LlamaLawyer

Haven't you heard? Notches are the new thing in display technology.

I sure hope something replaces Constantino's soon, because it's pretty crazy to think in an area with the affluent population of University Circle that the Euclid Aldi, Gust Gallucci's, and Chester Dave's are the top Grocery shopping options. Dave's is 2.5 miles away. Gust Gallucci's is great for specialty items but is a poor substitute for a one-stop grocery store like Constantino's. The Euclid Aldi, let's say, does not currently offer quite the same shopping experience as Constantino's did.

Not if you're trying to get from Uptown to the C-F Dave's. I don't think you could make the trip by bus without at least one connection. It's probably about as fast to walk. Biking infrastructure for the trip is not awful, but there's a pretty big hill...

They don't really have a final rendering for Nucleus though. The pictures released are more of a glorified massing.

It's a very tight market these days, the "scenic field and parking lot view" condo market. Views like that don't come around every day, and they're really irreplacable once they're gone!!

http://heightsobserver.org/read/2020/04/20/toh-opponents-seek-to-place-advisory-vote-on-fall-ballot The insanity continues.

Maybe I'm missing something, but for the capital stack numbers that @KJP had posted before, it looks like Stark ought to be able to get this done without any public incentives, assuming a $90M reduction in building cost. For private loans, the LTV will have gone down some due to the reduced size, but Stark still has a pretty good chunk of equity. Also, interest rates are still way down. It always seemed weird to me that if Stark was so close before he wasn't able to wrap everything together when interest rates fell by more than one percent. So.. maybe there is something I am missing.

Whether or not the Herold building addition is ever built, I am curious, from an architectural and engineering standpoint in a project like this whether the part above the old building is actually being supported by the old building foundation below it or by the new building foundation caddy-corner to it. Anyone with expertise know that?

This is a good point, and to piggy-back on it, Benesch in Cleveland is growing a lot. Even if Benesch totally closed its Cleveland office (which is not about to happen), most of the lawyers would probably move to (or start) other Cleveland firms as opposed to fleeing the city or state. But you would lose a lot of growth-generating momentum because either (a) those people are now in their own new firms trying to make it work with probably a low appetite for taking on new lawyers, or (b) those people have now filled gaps in other Cleveland law firms. Additionally, the Cleveland lawyers would retain less than 100% of their clients, so some of that revenue would be going either to Benesch Columbus or to some other firm. It would be kind of the same thing from a growth perspective if Benesch moved its "HQ" to a different city. There would just be less momentum in Cleveland both for hiring new people and picking up new clients. There are a whole bunch of D.C., N.Y., and Chicago firms with a bunch of other offices that are partly just cheap labor for the D.C., N.Y., and Chicago clients. All that aside, Benesch's leadership is a bunch of Cleveland people, so I think Stark's statement about keeping Benesch here is 90% marketing baloney.

Fantastic news. I’ve been thinking for a while that if Stark was *that* close to having his capital stack a year ago, it would seem he would be able to get something done without the TMUD given how low interest rates were recently. Also, because of how the TMUD law is written, Stark has every incentive to play up how hard this will be to accomplish, or else he risks not qualifying for the TMUD.

https://www.freshwatercleveland.com/breaking-ground/FalafelCafe030420.aspx Falafel Cafe coming back to life in the old Simply Greek space. Got a feeling it will do great there.

I know the rental and condo markets aren’t one and the same, but if you look at the rent-to-value ratio of Lumen vs some of the nearby condos popping up.... I think rents like this bode extremely well for the condo market. Compared to 12th and Ave and the Knez townhomes, the RTV ratio is like 1.2-1.5% for the 3 br units.

I’m happy when stuff gets built and when equitable development happens. How many cities are there where 90% of the buildings are attractive? Every city has a bunch of ugly buildings, although obviously in different proportions. I do think the City Club design is attractive, but if it ages poorly, so be it.

I think the colors will be great at least initially. Wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t age well, but I also don’t really care. We’ve got a few buildings that didn’t age well, so what’s one more?

Ya, it’s really not a zero-sum game. Any out-of-state businesses moving into any city in the county is a win for the region and every city within. Some employees of a Lakewood HQ will live in Cleveland. More will shop in Cleveland, go to Edgewater and Indians games, etc. All will pay county taxes that help subsidize tax credits that attract more business to the urban core. Cleveland has less than 1/3 of the region’s population. Maybe historically that’s because the suburbs pilfered, but now it means that Cleveland’s success in the next decade is dependent on the region’s success.

SHW has WAY more to gain from underselling this new HQ than from overselling it. Almost none of the people who will be impressed by a big shiny tower and more jobs downtown are people that SHW is worried about impressing. Their shareholders don't care. All they see is a big line item in the expense category.

Thanks for the clarification. That makes a lot more sense. Frankly, with a conservative public company that just had a kind of disappointing earnings report, I could see an announcement of "approximately" 1,000,000 sq. feet turning out to really mean 1,300,000 sq. feet.

What happened to make this go from a 1.8 million sq. ft. HQ to a 1 million sq. ft. HQ? A lot of what I'm hearing makes me wonder if SHW is doing this all in a much more incremental way than we expected.

I am just so glad everything stayed in the county. Of course Brecksville is somewhat disappointing, but the regional and city economies are so intertwined. There will still be R&D employees who live downtown (yes, you can live downtown and commute to the suburbs; I know people who do it). There will still be R&D employees patronizing downtown businesses. Several hundred out-of-state jobs coming to a suburb is a victory for the region, even if some jobs are being moved out of the urban core.

And of course they will never say that until they have decided for sure they won’t pursue the TMUD. Because admitting they don’t need it would disqualify them for it.

Was in the Oswald Building this morning and overheard a couple folks in the elevator talking about going to a meeting in Ohio City “regarding the market” this afternoon. Not sure if that’s a reference to West Side Market or Market Square. I hope the folks at Oswald are getting involved in the current West Side Market chaos. They’re pretty good problem solvers in my experience. Anybody got further information on this?

See, I find that to be the perfect solution! ? Kidding, point taken.

Is there any inherent reason the R&D couldn’t be on the Weston site too? If the site for the R&D is truly up in the air, then I would hope the city is pitching this idea to SHW too and at least talking about what kind of incentives could make it happen. This is all assuming SHW isn’t just trying to get a better deal from the city (which would be smart on SHW’s part and unsurprising).

The article says they’re hired to help “finalize” financial incentives. There’s also a $70,000 limit, which is not a ton of money to pay Ulmer for a transaction like this. Sounds to me like good news that we’re in the late stages where business people have worked everything out in principle and just need a couple lawyers to make it happen.

Wow, those renderings look terrific. So often this style looks really cramped and cluttered, but this just looks so great.