Ethan

First of all bravo! To these volunteers. They are doing God's work. But second of all, immediately fire everyone who works for the city in parks and rec. I'm serious. Three absolutely scandalous paragraphs from the article. (Emphasis mine). " “If we want to go outdoors and do some cleaning and plant some flowers, no union person would do that anyway,” he said. "Bonnie Perry, president of AFSCME Local 100, which represents Cleveland workers, said in an email that the local “often works closely with park volunteers to promote our city and region’s beautiful parks and green spaces. When there are questions about job titles or job responsibilities assigned to union positions, AFSCME Local 100 addresses those issues with the City of Cleveland.” "Perrin Verzi, who manages the Rockefeller Park Greenhouse, said her volunteers do chores that her staff wouldn’t, such as tending the gardens and fish tanks. " To be clear, I'm fully serious. These people aren't doing there jobs, so they shouldn't have them. Clean house! Get the current employees out and hire some people who want to work. Maybe some of the volunteers would prefer to be paid for their work. If not, I'm sure there are some recent immigrants willing to get their hands dirty.

I'd imagine the main environmental benefit has to do with runoff. Impermeable surfaces create lots of problems with regards to runoff. I'm not quickly able to find any studies on the matter, but I'd be willing to bet breaking up the impermeable surfaces with natural permeable surfaces is better with respect to runoff. As other commenters have pointed out there are even better solutions that could be explored, but I'm glad to see the city doing something. I'm sure this will result in a more pleasant street for those living in this area, and I'm happy to celebrate this little win. And it's worth remembering, they are planting 67 new trees. Perhaps that's not game changing, but it's still significant. Again, little wins! Will they be as tall as I'd like? Probably not. Could there be more? Probably. But at this point I'm glad to see any forward progress and I'm hoping to see more. Imperfect movement in the right direction is good and should be encouraged.

Great! Too bad this street is littered with electrical lines, so I doubt any substantial trees will get planted, but progress is progress! Bringing back nature and beauty to the streets is always a win! (Now if we could only bury those pesky power lines...)

This could be a great thing, but I can't help but wonder if it's really necessary... Would it be more useful/efficient to assign this to an existing organization? Laudable goals, but if I'm being honest this has the scent of government bloat. I'm all for protecting and promoting our freshwater resources, but I also want to make sure our taxpayer dollars are used responsibly and efficiently. Idk, maybe it's just a failure of imagination on my part.

^ and it officially closed. Bringing this here due to recent discussion in this thread. Here's an interesting tidbit in the article that gives some clue to what may be intentioned for these parcels. No specifics as of yet though. Basically just confirmation of the Metroparks originally stated plans. "Although specifics likely remain to be worked out, the Metroparks, the local development organization Flats Forward and stakeholder groups have a road map for potential mixed-use development and public use of the property. "Jim Haviland, Flats Forward executive director, said in an email that the "eagerly anticipated" closing of the Marlin sites will help maximize redevelopment opportunities on the peninsula." Looking forward to specifics being released, though I still think it's possible they may delay and try to acquire the last few holdout parcels as I hypothesize above. Regardless of what direction this intends to go, I think all change is good change with this peninsula, it's severely underutilized.

My thoughts are about the same. Meh. It's not the worst glass box monstrosity I've ever seen, but it does nothing to inspire or even evoke beauty. I think it's telling that so many of the pictures of the new tower are positioned so that it reflects our grand dame that is the Terminal Tower. Glad our city center is growing, glad for the density, glad to see holes in the skyline filled up, but I consider this a below average skyscraper in the looks department. Though I'm personally still waiting on the art deco revival, so maybe I'm not the person to ask.

