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RoabeArt

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  1. When this rendering first dropped, people in the Lakewood Community Facebook page were talking about how the building was "too tall" and "didn't fit in Lakewood's character." Really? There are several buildings in Lakewood that are as tall or taller than this. Two are literally across the street from that site! 😆
  2. Whenever Burke is talked about I tend to read/hear the phrase "prime real estate." How true is that, really? Sure it's 450 acres of potential blank slate with almost 3 miles of open shoreline encompassing it, but how much of it is actually developable? Also it has very few road connections to the rest of the city, and almost zero water, sewer and electrical infrastructure outside of the terminal area. At this point I can only see two realistic uses for the Burke land: 1. Massive public park/nature preserve, á la Dike 14. 2. Move the Port of Cleveland to Burke, then abate/open the former port area (which is closer to downtown and is better connected) for residential and commercial development. If anything I would rather Cleveland focus on the acres and acres of surface parking lots and vacant land all over the city before they decide to make Burke into a 450 acre albatross.
  3. A relative and I were discussing possible uses for the power plant land, coal yard and railroad spur leading to it, and it evolved into an idea for a "rail trail" connecting the lakefront to the Lake Erie Crushers stadium and the French Creek Reservation. and I thought I'd visualize it. I doubt this has a snowballs' chance of happening since it meanders through multiple cities, goes through private land and crosses active rail lines and sidings (including the rarely used South Lorain Branch that's not shown in the base map), but hey, a guy can dream right?
  4. I'm kind of glad that idea for Lake Road is being shelved. The last thing a lakefront plan needs is a busy state route being moved closer to the lakefront. Rerouting Lake Road to the south could be better though. Especially considering that the land south of it is where the coal confinement was. I think they also shelved the plans for building townhomes there; the ground could be contaminated. Might as well move the road there. I was kind of hoping that the strip with the former Avon Theater would be incorporated into the plan. The theater, I believe, used to be a passenger station for the Lake Shore Electric railway. The power plant originally started out as a generator for the LSE, so it would be cool to merge that historical area into the development since they're related.
  5. I can't tell you how many people I've encountered who had long assumed that "the lake" Cleveland is by was a duck pond and not practically an inland sea. Then when they see for themselves how big the lake is they ask "Why doesn't Cleveland advertise this lake more?" I just tell them I'd been asking myself that same question for most of my adult life.
  6. It's strange because microwave dishes were recently added to that stack in the last couple years. Two of them point towards downtown Cleveland and the other two point somewhere towards Sandusky. Although I've noticed multiple white lines running up and down the outer surface of the stack in the past couple years. Makes me wonder if those were cracks that were sealed. They are way too "random" to be there by design and some of them branch off in different directions.
  7. The plans to the Avon Lake power plant were recently revised: ALERG Conceptual Master Plan (PDF file) Unfortunately it looks like they plan to raze almost all of the buildings, including the original 1920s turbine house and the tallest (601 foot) smokestack. Remaining structures of the power plant highlighted in pink:
  8. If I'm not mistaken, could that be the core also visible in the viewer photo? The building is getting tall enough to be seen at a distance!
  9. That is an unfortunate fact of life in a (re)developing city neighborhood. Your property is not guaranteed spectacular views of the lake or the skyline forever.
  10. A bit pie in the sky but it would be cool to see the power plant made into a smaller-scale version of Pratt Street Station in Baltimore, or Battersea power plant in London. I believe the current owners of the Avon plant are the ones proposing this. We shall see, I suppose. At least they plan to keep the smokestacks. I wonder if the FAA has anything to do with that decision making considering how the stacks are commonly featured in aeronautical maps of the area. With the tallest one being 601 feet it can be seen for tens of miles around so it makes for a useful VFR aid for pilots.
  11. How feasible would it be for Amazon Air to add service to Cleveland Hopkins? I know they got the big hub at Cincinnati/Covington, and terminals at Pittsburgh and Detroit. With the new Amazon distribution warehouse going up at the nearby former Ford plant, a terminal at CLE seems logical.
  12. A few shots of the interior of the soon-to-be-demolished Avon Lake power plant. Credit to Northeast Ohio Drone on Facebook.
  13. Ironically the old plaza that occupied that site was built closer to the street (albeit with a parking strip in front). The new plaza is such a step backward.
  14. The one thing cities like Lakewood, Rocky River, Cleveland Heights and Berea have in common is that they were well established long before cars became the norm for travel. Most of Cleveland's suburbs sprang up in the 1950s and later when cars were king, and walkable business districts weren't considered so desirable by the people who wanted to live in those suburbs. That being said, I've always thought Fairview Park would be a good spot for developing a walkable district on Lorain Road, particularly along the stretch between West 210th and 220th. There are already a few existing sidewalk-lining businesses, some even with apartments above, but unfortunately they're separated by parking lots and other auto-centric land uses. Nothing seems to be on the table for establishing any sort of improvement district.
  15. The question is can anything really be developed on the power plant land other than greenspace? I imagine the soil underneath would be contaminated. That being said it would be interesting if the original generator building could at least be saved, rehabbed and repurposed.