ryanfrazier

I find it interesting that the city of Cleveland is losing people at a slower rate in absolute terms (~2k per year) than the county as a whole (~6k). Presumably that means that the people still in the county are living in more urban parts. I'd guess some older inner ring suburbs are losing in this situation.

Could the Rapid keep running throughout construction if this were to happen?

I'd have to think the southern corner where John Q's was could be made into more pedestrian-friendly, street-facing retail space.

The schematic does seem to show sidewalks (thin green lines) and crosswalks. Currently there are no existing sidewalks for Harper Rd under 422 and the sidewalk dead-ends before you go under the bridge: So while diverging diamonds do generally prioritize cars over pedestrians, in this case the new sidewalks would actually be an improvement. (But only because the existing infrastructure is so anti-pedestrian).

No reference in the article to INTRO, but the NY Times explored the benefits and popularity of wood construction: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/22/business/mass-timber-wood-buildings.html

I think this is looking west

Would putting the R&D on this site and vacating Canal Road eliminate any chance (however small) of a downtown station for the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad?

@KJP, thanks for breaking more positive news. I've got three questions: 1. I presume this is the big news you hinted at in past weeks? 2. Can CSU create a med school and do all the facilities construction we'd like to see on its own? Or does it need authority or funding from the legislature? 3. On the Cannon news, the article notes that the job posting is for Cleveland (Mayfield Village). Is there any other info you can share to demonstrate their plans are bigger than one position?

Big investment by Virginia in passenger rail: https://wtop.com/dc-transit/2019/12/major-amtrak-vre-expansion-set-under-3-7-billion-virginia-csx-deal/

I obviously have no first-hand knowledge of these buildings’ interiors or structural issues, but I think your sentiment could be applied to any of the beautiful buildings in the Warehouse District. I’m glad that people put the effort into preserving and restoring some of those structures. Perhaps if these buildings had been replaced by something better I could I agree with you, but they weren’t.

I had never seen those buildings before, what a mistake in tearing them down.

Is it so hard to build the facade of the building up to the street? If they want this neighborhood to have any liveliness and activity there should be street-level retail. It's not clear to me that this project will have any of that, and it's almost impossible to do with these U-shaped courtyard buildings chopping up the continuity of the street. This is better than the last rendering but that's not saying much.

1. Those two renders don't match up with each other right? Like the Cole Eye Expansion in the top photo isn't depicted in the plan with the New Neurological Institute on bottom. I'm just trying to make sure I'm understanding those pictures. 2. That Cole Expansion continues the Clinic's trend of uninspired architecture. It looks like they just copied and pasted the new Cancer Center building from across the lawn. It makes me wonder if that is more of a massing than an actual design for the building. That Cole render also doesn't seem to match what the Clinic released in the last picture from this press release: https://newsroom.clevelandclinic.org/2019/07/24/cleveland-clinic-to-build-new-neurological-institute-building-expand-cole-eye/

I agree the city shouldn't be sitting on its hands. In my mind the best angle for growth is some focus on vendors selling prepared foods. Across the county there's a trend of developers building food halls where people can select a variety of high-end ready-to-eat food. (In some ways these are just fancy food courts.) These are just attempts to re-create what actually exists at the West SIde Market. Adding some space in the market for seating would be great. And I'm not saying all vendors have to convert to only making prepared food. This just seems like a way to build on the Market's strengths while doing what eaters want.

My issue with this project is that it will make it essentially impossible to move the shoreway away from the shore. I know that's something of a pipedream but it would improve the access to the lake.

This is garbage.

@Geowizical did you make that today, since the livestream? I don't know Sketchup but that seems super quick. And helpful!

This looks feasible, something they can actually start building soon. Looks like they aren't holding out for a big corporate tenant. Any info on whether funding is lined up?

Dammit KJP, why do you have to make me sad all the time with these historic photos?

It was reported in May that the Convention Center needed more space for meeting rooms and was looking at converting space in Public Auditorium: https://www.crainscleveland.com/government/convention-center-aims-ease-space-squeeze Seems to me that converting some or all of the "Global Center" from leased space into meeting rooms would be win-win. It could also be good to more closely integrate that building into the Convention Center as a prominent southern entrance to the Convention Center, closer to the heart of downtown than the north-facing entrance on Lakeside. The Med Mart/Global Center idea was probably worth a shot, especially since its development included a new Convention Center which seems to be working well. But it was an outside-the-box idea that doesn't seem to have taken off.

I hope its successful, and its mostly or entirely private money, so I'm in no position to tell them what to do, but I have a couple points of skepticism. 1. It seems like more space than this operation would need. KJP's article notes that the empty retail space in Tower City will be 3 times bigger than Paris's Station F incubator. I don't see how they fill up all that space. 2. Recent changes that seem to have pushed out retail and eating options in Tower City make the incubator space less attractive. I would think that workers in the incubator would like to have those dining and retail options under the same roof. 3. I'm no tech expert, but isn't part of the value of blockchain that its distributed? And therefore you can have people using it and working on it spread throughout the world? So you don't need people centralized like you would if you were manufacturing something physical. It just seems like a technology that is especially non-conducive to agglomeration effects. That being said, I hope it works!

^^ Interesting stuff, thanks!

Does anyone know about that CCC&IRR train station in that historic map? I'd never heard of that before.

Do you have a year for that top pic of Carnegie and E22nd? Also, is there *anything* in that picture that is still standing?

I don't see this as a "Rube Goldberg tax abatement tool", but a pretty standard Tax Increment Financing deal. Instead of getting a little tax revenue now, the city is getting more later, based on the increased value of this land.