Vulpster03

There is a little wkyc bit that shows them in action. I found the clip a little amusing. It kind of portrays them as a team of superheros. http://www.wkyc.com/video/player.aspx?aid=22425

I think we should do a pub crawl across the city from Ohio City to Coventry

^maybe we need to brainstorm ways to put our good ideas in this forum to use and take Urban Ohio corporate. We could have an office in several major downtown metropolitan areas that could operate a hostel, put out a newspaper, and lobby for transportation and urban projects for the metropolitan area.

Towards the beginning of the semester, I got lost driving around in Hamilton by myself. I can't begin to tell you were I was, but all I know is that I saw a sign that "Illegal Aliens here" with an arrow pointing down a driveway I was headed. It was something like the Butler County prison. I thought it was hillarious that they actually had a sign. I wish I had my camera that night. I saw a lot of really odd things down there.

You really think so? Are Soho, Manhattan's Upper-Eastside, Harvard Square, Beverly Hills, Miami Beach, Chicago's Magnificent Mile, or Lincoln Park "neighborhoods" that equate with "lame"? Shopping malls aren't enough to support good retail in the long-run. The uniqueness and attractiveness of good mixed-use districts that cater to tourists, residents, and workerss alike tend to yield the most impressive and sustainable retail mix.

^ Yes! See that's what I thought was so strange about LA, and what I meant when there wasn't really a downtown. It has several high density business/residential/tourist districts. If you see a view of LA as taken from the hills, you see a bunch of skyscrapers and something that appears to be a skyline, but when you are down there and driving around you see clusters of skyscrapers and high rises spread very far apart from eachother in the middle of vast sprawling low density. When you are driving on the freeways that go through the city you really can't tell which cluster of buildings is "downtown".

Wow, thats really good news. I'm glad lenders are being receptive this. Intuivitely- and as someone who likes to think they know Greater Cleveland very well- I believe this development makes so much sense and will be extremely successful. I think if lenders, retailers, and other stakeholders are really given enough information about the region's demographics, trends in urban centers, and potential of this site, then there is no reason why it shouldn't happen. I am very pleased with Stark and believe he has high expectations that will be delivered

Okay, this is getting a little off topic from the Avenue District discussion, but the West Side is very nice. Strectching all the way from downtown along the lake and along I-90 into Bay-Westlake I'd say as a whole the West Side is probably nicer than the stretch from downtown along Carnegie/Cedar Rd into Beachwood. The east side to me seems like there is a lot of discrepency in terms of wealth and there is this huge gap. The West Side doesn't have a Shaker Boulevard, but it also doesn't really have anything like Woodland Road either. Also consider Lakewood vs. Cleveland Heights. Cleveland Heights is like the haves and the have-nots, where Lakewood is pretty much everyone has something. Statistically, Lakewood and other inner-ring west side neighborhoods have lower crime, better schools, and higher household income than the inner-ring east side. When just considering the "West Side" I think of it in terms of upper and lower, and not inner and outer. Very generally speaking the West Side gets nicer the farther north you are. For example, no hillbillies live north of Lorain Avenue. The communities along I-90 are a lot more affluent than the ones along I-480. Especially along the lake, if you take a drive along the west shore down Edgewater Drive, Lake Avenue, Lake Road, Frazier Drive, and Avalon Drive and I think it comes really close to rivaling the East Side. Sometime you really should consider driving along the lake from downtown into Avon Lake. It is pretty much a 20 mile millionaires' row. George Steinbrenner, Dave Thomas, Dick Jacobs, Tom Coughlin, the Bell family, the Kahl family, and many other of Cleveland's wealthiest families have lived or currenty live on the West Side.

What stage is this project in exactly, or I mean, what is the next step for Stark? Are their some property owners holding out, or are they trying to figure out financing? So far most of the press has all been about what Stark "wants" to do, which sounds great.

You know until I went to school in Oxford, I probably only saw small Ohio towns and their historic commercial districts a few times in my life. It didn't strike me until I actually drove through rural Ohio to get to campus from Cleveland how many great small towns there are. Not that I didn't travel growing up, but the few times my family traveled by car it was on the interstate. I think on my way to Cleveland from Oxford I may avoid the interstate all together and stick to state routes. I was thinking of taking rt.42 a good part of the way.