Cleveland's 2024 Park Score rating is out. We've slipped a few places, but it's basically the same story. We're held back by our lack of park acreage, but we're doing well in terms of equity and access. So basically our parks are well distributed, but they're too few and too small. Still it's interesting to dig into the report, where they recommend adding parks et cetera. Nothing really different from previous years, but it's still worth a look. https://www.tpl.org/city/cleveland-ohio -- Crains has a nice write up on it. https://www.crainscleveland.com/sports-recreation/cleveland-park-score-index-falls Crains points out we have several parks under construction. I might do the math and see how many points we'd gain if the currently under construction or planned parks were counted. Edit: adding in Irishtown Bend and Cheers would increase our percent parkland to 7.3% (from 7%) and increase our pure acreage score to ~30 (from 28). A fairly marginal difference. There's only one location where Cleveland could significantly increase it's acreage by a percentage point or more, but that probably wouldn't fly with the feds, plus it's been talked to death on this forum already. -- Also, TPL's weighting is dumb. NYC as an example. NYC is being punished for having many small parks, they'd actually improve their rating in the acreage category by removing small pocket parks entirely. This could be improved by using mean size instead of median, removing the average Park size entirely, or somehow incorporating it into the access category (what is the average size park people have within a ten minute walk?). NYC has effectively maxed out their access score, so if they added a bunch more <1 acre pocket parks they'd fall in the rankings, that's clearly a flaw in the ranking. I'd argue for getting rid of median park size entirely from the score, between access and overall acreage it's redundant.

I don't hate this idea, but I prefer the selected location to be honest. I think the west bank of the flats will eventually get developed, and with better uses than a stadium. There's just too much good stuff around this area for development not to spread into the west bank in the next few years. I can't say the same for the selected location. That location is unlikely to get developed without an anchor tenant to draw people there. A stadium could be that anchor. We could turn useless land into developable land. Double thumbs up for a pedestrian bridge though. We need more pedestrian river crossings, particularly as you approach the river's mouth.

Bathroom renovations start. 1 down 12 to go. https://www.cleveland.com/travel/2024/05/first-restroom-redo-complete-at-cleveland-hopkins-airport-12-more-to-go.html

Oh I completely agree! My point wasn't that development couldn't happen, but that it is very unlikely to do so organically without some sort of a boost. I see three potential areas for new or more substantial development. The first on the section of river that is so isolated that no development is likely currently. However, with a few days of guaranteed packed tables I could see some restaurants/bars taking a risk on some industrial river views. Maybe some modest apartments. On/near the water always has value, it just needs to be less isolated. The other interesting area is off Ontario katy-corner to Progressive field, with a bit of traffic calming (or some minor pedestrian improvements) I could see some development blooming here. Actually, it looks like the stadium plan would itself present an alternative pedestrian route around Ontario/Carnegie intersection. That combined with the linear park once proposed for Ontario would create an excellent pathway to downtown proper. This location would always have plenty of traffic noise, but it's a good location for a sports lover, and probably some nice views as well. There's also a more south flats facing area that I don't see taking off in the near term regardless until more nearby development takes place, but could be a good development location in the long term.

Always love me a good map! There's basically no parking here. That's fine with me of course, there's already plenty of parking around this area. I like the stadium in a park vibe, but I'm wondering if this map is more aspirational than a real plan. I also appreciate showing the CVSR going all the way up the river, though I'm pretty sure that has (unfortunately) been already ruled out. Disagree on the location. It's a few minutes from Progressive Field. 20 minutes from East Fourth. Basically just outside of downtown in a location that isn't well suited to anything besides a stadium. I think it's a great location for a stadium.

I missed something. There's this little nugget. So it looks like funds are being moved around in preparation.

Last I've seen about it. In case anyone's counting May 15th 2024 is tomorrow. However this month's board meeting agenda is already downloadable, and I see nothing in it about this property.

Cleveland Metroparks is officially acquiring the Euclid Beach mobile home community property from Western Reserve Land Conservancy. The sale is for less than it's worth, and WRLC is providing some of the money themselves, so the property is effectively being transferred (unsurprising), with the added benefit of sending some grant money to WRLC.

I'm a big proponent of historic preservation, but if anything is a valid reason to tear something down, actively falling apart (in a potentially unsafe way) is.

Correct, they are potentially doing that with the Catanese Seafood property. They mentioned that very explicitly in the relevant agenda. However, they didn't mention when they had opportunity to for the Graincraft property. Instead they have a reference to "riverfront green space". Additionally they show the GrainCraft space as part of the park system on their app, which isn't the case for the Catanese Seafood property, that may be due to the leaseback situation though. That doesn't mean they won't or can't sell back the land, just that there isn't the same reasons to think they are currently planning to do that. Their exact language is below, you're welcome to draw your own conclusions. The language isn't clear, and either reading is plausible.

