jws

Correct. It's on lots occupied by parking for the former Ferris Steakhouse and a neglected orchard formerly owned by Cudell Improvement. What's additionally aggravating is that this area is part of a form-based zoning pilot study and the residents largely opposed this site plan, but Planning basically OK'd it as-is.

I'm not sure if there actually is a block club for this area. This strip of Lake isn't part of the Edgewater North Homeowner's Association and I don't believe it's part of the Clifton-Baltic block club or the Edgewater Parke Neighbors (west 80s). That being said, I'm sure people will have comments if they attend the design review meetings.

Horizon/North Coast have also released an updated site plan for their project along Detroit Ave in Cudell. Disappointing to see two curb cuts remaining, especially since this area is one of the form-based code pilot areas.

I don't believe we have an Edgewater thread, so this thread seems like the next best thing. Proposal for Lake Ave, just east of West Blvd. Full schematic package here, including a few different color palettes.

As of the last thing I heard, that building is actually occupied by its owner. He's pretty reclusive and has no intention of selling it. This info is all secondhand from the former ED of Cudell Improvement.

Saying "the neighborhood is fighting" to have the building razed is a weird way to say "Brandon Chrostowski wants this building demolished."

Cudell Improvement, Inc. owns the orchard parcel. I love the energy behind the petition and the recent resident advocacy around green space. The board has had a purchase agreement in place with the developer for many months, so that really prevents the organization from being able to do a whole lot now that there is renewed interest from residents. The parcel along Detroit Ave is owned by the owner of the former Ferris Steakhouse and is therefore governed by it's own purchase agreement.

I used to live across the street and while the American Food Mart isn't particularly charming, it still serves a purpose and therefore I think it has a base-level value. Same with Abe's. I don't like advocating for top-down removal of things when they have some functional value for people in the immediate area, especially in places like the West 80s where people's choices are already limited. If some additional commercial space on Detroit could first be reactivated to house the businesses, that would be a win-win.

I'm hopeful that more exciting things will start to happen in this area under the new councilperson. Slife seems to be much more checked in than Keane, and he was only in the seat a few months before COVID interrupted everything so he hasn't had a ton of opportunity to really take on any outward-facing initiatives focused on medium or long term planning.

I'm pretty sure they're original! Just weirdly re-clad when none of the lower floors were ever addressed.

That area will almost certainly revert to being Ward 15 (or whatever replaces Ward 15, assuming we lose a ward or two) because Dona Brady's house no longer needs to be in the ward. As a fun reminder of what these boundaries currently look like:

Another new business on Madison.

Your point is totally clear! I agree. The owner of Cleveland Lumber is a great steward of the neighborhood. He's renovated the commercial block at W98/Madison and has been great about making the storefronts accessible to unique businesses. Unfortunately, the Edna Boutique couldn't make it, but it's really exciting to see Outlandish Press, the hand-made sign place, and now Print Camp (t-shirt press, I believe) all right in a row. I'm a big proponent of using more businesses like these to activate the storefronts because I think it would create a really unique area that also avoids some of the more traditional conflicts that result from just jamming in a few bars and saying you've made a new entertainment district, which is unfortunately how a lot of leadership seems to view "revitalization."

IMO Lorain Station is the best commercial district on the west side. I want to see it thrive SO BADLY. Fingers crossed no more buildings are demolished for PaRkInG

