eyehrtfood

I flew I into CLE last night at 8:30 and the place was like a ghost town.... everything closed, not even workers cleaning up stores, no one at all in concourse C.... Only about 10 flights left to take off... Maybe it's like this all the time at 8:30 (I am usually back more like 11... when it is this way) but assume it is the new look of CLE now that 2/3rds or more of United cuts in effect. Those dozen or two end of day connecting flights nowhere to be seen now. Depressing...

United's on board magazine has a Denver advertising section this month, in which they claim to have the 2nd largest performing arts center in the country, something PHS has touted for years.... I remember Dallas had a new complex opening a few years ago and was saying the same thing... PHS used to claim 2nd in number of seats as go how they were "2nd" technically I seem to recall. . Losing the full Allen didn't help.... I am sure this can be spun different ways but perhapsrhaps they should be the "largest historic performing arts center in the country" -,that sounds better anyway..

Love the pics of the Urban Farmer interior shown here on right side of page...: https://www.facebook.com/UrbanFarmerCleveland

Signage/branding... Independent restaurant owners don't necessarily have the resources to professionally complete the signage/branding portion in the same way a chain would... But if a chain popped up there - with branding/signage perfected - we know how that would be received...

Even with all lighting off the other night (on an otherwise busy Saturday night), the gateways, the marquees, the blade sign, the video boards - and especially the chandelier - looked nicely in scale - and fantastic... at least to me... When you think about it, this takes the theater/stage outside of the building onto the streets and sidewalks.. The performances inside can be over the top, not sure why the "performance" outside can't be... Cleveland, frankly, needs a bit of daring in its architecture/streetscapes.

So a multi-bar owner - the tres arrogant Alan Glazen - is leading the charge to have products sold at bars not sin-taxed? No matter his feeling on the sin tax - I really think he has a definite personal interest in seeing the tax go away... How about he opens HIS books?

It's funny (sad?) all the "we have lots of vacant buildings" or "we need a good restaurant" in (fill-in-the-blank)ville "that would be perfect for a B Spot" types of comments that Symon gets on Facebook when posting things like this. I fear people really think it's possible that a Symon restaurant might go to their desolate burg when demographically, it's not gonna happen.

Michael Symon is on Facebook today, teasing about/showing pics of working on recipes for a "secret" (his words) new Cleveland restaurant - seemingly in Tremont or Ohio City (or maybe downtown) based on hints - serving fried chicken, "Miller style sticky buns" and fermented pickles.... The Miller sticky buns seem to be of great fondness to many.... Fill in the blanks cor those of us without knowledge... With that said, he has also hinted in the past of a patisserie, pizza place, butcher shop nd smokehouse/BBQ joint... And, to date, none of them....

And a reminder with regards to Pinecrest - that Eton is also planning a (per their ad in a late 2013 trade publication for a leasing event) a 60,000 square foot expansion.. That's a lot of new retail on east side...

And - beyond having a developer without any national cred (First Interstate) - it's been noted before, but Legacy has also had terrible luck with tenants who either had their whole chains go out of biz - or at least whole regions and/or most stores (EXPO, Acorn, Talbots Kids, Talbot's Men's, Bombay, Bombay Kids, Ritz Camera, Norwalk, Joseph-Beth, Z Gallerie, Oshkosh, Old Thyme Herbs, Atria's, etc...). At one point, I had counted 15-20 situations like that... Hard to overcome that kind of outcome from either original or soon-after-opening tenants - seemingly having less to do with how the Legacy stores were performing and more to do with the chain. They also seem to not have a clue how to bring life to the streets. I noticed the new, huge Granite City turns its back on the Legacy Main Street... Instead of having a patio out that direction, to add some vitality, they patio is on the side and the back windows (though holding some party/overflow space) and doors are blacked out. TERRIBLE for atmosphere. At one point, there was talk of a boutique hotel (seemingly long overdue for Cedar Road) - as well as movie theaters, potentially placed over the back parking lots, with entry from 2nd floor (like, it appears, Pinecrest...) (Fleming's was another originally announced tenant that left prior to opening...)

Sith...ha, Ha ...spell check....

Judging by the parking lots near 2 Nordstrom Rack, Cheesecake (which remains a top 15-20 performer in that chain ) and Granite City, biz looks better than ever. But spinoff from Apple I know has hurt the smoothie place, etc... In a big way. Legacy is in trouble unless they reinvent.... And Sith locals running it and apparently doing ok now financially not sure that happens anytime soon.

BTW - when viewed from above on Google Maps, the southeast corner of 271/Harvard - vacant land with few adjacent houses - seem perfect for an IKEA (or Cabela's?)... IKEA of course, was looking across 271 in Chagrin Highlands a decade ago, before the most honorable Marcia Fudge ensured big box legislation killed any chances of such a store in her (then, mayoral) kingdom... But the spot meets pretty much all requirements of size, visibility and accessibility for IKEA - and being Pinecrest-adjacent won't hurt - and the metro obviously has the population. (the only negative to location is further from Columbus customers/closer to PIT IKEA - and if IKEA builds, it would seem an Akron or Medina-ish location would be better for attracting both NEO and Columbus customers. Cabela's apparently was very interested in an Acacia Country Club land location for a CLE store (says a person familiar with negotiations) - prior to that land turning into a park.

