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.

This exact feature was brought up in some staff/faculty meetings as an opportunity but it won't be changing, unfortunately. There is a nice ground level entrance to think[box], but it isn't particularly prominent. At this point, this new ISE building will be the "main" access to the quad from MLK, and the weird staircase between Veale and Glennan will remain.

It's unlikely the master plan will build out as planned, but I think it's likely it will still guide future campus plans. The 2016 plan was created under a different University administration, and the new President will have a different influence on campus physical planning. The MLK section is probably the least likely feature, IMO, since it requires stakeholders significantly beyond CWRU itself. The question was posed to President Kaler about any plans to also make the walk between the new building and the rapid station more pleasant, and my sense is that there is nothing being considered outside the scope of this specific building.

Very excited about this one! I think this project will also be a great proof-of-location and encourage a second, larger project on the main RTA lot sooner rather than later. While the surface lot is unfortunate, I think it's reasonable that it could be developed eventually. Additionally, lessons from Aspen Place have shown that it isn't completely unwarranted, at least initially, since the spatial mismatch between affordable housing and jobs has put some Aspen Place residents in a position where they aren't using GCRTA to get to their jobs so they are clashing over parking, and if the Depot was to rely on street parking then it puts that in conflict with the bike lane. I wouldn't mourn the loss of the lot, but the fact it exists, is out of sight, and isn't removing any density from the area has me feeling alright. I would have preferred a parking agreement with RTA to use their existing lot, though. Hopefully the continued increase of residents around the station encourages more commercial uses of the existing buildings, which are proving hard to fill because of white boxing and buildout costs.

The Red Line ridealong video speaks to what I think is one of the most bizarre aspects if GCRTA which is the confounding lack of standardization for how they announce stations. Sometimes it's the recording, sometimes it's the operator, sometimes it's both, and sometimes there's nothing. It seems like it would be such a straightforward operating policy and yet ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

FWIW I also think they deserve some credit for not [fully] blocking the bike lane for construction. Probably the best project along a main route, in that regard.

A ton of units could be added around the rapid stations and strategically large parcels. The Cudell-West Blvd parking lot is around 68k sq ft. Assuming an average apartment size of 850 sq ft, you could add 400 units at just that site with 5 levels of residential over some commercial (or covered parking, if we're being realistic). Realistically, there should be a 10 story building on a site like that, and there is a local precedent with the CMHA tower at West Blvd/Detroit. The American Car Wash on Detroit looks to be around 16k sq. ft. Using the same average unit size, you could do a 5-over-1 on that site and get 90+ units. Family Dollar could be redeveloped to be ground-level retail with residential above and you could add 200+ units easily. With those three examples you've added almost 700 new apartments (over 1k if a proper tower was built at the rapid station). If you start considering key parts of Madison Ave it opens up a lot of potential. Madison/W74 is directly on the #25 bus and is a 0.35 mile walk to Detroit and the #26. W85/Madison is even closer to Detroit and has a significant amount of undeveloped land. I think it's feasible to get to the critical mass needed without drastically changing the character of the neighborhood, as long as the projects are strategic and of decent quality.

Unfortunately, I believe their new lease in Croker Park precluded them from having another store location within a certain distance of Crocker Park, and the original location was too close.

I agree that arguing about benches in this context is a reasonable thing. The removal of benches to prevent unhoused people from potentially using them just makes everything less comfortable and less usable for everyone. It basically just ensures that people will now sit on the ground or something - they don't go away. I feel a good equivalent is that new planter situation with the plastic shrubs in front of the casino's "outdoor gaming area". They create a dead zone and so people just sit in between on the ground. They also seem to act as new receptacles for garbage/litter. The best thing that SHW could do is to have a lot of benches and also have a lot of trash cans with an accompanying plan to maintain the trash cans. If there was a lively space with lots of seating it would look better and feel safer than an activity-less no-man's land.

CVS is closing 300 stores and, I believe, just keeping the "health hubs" which the West Blvd/Lorain store is considered. CVS has been visibly pumping no money into the Madison store for a while now so I figured this was coming eventually. Still a massive inconvenience for a lot of people, though. On the bright side, it's not allowed to be a dollar store. I would ideally love a small-format market/grocery store. Might not be the market for a Trader Joes but the intersection does have a lot of daily commuters and there is decent parking (as much as I hate to type those words). Also, the existence of the drive through could potentially facilitate a successful coffee operation (again, for the commuters). I wouldn't advocate something relying on car commuters get built, but since the building already exists in this form might as well use it.

I think the stop sign is temporary. Currently there is only traffic coming Westward down Franklin but it's over in the Eastbound lane, so the circles aren't fully functioning as intended yet.