LifeLongClevelander

One would hope that Beachwood city officials have observed and learned from the decline of these other malls. The owners of these declining and former malls knew all the "right" things to say when they announced their acquisition and plans. The declines still continued. Smaller retailers pulled out followed by the departures of anchor tenants. Leasing revenue falls, maintenance gets put off, then utilities and taxes go unpaid. Somehow, the owners don't have money for upkeep, utilities and taxes, yet they have money to pay for legal fights and more mall acquisitions. As much as some city leaders may want to be proactive in fighting the decline of these malls, the process can still take years before becoming resolved.

Once a mall gets the reputation of being an unsafe place to shop, it is done. It happened to Randall Park, Euclid Square and Richmond Town Square. More than enough "incidents" to have the mindset with the shootings, drug activity, robberies and mobs descending on that mall. The decline will only accelerate with the change in shopping habits with the shift away from malls, brick-and-mortar retail in general and effect of COVID-19. How long before Beachwood Place gets on the acquisition radar of Kohan Retail Investments, the owner of Richmond Town Square. Ashtabula and Chapel Hill Malls?

The homicide total and frequency for Cleveland is getting worse. Per a cleveland.com article on Tuesday, November 24th, the count for the year is now 173. Unfortunately, based upon the trending, especially during the last several weeks, the count will probably exceed 190 for the year. As for cleveland.com, with the frequency of homicides and the staffing cuts at that publication, they either run articles days later, group homicides together in one or don't even report them at all. Then when an article reports the tally for the year, it jumps even more.

Maybe CSU should end its sponsorship of the CSU Line on Clifton and use that money to help the local share of a downtown rail loop, too. Does anybody know what the ridership numbers are for the CSU Line?

The "timing" of the Great Recession was only part of the reasoning for the service cutbacks of the #9, #32 and #7. A huge reason for the cutbacks was the opening of the HeathLine. RTA regularly boasted about the increase in ridership of the HealthLine as compared to the predecessor #6/6A route. Yes, ridership was increased, but the HealthLine became the only method of getting downtown via the Euclid Avenue corridor. Riders from the other routes, if they wanted to continue downtown, had no choice to transfer to the HealthLine. The Great Recession basically coincided with the opening of the new line. Unfortunately, the time it takes to transfer, even if a HealthLine bus is at the point of transfer, adds time. Also, the HealthLine has far more stops than the former express and flyer versions of those other routes. Some stops from the #6/6A were merged and moved, but there are still quite a few on the route. At one time, I was a daily rider of the #9F and 9X. It was normal for the #9F/9X buses to pass multiple buses on #6/6A, especially between Mayfield-Euclid and E.30th-Euclid. Passing at least 3 or 4 was common. The only intermediate stops from University Circle to E.30th were E.105th, Cleveland Clinic, E.79th and E.55th. The main reason for the vast majority of the express and flyer route riders was to get to CSU and downtown. I stopped riding the #9X/9F before it was re-routed to go downtown. I can imagine the trip being significantly quicker by avoiding Euclid Avenue. I do think two runs each in the morning and evening rush hours of the #9 lasted until about 2012 or so. I recall seeing signs for that route on St. Clair while I was waiting for the #239. Unfortunately, only offering 2 trips didn't leave much flexibility should somebody need to change their hours. Miss that last bus and one had to endure a long, local bus and at least one transfer.

One doesn't need to go to Greensboro, NC to see a similar system being implemented. Lake County's LAKETRAN system is in the process of getting ready to add electric battery powered buses to its city transit coach fleet. On Lakeland Blvd, just east of the Lloyd Road/Route 2 freeway ramps, they are rebuilding their park-n-ride facility to include battery recharging stations for their regular transit coaches for their routes 2 and 3. The facility is shared with the highway coaches that will remain with "clean" diesel engines. They are going to replace 12 of their city-type coaches next year with the new electric buses. Other routes will have electric buses, too. Don't know what LAKETRAN's plans are for the entire system. They just expanded their local routes from 7 to 9 with the 2 newest routes added to the Mentor area. One of the two new routes, plus Route #7, the Lakeland Community College circulator, are operated with dial-a-ride type buses which are transitioning to propane powered fleet. As it is, their current 16 transit buses may be near system capacity to provide service on the expanded number of routes.

