Ethan

In case any developers are eyeing Welleon's success with interest, there's several parking lots around W61st and Detroit, just saying...

Because I'd argue that will be better for the East Cleveland residents who will change municipality. For one, those areas already 'feel' like an extension of Cleveland Heights, but more concretely, as @X points out, investing in those particular parts of what is now East Cleveland will simply be more important to Cleveland Heights than it would be to Cleveland. Even more concretely still, there are real proximity based benefits such as the Cleveland Heights Community center that is within walking distance of many of these homes, if the municipal boundary moves they would immediately gain access to this. In general, I'd argue that municipal boundaries should be drawn as much as possible such that people able to walk to basic daily tasks don't have to cross municipal boundaries to do so. It's not generally a luxury that can be practically considered, but when given the choice I'd argue for that principle.

My thought with the County was purely distributing the burden across a wider, and on average better off, tax base. I guess that need not be done in explicitly geographic terms, but it seems like a project of this magnitude needs a wider tax base than just the City of Cleveland which is already disproportionately impoverished.

There's part of me that thinks it has to only be a matter of time before East Cleveland is dissolved one way or another. But the problem is that there's been good reason to think that for decades and nothing has changed. The status quo has a lot of inertia, and there's very few incentives for the powers that be to intervene, and there's plenty of risk. The only real reasons for a politician to stick his/her neck out is dissolving East Cleveland is to do the right thing, so I'm not holding my breath. Some of the risk I mentioned above is that this seems like a logistics nightmare. How would this happen, and how should it? Is dissolving it into the county or the City of Cleveland preferable and/or more realistic? I don't know. Who can shoulder the load best? Does it make sense to split the burden, maybe between the City, County, and possibly Cleveland Heights? Part of the issue is that I don't think the best way to address the East Cleveland issue is the same as the easiest or most technically feasible solution. Unincorporating it into the County or annexing it into Cleveland are the simplest and would reduce the red tape, but either by themselves would be strained to handle the load. And while I doubt Cleveland Heights has the resources or will to engage on this issue, there are undoubtedly parts of East Cleveland (the triangle between Coventry, Forest Park, and the cemetery for sure) that will be better served as parts of Cleveland Heights than as part of Cleveland or unincorporated. If I were designing a post breakup plan without having to consider bureaucracy I'd split it into three zones, post war Germany style. I'd give the Southwest to Cleveland, the Southeast to Cleveland Heights, and the North to the County. The exact borders would follow roads or other logical boundaries. In the long term the County's section would probably go to Cleveland. Cleveland has a large vested interest in Southwest East Cleveland due to its effect on University Circle, ditto for Cleveland Heights around Coventry. Meaningful, rationally drawn borders are rare in the US, but do help in creating a sense of place; I think they would be best for all involved. All of that said, I don't see this happening unless those governing East Cleveland ask for it. Is it possible to force it? I don't know, regardless, I don't see anyone sticking their neck out on that issue. East Clevelanders don't seem to want this, though they probably should, and until that changes it's an interesting, but moot, conversation. Despite that, I am interested to see what others think the 'day after,' so to speak, might look like. Any thoughts?

This looks good in person. I'm glad they finally did it. They also maintained the spacing of the bollards throughout, they aren't artificially forcing people to the crosswalk like I feared. I'm guessing the auto bollards aren't operational yet?

Not much change, still site prep looks like.

They've started on these.

Up close and personal pics. Bit of a photo dump, hope people don't mind. These make a huge difference, pictures don't do it justice.

The Metroparks appears to be adding a pedestrian trail on on the parcel behind the skate park and platform tennis courts.

From today.

These apartments make a bigger difference in terms of big city feel than one would expect. Adding density to Bolivar gives the feeling of more depth to the city, two streets over from our main city felt empty before, and now these apartments give it presence. Can't wait till there are people in them. Hopefully they start a trend around the whole cemetery.

It looks like they've started work on the Superman plaza.

Almost done, not sure what's holding up the last two floors of cladding.

Some pics from this week.

I still like the Cleveland Thermal building as a location. It's near enough to their proposed location that it seems like a reasonable ask, though I'm sure even that short distance will present plenty of complications. The thought occurred to me recently that paired with an infill RTA stop around the new Eagle Ave bridge this wouldn't be a bad stop at all. The nearby development, paired with CVSR and the stadiums seems like sufficient justification for an infill stop despite its proximity to Tower City. (Obviously I'd rather have the red line subway detour, but that isn't happening anytime soon). I might draw out a diagram, but it looks like getting the train into the Thermal building is feasible even with the planned development, but I'm hardly an expert. If it's not possible I'd love to know why.

