Ethan

So with the County coming out against Brook Park, I reiterate my earlier question, what if they can't get the public funds, is Brook Park still a done deal?

Tower City still seems to primarily cater to commuters, at least with its hours. Maybe it's changed recently, but at least last year everything in the food court was closed by 6pm, if not earlier. I basically had to leave work early if I definitely wanted to get food there. Shopping wasn't much better with everything closed by 7pm, most of it sooner. Hopefully as downtown increasingly transitions to residential the management of Tower City will reflect that.

Isn't this just Nautica...?

To be clear, I don't think we need to expand any of the four designated reliever airports within 35 miles of CLE. I think we can stomach the loss of capacity without a significant issue. I'm sure the FAA will disagree, but it's basically their job to disagree. If the FAA requires upgrading a minor airport, I think it's worth the headache so that we can get rid of Burke, but I'd prefer to remove Burke without upgrading any other reliever airport. If it's truly necessary I'm happy to do it, if it's only necessary to satisfy the FAA then I'm willing to do it. Either way, I'm hoping we start moving through the beaurocracy as soon as possible.

What is it then? The only nearby airport I see listed as a reliever is Medina, which has very short runways, even compared to Cuyahoga County or Lorain. Not to mention Medina is actually closer to CLE than CAK. https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/airports/planning_capacity/npias/current/NPIAS_App_A.xls Meanwhile Cuyahoga County, Lorain, Willoughby are all designated as relievers in addition to Burke. Their runway lengths are small compared to most primary reliever airports I can find, but a few are close (and a few seem to be exaggerating their length relative to what I actually measure in Google maps). Lorain in particular would be very easy to expand to Burke length and become the primary reliever.

You're not wrong, but I feel like this argument always gets presented as if closing Burke would violate the laws of physics, rather than what it is, a political problem. If Buttigieg (with the President's backing) went to the FAA and said he wanted the paperwork to close Burke within the next three months or someone's getting fired, I'm sure any and all necessary exceptions would be granted and the FAA would find a way to make do with whatever the resulting situation would be. The new reliever would be a downgrade in location, capabilities, or both, but the world would keep turning.

In theory, with some slight tweaks, we could have a mixed use development within walking distance of an international airport, intercity bus station, Intercity train station, and intracity rail station. Safe to assume those tweaks aren't happening, but if it were up to me...

Interesting opinion article from Crains, feels like it could have been written by some of the posters here. https://www.crainscleveland.com/commentary/personal-view-haslams-make-blunder-brook-park-plan

I like how they've added trees to the airport parking lots too... Amazing how they greenwash these renderings. I can be okay with the ratio of development to parking, a suburban stadium will need lots of parking, what is driving me crazy is the location of the development. This should be in the direction of the redline and airport so that it can benefit from transit and layover traffic. The fact that it's not seems like malpractice to me, and incredibly self defeating. I have to assume it's FAA requirements, but even if it is, I think 5-6 story developments located near the transit will likely fair better than 8-12 story development in the middle of a giant parking lot.

The current airport daily rate is much less than Browns parking, but I think maybe you mean that if the car was in the lot less than 24hrs they would get charged much more than if they left the car there for 24hrs or more? So something like ~$20/hr (maybe maxing at $100) but after ~18hrs it changes to $25/day instead of the hourly rate. Interesting, unorthodox pricing model, but could work.

I'm wondering if the airport might end up doing some sort of parking validation, one rate if you can prove you have a ticket, another rate for everyone else. I don't know if they have the capability to do this even if they wanted to, but if not they may choose to develop it. They could probably use flight confirmation number, either as validation, or to deny entry to the parking area entirely. Not sure, just theorizing.

Agreed, don't stonewall, just charge a lot more, if they need to extend their lease. The City can actually make money off the stadium, at least for the brief time the Browns need to use it. Make Jimmy put a few million into the general fund if the Brook Park Stadium isn't ready in time. It's what any other landlord would do, and it seems more than fair to me.

If that ends up being the placement of the mixed use development, that is tragic, a waste of potential, and seems doomed to fail. It needs to be near the redline/airport. Hopefully FAA restrictions aren't the problem, because I don't think there's any way around those.

More specifics are needed... Where is all this taxpayer money coming from? And what if he can't get that much in public funds? The decision has been "made," but what if he can only get $600,000,000 in public funds, is he still set on the location if he has to put in more of his own money? Will the Browns still move to Brook Park just with a less impressive new build? It seems like there may be a lot of specifics that still need to be worked out, which could mean there's still a chance for things to fall through or change drastically.

