ProspectAve

wow, that went up fast.

Fine. Maybe walkable is the wrong word. But to me its not a great neighborhood as you cannot walk out of your bldg and grab a meal or a drink on the street. To me a great neighborhood has street-level retail where you don't have to walk 10 minutes (and through a giant parking lot) to get to it.

Great for Playhouse Square. from the article: "Dix & Eaton will relocate by 2024 from the 39th floor of 200 Public Square where it has too much space, according to a real estate source who spoke off the record." Given this and other news and trends, how empty is the old BP Bldg becoming?

Ironically, though, despite all the high-rises and the density it provides, its not really walkable at all. Travel along Lake or Edgewater Drive by these buildings--not a single shop or restaurant or bar along the street.

Paul Patton was a real and established HR person. He knew his stuff. He wasn’t like the other “senior” advisors and “Chiefs” in the mayors office and cabinet that Bibb hired that have either no experience or at best very little experience. If you yourself are young and inexperienced (and it shows) it must be hard to find good, experienced people to want to work for you. That’s the price we paid for electing Bibb. Patton was an exception. He certainly could handle airport staff. He successfully dealt with CPD contracts. I’m guessing the issue was with Bibb himself, and if airport related, maybe the person Bibb wanted to hire to run the airport which was to be announced in a few weeks—maybe it was another inexperienced person or friend of Bibb’s, whereas the airport has been run by real, experienced airport leaders for the past few decades, and Patton in good conscience wouldn't do what Bibb wanted. Just speculating here given what we have seen so far and knowing what I know about Patton.

I assume--and hope--this was posted as a joke. It not only would be horribly tacky for Cleveland--but without the head of the guitar its just looks really silly and incomplete.

Well that’s one (defeatist) way to look at it. Another is, instead of spending the energy to devise budget tricks to conceal problems of police staffing, instead spend the energy to come up with a solid plan and strategy for police recruitment. We NEED those officers. 200 officers is not a lot. If you said we had to fill 20,000 spots—that would be difficult—but a better leader would find a way to fill those slots and keep the new officers. I have a lot of friends at CPD and they all say Bibb hates the police (even though they personally benefit from massive amounts of overtime pay). But even if you have officers working 80 hours a week, its not the same as having more officers on the street each working 40 hrs. (the cost of benefits is still less than the overtime paid) as if you need a large number of physical officers at a given time, you won’t have them if you just give up and say, we can’t and don’t know how to recruit 200 officers so lets just give up and spend the money elsewhere. I hope Council flatly rejects this, though if they may have more funding in their districts they may be compromised from making a sound decision. Then again, the role of council is to be a check on the mayor and this needs serious checking and rejection.

Every cop I know says that the Police Department is way understaffed. I just heard on Channel 3 that Bibb wants to ELIMINATE all the police vacancies so he can say we are "100% staffed" (solves his recruitment issue) AND cuts MILLIONS out of the budget. We need more police. We need to find ways to fill those vacancies not just eliminate them and cut their budget. Bibb just submitted is budget to Council with the vacancies eliminated. This is a very dangerous move as growing the department to where it needs to be then cannot be easily done--as it will be "sorry--beyond budget!" I've been giving Bibb the benefit of doubt so far and even voted for him, and so far he hasn't really done anything of substance--good or bad (except pulling CPD HQ out of Opportunity Corridor which was the right move)--but this is his first major policy decision and its really out there and will be very bad for the city for years to come. (I just heard it on TV this morning, so I don't have a link--but maybe there is something on wkyc.com)

Man, some of you are pretty harsh about the conveyor-belt sushi place. Its the first one in Cleveland--so its great we have this option---though I wish it were Downtown instead of all the way out at Broadview Rd and Pleasant Valley in Parma. I'll happily try it out sometime. It sounds like a fun place and who cares if its 'no longer cool'--part of what makes Cleveland cool is we don't care about cool.

Posted two days ago: Network Analyst II (Senior) City of Cleveland $70,000/yr - $90,000/yr · Full-time www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/3435994513

Mikros on Larchmere - the 29 unit furnished apartments, 3-story new build on Larchmere was sold on Dec 23. Was developed by Rick Maron and Russel Berusch and sold to an affiliate of Yarusi Holdings, of Tennessee. Yarusi paid $5.1M for the bldg and its their first investment in Cleveland. https://www.crainscleveland.com/real-estate/cleveland-developers-sell-mikros-apartment-project-51-million

Cleveland Clinic began its destruction of the Cleveland Playhouse. Photo thread here: https://www.cleveland.com/news/2023/01/cleveland-clinic-begins-demolition-of-cleveland-play-house-complex-photos.html If they had an immediate plan to build something great here, it'd be one thing, but that's probably not the case. Hopefully it won't sit as a gravel parking lot for ten years until the clinic puts up some more neighborhood-hostile buildings. If the Clinic desired, this giant piece of land is an opportunity to create something truly nice--like apartment buildings and some hospital buildings with street-level retail below and with no setbacks. Take a page from competitor Mayo Clinic. They've created a nice, walkable neighborhood, with street life.

With a name like that, they're financially doomed from the start.

