musky

(^he got married, me thinks) As promised:

Saw this sign today. I wonder if this was made to appease Mary Wright-Alley (cafe owner). I like these tree thingies (technical term) Looking from Playhouse Square toward CSU. A couple of shots in front of the student center. This part is supposed to be done by iNGENUiTY. It's going to be close.

On a different note: I drive pass the area regularly. More so because I have to to get to my sister's house then for any other reason. Has anyone else noticed a majority of their oak tress are barely surviving. Many of them are completely dead.

presOhio, does your new position have anything to do with this four year old plan? Just wondering

that's hell-arry-us

Me either. I suppose 50 years from now, the youngsters of the time will be complaining that the new retail is not being built like it was in the good old days in the early 2000's. They will be saying, "Why don't developers build things like they did with Crocker Park," just like we say regarding Shaker Square. I applaud Westlake and everyone involved with the building of the development. There is no way any city will build things like they were in Cleveland, Lakewood, etc. Those were built over a long period of time. Westlake has not only retail, but office and housing. Plus (I have to tell this to people who will "never set foot" in the area), the spin off development is a reality. There is construction all over the place. Don't get me wrong, I am disappointed this is not happening in Cleveland. But I would rather loose opportunities to Westlake doing things as best as they can then to suburbs building purely for their own misinformed "economic development." And I am really sick of hearing people complain about Crocker Park. Do I expect it to stop? NO! Thats how people are... always giving there subjective opinion about things. I'm crabby - I need to eat lunch now. I wish I had money to go to Champps in Westlake. :-D

Well said, Vulpster. I totally agree. I would much rather see this type of construction within the county then crap like Legacy... or even the worse crap in Avon.

Anybody here think this is a privacy issue?

KJP: First, I completely understand your point. However something does not make sense. From what I know of you over this very short time, you appear to be one of the first cheerleaders jumping on the bandwagon when it comes down to any particular development. Writing about it... interviewing the "stars"... memorizing all of the "stats." Yet you claim to be mr. pessimistic when it comes to Cleveland sports. There have been more times we have been disappointed by "Urban Ohio interest" adventures then we have by the almost championships of our various pro sports teams. Why the conflict? (this coming from a person who hates only one thing more then basketball.... more basketball - yet i am on the bandwagon... sort of)

I just looked on Google Earth. Ontario is Route 422 ( I always thought 422 was a state route). From Wikipedia (this makes it true, right?): I tried (briefly) to find a map of 422 - but could not. Instead, here is a Google Earth Image of where the sign is located.

I heard this on the radio this morning. Which road is a Federal Road? Ontario?

Trust me - nobody will EVER know.

Very cool news. My kids have been begging me to get them closer to the station.

From Green City Blue Lake:

From Green City Blue Lake:

