audidave

^Sweet, strange graphic. I think everyone is stunned. Too bad the Dispatch wouldn't include something like that.

Pretty doom and gloom scenarios. I guess I'm not understanding when some people are saying that people are driving just as much as before and thats why the price keeps going up. Are people really driving much more efficient vehicles the past year? Because then the state says people aren't buying as much gas as before and thats why coffers are going down dramatically. There should be some elasticity in supply and demand. I would wonder how much it has to do with the power of the dollar. As the dollar gets weaker it costs more per barrel. Which makes me wonder why the Texas oil fields aren't going crazy now that we have a price thats higher than its ever been and a weak dollar. Personally I expect to be driving a non-hybrid with around 55+mpg next year. Plus I expect to be far closer to work, 7 miles. So perhaps stop at a station once a month. I really don't see high oil prices being that bad of a thing except for truckers. It makes people focus on more intelligent choices in buying vehicles besides how big the rims are and how high off the ground they can get. It should eliminate oil as a source for power plants. It gets people focused on ways to save money and think, which actually is a good thing. So if anything, this is helpful for the downtown core of cities. Cheap oil is the elixir of exurbia.

Bread and butter.. I wonder if thats what the Columbus Convention center feels about all the cheerleading conventions they have there. I bet thats helping to pay the bills of their 1.6 million sq ft facility. Thats a whole lot of frisky cheerleaders if it is. Check their events schedule and you'll see some kind of cheerleading event happens there once a month. They also have other dancing things going on and a whole variety of religious focused events. Not to diss your idea of thinking big, but there really is an issue of convention center-itis. Most of the new convention centers that have been built are losing money because there are so many possibilities. There are plenty of gigantic convention centers. Say we have created another IX center in downtown Cleveland, thats not bringing in a whole lot more conventions. Thats mainly bringing in what the IX center previously had. There has to be a real reason besides a nice big space for conventions to want to come to Cleveland. One of those reasons should be affordability. By creating the most massive of spaces, how is that going to be affordable to smaller conventions? Thats why most people on here would be content with anything around a million to 1.5million sq ft. Cleveland isn't competing with Chicago for conventions. Cleveland is competing with Pittsburgh, Columbus, Detroit, Cincy, Buffalo, and perhaps Akron. It should be able to compete quite well with all of those cities.

The sooner Cleveland's savior can get them to agree on where to build(re-build) the convention center the sooner we can push Nance to the next major project that needs his attention--- realigning the innerbelt bridges south.

I love the Waterfront line layout. That makes way too much sense so unfortunately that probably won't happen.. Did you figure in ferry operations? It seems like this plan is highly reliant on rail because I don't see where you're going to get any volume of people flying in or out of Burke. So perhaps this could be a 20 year master plan. Very nice vision..

^^The Oneil's name hasn't been used in over 15 years. I wonder if they are really part of the May co's makeover of Oneils. Where would an Oneils have been in Cleveland?

and if its graffiti, is it by Anastasia or Superman? :mrgreen:

My take is that this will make it more likely for big events like the Gravity Games or X-Games to come to the Northcoast Harbor. A bridge helps enhance the area by allowing people to move around much easier. It gets very tight walking alongside the museums during big events that are using the whole area. This is also one of the first items to come to fruition in the Lakefront redevelopment plan which a lot of people had input into. Plus in a city and state of unique bridges, this should add yet another one.

I'd agree that sites are likely to stretch from CBD to UC. To make the cut to a reasonable 5 or so they will have to look at sites with a big enough footprint to accommodate what will be needed in a CC, MM, and hotels. The other major factor will be easy access via road and the rapid. So I feel that a convention center will have to be pretty close to a station or be able to have rail extended to it relatively easily. Because of this, there should be some representation of RTA on their site selection committee.

^^^^Simply gorgeous. It doesn't seem like the whole complex and hotel(s) are being shoe horned into a tight space. It feels very open and purposeful.

