Ethan

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!

My company has an eight month rotation program for new college grads, and Waterford Bluffs has become the go to place for all of them to stay. We have four there right now all reverse commuting to our Independence area office. Without exception everyone who has stayed here has liked the apartment, the Ohio City area, and Cleveland as a whole during their stay.

The main website for Canal Basin Park has been updated (link below). They are seeking input on how to finish the park. See survey. They have three proposals, but it looks like they are starting blocks from which to mix and match. Not sure if this is taking steps backward, or just fleshing out before the next phases are started. Hopefully the latter. You can download a higher res version of these at the link below as well. I'd be happy with any of them, though I think some combination of the three is probably best, and probably what we'd get. https://www.canalwaypartners.com/advocacy/canal-basin-park Edit: look for the final design to be unveiled later this year.

Am I correct in interpreting that the proposed closure of Huron to cars has been revised down to a road diet?

I agree Nimbys are to be expected. The first question that aught to be answered, and hopefully is by the upcoming report, is how many flights currently at Burke need the last 10% of runway length, and therefore couldn't be diverted to Cuyahoga County and would need to go Hopkins absent major renovations at another airport? If it's only a few a month it's a nothingburger, if it's many per day then we'd probably have to do something about it. -- Another proposal that has been thrown around here for extending the runway is basically to add a dogleg to Richmond and extend the runway in that direction. That could get you the additional 600-700' matching Burke without altering the flight path or tearing out the old runway. I'm sure it would still be opposed by Nimbys because literally everything is with airports, it's basically the origin of the term. Edit: from the previous Master plan beaten back by Nimbys.

My understanding was that closing Burke would be a years, if not decades long process. Is this option assuming the closing process will be expedited beyond what was previously considered possible, or that the Browns new stadium plans will be significantly delayed? It seems like one of those, if not both is required for a new stadium at Burke.

I think one of the most interesting things to consider about potential Cleveland Akron Canton rail is how much of the route you can get with just rail whose right of way is owned by Akron Metro RTA. If you could connect Cleveland to Hudson you'd have most of the line in public hands (though I'm unsure about Akron to Cuyahoga Falls, I see conflicting information). Interestingly the same is true of Kent, and given Kent is a college town it's potentially worth the more circuitous routing. Granted it's unclear how easy it would be to get Cleveland RTA to Hudson. I think you would basically have to follow NS right of way and it isn't obvious that there's space for additional metro lines along the length of this route, even with moderate demolition it may be difficult.

Maybe I shouldn't be, but I'm sort of happy the Home Depot is excluded from this remodel. There isn't another large home improvement store for a while, it's very useful and does good business as a result. On the other hand, I wish the movie theater space was included. That's a big chunk of space that's vacant and not having it reduces the renovation options and scope. There's clearly too much parking. Developing some of it seems like a no brainier. I'm not sure if it's a better idea to develop closer to the mall, or push development out to the ring road. I'm sure either could work with a quality plan. There's quite a few apartments on the outside of the ring road, I think development on the ring road could interact well with those apartments. Maybe a combination that develops along the ring road, but also creates pedestrian corridors through to the center? Idk, lots of possibilities, excited to see what they come up with.

Alcazar hotel, now apartments wins tax credits as well. If anyone wasn't aware of this, like me, here's an article from 2022. It looks like it already got some updates 8 years ago or so, and sounds like this new round of renovations will be focused on the common areas. https://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/news/local_news/alcazar-hotel-cleveland-heights/article_b22e982c-129a-11ed-9f50-6ba82fa168d5.html Honestly sounds pretty cool, hopefully it's successful.

Yeah, Ohio seems to have become the meme state, often described how I would think of Nebraska or Iowa (no disrespect to either of those states). My theory is that Ohio is just the smallest state everyone has heard of. Being the seventh largest state that may be more of an indicator of lack of geographic knowledge in the general population than an indictment of Ohio. It also doesn't help that Ohio has several mid size and smaller cities, we have only slightly fewer people than Illinois, but no Chicago for everyone to recognize.

I highly recommend you watch this video linked below. It addresses several of your arguments much better than I will be able to on a forum message. Topics addressed in the video, architectural progress, the subjective/objective nature of beauty, the disconnect between architects and laypeople, evidence based design, and how evidence based design factors into sustainability. I had a longer response written out, but I realized I was just rehashing the video, just not as well. One note, that channel is mostly focused on classical design, but I'd argue most Art Deco passes evidence based design tests. Ultimately, I sympathize strongly with your sustainability point, and I think it's important that we utilize evidence based design to ensure buildings we build now will still be considered beautiful decades into the future.

