Ethan

Great perspective to see all the new towers that will be rising in the coming years to fill in the remaining surface lots.

Given the choice, I'd rather plant tall trees that will need to be butchered than dwarf varieties that will never grow tall. I'm sure that's not a popular position, but I think it's the less bad option. From a streetscape improvement perspective, there really isn't anything more impactful than burying the power lines and planting tall trees. I can understand the cost considerations, and they are valid, but the difference between framing streets with a lush tree canopy versus electrical lines might as well be the difference between day and night. There's no comparison.

Art Deco style is popular again, a century after its heyday https://apnews.com/article/art-deco-style-returns-fashion-decor-8a2fbf29fd725d3b08550e086648e7f5

It's for patrons and the few offices that are adjoining if I remember correctly. There aren't apartments in the building adjoining the garage. Not disagreeing, but I don't think 10 story buildings are necessary. Filling in the gaps around Van Aken with 5 over ones would be more than sufficient for it to reach its potential. Honestly my only real gripe with Van Aken is that all of the retail is super high end. If the old outlet mall across the tracks was magically turned to face the core area in a pedestrian friendly way Van Aken would get twice as nice overnight. There's more commoner level retail in that strip mall than the rest of the district. If we could incorporate those store into the urban mode area it would make the Van Aken District twice as nice (and useful) overnight, without even adding any more density.

Yeah basically agreed. Very often money can be used to avoid the need to compromise. This is one of those cases, if we're willing spend the money we can have a nice full canopy and reliable power. I believe France basically buried all the power lines throughout the country, it can be done. I'm pretty sure other cities have done exactly what is proposed here, and it's worked. I'd be in favor of it, though the added costs would prevent some borderline developments, it's just a different kind of compromise.

The problem with this is that if you don't trim these trees you'll get more blackouts. That said, if you're to accept that tradeoff, I don't see why this is ridiculous or unreasonable. Legislatively forbid utility companies from preemptively cutting healthy trees, get more blackouts, have a more beautiful, natural city. Good trade if you ask me, but I don't think the general public will agree, particularly after the first preventable blackout.

Yeah, this I don't think this is really true... I've traveled to many places with terrible airports, and I end up coming away with the impression that x city has a terrible airport. It has no impact on my impression of the city itself, nor has it ever for any traveler I've ever talked to. Conversely if the airport is nice the airport is nice. For the city to be nice the city has to be nice. Airports are generally so far from cities that I consider the first impression of the city when I leave the airport. By that logic the city should instead use the money to invest in and upgrade the Red Line (and maybe also Tower City). Which would do far more to improve impressions of the city.

Do you know if this would this result in any tangible benefits to the trail, such as increased funding? Would management responsibility shift from the Buckeye Trail Association to the NPS? Or would nothing really change and this is just a new title but no real changes. Like getting a promotion to have a fancy new title but not getting a raise. -- (Also, as an aside, would this thread be better suited to the City Discussion forum? Most of what gets posted here seems to be quasi-development, similar to the Metroparks thread, which is in the City Discussion forum.)

The promised photo dump. I thought the apartments were very nice. Good finishes, and layouts.

^ Without an equivalent list of businesses that closed or downsized I'm not sure how meaningful that list is. A lot of those are restaurants for example an industry known for heavy churn. If it does represent real growth, it may be due to growth in surrounding areas. Mentor sort of acts as the de-facto "big city" for much of the surrounding more rural areas. I have a Sister in Burton who often ends up going to Mentor because it's where the closest _____ is.

^ If the law really is unconstitutional, I agree with other users that we should keep our powder dry and withhold application of this law until a team is trying to leave the metro area. The real threat is the time/cost to prove the law unconstitutional. Basically it's a one shot weapon, I'd rather hold it in reserve for a more dire situation, preserve the threat/deterrence for next time.

I scheduled a tour for this Friday. Purely out of curiosity. I'll plan on posting photos here.

Nice thread on making Cleveland an Amtrak hub. Looks to be a NeoTrans fan.

I can't read the article, but the headline is enough to get me excited.

Interesting take in how architects are underappreciated villains preventing density and empowering NIMBYs. (I haven't watched the full podcast yet, just the clip, I might later).

For the record, fully agree! @cadmen is spot on, the midway needs to be enticing in order to be effective. Trees and nature are what's going to draw people to use the midway, without the trees there's no benefit to this being in the median, and they might as well have just put a protected bikelane on one side of the street. Removing trees for the sake of a parade once a year is incredibly silly.

So you don't want Cleveland to be the cultural center of the region? Because it sounds like that's what you're asking for.

Perhaps there should be a thread dedicated exclusively to this problem. Unless the cost per mile for transit projects comes down it's unreasonable to expect them to get built. The current costs are just way too high, unjustifiably so. I think a thread discussing root causes and proposing potential remedies would be interesting and informative.

Also, how many pedestrians does each tree remove? 2-3 at most? Probably not even one realistically.

I appreciate the use of natural materials, but that's about it... This building could really use some ornamentation, it just looks imposing, at least in these renderings. An arch, a cornice, window trim, etc would go a long way. Maybe there are better angles/renderings, but, at least from these, I'm not a fan of this building, and I don't think it works well here.

Disagree. Without a primary tenant this project doesn't make sense. Nor were the Metroparks ever going to build it, they were simply acting as a pass through for accounting reasons. The Metroparks should not get into the stadium building business. And regardless of who builds it a roof is also not a justifiable expense for this project.

I'm wondering if at the end of the day it was just a bidding war with regards to the expansion fee.

Correct. Not sure, @dwolfi01 guess is as good as any I have. If they are finishing early than expected that seems good. I'm pretty sure the issue is there isn't going to be much park construction happening in winter. So the plan is/was probably to finish stabilizing in fall 2025 (perhaps leaving room for or expecting delays, not sure), and start park construction in spring 2026. The screenshot is from the Metroparks board meeting agenda for this month. Maybe, but I'm not really expecting it. These near downtown parcels are tiny compared to their other reservations anyway. Money and time are theoretically limited, but they've been doing really well with grants and contributions lately. If they need more money to complete all the projects in the coming years, I can't imagine a governmental organization that would have less trouble passing a levy, especially since they have so much to show for their efforts in recent years.

Cleveland Metroparks officially states intention to take a "more active role in the development and future management of Irishtown Bend Park." Not surprising, but certainly welcome. Also, park construction planned to start after stabilization finishes in Q2 2026.

This seems to be the definition of this thread. https://www.worldsbestcities.com/rankings/worlds-best-cities/#cleveland