nab70

I actually showed a friend from out of town around Cleveland this weekend and took him down both Euclid and Chester in the campus district. He's used to gorgeous campuses so I was surprised when he started talking about how pretty CSU's campus was and how active/alive the area seemed. He was puzzled by the giant empty lot in such an important location across from Burgers 2 Beer but other than that he seemed very impressed. It was good confirmation that I'm not just looking at the recent changes in the area with rose-tinted glasses.

^^ I don't think that's getting too far ahead of ourselves at all. The projects in my first sentence totaling over 2,600 apartments seem to be moving along and it doesn't seem unlikely that many of them will be completed by 2020. The projects in my second sentence are more dubious but if even one of them goes forward it should be enough to make up for an inevitable shortfall or two in the other category.

^^ It seems potentially doable. By 2020 we could have 319 apartments in the playhouse square tower, 120 in the Halle Building, 177 in the Cleveland Athletic Club, 140 in the john hartness brown building, 600 in the union trust building, 187 in Beacon, 123 in the Garfield building, 230 in the leader building, 98 in worthington yards, 300 in terminal tower, 287 at the standard building, 80 at and next to liberty textile, 12 in the bloch building, and 16 in harbor verandas. That's over 2,689 and doesn't include the potential developments north of the brown's stadium (500), Nucleus (500), Weston's superblock (1200), and the may company building (280).

^ Available space downtown is not going to be the issue that prevents CLE from getting the HQ2

Looks great!

My effort to avoid taking this off topic has failed so I'll join in the fun. The stat that matters is that there are 4 million people living within 75 miles of Public Square. End of story. This. Looking at sheer (MSA) population is not the proper way to look at it. If you look at the populations within 50 and 75 miles of city center, Cleveland holds up quite well against the other 3 major league team cities and the 2 major league team cities. It is pretty unlikely that Cleveland would be selected for an expansion slot. It is not borderline ludicrous to think a 4th team (NHL) would come here. There are a number of struggling NHL teams with lackluster attendance and low estimated financial valuations (looking at you panthers, coyotes, and hurricanes) that could be bought by a certain billionaire and moved to Cleveland. A certain billionaire who has shown a desire to invest in Rustbelt legacy cities, has shown a belief that bringing sports teams to a city's downtown (MLS to detroit) can help that city continue its comeback, is a hockey fan but doesn't own an NHL team, is from a city which already has an NHL team, already has an arena for that team to play in (an arena undergoing a shiny new renovation), already owns the AHL team in Cleveland which has the second highest attendance in the AHL, and has publicly lamented (in an offhand manner) that he wishes he had brought an NHL team to Cleveland. Is it likely? Who knows. But it's not ludicrous. And the point I'm actually making is that Northeast Ohio would be large enough to support all four teams so long as we continue to invest in our facilities.

I really hope our state and local leaders have the foresight to realize that we need to create the financial incentives package to end all financial incentives packages. Wherever this HQ2 ends up, the 50,000 high paying technology jobs will be just the beginning. The city that lands this will be transformed into a national tech hub if it already isn't one. This is a generational opportunity. If I remember correctly, in addition to controlling the superblock, the Westons also control the parking lots in the block across West 3rd from the Justice Center block. And in addition to controlling the Justice Center block the County controls the Public Defender's Office kitty corner to the JC, the parking lots adjacent to the Public Defender's Office, and the parking lot next to the shoreway ramp. If the county were to sell the JC block to Amazon (say for $1 - I know I'm going to get push back on but that's how transformative I think this HQ2 could be) the Public Defender's Office would likely want to move to the JC's new location so it and those lots could also be sold. So between Jacobs, the Westons, and the County enough land could probably be assembled right in the heart of Cleveland's downtown to build out their entire 8,000,000 sq ft. campus at reasonable height. I also agree that Burke might actually be a unique selling point here.

^ Disagree on the population and fans points. I'll PM you

^ I don't want to derail this thread into a discussion regarding the likelihood of an NHL team coming to Cleveland. So I'll just say that the point I was trying to make is that I believe we are a large enough market to support the 3 teams we already have and that we could honestly support a 4th team but that we're not a giant market and we can't afford to draw as hard of a line against public subsidies as a larger markets like LA might be able to assuming we want to keep those teams. I don't disagree with most of your post regarding the likelihood of us receiving an expansion team, but I think you mostly seem to be talking about whether we could support an NHL expansion bid whereas I was talking about whether our market could support an NHL team.