Another example of what to do wit a (using a very subjective word that I really despise using) "ugly" building: New York Times By PATRICK O'GILFOIL HEALY DALLAS - The condo and apartment conversion craze has hit a wall here - a sleek corporate wall of smoked glass and cheap steel girding. It was bound to happen. Across the country, buildings with character - old garment factories, warehouses, Art Deco skyscrapers and Beaux-Arts firehouses - are being revived as condominiums and loft apartments as cities try to draw residents back to their core. But with that historic stock depleting, developers are now turning to uglier candidates for condo makeover: moribund office towers. From Dallas to Fort Worth, Los Angeles to Chicago, developers are lifting the corporate skin off these skyscrapers. They are installing new windows, limestone facades, balconies and contemporary ornament, and in some cases stripping the buildings to curtain walls and I-beams to do it. "You've got to take off some of the old ugly facades and let there be glass and light," said Laura Miller, the mayor of Dallas. "If you take the skin off and restore it, it's beautiful." These glass-and-steel monoliths sprang up in droves from 1950 to 1980, when cities like Dallas experienced explosive and unchecked commercial development. In the 1950's, Dallas added 7.2 million square feet of office space, second only to New York City, according to an article in May 1960 in The Dallas Morning News. But as those buildings aged and jobs fled Dallas during the dot-com recession, many of those buildings emptied, giving Dallas the highest office vacancy rate in the country. From 2000 to 2005, amid a glut of office space, office rents declined by 22 percent, according to Reis Inc., a real estate research company. Although the city's numbers have improved over the last year, 26.5 percent of its office space is still vacant. Downtown alone, nine million square feet of office space sits vacant, according to the brokerage firm Cushman & Wakefield. "These buildings have kind of been shunned," said Ted Hamilton, who is working with his father, Larry, to redevelop and partly reface the vacant Fidelity Union Life Towers downtown to create 435 apartments and 20,000 square feet of retail space. Developers like the Hamiltons have snatched up these buildings - some boarded up, some 15 percent occupied - for $10 a square foot and concocted sales pitches for lofts and new retailing spaces. The city is eager to unload its outmoded office stock and is serving up tens of millions of dollars in tax incentives for construction, exterior renovation and landscaping. Dallas could use 10,000 residential units downtown, and about 3,800 have been built or are being developed, according to the Central Dallas Association. In other cities, the choice to tear down or redevelop a dilapidated old building can instantly ignite an emotional battle, pitching preservationists and historians against developers. Less so in cities like Dallas, said Art Lomenick, managing director for the Trammel Crow Company, a Dallas real estate brokerage firm. "It's not that old of a city," Mr. Lomenick said. "You've got buildings that are functionally obsolete now that were built in the 50's and 60's. They're not architecturally significant. They're terrible." Razing or refacing often boils down to a cost-benefit analysis, said Joseph Sapp, a San Diego developer who plans to reface three downtown office buildings here and convert them to apartments. If the building's footprint is not too big (sprawling office floors beget cavelike apartments) and its bones are solid, it is often cheaper and faster to reface than rebuild. "You're just buying it for bupkis," Mr. Sapp said. "Everything's already intact. Think of it as a big tenant improvement job. I call them recycling." Mr. Sapp's company, 3J Development, plans to replace the dark-glass shell of an empty 1961 office building at 1600 Pacific Street with walls of blue glass, tack on balconies, add a contemporary cornice and cut terraces into the building. On Main Street, he will expose the original stone facade and cornice of the Praetorian, a 1908 office building with a face that was girded in glass and silvery metal during the 60's. Other developers along Main Street have unwrapped small older buildings and set up stores and restaurants. "It looks horrible," Mr. Sapp said of the Praetorian's current state, which resembles a foil wrapping. "I can't believe they did what they did. We're going to completely redo the exterior. It will have a unique look to it - like that older-building look in New York." Mr. Sapp is in contract to buy 211 North Ervay, a turquoise-paneled building from the 1950's, and will reface it. Some preservationists have objected, saying the building is an understated piece of Modernism, but the mayor, Ms. Miller, said she was elated about the building's makeover. "That has been the bane of my existence since I became mayor," three years ago, she said. To peel a building, developers have to examine its frame - where the columns are placed, how the exterior curtain wall is attached and what sort of additions the structure can support. In Fort Worth, after a tornado ravaged the Bank One Tower in 2000, developers saved the building from demolition, deciding to pare it down to the skeleton and rebuild, inside and out. Workers scaled the building like window washers to unbolt the aluminum curtain wall and expose the concrete frame, said Brian George, an architect on the project. They tacked on balconies, affixed a new curtain wall, installed aqua-green windows and are now setting a metal crown on the roof, which will be lighted from below to glow at night. Other cities are performing similar face lifts, having decided that many Modernist buildings' visages have not aged well. In Chicago, developers have removed the black glass of the old Montgomery Ward & Company headquarters - called the "Darth Vader building" in The Chicago Tribune - and installed a blue-green coat to convert the tower to condos. Other conversions involving refacing are under way in Philadelphia, Miami and Stoneham, Mass. In Dallas, some of the before-and-after building renderings are as striking as photos in a weight-loss brochure. At 1217 Main Street, British developers have sketched out plans to morph a dark and vacant five-story office into an Edenic mix of offices, stores and restaurants, where waterfalls flow down a crystal-clear facade and a giant red awning sweeps up to a roof garden planted with palms. New stone and metal panels would complete the picture. Other developers are learning that their reach exceeds their grasp. The Hamiltons, the father-and-son developers, drew elaborate ideas for their Fidelity Union conversion, adorning the towers with scores of new windows that protruded like gems, new girding and gill-like flourishes. Now they have scaled back the plan, in part because they are seeking federal tax credits and must conform to the National Park Service's standards - the park service runs the Federal Historic Preservation Tax Incentives program - that developers preserve the historic quality of a building. "We couldn't do this" and still be eligible for the $20 million tax credit, Ted Hamilton said in an interview, as he surveyed the original drawings. Sometimes, money dictates the look. The building known as 1200 Main Street is a classic black-and-brown office box being transformed into condos costing $120,000 to $600,000. The developers will carve balconies into the building, giving it notches and texture, but they said it would cost too much to replace the building's exterior. "This building has been here since 1972," said Audra Hall, the senior sales manager for the project, as she walked through the renovated apartments. "It is what it is."

