Ethan

Where the Metroparks intends to seek brownfield grants.

Winterland in Tower City looks great! They even filled in some of the vacant storefronts with Christmas decor, which is a great touch! Also, basically all of the escalators are now functional!!! If it wasn't obvious before DarlaFoxx is filling in the old Brooks Brothers space, that's such a nice space, so I'm glad to see it get filled. Even more, it looks like they are finally repairing one of the fountains! And it looks like the DCA/CPD combo is moving quickly.

This basically corresponds to the concrete pad with the terminal and other buildings.

Interesting idea. On the other hand though, once the owners of the parking lot have sunk the cost to build these solar panels, and they then have two sources of passive income from the lot, it might become even harder to develop parking lots. Hard to predict consequences, incentives can be a tricky thing. Good for global warming though!

I don't agree with this article, but it is a good article and I feel it belongs here. https://www.crainscleveland.com/letters-editor/letter-editor-burke-should-remain-general-aviation-airport I can help but feel like the proper retort to his question "What major city in the country has a reliever airport as proximate to the downtown hub than Cleveland?" Is that maybe there's a reason for that...

New food and retail coming to Tower City this Winter Food: - Cleveland Sandwich Co - Shake & Slide Retail - Into My Bag Collection by Tianna B - Darlafoxx - Mi’Amour will double in size with a new storefront - Rainbow (already open) https://clevelandmagazine.com/style/shops-boutiques/articles/tower-city-center-announces-five-new-retail-and-dining-options

Basic numeracy is a problem, people tend not to have a good sense of numbers. Not being able to properly assess frequencies near the 0-10 / 90-100 ranges is a symptom of that. Hence why nearly all the guessed percentages are closer to 50% than the reality.

I suggested the same thing to him in a private message (after he called me out for downvoting him) and that's more or less exactly what he did.

If Burke is ever closed, my preference would be for a majority of the land to go to the Metroparks. There are plenty of parking lots and underutilized neighborhoods to be developed, but an opportunity for a large downtown/downtown adjacent park won't ever come again. If this ever closes, I'm going all in on making it Cleveland's version of Grant Park (just with more trees)!

Are there any studies on how large of buildings could actually be built on Burke's land?

What do think are the odds this actually gets built?

To my knowledge the nearest public restrooms are in Tower City near the food court.

I live in one of the residential buildings near PS. My two cents, I've never really felt unsafe, and safety is pretty low down the list in factors holding back my enjoyment of the space. For me personally, the two biggest ones are lack of maintenance, and the constant presence of panhandlers and/or mentally unwell people. I've seen people urinating in PS multiple times (broad daylight) and I've complained multiple times on this site about the poor landscaping. For the record, I still generally like PS. I guess what I'm saying is that violations of law and/or order don't have to rise to the level of safety concerns to have deleterious effects on public space. Poor landscaping (a lack of discernible order) or victimless crimes (public urination) have a significant impact on the enjoyment of a space. Personally I think more well funded, good cops are the answer, but regardless of how you prefer to solve the problem, it is a problem that needs solved. I'd go as far as to say the minor day to day lack of order is a bigger issue than the rare safety incident. But again, just my two cents.

It often seems like I see people saying both that there aren't enough workers, and that jobs don't pay enough, all without acknowledging how these things are related. If the supply of labor is low it puts an upward pressure on wages. Obviously it's more complicated than that, but why not let that pressure work some magic for a few years? A bit of upward wage pressure could also push the fertility rate as economics is a small part of the reason why people are choosing to not have kids. It isn't a silver bullet, but allowing workers to maintain above average bargaining power for a bit without immediately increasing the labor supply doesn't seem like the worst idea to me.

https://www.crainscleveland.com/real-estate/flats-east-bank-apartments-hitting-market-wake-developer-scott-wolsteins-death "A waterfront apartment building at the Flats East Bank in downtown Cleveland is hitting the market this week, as a mezzanine lender on the project takes steps to foreclose. The future of the 240-unit apartment building, called the Flats at East Bank, is in flux in the wake of developer Scott Wolstein's death. Wolstein, who was 69, died in May, six months after being diagnosed with an aggressive cancer that quickly robbed him of his ability to speak." Is this likely to have any impact on the next phases or is this an unrelated development?

I was in Austin a few months ago, the amount of construction in the downtown core is ridiculous, especially compared to its size. Makes sense though, nice green spaces, good use of the riverfront, fantastic music scene, great bar scene. Lots going on. No wonder people are moving in.

Dan Whalen on Crains Cleveland's podcast today. Solid episode. Mostly focused on the restaurants, but the first half is focused more on the building itself. There's even a quick nod to phase two! https://www.crainscleveland.com/landscape/podcast-introducing-jaja-intro-cleveland-development

Cross posting from freight rail thread. Closing of Flats Industrial Railroad opens up new trail opportunities. https://www.crainscleveland.com/real-estate/cleveland-railroad-looks-end-operations-remove-its-rails-salvage

I think this section of the old tracks have some great trail potential by more directly connecting the red line greenway and the towpath. It would basically give the green way a North/South 'Y' which should make it more useful. Edit: Another useful connection point is that without these tracks the greenway can maybe connect to and make use of the train ave underpass.

Official opening of new bike park.

So is this project dead dead, or just mostly dead?

On the topic of GLBC, the most recent Lay of the Land podcast is with Pat Conway and Mark King of Great Lakes Brewing Company. Worth a listen!

It also doesn't help that they shut down the functional RTA app in favor of Transit / EZfare, but at least as of two weeks ago, their QR code scanners weren't functional with the Transit App. Moving to EZfare was probably the right call, but even if the system is now functional, it still took them weeks to make their end of the planned roll out work. If you want people to use the system it needs to be easy, stress free, and (feel) safe. A confusing payment system rules out the first two.

While I was in Tel Aviv I took some pictures of various different bike midways I found there. I think Cleveland would be wise to take some inspiration from these for the planned Superior Midway. One thing that isn't evident from these pictures is that the share bikes/scooters are restricted to parking in a few locations generally close to these midways. This prevented the scooters from being just strewn all over the city. Other points to draw attention to, dense tree cover (in a much drier climate), occasional shops, frequently separate bike/walk ways, and benches for sitting.

@LibertyBlvdSure it is, check out Israel. They do this literally everywhere. I've been meaning to add some pictures of there from my recent-ish trip to the lessons from other cities/countries thread. Edit: Literally every bed looks like this.