I remember hearing about that too, but forget when and where I read about it. I think that kind rehab to Cleveland area duplexes are redundant. I think the typical duplexes can be a nice arrangement, and have advantages over side by side townhouses. The only reason why I like the Heritage Lane conversion is that it encourages more families to live in the area. Duplexes or townhouses aren't lived in by a lot of families. Mostly single people, older people, students, or very young families. These are important demographics, but I don't know necessarily why a side by side conversion would be so profitable for developers and seem more attractive to residents.

Downtown LA has been experiencing little sprouts of redevelopment, but Gehry is right about there not really being a downtown LA. There is only a technical "downtown" district, but it anything like a downtown I've seen in other cities. I was there a couple years ago and went downtown to see the new Catholic cathedral and while driving around it was amazing how very little pedestrian activity there was, and how much disrepair the buildings were. There are a lot of efforts to revitalize downtown LA, and they will probably be successful, but probably not as successful as people think. It is my opinion that the LA culture is so entrenched with driving around in flashy cars and being near the beach or having a large house with your pool that you will never see LA be like a vibrant densely populated big city with a lot of pedestrian activity. Forest City has a nice finished a nice project for downtown LA. It is a historic rennovation of some subway terminal and it is now for sale housing units. Why they don't similar for something attached to Tower City like in the Higbee building is beyond me, but whatever.

lol. Yeah, this project is nice, but I wouldn't put it in the exciting category.

I personally think Heritage Lane is great, and this is exactly the type of redevelopment that should be happening throughout Cleveland. I think Cleveland Hieghts and Lakewood should consider converting a lot of their streets with duplexes into streets of restored and renovated single family homes in order to compete with the outer-ring suburbs.

I can think of a number of retailers not in the Cleveland market, but could do very well. In addition they would probably only be interested in a development like Stark for their store locations. I'm thinking of stores like Club Monaco, Zara, Armani Exchange. These stores aren't overpriced and there is no reason why they couldn't do well and they would be most interested in attracting downtown dwellers over suburban residents anyway as part of their brand building. If you aren't familar with them, they are essentially similar concepts to Banana Republic, but operate more exclusively in metropolitan areas and usually aren't located in suburbs. There are probably other retailers that would only settle for a downtown in Stark's development if they were to come in the Cleveland market at all. Anyway, I think there is a retail agglmoration that would be extremely approrpriate for Stark's development downtown and could draw people from all over. I think the key to getting downtown retail up and going again is to attract retailers that don't have very expensive merchandise, but are distributed somewhat exclusively. H&M and Urban Outfitters are exactly the type of stores I am talking about. It is too bad they didn't go downtown, but fortunetly I think there are other like-retailers remaining to enter downtown and get things going again.

Does anyone think Steelyard Commons had any influence on awarding this corridor study. I feel like there are some stakeholders in Steelyard Commons that maybe would like to see this transit corridor completed.

Columbus only seems like it isn't sprawling, because it has annexed a lot and much of the metroplitan area is actually "Columbus". If you look at actual land use, you will see how Columbus is quite sprawling and very suburban. For instance, most of I-270 is within the city of Columbus, and there is a ton of new sprawling office parks and strip malls being built along I-270 (far from downtown, but within Columbus nonetheless). Considering that so much development within "Columbus" is pushing outward and on the fringes, I would say they are doing a poorer job at dealing with sprawl than Cleveland and Cincinnati. In Cleveland and Cincinnati there is a real effort to bring shopping, offices, and multi-family buildings all downtown, but Columbus doesn't really care if it is on the outskirts of its city limits or downtown as long as they build it.