Agree with your assessment of Calabrese. Maintaining at least some sort of suburban park-n-ride services (or any regular suburban bus service) did provide political value. If those services were eliminated, he may have faced a revolt of the suburban communities where a referendum could originate to eliminate the 1.0% county-wide sales tax. If that tax were repealed, it would be the end of RTA. When the 2016 service cuts were initially announced, the #7 Monticello/Wilson Mills to SOM Center and Mayfield Road (formerly the #7A) was going to be truncated to Richmond Road. The mayors of Highland Heights and Mayfield Village balked at completely losing their only bus route. RTA relented and maintained some service beyond Richmond Road. Honestly, in my opinion, if a service did not help or in other ways detracted from his "baby" the HealthLine, Calabrese had no use for it. The overall impact to system the held no significance, just as long as the numbers for the HealthLine "appeared" to be good. That is unfortunate as if the HealthLine was viewed as complimenting service instead of a competing service, the impact could have been positive system-wide.

Up until a few years ago, I was a daily rider of the #239 Euclid Park-n-Ride. It seemed like RTA didn't really care about the riders of that line. First and foremost was the lack of decent security for the facility. There was only one camera that panned the parking lot. The quality of any images was questionable as the camera cover was clouded, either due to the plastic becoming dirty or opaque due aging. People leaving their vehicles in the lot were subject to vandalism and theft. Homeless individuals frequently spent the night inside the station building. Whenever there was a shortage of highway coaches, the #239 was the first of the park-n-ride routes to see replacements with regular city coaches, usually the oldest leftovers in the garage. Delays were normal due to equipment issues. The problems went further than that. There were drivers who couldn't keep the schedule. It wasn't due to heavy traffic or accidents on I-90. One regular driver didn't like to drive at freeway speeds. If somebody doesn't like driving on a freeway, they shouldn't pick a route that is mainly a freeway route. Another driver routinely was late every single morning--picking up breakfast came first. People missed connections or were late. Complaints to RTA fell on deaf ears, even those made by the RTA employees who rode that route. A large percentage of riders on the #239 that worked for a firm that fully paid for transit passes could not get a stop added at their building. These were the main factors in plummeting ridership on the line. I fortunately had another transit option to get downtown and decided to switch to it. In the summer of 2016, RTA eliminated the #239 and its direct run downtown. It initially replaced it with a branch of the #39F that traveled from the park-n-ride lot to Lakeshore Blvd before getting on I-90 at East 185th Street. It more than doubled the travel time downtown. About a year later, that #39F branch became a #39 branch via Bratenahl, a one-way trip of an hour--4 times as long as what the #239 took. The 300-car parking lot that not too long before was completely repaved would have 5 to 8 cars parked there (pre-COVID). Many former #239 riders fortunately also had another transit option. The point is this: fixing problems that drove those passengers away really doesn't cost much. Having drivers maintain schedules should be a no-brainer. Security cameras aren't that expensive, nor are clear covers. Good maintenance not only improves reliability, but extends the lifespan of buses that cost nearly $500k (city coaches) to $620k (highway coaches). RTA can devise all sorts of great sounding plans to improve service, but if they don't address inherent problems: security, drivers, quality, maintenance and customer service, the outcome will be the same.

And quite obviously, if an "outsider" with viewpoints that aren't aligned with yours are not welcomed. Thank you for confirming my point.

What is wrong with questioning a proposed project and its feasibility? $20 million isn't chump change. RTA is cash-strapped and is getting close to being unable to provide the basic services that it was intended to provide. There are many people who rely on RTA for their only means of transportation. What happens if they cannot use the system to meet their basic needs--they cannot go to work, shop or go to the doctor? If RTA cannot even provide enough serviceable rail cars, what point is it to build a station where they won't have any rapid transit cars to stop there. Unless some wealthy individual or corporation comes out funds this public project, who gets stuck with footing the bill? The taxpayer. Where has the public been sold a bill of goods that ends failing miserably, but they get stuck with the cost? Look no farther than the "Medical Mart". Perhaps if there was more of a discussion and analysis of the information that was provided, it wouldn't have been undertaken. Is this a forum fostering a healthy discussion and bringing up reasonable counterpoints or a one-sided lecture?

Would love to know just how many people are asking this question. Where are the in-depth analysis reports backing up the call for significant demand or interest for this proposed station? Right now, even before the COVID-19 pandemic set in, RTA, leadership was bemoaning the lack of money for capital projects. They have so many other projects that need money just to maintain the services they have, $20 million could go a long way towards funding those projects. There is no "bottomless pit" of money for RTA to dip into. As for Red Line rapid transit cars "soaring by", they have had troubles even keeping enough of them in operation to provide basic service. Until the rail fleet is replaced, it will be harder and harder to provide that basic service. Hasn't this area seen enough of this "if you build it, they will come" mentality for projects that yield little based upon the money spent? Until solid numbers are produced backing up this supposed demand, this is just a pipe dream that a few want the public to fund.