I was getting at the old saying that actions speak louder than words. If Cleveland is this big bad city, then man up and tell the billionaire loan shark to shove it when he throws a tantrum and walks out on a very favorable partnership. LA did that to the NFL. They straight up said you need us more than we need you, and the NFL blinked (ok, after 20 years lol). I know Cleveland is not LA, and the situations are not even, but I think the city has/had a lot more leverage than they think. I can't tell if you have an ax to grind regarding Clevelanders thinking their city is bigger and badder than it really is or if you're upset because Clevelanders didn't think their city was big and bad enough. But anyway, I have never in my entire life heard anyone on this forum, elsewhere online, or in person say that Cleveland is in anywhere near the same league as LA when it comes to population/economic clout. The most boosterism I usually hear is people pointing out that the small population size of Cleveland (the 48th largest U.S. city?) leads many to underestimate the size of Cleveland's media market (19th), metropolitan area (32nd) and combined statistical area (15th). LA is 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, and 2nd. Cleveland can be a big bad media market (if saying it's the 19th largest is the same as saying it's big and bad?) and still have nowhere near the leverage that LA (2nd) does in its negotiations with owners. While I'm not in the camp that thinks Cleveland is destined to lose at least one of its professional sports teams in the next couple decades (I actually think we could support a 4th one if Gilbert brings us an NHL team), if we decide to completely abandon public subsidies of professional sports we do run that risk in the coming decades. Maybe it's worth it to run that risk but that doesn't mean the risk isn't there.

According to a quick googling = "Currently, the city of Cleveland receives, in its general fund, 3/8 of that tax revenue for Cavs games and 6/8 of the revenue for other events. The balance — 5/8 for Cavs games, 2/8 for everything else — goes to pay down debt on Gateway bonds . . . Beginning in 2023, when the Gateway bonds are (hopefully) paid off, and until 2034, the portion that now goes to Gateway debt service will then be applied to the arena renovation debt service." I think you're trying to make a false dichotomy there. Cleveland can both be the 19th largest media market in the country and vulnerable to losing the Cavs to another city in either a larger or smaller media market if that city is willing to shell out for a shiny new stadium. There are probably only a handful of cities large enough to truly be safe from that kind of behavior on the part of owners.

Cleveland needs to focus on these types of developments before worrying about highrises IMO. Developers are focusing on these types of developments outside of downtown. Downtown the problem isn't that 'Cleveland' is focusing too much on highrises it's that parking lot owners are convinced that it makes more financial sense to keep their land as a parking lot for now and hold out for a highrise in the future than it does to build a midrise today. Which absent changes to our tax system it probably does. I already love Uptown but it's going to be amazing when development pushes further north with the CIA dorm going up north of the school and CWRU doing something with the CDC lot. When that parking lot across from Constantino's eventually gets filled in it's going to be hard to remember that I'm in Cleveland.

In the article they mention a single story retail connector between the Rock Hall and the Science Center. Have any renderings of that been released?

The last I heard there were going to be two speed tables for the MLK crossing but I don't know if that is still the plan.

^^ On the bright side as decent density residential development abutting a transit station it seems to be transit-oriented development even if it's not 'transit-oriented development'

http://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2017/08/otani_noodle_expanding_to_nood.html Otani Noodle expanding into the Noodlecat space. Glad to see that didn't stay vacant for long.

And yet you fail to make a case for WHY this project must be built and WHY it must be built to these specifications. Cleveland taxpayers have no OBLIGATION to STARK. That's fine because you have failed to make a case for WHY the school district is better off receiving $0's than it would be receiving $54 million. But I'll give the why this project must be built a shot anyway. This project must be built because it will create 500 new apartments downtown and revitalize the stretch of east 4th between east 4th street and the Q and because without this project the school district won't get an extra $54 million to help build two or three more schools. To summarize: the city either gets one new skyscraper and three new schools or most likely it gets nothing. Yes you are missing the 100million plus in future taxes that CMSD will forgo. ANd the number is 18 million NOT 54 million as stated upthread. They will forgo $0 in future taxes unless you believe this will get built without the tif. The number is $54 million for those of us who are looking at this from the perspective of how it affects the SCHOOL DISTRICT and downtown not from the perspective of sticking it to evil developers (unless you have inside knowledge that the state is going to end the 2-1 program in the next few months you want to share). I honestly feel like that statement that the number is $18 million not $54 million perfectly encapsulates so much opposition to this thing. People who support this project view it as "well the school district gets $0 or it gets $54 million (and downtown gets a huge development or probably nothing but a parking lot crater)" while people who oppose it see "well big bad developer stark is forced to pay his fair share of $130 million over 30 years or only $18 million".

