleveland should pay. I think a renovated Q will be great. Not that the Q is bad right now, and no one was really complaining last year when it held a major event. But it's nice to have new things, right? Invest in it, Cleveland. At the same time, I think the owner should do more. There are a lot of bad stadium deals around the country, and I think Cleveland needs to be smart about this one. With what Dan Gilbert has done in Detroit, he can certainly do more for one arena rehab.

If you honestly believe that public, capital investment in the home of an NBA franchise is a bad investment idea then you can't see the forest through the trees. Please, cite one city that has suffered economically as a result of capital improvements to an NBA arena. This ISN'T MedicalMart. Equating all public financing is not an accurate reflection of this. Allowing the emotions of "but this is public money" to cloud what this will do to the local economy isn't an astute decision. Ask yourself, are these things now MORE likely to happen: - NBA All-star game - NuCLEus - Major concert commitments - NCAA Tournament bids - MAC Tournament contract extension - Conventions with required arena access But hey, public dollars have been improperly spent in the past, so to hell with it. Seriously? NuCLEus has nothing to do with a renovated Q. Stark's record on building anything like he says he will is shamefully bad. NuCLEus is not going to happen with a renovated Q or in its current state. Try again. A renovated Q does help make nuCLEus more equitable. There has been no evidence to support this. You can tell me all of what NuCLEus has like shops, a hotel, and restaurants, but that all depends on Stark actually getting his act together and building the thing. Wishful thinking.

KJP, did you read any of my posts, or do you just pick and pull out of it what you want? I didn't say the Foxconn deal was a good one. But if you look at the investment that is happening in rival states around Ohio, it's been much better. The jobs numbers over the last couple of years speak volumes.

Great. Why shouldn't they stay in Cleveland? They had great internships with UH and the Clinic. Maybe that's striving for too much. Come to school here, but leave when you're done.