LlamaLawyer

As a result of the newly announced MSA definition, the Cleveland MSA will almost certainly have recovered its pre-pandemic labor force number as soon as BLS integrates Ashtabula in their numbers.

For what it’s worth (not much probably) looks like Cleveland MSA’s rank and CSA’s rank will each rise by one, with the MSA now larger than Indianapolis and the CSA now larger than Denver. I don’t think either ranking will change for Columbus.

There are a lot of good things happening, and I'm happy to be proven wrong on the recession prognostication. I'm just saying that if we avoid a recession with yield curve and manufacturing surveys the way they are, that will be unprecedented. @brtshrcegr Agreed, the stock market is definitely not the economy. I'm just pointing out that there is historical precedent for markets, investors, and pundits feeling giddy and optimistic right before everything goes off a cliff.

https://www.bls.gov/eag/eag.oh_cleveland_msa.htm June BLS numbers show total employment (household survey) above 1 million for the first time since February, 2020. The month over month change from May to June was very substantial.* July is usually the peak month. * The household survey numbers for Cleveland often smell very fishy, so I don't think one can put much stock in month over month changes.

You say “okay” like that’s nothing. I say the shack will be *extremely* okay. It deserves one big thumb up. It deserves an enthusiastic sitting ovation. It deserves a three-star review that merely says “Wow!” People will come from far and wide to look at it and say “Mmm.”

WFH is a wildcard, I agree. But I'm not aware that any residential conversions are being done or even considered so far on buildings that are vacant as a result of WFH. In any event, my belief is that we're in trouble only when the residential conversions STOP. As long as whatever is coming online is being converted to residential within five years or so, that means that there are developers who think it's worth more as residential than as office, which means we're adding value. Landmark is a good example because it's occupied by SHW right now. As of 2022, there is one office building (Landmark). But as of 2030 (assuming there's a residential conversion that is done in that time) you will have one office building (new SHW HQ) and one residential building (Landmark). So how is that not an unqualified win? Just to bolster my above point a little more-- You can see tax bills by year for 75 Public Sq. The online records go back to 2003. Every single tax bill from 2015 to present (while it was owned by Millennia) is higher than every single tax bill from 2003 to 2014. For Leader, the same thing is true since 2018--Every tax bill from 2018 to present is higher than every tax bill from 2003-2017. So right now both properties are consistently more productive than they've been for at least 20 years. I suspect this is true for basically every single residential conversion, and I suspect it will continue to be.

I get the feeling, but isn't the damage in that regard long past now? When was the last time 55 Public Square was even 75% full? What about 75 Public Square? Or 925 Euclid? Or the Leader Building? I think most of the exits happened a decade plus ago. In my uneducated opinion, if a building is repurposed in a way that increases its value, that's basically always a good thing. 75 Public Square and the Leader Building were bought up for $4 million and $5.4 million respectively in 2014. According to County records their values have more than tripled and almost quintupled respectively. And the property taxes actually paid by each have doubled. I think when land values and tax revenues go up simultaneously, that's a good sign that the correct development approach was followed.

I agree it’s nice. I don’t mean unremarkable in a bad way. I was just curious what your point about the quality was because it looks like basically regular glass to me.

Not sure what you mean. The glass looks fairly unremarkable to me.

4.9% in May 4% in June 3% in July I don't know what the next few months of readings will be, but I don't think we've seen the lowest point for inflation. And unfortunately, I suspect the lowest CPI reading this cycle will be below zero. According to CME group there's still a >90% chance of a rate hike this month, which is nuts to me. I know 3% is still a little hotter than they want, but there are flashing warning signs of economic slowdown right now. The Fed's balance sheet is also (finally) at the lowest point since the pandemic as they continue to pursue QT. Shouldn't they try to focus on shrinking their balance sheet before it's too late to ever do so? I would love to be proven wrong and have a soft landing here, but the yield curve and manufacturing surveys are just bad. My guess is we are in the calm before the storm. For comparison, here was the headline on WSJ.com on this day in 2007: "THE DOW INDUSTRIALS SURGED 283.86, or 2.1%, to a record 13861.73, their biggest gain in nearly four years. The rally continues a pattern of seemingly defiant bullishness by uneasy investors." In other words, everybody suspected deep down that something wasn't right, but the headline news was positive. If the 3 month 10 year spread is predictive (which it was in 2007, and always has been so far), we enter recession between Q4 2023 and Q2 2024.

I think cracking down on terrible landlords may be one of the most effective ways to do this, honestly. When a building is slated for demolition, it's usually already too late. The ideal time to intervene is when the property is going downhill, but before it's vacant.

Right? I mean, why project based on even ten years of growth? Why not take more recent data and project based off of 2020-2022. Georgetown, TX (population 86,507) grew by 28% from 2020 to 2022! If you extrapolate that rate of growth until 2100, you get a population of 1.67 billion. At 30ish million residents, Austin is going to be a puny suburb of Georgetown! Looks like we should all invest in Georgetown, TX real estate! With 1.67 billion people crammed into a 55 square mile suburb, think about what that does to land prices!

I stumbled upon the following which is being cited as a legitimate source by some newspaper in Austin. https://www.movebuddha.com/blog/visualizing-us-cities-2100/ They take the 2010 to 2020 population change for U.S. cities (not metros, cities proper) and then extrapolate that out for the next 80 years and make these fantasy skylines. Using this very thoughtful methodology they conclude that NYC's population in 2100 will be about what it is now, Chicago will be slightly smaller than it is now, and Dallas and Houston will each have 34 million and 31 million residents respectfully. Obviously, because who wouldn't want to live in Houston in the year 2100. Just felt I had to share this here for the laughs.