Bedrock paid $26.5 million for former NuCLEus site, records show. https://www.crainscleveland.com/real-estate/bedrock-paid-265-million-key-downtown-cleveland-development-site For comparisons on land value: This site = $8.3M per acre. "...Sherwin-Williams paid $49.4 million in early 2020 for nearly 7 acres of pavement. The costliest parcel in that deal was a 1.17-acre lot just off Public Square, which sold for $9.2 million, or $7.86 million an acre. Other recent downtown land sales have ranged from $3.8 million to $6 million an acre, according to public records...."

The stops are pretty close--the platform at Little Italy is north of Mayfield and the platform at Euclid is south of Euclid. So the distance from front end to front end of platform (for either direction) is about 950 feet. That said, its close but not too close that they could have kept both open. It certainly would have been useful to spur development in that area. If I had to pick one location, I'd pick the Mayfield one, but my preference would be to have both open, especially as the area around E. 120 and Euclid getting denser.

Re EY, its probably because they need less space---but why not just re-up for less space in their current bldg? I wonder if they feel too isolated all the way on W. 11. They used to be in the heart of Downtown--at E. 9 and Euclid. Now there are no other office bldgs around unless they climb the hill up to the Warehouse District. Sure, they have office 'neighbors' on other floors of the bldg, but its a different vibe than being around other bldgs. I wonder if this "office isolation" plays a role. And if so, it presents the need to develop some more office space nearby-- could be mixed use bldgs in the current heavy WFH environment.

Good news for Central: The old Goodwill Industries bldg at E 55 and Central could be re-used for a poultry plant that would create 225 new jobs. "A company that sells pre-made meals to school cafeterias is planning on opening a new poultry-processing plant in Cleveland and has won a $9.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. International Food Solutions, a Florida-based company with Cleveland ties, plans on redeveloping a vacant building on the corner of East 55th Street and Central Avenue. The building used to be occupied by Goodwill Industries of Greater Cleveland...." https://www.cleveland.com/news/2023/01/frozen-meal-producer-gets-96-million-grant-for-plant-in-cleveland.html

For those unafraid of REAL haunted houses (and castles), you can now spend the night at the Franklin Castle in Ohio City. https://thefranklincastle.com/stay-the-night-at-franklin-castle

On October 11, 2022 the Hampton Inn at Superior and E 9 was sold to an Atlanta firm, Noble Investment Group for $19.3M. The hotel was just sold again this past week--on January 3, 2023--for $19.0M. The new buyer is "East9th Titan, LLC" which filed its organizational papers also on October 11, 2022. They bought it from the new owners within months. This may be the new owner, from an article dated November 11, 2022: "Bhavin Patel and Amit Patel are discussing updates they plan to make, such as new signage and technology, for the 14-floor Hampton Inn Cleveland-Downtown even though they do not own it — yet." https://www.crainscleveland.com/real-estate/hampton-inn-cleveland-downtown-lined-local-buyer Lots of interest in this little-talked about hotel.

Before anything is done at Tower City, I'd like to see decisions made around rail made so that any new development doesn't deem such rail projects impossible, so I hope for the Nucleus site to be Bedrock's focus here. Re Tower City, I'm talking about running Amtrak into the Terminal Tower---meaning more tracks and platforms--especially if we get more Amtrak service. The CVSR. And any future 3c or Cleveland-Akron-Canton commuter line that may go into the station.

Thanks for this historical context re ISG. Re the name of 200 PS, when I hear "Huntington Bldg" I immediately think of the NE corner of E. 9 and Euclid. If that name ever came back--and is not used for E9 and Euclid--I think a lot of people will be confused and go to the wrong address for many years.

I think its safe to assume Stark's office LOIs are no longer valid or interested seeing what Covid and WFH did to the office market. And the big name, Benesch, has already moved on. But RETAIL has made a bit of a comeback in the last few years. For the first time in 20 or so years, more physical stores in terms of space opened in the US than closed. The new model/structure of retail is becoming hybrid of in-store and online--a new development that I hope becomes the new trend. That said, we could still hope for good retail here, like a Target or Ikea on the first few levels of 60-story apartment/condo buildings, a hotel, and perhaps a mixed use office/hotel/apt bldg. I liked Stark's "Lane" concept and hope that there is stuff like that at this site.

Is it really that much warmer in Columbus than Cleveland? Cinci maybe, I don't know. But state taxes are uniform across the state, so you must be referring to local taxes. How is the taxing different in Columbus and Cincinnati. I have no idea, but am interested to learn.

Microgrid is one step closer. LA Contractor selected, Compass Energy. The zone of Hopkins and NASA is mentioned as a microgrid site. But when all this talk began, it was for a zone Downtown. I think the airport and Downtown, and then University Circle (perhaps all the way to 83 St to include the Clinic) make sense and make the most sense. BUT, the article doesn't even mention Downtown (or Univ Circle) and instead, after talking about the airport, says: "The new county administration headed by Chris Ronayne, who was sworn into office at the beginning of the year, supports microgrid projects set to begin in the cities of Euclid, Cleveland Heights, Brooklyn and Brook Park, where legislation enabling the county utility has passed, Foley said." That makes no sense. https://www.crainscleveland.com/government/cuyahoga-county-selects-california-firm-build-out-microgrids-operate-utility

^Note that all six states above had the exact same trajectory in the first three years--steady decline (probably covid related). But then in 2021-2022 ALL five states EXCEPT Ohio reversed course and 2021-22 was better than the previous year. Ohio maintained its downward trajectory.