blinker12

It's weird to me that Zaremba's talking about an artists' colony on E. 12th Street. All along, this development has been marketed as a "quiet residential neighborhood" for empty nesters and professionals. And though the prices are hardly exorbitant, I don't see them being affordable for most artists.

^^^The existing Cleveland gayborhood already extends into Cleveland proper (the Edgewater neighborhood). In fact, all the bars (Twist, Club Deco, the Eagle) and the gay coffee shop (Truffles) are in the city. But the Arts District would be a logical expansion to the east!

^It must be the water plant. Thanks for the correction. How is this getting no attention?? A couple photos of the plant can be seen here: http://www.clevelandwater.com/community_relations/history.html#morgan_plant As for the big building near West Boulevard, that's the Trinity building and it's on the chopping block. The land is being cleared as part of the city's industrial land bank program, and you can find more information about it in the "Industrial Land Bank" thread. While I don't support this demolition either, I understand there is at least a new use lined up for the land.

Think there's a chance you're selectively listening, Vulpster? :roll: Everyone I know is thrilled about the ban and can't wait for it to become reliably and uniformly enforced.

Driving on the Shoreway the other day, I looked down -- as is my custom -- at the beautiful old salt mine building to the west of the Port, north of the highway. I was horrified to see what appeared to be the beginning of demolition on at least two sections of the building. Does anyone have more information??? This would indeed be an outrage.

^^First, this article belongs in the East Bank thread -- where it's already been posted, incidentally. Second, I agree that we demolish way too much, and there are a couple of buildings at Wolstein's site that are worth saving. But the ones in question here are mostly godawful. They are wooden shacks built right on the riverbank, and they aren't historic. They're just sleazy, vacant bars.

I suppose there's no chance in hell the redevelopment will be pedestrian-oriented? West 65th rezoned Change will allow for a shopping center to be built Thursday, December 14, 2006 By David Plata West Side Sun News A redevelopment of a stretch of West 65th Street in the Stockyards area, possibly including construction of a grocery store, is a step closer. City Council on Monday rezoned the west side of the street, extending from Storer Avenue to the north and including the Kmart Plaza and Big Lots Plaza, from general retail to shopping center district. The rezoning grandfathers in McMahan's Wrecking, an auto junkyard at the northwest corner of West 65th and Storer. Other businesses on West 65th, including the White Elephant used furniture store, Travel Rite and Benson Trucking, have sold their properties or moved out. Councilman Matt Zone, in whose ward the area is located, said a study to be completed by February or March will make recommendations on how to redevelop the area. "What the study is recommending is that that location be developed commercially," said Zone, D-17. The plan could include construction of a grocery store, he said. Coming sometime soon, Zone said, Kmart is planning a $3 million interior and exterior upgrading of its store. Zone said a developer is in discussion with the city about plans for the area, possibly including financial aid, but he declined to identify the firm as premature. The study is being done by the Stockyard Redevelopment Organization, Westside Industrial Retention and Expansion Network and the Kent State University Urban Design Center. Zone and Al Brazynetz, director of the Stockyard group, have said the study estimates it would cost at least $8.5 million to assemble a 15-acre site for a redevelopment project. The city school district at one time also sought to assemble a 15-acre site, including the junkyard, for construction of a new high school. However, school officials later scrapped that idea, and instead plan to build a new school further north, off West 65th and Clark Avenue.

^^You can see the Wellington stuff being built from I-90. They look pretty far along. FYI, the location isn't really anywhere near the Arts District.

Yeah, my understanding is that the money is available to people who ask for it... so homeownership loans, etc. They have a brochure with more info -- I've seen it at various meetings. They're calling it the "UPtown Initiative" (complete with awkward caps). It's not being used for any "megaprojects" that I know of.

^^Is that the project Coral is doing? I heard Peter Rubin is considering building the townhouses green, which would be super cool.

^^Who wrote that article?

Re: MayDay -- Oops! Re: Clinic windows -- Oops!

Just heard today that Tesco completely folded. That's why the Mueller project died. Several other developers are working with banks to take over the project, and due to strong pre-sales it looks like a slam dunk.

Stark was on WCPN this morning in a taped interview talking about the "Decline of an American City" documentary. I didn't hear his whole spot but loved when he got annoyed with interviewer Dan Malthrope for being too negative about Cleveland's future. Stark admonished him in his closing words to "Always be positive about Cleveland." I couldn't help but respond with a quick "Loves it." Podcast: http://www.wcpn.org/podcast/audio/2006/12/1211soi.mp3

They're breaking ground on both sites. Site 3 is actually farther along than Site 1 at this point.

MGD, it seems like we usually hear there is a stronger market for condos than rentals in C-town (at least for market-rate stuff). So it seems unlikely a rental building would do better than condos. I'm not sure exactly why Tesco pulled out -- if the pre-sales figure cited above is accurate, that would seem to be enough to go forward.

This will include the infamous "Beach" at Ford and Euclid, right?

^^^That is correct re: Mueller. First Tesco handed marketing over to PURE after unsuccesfully attempting to sell the units itself; then it decided to give up on the project altogether. People who bought pre-sale units are being told that the project is dormant while St. Clair Superior CDC looks for another developer. They have the option of taking their down-payment back or keeping it in PURE's coffers in the hope that another developer will come along.

Most newer suburbs have zoning like that. In Geauga County (e.g. Bainbridge), they require even larger lot sizes, something like 3 acres. It's how they keep poor people out -- blatant classism, IMO.

is that the hot dog stand? no, the place i'm talking about is across the street, and has been long defunct.

I heard a rumor that CSU was trying to get Kent State's architecture program to move in there. But that would be a long way off. Don't know what's going on with the machinery. Musky?

I'm very interested to hear that the buildings at 41st and Lorain sold. I toured them a few months ago and they were in very bad shape. Actually the best interior was the wood building right on the corner, which had a fairly intact, 1950s-era diner inside. Were the renderings presented at a block club meeting?

No -- that's the Tastebuds building, 1400 E. 30th.

^^One of many reasons some of Cleveland's live-work loft conversions are illegal in the eyes of the state (e.g. the Tastebuds building, Artcraft) is that parking is generally not provided. State building code requires something like 1.5 spaces for each residential unit. You start to understand why every new project has to have a huge amount of parking included. So actually this may be more of a state issue than a city issue, despite what I said above. I'm not very well-versed on this though; anyone know the exact details of parking requirements, particularly downtown?

At the least, it seems a deal could be worked out with an existing garage to provide parking for Park Building tenants who wanted it. This is less the developer's fault than the city's, though. I believe code calls for a certain amount of parking per residential unit. It's time we started realizing that people, not buildings, create demand for parking.