LlamaLawyer

May BLS numbers are out. https://www.bls.gov/regions/midwest/oh_cleveland_msa.htm For Cleveland, Labor Force Data (household survey) is disappointing while the nonfarm numbers (employer survey) look okay. Labor Force shows a two-year loss (i.e. May 2024 numbers now lower than May 2022 numbers). On the other hand, the nonfarm numbers show modest gains both m/o/m and y/o/y with post-pandemic highs likely in June or July. State numbers also look bad. The household survey is now at five consecutive months of job losses. On the other hand, the employer survey shows four consecutive months of gains for the state with a new all-time high number of jobs. Anyhow, I think it's just more evidence that at least one of these two surveys is flawed or systematically biased.

I don't know that I really agree with this characterization. Apples are originally from Europe (not North America) but we don't have a problem saying "American as apple pie." While art deco originally was developed in France, a lot of its most prominent embodiments are in the U.S. And in many U.S. cities, the most iconic structures or sculptures are art deco (e.g. Empire State Building/Chrysler Building New York; Spirit of Detroit in Detroit; Los Angeles City Hall in LA; Guardians of Traffic in Cleveland; the LeVeque in Columbus, etc.). I don't deny the broad international reach, but saying art deco is "French, not American" is a little like saying the automobile is "German, not American." I think art deco is a quintessentially American style which did originate in France.

"limiting," probably none, and that's not what I'm suggesting. In terms of promoting, my appeal to the city's history is just one piece of the story that I'm telling. I do think that grounding it in local history helps answer the "why art deco as opposed to some other style" question a little bit. There are other reasons for this, for instance art deco tends to be more minimalist and less ornate than art noveau or neo-classical, which makes it (relatively) a more practical style to emulate. But most importantly, I just want to get people excited and inspired. A connection to our city's history could help do that. There's a lot of really uninspired design out there. I just have to think there are a lot of young architects who would love an open invitation to do something fun. I would be loathe to do anything that limits or hinders developers when we're in such a housing-starved environment. By making this all optional, you can inspire the inspire-able without hindering anyone else.

These are exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about. This is what (in my opinion) we ought to be encouraging.

Cost is obviously a big impediment. I doubt hardly any true art deco buildings can be built cost effectively anymore. So you would get a lot of what I'll call "modern design with art deco characteristics." The link to the Columbus project above is one example of the kind of thing that could be done cost effectively in many instances.

We of course all know art deco. The distinctive style flourished in the 1910s through 1930s worldwide and had a particular influence on those cities that were substantially built up during those decades. Ohio's major cities all have wonderful examples of art deco buildings and other art. In particular, Cleveland and Cincinnati have a high concentration of buildings built from the 1910s to 1930s and as such have heavily art deco-influenced cityscapes. Many buildings that are important to the history of the state such as the Ohio Judicial Center in Columbus, Severance Hall in Cleveland, and Cincinnati Union Terminal are also art deco. In short, art deco (while a worldwide phenomenon) was a very Ohio style. The style further has positive connotations and is aesthetically appealing. As mercilessly as many types of design are mocked, I have never heard criticism of art deco. In an increasingly polarized political environment, art deco has a cross-the-aisle appeal, where liberals can note its progressive era connection and conservatives can tout its connection to our country's heyday. Recently, there is renewed interest in designing modern buildings in an art deco style. Examples: https://www.dispatch.com/story/business/2022/05/05/developer-proposes-six-story-art-deco-style-building-near-east-side/9627460002/ https://www.archdaily.com/968258/are-we-overdue-for-an-art-deco-revival Additionally, in Cleveland in particular, art deco branding is recently increasing with the Guardians' name change and the team increasingly adopting art deco imagery. So here's a proposal (I make it for Cleveland in particular, but it could be applied to basically every city in the state): Why not have a declared preference for art deco design in new buildings, art, and branding? My idea is basically this. If cities, community organizations, architects, and civic leaders collectively say "we favor modern art deco design" then some young architect sketching out a five-over-one will say "gee, that's a cool idea; how can I include some art deco elements without going over budget," and some young graphic designer will say "gee, that's a cool idea; why not use art deco imagery as I'm creating a new logo for [insert random local company]." We don't need to require anyone to do anything. We don't need to impose any regulatory burden on any developer. We just say that we like art deco and we encourage the style. If cities, community organizations, etc. did this, it would not affect the design of many projects, but for some, it probably would make a difference. It could create a new movement in design that ties modern creations to the foundations of our cities. Furthermore, it could create a more cohesive aesthetic plan for new development, which currently tends to be stylistically schizophrenic and uninspired. It would not by any means reduce the diversity of new developments (nobody is being forced to do anything), but for the conformists, those who desire to fit in without rocking the boat any more than necessary, over time it could perhaps create a new baseline expectation of what normal unremarkable designs should look like in Ohio cities. Ultimately, it could increase cohesion while also improving aesthetics. The steps that need to be taken could be minimal. Let's say, for instance, the Mayors of Cleveland and Cincinnati jointly signed a statement saying they want to encourage more art deco style development. Think about the press buzz that kind of announcement could get if done the right way. Would it be front page New York Times, obviously not, but it could get a couple articles in design magazines that architects do read. What if the zoning codes of one or more cities were changed to just add the language "art deco style design is encouraged but not required." How many developers would say "oh, that's quirky and fun; let's do it!" Perhaps enough to get something neat going. As one final point, in the increasingly hegemonic world we live in, think how much the culture is set by a few global cities. There's very little independent local news most places, so much design and marketing is done by some company headquartered in New York, and new development and design looks basically the same everywhere in the country. I was really impressed by recent photos of the Superman set which have a cohesive and retro-styled design scheme for all the fake businesses and Metropolis logos. It just got me to thinking what if we in Cleveland (or all Ohio cities) actually had public art and design that was more cohesive and not basically the same as everywhere else in the country. Why not put a stake in the ground and make at least one intentional design decision for ourselves instead of just copying what other places are doing? I don't have much influence with the necessary parties, but some on this forum do. If you agree with what I'm saying above, perhaps consider leveraging your influence. I think the kind of initiative I'm describing is the sort of low hanging fruit that consumes no resources but makes our cities into better places to live.