The look of the proposed Pinecrest retail development at 271/Harvard has taking a Town Center look now - with a main street filled on both sides with shops - a much better plan than the original vision of large parking lots in front of a glorified strip center. The movie theater in development - as well as the hotel - appear to be on 2nd floors(+) above retail/restaurants. http://www.goodmanrealestate.com/PropertyPdf/Pinecrest%20Retail%20-%20Orange%20Village,%20Ohio%20GG%20Web.pdf Not sure if they have actual tenants of interest/signed - but REI would seem to be the 25,000 sf "recreation" store noted (unless they mean "recreation" literally...). At 35,000 sf the "grocery" on map is sized exactly like recent Whole Foods new stores - though that would mean a move from nearby Woodmere store of 30K sf - and not sure that's happening, though that retrofitted Wild Oats isn't the greatest space. Could it be a new gourmet grocer to area? Or? At that size, it's certainly not a Giant Eagle, etc... Finally - the 20,000 "Furniture" store is intriguing. That's 10-20% smaller than recent Container Stores built - and on the high side of West Elm stores built recently (PIT will be 8,000... El Paso will be 22,000, etc...) - both stores of which have been mentioned as looking in eastern suburbs... Guess we'll wait and see...

I'm still confused whumy United added the CLE-AUStin nonstop, just last Fall, when they seemingly had to know the hub was closing.

WestBlvd, nothing would please ne more than CAK flights/passengers dwindling... They have hurt CLE... I hope Southwest consolidates in CLE, especially.

I'd just hate for Frontier to have low loads on these routes already covered by other airlines and then pull back... versus having no competition on a route like Phoenix.. What I don't get is recent talk that airlines need months (6-9?) to make schedule changes like these... adding new cities... And yet already all these new routes since the recent United announcement. Begs the question who new what, when? Almost like they were working on these long ago....

This is great but other than Phoenix/PHX, all of these newly announced destinations are already covered by ongoing or replacement service, right? None other than PHX replace United cuts not already replaced.

Since Dragonfly, one restaurant shown in the piece, has been closed about two years, this would seem to be older than not... But enjoyable.

Received 30%-40% off emails the last few days announcing the going out of business sale at Solon's 10-month-old Earth Fare market. Choosing this second rate strip mall location (former SteinMart)- with an established Mustard Seed, a thriving Whole Foods, a popular Heinen's and a newly opened Market District all within 2-10 minutes away - was a questionable choice prior to opening - and seemingly proved too hard to overcome once opened. Unfortunate - though the traffic even a month or two after opening already had me thinking this place was not long in this location (though only 10 months didn't seem possible....)

Has anyone else read the ill-timed Hemispheres magazine piece on Cleveland and noticed there appears to be little or no reference to CLE's United hub in the 50+ page section.... ad, article, chart or otherwise. Being a paid piece in an airline mag, and given the slant of this section, you would have thought it would have come up as a selling point for the region. That omission seems like more than coincidence, even though it was surely written/printed weeks or months ago. It begs the question "who knew what, when???"

Alaska Airlines continues to ads more cities... Including just announced DTW this Fall... And MSY and TPA. Maybe they will add CLE service... Wouldnt rule it out... Already fly STL-SEA, etc.

I am with you in thinking there is no reason why CLE shouldn't have been an acceptable connecting option for most passengers had UAL served it up as readily as it does for ORD and EWR and to lesser degrees DEN, IAD and IAH (at least on routes I frequent). But they, in my opinion, chose not to offer consumers the CLE connecting option as visibly, or at a competitive cost, asthey could have . While hub still around, try some connecting options like I did this week (and previously have) and see which airport you will almost never get connecting options through on a sample trip from a soon to be gone connecting city to another CLE destination.

The fact that STL is at least 4 hours from the next largest city/airport makes it a regional O&D draw (I used to live 3 hours away and STL was the "big city" to us..). CVG, PIT, CLE all have 1 or more major cities/airports within 2 or so hours... so I'm guessing they don't have the same draw as a city like STL (which had 12MM passengers in most recent year available...) I also still haven't seen any reliable #s that show the connecting-only passenger load at CLE on the 100 or so flights being lost. The loss of these customers will have the most impact on the concessions at CLE - but if that load was only 1MM passengers, for instance, then the passenger #s shouldn't be down terribly if O&D travelers are still flying from CLE to those now-cancelled destinations - as well as all remaining flights.

So 23x mainline that Monday... including several more to ORD than normal, I think. If more of the RJ flights were on E170 family that would be great