Fair enough, you're right, Art Deco actually stands for Arts décoratifs, so clearly French. I've edited my comment, though I don't think I'm unique is associating the style with America, even if erroneously. Regardless, I think my comment still stands. Even the argument you're replying to, that art deco as an architectural style is near universally popular with Americans, I think still holds, despite my reasoning being flawed. Llamalawyer phrased it better in the opening comment. "connection to our country's heyday."

Also being discussed here.

Fair question. I'll take a stab at it. 1) Creating a sense of place through architectural cohesion. One of my main grips with the far suburbs is that they all look the same regardless of which city or even Metro area you are in. I grew up in Mentor, OH, a suburb on the far east side of Cleveland. I used to joke it was in suburbia USA because it looks like every other suburb in America. Contrast that with Cleveland Heights, still on the East Side of Cleveland, but I can generally tell within a quarter of a mile where the border with University Heights is purely because there are different architectural styles. That's cool! It helps create a sense that it actually matters where you live, there are real differences, that means something. Unfortunately many big cities fall into this trap too. I call this variation of the trap the global city trap, where a city ends up feeling like every other big city in the world because they lack distinctive architecture. This is particularly true of many of the more modern skylines, in part because over the last 50+ years there's basically been one globally dominant architecture style for tall buildings (often derrided as glass block). Reasonable people can disagree on this point, but I prefer cities to feel distinctive and different from one another. 2) Art Deco is near universally popular with the American public, in large part because it's d̶i̶s̶t̶i̶n̶c̶t̶l̶y̶ ̶A̶m̶e̶r̶i̶c̶a̶n̶ while still maintaining roots in the classical Western architectural tradition. I've yet to meet anyone who claims to dislike Art Deco architecture, though I'm sure someone will now comment something to that effect. 3) I'd argue more traditional architecture styles just really is more beautiful. That's a really hard argument to make. Here's a good video that lays out the argument pretty well, specifically for Classical architecture, but I'd argue that many of these same principles apply to Art Deco which as I stated in point two has roots in the classical tradition, just with a d̶i̶s̶t̶i̶n̶c̶t̶l̶y̶ ̶A̶m̶e̶r̶i̶c̶a̶n̶ twist.

I wonder how many residents this will add to downtown? Anyone have any idea?

I love this idea! I actually don't think it's as far fetched as it seems, provided there's the political will. We already have several boards that effectively serve as design review boards, all that really needs done is to make sure very pro art deco people get appointed to these boards. If you manage that, the rest will pretty much fall into place. At present there isn't the political will, but at the local level it doesn't take that much noise to be noticed. Contact info for Cleveland City Planning is below, if even 10 people reach out and advocate for art deco design principles, I'd bet that will be more lobbying than they have received for any architectural style this year, probably by a lot. People could also reach out to the mayor and City Council, as they have influence as well. Obviously the same thing is true for any other city as well. https://planning.clevelandohio.gov/directory.html Personally I think you might have more luck pushing a particular neighborhood or area as an art deco district. For Cleveland, I'd recommend pushing for Bedrock's riverfront area to be done in Art Deco style. Frame this as the Tower City district, and a nod to the historic character of the area, and I think that might make an impression on some members of the committee. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Art_Deco_architecture_in_Ohio All of this isn't to say there aren't any problems with this idea. Added cost is one for sure, though the effect is often overblown. The YouTube channel "The Aesthetic City" has some good videos dealing with this topic, specifically for classical architecture, but the same principles apply. I'd argue the bigger issue is perceived as a city that's hard to build in, which is the logical consequence of having planning committees willing to push back on developers. That's why I like @LlamaLawyer idea so much, because he at least attempts to turn that formulation around. By directing developers with style guidelines toward a particular style, they may choose to opt to build in a slightly more expensive style in the hopes of swifter approval. By no means guaranteed to work, but I could see it working, the theory is certainly plausible. And even if it only works 10% of the time, that would make a huge difference!

That's very logical... I hate it, I hope they don't go that route. I was looking forward to the landmark building being converted to residential, and a new mid size tower getting built. It makes sense though, it's not like they're far apart, and even if they do opt for a second new tower, if they really need space immediately as has been reported, then they'll need to do this regardless, at least till the new tower is finished. From their perspective, what's a couple more years till rates come back down?