Chagrin Falls is probably without a doubt the nicest small town in Ohio, although there are many I have not been to. It is quaint and historic, but fairly upscale and lots of impressive exclusive chain retailers as well as independent establishments and entertainment venues like a movie theater and performing arts center. It also has a lot of natural appeal with the waterful in the heart of the commercial district. For college towns I'll go with mine; Oxford. Cheap bars, some nice restaurants, brick streets, a great budget hotel in the heart of the commercial district, late night food places, an old movie theater, etc. There is always something going on at the campus, and the campus has a number of museums and places of interest. The Oxford commercial district has urban amenities and qualities that are probably far superior to major Ohio urban centers. The screetscape enhancements are phenomenal with lots of park benches, fixed tables and bench seating on the sidewalks and uptown park, a great pavillion for concerts and small festivals. Pedestrian activity uptown Oxford is practically twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Oxford even has its own public transit system with Miami University operating several community bus circulators throughout Oxford that are free to ride and run every ten minutes or so and very late into the early morning. Oxford is a terrific example of a practically self-sustainable and independant urban center. It is also a fairly densely populated urban center with probably 20,000+ people living within a square mile. Vermillion is a great New England style whitewash harbor town on Lake Erie with a vintage soda fountain restaurant, a really cool coffee shop with live music called Huggy's, a marina, beach, and a great formal Czech restaurant.

You know historically there was a Cleveland-Lorain train or Electric street car line, that operated until the 60s I think (or at least not that long ago). I returning that same service would be difficult due to the removed infrastructure. The old route in Bay Village and Avon Lake have been turned into a residential boulevard and bike trails. I think the route had a huge impact on Bay Village, Sheffield, and Avon Lake development, because they used to be summer cottage communities for people who lived and worked in Lorain and Cleveland. There is an old neighborhood known as the 45s, because it was located around stop 45 on the tranist line. You can still see the historic depot and adjoing inn in Avon Lake. The old train garage is a part of the Avon Lake Post Office, and the Saddle Inn is now a vaccant movie theater. Anyway, I do think this transit line would pump more investment and life along the lake and older parts for all these communities, rather than along I-90. Rocky River may not want more trains through their town, but I should think they would want more residents and retail visitors. If something new and exciting doesn't happen in Rocky River soon, its neighborhood and schools will probably have the same fate of Fairview. And not that Fairview is bad, but it has declined a little bit and something similar could always happen in Rocky River. Pushing the potential economic impact for new development along these transit stations is probably going to be critical in getting a local consensus at the municipal level.

The article was nice to read, but the Sun's series was much better and more informative. I am really excited abgout this project, and I feel pretty confident it is going to happen. First of all it makes so much sense, and second of all I think Stark's approach in bringing property owners as partners in this development is a lot better option than using eminent domain. I think this is the single most transformative project for downtown on the table. I still think this development will capture a different retail and residential niche than the Avenue District and the Flats East Bank. Maybe some competition will exist between these developments, but this project sounds a lot more like very high energy downtown type development, whereas the other projects seem to want to create a more quiet neighborhood atmosphere. I do find it very interesting that all these developments are shooting for a 2009 completion date. It would be wonderful if it was all at once, and with the Euclid Corridor project, I think you'd really see a lot more metropolitan pride and interestest in downtown.

WCPN had a couple nice features on the type of people moving downtown from the suburbs. These are pretty short, but pretty good: http://www.wcpn.org/mc/vault/radio_features/0413tradingDowntown.html http://www.wcpn.org/mc/vault/audio/0412bier.mp3

I had lunch with my dad downtown last summer at the Metropolitan. He said when he was working in downtown Chicago in the late 70s and then Cleveland in the early 80s, it was very common for business men to all be drinking martinis at lunch downtown. Now it would be extremely taboo to drink martinis at lunch. Too bad things have changed.

This baseball heritage museum isn't directly related to the Cleveland Sports themed restaurant for the Colonial Arcade, is it?

You really think so? Are you joking, because I can't tell. There are a number of Irish bars in the Flats, Flannery's downtown, and a lot in Lakewood, Kamm's, Fairview. How authentic you'd like these pubs are another story, but the west side of Cleveland is very Irish. I think we have more Irish pubs than most cities.

I assume they have the suspect in custody. I mean the trolley's have cameras, don't they? Maybe after this guy is prosecuted it will deter things like this from happening in the future, or at least give people a better sense of security.