Htsguy

^Ah the Frangos family. They are in a neck and neck race with the Kassouff family when it comes to touting big shiny development projects and accomplishing next to nothing.

This would be my preferred location as well but what is/would be driving the Chester-13th location, as suggested in Ken's article, is the adjacent parking garage which would probably reduce development costs in comparison to other surface lots in the area.

You should take the bull by the horn and open a store downtown. I believe in you buddy.

I see somebody else shares my frustration with endless lakefront planning and studies to no tangible end.

It is not the "first". Gucci was in Tower City in Cleveland when it first opened in the 90s. Unfortunately long gone.

Huntington in Cleveland

I thought the Cole expansion was going to be put on the back burner in order to pay for the other projects?

This is really great reporting. Puts anything you find in the current PD to shame.

Ken is this already designed and engineered or is the 21 mil going towards that step initially.

That Bedrock doesn't have a fully developed plan for how they're going to utilize Tower City is probably an understatement. But hey, they have 25 years to figure it out.

What you conveniently ignore, similar to the hand wringing NIMBY block club rep at Planning Commission when he claimed the new developments would more than triple the number of units in Duck Island (which is great in my opinion), is that Waterford Bluffs, the Pearl and Intro will all have their own on site parking garages, Even the Abbey project is providing more than 50 surface spots. So it is not like these great developments are dumping hundreds of cars on the streets of Duck Island. Streets that, according to a number of posters, are hardly over flowing with cars at this time. I wish somebody would have called out the block club rep on this point-although I was glad to see Fluker and Slife basically tell him to go jump in a lake. Omissions of key facts are just as bad as outright misrepresentations.

@KJP given all the information you gleam from your sources in such early times I can only imagine you have them locked and chained in you basement. I hope you are feeding them well. I thought one of the most telling aspects of your reaching out to the various entities was the Bedrock's spokesperson saying that if they had any news on any development to share they would let you know. This rather than an outright denial.

I am worried about this building as well but I can guarantee you Stark has no interest in renovating the building. The company fought tooth and nail a couple of years ago to tear it down arguing at length that it was not economically feasible to renovate it. They lost that battle at the time but I am sure all that has happen in the mean time is that the building has deteriorated further.

Ken you beat me to it. I was going to post something about the NIMBY parking hysteria by a couple of Duck Island residents and the great responses by Slife and Fluker. Even though the developers meet all the requirements of the urban overlay in terms of parking, there was still the moaning and some clever misrepresentations about current and future developments. Kuri and the city staffer Matt Moss were diplomatic in their responses indicating this should be part of a larger conversation (with Moss still arguing walkabilty and listing all the city is trying to do in this particular area to make it more transit friendly) but Slife and Fluker basically told he Duck Island crew to go jump in a lake. I seem to recall one of them saying that Cleveland had to grow up in regards to parking and that other big cities have learned to deal with less parking and are going in that direction.

It was clear to me Ken meant Chris Ronayne

More than amazing. And it is just crazy the amount of development $$ in New York

Both are streetcar systems

Cleveland Velodrome

Wow. This is even more problematic than I thought.

From what I can tell the most updated photos on the forum are found in the actual INTRO thread. It has been suggested that the developer has secured some or all the land for a Phase 2 but nothing has been announced. They probably would seek a TMUD. It has also been suggested that it will be a taller building but not offices, probably more apartments.

I just wish Library Lofts would finally break ground. I am sure I am just frustrated (given they were suppose to break ground last July) but this is starting to worry me.

If anything they move slower if the Hudson tower in Detroit is any indication. And secretive

In my opinion, the massing argument is a more legitimate criticism than saying the style is not appropriate for Little Italy. The problem is that, as expressed by the developer, with such a small site any reduction in square footage is going to make the development economically unfeasible given the proposed quality of the materials. It is refreshing, given the restraints of our market, to see a developer willing to spend rather than value engineer. I hope they can find an acceptable solution. As far as saying the style does not fit in with Little Italy, what exactly is its style (other than overall bad)? It has always been a mish mash and even more so now with many of the new buildings which have been approved. I think it was the architect who made the point, when disagreeing with Anderson (who I can assure you will vote no no matter what happens with the design), that building in a historic district does not mean you mimic the past but build for the times while respecting the past.

I believe that is the statue of Mayor Tom Johnson

By the way, the presentation was very detailed and I got the impression, by the way they started out, that they believed they were going to get push back on the height (probably rightly so given past NIMBY reactions to taller developments in LI). But there just seemed to be a little negativity in this regard (even from Trott who seems to think every building should be two stories in an historic district). It might just be the same thing but it was the massing that was problematic for some. Unfortunately it is probably the case that, given the quality of the materials and the design that they really cannot cut out much square footage or it won't be profitable.