ryanfrazier

Everyone on this site knows the value and integrity of @KJP's work, so I'm preaching to the choir here, but I think the most pathetic part of Chris Quinn's piece was this: "We have a lot of facts that fly in the face of this story...We know that Jimmy Haslam himself said less than a year ago: 'Having the stadium down there seems to be in everybody’s best interest.'" Oh, Jimmy Haslam himself said that? Then it must be true. Powerful people never say one thing and do another. Is this what PD journalists are supposed to do, unquestionably accept public statements? The whole piece was whiny but this particular line was the most sycophantic.

I don't know what you mean by expanded RTA. More rail lines? More bus routes? Those things are good regardless of the stadium but don't seem to be in the budget at the moment. But a lot of people drive for the tailgating experience. And you've still got a massive structure for 10 days a year.

Because a football stadium is the least-urban type of structure there is. It's huge, needs a lot of surface parking, and is only used 10 days a year. The other 355 days its not an asset its a liability. That lakefront land can be put to a better use, a more lively, urban neighborhood.

You're describing your preferred experience as a fan, which is different than what's best for the city. I have no idea what the fan experience would be like at a new Brook Park stadium. But Cleveland would be more vibrant with 10,000 people living, working, and shopping on this site 365 days a year than having 60,000 people visit ten days a year. Also, its just not the case that there are miles of undeveloped lakefront land, and certainly none so close and walkable to the existing downtown core.

If the lakefront site were to remain unused that would be a terrible outcome, but that's something local policy makers can control. The comparison to DC doesn't really hold up because the RFK land is owned by the federal government and by law has to be used for an athletic facility or recreation. Local government can't redevelop it however they choose. But most likely it'll end up being the site of a new stadium in a few years.

This is good news for the city of Cleveland. The city's better off with that lakefront land as a 24/7 mixed use neighborhood than a giant structure used 10 days a year.

Seems like a bad idea for Key to go after NY Community Bank. NYCB's problem is that its saddled with bad commercial real estate loans. That's already a concern for Key and the last thing they want to double down on. If Key were to make some acquisition, more geographic and business line diversity would be better.

For comparison, here's the existing frontage on MLK. This new building is a big improvement. Building on that strip of parking lot along MLK creates a much stronger connection to the surrounding neighborhood.

The tone of this comment seems excessively harsh, I didn't read @coneflower's comment as NIMBY-ish.

In 2019 the DOD Inspector General did a report specifically on TransDigm and found that a normal profit margin would be 15% but they were able to have some profit margins on parts over 4,000%. Apparently they were able to do this while following the regulations. It seems like TransDigm's business model is to find legal ways to have the highest profit margins on parts, including being the single source for such parts. It's working for them as the company has grown dramatically. https://media.defense.gov/2019/Feb/27/2002093922/-1/-1/1/DODIG-2019-060.PDF

Cleveland's TransDigm used as an example of defense contractors overbilling the government on NPR's Indicator podcast: https://www.npr.org/2024/01/29/1197961492/are-we-overpaying-for-military-equipment Meanwhile, TransDigm's general counsel got paid $11 million last year: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and-practice/defense-supplier-transdigm-gives-legal-chief-11-million-package

Thanks for pointing this out! I feel like the old 3d imaging was at least 5 years old. A lot has changed. Someone could pinpoint the exact date of the scan with the SHW tower progress. Anybody know if the old 3d renders are still accessible? (Is there a forum category for discussing maps of the city?)

I grew up in NE Ohio and now live in Alexandria, one mile from Potomac Yards. I think the regions are so different that its impossible to draw parallels that would apply to the Browns' stadium. Alexandria is not a suburb to DC the way municipalities surrounding Cleveland are. Its population density of 10,000 people per square mile is almost exactly the same as DC's (cite), and twice as dense than the city of Cleveland (cite). There's far less transit in Cleveland suburbs to support a stadium. (That being said, there's going to be a lot more vehicle traffic in Alexandria, which I'm not happy about.) Notably Potomac Yard was proposed as a site for a football stadium 15 years ago but shot down. A basketball arena is a better fit and more urban use, for a few reasons: 1) smaller, 2) less need for surface parking, 3) used all year round as opposed to 10 days a year. These differences are another reason its hard to compare with a Browns stadium site. The closest parallel of an available site I can think of in Greater Cleveland is the former Brook Park auto plant. (I think the Browns should move there so a real neighborhood can be built on the waterfront). Ultimately Ted Leonsis is moving to Alexandria because Governor Younkin gave him a better deal that DC, and the Governor wants something to show for his administration. The fact that there are three state-level jurisdictions here means sports owners can play them off each other. Thankfully that's not the case in Cleveland, but there is too much balkanization between municipalities.

