coneflower

Right, the city did a thorough job collecting feedback. And Bedrock has appeared more collaborative (although I’m not sure how much they really listen to but they have gone through the motions). Clearly the Haslam approach has been off putting to the mayor. And the fact they funded his opponents surely doesn’t help! Despite that, I still don’t get the solution the city is offering. It has always seemed like a hodgepodge of park amenities and a couple random buildings. The flaw to me is they took public feedback and didn’t provide any editorial control. The way I have seen spaces like this work in other cities is a mix of housing, shops, hotels, restaurants and public spaces. Like the Inner Harbor in Baltimore. Those are places where lots of different kinds of people can mingle and enjoy. My fear is nothing at all happens in this area. Or it becomes a remote, underutilized, poorly maintained park.

Great article! This philosophic difference was readily apparent with the diverging proposals. I think Jimmy’s World makes much more sense on the waterfront and to be fair to Haslam, why is the city more supportive of Dan Gilbert basically doing the same thing on the river? I get there are differences but there are also similarities in that public money is being used to further private interests. I think the mayor’s position makes perfect sense. It’s not morally right or politically smart to give precious resources to people who don’t need it or reside in the city. But I still don’t really think their lakefront park idea makes any sense. Are people really going to want to go to a park that is so isolated and physically hidden by a giant stadium (let’s be honest even if it’s empty that thing isn’t getting knocked down anytime soon). It seems to me it’s in everyone’s best interest to come up with a compromise.

I’m surprised there isn’t more uproar about this process. People lose their minds about the whiff of a school levy but the Haslams are going around showing building renderings and asking for billions in public money while not being transparent with the public.

This is also my view. The DC waterfront got developed thanks to low interest rates, really rich benefactors, booming regional growth, and substantial government contributions. We dont have the same advantages. If the stadium moves, it seems like the energy goes to the river with Bedrock because there is already a working plan there. Which might not be a bad thing. But it definitely doesn’t bode well for the lakefront, unless it’s just turned into a big park like Irishtown Bend. That also might not be a bad thing. Just different than the gleaming buildings folks have imagined

This whole process seems incompetent and makes me doubt the whole venture.

Is there worry that the structure is unsound/unsafe?

I got downvotes last time I said it but I think switching that Parisian Patina teal color with something else would make a big difference. I don’t get a vote on it but the building doesn’t bother me and as was already said, there are many other comparable buildings going up around the city. I don’t think anyone is arguing this is a revolutionary or gorgeous building but deciding what is “adequate” is clearly subjective.

It’s interesting they went to the state reps first. If they need to go to the voters, they better be ready to spend big on a PR campaign. I’m not sure it’s a winning proposition when property taxes are expected to go up quite a bit already. This is just my hunch but I think getting money for a Cleveland stadium would be easier because suburbanites view Cleveland as our region’s home and mentally have a sense of ownership of it. It doesn’t seem logical that someone in Euclid, for example, would vote to subsidize development in another suburb—especially when funding in many suburbs is stretched on their own.

I have an Ohio City flag I took with me to hang in my apartment in another city and I never even lived there 😃

Based on my Googling, the hours of operation and square footage don’t match TJs. Seems unlikely. They also aren’t known for selling Ohio products, I don’t think. The comment from the council person already complaining about truck beeping at 3 am is super odd to me considering this location is a block from a highly used freight rail line that has trains blowing their horns non stop at all hours of the day and night.

Wasn’t sure where to put this but the WSJ has an interesting article about all the work Detroit (Dan Gilbert) is doing to revitalize their downtown. This section caught my eye featuring Richard Florida: Rock-bottom office rents long ago forced developers to come up with other things to build. They added casinos and sports venues and restored aging theaters. That made downtown less office-dependent, an advantage in the age of remote work. “An allegedly smart urbanist would have probably said don’t do that—billions of dollars on stadiums and casinos,” Florida said. “It sounds odd to say this, but in a way their downtown looks more like a Miami or Las Vegas.” This got me thinking about our region and the debates about a new football stadium, waterfront, etc. What Florida is describing sounds like what we did in the 90s with Tower City, which we all know wasn’t a sustainable solution to creating a vibrant downtown. On the flip side, there are things that really have benefited downtown like protecting our theaters, hosting sports, casino (maybe I’ve never been), nightlife. Seems like the question isn’t whether we should invest public resources to generate activity but more that we should prioritize what is most effective.

Oh, yes, I certainly don’t dispute the rise of loneliness. I do think the cause of that is multi-faceted with very deep roots. Yuval Noah Harari says we humans were happier before we evolved to farm and use technology. My POV is that driving to an office, especially one like those Progressive is selling, is not making that big of a difference in the big scheme of things. But I am sure there are people studying this over time.