Excellent point. I even believe it is simpler than that. I think the platform is continuous, but they have it gated off. Put up a barrier between the wall and edge of the platform to eliminate the risk of falling on the tracks. The wall(s) can be relocated to provide more space for passage between the two sides of the station.

Convenient, yes, but is the demand or need really there? Is the potential demand enough to warrant spending $20 million when another alternative already exists? RTA has been struggling to exist even before the Covid-19 crisis hit. Their own statements have emphasized they have severe money issues. They have not even identified the sources to fund the system-wide rail car replacement. That $20 million could go towards purchasing 4 or 5 rail cars that they are desperately in need of acquiring. Look at where the potential passenger traffic would come from. I have serious doubts that the east side Red Line would significantly contribute towards any passengers using that proposed station. Perhaps a few could come from the University Circle area. Anybody coming from points east, beyond the ends of the existing rail lines, would more than likely use the Green or Blue Lines to get downtown. Those riders already have a station in place at Settlers Landing. They would not transfer to the Red Line to use that new station. If somebody lives downtown, they have an option already with the Waterfront Line. Those that could benefit would be west side Red Line users. The question is that would that source of potential users be enough for such a major capital outlay.

This is an interesting concept, but is it really worth the $20 million to invest in another rail station literally a few hundred feet away from one that already serves that area? Just outside of the image image where the Waterfront Line's tracks curve under the Hope Memorial Bridge is RTA's Settlers Landing Station. If money could be obtained for this new Red Line station, it could very well take away money from potential projects that would see far greater return or fill higher demanding needs. From RTA's own rider counts, the existing station really doesn't serve a large number of passengers.

In January, I had to go to the mall to pick up something at the Amazon drop-off locker. Notices were taped on the locker unit by CEI warning of impending electricity shut-off due to non-payment of bills. This was the same time that Chapel Hill Mall's tenants received similar notices. Decided to take walk through the mall. Notices were distributed throughout the mall. Of "better" type retailers, there was a men's shop (which is soon going to relocate to the plaza across Wilson Mills Road), a couple of shoe stores and a sports apparel store. Conrads, the movie theater and Planet Fitness have their businesses as well. The food court had a few places open. About half of the mall's stores were empty. The other spaces were "urban" apparel stores (I will leave that up to your interpretation), junky-type stuff and hair/nail salons. In a mall's "prime", those salons (aside from the ones that Sears or J.C.Penney might operate) would be off of the main concourse or be outside spots. Now, they occupy spaces that once were prime leasing spaces, but there is lots of empty "prime" space available. The Euclid Beach display takes up a former store plus it has some displays in windows of other empty stores.. It moved to Richmond Town Square after Euclid Square Mall had all of its tenants (mostly churches) kicked out when Euclid's fire marshal uncovered massive code violations. The Euclid Beach display was only visible from the concourse as nobody was around to open it up for visitors. A sign that any mall is doomed (aside from when Kohan purchases it), is when the Euclid Beach display moves in. Ample space sitting un-leased ends up having a mall's owner letting them move in rent-free.

Kohan Retail Investment group is some sort of sham operation. Back when Kohan purchased Richmond Town Square, I read that other mall properties he owned ended up shutting down. One mall lost of its tenants and closed. Another was closed due to non-payment of utilities a third was closed due to safety and building code violations. This all happened before he purchased Richmond Town Square. In the following months, Sears and J.C.Penney closed at that mall leaving no anchor tenants. Before that purchase, he purchased another dying mall--Chapel Hill Mall. What have been the headlines about both malls in the last few months? Chapel Hill tenants received notices of utility shut-offs. The same thing happened to Richmond Town Square tenants; it just wasn't mentioned in the news headline. J.C.Penney closed their store at Chapel Hill leaving no anchor tenants there as well. Both malls have delinquent property taxes. Now Richmond Town Square is closed as it has major building and safety code violations. Chapel Hill Mall had foreclosure filings by Summit County. On December 8 2016, Cleveland.com ran an article about Kohan's purchase of Richmond Town Square: https://www.cleveland.com/hillcrest/2016/12/richmond_town_square_mall_in_r.html. In that article, it stated: "It's a great mall that's in a great location 10 miles from downtown," said Kohan Retail Investment Group President Mike Kohan of the company's purchase, finalized on Nov. 10. Kohan is also the recent buyer of Akron's Chapel Hill Mall and owns 19 other malls around the country. When asked if he had any plans to make upgrades at the mall, Kohan, speaking from his office in Great Neck, N.Y., said, "I'm not a developer. We want to place tenants at the mall." "As such, Kohan will focus on bringing new retailers to Richmond Heights." In February, Kohan purchased Ashtabula Town Square Mall: https://www.cleveland.com/business/2020/02/owner-of-akrons-struggling-chapel-hill-mall-buys-ashtabula-mall-for-102-million.html. In that story, there was this statement: "In an interview with the Star Beacon, which first reported the story, Kohan said he hopes to increase traffic and add tenants at the Ashtabula mall, which is at about half-capacity." Doesn't that sound familiar? How long before Ashabula Town Square suffers the same fate as Richmond Town Square, Chapel Hill and those other malls owned by Kohan? As an aside, any talk of a mall owner making repairs to a nearly dead mall where a developer wishes to purchase it to demolish it is a load of cow manure. Just as the other cited cleveland.com article stated, Kohan would never see any return on money spent on repairs. The handful of low-end retailers and service providers that comprise most of that malls remaining tenants generate next to no mall revenue. Expect this show to go on for many months and probably years.

