CleveFan

The street life at Playhouse Square, which obviously extends into the evening hours, really makes it one of Cleveland's most interesting neighborhoods - and an attractive option for downtown living with a unique character. The Lumen, being the shiny brand new "it" place, might draw in people who previously wouldn't have chosen to live downtown. Yes, there will probably be many empty nesters in that group with money to spend. Having the energy of Cleveland State, with its 12,000 or so undergrad students "next door" should be a positive - (although only about 8% of those students actually live on campus and probably don't dine at PHS often.) But the prestige of Playhouse Square and its status as the biggest theatre district outside of NY, should make the Lumen a very hot ticket. It'll be interesting to see how this area continues to grow in the years to come..... And let's not forget - Mack34 will be there!

1 million square feet for a potential new SHW headquarters, according to KJP’s blog. By comparison, The Terminal Tower has 577,000 square feet, 200 Public Square has 1.2 million feet of office space and the Key Tower Itself about 1.25 million. The perfect new neighbor on the block...hopefully...

And other close comparisons in terms of purely vertical impact would be Eaton Center at 356' and CSU Rhodes Tower at 363'.

Just in terms of verticality, another close height comparison would be the Rhodes Tower at Cleveland State, which is 363 feet high.

Thank you for the link to the March 11 Crains article - I had not realized that the adjustment of height cost cut a staggering $200 million!

And Cleveland does have a significant tourist trade with a lot of hotel guests who at least had a shopping option right on public square. I know it wasn't exactly a bustling place, but at one time, it was a convenient destination with a wide variety of retail and a pretty nice atmosphere.

If it looked even remotely like the "Amazon HQ" it would be more than a cherry....

Looked over the Nucleus renderings - and the excellent suggestions by Forum Members. I hope the Planning Commission reads this Forum, too. (For example, ASPhotoman's garage with creative lighting would look great!). I hope the Commission is particularly insightful and constructive with their suggestions on Nucleus. I know there may be a prevailing attitude of, "Hey this is better than nothing -we're lucky to get anything at all" but I think the prominent location of Nucleus and its importance to the city demands a strict design review. Concerns for me - I don't hate the "mesh" look of the garage -but, I don't like the expansive concrete canopy that is now seen looking down from either tower. Could there be green space on the top of the garage to create an attractive vista there? And the laneway has completely lost its charm from the Melbourne-inspired 2015 version - it feels like it could become an often empty cut-through with a distracting active parking garage just above it. Finally, on the apartment tower - I'm not a fan of the commonly seen wider apartment structures - like "Reserve Square" for example. The rectangle- on- its- side dimensions give it that "Holiday Inn" airport feeling. As pointed out by others, the sides of it look especially uninspiring. (I like the suggestion about flipping the north and south sides, too) I would loved a slightly slender, slightly taller residential tower - it would take on a sleeker look- and it would create a better interplay between the two towers. But I know costs are a driving factor in the design.

In his March 9th blog, KJP unravels a possible development scenario like Columbo on the trail of a killer - let's hope that Frangos' land acquisitions along with some other very interesting clues are showing us the location of one of the next Cleveland residential high-rise projects.

I I hadn't seen the SkyRiseCities site before but it was really cool to see a Cleveland article right next to cities like Dallas, Miami and Canton/Guangzhou. Though the Q's glass panels are very mirror-like at the moment, I really like their steel blue tones- I think if Nucleus was dressed in that color, it would be really sharp. I agree with GISguy - I'm really looking forward to seeing the new Q when it's lit up at night - that should be a great look.

A lot of information in that article - with a theme being just how unfocused and slow Cleveland’s lakefront development continues to be. The unavailability of money here effectively halts big projects while Pittsburgh, for example, makes a civic investment of $130 million in their waterfront, profucing $ 2.6 billion in commercial development. We learn that Mayor Jackson and the city do have “a vision” of Cleveland’s future lakefront - in fact, we’re 15 years into a 50 year masterplan! However, a master plan for what to do with Burke can’t begin until 2020 because we’re going to start a master plan for Cleveland Hopkins - soon. With this lack of urgency and/or vision, the great steps that are eventually, hopefully taken to transform Cleveland’s waterfront, are likely to be seen by only the youngest among us.