Fell behind a bit - and with good reason. Here are the last three updates. May 14, 2007 Upcoming Congressional Bills - * Senate: Water Resources Development Act * House: National Defense Authorization Act, FY2008 * House: Federal Housing Finance Reform Act of 2007 Recent Senate Votes Prescription Drug User Fee Amendments - Vote Passed (93-1, 6 Not Voting) The Senate passed this bill that would renew a Food and Drug Administration program requiring pharmaceutical companies to contribute to the costs of testing new medicines. Sen. George Voinovich voted YES Sen. Sherrod Brown voted YES Recent House Votes Budget Resolution, FY2008 - Vote Passed (212-207, 13 Not Voting) The House passed a $2.9 trillion budget plan for the upcoming fiscal year. Rep. Dennis Kucinich voted NO Student Loan Sunshine Act - Vote Passed (414-3, 15 Not Voting) The House passed this bill aimed at introducing transparency into dealings between private student loan lenders and colleges. Rep. Dennis Kucinich voted YES Homeland Security Authorization Act - Vote Passed (296-126, 10 Not Voting) The House passed this bill authorizing $39.8 billion in Department of Homeland Security spending for the 2008 fiscal year. Rep. Dennis Kucinich voted NO Re-deployment from Iraq Act - Vote Failed (171-255, 7 Not Voting) The House rejected this bill that would have required all U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq within six months. Rep. Dennis Kucinich voted YES Emergency Supplemental Appropriations - Vote Passed (221-205, 7 Not Voting) The House approved this bill that would fund military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan in two installments. Rep. Dennis Kucinich voted NO Agricultural Disaster Assistance Appropriations Act - Vote Passed (302-120, 10 Not Voting) This House bill would provide $3.5 billion to farmers who lost crops or livestock due to weather-related events during fiscal years 2005 through 2007. Rep. Dennis Kucinich voted YES Intelligence Authorization Act - Vote Passed (225-197, 10 Not Voting) This bill authorizes spending for 16 U.S. intelligence gathering agencies for the upcoming fiscal year. Rep. Dennis Kucinich voted NO Upcoming Votes Water Resources Development Act - H.R.1495 The Senate is set to take up this $12 billion bill authorizing the Army Corps of Engineers to carry out a variety of waterways, water supply, and environmental restoration projects. National Defense Authorization Act, FY2008 - H.R.1585 This House bill would set defense spending priorities for the upcoming fiscal year. Federal Housing Finance Reform Act of 2007 - H.R.1427 This bill would restructure the federal government's housing finance agencies. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ May 29, 2007 Recent Senate Votes Supplemental Appropriations bill - Vote Agreed to (80-14, 6 Not Voting) The Senate approved this $120 billion bill funding military operations in Iraq. Sen. George Voinovich voted YES Sen. Sherrod Brown voted YES Recent House Votes Federal Price Gouging Prevention Act - Vote Passed (284-141, 7 Not Voting) This House bill would allow the President to declare an energy emergency for a specific period of time and make the sale of gasoline at "unconscionably excessive" prices a federal offense. Rep. Dennis Kucinich voted YES Lobbying Transparency Act - Vote Passed (382-37, 13 Not Voting) This bill would require lobbyists to disclose the names of donors when they "bundle" campaign contributions to Members of Congress. Rep. Dennis Kucinich voted NO Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007 - Vote Passed (396-22, 1 Present, 13 Not Voting) This House bill would institute new lobbying reporting requirements and increase penalties for violating lobbying rules. Rep. Dennis Kucinich voted YES Supplemental Appropriations bill, Amendment No. 1 - Vote Passed (348-73, 12 Not Voting) The House split the emergency supplemental spending bill into two parts, with this first part including the domestic spending and minimum wage hike portions of the bill. Rep. Dennis Kucinich voted NO Supplemental Appropriations bill, Amendment No. 2 - Vote Passed (280-142, 11 Not Voting) The House approved the $103 billion portion of the supplemental spending bill that funds military operations in Iraq. Rep. Dennis Kucinich voted NO ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ May 21, 2007 Recent Senate Votes Water Resources Development Act of 2007 - Vote Passed (91-4, 5 Not Voting) The Senate approved this $13.9 billion bill that would fund Army Corps of Engineers projects related to water supply, flood control and waterways navigation. Sen. George Voinovich voted YES Sen. Sherrod Brown voted YES Budget Resolution, FY2008 - Vote Agreed to (52-40, 8 Not Voting) The Senate passed the conference report for this $2.9 trillion budget plan for the upcoming fiscal year. Sen. George Voinovich voted NO Sen. Sherrod Brown voted YES Recent House Votes National Defense Authorization Act - Vote Passed (397-27, 8 Not Voting) The House passed this bill authorizing $504 billion in Defense Department spending and $142 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for the upcoming fiscal year. Rep. Dennis Kucinich voted NO Budget Resolution, FY2008 - Vote Passed (214-209, 10 Not Voting) The House passed the conference report for this $2.9 trillion budget plan for the upcoming fiscal year. Rep. Dennis Kucinich voted NO

From WCPN: More at: http://www.wcpn.org/mp3/2007/06/0605green.mp3

I don't recall seeing this anywhere. And I do not have the patience to deal with the forum lag. If this is a double post, please remove. From the Plain Press:

I will by Friday. But there really isn't much to see. It is mostly all demo work at this point. Almost all of the Brick Veneer has been removed from the Euclid side if the building.