Great reporting as always, @KJP. I continue to believe that the area in between Chester and Carnegie from about East 20th to East 105 is one of the most (perhaps THE most) important areas in the entire city. I really think that getting this whole area developed and filled in in a good way could have a major catalyzing effect on downtown, University Circle, and the surrounding depressed neighborhoods.

Nice little spot in Forbes emphasizing growing Cleveland startup culture. https://www.forbes.com/sites/elizabethmacbride/2024/06/13/americas-new-startup-boom-emerges-in-legacy-cities/

I don't feel like Cleveland and rural West Virginia are really comparable. If someone wants to live in West Virginia, that's great. It's a lovely state, and we should be happy, not jealous, if they're getting more residents. Really, I don't really think most of Ohio can even be compared to West Virginia. You have to contextualize just how rural West Virginia is. There will always be land and homes for cheap way out in the middle of nowhere. It's pretty hard for me to believe that someone who chooses to live in rural West Virginia has a townhouse in Tremont as their second choice location. Other than the little spots that jut out near Pittsburgh and D.C., you're going to be quite far from a major city anywhere within WV. Look at this map of U.S. cities over 100K population and notice how none of them are remotely close to central W.VA

Love it. This, unironically.

Agreed. It's worth pointing out there's really no reason Hopkins couldn't accommodate much higher traffic. For comparison, LaGuardia has a slightly smaller overall footprint than Hopkins, the same number of concourses, and only two runways (whereas Hopkins has three). Nevertheless, LaGuardia has more than 3x the passenger traffic of Burke. So in other words, there's no basic reason Hopkins couldn't handle 3-5x the traffic it currently does (obviously, I'm talking about a theoretical future where the existing facilities were renovated and improved). In some wild future where Hopkins needs to handle more than 20 million annual enplanements, you could probably add several more concourses and perhaps another runway by closing the IX Center. As far as the should we, shouldn't we debate on Burke above, I'll just throw my two cents, which is that I'm glad we have multiple reports coming out (soon, hopefully). I'm sure the people doing the reports have thought about every single thing that is discussed above, and much more. I personally hope Burke can be closed, but if the report says it can't be or shouldn't be, I'll be totally willing to say "ah well, at least we tried." And if the report says that Burke can and should be closed, then I would hope those who tout the economic benefits of Burke will reconsider their opinions as well.

@KJP Really good article. I know there's been a lot of eye rolling (mostly not on this site) about Bibb's spending lots of money on study after study for the lakefront and Bibb's spending lots of time rubbing elbows with other politicians (including Biden and Buttigieg). But if we do get this funding, which would be huge, I think it would be the perfect example of why you do that kind of stuff. Because clearly the city has done the homework on exactly what they want to build and has at least attempted to build ties with the administration. Both of which should help chances of getting the grant.

I don't think the ChatGPT output is remotely accurate or complete. John Glenn Columbus Int'l and Charlotte-Douglas Int'l are both about six miles from their respective city centers. There are probably a bunch of other examples too. This kind of recall task is exactly the sort of thing current-generation LLMs are worst at.

Holy cow, is this about Burke? Are all my wildest dreams going to come true??

