imjustinjk

Harbor Bay went before the planning commission today for a zoning map amendments for change of use, height and area districts. There was a lot of positive feedback, but slight concern about parking since there's less than a 1-to-1 park proposal for apartments. However, McCormack and Whalen were able to speak to the benefits of TOD and the multimodal connectivity at this location. There seems to be a lot of support from this project from the city, neighborhood groups, west side mark tenants, and Ohio City Inc. Even the neighboring business owner spoke on Harbor Bay's behalf. Can't wait for this project to really get off the ground.

I thought that both dealership lots were bought out by a developer (blanking on their name).

This is one of my favorite projects in Cleveland and we need to replicate it in OhC, UC/Little Italy, Kamm’s, etc. Its truly phenomenal. Not only are they providing great ToD, but also well designed affordable housing that the residents deserve.

I think that the stakeholders would participate in pressuring ODOT. I’m just not sure how much they’ll budge after plopping down $100 mil. I love, love, love the idea of service along the Shoreway. It won’t be extremely difficult or expensive to paint BRT lanes. I always had hoped for more pedestrian/cycling infrastructure as well. RTA has already dipped their toes in the water with limited service to edgewater at the W 73rd ramp - which I used last summer a handful of times and it was great. I think that 45th and 54th should both be serviced by the 55. Is there a reason why 54th wasn’t connected to the Shoreway? It’s almost at the same elevation. There wouldn’t need to be a ramp/bridge built and it would be perfect for an intersection, which could help slow traffic down a bit (I like the Shoreway at 35mph).

I mean they run every 10ish minutes and circulate downtown. I use them numerous times a day since I live on Euclid/E 6, intern in the warehouse district, and attend grad school at CSU. Plus the buses are very cute. But it’s not a bad idea to have concentrated parking areas. Downtown isn’t very geographically large, and there are cities (in Europe obviously) who have removed parking from their city centers with success.

Like the free trolleys?

I like this sketch up a lot, but I think it was ODOT who dropped the ball on the lack of pedestrian and transit infrastructure during the “conversion”. The rush hour BRT lanes should have continued all the way down the Shoreway. I’m pretty sure RTA was planning on some service along the Shoreway, but the project had a lot of shortcomings. RTA has been doing a bunch of small scale expansions of service (pinecrest, glenwillow, both amazon distribution centers, etc), so it’s really not out of the scope to add a couple stops along the Shoreway. The only issues I see with these plans are the pull offs, and how difficult it might be to get back into traffic during rush (unless they were given the lanes for partial BRT such as on Clifton). There’s still a ton of potential for this “boulevard”, especially as more and more projects like Westington come to fruition. How much more analysis can we expect after this flop?

It wasn’t necessarily an argument per se, just wondering. The “build it and they will come” model is not what Cleveland needs, nor will it work. Having a 1 super tall skyscraper won’t lead to a more vibrant city, especially if we can’t fill it. If someone were to come along tomorrow and say that they wanted to build a 20 story building on the empty lot, that would be great. A taller skyscraper would be great as well, but how has that worked in the 20+ years that the lot has sat vacant ?

How viable are large office buildings as technology becomes more advanced and the way we use office space changes? The space needed per person is a lot smaller. There isn't really a need to be tethered to a cubicle or office, let alone actually physically being at work. Jacob's property would be fine with a 15-20 story building.

What people think they need and/or want is not what they actually need or should necessarily should have. Continuing the pattern of auto oriented development will not benefit Cleveland. This same auto dependency is why we have a glut of flat surface parking lots in our urban core. Going vertical with parking doesn’t really rectify the underlying issues. Shying away from this by designing transit oriented projects and improving multi modal infrastructure is what we should be aiming for Downtown. Many of my peers, including myself, live car free lives or desire to. However, it’s difficult to do so because at all levels from planning to developing to funding, we favor cars over people. Stark professed a landmark project to change the landscape of Cleveland, but will end up delivering the same ole shiny vanilla box wrapped around excessive parking.

As a transportation/transit planner and soon to be MUPD graduate it’s just a little disheartening to see 1/3 of a building be dedicated to parking.

8 stories of parking in each. Yikes. Maybe 8 stories of parking in one of the buildings. 1500 parking spaces seems really unnecessary. Maybe 800-1000. There’s PnR bus routes, rapid transit, etc. that run extremely close to this project.

That project looks great though!! I’m really excited. I love TOD, and I think Kamm’s is the perfect opportunity for it. The area has a lot of assets to build upon. We’re even going to be looking at some of the excess parking areas of the station itself.

My graduate capstone class is working with KCDC to create a redevelopment plan for the eastern West Park area, especially the vacant/underutilized lots and buildings along the rapid line [TOD emphasis]. I'm really excited to be working on this as my exit project. Here's a link to some previous projects: CSU Levin MUPD Studio Proejcts

At the most basic level, do you think that these plots of lands don’t cost to operate? The maintenance, property taxes, etc. are just magically covered? This isn’t a suburban strip mall. https://www.vox.com/2014/6/27/5849280/why-free-parking-is-bad-for-everyone

This isn’t a terrible idea. I was thinking more along the lines of roughly 4-6 story buildings like the other buildings. I don’t really think it’s necessary for large buildings that are 25-40 stories. Something similar to the quarter project would be a great fit for most of the parking lots. Brownstones could be really cool too. I work on W 6th and live on Euclid at E 6th. I go out to the warehouse district almost every weekend. It’s kind of soul crushing to walk through all those lots. I’m sure any townhouse development in the warehouse district would be very high end and call for prices in the high 6 figures if not even 1+ mil. I think that brownstones on the lots on facing W 9th would be really great. But the ones on w W 6th closer to public square would be better for mixed-use developments with street level retail/restaurant space?!

I’m not sure. I was only there briefly. It could be. I’m not sure what the process is to turn a blank box into a restaurant, but it’s probably easier than the conversion next door from a bank into a restaurant, haha.

That would be really cool. Our public square is so beautiful, but it’s being brought down largely by the vacant lots and to a minor extent that ugly blank wall haha. I’m not sure if the owners will ever do anything with that wall. Probably not financially worth the effort.

I saw some activity occurring this morning while waiting for the trolley.

I spoke to the bartender last night. He said that Lake Effeft as an xmas themed bar will remain open until January 15th. Then it will probably remain open as another bar afterward. If this is this is true that would be great news for a space that’s been vacant for so long.

Heck's Express has pretty comparable food, and its seemingly pretty busy when I've been there or walked past it. I think that they have different audiences? Shake Shack isn't terrible. I wouldn't go there personally when so many other local establishments have great burgers. But its great they're filling the space. I live right next door, and wait for the trolley there every morning to go to my internship. Its kind of sad looking at the empty building so often. Similarly, I'm glad Schofield has at least [again] temporarily filled their vacancy. Its been very lively with Lake Effect. These large "flagship" locations are expensive, and not many local places can necessarily afford them. I guess that it is a good sign that some national retailers are considering them.

I guess it’s good something is going in that space. Why would Heck’s Express not survive? Competition or the construction?

It looks like windows are going in.

We have multiple SoDoSoPa's haha.

Lol, my bad. I didn't realize, nor have I really kept up with this particular project.