Ethan

The land bank is trying to save a diamond in the rough. This seems like a beautiful building at a critical intersection. A quality adaptive reuse will do wonders for the neighborhood!

There's potential new hope for an old Cleveland building By Sam Bullard "A new chapter looms for a long-languishing landmark at 5404 St. Clair Ave. that has served Cleveland's St. Clair-Superior neighborhood since 1905. This time, Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court is scheduled to decide May 5 what is next for the property. Magistrate Gina Lunsford, who is handling the case for Judge Deborah M. Turner, has set a tax hearing for the property that has about $7,000 in unpaid 2021 property taxes. The Cuyahoga Land Bank has filed an affidavit requesting the court to award it the complex because of its mission to restore tax-delinquent properties to productive use." https://www.crainscleveland.com/real-estate/unpaid-tax-case-may-break-logjam-over-cleveland-landmark I'm not too familiar with this building, but it's definitely too pretty to not save!

Linking this here to get some more eyes on it. Edit: basically, it may be time to move this out of abandoned projects!

Looks like this plaza may finally get developed! 🥳 Fantastic news! Whatever they end up doing with it will be a big improvement over its current state of nothingness. Abandoned plaza outside Stokes Courthouse to finally be developed by Kim Palmer More than two decades after it was initially proposed, a plaza adjacent to the front entrance of the Carl B. Stokes U.S. Courthouse is set to be developed. The outdoor space, which will connect a gap at the intersection of Huron Road and Superior Avenue, was part of the U.S. General Services Administration's (GSA) original design for the 24-floor, $192 million building. The structure, started in 1994 and completed in 2002, houses the U.S. District Court for Northern Ohio. https://www.crainscleveland.com/government/gsa-invest-40-million-cleveland-federal-courthouse

Assuming they will have at least 3 elevator bays, this doesn't seem that unusual. After all, 1/3 of the way up would be 12 floors. Dropping one elevator out before the 15/16th floor makes plenty of sense to me. Edit: looks like four bays?

You're reading WAY too far into my statement. I was just looking for a neutral term so I could speak in generalities... No judgement on the merits was stated or implied.

Yeah, I checked that out a while ago. My main thought is that while it might be a bit silly to call a park, if that gets the city to do build more (relatively) easy wins like this then I'm all for it! I'd have liked to see them plant an additional tree or two, but that's really my only complaint. Basically it's a nice improvement, nothing game changing, but these kind of small improvements are exactly what I want to see more of! Ideally what I'd like to see is small activations like this so commonplace throughout the city, that even the city will start to think calling them parks is a bit silly. You could do small things like this at places like PNC plaza as well, swinging benches, clever seating etc.

I think this is about right. Too many special interests groups are going to oppose this. While I think it's possible that people just showing up to vote might actually prefer the amendment from a purely "this makes sense" perspective. They will be overruled by the many people who will see this as the death knell of their preferred issue. While just about everyone has access to the internet, most people aren't terminally online. While it's sometimes hard to believe, most people really don't follow politics. Outage has to get very loud before these people hear it, and even when it does they won't take the time to understand the issue, they'll just root for their team. All that said, I'd be shocked if this amendment passed.

Moving this discussion here. I might be the most pro-park person on this forum, but it isn't obvious to me that every plaza is better off as a park. More trees, sure, but I think keeping the hardscaping is better in this instance (though changing to semi porous version would be better from a runoff perspective). It's a very small area, any kind of grass or lawn would be difficult to maintain and would likely get trampled to death. (Especially after this plaza becomes a stop for a future Euclid Ave Subway 😜). This "park" would be tiny (0.3 acre), much smaller than Perk Plaza (1 acre), which does have grass. It's too small for most park uses. I like your other ideas though! Activating this plaza with a (very) small cafe and some simple seating is a great idea! Adding a couple more trees is also a good idea, but I think we should retain the hardscaping and continue to treat it as a plaza instead of a park. Other thoughts and ideas?

