jws

Fount's lease at Crocker Park prohibits them from having a second location within a certain distance so they had to close the original shop. It's more an indictment, IMO, of the relatively weak market we have as a region that requires Crocker to manufacture exclusivity and reduce competition.

The bulk of the new Ward 11 is Cudell, Lorain Station/West Boulevard around Denison, and then a chunk of Old Brooklyn. Most of Detroit-Shoreway will be in the new Ward 7 which will be an eventful race, for sure.

This would be an amazing road realignment. I think the original road (before Cudell Commons) made more sense, and your plan sort of restores some of the (slower-speed) functionality of the original West Blvd.

This exact spot is still going to be split down the middle with the new ward boundaries, so hopefully the new councilpeople are able to work together to move things forward in this fashion (i.e. not try to resurrect the gas station proposal, which is still very much alive in the courts)

Part of the issue is that none of the local residents are his actual constituents. Ward 11 juts through the neighborhood and doesn't include most of the surrounding land. This is Ward 11, and the red dot is this property.

Gas station aside, if city council actually overturns planning to perform this type of spot zoning, it sets a significant precedent which means any zoning reforms (form-based code, etc.) effectively have an "opt-out" option for any developer, organization, or other stakeholder who decides they don't want to comply as long as that ward's councilperson is behind them.

Discount Drug Mart would be great, and there's no reason it couldn't be integrated into a larger development (except the local block club, which will absolutely not support such a development under any circumstances). The Madison CVS closing and now this closing have really eliminated a lot of amenities in the area. Re: dollar stores. The city has a moratorium on new dollar stores being constructed within 2 miles of an existing discount store. https://www.clevelandcitycouncil.org/resources/news-media/new-limitations-building-new-dollar-stores-near-existing-ones

Yes, my bad. Removing MLK and modifying Stearns.

On the most recent master plan from 2015, CWRU actually noted a desire to completely remove Stearns, which would be amazing. There were some other good, quad-adjacent ideas, too. Not sure what the institutional appetite is to make this stuff happen, though.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that you have not met the Franklin Boulevard Block Club.

For those interested, the gas station variance request is in front of the BZA on Monday. It is now too late to submit comment, but anyone can attend in person or watch the livestream. https://planning.clevelandohio.gov/bza/cpc.html Unfortunately, this parcel falls into the weird sliver of Ward 11 that cuts through Cudell and Ward 15. The Ward 11 Councilmember, Danny Kelly, supports the gas station use. Ward 15 Councilmember, Jenny Spencer, opposes the use.

The rebuild of Mariam Ortiz-Rush park is the most recent large investment in the area, and it's a great outcome. There are also 20-30 lease-purchase CHN homes that have been constructed primarily in this area with a total plan of 60. There aren't any concrete plans for the Dudley Triangle street improvement right now but I don't believe it's been abandoned as a concept.

What's wild is that (in my anecdotal experience) the street is hardly even at capacity during peak times. Just in the past two weeks, I encountered Lorain's parking capacity at maybe 50-60% utilization on Thursday evening between 5-7PM and Saturday evening between 6-8PM. There were even open spots in front of/within a block of large spots like Forest City Shuffleboard even though the place was clearly packed. Even when the block is parked up in front of Heart of Gold, the two nearest blocks have been primarily empty. Since these businesses opened, I have never had anyone have trouble parking within a 5 minute walk of wherever we are going on Lorain. I agree that street parking is necessary, I just don't agree with the few vocal local businesses that Lorain has or will have a shortage.

The former Burger King site is likely only suited to a market rate development because of initial costs (land, site prep, etc), and there are a lot of other sites (the car wash, for example) which would require a market rate building to justify acquiring the parcel for a development. I think it makes sense to add affordable units where we can, before the land value becomes even more prohibitive for that type of project.

I think they would be willing if the buildings were more conducive to it, but they were built with this mentality so the ground floors along MLK are all functionally basement levels with service/utility/some lab space. The Veale doors open into what is the gym level and there is no controlled access to locker rooms or other facilities, but this one would be the easiest to reconfigure because you could just add another service desk. I could see more buildings opened up along MLK if there are significant interior reconfigurations, but that will all be post-ISEB.