Can anyone steelman Bedrock's argument/proposal for placing a downtown CVSR so far south outside of the downtown core? Is it just not worth the added complexity/logistical problems? Do they view it as a much smaller draw than we do on this forum? Is it incompatible with some other aspect of their plan? Etc. I'm just curious, and would be interested in hearing the strongest version of their argument/perspective presented in good faith.

Overall looks good! Happy to see it move forward. There's a bit of a contradiction in the report regarding travel direction of the lanes on Huron. I'm assuming the more simple one in each direction is what is intended/will happen, but it's unclear from the document.

Has anyone been able to find/download the presentation file? It doesn't seem to have made it on to the City Planning website yet.

While I hate to add to the anecdotal pile on of RTA, I took the RTA from the airport yesterday with the intent of getting off at Cedar University. Unfortunately for some unexplained reason that particular red line train terminated at Tower City. If I wanted to get to my intended stop, I would have had to wait for the next train. I don't know why that happened, a part of me is curious, but as a rider it was incredibly frustrating and seemed arbitrary. Of course there was also the obligatory crazy person. Having just got back from a trip to Ireland, and having traveled many other places besides, I think the presence of crazy people does seem to be a far more common problem in the US, and in Cleveland in particular. Claiming this is a societal problem is an unhelpful dodge. Sure, RTA can't be blamed for the fact that some people don't have homes or have mental health problems, but there are ways to deter these people from bumming around on transit. A few examples used in the trams in Dublin, cameras and signs with a phone number to report antisocial behavior. There isn't going to be a silver bullet, but there are actions that RTA could take that would help that they aren't taking. Of course the single most useful change would be to have more people riding the trains. More people dilutes the crazies and provides safety in numbers. For that to happen RTA first needs to drastically improve its reliability, trains need to run on time, to where they are supposed to go, and basically all the time. Shutting down a line and diverting people to a bus (like they just did with the blue/green line) is far too common for RTA, and for far too long when it happens.

View from the Red Line

View from the Red line

Shrug, I'd be happy to be proven wrong. It's always felt more like a highway median/entrance strip than a park or anything vaguely resembling nature to me. I don't see how a few benches or fancy landscaping would change that, but I'd be glad to see that my imagination was simply insufficient in this case.

The North side of Detroit from the Bop Stop to Opa Gr is completely vacant. I know it gets really close to the Shoreway in places so building here is difficult, but I imagine something could be done, maybe apartments with some pocket retail. It's probably easier if the narrow sections are developed as part of a larger development including at least some of the more manageable depth portions, that way the core building functions (elevators, HVAC, etc) can be handled where there's more room, and narrow sections can basically be a hallway with rooms. I might be the most pro park person on this forum, but I can't see this area ever being a decent park unless the Shoreway is dieted or closed, which isn't in the near future. Build something there and hide the Shoreway with a nice urban canyon. That would help make it feel like a complete street with a built out urban connection to Gordon Square.

If you want normal (ie not obsessed with public transit for its own sake) people with options to take public transit, the trains need to run on time and be free of crazy people. Faster, cheaper, and more frequent service help, but there's nothing like having to deal with crazy people or getting stuck in the cold to make a potential regular rider say never again. Also, I find it odd that it often seems that RTA's strongest defenders on here are its least frequent riders. Bring on time is a basic competence issue. Crazy people is a more complicated issue involving security, policing, and fare collection. I'd argue keeping the crazies off is the more important of the two issues. (Another reminder that 50% of people are women and what may feel uncomfortable to most of us on this site will likely feel unsafe to most women.) First step to getting more butts back on train seats is to stop allowing them to be used as a homeless shelter for the mentally disturbed. We have resources to deal with that problem, our public transportation can't be allowed to de facto become one of those resources.

The unmentioned thing in this conversation is that retail is almost always more expensive downtown. If it isn't more convenient why go to a downtown mall? Most people base their shopping decisions on some combination of cost, convenience, and enjoyment. Downtown retail tends to lose on cost to suburban shopping (I assume due to rent prices) both of which lose to online shopping. Tower City needs to up its numbers in one of those three areas to be competitive. I'm skeptical there's much they can do to reliably be more enjoyable, so that leaves cost and convenience. Getting more people to live in close proximity solves the convenience problem, hence why Bedrock wants to develop the river. Costs would require lower rents, which I assume would require lower property tax assessments? Idk, this type of economic manipulation rarely seems to work well, and even if it did, it would reek of favoritism and corporate welfare. Having more nearby residents willing to pay convenience prices for local shopping seems to me like Tower City's light at the end of the tunnel. I don't personally think conversion into a business park or any other new idea is likely to succeed. Hold the ship steady and build some new units!