Mendo

Cleveland just approved a TIF for the non-school portion of the property taxes. The project is supposed to be under construction late October. I know they've been working in there since the Spring. I guess it wasn't clear the extent of what was happening. http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2017/09/cleveland_city_council_clears.html

That's been the pattern here for a while now hasn't it? Cleveland lags behind in the booms and leads in the busts? That was certainly the case in the run-up to the last recession, and before that the dot-com era.

The parking garage has always had commercial storefronts. The Potbelly sandwich shop has been open for years. The other spaces are going to be a Hecks Cafe and some other restaurant. Those latter spaces were previously office space for a construction firm (Welty) and an office furniture company (an affiliate of Welty) also for years.

I'm in DC for the weekend. The number of cranes in the air is crazy. Enough to give YABO713 a priapism.

I don't consider the cle.com article any more misleading than your assertion that the CMSD would get $56 million up front. They would get $18 million from Stark, the rest is taxpayer money. Moreover we've yet to see any comment from the state indicating they could or would put up the matching funds. The most likely scenario is that the state draws from the money earmarked for future school construction to match Stark's contribution. Instead of getting the state funding some years down the road they get it now. Read: Not "in addition to", but "instead of". The end result is CMSD gets $18 mil plus whatever they would have gotten anyway, not $56 or whatever.

That New York game doesn't show on their record as a tie. It was replayed from scratch as a new game, which the Giants won. The record is 26 wins in a row - no asterisks.

The new facade is only on that side. That is the reason that one angle is shown in all of the renderings.

Welty moved their offices last year to the former Sammy's place on W.10th in the flats.

I love the positivity, but landing a tourism destination like the Rock Hall just requires political glad-handing. Amazon is going to get billions in direct subsidies from the state, county, and city. And probably billions more indirectly for local infrastructure and education. And that assumes your metro meets their other requirements, like transit and economic growth.

I was just thinking how nice it would be to have the 3-C rail line connecting the major cities in Ohio. Would it increase the odds of Amazon coming to Ohio? Perhaps, when you have contractors and other software companies all just a rail trip away. The HQ in any of the 3 cities would benefit the entire state.

Nice work Ken. I would rather Gilbert use the tax credits to complete the residential conversion of the May Company building. Then Amazon would locate phase 1 in the Post Office Plaza now owned by K&D. It is just shy of 500,000 sqft, has better connectivity to the Tower City complex and is across the street from the Weston lots. And K&D already indicated they plan to keep it as office space.

The proposal would have to get commitments from the fewest number of property owners covering the largest contiguous area. That would be difficult in downtown proper in all but a couple locations. I don't like the idea of giving up Burke as it would be a unique selling point to connect the two headquarters. Though Burke staying put could make it difficult to build tall enough north of Browns stadium or the Muni lots.

How many east coast cities have the land and infrastructure available? The RFP said the first phase would be around 500,000 sqft of office space, with up to 8 million sqft over 10 years. Ironically if Amazon prefers urban areas over greenfield, most Midwest rust-belt cities would have more and cheaper development ready land. Cleveland has several huge areas downtown that are ripe for infill: (1) 20 acres north of Browns stadium, owned by the city, under site control by Cumberland/Tramell Crow. (2) 8 acres of mostly contiguous surface parking in Warehouse Disctrict owned by Weston, plus several more acres under control of few owners, like Stark. (3) 50 acres of brownfield on Scranton Peninsula under control of two owners -- Scranton Averell Trust, and now EWAT Holdings. Plus numerous acres east across the river that was just sold earlier this year. (4) Unknown # of acres along future Opportunity Corridor road. Though this might be difficult due to the number of property owners.

Anybody interested in redirecting the Cleveland-specific talk about Amazon HQ2 here? Maybe discussing the merits of various locations. Might be fun to fantasize for a minute. The RFP: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/G/01/Anything/test/images/usa/RFP_3._V516043504_.pdf Article from CNN:

How many east coast cities have the land and infrastructure available? The RFP said the first phase would be around 500,000 sqft of office space, with up to 8 million sqft over 10 years. Ironically if Amazon prefers urban areas over greenfield, most Midwest rust-belt cities would have more and cheaper development ready land. Cleveland has several huge areas downtown that are ripe for infill: (1) 20 acres north of Browns stadium, owned by the city, under site control by Cumberland/Tramell Crow. (2) 8 acres of mostly contiguous surface parking in Warehouse Disctrict owned by Weston, plus several more acres under control of few owners, like Stark. (3) 50 acres of brownfield on Scranton Peninsula under control of two owners -- Scranton Averell Trust, and now EWAT Holdings. Plus numerous acres east across the river that was just sold earlier this year. (4) Unknown # of acres along future Opportunity Corridor road. Though this might be difficult due to the number of property owners.

I'm surprised this story didn't get more run. Lot of great information here. Looking forward to see the master plan. The Ferry Cap & Set Screw complex would make for an awesome conversion. From the article, it sounds like that is likely years down the road.

I was stuck at the light at Starkweather and Scranton so I took a quick shot of this building mentioned above. Coming along nicely. edit: One more thing, the signage for the Lincoln condo building at Scranton and Wiley/Kenilworth was taken down, and the units are no longer listed on MLS. I guess the project was tabled again.

Cross-posting a couple pics of the Menlo Park Academy. I think the building is technically in Detroit Shoreway, but the original pics and discussion a couple years ago was in the Stockyards thread. https://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,2597.msg872741.html#msg872741

The main building of Menlo Park looks about finished. I didn't get close enough to really check it out, but from distance the renovation looks incredible. It was the early evening so the pics have a bit of grain. If I can get back there soon I'll try to take better pics. The complex is at the corner of W.53rd and Walworth Ave for anybody that wants to look around.

My understanding is they nixed the "catalytic award" program and just gave 2 massive credits to the May Company and Goodyear projects since those were the only projects left vying for the credit that didn't already get it. From 1/3/2017: http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20170103/NEWS/170109955/kasich-signs-law-providing-catalytic-credits-for-big-cleveland-akron

Gilbert would be leaving $25 million in tax credits on the table of they decided to do anything but a full renovation.

From the article: This is why I hated GCC's opposition to the renovation. They aren't opposed to public funding for team owners, as long as they get their cut.

How big of an area do these fulfillment centers service?

The owners proposed a parking lot there a couple years ago and were denied. The precedent was set a long time ago -- wait around and let the property deteriorate some more and request the demo permit again.

I'm constantly surprised how willing the public is to give away tax dollars for private benefit with dubious public good. While I don't agree with the group organizing the opposition to the Q deal I am glad somebody is holding the cities feet to the fire. If you're negotiating with a whiff of desperation, then it's not really a negotiation.