Your comparison is not even close to being a reasonable comparison. Here the school district is getting $54 million immediately (plus the schools get 50% of any increase caused by an increase in valuation, any increase from future tax increases, and oh yeah all the revenue after 30-years) in exchange for $130 million over the next 30-year. Importantly, this is $130 million that the school district would not receive without this development. In contrast, for the construction of the convention center/medical mart the public kicked in hundreds of millions from a sales tax increase and for the construction of the football stadium/gateway stadiums the public kicked in hundreds of millions from the sin tax. I don’t know the details of the rock hall funding but I’m sure tens of millions came from similar revenue streams. Anyone buying anything in Cuyahoga county pays for the convention center/medical mart and anyone buying cigarettes/alchohol pays for the stadiums. Without the sales/sin taxes being used to pay for those projects the city/county would have hundreds of millions of more dollars to spend elsewhere (if you're operating under the assumption those properties aren't generating large public benefits). Without this tif the school district has $56 million less to spend. And that's not even bringing up all of the benefits of the project itself for downtown. Again, unless you think it will get built anyway. In which case, fair enough we just reasonably disagree. With regard to your slippery slope argument, if other developers come forth with similarly attractive deals where they give us millions up front that we can leverage for millions from the state and that makes sense within the bounds of the school districts building plans then great. If not and future deals don't make sense like this one, let's discuss where we want to draw the hard line when we start going down the slippery slope and not when we're comfortably resting on the top of the hill. If people don't think it will be built without the tif but still oppose it... I'm sorry but no. Reasonable people cannot disagree about whether it is better for the schools to get $54 million and downtown Cleveland to get a skyscraper filling in the space between east 4th/Q or the schools to get $0 and the parking lot crater to survive. This is a complete and utter fallacy and I disagree wholeheartedly. Reads like propaganda from a 4 post poster, just like the previous 2 post posters disagreement. Excuse me if I'm a little skeptical on the coincidence of the low post count and Nucleus advocacy. I've never met stark, have nothing to do with the project, and was merely motivated to start posting about it by my firm belief that everyone is entitled to their opinion but not all opinions have equal value.

If people think it will get built anyway without the tif that's entirely fair (or some more modest project that won't be as good for downtown but will generate more than $54 million + the time value of money for the schools over the next 30 years). I firmly believe it won't be built but people could reasonably disagree there. If people don't think it will be built without the tif but still oppose it... I'm sorry but no. Reasonable people cannot disagree about whether it is better for the schools to get $54 million and downtown Cleveland to get a skyscraper filling in the space between east 4th/Q or the schools to get $0 and the parking lot crater to survive.

I'm quite certain I do not like the addition of the white panels. To me that got way uglier way fast. I'll still take it over a parking lot though.

Does anyone know how many square feet the Ingalls Library currently occupies in the museum? Could we expect a significant increase in gallery space if it moved? Edit: Answered my own question. Eyeballing it makes it look like the Ingalls Library takes up around 20,000 square feet on the second floor. So a 15% increase in gallery space solely from moving the library.

Uh, what? You're gonna have to back up that claim. Look at it this way: If the school system wasn't taking a hit, why would there be a controversy? And why would Stark push an arrangement that involves him paying the schools more? He wouldn't. I don't think it's that clear that the school system is taking any kind of hit. Sometimes controversies exist just because people bring a lot of other baggage to an issue or just don't understand an issue. Nucleus in its current iteration is not getting built without the full TIF. It's just not. So the only way the school system takes a hit is if we think Stark will proceed with a much more modest project on that site instead of Nucleus and we think that the 30-year tax revenue to the school system from that more modest project will be a greater sum than $54 million (+ the time value of that $54 million) or if we think the school system won't be able to get the matching grants from the state in which case if we think its a greater sum than $18 million (+ the time value of that $18 million). I actually don't know what kind of tax revenue we could expect from a more modest project on that site so I don't know the answer to that for certain but it seems unlikely the school takes a hit by receiving the $54 million today rather than accepting the 30-year tax revenue from a more modest project.