coneflower

I am not anti-suburb, but I don't understand the allure of working in a box surrounded by a parking lot disconnected from anything. If you're trying to entice people to leave their houses to go to work, that to me is the most depressing option. Also, all our highways lead to downtown Cleveland. If you live in Avon, getting downtown is way easier than getting to Mayfield or Solon. Are the savings that big? I get it in NYC or San Francisco but how much savings is a company really getting here?

That facility is 1 million square feet. I wonder how much space is required to employ 68 people. I definitely support more jobs but that seems like an inefficient use of land. But I just read an article that these developments are one area where there is strength vs. building/owning office buildings, so we'll clearly see more of it. 80 acres is huge.

It seems like the location of Cincinnati would make it attractive for European flights since it's drawing from Cincy, Columbus, Indiana and Kentucky. In Cleveland, we're only a couple of hours from Detroit. It'd be nice to get a London or Amsterdam flight out of Hopkins. But we didn't have Dublin a year ago, so no complaints here!

I don't know if this is something the Cavs have contemplated but the Washington Capitals hockey team has a practice facility in a dense portion of Arlington, Va. It is also used by a few college teams and offers a range of public uses like freeskate and league play. Naming right also held by a local hospital! https://www.medstarcapitalsiceplex.com/page/show/605961-home

The article references a study, which is based on searches on the SpotHero app. I did a search in Cleveland myself and it only shows one parking deck at $179/month. I'm not sure if that is representative. https://www.finn.com/en-US/campaign/priciest-parking

The one thing I worry about regarding health care is how much of that growth is weighted toward service-providing roles that reflect the needs of caring for our aging population vs. economy-growing roles in innovative industries like life sciences/pharma, etc. I'm happy healthcare employs so many people, but based on what I've read we're not attracting research or investor dollars at the same level as our peers.

I Where is the best place to post the columns I shares? They focused on economic develop and compare Cleveland Columbus as well as Pittsburgh, which were substantive. It's hard to know what is ok to post on this website sometimes.

Do we know what the jobs we are adding vs them and the pay? Based on a quick Google Search, the Columbus MSA’s GDP is growing a lot faster than ours. I think worrying about peers like Columbus isn’t super productive. The main issue is the economy in the USA has congregated a ton of jobs and wealth in major metros like DC. Major HQs locate in these cities, drawing workers and then growing new businesses. The major metros create a network effect amongst themselves, making it hard for the smaller regions like ours to compete. This to me is the real story and you can see it talking to young people of all backgrounds who feel they need to move to truly advance in their careers. Then once they advance in those locations, they can’t afford to buy housing. A Mayor Bibb or pick your favorite regional non-profit can’t fix that.

I totally agree with your main point about the ranting nature of the editorial. It definitely didn't have solutions. The one thing I will say, to focus on the economic impact, is that we have a ton of good public and private universities in our region and it doesn't seem like they are being driven strategically to drive growth in our region. How do those schools coordinate with our local school systems? How do they coordinate amongst themselves? That sort of thing I would think we could make a huge impact without needing to be Nostradamus. We need more focus on education on a regional level. There are some cool collaboration happening but it doesn't seem to be organized as a big enough effort to shape the future of our economy.

Provocative, although hyperbolic from Brent Larkin https://www.cleveland.com/opinion/2023/09/why-is-cleveland-falling-so-far-behind-columbus-failed-leadership-failed-structure-failed-vision-brent-larkin.html. Links to another interesting piece in the NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/13/opinion/cities-elites-baltimore-pittsburgh.html. There are a million threads to pull on to agree or disagree. But both articles do a decent job explaining why the Greater Cleveland region struggles to achieve growth. One thing Larkin touches on that I personally think is a huge issue for us is the fact that we have so many different political jurisdictions, universities, non-profits, etc. It's easy to say we've had "poor leadership" from these entities, and that is true in many ways, but with that many players in the mix with their unique interests, it's not surprising that it's hard to drive change. Citizens fight simple bike paths. If we're blaming our leaders, we also need to look at ourselves. Northeast Ohio does not embrace change.