Here is the problem with high taxes and an increase in taxes to support RTA: the general public does not want to pay higher taxes to fund an agency that is badly mis-managed and wastes a lot of money. Most of the other major transit agencies in the state are currently funded by sales taxes except for Cincinnati (income tax) and Toledo (property tax). The ones funded by sales taxes, aside from RTA, receive funding from 0.25% or 0.50% sales tax rates, while RTA receives 1.0% county sales tax. Cuyahoga County is still the second largest county in the state in terms of population. That should be more than enough in sales tax revenue. The theft, waste and corruption in the system over many years has been extremely well documented. The general manager was rewarded with contract renewals, pay raises and bonuses, even though the system was in a steep decline in ridership and services. In a normal world, that sort of performance would have cost the general manager his job, not being rewarded for it. To add to the problems, the county has high tax rates. The sales tax (partly due to RTA) is the highest in the state. Property taxes are high. What do the residents get for high taxes? Scandal after scandal of theft, corruption, waste and personal enrichment by its leaders. It has been happening for decades. The names change, but the scandals continue. Even though taxes are high, services decline along with the overall quality of life. Finally, many of the county's school districts are the worst performers in the state. Year after year, the same districts are in the bottom 5% in performance. More money thrown at the districts hasn't produced any measurable improvements in results. The property taxes paid in these communities for these poor performing school districts contribute towards Cuyahoga County having collectively the highest property taxation rate in the state. Has one ever wondered why there is urban sprawl in this area? Maybe it is to get away from high taxes and quality of life issues. They want to live where schools are better. Taxes are a necessity of life. Most people have problems paying high taxes that do little towards improving the community where they live.

RTA was seriously talking about having ballot issues to increase the county's sales tax from its current 1.0%. It can seek an increase to 1.5%. At 1.0%, it is double the rate of what Columbus and Laketran's systems are funded (or any other transit system in the state). The other option was to seek increased funding via a property tax increase. As more and more bad publicity came out regarding the waste, theft, abuse and mis-management by the system's leaders, the board of trustees decided that either proposal would go down in flames on election day. Furthermore, RTA has become an undesirable mode of transportation in the county. Poor, infrequent or non-existent service coupled with lower gas prices, reasonable and abundant parking options make driving the commuting option of choice. As jobs have left downtown, RTA has never adjusted service options for those companies that have grown in the suburbs. Plus, people don't need transit or a car when they work from home. Cuyahoga County already has the highest sale tax rate in the state. It's property taxes are some of the highest in the state as well. If people don't need or want the service that RTA provides and the system is plagued with massive problems, an increase to the tax burden will not be approved by the voters.

The HealthLine is a joke. It is perceived as a successful BRT line because its rider counts are falsely inflated numbers. RTA's officials cite the "increase" in ridership as compared to the counts of the preceding routes 6 and 6a that traveled from the Stokes-Winderemere and University Circle Rapid Transit Stations to Public Square via Euclid Avenue. They omit the fact that several other bus lines also traveled downtown and ignore those rider counts from the overall comparison. Some routes operated significant portions of the day downtown and others offered rush hour service downtown. When the HealthLine started operation, RTA discontinued running those other routes downtown. If somebody wanted to ride a bus to get downtown, they had no other choice but to use the HealthLine. A strong argument can be made stating that the HealthLine did more to hurt the overall system ridership than help. A bus trip downtown, already rather long from eastern Cuyahoga County, became longer. A transfer takes time, even if a HealthLine bus is waiting for passengers. If there isn't a HealthLine bus at the transfer point, people had to wait. In addition, the buses from the outer routes made significantly fewer stops than the HealthLine buses. More stops add to commuting time. Many of those now truncated routes that once operated downtown provide a fraction of their former frequencies or have been completely discontinued. People do not like long (and uncomfortable) bus rides and they don't like making transfers when they once had none to deal with. It also doesn't help with RTA's financial picture as the HealthLine has well-publicized problems of people riding that line not paying fares.