Also as a consolation for people who hate the design— it’s an addition, not a subtraction. The original structure is preserved even if it’s partly obscured. If the new addition doesn’t age well, I would be willing to bet it won’t be here in 50 years. So it’s not like the destruction of Millionaire’s Row homes where they’re forever lost to time. The main building is still there, and it can always in theory be restored to current appearance.

If anyone who reads this forum runs or participates in this site: https://votenoinaugust.org/ for the love of all things holy PLEASE add a way to get yard signs. People don't even know there's a fricking election happening and so yard signs are more important than ever. But somehow it's really hard to get one. I had to talk to Cleveland Heights Democratic Party and it cost me $5! They should be easy to get and free on the main website if we expect to beat this initiative.

How beneficial are data centers for a local economy?

I understand why y'all are being so cynical (because that's just how Shaker is...), but I think the answer to @Clefan14's question has to be a firm maybe. Particularly in a city like Shaker with an individual income tax, this project and others like it will improve the city's total revenue per acre, which should improve revenue to expense ratio. The question then is whether the city services 15 years from now are at a point where revenues exceed not only basic maintenance and projects but also exceed the amount needed to perform premium maintenance and premium projects that the median Shaker voter is willing to pay additional taxes for. In other words, I think it's foreseeable that most Shaker voters could be willing to pay somewhat higher taxes and receive somewhat improved services, but I have no idea how you could accurately estimate that "somewhat." To answer a question like this, I think you need to enlist the likes of McKinsey (and even they are probably just guessing.)

“Large” could mean 50k sq. ft. right? So many different companies fit the bill, not sure how you’d guess.

Lending activity is drying up so fast that I would be shocked if several of the projects under consideration don't stumble. Thankfully it seems like the Cleveland residential market is showing a lot of resiliency, so fingers crossed there's a partner for this. I'm sure @KJPhas a much better gauge than I do on how the macro economic climate this is affecting the local market.

Very good thread, thanks @KJP. I think too few people appreciate what the last decade of economics has represented. For almost all of it we had ZIRP (zero interest-rate policy) which basically means banks can always borrow money for almost free, sometimes for literally free, and in occasionally even for negative interest rates. I believe ZIRP is unprecedented in all of history. When the fed decided to bring interest rates above 1.5% in 2018/2019, it broke the market even though the fed funds rate never got above 3% (which is still quite low historically). The interest rate hikes of 2022-23 have already exposed many cracks in the system (i.e. SVB, FRC, British gilt market, etc.) and that's in spite of the fact that the global market was washed over with unprecedented amounts of free money in 2020 and 2021. So the point of all this is that it seems the breaks that occurred in 2008 still weren't fixed in 2018, because the market couldn't tolerate even a minimal interest rate. The fed really doesn't want to go back to ZIRP, but as the 2020-21 free money deluge dries up, it's still not clear that the global banking system has recovered from 2008 and is healthy enough to accept anything other than ZIRP.

https://www.businessinsider.com/where-people-are-moving-to-and-moving-from-usps-data-2023-5?amp

Totally true. At One University Circle, a 550 sq. ft. microapartment is about $2,000 a month while a 1,000 sq. ft. one bed is only about 2600. But to get back to City Club--I would expect their units to sell like hotcakes. They're actually more affordable than a lot of the units right by the hospitals, and if you work at one of the hospitals, it's a easy commute by bike or Healthline, plus walkable access to the downtown nightlife, which is far superior to UC nightlife.

Re some of @bumsquare's comments-- In my mind developments like this are organic and reflect the way people have lived throughout history. The now-popular buzzword of "15-minute city" Is really just what every city was before auto-centric development in the 1900s. But that doesn't mean that every city throughout history had all its population crammed into one square mile with nothing but farmland outside the walls. Certainly, some cities were this way. But if you look at old cities, most of them had a series of interconnected neighborhoods, each of which functioned like its own independent city in many ways, whether or not it truly was. In Boston area, for instance, you have many very dense suburbs arrayed around Boston--for instance Cambridge and Chelsea. Chelsea is a good five miles from downtown Boston, which is about the same distance as the Van Aken District is from University Circle. The development pattern these cities follow is not one where everything starts in the center city and emanates outward in basically concentric circles. If anything, that's the auto-centric model, whereas more walkable cities tend to have a dozen (or more) different hotspots that bleed imperceptibly into eachother. So I don't think you can at all accuse this development of being sprawl. I'll go so far as to say that even a development like Pinecrest shouldn't be considered sprawl, since it's creating a walkable community (albeit disconnected). I also totally disagree that this "puts the nail in the coffin of Shaker Square." First off, Shaker Square is still a pretty vibrant area, even if it's experiencing distress. I'm down there probably once a month, and it has about as much activity as it did five years ago. Second, I think that Van Aken provides a framework for Shaker Square to succeed. And given the easy rail connection, the two ought to benefit each-other. There just HAVE to be people who live at Van Aken and take the Blue Line down to Edwins or Dave's. And vice versa for folks who live at Shaker Square going to Market District. IMHO, the businesses at both locations are pretty complementary (not competitive) right now.

If by "in town" you mean downtown, then maybe. But there are microapartments in Little Italy and University Circle (and now even Cleveland Heights) with the same approximate rates. Actually, the new Medley building in Fairfax is planning to offer some microunits at nearly $4(!!!) per square foot.

And btw, if any of you haven’t been to Van Aken District yet… you should go. It’s unreal how much activity it has basically every day. It shows there’s a lot of pent up demand for similar kinds of spaces in the area.