cadmen

I don't see gimmicks. I see modern, progressive architecture. Love the odd blocky look and I appreciate the public space between the buildings. The intersection of Detroit and 25th demands an iconic building but I'll settle for a smaller scale structure as long as it's visually compelling like Church and State. If KJP is right expect to see something striking there.

Good point. The Flats -- Cleveland's Silicon Valley! I see what you did there Ken. Good one.

But that's how we do things here, right? Put all the effort into the design (or not) but little or nothing into the maintenance. Just like the plantings on the Shoreway and others. I get it that funds are hard to come by but that being the case I'd prefer we do less building/planting and include downroad maintenance in the budget. In which case less would really be more.

I hate to say it but I'm glad the project is on hold. I hope it is terminated. I come to that conclusion after weighing the prospect of another valuable piece of land remaining a parking lot vs. wasting that property on what I consider to be an incredibly vanilla design. Kenect appears to have a signature look and that look reminds me of a Chrysler K car back in the 80's Bland and blocky. A totally forgettable look. Just like the Kenect building In the 60's and 70's we often hired an architectural firm of some renown but that firm would offer us a second or third rate design because they thought Cleveland was a second or third rate town. And we settled for it thereby proving their point. Lately we seem to have changed the narrative. Key bank, the Hilton hotel, City Club, the Luman (it WAS great until our own people felt the need to justify their board positions by foolishly adding strips on 2 sides), the new apt. building in the west bank and the new apt. building in university circle. These designs are first rate and worthy of a normal, modern city. Welcome to the club Cleveland. So let's hope after the dust settles and things get back to normal the East Bank property goes back to square one. Take a look at the original design we were promised. It was diverse, busy and dense. It had texture. It seemed organic, like it fit into the property naturally. The East Bank building we have now is a decent start but the Kenect design is a huge step backwards. Plus, if the current street design doesn't change the whole area looks more like something moved from a suburban development instead of a living urban neighborhood. I prefer to gamble on a hopefully better design down the road rather than waste valuable (nearby) waterfront property on a piss pore building. I can dream, can't I?

That design looks exactly like much of the new construction I see in my travels around the US. While some may see the look as derivative I view it as the look of a modern city. Our problem IMO is it probably won't like like that if/when it does get built. The Lumen was a superb design until the review board had to muck it up with those silly stripes. There's a reason why we struggle so much in this town and it starts with leadership on many fronts.

Really nice pic! The first thing that jumps out to me is that most of the windows have lights on. That's a whole lot of office workers there. Comparing that image to now it looks much more alive back then even though we have larger structures now. Maybe it's the scale but things look more intact in that old photo. Just one little parking lot. Looks almost more European than American. Speaking of intact, like most (all?) of us on this site I can't wait to see the impact the SW building will have on that view along with the present buildings. We all hate those parking lots and seeing even those little buildings on the square really completes that corner.

Why its a baby crane. Hope it's a boy!

Plus LED makes the cost of keeping the lights on very inexpensive. Come on Cleveland. Lighting the bridges is a big bang for very little bucks.

It's to be expected. Fill a newspaper with actual journalists and you get actual reporting. Gut the paper of journalists and you don't get actual reporting. What DO you get? Today's Plain Dealer. Just to be fair though - it's really not their fault. The world around the daily paper has irreversibly changed. We've chosen to get our news from other sources and advertisers have followed suite. If we still preferred to get our news the old fashioned way newspapers would still be filled with great reporting. It's really only a matter of time until the US has a handful of great papers and the rest will just fade away. As an old white guy reading the morning paper has been one of my guilty pleasures for decades. Not so much anymore. Sucks to get old.

Yes, of course. I am sick over this. Much progress then starting with the virus and now the riots I think a lot of projects and people will think twice about investing in downtown. It's easy to destroy and so hard to build. So much ignorance and fear on so many levels everywhere. Thousands of legit protesters get trumped by hundreds of anarchists and looters. Police don't know how to act. Political leadership is invisible. A lot of people are afraid and don't know what to do. Many will just pack up and leave. I'm hurting for my city. Same as it ever was.

I know. I know. That's why I said its a lost cause.

My last 8 years at the clinic I had an office in the S building. It is exactly what you would expect - an obsolete structure. The only sort of interesting thing from my perspective was how the S and T buildings were cobbled together. The floors didn't match in height and they are connected by a maze of hallways. The T building had a pretty cool old lobby that looked straight out of a 1940's movie. Grand but shabby.

Those streetcar tracks make me sad. I know it's a lost cause but, damn, it is just so hard to build light rail in this town. Just watched a show on PBS about 10 towns that changed America. Among others it showed ruby red Salt Lake City of all places with a light rail sharing the road with cars going right through downtown. No real density there and yet they managed to get one built. There are a number of smaller cities like CLE in the US that have built new light rail but we can't manage it. I noticed when I lived in Europe any town with any density at all got one built and it SHARED the road with cars. but not here. And what really pisses me off is the astronomical cost per mile. WTF. We could build systems everywhere at 25-50% of the cost if we didn't have so many regulations in place. It's not rocket science. It's just a streetcar. It's a very old idea that should be easy to build but Nooo, can't do it here. We make it so much harder than it has to be.

