jamiec

I'm sick of studies. Start doing something, for the love of God. I don't understand why they need to "study" what college kids want. They want to have fun and have cool things to do. They don't need a polymer ice skating rink. What the hell? http://www.cleveland.com/weblogs/entertainment/index.ssf?/mtlogs/cleve_entertainment/archives/2006_09.html#183045 Wednesday, September 13, 2006 Study imagines more lively, edgy University Circle 5:37 a.m., Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2006 By Steven Litt Plain Dealer Architecture Critic Bike barns. Balconies. Bowling alleys. A performing arts lab. An “ice” rink made of polymer for year-round skating. Buildings painted in wild colors. Those are a few of the concepts sprinkled throughout the “Catalog of New Ideas for University Circle,” the fruit of a year-long planning study by design consultants Dennis and Kathleen Barrie for the non-profit University Circle Inc...

This could be so many different things. Does it have anything to do with that hall of fame we discussed a few weeks ago?

WHoooooopppeeee!!!!! What is GT3?

Wow, I think the all-night Rapid service on New Year's is a great idea. It can't cost that much extra to run it once a year. Is there that might nightlife demand for the Rapid, though? When I take it, the cars are pretty empty during the day, so I imagine it's even more empty at night. That might make me nervous, and I tend to be reasonably street smart. Maybe I'm a pansy, but even in NYC, if it was after midnight, I would either take the train with a lot of people or grab a cab if it was a smaller group. But that's almost a different circumstance. I used to walk to most of the nightlife rather than taking transit.

I think that falls into the category of "bummer." But how are these guys marketing the homes? You can sell anything to anybody if you've got the right message and broadcast it to the right targets. From what I read of that article, it sounded like they only did one home and that wasn't enough to convince buyers.... Did I read that correctly? I would probably need a little more proof to. It's like buying the first house on a new development. People like being part of a trend, but it takes balls to be the trendsetter.

The PD positions this article as a negative, but could it actually be a positive in disguise? Maybe this will help slow suburban sprawl? I don't know how anyone could be surprised by this. We have enough housing for the people who live here. Why should they build more? It makes no sense. I don't find this distressing at all. Am I wrong? National builders turning their backs on NE Ohio Henry J. Gomez Plain Dealer Reporter As the housing market slumps nationwide, several brand-name builders are losing interest in Northeast Ohio. The latest signal comes from Ryan Homes, a huge firm and the largest doing business in the region. But, facing declining prospects, Ryan last week cut a large slice of its local staff. For real estate watchers, it’s hardly surprising. Ryan’s cutbacks follow similar cues from other national builders. Kimball Hill Homes plans to leave the market by year’s end, and Pulte Homes recently pulled the plug on a major residential development in Streetsboro. more at: http://www.cleveland.com

I think I might take the Rapid over there to check it out myself. I know I've been over there because I saw the tracks when I got lost all the time near that Shaker Circle thing when I used to drive to Cleveland Heights from Hudson. But it'll probably be a lot different on foot. Is it a fun wintertime train ride? For some reason, I get that Christmas feeling when I go to Shaker Heights. I'm being serious, too. Something about winter in Shaker Heights makes me feel more festive, lol =)

Columbus needs a new city magazine. Columbus Monthly sucks. It's the worst of all the city magazines in Ohio, imo. I would say the best city magazine is the one in Cincy, easily.

Can someone explain to me the "Coventry" station? I haven't taken the rapid down in that direction yet. It sounds like it stops in Coventry Village, but that of course is not correct, so what is the Coventry refering to?

WTF. This whole idea is stupid. So they're going to use future profits from gambling to pay off all the cities they stuck it to when they made it so only Cleveland can get casinos? So what do the PEOPLE get out of this bullshit? This pisses me off. I'm voting against it. I don't want Cleveland turning into Detroit. We are getting close to getting it right. We don't need these enclosed mini-cities.

Yeah! Ain't nothing like Swenson's up here. I could sure go for a milkshake and like 12 cheeseburgers. MMMMMMmmmm I used to goto Shaker Square all the time when I was little. What happened?

