coneflower

That is what I was thinking about retrofitting. Don’t courthouses have all sorts of unique security features and need hidden hallways and even tunnels? Has any major city ever retrofitted a historic building to make a complex like that? That to me seems like it would be too hard to do.

I personally think lots of mid-rise development will have more of an impact on vibrancy than a skyscraper. I stayed in downtown Portland, OR recently and was blown away by how dense it felt and all the buildings I saw were 12 stories or below. In fact, their skyline except for the mountain is not that impressive. But the street energy was great. The one thing I will say about this potential development is, I wonder how much energy a complex of courthouses will have. In DC there is Judiciary Square, which has a similar campus layout and there are lots of people there during the day but it's not the most fun place to spend time.

FRONT Triennial not going ahead with towering mural on blank wall overlooking Public Square CLEVELAND, Ohio — The FRONT Triennial project to have internationally renowned artist Julie Mehretu paint a soaring abstract mural on the 21-story Standard Building overlooking Public Square in downtown Cleveland is not moving forward. Complications, including the sale of the building, a property converted from offices to apartments by Cleveland-based Weston Inc., delayed the mural project to the point of no return. https://www.cleveland.com/news/2023/10/front-triennial-not-going-ahead-with-towering-mural-on-blank-wall-overlooking-public-square.html?outputType=amp

Who would pay to park in that location in a gravel lot?

Is adding a "land bridge" that connects the two halves of the park doable at all and would that be easier than moving the highway?

Sadly, in Ohio our rivers aren’t friendly to natural reproduction of steelhead. Trout spawn on gravel river bottoms that are common out West. Like you mentioned, the Cuyahoga isn’t suited for it, but neither is the Chagrin, etc. There are small tributaries of all the rivers where conditions exist for some natural reproduction like the rebuilt stream at Wilson Mills Road and I’m sure along the Cuyahoga, but there is not enough habitat throughout our region to sustain our trout population naturally like in Michigan or Wisconsin, where ODNR gets our eggs. The brook trout aren’t technically in the Chagrin River. They are upstream in spring-fed creeks that eventually flow into the Chagrin. Those streams are more like small Appalachian streams you’d find in Western PA or West Virginia, as they are mostly protected from flashy urban runoff by large forests and the springs keep the water really cold.

I am not a biologist but I suspect they are using rainbow trout in this context because they move around a lot in cold winter water versus natives like smallmouth bass. Plus anglers love catching and eating rainbows, so it’s two birds with one stone. They surely won’t last long between anglers, predators like musky and the eventual warmer water next year. The Chagrin is already stocked with steelhead trout and they go all the way up the east branch and up the main branch to Chagrin Falls, where the waterfall prevents them from getting to the prime brook trout streams. I know the state and local parks especially Geauga are very focused on protecting those endangered native brook trout, so I hope we won’t see stocking of rainbows anywhere near them. I know Lake County just removed the dam at Daniels Park. The dam in Gates Mills was taken out by nature 10 years ago. That river is pretty open at this point?

The confusion I have with this plan is there doesn’t really seem to be any real integration between it and the stadium. It’s just sort of there. In Steven Litt’s article, the only real mention is that the city would like to close the muni-lots one day and fans can find some other place to pre-game. To an outsider, it appears the city is inviting the team to look elsewhere in the area to build a new stadium. That might be better for the city and team if their ideas on how to use this space are so different

This is a circular debate because it’s hinging on personal design preferences.

The buildings I’m talking about in DC were built in the late 1930s. I only bring up DC in this context because I don’t think every building needs to be some work of art because every city in America has unremarkable apartments in good neighborhoods. If there is demand, as it appears there is, build housing for people. I don’t understand the idea of saying “no, this spot is to precious and we must wait for the right developer and economic conditions that are exactly right to do something beautiful.” That makes no sense to me when the issue Cleveland has is it needs to repopulate.

I really don’t understand the venom this building is getting. I lived in DC for 11 years and pretty much every apartment building I lived in was a giant brick box not dissimilar to this. I lived in desirable neighborhoods in the city proper. and I not once decided what building to live in based on how beautiful the exterior was. I used to joke that one building I lived in was pretty ugly but my windows looked out on mansions and embassies, so it didn’t matter to me. Maybe people are different here but as a renter I always prioritized a few key things: Where is it located? What’s the rent? How well is the building maintained?