I'm all for them taking a look at what are the most viable sites. I have a feeling since Nance is involved it should be a pretty honest assessment of locations. 13 seems a lot but whatever. It shouldn't be hard to quickly whittle that 13 down to a reasonable 4 or 5 sites to do a deeper analysis. Why do a full-blown analysis of all 13 if there's things 5-8 sites will be obviously lacking. Most of the work would seem to be done but may need to be revisited and updated with current numbers. This should be done relatively openly since the public will be paying for this. I look forward to some sweet powerpoint presentations from the GCP.

The Mall site seems eminently more expandable than TC. It would re-use and re-energize a rather dead section of downtown. TC will be always buzzing with activity regardless of if a CC and MM are placed around it. With the extension over the tracks to the Waterfront line it could be made into an easy way of getting to the MM without getting windburned in the winter. To me TC is just a crazy convolution of buildings reminiscent of what they have in Dayton called the arcade. They're having serious issues with this massive structure because all the buildings have aged and the expense to refurbish is far too great to do so. Its also very difficult to knock down any of the buildings without affecting the other structures. Adding more buildings to TC would seem to complicate matters more.

OK, I found some Noaca report that listed how they are widening I-77 to 3 lanes each down to the turnpike starting in 08 and going into 09. That works for me. I'm sure Summit Co. will complete their 7 mile stretch by 2010 since most of the bridges are now configured for this.

There needs to be some differentiation between widening roads to accompany sprawl vs. widening highways to improve intercity transportation. For example, back in the old days there was canal traffic between Akron and Cleveland, then trains. That is how Akron grew. Well there is no train traffic now. Thats been replaced with I-77 and sort of 271-rt 8. I-77 is a major interstate that happens to go through Akron. Why continue to restrict travel between the 2 largest cities in Northeast Ohio to 2 lanes each direction? Its not like 77 and 271 are empty most of their path before they get to Summit Co. Also, I don't see a serious commuter train line coming back between the 2 cities any time soon. So why not increase access and add a lane?

Not only that but it would flood the housing market in a very soft housing market to begin with. Imagine 2-3000 additional houses going for sale all at the same time Housing in Akron is already pretty inexpensive. To move that many employees to a richer housing market would be absolutely crazy. The only gain might be climate if they moved south. It would disconnect GY from its roots. It would bring major upheaval to Akron and their own employees for years. The only place I can see GY strategically going is where all other HQs from this area go- Chicago. Quaker Oats, Firestone, BP and I'm sure many others have taken that path. Does GY want to be a tadpole in a sea? Thats really not the company story. Goodyear should stick it out here since they have no other realistic option and the governments of Ohio are showing it a lot of loving. Being as close to Chicago as Akron is, the primary benefits of moving to Chicago is pretty much negated. That would be central location, good accessibility, and large pool of talented white collar workers. Being primarily in the automotive industry, the place to be really still is in Ohio since thats pretty central to where cars are made. Its not that hard to draw high level workers to Akron.

In Brecksville, Sakura has pretty damn good Thai. 10 miles south in the Cuyahoga valley is Saffron Patch for some good Indian.

All this talk about solar and wind power. What about Clevelands greatest source of power, wave? That would seem to me to be the most consistent and beneficial for Great Lakes Science Center to get involved with. There's a company called Ocean Power Technologies that makes buoys to capture energy. Here's a link http://www.oceanpowertechnologies.com/index.htm

I wouldn't say downtown malls are a dying breed. I think it depends on what the retail market will hold, how good transportation is(accessibility), and how well it is managed are the major factors. As far as market, I'm not impressed with the retail climate in the North or West side of Dayton. I don't think Salem mall is an attractive area to shop. I think people only shop there because Dayton Mall and the Fairfield Malls are so far. So a positive is that Dayton has a very nice bus system that has as its hub the arcade. I would wonder if the Library wouldn't be interested in building anew at the Arcade. By Ohio standards, which are actually pretty high, Dayton's Main Library isn't very impressive. Functionally its decent, but it just feels like walking into a 1950s school building. There's no gain in being the champion of the Arcade politically speaking because the risks and costs are so great.