Not exactly certain about the never used subway connector tunnel(s), but I think they end at Ontario. When the Terminal Tower project was under construction, the excavation basically stopped at Ontario. Depending on what was done for Ontario, there may be little bit underneath, but I don't think that Ontario itself was disturbed for that project's construction. In the 1920's subway-type construction was cut-excavate-cover, not the boring operations done today. As for the west side of the Terminal Tower Complex, at one time there was the intent to connect the Detroit-Superior High Level Bridge trolley subway to the Terminal Tower tracks. The lack of money during the Great Depression ended all potential planning on that type of connection.

Doesn't anybody ever question some of the other numbers that get tossed around for this project--like when they become reality? The "Big Dig" project in Boston was projected to cost $2.5 billion. When it was completed, it cost $24.3 billion. If what happened in Boston comes true in the Cleveland to Chicago hyperloop (projected to cost $24.7 to $29.8 billion), would the "final" price tag come in the range of $250 to $300 billion? These projects always have a way of costing much more than projected. Then there are the projected ridership counts. Per a March, 2018 Cleveland.com article: https://www.cleveland.com/architecture/2018/03/is_hyperloop_hyped_in_ohio_pro.html it stated that 54,720 people would use the service between Cleveland and Chicago a day. Assuming that is the number is for both directions, 27,360 would take a one-direction trip. If the 40-passenger capsules are used, it would amount to 684 trips in one direction a day. This translates to one departure every 126 seconds during a 24-hour period. If 28-passenger capsules are used, it becomes 1 departure every 88 seconds for the entire day. How long will it take to load and unload a capsule? Hopefully a station would have multiple platforms for this purpose. So, roughly every 90 seconds to 2 minutes, a 28 to 40 passenger projectile will be launched in closed tube and they will travel at speeds of 760 miles per hour. If one of those capsules suddenly becomes disabled and stops, who would want to be in that stopped capsule? Or who would want to be in one of the multiple ones that follow?

When a mall gets the reputation of having security/safety issues inside and on the parking lots outside, its days are numbered. One or two incidents spread out over an extended period of time can be written off as exceptions. When they happen with regularity and major media coverage, that is the beginning of the end. One also has to wonder with the demise of Richmond Town Square, has the frequency and severity of shoplifting hit there as well. Macy's at Richmond Town Square as well as J.C.Penney at Richmond Town Square were regular locations for shoplifting incidents in the local reporting of Richmond Heights Police Blotter items.

Nothing is worse than using outdated information, especially when it comes from the county government. Richmond Heights eliminated its curbside recycling program at the start of 2019. The city's leaders cited increased cost in the new waste hauling contract starting in 2019 and low residential participation rates. The rates given came in at about 5% to 8% of the city's residents participated in recycling. If somebody didn't want to leave recyclables at their curbside, they could drop it off at the service garage. When the recycling program was eliminated, even the recycling dumpsters at the service garage were eliminated. The low participation rate was not higher due to the city's not having separate containers for recycling. People had to pile up plastic bags for recycling pick up and hope that it wasn't windy on collection day. One Richmond Heights city council member predicted that more cities would follow suit due low demand for recyclable materials and increased costs to recycle when it came time for their waste hauling contracts to be renewed.

A key word that has is being left off is "YET". We are only about 2 months into the Covid-19 impact on the economy. Governments at all levels are being impacted by significant tax revenue loses. Projections for lost tax revenues in the future are significant. If developers are trying to put together deals with government entities, the prospects of losing more tax revenue will impact those partnerships. Nobody knows how much damage has been impacted on the economy. The fallout of major stock market drops hits months later. We are seeing just the early stages. History is filled with projects that ended up dying on paper and with minimal/partial work being done when the money runs out when the real impact of a major economic downturn sets in.

Cadman, agree with you regarding the massive economic fallout from Covid-19. Surely, projects that were close to being announced will be delayed, but how about those that have been announced, yet not started. Will this fallout be another roadblock for nuCLEus, resulting in more delays, scale backs/revisions or outright cancellation? How will this alter the views of corporate office management who have now seen nearly 2 months of full time teleworking? What will this do for the demand for expensive rental apartment buildings and luxury apartment developments all over the area? The projections on the losses for dining establishments are scary.