Every time this thread becomes active again I climb up on my soap box so strap in, everyone. I concur with the group that this permit appears to be a retroactively filed one. They painted the building and put wood siding over the blocked-in ground level windows? It doesn't look...any worse, I guess. But the boards aren't even finished with trim at the end so you can see the raw edges butting up against the brick. Fingers crossed that someone is looking to do a full rehab of the thing. Regarding the neighborhood changing, Cudell has already had some pretty dramatic market shfits within the past two years. The median sale price for January was 118k and there were six sales, which is crazy considering real estate prices prior to the past year. The biggest change I've noticed are all of the investors popping out of nowhere, both from NEO and elswhere (exhibit A: https://ibuysh*tholehouses.com/). Holton-Wise signs are popping up more, two houses on W100 between Marietta and Madison are now full-time AirBnBs, and investors are doing things like selling properties between each other for 100k after holding on to them for a few months and doing hack job renovations (in one house the doors didn't close because they used the wrong hinges. It was very bad). My main point is that speculators have already descended on the neighborhood but it may not appear that way to someone just passing through along Madison. It's usually only visible once the damage is done and all of the refugee families have been replaced by open-concept flips with those grey wood grain vinyl peel-and-stick floors from Home Depot. Excluding investor/speculators from the mix, the neighborhood has a few very strong nodes in terms of more sustainable investment, stability, minimal to no crime, etc. The primary ones are West Blvd/W101/W100, W93/Willard and some of the small single-block streets around West Tech, and W87/89/91 between Sauer and Madison. It would be wonderful to see people who actually care about the neighborhood and its history invest in Cudell. There are a lot of really intricate networks of refugees and immigrants in the neighborhood alongside homeowners who have been here since the 1940s. IMO one of the biggest strengths of Cudell is that it's where a family can still find a decent 3 bedroom house on a relatively quiet street for under 800/mo. I'm more willing to sacrifice visible "improvement" by Investor Bob from Staten Island if it means maintaining a functional community. But seriously if anyone wants a meaningful neighborhood tour please let me know. I've heard rumors (unsubstantiated so far) that the infill development around West Tech may be completed by a new developer. Regarding land use on Madison, it's actually overwhelmingly the same as it was in the 1950s (including most of the buildings). The street was never the commercial heart of the neighborhood and, in a way, it's nice to know that we haven't lost that much. The densest commercial area was the area around Cleveland Lumber. A few buildings have been lost between W98 and W96, but that was because of a fire a few years ago. I stole this photo from Facebook that shows the area around W98. The large apartment building burned and took with it the few little commercial buildings to its right, but otherwise all of these buildings are still standing:

I've thankfully found bus drivers to be particularly considerate to me as a cyclist (especially downtown, where the useless sharrows on Superior are sort of just crammed in to the same space as the buses).

The former Glidden property along Berea is still very much an active site owned by NPA Coatings, too. Weston doesn't appear to have anyone in Phase I of the Midland site, but I doubt SW would want to move into someone else's office park-style building. Not sure what potential there would be to takeover the remaining Phase II.

I wish this could have gone on the Weston site at Madison and Berea.

It's inconceivable to me that they wouldn't have expected the soil to be polluted. In any experience I've had with industrial sites/industrial rivers, it's pretty much an initial assumption that you'll be encountering PAHs, PCBs, and toxic metal concentrations and then it's just a fun bonus if the levels happen to be low or you find no concentrations.

Fingers crossed that Ward 11 is eliminated entirely and divided up. Lorain Station is the true commercial business district for Cudell, even with the highway separating it, and they really don't appreciate that area for the gem it is.

A "Democrat" Hopefully Ward boundaries will shift next year and this stretch of Detroit can finally receive the political will necessary to execute a cohesive planning vision. The NOACA study and neighborhood planning can only do so much if the area is split between an in-touch councilperson and one that isn't concerned with implementing anything. The Weston connection is interesting. I wonder if the Berea Rd development (also within the Ward 11 strip) was enough to keep them interested in the area. The RTA lot and the adjacent RTA-owned lot are also such huge development options.

One detail worth noting: this parcel technically falls within that little strip of Ward 11 and therefore Westown's territory.

It is literally one block south of the 26 bus line which runs 24/7. It's my primarily bus line and is absolutely one of the best ones on the west side. The inability to conceive of someone living in this exact location without a car is frustrating. It's more telling of the people speaking and how they have actually never made an effort to use transit as opposed to any actual lack of nearby transit. Just make the residential streets permitted parking for residents and their guests. I personally have lived on a street like this and hated it, but I'm also not obsessed with parking.

Wind power is more efficient over bodies of water. Additionally, the freshwater environment is considerably less volatile than saltwater. That's why we still have such a considerable amount of older ships in the Great Lakes fleet.

Absolutely! The owners of the former Ferris Steakhouse still own that lot on Detroit, so getting them to sell is the main barrier. The large lot next door is technically an orchard and is owned by Cudell Improvement, so there is a lot of potential there as well. The Dindia units are actually quite large and lovely inside (though some have seen significant arson). I really hope to see them occupied again.