If the new HQ2 building fills up, a tower on the block facing Public Square would be nice.

This is one situation where I think the pedestrian bridge gerbil tube is appropriate. The only way the underwhelming two story building on Public Square would be worse is if there were multiple levels of garage parking on top of it.

I also think the best location for a new courthouse tower would be on the site of the existing jails, but the county's dithering over a new jail location makes that nearly impossible. I don't see a private developer taking on the obligation of building on the site of the existing jails while there's uncertainty about when the premises will be vacated for construction to start. Especially in an era of high interest rates, which make delay very expensive.

My bet is we end up with a new courthouse tower along the Tower City Riverfront.

You see that view used in a lot of national sports broadcasts as an establishing shot for the city and it never occurred to me until now that SW could have been thinking about getting free advertising into those shots.

Reducing reliance on cars and having a mix of different uses are two very good goals; those are two tenets of good urbanism. The problem is that a football stadium doesn't fit well into that paradigm. The healthiest, most cost-effective transit is used on a regular, daily basis. A stadium is used 8-10 days a year. So its hard to build transit at the levels necessary for those high-usage short bursts. Football stadiums also lend themselves to large parking lots. There are a few reasons for that including that people come from areas that aren't served by transit, people like to tailgate, and the aforementioned difficulty quickly ramping up train service. So a football stadium downtown is going to be surrounded by parking lots, which directly conflicts with urbanist goals. Because a football stadium itself is big, and also surrounded by big parking lots, its just a geographically large footprint. This makes it difficult to bunch varied uses together on a walkable scale, which is what cities are all about. So I agree with your objective of clustering varying uses in close proximity; a football stadium is not the best way to do it. The Browns stadium is on the lakefront because that was the land use decision made a hundred years ago, then 25 years ago it was the easiest place to build on quickly. The best place for a stadium in the 21st century is not on the lakefront and the best use of the lakefront is not a stadium. We shouldn't let the inertia of a decision a hundred years ago dictate where the stadium is now. I think it should be moved off the lakefront so that a mix of uses can go in its place.

Riverfront planner Sir David Adjaye accused of sexual misconduct: https://www.ft.com/content/1a03a13c-a0b3-41c9-9a7b-702719ac6d58

If they're trying to improve the pedestrian and bike connectivity over I-90, and they're not doing a real cap, they should at least leave the existing Cedar Avenue overpass as a pedestrian/bike path. I'm sure they can put some greenery on there as well.

Hold up, is this what the sign for the coffee place actually looks like? With the panels obviously in the wrong order so the sign is misspelled? Or was this a joke photoshop that flew over my head? (The red lines and arrows I drew on the picture came through very faintly)

I like it. The retractable raptors for special events bring us one step closer to uniting the whole square together. Any images of the non-raptor bollards that will be lining Superior? Bike sharrows are usually pretty worthless (https://macwright.com/2020/12/04/sharrows.html) but in a context where Superior is bus-only inside the square, bike riders won't have to compete with as many vehicles so the sharrows should be fine.

"frankly, that land bridge just looks like a big lawn/mall extending down towards the lake with pretty landscaping (and the new modern buildings)". Yes. Good. These are all good things. We should have them in Cleveland. More urban greenspace is good. More pedestrian connectivity to the lakefront is good. More buildings with active uses on the Mall are good. Replacing surface parking lots with parking covered by usable greenspace is good. Great cities have great public spaces and we should build more of them in Cleveland. On the point of winter weather, other people have also raised this issue. It's a common argument that has existed in the background of development decisions in Cleveland for years. Its at least part of the reason why there are few high rise balconies and outdoor restaurant seating options in the city. These are decisions that cut against the vibrancy of an urban environment. Plenty of cities (Chicago, Toronto, Boston) also experience winter, yet they do not take such self-defeating decisions to avoid using outdoor space. By limiting our built environment to shielding from the worst conditions, we foreclose ourselves from enjoying the best. Walking down to the waterfront on a spring or summer day would be a joyous experience. You could even use the space in winter - it would be a great place for sledding or snowball fights. Winter occurs in Cleveland, there's no way around that fact, but we shouldn't use that as an excuse to avoid making the city better.

It’s simply not true that the whole project is driven by the Haslams. Connectivity to the lakefront has been discussed as one of Cleveland’s planning weaknesses for decades. There have been several prior proposals for land bridges over the years. The difference now with the Haslams is there is a stakeholder with a financial interest in helping this long-discussed public project finally get built. The stars also align with availability of federal and state funding. If leaders fail to build this connection to the region’s greatest asset, the lake, it would be malpractice.