So I guess the next question is which routing is best? Personally I'm most interested in between Cleveland and Akron. How feasible would it be to add passenger only tracks on the NS Conrail section from Miles Rd to, at minimum Bedford, and realistically Hudson? I know you've mentioned before that the section north of that used to be four tracked anyway, but below that it looks to get tight in a few sections. The only other options between Cleveland and Akron are CVSR and the intriguing abandoned Lake Erie and Pittsburgh line. CVSR presents the possibility for an interesting quick win with some relatively minor improvements, but I would think it's nature will mean that it would be limited to only subpar Intercity service (that said subpar Intercity service is pretty good by US standards). Quality transit service between Cleveland and Akron would probably require new dedicated tracks. The Lake Erie and Pittsburgh right of way has the issue of not running near anything useful, so there'd be no quality intermediate stops (I'm pretty sure that's just under power lines now). I like the NS routing, but without more tracks I'm assuming it isn't feasible. From Hudson the abandoned Akron Metro Conrail line looks very appealing. In the near term the best thing is probably just to run CVSR up to downtown Cleveland, and add a few strategic double tracked sections. With any luck there'll be enough demand for inter city travel to justify a dedicated right of way and more substantial and frequent service.

The bollards look much further spaced apart in the pictures than in the plan (above). Hopefully people will be easily able to 'jaywalk' in the originally planned crossing location rather than the misplaced central one.

Not to resurrect the smokestack conversation, but I was just thinking that building is both an interesting and likely candidate for the downtown terminus point for the CVSR. Indeed, that seems to be what is implied in the Vision for the Valley. In that case the smokestack could serve as a cool way finding point. Maybe lit up with the letters CVSR and/or a train. Maybe not the ideal situation, but Bedrock doesn't seem interested in routing to either Tower City or B&O, and I think this could be a cool location slightly further upstream. At the very least, it would be an interesting case of adaptive reuse.

I just want to see something on the interior plot that embraces the Centennial Lake Link Trail. I was thinking a patio with some nice landscaping facing it, but I really like the idea of some nice outdoor sports facilities, definitely the kind of thing I could see people biking to.

I don't see the Metroparks buying this. If they really wanted to, I'm pretty sure they they could, but I don't think it's in their plans. They've been taking the Vision for the Valley pretty seriously, and a park here would conflict with that plan. The Metroparks are already involved in the efforts to create a boardwalk on this stretch of the river. My understanding is that things are set up such that public access to the river on these parcels is basically guaranteed regardless of buyer, so the Metroparks has little reason to purchase regardless.

Here's where this question was asked and discussed in the Browns stadium thread.

I haven't been following this very closely, but how do all these things tie together? What does the parking lot have to do with securing a grocery store? There looks to be plenty of parking behind the old Dave's location. Also what does the garage at Cedar Lee have to do with a parking lot at Cedar Fairmount?

I was thinking about this recently, and I'm viewing it as increasingly likely. It would serve to justify the Acacia purchase, because in a lot of ways, it's a superior plot of land with regards to what the Metroparks cares about. It has far more of Euclid Creek within its bounds, and as others have pointed out, it has a better tree canopy, even after all of the Metroparks planting at Acacia. If Acacia made sense for the Metroparks to purchase, then it's hard to argue that Cleveland Clinic's Lyndhurst campus doesn't make more sense, and given that it would now be effectively expanding an existing reservation, I can't see why they wouldn't be at least interested. Granted, someone other than the Metroparks buying the land is still probably more likely than not, but there are several interesting tea leaves suggesting the Metroparks are at least interested. For one, it's named on the map in the Metroparks app (as is Notre Dame College). Does that mean anything, no, absolutely not, what gets labeled on their map, seems very random, but it's a small point in that direction. Another interesting tidbit is that their Acacia reservation update plan did include adding a short trail leg (already exists btw) to better connect to Richmond across from the old campus. That isn't particularly notable either, as more trail connections to a major road isn't unusual, but there isn't much else in the area besides Legacy Village. Another interesting tidbit is that there is a proposed trail through this campus in the Cuyahoga County Greeway plan (KR-27 the Acacia Connector). This also doesn't mean too much, but the Metroparks has shown an interest in supporting the Greenways plan, and while not a requirement, the easiest way to ensure infrastructure projects are built the way you want, is to own the land. Like I said, tea leaves, even adding all three of those up, they don't amount to much, but the fundamentals of the purchase are solid, I find it hard to believe they haven't at least considered it, and I think they would for the right price. The main building coming down, only seems to improve the property from their perspective, though that could be true for other buyers as well. Anyway, just speculating. Edit: here's the 2023 Acacia Reservation plan. It seems to heavily imply the possibility of such a purchase. "Protect stream corridors and mature trees on west side of Richmond Road." This is definitely more meaningful than any of the tea leaves above.