Oh snap, those are dope. I know some Michiganders who would want this one... http://www.wearecampfire.com/camp002.html

^^ funniest thing I've read today. When I was a little kid I wondered that. But the fact that a 16 year old is asking that is a little frightening. Concerning Cleveland Heights, I agree that Marcs is a step up from an empty Medic store. But I just think that area should be more attractive and impressive than any, old neighborhood. It has all the building blocks for being a really cool, exciting strip -- it's in a dense area, residential area with a relatively affluent population. But instead, it's just ...bllllahhhh. Boring. It's a little depressing, too, because it just seem irrelevant. That's just my opinion. It just doesn't compare with what is going on in Ohio City and Tremont. Maybe it's just like you guys say and people have moved on.

That's just my opinion on that strip. It would have been nice if something different would have moved in that space. Coventry isn't the bohemian center of Cleveland anymore. There's just not a whole lot of draw to that area anymore, in my opinion, except the Grog Shop.

Come on now, Marcs rules! I guess it's good to fill that space with something, but Coventry is really losing its edge, imo

DAMN THAT STRIP MALL!

Well, I'm 25 and I'm not a big football fan, but it seems like the Bengals team from last year and this year is way better than the Browns have ever been during my lifetime. When I was in elementary school and we played football on the playground, when kids used to throw the ball into the ground instead of to a receiver, the joke was to call it a "Bernie Kosar." And now they act like he's Joe Montana.

I don't know if this fits here, but do you guys think a modern retailer like Target could prosper in the Higbee Building? I know Dilliards used to be in there and then left, but frankly, I've never spent a dime in a Dilliards my whole life. It seems like those old-school department stores are struggling even in the suburbs. Someone suggested the idea of moving a store like Target in to the building, and I thought it sounded like a good idea. There are a lot of downtown workers in Cleveland, and people love Target. I know I'd be in there throughout the week and even on the weekend via the Rapid. Target isn't afraid of downtown locations, either. I believe they've been dying to get into Manhattan for obvious reasons, but I believe they are also downtown in their home base of Minneapolis. What do you think is up with that location? Is someone sitting on that thing for some reason? I just don't get how there can be vacancy in that area of downtown when it offers the most superior spaces.

Haha, if you're looking for a good excuse for knocking down old buildings to put in surface parking lots, you know you're not going to get it here =) I can't think about this too much, I'll get mega pissed off, hahaha

Oh, don't pay those comments any mind. It seems like mostly boneheads like to give their 2 cents on those newspaper comment things. The Dispatch one especially encourages trolls because of its setup. Just get those streetcars rolling!

This whole thing is bizarre! Maybe Henry Gomez will enlighten us tomorrow. All I know is, if the Flats stay crappy because a bunch of people can't work together, I'm going to be angry!

Well, I'm an interested citizen, too! I thought the property owners were the litigants in this. This is bizarre to me, but I'm no real estate expert. How can you sue before anything happens?

Who is this woman? A lawsuit scrutinizing the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority's decision to file eminent domain cases against Flats property-owners will go to trial next month. Lawyers for the port and Cynthia Roether, who filed the suit as an interested taxpayer, met this morning with Cuyahoga Common Pleas Judge Peter Corrigan, who will begin hearing the case at 9:30 a.m. Oct. 17. Roether's suit alleges that the port abused its powers by filing the suits on behalf of developer Scott Wolstein, who wants to build a $230 million mixed-use housing and retail neighborhood on the east bank of the Flats. The suit seeks to halt Wolstein's attempt to acquire the property through eminent domain. More at http://www.cleveland.com/weblogs/business/index.ssf?/mtlogs/cleve_business/archives/2006_09.html#180506

Pave that sumbitch, I need to get to Wal-Mart!

That's true. The only way to get them is to create an experience that they can't have somewhere else. But to some degree, the suburbanites are a fickle bunch. Tower City was a unique experience, and look what happened there. Everyone stopped going and the only people left where the city kids. So, then all the suburban people start bitching about the city kids ruining the place. But to some degree, we're in a bind because suburban people have very skewed opinions of downtown Cleveland. Things I've heard: *Be careful out there, I don't want you getting mugged (someone told me this after I took a walk downtown on my lunch break) *I avoid coming downtown at all costs because of the traffic (Uh, hello, you work in Beachwood, which has way more traffic than downtown) *Are you scared when you take the train? (my sister asked me this!) This is the problem because people like this bitch about Cleveland being lousy and boring and then they go to NYC or Chicago where they have urban shopping, and all of the sudden they love it. It doesn't occur to anyone that we could have the same thing here. Gah!