I suppose it’s pure pie in the sky, but I think the eberhard idea of 5 extra floors and the way-cool lighting would be extremely impactful for the Erieview Tower- and, as a matter of fact, for the Cleveland skyline and psyche. If Erieview was a person, I’d feel sorry for him- so little love for the 4th tallest building in the city . I’ve posted before that new lighting on the upper section of the tower would help transform the building and extend the skyline east. Erieview is more than occasionally overlooked in Cleveland’s skyline shots.

I see way more blue than in the renderings - at least in that pic. Curious to how that gradually lighter facade is really gonna come out - so far, I like...

Great to see some kind of proposal for the South Marginal Road site near E55th. But I really like the notion of more “”Quay 55” type projects north of the shoreway. It’s hard to believe that opportunities to rent or own on the lakefront so close to downtown have not been further developed. I really believe this is a case where once these kinds of developments are made available, there will be a dynamic market for them - provided that they are done right. One design aspect I don’t like about Knez’s initial proposal is how a whole row of townhomes looks directly into the side of a big apartment building. There’s got to be a way to tweak that neighborhood design, keeping density - cutting unnecessary so- called green space and giving as many units as possible an open view.

This is just gonna be more fun with each new floor! Is there a timetable for when this tower will top out? Seems like it took a few weeks getting from the 2nd to the 3rd floor.,,

The city needs more office, retail and residential development before another entertainment district, especially one that lives and dies 10- 12 days a year, depending on the Browns’ fortunes, and is virtually next door to another entertainment district. And as much as I dislike the architecture of the JC, if a redevelopment and repurposing of it is possible,, that might be better than a district that cannot be sustained and becomes another dead zone not far into the future. But we don’t know yet if the JC complex will end up being rebuilt or repaired, so one step at a time I guess.

I hope he meant the old one! But even though most of us aren’t fans, there’s a big hole in the skyline without that brutal thing!

That’s correct and it was silly - a slightly slimmer and taller BP building would have been an even cooler resident on public square. Just like in Philly, for years you couldn’t build higher than the top of William Penn’s hat...but then something called ”progress” happened and look at Philadelphia now...or Manhattan, where 432 Park Avenue, Central Park Tower and Hudson Yards have all overwhelmed the mighty Empure State- I hope the Terminal Tower (one of my favorite buildings in the country) is surpassed again in Cleveland’s future, but that could take decades....(unless Sherwin Williams has an epic tower in mind - please!)

Interesting revisiting these renderings in the abandoned projects thread - anyone know how accurate they are? I thought the Ameritrust Tower was about 200 feet higher than Key but this looks double that discrepancy.

Speaking of being confused, I’ve seen various references to Cleveland’s metropolitan population, with one article sourced in the Forum saying that it had fallen to the 3rd largest in the state, behind Columbus and Cincy, which alarmed me. However, when including Akron- Canton in the metro, Cleveland is as high as the 14th or 15th biggest in the country. (See thoughtco.com) What is most commonly considered the Cleveland Metropolitan area?

I agree - there’s got to be a neighborhood to sustain the restaurants and businesses that depend on a daily business - not just a weekend or event business - till we have more population down there, businesses will keep coming and not lasting.

Why would the FAA require the Harbor Verandas to downsize from 5 stories to 2 or 3 when the 162’ RRHOF Tower is side by side with it? I agree that this project was scaled down too substantially when considering the uniqueness of the location and the appeal of the lakefront views. Wasn’t this project originally 5 stories? It now looks even shorter than the revised 3 story version that had been published a couple years ago. Still, though modest, this is at least a step in the right direction for Downtown Cleveland’s waterfront. I think I’m in a majority that feel the downtown lakefront has been strangely undervalued and underdeveloped - but perhaps the quick success of these Verandas will prove that “if you build it - they will come.” I wonder what Clevland’s waterfront, without an airport on it, could look like some day later in this century?

Amen to that. Maybe the right city government leadership would make a difference?

Seeing Ezra Stark’s quote in Crains, I’m more optimistic that we might actually see an even better Nucleus plan than the “new” rendering we glimpsed on January 23. There were some aspects of that design I liked and others I did not. I appreciate that a city block would be filled by that bulkier, shorter version - but I’m hoping there’s a more inspiring rendition still to come, hopefully with a bit less bulk and a little more uniqueness and elevation. Those were elements we certainly had in the 2014 version.