imjustinjk

Yes true, but MidTown branding, operations, etc stops at E 79 where the CDC ends. FRDC picks up after this. I’ve always associated the Clinic with Fairfax more than midtown. Even though Fairfax is within a broader midtown area in an urban definition, which is probably more important here than organizational boundaries. Neither are incorrect. One could say they live in Midtown or Chelsea (referencing New York). This makes a lot of sense from a historical sense. It could also have been an important fundraising opportunity for Dunham. They can’t really have a large pool of resources can they? Their visitorship is only a few thousand a year. I’m not sure if they even have the resources to properly landscape the lot. They had to do a lot of fundraising to even acquire the lot in the first place. CF has an endowment in the billions. I don’t entirely understand the opposition. If it were a huge multinational firm maybe, but it’s a revered local establishment who wouldn’t do something distasteful to tarnish Dunham Tavern.

I actually really liked the Weston Citymark plans because their frontage along W. 6th was respective of historic buildings, and then they had taller building heights set back. The tallest portion was closest to Jacob’s. I think that SW could do a campus though. If they consolidated everything however unlikely they could do a skyscraper with progressively smaller buildings on the WHD lots. They could have their parking facing Frankfort with curtains of office around them, and some street front retail along W. 6th.

Here is the Google Slide Version of the powerpoint, which is better quality and in presentation mode includes various animations, which is what we presented at CSU. The neighborhood presentation is more condensed because it is so long. The "Lorain Corridor team" dealt with everything outside of the station and KMart/Industrial area roughly between the library and the station entrance. There were a variety of proposals, including an international food market which would work with the Hope Center, refugees, etc. There was also proposals for more retail/and or housing. The corner lot area could also serve as a bus layover area and station if the station to be moved down. North of the site where the Cleveland facilities are, the group who worked on that area, proposed a park. Slide 91-100 deals with Kamden Village to the entrance of the station. also proposed to extend Bartter to Lloyd Peterson, amongst other new connections. The document we gave to Kamm's Development was a lot more in depth.

There are other community development corporations that oversee beyond E. 79th, such as Fairfax Renaissance. I don’t know all of the CDC boundaries, as they frequently change or merge with others. IE, Northeast Shores (I used to intern here) folded into Collinwood-Nottingham or MetroWest which officially became its own organization after being part of DSDO. CDCs often work on projects together, but I believe that MidTown Incs and MidTown branding ends at E. 79. Fairfax oversees the area between UC and MidTown. So in a true city sense the area would be considered midtown since it’s in the middle between downtown and uptown. However, officially FRDC oversees the bit between E 79 and UC. Burten, Bell, Carr neighbors them to the west, just south of MidTown Inc. See attached from a screenshot of one of their reports: https://fairfaxrenaissance.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Innovation-Square-Neighborhood-Plan-082018-compressed.pdf (its on page 3)

It's actually still a very busy station. It has the 3rd highest ridership out of RedLine stations, but most riders are via buses that feed into the station. We proposed heavy residential with transit-oriented retail, restaurants and other services around the station. We envisioned a large central plaza around the station if it were to stay in its current location with apartments facing inward on the plaza, and first floor retail, as well some retail on the plaza like you see with Rebol on Public Square. We also proposed some townhouses further back from the station, which would still provide density, but cater to the neighborhood and be a "step down" between the apartments and the surrounding neighborhood. 30% of surveyors (out of over 2,000) said they wanted to see townhouse developments. Many also said they wanted to see senior housing, so we incorporated that into our plans as well. We were looking at about 32 units per acre in the area we defined as developable, which is way higher than West Park as a whole which has fairly suburban densities. I worked on the "TOD team". We were trying to figure out how to create a denser development, while still fitting into the fabric of the neighborhood and meeting TOD standards.