Yes, there will be. https://neo-trans.blog/2021/12/06/cleveland-flats-peninsula-finally-coming-back-to-life/

No, nothing that I've seen. I hypothesize above that this might be intentional as detailed plans could make it harder to acquire any nearby holdout properties they might be interested in by increasing their value.

Minor update from walking around. They are moving soil on the corner of the lot nestled between the skatepark, pickle ball courts and British Street. Also they added this cool mural to on of the abandoned buildings they now own.

It's hard to overstate how dramatically different this area looks from the other side of the river.

New promotional jerseys unveiled. I like that they pay a lot more homage to the actual guardians. I wouldn't mind even more, but in my opinion these are a big step up from their day to day uniforms, which seem to avoid drawing attention to the name change. https://www.crainscleveland.com/sports-recreation/cleveland-guardians-unveil-city-connect-uniforms This is also the first time I've seen an official "guardian" styled logo, which I think is cool and long overdue, even if it's an alternate. I've seen several very cool unofficial logos, but it's nice to see an official one. https://www.mlbshop.com/cleveland-guardians/city-connect/t-14995325+c-3492224141+z-92-2494065016?ab={wt-static_graphic}{pt-tlp}{al-Sleeper}{ct-Guardians_CityConnect_cle}

^ Which is why it is (and was) important for the city to be proactive. They (the City and the County) have previously said their support would be limited to $300,000,000 They should stick to that, or even reduce their support. Any renovation that will cost more than $600,000,000 isn't worth doing. Even accounting for inflation we built the stadium for less and it's perfectly adequate. The bells and whistles aren't worth it, and if they are the Haslams (and later Browns ticket buyers) can pay for them. If they want to build new that's fine, the City/County support should stay the same. Once again, even accounting for inflation we built the previous stadium for less than half their ludicrous renovation budget. The public position should be a 50/50 split on the minimum required construction cost, which seems to be what they've previously stated. Hopefully they stick to it.

I enjoyed the article as well. One minor nitpick, though it may be a distinction without a difference, the City's lakefront proposal was crafted based on community feedback. While I can't know for sure, I did go to a few of them, and my impression is that the design they came up with is reflective of the feedback they received. One reason the riverfront may have been more accepted by the city, is that if I remember correctly Bedrock was quick to seek public feedback, whereas I don't think the same can be said about the Haslams' proposal, which seemed dropped on the city. I can understand how that could have come across as pushing a millionaire-funded, expert-created vision onto the masses. I also think it's likely the case that if more of Cleveland's lakefront was devoted to parks, people likely would have been more receptive to a development heavy proposal such as the Haslams'. While I'd personally be happy with more parks on the river, I think it's clear that a greater share of riverfront land is publicly accessible than lakefront, and more is being added in the relatively near future. That also probably contributed to the different reactions.

What do the colors mean?

Another unlikely option would be a municipal acquisition. I could see the City of South Euclid potentially being interested in acquiring the rec center and fields for their residents. They have a community center, but from what I can tell it doesn't really have anything like what a typical college rec center would have, nor what several of the surrounding communities have. I have no idea if South Euclid has the funds, no seems like the safer bet, but the possibility shouldn't be discounted. It would certainly be a popular move. Being across from the library and next to a school it wouldn't be a bad location for one either. The other big public acquirer of land is the Metroparks, but this wouldn't be a logical purchase for them. The only way it would make sense is if they also intend to purchase Mayfield Sand Ridge Country Club, which as far as I know isn't for sale or looking to sell. I guess the country club could also want to expand, but I don't see how this land would benefit them, so also unlikely. If I were to guess I think selling of the land to a developer is most likely. Hopefully the buildings are preserved and converted to apartments. Knocking down some of those buildings (particularly the main one) would be criminal. I could see demand for living in a campus setting. Still I wouldn't be surprised if the City or some other public entity swoops in and claims some of the amenity/green space.