Ethan

Looks like there are plans to improve I90 access ramps to make them less of a barrier for pedestrians and cyclists and increase resident connectivity to the lake.

Breaking:

I Would love an update as well. I have passed by it many times in the past few weeks. It looks like a quiet, fenced in field. If you didn't know there was a development planned there nothing about the site would clue you in.

I understand why you'd think that, but unless Cleveland can get buy in from the Federal government (which seems like it aught to be easy, but in the real world is unlikely) these things are operating on different time scales. Even if Congresses passes a law allowing Burke to be closed this year I'm not sure it will close soon enough to allow construction of a domed stadium, either at its current location, or on what is now Burke. The federal bureaucracy moves too slow. The source at the Signal Cleveland explicitly rejects this having anything to do with the Browns. Plus it just isn't necessary to involve the Haslams to explain the study. It's good politics for Bibb, closing Burke is popular. Plus, it gives him a potential legacy project, park named after him, etc. Let's sneak this into some bloated omnibus bill and get it over with! No one will even notice. 🤣

While this is an interesting analysis. The one done in the study is perhaps more useful. Of the 245 acres considered to be Burke in the study, 200 are marked as green space, leaving 45, slightly less than 20% for development. The study concludes that closing Burke and developing less than 20% of it would net more economic benefit to the region than leaving Burke open. Personally I'd argue parks have lots of benefits as well, most of which are either hard to measure, and only some of which are economic in nature. So leaving 80% of this land for active/passive green space is not a waste at all.

One interesting thing to note is that there really isn't that much difference between the maximum and minimal development scenarios in the report. The park acreage is actually the same either way, it's just indoor sports facilities versus hotels/housing/retail. It looks like either way we'd be getting at least 200 acres of active/passive green space. The report also only looked at the airport, not the confined disposal facilities to the north which are probably only good for green space anyway due to their location/soil etc. Basically even maximum development is still assuming Burke will be primarily turned into a park, which is was I want, so that sounds fantastic to me!

I'd be curious to know how that compares to other comparably sized metros. On one hand I'm thinking that there are real structural issues inherent to the nature of "downtown" that sort of stack the deck against families, at least compared to other options. I'm skeptical that simple policy changes can make a huge impact in the face of those. On the other hand, tripling one percent, is probably achievable. Some simple things like accessible playgrounds could make a difference. Elevating the perception of safety downtown (not easy). And having available housing options for medium sized families. Make some four bedroom condos available for purchase in a safe area of downtown with a nearby playground and I'm sure some more families will choose to live there.

Does opening to the public include some form of a bar/tasting facility, or will that be part of some later phase? I seem to remember something to that effect, but not sure.

I submitted a comment requesting a CVSR station location walkable from Public Square. I also requested a wider land bridge (or to preserve the possibility of future width expansion if funds are an issue) and for the new riverfront buildings to be built in Art Deco/Beaux Arts style (personal preference).

Agreed. It wasn't quite as empty as the picture makes it seem, and it was fairly late on a Wednesday night, but there's no question it's underutilized. I was up here eating dinner at an outdoor table with some old and new friends. It's a gorgeous location, and with a bit more love, I'm sure a lot more people would choose to do something similar. It wouldn't take much to draw a lot more people, even a, non-ideal, more minor (and cheaper) change that doesn't close any more of the bridge to cars could make a huge difference. Just prettying it up, more planters, some art, etc, could make a huge difference. Make it feel welcoming, and people will come. On a completely different note, the other thing I think that could help a lot is a stairs at the end, because it would let people walk through without turning around. They don't need to be anything special, or even handicap accessible, a bland, cheap fire escape would help quite a bit, let people walk through.

The top of the stone bridge is definitely one of the views improved by the new tower. From last night.

New article on the newly named Bell Tower Center, previously University Square. https://www.crainscleveland.com/retail/university-square-be-renamed-bell-tower-center Most interesting tidbit, at least to me "Brennan said a “family fun destination” entertainment venue will go into the former Tops grocery store space. He couldn't disclose details, though he said that the venue will be known in the next few weeks and that it might be the first thing that opens in the redevelopment. "Part of an existing parking garage will be removed to create a courtyard space..."

This is really fantastic, and a great example of being the change you want to see! Bravo! I love the video and all the renderings. One thing I might suggest, for old fashioned people like me, is to compose and publish a few presentation like images detailing your proposal. I find it easier to contemplate proposed changes from a detailed annotated image than a video. Sometimes by the time I've established where the camera currently is in the video and what is new versus current it's time to cut to a new image. Not looking to make any extra work for you, so feel free to ignore my suggestion. I like your idea, and admire the effort you're putting in to promote it. Hopefully a few UrbanOhio people can make it out to check out your talk. Best of luck, hopefully this catches the attention of some Council or planning committee members.

Yes it would be shut down by the Nimbys's but here's one idea from @KJP

I think this is basically correct. I think one thing that hurts Cleveland is that some of the worst skyline views are basically pressed upon people, like driving west on 90 towards the city, where most of the better skyline views generally require a bit more effort to get through (lake, river, etc). Contrast this with Cincinnati where transiting through it on the highway gets you some of the best views of the skyline. For better or worse people transitting through Cleveland don't get great skyline views.

