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East 4th and surrounding activity is somewhat a product of gateway. Downtown could probably not support both what we currently have AND a gateway sports village. The Browns stadium is used way too little to ever support surrounding development.

It will never happen but if they keep the building it would be amazing if they built 4 story buildings to wrap the tower. Having grass lawns surrounding a downtown skyscraper is such an odd thing.

They’d probably leave the region before opening downtown.

They should just build it north of the South Harbor station. That way it has the transit connection and is more walkable from downtown and the lakefront.

2 mile

Buffalo has numbers comparable to other cities with no downtown retail. There are also other factors that come into play for retail, like the income of that population.

Because regardless Cleveland still only has that many people surrounding downtown. That affects the activity and vitality of downtown. Also a great reason for the sad state of retail downtown.

I guess I don’t understand what there is to argue about. We are looking at the population within a certain radius from downtown. This population affects many things about our cities. Dead zones, regardless of the type, impact the vitality of the core. In Cleveland the lake does eat up a ton of space that would have otherwise been residential. It’s clear to see the actual impacts of that when visiting downtown. Cities without large dead zones are at a natural advantage but that doesn’t make the comparison unfair. Cleveland has to overcome the lake with greater density, something that it hasn’t done. In addition, like mentioned before, downtown is surrounded by many man made dead zones as well, from light industry to the east, interchanges to the south, and the river and industry to the west.

Outside of the building itself how transformative is this thing expected to be? Seems to be a lot of people thinking this will drive a ton of other development and boost all sorts of activity downtown. While I’m excited I think we should lower our expectations slightly. This isn’t a complete relocation, although we will be getting some new jobs. Key Tower was a massive project. It did not cause any significant spinoff and the area surrounding it is still pretty devoid of life or any street activity. No good retail/food options. My concern about the ground floor is very real when looking at newer developments elsewhere, and Cleveland’s struggling retail and rents makes things worse. Looking at Landmark and Breen it does not appear ground level activity is a huge concern of theirs, but hopefully that changes. This is extremely good news that SHW is staying, plus adding job, and I’m just as excited as everyone else. I just think we should keep expectations in check unlike we all did with Stark and others. Even Flats East has had way less of an impact than I had hoped for Old River road. Looking forward to seeing the first renderings. Hoping they keep Frankfort.

SHW is already located downtown and technically currently have an indoor connection to the Renaissance. I doubt this has a major impact on their hotel occupancy.

Northwestern Mutual is actually a perfect example of what I’m afraid this may become. They have 800ft of bunker like frontage on E. Mason St. I fear Superior will become a mirror image of that. It also includes its own underused extensive green space/lawn adjacent to a public park. I hope SW avoids the similar temptation since PS is right next door.

What are some examples of urban office campuses?

Im just as excited as everyone else to get rid of those parking lots but is there any real indication that this won’t just become a huge bunker of a campus? Based on the comments of the requirements for R&D it has me nervous this will be a very insular development. Is there any chance the entire block will be devoid of retail spaces? Also hope they don’t use the entire Weston lot. Would be nice to get a mix of uses with the addition of apartments or condos down the line. If this ends up being true and they do build a bunker like campus I think I would have preferred the riverfront site over the PS/WHD lots.

The ground floor retail spaces in the Avenue District building. It was such a failure that Phase 2 lacks any retail component, which makes sense since phase 1 is still just a shell that has never been built out or occupied.

While I’m sure we would all love to see street level retail we have to be realistic here. Retail is tough in Cleveland. New construction retail is even tougher. The Avenue District sits empty and boarded up from the start. Downtown is littered with vacancy, and new developments like Uptown and Flats East have had their struggles even with a far better retail location.

“Other changes from the original proposal include increased setbacks and sidewalk sizes, as well as the addition of innovative landscaping.” Are we talking increased setbacks for wider sidewalks (?) or are we talking about increase setbacks for wider sidewalks and landscaping (?) ?

Downtown is adding population because it had none to begin with. The near west was replacing population, oftentimes with smaller household sizes, which resulted in a decrease in population. With new construction happening that may be changing. Overall these areas represent a very small portion of the city. Most of the east side continues to lose population. Also not talked about too often but the west side is also losing population in the less desirable neighborhoods. Unfortunately we will probably see decline pick up in several of these neighborhoods as the population continues to age, houses sit vacant, decay, attract crime, etc.

Yeah it really comes down to personal preferences and what people value the most, and how highly they value that. I work downtown and location was definitely a big factor in my selection, as it would be for most people on this site. Unfortunately a lot of people view working downtown negatively due to the commute, traffic, and paying for parking. I will say the comments and fear of crime downtown have kind of disappeared from those discussions in the last several years, at least from what I have heard/read.

I’m curious if there is any measurable difference between downtown and suburban companies though, or if it’s just a regional attraction issue. I would guess that unfortunately this talent would chose suburban offices in coastal cities over downtown offices in Midwest cities like Cleveland the majority of the time.

Serious question, is there actually any legitimacy to Eaton and American Greetings struggling to attract talent? I feel like this idea has grown from “they probably will” to “they are” to “they regret moving” without any actual facts. Like a bad game of telephone. As for Progressive the downtown outpost is tiny strategy team of 40 people and has nothing to do with them struggling to attract talent. In fact Progressive has been expanding their presence in the suburbs with purchases of buildings, new construction, and thousands of new jobs. That being said I would love to have these companies downtown.

While I agree it will help, the bigger issues in my opinion are that the warehouse district buildings have zero interaction with the streets leading down to the flats. On top of that the warehouse district feels isolated from the rest of downtown due to the large parking lots. The flats are essentially isolated from a neighborhood that itself is isolated from the rest of downtown.

^ exactly these won’t be cheap even if they are small. They are still new construction and require new construction prices. Kitchens and bathrooms are the most expensive parts of a unit to build. Micro units tend to have a higher price per square foot because of this. Will these do well here? I’m not sure. The neighborhood can feel isolated and there are a lot of better deals to be had elsewhere. It will help bring slightly more affordable units to the neighborhood for those who want to live there. We’ll see how many people that really is that value the neighborhood over cheaper rent elsewhere downtown and surroundings.

I apologize if these have already been posted. The Detroit and Parkwood development.

A big hurdle is how disconnected Ohio City, Tremont, and downtown are from each other. They are all sort of their own little island and for the most part require a set of wheels to travel between. Downtown would be a natural retail center if these neighborhoods bled directly into downtown, but there are some major barriers that prevent this from ever happening. It’s a big retail hurdle to overcome, especially in a downtown that has very little retail to begin with.

On Euclid it’s an additional 1800ft beyond the bridge to developable land. I think that may be just as big of an issue.