20 years ago those houses may have been in better condition, too. Before I bought a house a couple years ago, I might think people have a lack of creativity or vision. But now having bought a house, I'm a lot more understanding why people don't want to deal with renovating. It's really expensive and hard work finding and managing contractors. In another thread, someone mentioned a historic house in Cleveland could not be demolished even though all the repairs and renovations needed to make it livable would total $400K, which is theoretically cheaper than a new house. People have jobs and families and don't have the money or time to deal with that.

This shows a misalignment between supply and demand to me. I see negative comments online all the time about suburbanites who chose to live outside the city. But the housing available in Cleveland may not match their needs. A lot of Cleveland’s housing is old and deteriorated, lacking amenities like central air or not sized/laid out based on modern needs. Hardly anyone wants to move into a house that needs gutted or completely renovated… unless you are wealthy and the house is in a location that makes it worth it.

I read that 21% of Cleveland’s parcels are vacant, so it seems like there is plenty of opportunity left around the city for people to get really creative with design if they want to. It would be short-sighted to say no thanks to new housing.

Nothing says environmental restoration better than a parking lot right next to our region's most important watershed! EDIT: To add a comment to my sarcastic remark... I don't live in this area, but also don't see the need for more parking? In bigger cities, if you drive in from somewhere else you park where you can and figure out a way (walk, cab, bus, etc.) to get where you need to go.

Legacy Village is for sale https://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/news/local_news/legacy-village-in-lyndhurst-for-sale/article_603a4ac2-5eff-11ee-9a01-2ba6f2ef6984.amp.html

Yeah, fair point. It’s just a personal preference thing. I like the dark brick with teal, but the light gray and light teal to me just kind of look washed out and drab. The darker brick in this example really makes the whole thing pop for me.

I'm not a designer, but that teal color to me is really drab and I think not helping. It's not a very exciting design but I think a different color would give it a little more polish.

I don’t know that I agree it’s impossible to implement solutions. The problem is too often solutions are Hail Mary’s I.E. trying to get Amazon’s HQ2. The money spent on these Clinic labs is almost certainly going to bring far greater ROI than the Medical Mart. It’s going to take a long time to see but JobsOhio seems to be doing a better job at economic development than what came before.

It depends on your metric of success. That professor is making the argument that our economy drives better incomes than some Sunbelt cities like Charlotte or Orlando. And that's a good thing. But who is ranking above us not in that chart? And by how much? I want more businesses being created and more funding and investment in our economy. That's why the Cleveland Clinic news is so exciting because that can make a difference, especially building on that piece by piece.

I think there is some confusion because I'm talking about economic output (GDP aka gross domestic product) not population. Those links I shared and the million other articles you can Google show that our regional economy has not grown as fast as others around the country.

Maybe I'm getting old, but I'm surprised the idea our region is not a high-growth economic region is even debatable. Here are a few reports that show we rank low in terms of economic growth nationwide. My point is not that we are insignificant losers but that we need to find new places where our economy grow and add high-paying jobs. https://milkeninstitute.org/sites/default/files/2023-05/bestperformingcities2023.pdf https://kenaninstitute.unc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/american-growth-project-10172022r.pdf

I don't think comparing ourselves to the other cities in Ohio is that helpful because we're competing at a national and international level, and it's clear in terms of growth we have underperformed for many years. Look at metrics like GDP, wages, population... We are not running at the front of the pack. Top of the list for GDP growth: SF, Austin, Seattle, Raleigh, Dallas... Near the bottom: all the three Cs. But put that bad news aside, I am really excited by this announcement from the Clinic and the investment from Jobs Ohio. It seems like that statewide organization is focused on opportunities for growth that are realistic. If we can start grabbing even a sliver of the public and private investment dollars that San Francisco and Boston gets, that will mean more good jobs.

Linking @KJP's article here about the Clinic's research expansion: https://neo-trans.blog/2023/09/28/cleveland-clinic-unveils-next-phase-of-innovation-district/ I would be interested to hear from people who watch this industry closely, but growing research/lab space like this is definitely exciting. Could this help create a small version of Boston's Kendal Square here?

I was just curious and looked at the Fortune 10 and all those companies' HQs are in a suburb/exurb, besides Berkshire Hathaway in Omaha. Amazon's HQ1 is in Seattle but HQ2 is technically in a suburb of DC. I personally wouldn't want to work in a box surrounded by parking lots but clearly it works for a lot of companies.