It's a fascinating story. We need a new jail and courthouse. But that is a super depressing way to spend a billion dollars compared to a new football stadium and potentially sparking development near the lakefront. I don't know anything but politically it seems crazy to me for Bibb or Ronanye to say "we don't need the Browns, we're building a jail!" I doubt they would do that.

They got a lot of press recently for their "core weeks" policy where you can work from anywhere but you have to be in the office 22 "core" weeks a year on your own dime. https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/workplace/smuckers-return-to-office-plan-working-a933678 The idea of "super commuters" is crazy. If you are flying and staying in a hotel, that'd be like $20K in travel costs a year.

This is just a pragmatic thought, but if the stadium were to go elsewhere and that space on the lakefront were available for total redevelopment, would there really be any way to bring anything else to fruition? I am not a developer but another thread on this forum this week got me researching how the DC Wharf got funding, and what I took away is that it seems like you need hugely deep-pocketed investors/developers interested in doing hard things who can find lots of like-minded public and private partners to piece together all the resources to do something transformative. I am not a Haslam super fan and I am not sure I’d like all their ideas, but from the outside it seems like they are the best shot at spearheading anything major in that area alongside the stadium. Who else has the ability to make it happen? Plus they would probably have a better chance advocating in Columbus for funding and support than the city of Cleveland itself.

I don’t really get the suburban options either. I guess the Browns are betting the county will save the day with public money? No suburb has money to pitch in for that. Not to mention the NIMBY rebellion it would inspire. This is such an odd thing to observe. They are running out of time they say but no one has publicly shared a proposal one way or the other. Just seems like both sides are using stories like this to try and exert leverage in back room negotiations. Seems like the Browns have a weak hand since no suburban city or county has showed much interest, at least publicly.

The last time I worked downtown was in the late 2000s and my offices were in this area. The changes are really amazing. Tons of room to grow and improve, of course, but the hard work many have put in over the years really shows. I haven't seen these signs in-person yet but the photos look fantastic to me. I'm much more likely to look at the upcoming event schedule now.

The Silicon Valley Elite Who Want to Build a City From Scratch A mysterious company has spent $800 million in an effort to buy thousands of acres of San Francisco Bay Area land. The people behind the deals are said to be a who’s who of the tech industry. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/25/business/land-purchases-solano-county.html This is a wild story.

As I understand it, if a merger were to take place between 2 jurisdictions in Ohio, the citizens of both would need to vote seperately to proceed. This is a good breakdown on the issue, starting at discussion of EC

How realistic is it building a new tower if the company takes on debt to buy US Steel, meanwhile both lost between $1B and $4B last year? It's crazy to me these historic titan companies are valued so much below tech. Cliffs is valued at $8.47B, while Twitter when Elon bought it was worth $44B (clearly less now).

But wouldn't they already know this was coming and factor it into their plans?

I think part of that is to illustrate boat trailers parking. I know this is a long way off, but it would be nice to add some sort of barrier to block some the noise from 90. It would add a lot to this space even now. This lakefront area is still a nice place to go and sit and fish but the highway noise is obnoxious. Seems like there is something that could be done to make it less oppresive.

Lakefront CHEERS project ready to seek construction grants with improved design for offshore ‘isle’ https://www-cleveland-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.cleveland.com/news/2023/08/lakefront-cheers-project-ready-to-pursue-construction-grants-with-improved-offshore-isle-design.html?outputType=amp

What is the state of play with this thing? As I understand from all the articles, the Haslams want to renovate the current stadium and develop around it. If they don't get the land bridge and development plan they like, they'll move it somewhere else in the region?

One thing I come back to is that Cleveland has a unique opportunity to capitalize because public lake access in Ohio is pitiful and Cleveland it seems to have the most public land that can be made available to "the people" in fun and innovative ways. My first reaction to the city plan was to be underwhelmed, but I am now persuaded about the importance of prioritizing public access over development.

Not to kick the hornets nest, but I would argue that IS regionalism in action.

Ha! That's honestly a good idea.