I've been thinking, there's probably lots of ways the city could pay for, or partially pay for, the stadium and not have it be charity. Here's a summary of the current lease. https://law.marquette.edu/assets/sports-law/pdf/ls-nfl-cleveland.pdf And here's an article about it, which also references other city revenues such as parking. All in all, I'm not sure how long the city's payback period would be (I didn't bother doing the math), but it looks like long after the stadium is crumbling. (If anyone else has or wants to do the math, I'd be interested to see it). https://www.cleveland.com/cityhall/2013/11/firstenergy_stadium_lease_diss.html For instance, why shouldn't the city retain naming rights to stadium? If they are paying for all or most of it, shouldn't they get to name it, and more importantly sell the rights to name it? The First Energy deal was worth quite a lot of money, over 100 million by the end of it. That's a sizeable chunk of what renovations will cost. https://www.cleveland.com/browns/2013/01/cleveland_browns_stadium_deal.html Perhaps they could also retain advertising revenue from outfield billboards, and many other things. Alternatively, the city could charge rent at a rate where there would be some reasonable payoff period relative to what the costs the city actually incurs from the renovations / build. (Say 20 years, even if it's 30 that'd be something) Maybe the Browns absolutely can't afford that, but that seems to beg the question to some extent. I guess summarizing this whole post into one question, is there any reasonable way the city could help the Browns build/renovate a stadium that wouldn't just be charity?

They didn't (as of a few days ago anyway), in pretty sure it's just hard to see from this angle.

This seems like a such an easy win to me, even without the land bridge it would connect Huntington, Williard, and the malls together. It also creates an east-west green corridor to complement the north-south one created by the malls/land bridge. This area could also conceivably host the Lakefront Bikeway, as well as being the first leg of a pedestrian connection to the East Bank of the flats. I actually raised this idea a while ago, but it never generated much discussion. Quoting since I made an extremely rough sketch last time.

A nice article from Crains on Cleveland Whiskey. They still seems like an excellent anchor Tennant for Flats South Development. The vacated street and second floor barbeque restaurant sound like they will be great to give the area some life. It's mostly a puff piece that reminds the reader why this project is worth getting excited about, as well as relating some history. It's worth a read. The main update on the status is copied below. https://www.crainscleveland.com/small-business/cleveland-whiskey-restarts-work-distillery-restaurant "With so many unforeseen setbacks that have popped up over the years, Lix is reluctant to give any timeline for when different phases of construction will be completed. Last summer, Lix was anticipating moving production operations to the new site by the end of the year. But construction work had to be put on pause. After a lull, that work is underway once again. "The good news is a lot of work is partially done. A lot of equipment and supplies are already there," Lix said, noting construction had been on hold for at least six months. "I definitely don't want to be talking next year about completing phase one of this project." "

That bridge is in terrible condition, and I believe is considered unsafe. Assuming it was repaired you still have to cross a highway entrance ramp. It would just be adding an additional pedestrian unfriendly way to reach the lakefront. Better than nothing sure, but not a real substitute for a land bridge.

Agreed, which is why I'm suspicious of these renovation costs. I think @nokoeeeeand @Mendomight have it right, the numbers seem like they might be artificially inflated to sway public opinion towards building new. Also, does anyone know what the Browns are currently paying to lease the stadium? In particular how many years it will take to pay off the stadium build? (Or has taken, whatever the case may be). If they renovate and re-lease, how many years will it take the city to pay off the renovation? Agreed, though as I already stated, I'm skeptical of these numbers. A more minimal, and thus cheaper, renovation would be even better. -- How exactly are the Haslams helping with the Lakefront development plans? If they aren't paying for their stadium I don't think they are putting much money into the development, they don't own the land, the city does, so what exactly will they have to do with this development other than proposing the initial idea? I'm honestly confused on this point. What is doing the city from just moving forward with the development regardless of what happens with the stadium?