That may just be their official service boundaries? I believe that other CDCs operate the rest of MidTown. I've always seen maps define it as between E. 79th and the Innerbelt, but it does make sense that it would run the entire length of Downtown and "Uptown" [UC]. Generally seen as North of Cedar and South of Carnegie, except I guess in AsiaTown area it goes a bit up to Payne as well. However, around Cleveland Clinic you see Fairfax branding and placemaking, not MidTown? I can't recall any branding for MidTown over there off the top of my head. There's also an overarching Health-Tech Corridor that includes parts of Downtown, Midtown, and UC. The official neighborhood map/SPA map, I think needs to be updated. According the the official map Downtown doesn't extend to the Innerbelt, north and south of CSU. I've always thought it was fully bounded by the Innerbelt, although some weirdos say it stops past the central CBD. I also never hear anyone refer to AsiaTown as Goodrich-Kirtland? Also, I've never heard of Jefferson, nor did many people I spoke to when I was working over there for a class project. Maybe MidTown could become an official neighborhood, but that might step on the toes of some people. Here's my amazing graphical skills depicting rough boundaries of MidTown, lol.

I forgot to update this! But yes, its something we discussed moving the station a lot. The station was remodeled 20 years ago, so it really could use an upgrade. When looking at similar projects throughout the city, especially the Little Italy Station, it seemed really doable. However, it didn't seem to be a high priority for RTA. Also, there's not a lot of space down there that they can work with, and would probably have to acquire property. Keeping the bus station close to the rapid entrance is important since this station also serves as a layover for 5 bus routes. Between the post office, bus rodeo, and sea of parking (that has a daily average of 130 cars,) the site is severely underutilized. It's also very disconnected from the neighborhood. To me, it makes sense to have some sort of housing development on the site versus swaths of underutilized land. The Final Presentation has a lot of great information put together by a very talented class.

MidTown isn't a "real neighborhood" per se, rather a bits and pieces of others. Between E. 55th and E. 79th its between Cedar and Carnegie. Between the Innerbelt and E. 55th, its between Payne and Cedar. To your other point, a derelict lot with nothing on it is not a benefit to the neighborhood or its anchoring institutions. I'm all for Dunham Tavern maintaining the lot, but they must do something with it. Ohio City has an urban farm, which is amazing and adds to the growing neighborhood. Just north of Dunham Tavern is Chateau Hough, an urban winery. If they're going to maintain this lot they need to do something with it. They could work with Cleveland Botanical Gardens to expand the learning farm behind Dunham Tavern. I kind of don't understand what the members of the museum want? Do they just want it to be an empty lot? Dunham Tavern bought the space from RTAv and drew up plans in 2012. Nothing since has materialized. Further, The Cleveland Foundation is one of the most important organizations in the city. Without them, countless projects would have never moved forward that have greatly contributed to the growth of our city. How much space of the 2.5 acres would the Cleveland Foundation take up? There could still be plenty of room for urban green space, which The Cleveland Foundation could get done.

I'm on the fence. On one hand, I acknowledge that historic sites and green space are both very important to cities. However, its an empty lot. What are their plans? Can it not be an urban farm, a garden, an actual park... something to benefit the community other than an empty lot?

The first 3 floors have really nice architectural detail. They really should have carried the brick, and bay windows up all 5 floors.

I thought funding was in place for the first leg of the project? Probably a lot of behind the scenes work to prepare for the conversion. I really like “road diets”. I can see why RTA would be hesitant on some of these projects. Often times bike lanes are very carelessly placed and infringe upon buses boarding and alighting. A midway design alleviates this issue, but could cause delays for their trips if there’s more traffic. On superior, bus only lanes should be maintained Downtown since so many routes use the road. Safe, separated spaces for ped, bikes, cars, and transit is the way to go. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), a lot of our streets aren’t wide enough for that. But at the end of the day, I think buses should take precedence over bikes as they have a greater usability and serve more people - and hopefully one day soon our network will rebound. Once the midway is complete, townhouses and residences will make more sense when the road isn’t so dominant. Hopefully it can lead to apartment / mix-use development across the street/south of the townhouses where all the parking lots are.

I want all of the beautiful, historic homes to be fixed up.

Also, the townhouses are fairly on scale to the buildings around them.