This is a fair point. I don’t view this as an insult either. I think the difference of our current time is people pick where they want to live and base everything around that. The stats show the lowest number ever of people are moving for jobs in America. I personally think suburban office buildings are really vulnerable because they are firmly based in an old era of work.

Yet our economy is crushing Europe. In America, around 22% of workers are working remote compared to 9% in Europe. It’s certainly more but I don’t share the same concern about a nation of hermits. The biggest cultural phenomenon of 2023 was the Taylor Swift tour, which was all about collective sharing and experience. People want to be with each other but it’s around shared interests and passions. Now let’s think about office buildings, suburban ones specifically. I believe it is a normal human reaction to want to get out of that environment. The movie Office Space picked it apart 25 years ago. Long before COVID, plenty of people in non-office jobs would say, “I don’t know how you do that every day.” The answer wasn’t, “Oh, I love it!” It was “I don’t have a choice I need to make money.” The thing that is interesting to me is what happens if one day the management at Progressive changes philosophy. Selling your buildings is a big choice. On the flip side, having all your workers in a ton of different buildings in different cities doesn’t really seem much more efficient than letting them work from home. I will be curious to see where this all goes.

Just doing a quick Google, these new Macy’s stores are designed for suburban strip malls to be in close proximity to big box stores. They wouldn’t consider downtown as they aren’t looking at any downtowns. It doesn’t seem like their business on the whole is doing well, anyway. Wouldn’t it be more worthwhile to find ways to lure more small/local retailers gear toward the neighborhood rather than trying to convince giant corporations? The Heinens model. People talk about Macy’s or Target but it’s gotta be a lot harder to get them to “take a risk.” And I don’t mean that as an insult to us—even in bigger cities these companies close stores all the time. I don’t work in retail but I can see the challenge of it. It’s so competitive that anywhere you locate is going to need to be super specific.

I think Cleveland would greatly benefit from working to increase the number of young people pursuing careers in the trades and then funding grants to rehab existing housing. It’s easy to say folks need to invest in the east side, for example, but many of those houses need significant repairs. And repairs aren’t just crazy expensive, it’s very hard to get skilled tradespeople to help because there is so much demand.

I’d hate to be Great Northern, Crocker Park or SouthPark if this happens. This just seems like a giant suburban shopping mall concept to me.

Re: 200 Public Square. Can anyone explain to me how Namdar LLC makes money? I don’t really understand the business model. They just collect rent until most of the tenants leave because they don’t do any maintenance? Wouldn’t it be more profitable to try and improve an asset, increase usage and then raise prices?

Isn’t that a public safety issue having a gigantic movie screen-sized video display that close to a roadway? That road is already a little stressful to drive on imho.

I think Leonsis has more of a claim to ancillary benefits than the Haslams. He has multiple sports and many live events in his building, which does not sit unused for long. All the business owners and people who own real estate around his building get benefits. Browns stadium could never replicate that ROI. Even with a dome, how much programming do they really add? If we’re talking about the best use of our very precious financial resources as a region, I just am not persuaded a giant public investment is worth it.

The Super Bowl champs just lost a county vote to fund a new stadium. That certainly should be eye-opening for the Browns. https://www.kctv5.com/2024/04/03/royals-chiefs-concede-loss-stadium-sales-tax-vote/?outputType=amp

This analysis from Steven Litt is pretty good and persuaded me on a few points. https://www.cleveland.com/news/2024/03/would-it-be-so-bad-if-browns-stadium-moved-from-cleveland-to-brook-park-commentary.html Namely, the Browns moving doesn’t have to be a disaster for the city and the lakefront plan but the team needs to make a decision so the city can move forward on its plans. The comment the Haslams made about making a decision in 1 or 2 years is not cool.

Well, no one will tell the public what is happening so who knows. That annoys me too. I get needing to work behind closed doors for a few months but this has been going on for years at this point.

Why would Ronayne be annoyed? This situation isn’t surprising or unexpected and part of his job to help stay ahead of it. I get annoyed by public officials who act like they too are outside observers like us. To be fair to the Haslams, they have wanted to develop around the stadium from their initial proposal. For whatever reason—legal, philosophical or both—the city’s lakefront plan focuses on public access/park vs development. Seems pretty clear now the city doesn’t want to or doesn’t think they can do all the stuff the Browns want, so the Browns went looking for another option and found Brook Park. And from the team’s perspective, it’s perfect. It doesn’t seem like the county or city has a real alternative that can match what the Browns see there. At this point it seems like their best hope is some regulatory issue saves them related to the airport but wouldn’t they have similar issues downtown next to an airport? What happened in DC is interesting but I do think a bit different. Just based on comments from the Brook Park mayor and internet comments on articles from fans, people are generally cool with it and love the idea of a dome. At this point the Haslams might be giving the government a heads up that they need to be ready for this move. And hopefully that means they will have a proposal for what happens to the stadium when the team moves. That’s at least my pragmatic, outsider interpretation.