Yeah, it looks like you're right. https://www.cleveland.com/naymik/2012/09/art_modell_gateway_stadium.html I also found this article by @KJPsaying that site was selected for a USL stadium, did that fall through? I assume so since I haven't heard anything in a while, in which case I'd like to see Brown's Stadium here. https://neo-trans.blogspot.com/2019/03/usl-cleveland-soccer-stadium-site-chosen.html?m=1

Rebuilding (or nearly rebuilding) the stadium at the current location really seems like the worst possible option... Did the Haslams ever consider the corner of Ontario and 90 over the red line? I can't remember if that was an official proposal or a forumer's suggestion. That's my favorite site location presented so far, I'd like to see that one if we have to have a new stadium. (Though I'd rather use the current one for another decade to get our money's worth).

I'm thinking about a hypothetical future where there's a traffic camera at every intersection. I'm not talking about the present situation, and all numbers are purely hypothetical. I actually don't know the current prevalence of surveillance cameras / license plate scanners. If you have a good source on that I'd be interested to see it. I agree, and I understand your pessimism. I also hope you turn out to be wrong.

It's only separate from the traffic camera issue if the traffic cameras won't be used for surveillance. If they will, it's the same issue. Again, it's an effectiveness issue, a network of 10 surveillance cameras is less effective at eroding privacy than a network of 100 such cameras. I don't want to push too far off topic into government surveillance, but just because the supreme court rules a hypothetical law constitutional doesn't mean Congress has to pass such laws. My main point here is that if you want to reduce the public's distaste for traffic cameras make it explicit in law that they can't be used for surveillance. It isn't a silver bullet, as that isn't the only reason people don't like them, but it would cost nothing (it might actually save money, as the more complicated tech might just be illegal), so why not just make that an explicit requirement?

That's a fair point, the fact that a problem exists doesn't mean that concerns about the enlargement of said problem are unreasonable. To the extent that surveillance cameras and license plate scanners already exist, I don't want to add to their number without legal assurance from a carefully crafted law that the additional cameras couldn't be used in a way that infringes on privacy concerns.

Unless you're dealing with a police offer with an eidetic memory for license plates, the claim that cameras are just doing the same thing as a camera with even rudimentary computer vision doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Effectiveness matters, a police officer can't post hoc tell you every intersection a person has passed through in the past week. A task which would be trivial for a network of surveillance cameras. Once again, there is no evidence that speed / red light cameras are doing double duty as surveillance cameras, but that doesn't mean it is unreasonable to be concerned about how the technology could be misused and be proactive in guarding against it. -- Also, another thing I wonder about if cameras become more frequent is if the prevalence of removing license plates will increase? Removing license plates (or rendering them illegible) seems to have become more frequent recently. Outside of police chasing the unplated vehicle down, I'm not sure what else can be done to enforce the law with an unplated car.

No, it's not, because a question isn't an argument...

This is what I meant by the government tying its own hands, and I think this would mollify the concerns of anyone who has a modicum of trust in the government. (Which isn't everyone, but is most people). It's a solvable problem.

Since there's so much attention on this thread right now, I might as well throw in the monkey wrench that is the other big concern that a lot of people have; these cameras could be (or could be fairly easily modified to be) used for government surveillance purposes. I don't think these cameras are currently being used to track anyone, nor do I think it is something they are currently capable of. The concern is that a camera used to track people wouldn't look any different from a red light / speed trap camera. There may be a bit of slippery slope / conspiratorial thinking issue with this line of thought, but the problem is that the technology certainly exists that an interested government could use cameras to determine that a car registered to Jane Smith has made 4 trips to the Home Depot (or the local swingers club) in the past week. Indeed some foreign governments are employing such technology. Assuming a bare minimum level of trust this problem could easily be solved by the government tying its own hands. (Maybe they have already? Idk). That said, I'd be very surprised if the specter of government surveillance isn't in the back of the mind of many people who oppose red light cameras.

City Club is now tall enough to complete the urban canyon feel on Euclid.