w28th

Amen. But the changes in tax abatement were made for political reasons, not logic, and in the end, not for the clear economic benefits. Everyone/everything will bear the brunt; the city's general fund, construction companies, architects, local retail, RTA, population growth, and city services just to name a few. The original tax abatement policy should have stayed in place, but extended to 30 years for underserved areas of the city.

I assumed Volpe had been relegated to the dust bin of 1990’s Cleveland after a likely fat buyout from City Architecture.

This video is incredible. I'm amazed by the clarity of the video restoration. I think I figured out the vantage points: W7th at Starkweather East end of Detroit Superior Bridge heading east Heading south on E140th and Coit Road/Euclid Avenue Looking west on Coit Road near E140th, Fisher Body Plant View of Steel Mills and Sohio from W4th & Scotham, scanning north to south Maybe Woodland & E55th?

A denial is a strong word but factually true. It happens on almost any project, especially one this large. It’s essentially just the building department review of code related issues which the design team inevitably corrects and away we go. Unless there are things that are major disagreements on interpreting the code, this is normally resolved quickly (relatively).

I can vouch for these sorts of delays and confusion. The building department is, at the very least, significantly understaffed on both the residential and commercial side of things. A project I’m involved with was submitted before Christmas and was just approved for zoning (meaning the permit review can begin) last week. Four months to date for a process that is required by the Ohio Building Code to take 30 days and I have at least another 30-60 days in front of me. It’s incredibly frustrating, costs money, dissuades continued development, and has gotten worse in the past 2 years.

Well it's settled then. Your "vibe" defines the attitudes of two metros with a combined population of over 7,000,000 people. Thanks for the info.

I think my stance on pedestrian only zones has been made clear on this site. Also it's off topic here. However, as someone who walks down Huron nearly every day, I don't understand what positive is going to come out of removing auto access and parking on the street. At any given point in time on weekdays, weekends, game days, there is likely less than 10 people walking down the already oversized sidewalks on both sides of the street as it is. I get it, some pedestrian zones are great and necessary due to the amount of people who walk down a particular street in cities. I simply don't think Huron Road, at this point, warrants removing the only thing that I can foresee giving it life; people using parking at meters, going into the little restaurant or smoothy joint, and then moving along. I'm not some advocate for cars, but it does allow the businesses on the street to be successful and I believe they would struggle without it. As for the idea of making another park on the current parking garage you mentioned, in my opinion, we should be building more residential buildings with ground floor retail to increase downtown residents and overall density as opposed to creating more under utilized green space. Not to mention that on Huron specifically there are lightly used green spaces at either end of the street.

In my experience NIMBY’s typically love parking.

For what it's worth, I have a colleague who is involved on the architecture side of things with the Brookpark stadium. He relayed that he had been told the Browns never intended on staying in the City of Cleveland proper, mostly due to the fact that the Haslems hate the city. No matter what was offered, they internally knew they would never stay Downtown.

Yeah, the good old days of TV's hung from a tree on a vacant lot at W19th and Smith by drug addicts and drunks, the abandoned Haab's Bakery deteriorating for 10 years, hookers and drug dealers, etc. Not all the new construction there has been great in terms of construction or design quality, but what was torn down was, for the most part, in terrible shape and unremarkable/unmarketable 1.5 story houses built at the end of the 1800's.

'Welcome to Brookpark and the "Pilot Flying J Muni Lot" experience, or "The Pit" sponsored by your friends at First Energy.'

Another bad idea, making a pedestrian only Huron Road...

There's literally a park right across the street from that garage in front of said County Building.

Agreed, we need more city in the city. Not vacuous, unprogrammed park space, unnecessary pedestrian only zones, etc.

I agree there’s money to be made in that environment, and it’s critical that the small to mid size projects still come together, but the margins are tight, as I’m sure you know, and rents go up long term to make up the money lost from tax abatement to make it pencil. Where the rents can’t be raised the projects generally don’t happen without some other subsidy.

That’s all fine and good that you feel that way, but like it or not, development is basically a math problem. If the math changes for the worse, developers aren’t going to build where you want them to and “take a chance” in a more perceptively less ideal location. We’re talking about millions of dollars potentially. The tax abatement changes were a political move that will hurt the city’s tax collections/general fund in the long run.

Going through some old things and came across a “SOHIO Guide to Greater Cleveland” map book. The front and back feature an aerial view above the Warehouse District looking to the southeast. It appears to be an image with certain artistic modifications (notice the Park Building and Higbee portion of the Terminal Complex), but the overall density is what stands out. My estimate puts the image at 1947, the biggest tell being the building where the 55 Public Square Illuminating Company HQ is built in the 1950’s is still there. Any other thoughts on date?

Yes, they have an in house team.

Sometimes? It's their entire platform from the micro to macro level.

^Great news, long overdue.

This keeps changing because it has no real design integrity to maintain. At risk of oversimplifying things, it's another project that's the manifestation of a strictly pro-forma driven, lazy architect/builder team combined with a consistently misguided Landmarks Commission on this site.

Construction is underway. Permit approved a couple weeks ago.

I guess if you just don't care about architecture or urban design in any way, sure, these are fine.

I was also on Voinovich Park over the weekend for the air show. Looks like part of the boat dock was damaged by that huge storm in August, rendering it unusable. Hoping there's a plan to fix it. Anyways, back to SW...

Maybe it's time to revive the Rock-O-Meter?