cadmen

Back to that picture...l went to a Guardians game Monday night. Took RTA from 117th station. The Detroit Superior bridge seemed to be mostly dark. Not many of those white lights accenting the arches and no blue lights on the steel structure up top at all. I get that the city has a lot on its plate right now with juvenile crime but it was sad to see that bridge in the dark. Maybe a cool solution would be if a local company "adopted" a bridge and paid for the lighting. If it caught on pretty soon all the bridges would be lit up. Now that's some advertising l could go along with.

I applaud Bibb's attention to the lakefront but is it necessary to get more public imput to come up with a plan? Don't we already have a plan and if not that one there's plenty of others gathering dust in various storage facilities. The single best place you start is with the landbridge. Once that's in place everything else can follow. Just focus on getting the funding for it. What happens next will be determined by what happens with the stadium. After that decision we can fill in the rest. I'm afraid if we dither any more on grand lakefront dreams that's all we'll have, ie. dreams.

Impressive

WFH is killing the office market. I guess a lot of people are happy about not having to go to the office every day but, man.. I get that change is happening faster and faster but who saw this coming on this level? WOW!

That thing is huge. It looks way bigger in real life than the pics. Definitely unique for Cleveland.

These multi-billion stadiums are out of control. I don't know how Cleveland let alone a little suburb can afford to build one. Especially now with the Justice Center replacement on the table. That being said, if we want to play in the game we have to anti-up. Are we? Can we? They only thing l do know for sure is it's a bullsh*t game. And l'm a big time sports fan sad too say.

Social media strikes again. Punks behaving like punks but now social media has amplified their game. So they act out but now they can see themselves on social media and that seems to amply the behavior. The more they do the more they see themselves. The more they do. I'm not saying social media is THE cause but l think it has upped the game. And that game didn't need any help in the first place.

Video reminds me of a pack of hyenas except this pack isn't hunting for food but simply a good time in their undeveloped social sense.

Cleveland-Cliffs is a real Cleveland success story but it seems to be a little underapreciated in terms of PR. Maybe that's because it's in an old school business segment and is not some new high tech company.

Hey look...actual young people hanging out.

Is this level of interest from parties near and far unusual for a development of this type in Clebveland? I'm used to having to practically bribe out of town developers let alone local firms to bid on a project like this. Either I'm misundestanding what is going on or things are really looking good not just for local real estate development but the local economy in general. Are we the next Nashville or Austin lol

Dipping their toe into the market with more to come. Always good to see an outside entity making a business decision to invest here. Beats the alternative.

Not to be hyperbolic but this change in our zoning laws has the potential to propel Cleveland forward faster than any number of wishful projects like transforming the lakefront or Bedrock's equally ambitious plan. It's even more important than having a fortune 500 company move here. It's important because it answers so many problems. It makes development cheaper. It brings back into use so many vacant properties. It promotes density which can reduce our reliance on the automobile. It helps to create a 24 hour city. It may sound counterintuitive but it can reduce crime by putting more people on the streets. This simple change has the potential to bring reactionary Cleveland into the progressive world by oddly going back to the past before sprawl did a number on our town. I only hope that our leaders have enough sense to understand what passing this will mean. Based on our history l'll remain skeptical. Great article Ken. You have a real insight into what is needed to get this city moving again. Thanks for the education.

So Ken we bandy about with the definition of the term "high rise." Per your article what is your definition?

^ Of course it did. The Market has been on a steady decline for awhile now. It started with the city not addressing vendor issues and continued with a lack of investment in maintenance and some necessary upgrades. Added to that was some generalization vendor turnover and you have a recipe for decline. Right now the Market is at a crossroads. The city administration finally seems to have come to the conclusion that the Market may be better run if it was managed by an organization that actually understands how to best manage it as a unique asset and not just as another city department. At this point we can only hope it's not too late.

Bruised egos.

Even though perception is not reality at times it carries more weight. I think we're in one of those times. The perception right now is crime is bad in Cleveland and getting worse. That perception could be having an impact on business, the housing market and the idea that Cleveland is a great place to visit. I'm not inside where decisions are made but l hope leadership realizes the danger here. It feels like an emergency requiring all hands on deck and not business as usual. I hope Cleveland is working with Federal law inforcement to put an end to the people who are terrorizing our neighborhoods. Cops looking befuddled and then jogging after fleeing cars is not going to cut it. Now is the time for politicians, the legal community, faith groups and law enforcement to come together and stop the lawlessness.

I get the feeling right now that the criminals or wannabe criminals are emboldened. They think they can get away with this stupid behavior because they see and hear on the street that they ARE getting away with it. The cops look feeble. This has set a very dangerous precedent. City leaders need to take action now before all the good work unravels.

When that place is finished it should be really cool. Imagine the rooftop on a sunny afternoon packed with whatever the current version of hipsters are. All the cool kids hanging out around the pool and checking out the scene. We're going to need places like this downtown to give those people a reason to live here. City competition can be so brutal.

Well guys, converting a vacant and obsolete office building to residential is obviously better than leaving it empty. But my position starts before we get to that situation. I know l'm in the minority here but in my perfect little world downtown wouldn't have obsolete office space. It would have space offering a variety of price points for a variety of businesses. Class A for the premium tenants, Class B for the next level of companies and Class C for companies just starting out. Companies that can't afford all the bells snd whistles but do want to be downtown. I much more prefer that scenario to what we have today which is mostly premium companies only. I want my downtown to be a hybrid one. The best of today (premium businesses, government and entertainment) coupled with the best of...say the 1940's and 1950's which had a much heavier emphasis on various levels of businesses and a heavy dose of shopping. Look, l know that's never going to happen. We're never going back. But every time a store closes or a smaller business moves out of an obsolete building (which is then ultimately converted to residential) downtown loses another piece of the old way. What can l say? I'm old enough to have one foot in a 1945 black and white and bustling downtown and one foot in today's very different version.

Hope they can squeeze a 600 footer in there. No? OK then, how about a 300 footer?

I for one am not especially interested in seeing the marquees match anything that used to be there. I am interested though in any type of quality design regardless of historic value. And yes l realize "quality" is often in the eye of the beholder.

I guess l look at this as a double edge sword. On one hand it's great that we're re-purpousing underused office space into residential housing. On the other hand it's not good that those businesses no longer need that space. Sure, some of them have made a lateral move from an old building downtown into a newer building downtown but many of them downsized or just left downtown (or the region) altogether.

The Medley apartments look pretty cool.

Yes and if everyone in Cleveland would chip in a million each maybe we can get this thing cranking. It's for a good cause and everything.