8ShadesofGray

Immensely, immensely pleased ... a sea of barren surface lots three months ago, and you can already get a sense of what a game changer this could be, particularly with the fully-tenanted Tower Press just a block away (directly behind Norton Furniture in this picture). Definitely have a few qualms with this design, but still - wow.

Awesome urban nerd film. Saw it when it screened at the Cinematheque. Closest you get to Ohio is the obligatory 5 mins. for the design challenges of Detroit ... That part was actually pretty haunting, I thought. You guys'll love it!

I'm a bit of a fashion nut (which destroys all my street cred, I know), and I honestly do almost all of my clothes shopping online ... It's just not that great a market for upscale men's clothing anywhere. Stuff is starting to pop up, though, on the indie front. Native Cleveland and CLE Clothing are bringing it on the t-shirt front. There are some great hat and accessory shops in the Arcade. Yellowcake in Gordon Square is toying with launching a full men's line and has offered a couple of pieces, and until recently, Cloud9 was another independent fashion line running from Waterloo. ilthy is a streetwear company that has launched in Detroit Shoreway. The city has without doubt the best local vintage clothing options, particularly in Detroit Shoreway and Edgewater. And to bring this back to Uptown (I'm getting anxious that that UrbanOhio axe is about to come down :o ), Ari Maron has showcased a good willingness to incorporate clothing offerers spots within his developments, including Dredgers, Room Service and CLE Clothing, although they haven't typically been the first focus. I wouldn't be surprised to see something similar happen with Uptown, although the development costs associated with this specific development probably make it less likely that it's a local clothing line.

^ Before the mods put a kibash on the non-Uptown talk, I'd argue that both Shaker Square and the Market District have as dense a mixed use fabric with access to most daily needs, including banks and groceries, as Crocker Park. Maybe not Abercrombie or Urban Outfitters, but lots of retail, restaurants, etc. ... And actually connected to our public transit system, which is the big plus that Crocker Park is unlikely to have anytime soon ... I am not exaggerating when I say that a random, one-off trip from Asiatown to Crocker Park on a bus on a Sunday took me 2.5 hours ... one way. And FWIW, living in Asiatown, I'm two blocks from a full-service grocery store and have access to 5 other full-service Asian groceries, a bank, 3 bodegas, dry cleaners, laundry-by-the-pound, art galleries, 24 restaurants, a brewery, etc. ... All in a neighborhood that's not exactly top-of-mind for the car-free. My point is mainly that in a lot of our city neighborhoods, we do have access to a broad mix of sought-after amenities in very small, walkable districts, but just not in quite as visually obvious a way as at Crocker Park. I think we've clearly moved leaps and bounds on that front over the last decade, and Uptown is a clear step in the right direction.

Fair enough. But until you have judges undergoing something akin to standardized testing, it seems like it would be difficult to standardize what "quickly", "efficiently" and "courteous" mean. