acd

https://www.cleveland.com/community/2020/05/berea-mayor-discusses-impact-of-pandemic-on-browns-income-tax-revenue.html I guess it's closer to 50/50 than I thought, though player bonuses can get pretty large, which would tip the scales a bit more toward Berea.

Definitely agree with a lot of these points, but the opposing case is that the NFL team has been there for a long time, and federal, state, and local money hasn't exactly been funneling in to improve the lakefront. The city would have more money to spend on the lakefront if it's not spending $500 million to support the Haslams improving the stadium. This is the classic case that's laid out by all the research that says public funding for stadiums doesn't improve the local economy. The city wouldn't have to pay to support the Browns, and should in turn be able to invest in other things. Plus they'd just have more space to work with once the stadium is gone. I believe most, if not all, of player salary taxes go to Berea and wherever they're playing road games.

Regarding the transfer portal, it sounds like Meechie Johnson is a possibility to return to OSU after a strong couple of seasons at South Carolina. Hopefully that's a good sign regarding current and former players' perception of Diebler as the head coach.

Agree with all of this. I'd be fine with some city/county money as part of a move to Brook Park as long as it is either contingent upon demolition of the old stadium and building the land bridge or it just straight up funds those two things. The Haslams have said they're not leaving the region, so it seems local leaders have some leverage now to ensure the Haslams at least don't leave the lakefront bereft of any hope of development if they're going to provide any financial assistance.

That neighborhood is in Cleveland and is in the flight path of arriving and departing planes. Planes have also gotten considerably quieter since the 90s. My office is closer to the runways at the airport than this development would be (but also outside the flight path), and the noise is really not a problem.

The Browns site would be closer than Crocker (or Pinecrest) to Strongsville, Independence, Brecksville/Broadview Heights, Seven Hills, North Royalton, Parma, Parma Heights, Middleburg Heights, Berea, and so on. There are plenty of high income households in those cities. If the Haslams provided similar offerings to Crocker, why would they bypass this site to go there? Agreed, I'm only saying this Brook Park site compares favorably to Crocker and Pinecrest. Obviously downtown has it all.

I hope so, but I do think Toast's business was struggling too. I went there a few months ago on a Saturday evening and there were no other customers in the restaurant when I left around 7:00.

Not saying I'd want to move the stadium there, but I think that site has a lot of appeal as a residential development. Close access to 480 and 71 and the Red Line (which is a huge plus), close to employers like NASA and the airport, and relatively far from competing lifestyle centers like Crocker and Pinecrest.

Cleveland Cliffs will get up to $575 million in DOE grants to accelerate decarbonization in steelmaking: https://www.clevelandcliffs.com/news/news-releases/detail/629/cleveland-cliffs-selected-to-receive-575-million-in-us

I didn’t say ethanol was bad. I said making it from corn is not a good use of land. You’d be better off using electricity from solar to run an electrolyzer to make ethanol. I got my numbers from the Ohio Power Siting Board, which I assume got them from the application they approved to build the solar farm. If you’re in favor of multiple sources of energy, this project seems like a great way to diversify from our fossil fuel heavy mix of energy. Once the project is built, it won’t be dependent on any nation for fuel (plus Ohio is an American leader in solar panel manufacturing). Solar will also be incredibly cheap in Ohio at least until it makes up a much greater proportion of our energy mix. For example, this project still makes financial sense for the developer apparently, even signing up for more expensive racking and O&M due to agrivoltaics.

The land use argument would be more appealing to me if ~30% of corn farmed in America wasn't being used for ethanol. Solar produces on the order of 100 times more energy per acre, and it produces a more useful form of energy. In fact, there's so much land being used for ethanol, that only developing that land with solar would easily allow the US to meet its 2035 solar goals. The agrivoltaic requirements of this project sound pretty significant actually. 70% of the project area (~4000 acres) must be open for agrivoltaics, which includes livestock grazing and crop production. As far as I can tell, this is by far the largest agrivoltaic development in the US, and none of the others in contention are growing crops. They're just doing grazing and pollinator habitat. So this project could provide a lot of data about scaling up solar developments in a way that doesn't totally wipe out farmland.

Great article. I believe the barge nature center is going to be (and possibly already is?) at Wildwood Marina: https://www.clevelandmetroparks.com/about/planning-design/planning-and-design-projects/projects/barge-225

Love to hear that there will be public riverfront access!

it does make a lot of sense. ATF is gigantic and has tons of unused space if Space Force would need any new facilities. But it’s also already secure, so it would be a lot less work than starting from scratch on a new site.

I forgot about that one. It is much better. It’s still hits all the important spots + the CBD and would be much faster. The walk to the lakefront from here is also more manageable if there’s a land bridge + there would still be the Waterfront line by rail, it just would require a transfer.

Hopefully if we're going to kick in ~$1 billion for a new stadium, the city/county make lakefront improvements and stadium demolition a required part of the deal. Columbus put up money to renovate the Crew's old stadium as part of the deal for the new one. Maybe Cleveland can roll the cost of lakefront improvements into the package for the new stadium.

I just looked up the proposed downtown loop from a few years back, and it really would fit perfectly with this stadium location. In addition to picking up more of the lakefront, Playhouse Square, and CSU, the southeast side would now meet up with the red/blue/green lines right at the stadium village next to the stadium and pick up the new soccer stadium as well. Plus the USPS building would have to be demolished in this stadium scenario, allowing a blank slate design for that part of the track. (screenshot of @Boomerang_Brian's downtown loop map)

Thanks for the info on the amount of parking required. Those numbers are crazy. If the lakefront would definitely be redeveloped and the land bridge built, my first choice would be the Broadway option. If the lakefront and land bridge are inextricably linked to having the stadium there, I think just renovating would be best for the region. But I do also like the Brook Park option and think it has a few things going for it: 1. There are a bunch of existing surface parking lots around the Brook Park site. They're intended for airport customers, but I'm sure some are underutilized or will become marginalized with improved parking as part of the airport master plan implementation. I don't know how realistic it would be to rely on shuttling stadium patrons on gamedays, but the entire rental car lot north of 480 should become available as well. 2. I do think having the rapid connection can allow for less surface parking, even if rail struggles with gameday congestion. Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara is transit-connected and has "only" like 70 acres of surface parking. Brook Park could also have an Amtrak station, which I think would be very popular for daytripping from the rest of the state (assuming 3C+D happens), and not add to parking demand. Same with the (presumably much smaller) fly-in crowd that comes straight from the airport. 3. If the Haslams are planning a "village", that should hopefully include some multi-use garage parking, which should cut down on the amount of surface parking needed. Obviously if the garages are residential, it would be impossible to count on it for gameday parking, but if there's office and retail that should be able to serve gameday crowds. In response to comments that this location is contributing to sprawl, I'd counter that we should be encouraging development in this area. I believe it's the 3rd largest employment center in the county, and with NASA and Hopkins it should remain vital to the region indefinitely, and somewhat insulated from the effects of WFH. Ohio Aerospace Institute and Aerozone Alliance have been doing a lot of work over the last couple of years to attract businesses and its starting to pay off with companies like Blue Abyss. Having the Browns stadium would spur even more development, which would help the area and hopefully help revitalize the west side neighborhoods and the western side of the Red Line.

Aren't they already approved to move to Las Vegas? It sounds like stadium construction is about to start, and while they'll need a temporary home for a couple years, there's no indication that they're second-guessing the move to Vegas.

All of these destinations besides Houston appear to be new for Cleveland (I was surprised Delta doesn't have a CLE-SLC route). As frustrating as Frontier can be, I'll generally choose them if I can avoid a layover, especially when flying with kids.

Southwest has a decent presence at each of those airports (especially Austin and St. Louis).

I think co-marketing with the convention center would be essential if we're going to go through the effort to dome the stadium in the current location. The proposed land bridge would hopefully have an enclosed portion of the walkway and the distance from the existing convention center to Browns Stadium would be about a quarter mile. That distance is probably prohibitive for most shows, but I think it would be OK for really big ones, and having the ability to attract much larger conventions would definitely be a positive.

This would be such a great feature. I've pretty much written off going to Blossom anymore because of the traffic, but this could change my mind. Also, considering the number of party buses I've seen going to shows, CVSR could probably make a killing selling alcohol to people pre-gaming for concerts.

NOACA is ready to fund a feasibility study for the CVSR extension to Cleveland. I thought the part about expediting the study to keep up with Bedrock and the city of Cleveland is interesting and a good sign. From NOACA's Board of Directors Agenda for this Friday:

I think this is a pretty good plan. I had kind of hoped that since this area has already been developed, they would put some camping and/or lodging here, but I'm definitely happy letting the area return to nature. The Water Trail in particular sounds like it'll be awesome. It looks like they'll be able to move A-P rd. without clearing any forest since it'll run along the edge of the old golf course. The Upper Meadows Trail looks like it runs where there's currently a cartpath. So those both seem like smart ways to make improvements without impacting nature too much.