I don't think there's anyone with that kind of developer money and developer vision in Dayton to put anything together. I agree that the best plan would be something of a renewed mall just with modern facilities all around it. The next thing could be then to get creative architectural submissions for this idea(ala Ingenuity Festival in Cleveland) and get them pitched to developers in Cinci and Columbus as a possible downtown showcase mall. There would likely have to be a lot of City, County, and State help in getting this going to make it profitable. There's lots of cities that have sweet downtown malls, just not Dayton right now. Other stakeholders should be the Convention Center, CoC, and the Port Authority.

Good luck Jeffrey. This is the big white elephant of Dayton is why no one wants to address it. You say "weathering" has happened to the arcade. Well that might be true of the main section of the building. I assure there's more than weathering in all the other buildings that are attached. I remember watching stormwater pour into the back upstairs windows a few years ago behind the main facade during storms. I'm sure that hasn't been fixed. Thats a lot of water in there plus with the freezing and thawing action, it can't be too pretty. The weird narrow building also has several busted out windows. I'm guessing thats relatively typical in all the buildings off of the arcade. Reading about how this complex is intermingled with other buildings its difficult to figure out how to knock down all of the vacant buildings without affecting the arcade's structural integrity. To me the best way to approach this whole thing is to find good engineers and architects and start getting rid of the vacant buildings. Think of it as a doctor treating cancerous goiter. You don't let it sit and fester. The main idea should be to save the great hall and rotunda. The most important thing is someone needs to come up with a great re-use plan for this. Something that would be worthy of spending the millions to knock down lots of buildings. This is probably a 7-10 year project. Even if one side of the rotunda were exposed I think would be a major advance. This thing has sat vacant so long, it would be a welcome improvement and may buy time and interested parties.

Well now that you have a car, there's always Akron. You're only 20 minutes from the hip/happening areas there.

Why does the pd keep saying it will be in March to go on the ballot? Aren't they shooting for November?? They have until late August to get it on the ballot. That makes sense if we make MM wait until March they'll go elsewhere.. November should be doable...

Congratulations KJP!

Nice find. Good call. I find it bizarre that a Russian steel company would want to open a mill here and on top of that not use union workers. My impression on the whole steel industry is that there is a lot of capacity still even though steel mills have shut down because of all the efficiencies of the mini-mills. Perhaps that was the case 5yrs ago. Its too bad they couldn't have this built in a place like Youngstown where there would be plenty of available land and labor. Another positive I guess if this is for auto bodies there will likely be more automotive manufacturing in Ohio than less.

There seems to be a mindset in Cleveland that to study something is wasting time and money better put to use elsewhere. It smacks against the instant gratification philosophy. "Do we want it? Hell yea we want it. So build it already!" I think there is also a feeling that people with money and interest in projects can sway the people doing the study and perhaps that most studies done in Cleve aren't ever independent or objective or will take forever to complete. Finally, there's no assurance when the study is complete that the pols will even act on the results of the study. On a different note I took a look at RTA website to get a look at the structure of the organization and came across their 2025 plan. I was struck that they take the path in regards to rail expansion that since they have no clue what is going to happen with the land around Cleveland and its suburbs in the next 15+ years they have no thoughts about rail expansion at this time. I wonder when that time is going to come when they will understand what is happening with the land use.. Will there be a little bell that goes off in someone's head? Will they then issue a rail expansion directive? I can see with the amount of projects that are on the board from the various developers that a year or 2 wait to come up with rail expansion wasn't a bad idea but I think they need to get on the ball now and start realizing the potential of expansion. There have been enough projects announced throughout the region to have an idea of what land use is going to look like in the next 10 years. Now they should figure out who to partner with in helping the developers achieve their goals not sit around as uninterested bystanders.