Townhouses are great in that they provide a good change in density for different areas. Townhouses are a step up in density for suburban or less dense areas of cities. They can also be a nice step down in density in super dense areas. Townhouses can be in more “intimate areas” or they can be squashed between mid and high rise buildings. Chicago’s South Loop is very dense, but not as dense as the main financial district. There’s still high rise buildings, a lot of mid rise buildings and also townhouses. Once you get out of the main business district of Cleveland’s downtown there’s an almost immediate drop in density and building heights, which is really normal for cities. Renovating the warehouses into apartments, building 5-10 story apartments, and adding townhouse developments would really make downtown diverse in housing options.

Downtown proper really has a missing market for townhouses that other city cores have. Can’t just be high rise apartments. Hoping this area builds more, mixed in with some low-mid rise apartments and condos we’d be like a real city. Im just saying, look at many city cores and you’ll see townhouses sprinkled through. Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Chicago, etc. all have townhouses in their downtowns.

My dad is interested in them, 55, white collar executive that works Downtown a few blocks away. He's been looking at housing the past few years in and around Downtown, and these sparked his interest the most. How is it any different than townhouses in Manhattan?

Finishing that townhouse development will be pretty good for the area. Eastern Downtown north of CSU has a lot of progress to be made. Similar scale projects: townhouses and low-rise apartment complexes similar to what's being done in Ohio City really make sense for the area.

I guess, but I want to see the construction ?

CAC and JHB both being finished is amazing. The area was so blighted before. It's hard to imagine that Euclid Ave was ever in such rough shape. Such beautiful buildings. But I can't wait for it be finished, the sidewalk to open, and the trolley stop to return, haha.

Y’all we have to change the title of this thread to “Cleveland: Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse”. ?

Official “World Class Signage” is up. Weird that the CBRE advert is still up?

This is the service I expect when I go into restaurants. I don't want to be pandered to. ?

I like how the added a pedestrian walkway near the end of construction? Or did I just completely miss that the entire time.

I wasn't trying to be hostile or snarky. However, as mentioned by others, Euclid is Downtown's main residential corridor. There's only 2 apartments on E. 12th, Sphere and Reserve Square. Statler is on Euclid, Seasons at Perk is on Chester, and The Avenue is on St. Clair. There's only 1 available parking lot on E. 12th, which in my opinion is better suited for an office building than residential. Euclid Avenue has vastly more residential buildings, and has been the largest focus of residential development. After May Co, JHB, and 925 are redeveloped there isn't really anything on Euclid [Downtown] remaining to redevelop. This leaves the Hippodrome site (possibly being developed by City Club Apartments out of Michigan), Union Club parking lot, and the former site where Lumen is now being built. In a few years, when all of these developments finish, Euclid will be end-to-end residential from Public Square to the Innerbelt. Beyond that, residential developments extend into and throughout MidTown all the way to UC. The Lumen is really the pinnacle of progress for Playhouse Square Theater District, which was on the verge of being demolished. Saying that the Lumen building is out of place, and shouldn't be there undermines the decades of hard work that countless people have performed to save, and revitalize one of Cleveland's best assets. The Playhouse Square Organization being able to control the real estate within their area, and being able to leverage this development to keep the organization financially solvent is important in the long term success of the theater district. They also own the Hanna Building, Crowne Plaza, and others, which further provide financial viability for the organization and their programming. Saying the building could have went somewhere else just doesn't make sense because of the history, and the objectives for the organization who had site control over the parking lot. The Playhouse Square Organization doesn't have a vested interest in E. 12th, WHD, etc. If you haven't watched it before, check out the documentary about saving Playhouse Square. Also, regarding WHD, its not undevelopable. It makes a lot of sense for development, but the Asher's are just sitting on their parking lots with no intent to develop anything. It's really the most obvious next area of Downtown development, but that doesn't negate Lumen's validity.

I think that one of our north-south streets could easily accommodate our light rail. I also think that it would be extremely beneficial, that if hypothetically this would ever happen, to have alternating trains going directly through tower city or through the WFL to tower city. This could benefit the university, as well as a lot of businesses. Much of the northeast Downtown area is very underutilized, which this could help with.