Dino

^Yes, hundreds. Drive by Lakewood High School on a Sunday morning, they get a large crowd. This isn't a fly-by-night storefront church. Anyway, that site was never big enough to host hundreds of jobs. Roundstone had to move due to growth. Lakewood's ability to keep them in Lakewood is a different story, but as far as this building goes, i think this is good news.

BTW- the Crew have a few local players from the Cleveland area. Darlington Nagbe's from Lakewood, and Sean Zawadski's form Olmsted Falls.

Agreed! Nothing would do more for Cleveland's chances to land a big team than having a sell out crowd at this Saturday's Crew game in Cleveland. If you're a Cleveland sports fan, I hope to see you there!

Or....to a beautiful building that will be reactivated and used for its historic purpose and bring hundreds of people to downtown Lakewood every week? I'll take it!

I think the state money is still less than 50/50, but who knows. It just dawned on me though...what if Haslam gets his $600M from the state based on all these trumped up projections, but can't get the local funding. Could he take the $600M and build the $1.2B stadium only? I'm sure he'll say the rest of the mixed use development will be forthcoming, pending future financing, but who would believe him? It's a terrifying thought, because that's kind of what he wanted all along, it could actually happen, and it would probably be the worst possible outcome. 🤮

The State money is not a done deal. DeWine has been against this, so there is no guarantee that it will pass the Senate. DeWine can also veto it if it does pass. Regarding the local bonds, if the County doesn't sponsor them, there are other authorities that could. Perhaps the Port Authority. That also seems like a long shot given the County's opposition to this plan, and shaky math that Ronayne highlighted doesn't really make me think entities will be jumping at the chance for these bonds.

I would bet a million dollars that all the exterior lighting can change colors. A) LED color changing lights are pretty commonplace and B) they're a paint company! If they didn't do color changing lights, then that's the biggest swing and a miss I've ever seen.

Spire is a phenomenal facility and one-of-a-kind. But they train athletes (and Olympians) in about 8 or 9 different sports and it's also a boarding school. Do you think that's what the RFP by CSG has in mind? If so, that would be a different proposition. I was picturing something more like the Crew Academy. https://www.spireacademy.com/about-us/

^If they were located here...how about the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Football Club. Or...Tri-C F.C.? I mean- I'm kinda joking, but it's already growing on me. 🤣

The Columbus Crew train at a 15 acre site. The stadium to the right is not included in the 15 acres, but it is the home field for the Crew 2, their MLSNextPro team. At a more reasonable 20 acres, Tri-C has a site at E. 30th that wouldn't be bad for the training facility. It's close to the proposed stadium, close to highways, close to public transit. The building at E. 30th and Community College Blvd. is a rec center. So it might be an easy conversion. Or it could be a tear down and rebuild. It also seems like a good partnership opportunity so the different users don't have to entirely pay for it on their own. Win-Win!

The RFP calls for 40-100 acres!? That's huge! The Browns training facility and all of its parking is about 18 acres. CSU's entire campus is only 85 acres.

Legitimate question...why is real estate in the suburbs so much cheaper? Historically, land in the City was expensive because that's where everyone wanted or needed to be. In 1950, three fourths of the county lived in Cleveland. Today the ratio has reversed, with three fourths living in the suburbs. Companies are leaving downtown, and people (outside of this forum) are constantly (and ignorantly) complaining about things like crime and parking in the City. So if the suburbs are so desirable to so many people, why is the land still so cheap?

This *could* be a good spot for a courthouse!

This sounds exactly like what the Cleveland School Board did. They are now renting space at 1111 Superior. I don't see how they will find space to rent that meets the security requirements that necessitated a $121M facade renovation.

Q2 is next week! Hopefully they meant the beginning of Q2.

I didn't understand the the nature of the editorial either. The article applauded Bibb for not caving to the the threats of a billionaire based on principle, but then also suggested that at some point Bibb should play nice, lest he miss out on some of the billionaire's money? Not sure what to make of that. I applaud the Bibb and Ronayne. Given how much investment went into the lakefront, it would be kind of a shame for the Browns to leave, but not the end of the world. Publicly supported stadiums have never been shown to be worth the public subsidy and are often drains on the City. If the City ends up paying to demo the existing stadium (projected at $20M) so be it. It's far less than the $400M they originally offered and City would end up with about 25 acres of shovel ready lakefront land ready to develop. The bridge connector is already funded (at least partially), and the City would be free of long term maintenance and operating costs. I think the City/County has very little to lose here. In fact, I think Bibb and Ronayne are in a perfect position to avoid putting up a huge subsidy without it looking like they "let the Browns leave".

Just remember guys...THIS is under construction. How cool is that? It will take decades to complete. It will change and evolve. It won't be perfect. But we could be looking at construction photos of this project on this blog well into 2045! And according to this rendering, by 2045, people will be kayaking at night in light up boats! Heck yeah! It's too soon to be Monday morning quarterbacking this thing. We're still in the first quarter!