That's the thing; they don't. And so eventually, you may get more office development as a result. Just to bolster one of my previous points a bit--there is lots of anecdotal evidence that what I am describing is happening. I like to play the game of looking at recently sold houses in my area on Zillow and seeing if I can find out anything about who bought the house. I have on numerous occasions seen a house purchased by a couple where one spouse recently started at the Cleveland Clinic and the other spouse has a remote job for an out-of-state company, or sometimes where a single person or both spouses have an out-of-state remote work job.

I look at it this way. People have commuted to work in at office buildings in densely populated urban cores for maybe 80-100 years. People have lived in densely populated urban cores for all of recorded history. I firmly believe that the people, i.e. the residents, form the basis for a strong community and the other items just get layered on top. There's obviously a little bit of a chicken and egg thing because people live where they can find a good job. But that's also a relatively modern phenomenon based on social mobility. Even now, 80% of Americans live near at least one member of their extended family, and about 70% of Americans live in or around the city where they were born. So there again, people live where their people are, and the basic foundation for a city is the residents it has, not the office space. As an aside, I think the move to remote work is going to be a huge net benefit for Cleveland over the coming decades due to three factors (1) we already have relatively few of the jobs that are being remote-ed (mostly tech/it/finance) and relatively many of the jobs that cannot be remote-ed (health care, manufacturing), (2) we have had a disproportionate amount of population losses to other states for job reasons over the last three decades (i.e. disproportionate potential for boomerangs), and (3) we have a very low cost of living relative to most of the country and even relative to Columbus and Cincinnati. All of these factors mean that if you take a randomly selected pool of workers in a previously office-bound job who now can work remotely and live wherever they want, there should be more moving into Cleveland than out of Cleveland.

The office market everywhere is so distressed, I'm surprised there haven't been more stories like this. Although I've got a feeling there will be a few more stories like this before all is said and done. And we'll just have to make lemonade out of it. Seems like the building could be a great residential conversion.

@zbaris87 Thanks so much for the really excellent (if still tentative) news, and @KJP, I can't wait for the story. The original NuCLEus plan was for about 500 residences and about 350,000 sq. ft. of commercial space (office, retail, apartment). Personally, I would like to see something build here that has good street-level activation and a similar overall footprint to the original NuCLEus plan, regardless of the specific massing.

McDonalds serves about 70 million customers per day, which comes out to roughly 25 billion transactions a year. I'll round your quarterly number up and assume $8 billion in profit per year. So basically for the typical restaurant order, the McDonalds' shareholders are making 30 cents in profit. Not exactly a huge margin.

I don't have numbers, but just visually, I don't think Cleveland Heights, Shaker Heights, University Heights, South Euclid, or Beachwood have very many vacant lots in desirable areas. There are *a few* for sure. And I can think of several that recently were built on or are currently being built on. And of the lots that are currently vacant and not being built on, I can only think of three or four off the top of my head that the neighbors haven't appropriated into some little community park or garden. So, in sum, maybe I'm wrong, but I think close to 100% of the vacant single-family lots on the east side are in Cleveland proper, not a suburb.

Interesting and relevant video here. Basically supply of existing homes is really tight but the new home market is a lot looser.

@KJP, do you have any data on the trends in house flipping? In the area around my house in Cleveland Heights there have been countless homes that were either vacant or rented five years ago but have since been renovated and sold (or are currently being sold). There are many, many homes that sold for about $100K one to four years ago (presumably to a house flipper) and now have renovated interiors and are for sale for $300-$400K. Do you know what the inventory of flippable homes* in the region looks like? Certainly five years ago we had an absolute glut of borderline livable houses that needed many repairs and improvements (but not necessarily a complete renovation) to be move-in ready. How many homes like that are left? Is the decline in for-sale inventory a result of dwindling home-flipping opportunities? *by "flippable" I mean homes that need some moderate amount of work to be nice. I'm not talking about the homes you can get for the price of a VCR in Hough that are potentially not salvagable.

I’m not pessimistic by any means. I think the next decade will see far more growth than the last decade. A brief recession could be very helpful in taming inflation and getting us into a better interest rate environment.

Ohio is not the only state with job growth stagnation over the last few months, though some states have had very good growth. California and Washington, among others, have lost jobs in recent months. And the U.S. employment-population ratio is also down y/o/y, meaning there are fewer employed people per capita compared to a year ago. But I maintain it’s just a guess. It’s possible we won’t enter recession for months. It’s also possible the 10y-3m curve will fail to predict a recession for the first time ever.

April BLS numbers for Cleveland look pretty good. Still down a little y/o/y. https://www.bls.gov/regions/midwest/oh_cleveland_msa.html Ohio has now shed jobs for four consecutive months. My gut tells me, Q2 2024 will be labeled the start of a recession. But that’s just a guess.