Htsguy

I mean the Brooklyn Building not the Rose Building. Looks like more Ninth Street apartments sometime in the future.

Somebody really dropped the ball here. Cannot read the article. I thought that building was suppose to be a pit.? Are they re-building it?

I drove by a couple of days ago and was surprised by the amount of equipment and the progress so far. Especially since I believe they applied for a TMUD this go around (although I could be wrong about that).

South Taylor has pretty heavy traffic. I imagine if they eliminated left hand turns onto Fairmount you will see a lot of that traffic turning onto East Scarborough and then down Queenston or Kingston (or even worst Canterbury near the school) to make lefts onto Fairmount which would not make the residents of those streets happy.

As I feared, a lot of cheer leading with all the key buzz words repeated over and over and a focus on the warm and fuzzy public meetings. I guess I did get a better understanding regarding who is leading the charge, but rather than feeling good about it, I am concerned that there are so many entities with their sticky finger (and sticky opinions) involved. In my experience this only slows down the process. The presenters seemed to recognize this issue and emphasized great coordination between the various bodies and departments, with apparently the Greater Cleveland Partnership being a key leader. As far as concrete information, engineering studies revolving around the transportation aspects of the plan are expected to by completed by the end of 2023.

I think the Washington Post and New York Times also have stories upcoming on this breaking news.😉

Why should a governmental entity paid more than the appraised value (which George would get in the ED action). Council is always having a heart attack in committee meetings when the city plans to pay too much for a property in their estimation.

How fast does that thing go?

I watched their extensive TIF presentation before City Council last week and they gave no indication of such a financing gap which I believe would have been important for Council to know. Does not give me the warm and fuzzies.

The court dockets appear to support what you are suggesting. There were three separate mediation sessions in the Court of Appeals over the course of more than a month, suggesting a possible settlement in my mind since there commonly is only one, but all that apparently went no where. I am personally happy a settlement was not reached as I believe the the public entities have a strong case (in my mind the lower court judge really messed up...go figure...that never happens) and was not particularly happy with the terms of the previous settlement which blew up. The legally maneuvering is still hot with new motions in the Probate Court and the Court of Appeals. Appellant briefs on the merits are due next Tuesday. It will be probably be a good 7-8 months before a ruling in the appellate court . I have said it before, this has to be costing George a fortune. I don't know the man, just his reputation. I have had clients similar to him where cost was no object because they always think they are right. Most of the time, in my experience, significant litigation costs encourage settlement, especially when you are dealing with a relatively small business man (small when compared to say a major corporation). The ultimate winners are the lawyers.

I am glad to see they are still moving forward with the permit process but, again, it has been strongly suggested that it will not happen without a TMUD. Hope that is not the case if they don't win. We should know shortly.

As I understand the TMUD program it is the complete opposite of what you are claiming.

My sister was in a 6th Floor room in the UH Seidman Cancer Center (they use rooms in that wing for general surgery stays) facing west and the views of University Circle and downtown are incredible. At least I enjoyed them. She was just moaning a lot in the bed and could care less.

This Fridays Planning Commission meeting is pretty light but there will be a "special presentation" which is entitled "North Coast Lakefront Update" with the Cleveland Planning Director as one of three presenters. Maybe we will get some concrete information which would be nice. Or maybe we will just get a lot more cheer leading and "we cannot answer that question at this time" which would not be so nice.

I mentioned this as one of the few reasons it probably made sense for Progressive to perhaps move downtown (again I opined it was very unlikely even though I was encouraging it). That said, I am out of the work force at this point and don't know if this is a thing-although it does seem to be the case with the youngsters just starting out in my family. Most of what I understand of the younger generations supposedly wanting an urban environment for work comes from what I read. It does seem to be a constant theme in articles, but who really knows if this is actually the case. I can relate a personal anecdote which may be telling. Interestingly it involves Progressive. I graduated from law school in the early 80s and my first job was with a small "elderly" law firm in the Terminal Tower. After about a year and half I was not happy with the work environment (primarily, nobody in the office was even near my own age) and started a job search. I was fortunate in that I was able to secure a fair number of interviews, mostly with small to mid sized firms in downtown Cleveland and even a couple in downtown Chicago. In addition I interviewed extensive for what I thought was a really great job with Progressive. I liked the young guy interviewing me at Progressive with whom I would be working. He was really selling the position and he had a lot of energy and enthusiasm for both the job and the company. It just so happened that within a couple of days I was offered jobs with two downtown law firms as well as Progressive. I had to make a relatively quick decision at that point. The Progressive job offer was tempting because in addition to the guy I really liked, the compensation was huge. 20% more than both the law firm offers which was no small thing for me at the time, just starting out in life and having a good amount of student loan debt. The Progressive office was is some flex space on one of those side streets off of Wilson Mills Rd in Mayfield Village. Alpha or Beta. Something like that. I am sure Progressive shed the space a long time ago. In the end, despite the monetary advantages of the Progressive job, as a young hip guy (yeah right😉) I could not see myself driving to Mayfield Village everyday and working in that type of suburban environment even though the commute would have been a snap for me given where I was living at the time. I think I would have gone nuts in that office. I ended up taking one of the law firm jobs downtown (and this was at a time in the mid 80s where downtown was not exactly hopping) and eventually lived in apartment where I took the Shaker Rapid to work almost every day. Personally never regretted it . So maybe some truth in all those articles, even though my experience was in a totally different generation.