The renderings look cool. I'm interested for the numbers to come out, # of seats, parking spots, acres of developable land/parking, etc. Also, how they plan to connect to the airport/redline will be a deciding factor into whether or not the mixed use area succeeds or fails. If for no other reason than having one more useful stop on the redline I'm rooting for this development, even if I'm skeptical of its chances.

Thanks for this! Good point, their cash balance has definitely been decreasing! Though if I am reading this correctly, forecast (intentionally) drastically underestimates grants and donations, which are often substantial, with 19 million just in donations last year. Largely as a result, actual revenue has exceeded budgeted revenue the last few years. In 2023 actual grants and donations were over 16 million higher than budgeted. The Metroparks have already nearly doubled their 2024 budgeted grants/donations with a single grant. Obviously grants and donations are not guaranteed, so it makes sense not to count on them, but in all likelihood revenue will be underestimated like it has been historically. All of that said, while I don't expect their "war chest" to decrease quite as rapidly as is predicted in the forecast, it has been going down the past few years, and it's likely that trend will continue, particularly if they continue their reservation expansion, which seems very likely.

Open floor plans offices are worse than hell, totally agree. Cubes are bad precisely because they are halfway to an open office floor plan. If you were designing an office from scratch with the goal of convincing people accustomed to working from home to come in to the office every day, would you give people three half walls worth of privacy for their personal workspace? Even with cubes, they make tall walled ones, and you can add the fourth wall leaving only an entryway to give a bit more of an illusion of privacy. Maybe it's not as bad as that screenshot made it seem, but if I saw that cubicle area I'd reconsider working there.

If Burke was ever closed and turned into a park it would almost certainly be transferred to Cleveland Metroparks as part of their lakefront reservation. It goes without saying the Metroparks has a fantastic track record of managing and maintaining hundred+ acre parks. I have full confidence in their ability to handle the maintenance and conversion. I don't think there's much of a chance that the city tries to hold on to and manage this hypothetical park, even they have to realize that would be foolhardy.

Seems like a good guess to me. I'll go a step further and guess the location.

If the mixed use district actually gets built I could see a parking garage going along with it, since that area will get used more frequently, and shop/restaurant patrons may want a closer/more central parking option. Even in that case I'm not sure, but otherwise totally agree. In terms of airport parking, I wonder if we'll actually see the opposite, people parking at the airport for Browns games. I assume we will, and the airport probably won't be happy about it.

With the Browns moving to Brook Park, what are the odds RTA will have the good sense to increase west side rapid frequency on game days?

1) hopefully this is primarily privately funded. 2) hopefully the lakefront plans are updated to reflect the stadium land opening up. I think just filling in the new blank space would look and work fine. But I imagine the best option would modify the plans a bit to reflect the new reality. I hate to delay, but that's probably best. 3) Brook Park may not be the best option, but it's far from the worst. It's connected to the redline and the airport. While I'm skeptical a mixed use development will succeed, it very much could. If it does it would be an excellent end of line (basically) TOD. Best case scenario is something like Van Aken. Probably too optimistic, but why not be optimistic? If successful, maybe it encourages more TOD on the west side rapid stops, unlikely , but we're being optimistic...

Maybe they could put a mural up? Big flat wall like that is an excellent canvas! But yeah, that's a good thought, something that interacts with and faces the square would probably be better.

On the note of the Severance Action endorsement, Here's their previous proposal. https://www.severanceactiongroup.com/about This looks good to me, and I'd certainly be happy with this. I'm sure everyone here is able to find something about it they'd like changed, but I'd be very happy if we end up getting something like this. Using this plan as a starting point, what would people like to see changed? And are they minor changes quiblbles or structureal issues?

It's just a pedestrian bridge at this point... It should maintain the width of mall C. Bending over backwards to keep letting natural light into the convention center isn't worth it, and if we must do, the Haslam's proposal did it much better. If we must skip to save money, the the focal point of the whole project seems like the wrong place to do so. They've gone back and forth on this secondary bridge many times. I'll admit to not having strong feelings either way. If adding this bridge makes the project more politically feasible then great! I don't think adding this will make the pedestrian experience any worse, so to me it's just a money question. As long as adding it isn't preventing a wider land bridge I'm not opposed. Edit: inability to properly access the article left me confused, this option is infinitely worse than the other, doesn't seem to be any reason to go with this ignore the above. -- Has any other publisher written about this yet? Cleveland.com is giving me problems.