Good commentary, good read. If I were to critique the editorial though, I'd say it seemed a bit harsh and pessimistic. "It was frustrating to hear that Bedrock didn’t have a stronger answer on how to reactivate Tower City because, to me, the answer was at best not considered and at worst outright rejected. And I wasn’t the only one frustrated." The factors that have led to Tower City's struggles (suburban sprawl, auto dependency, de-population) have been decades in the making. Frustration that Bedrock has not yet figured out how to reverse these trends in the 10 years (someone can fact check that, I got that from a different article) they have owned Tower City, seems a little unfair. Additionally, in the ten years they have owned it, there was Covid, the rise of work from home, and the continued growth of online shopping. Most of this wreaked havoc across the entire real estate world. Despite all of this they have acquired dozens of acres of surrounding riverfront land, created a 30-year master plan, spearheaded the creation of TIF district to fund it all, started construction on the river bulkheads, started construction on Phase 1 (Cavs Facility), announced and secured a TMUD for Phase 2. I would argue that in ten years, this is incredible progress towards the long term revitalization of Tower City. I think it's fair to highlight areas where Bedrock could be doing better, but in my opinion, frustration directed only at Bedrock is misguided. https://neo-trans.blog/2025/01/19/csx-makes-cvsr-downtown-extension-infeasible/ CSX is one of the biggest obstacles to the CVSR Tower City extension. Does Bedrock really have the power to broker deals between two railroad lines. NOACA, City, County, Feds, maybe they could intervene? GCRTA I loved that the commentary highlighted their role, and lack there of, in all of this. But the majority of the frustration should be on them, not Bedrock, for not doing more to bolster TOD around their stations. Amtrak/Brightline Sure, it would be good if Bedrock was contacting them, I suppose. But is Amtrak and Brightline just sitting by the phone, waiting by the phone for a call? They must be studying routes and locations; the phone works both ways. Generally, I like that this article highlighted how enough isn't being done to support and grow one of Cleveland's greatest assets. However, I think it places too much of the responsibility on Bedrock, it discounts the level of investments that they are undertaking, and it doesn't do enough to acknowledge that something like this can't be accomplished by Bedrock alone.

I'm really excited about this. I have no idea how it will turn out, or what impact it will have on American Soccer, but I'm really excited to see what happens. I am also excited because it seems like it might provide a more reasonable path for cities like Cleveland to get a team. It might give cities the opportunity to grow teams and fanbases organically over time, and not have to shell out obscene expansion fees before they've even built a team.

The argument is that the state will pay off the bonds using tax revenue generated by the new development. And it's bogus. What every academic report on this topic has pointed out, and what everyone seems to ignore is that there is little to zero new tax revenue being created. All of the tax revenue from admissions, parking hotels and restaurants, is tax revenue that the State and County already get. Moving locations from Cleveland to Brook Park does not add any tax revenue. The only new revenue is from temporary construction jobs, and maybe a minor bump if more events take place. But this additional tax based in going to be miniscule.

Is he describing the Brook Park site, or the current stadium site? Oh...never mind. He must mean Brook Park, because he didn't mention the mass transit connections, thousands of hotels rooms, nearby bars, restaurants, structured parking, or adjacencies to museums, convention centers, and other regional attraction sin close proximity.

I don't think this is the typical NIMBY situation. And calling the proposal a bike lane is a little misleading. The proposal is to create a 10' wide, multi-modal path (like they have in the Metroparks) through people's front yards and crossing every driveway on the street. As a frequent walker and biker in Lakewood, I'm all for walkability and biking. But, I think there are legitimate questions about whether or not this is a good idea. I don't think this makes walking OR biking any more safe or desirable on Bunts.

This is cool. I hope that Cleveland can get in on this action.

I honestly don't know if the Modell Law will be upheld or not. But I do know that accepting public money always comes with strings attached. For example, minimum wage rates, minority and female vendor participation, green building standards, job creation/retention, etc. So I see no reason why a requirement to remain physically located in the City of Cleveland would be any different? If the other requirements can be enforced, why can't this one? Furthermore, the State of Ohio has a vested interest in seeing that the law IS enforced. No politician wants to open the door on their laws and sovereignty being over ruled. This puts everyone in a real pickle. I suspect that's why DeWine was really in town - to try and broker a deal to end this amicably. But then Jimmy had to start blasting Ronayne in that survey and forced the City to escalate things. In my opinion, Haslam painted the City/County/State into a corner on this one. Forcing a sale seems hard to enforce, but maybe the court could determine that they are required to pay back the public money instead? I'm guessing that's what SHW would have to do if they decided to move.

Are there fans begging for this? It's a serious question because I wouldn't know personally. The die hard fans I know love going to those brutal, snowy games in December and see it as a badge of honor.