You quoted my original post but it seems like you did not actually read it given your response.

The points you raise, and those I offered, are why I said it is a pipe dream. I guess a consideration in favor is to recruit young talent. Probably one of the reasons McDonalds left the burbs after forever and relocated its headquarters to Fulton Market.

I am going to throw this out just for the purpose of fostering discussion. I will be the first to admit that the following suggestion is a pipe dream and has about a 1% chance of happening, but it is interesting to contemplate. The premise: NOW IS THE PERFECT TIME FOR PROGRESSIVE TO MOVE ITS HEADQUARTERS DOWNTOWN. As much as forum members blindly lobby for Progressive to get off its butt and do what other major corporations in other cities have done-move from long held campuses in the suburbs to the urban core-Progressive is pretty well entrenched in the burbs for a number of reasons, with two taking precedence in my mind. One, it has a huge investment in its office infrastructure spread over a large section of far eastern Cuyahoga County. Second, and probably more significant, the creation of this infrastructure in this location over the past 50 years had lead to a workforce, largely middle age with families, that have established roots close to these campuses but even farther from downtown. There is a huge population of employees who live in the i-271 corridor, north, south and east, many going far east into Lake and Geagua counties. Many purchased homes in theses areas in the first place because of where Progressive was located and are happy in their leafy enclaves. The three individuals I know who work for Progressive live in Hudson, Bainbridge and Concord. I dare say many employees live close to the Pennsylvania line. These people like their generally quick freeway ride to work and free surface parking. A huge proportion also have families and want to be close by to the house to see their kids after school soccer game or pick them up from choir practice. Again, they are pretty well entrenched in this life style and I imagine there would be a huge employee revolt, as well as a large turnover, if staff were required to make the long trek downtown. This being the case, it is sadly becoming apparent to me that the remote work revolution, fast tracked by the pandemic, is here to stay in some significant form. I was hoping this would not be the case given its effect on urban cores (a much larger conversation-cities are clearly going to have to re-invent themselves-or at least re-invent large portions of their business districts). There was just an article in the New York Times exploring how downtowns are doing and it was reported that the office districts in major cities like San Francisco, Chicago, and even smaller cities like Hartford with its huge insurance industry are often ghost towns, especially on Mondays and Fridays. And I imagine a company like Progressive is tailor made for remote work. There was probably a large portion of the company working remotely even before the pandemic. SO...if so much of the Progressives work force can and are probably thrilled to work from home, isn't this the ideal time to move the corporate headquarters downtown and staff it with those from closer in, those who don't mind the drive and youngsters who want an urban work environment. Obviously this headquarter staff wold be a fraction of the employees in the area, maybe as little as 500. You save money by shedding all the office buildings you have in the suburbs-although that would clearly be a huge marketing task and some of the space may have to be converted to other uses-no employee revolt and Cleveland gets a new Fortune 500 headquarters downtown. Like I said upfront, pipe dream but dreams can be fun.

^I recently heard a quote which I thought was pretty profound. It went something like "comparison is the destroyer of joy". Envying others might just have you missing and failing to enjoy the positives right in front of you.

I always thought of the Planning Department as the worker bees administrative department with day to day duties and the Planning Commission as more of a part time, quasi legislative body, although a part of the administration. Given how clueless various Planning Commission members often appear as they review development projects I hope that is the case.

Did you mean to write City Planning Department?

Thanks Ken. So would you say when push comes to shove it is the City Planning Dept. staff that is "coordinating" all of this? I mean one entity has to be responsible for pulling all this together and directing things or it is just a mess.

Hey every one, the mods, at least the Cleveland mods, are pretty quick to shut a thread down when posters start calling each other out so.... I really don't want this thread shut down. At least not until somebody offers to take me to lunch and answer all my questions. 😉

Maybe @KJP can bring us up to date or explain the current process and players (Sorry Ken...I am sure you have a lot on your plate). I was being totally honest when I offered that I am totally confused by what is going on and who is supposedly in charge of lakefront development. Embarrassing as I really try to follow these things. I understand that there are probably a multiplicity of people and agencies with their fingers in the mix (the administration including the staff at city planning, City Council, NOACA, Planning Commission, ODOT, Cuyahoga County, the Port, the FAA, Haslams, mabye the State of Ohio, perhaps some foundations and other governmental boards), but there has to be somebody responsible for the ultimate vision and moving things forward.

A lot of detailed "interesting stuff" in that article. I read it before checking out who the reporter was and then scrolled up and was not surprised that it was Michelle Jabore. I really have to stop fanboying over her. It is getting embarrassing. It is just that she is an incredible reporter.