"detrimental impact on their property values." Who are these idiots? They must be relatives of the Flats residences who oppose construction of any new high-rises in the west bank of the Flats. Don't they realize that IF all of the planned building were to occur their property values would sky-rocket? Idiots!

^ Yes, while the population remains stagnant that doesn't take into account the fact that the numbers are churning and the churn is replacing a poorer group with a wealthier group. Say what you will about economic displacement/gentrification but in one of the poorer cities in the US those changes benefit the city in a number of ways i.e. more tax dollars to the city, more $ spent locally, probably greater citizen participation in the neighborhood. And as a card carrying liberal I will say the new residents add to diversity because the old CLE had a greater percentage of minorities as well as poorer people. Diversity is good. Economic diversity is good. So is Ethnographic diversity. We need it all. New energy, new ideas, new life and yes, new money too.

I applaud your optimism Ken.

KJP regarding which office buildings have been cancelled there was a recent mention in a thread (I thought it was yours but maybe not) about a potential office building that was either going to be downsized or cancelled. Knowing the times and the difficulty in getting ANY office building built downtown that doesn't seem unreasonable to me. As you well know CLE has done an amazing job converting obsolete office space into residential. We've done a decent job building new residential. What we don't do well is build new office towers. I won't go into the reasons - most of us on this site are all too familiar with them. When you combine the difficulty in getting a new office tower built with the covid 19 times isn't it reasonable to think things will be tempered even more? I'm not saying it's the end of the world. I'm just saying the climb is more difficult today than it was 3 months ago.

Every project downtown built on the previous development. One led to another; a virtuous cycle. Same with people moving downtown - more people moving there led to more people wanting to move there. Short term covid 19 is slowing the momentum that downtown was experiencing. Projects are being delayed, downsized or cancelled. Same for individuals planning on moving downtown. Many will think twice and delay/cancel the move. Many, many segments are being hurt by this. WFH will increase but it won't replace the office. Business and leisure travel will be impacted leading to a pretty significant decrease in hotel occupancy along with a corresponding decrease in people eating in downtown restaurants and attending theaters. On an optimistic note I have great faith in the scientific community to come up with treatments and ultimately a vaccine. Once that occurs things will begin to return to what was once normal albeit at what, 80, 90% of what it was. I doubt that we will get back to normal in the coming decade. Too many people will remain afraid of density for quite awhile. This is a momentum buster for sure but I do feel strongly that given time, we will get it back. It's just going to take awhile.

If cooler heads were to prevail (not going to happen IMO) I would love to see the Shoreway west of the deadman's curve split turned into a boulevard. But building a tunnel is so expensive I can't see that happening in these challenging economic times either. Is that new route even practical? Although replacing the bridge won't be cheap. At any rate if the bridge was replaced with a tunnel I for one would miss it. One of the neat things about the Flats is that looming blue monster hanging over our heads. Removing it would almost feel like a decapitation.

Couldn't disagree more. Viewing the stage with the river backdrop is one of the most unique concert facilities anywhere. I remember watching Stevie Ray Vaughn open and just as he started to play a giant ore boat came into view and the skipper blasted his horn. It was so loud it caught Stevie Ray by surprise. He turned around to look and then turned back to the audience with a big grin on his face and a fist bump. It's things like that that make Cleveland special. Where else are you gonna see that?

One side not for this new plan is that although the building is not all that tall it will probably look taller than it actually is due to the (lack of) height of the buildings surrounding it. If it was in the E.9th office corridor it would blend in but in its present location it will look taller than it actually is. Coming out from a game at Gateway the thing will look pretty imposing. So there's that.

KJP in a different thread you alluded to a possible "bigger" development on the west bank of the Flats that's NOT a Jacobs plan. I understand you don't want to say more until the info is released but I am curious if you can answer one question? From what I understand Jeff Jacobs has controlling interest in the parking lots and other land along the river and if he's not involved that doesn't leave much property left over for a "bigger" project. What am I missing here? Also, since you feel relatively confident that announced projects will get built have you heard anything more on the City Club building breaking ground this summer? Thanks.

What?? Is Jacobs getting ready to pull the trigger? I have zero faith in him unless he manages to link his property with someone who actually has deep pockets and experience in getting a large project off the ground. That being said, what worries me more in a general sense is that the massive economic fallout from covid-19 will put a serious hurt on most of the development projects that were close to being announced. I'm afraid that after the dust settles we will find that much of the Cleveland momentum will stall out. Just like with the Great Recession we could lose 2-3 years of project time.

Ouch.

^ The more light the better. Colors, scrolling text etc. Love it. And while I'm at it let's keep Christmas lights up through Feb. Call them winter lights to make it more palatable if necessary. These northern climes benefit from winter light IMO.