Security, easier to control access, keeps the crazies out, possibly reduces the security personnel need. I lived in Terminal Tower for several years, there are always crazies, panhandlers, etc in the square, they generally do a decent job keeping them outside but it definitely made it less comfortable living there. I'm sure Bedrock and K&D pushed for this change. It might exacerbate the shattered glass door problem though; it's ridiculous that seemingly every other week someone would take it upon themselves to break one of the doors into Tower City. Though I suppose it is also a good demonstration of why they might want to make it easier to secure the building.

If this is such a big deal, to the point of making increased service to Cleveland non feasible, why isn't Amtrak raising hell about it?

YouTuber makes list of 10 best big city downtowns in the USA, both Cincinnati and Cleveland make the list. There's a few glaring omissions that make it hard to take the list seriously (plus a clear Midwest bias), but it's nice to see the positive recognition.

And more importantly from a business perspective, less risky. The potential returns at the Scranton site are undoubtedly higher, but there's more risk. Whereas the Avon site was nearly guaranteed a middling level of success. That said, I appreciate GLBC's willingness to double down on Cleveland and the Ohio City area. They played their part in Ohio City's comeback, perhaps it's fitting they are now poised to pay a large part in Scranton Peninsula's revival.

My parents now live up near Lake Norman. I could actually see myself taking this. I'd still have to drive to the station, but it could be great for going to a game/concert in Charlotte, and if they manage to get the silver line connection to the airport it could be very useful.

Sounds great, I'm just worried that we're basically asking GLBC to make an in kind charitable contribution to the city with this request. Their primary purpose in building this site is industrial, any brewpub would be secondary, there are many valid reasons why we tend to separate industry and park space. Heavy trucks and bicycling don't go great together for one, neither do kids playing. For that matter, I have a hard time imagining an industrial site designed primarily to be an "oasis in the city" being profitable for the company. As mentioned above there's a lot of tension between what will make an industrial site efficient, and what will make it a nice park-like place for residents. I'm not saying it's impossible to do both, but realistically GLBC will have to sacrifice something, maybe money, maybe business efficiency, idk. They'll gain some customers, yes; however some customers will be ones that would have otherwise gone to their Ohio City location. No matter how cool and different they make the new location, one of the main reasons to go to a brewery is their unique beer. The problem is that unless they want to go the nanobrew route similar to market garden (which might be the best way to go) they will have two locations within walking distance serving the same beer. And for what it's worth I've gone to their Ohio City location with no wait several times (though usually on weekdays) and I imagine those times when there's a wait to get in are when restaurants make most of their money. To be clear, I'll certainly be rooting for this location and GLBC generally if they go with the two brewpub in walking distance route, I'm just expressing my skepticism from a business perspective.

I've made this argument before, but the reason is that GLBC risks cannibalizing their Ohio City business. They're within walking distance. It's almost exactly the same people within walking/biking/driving/transit distance, maybe a few new walkers but that's about it. A large percentage of beer garden visitors will almost certainly just be people that would have otherwise gone to their Ohio City location. They should think very hard about putting any kind of brewpub at this location, maybe bring in consults, etc. It will have to be very different from their Ohio City location, vibe, menu, etc, and even then it might still just cannibalize existing business. Tbh, I'd probably advise against it...

I realize it's just to show the scale of Burke, but if the Burke stadium plans end up like the sketched diagram in the article I'd rather the Stadium moved to Brook Park. I'm pro closing Burke, but it's not worth the effort to make it mostly parking for a stadium. There's parking on the muni lot, no need to add more, and the stadium should be located further east if Burke is to be the new location, save the prime western corner for better use. (I personally want to see more parkland if it's closed, I know that's disputed here but I think we can all agree it shouldn't be parking). Also why are certain public officials acting like the best place for a stadium is on the downtown lakefront? It's there now, and there are good economic reasons to leave it where it's at, but if we're going to have a new stadium, why would we want it on the downtown lakefront?

There's a lot of drama in Alaska land lately vis a vis RCV, it's actually up for repeal. The current jungle primary for their house seat once again elected two Republicans, and one Democrat. However, this time to avoid a repeat, Begich (R) promised to drop out if he was third; he instead got second, and the other Republican bowed to pressure and dropped out. Now it's effectively a two way race, with the other two candidates not thought to have a reasonable chance. While my position has been that RCV (IRV) was an improvement over the current system and should be used as a stepping stone to actually good methods of voting, I now think that RCV should just be leapfrogged, only some form of score based voting will successfully reform our political system, preferably STAR based voting. RCV just has too many counting problems and irregularities on the back end to be sustainable. The fact that the order of elimination can make all the difference is its hamartia. It's easy to imagine a situation where the candidate eliminated first would almost certainly win if any other candidate was eliminated first (indeed that was almost certainly the case in Pelota's race in 2022).

Has anyone gone on this? Is it worth going on without kids, or is this pretty much purely a for the kids thing? (For context, my girlfriend has always loved the Polar Express).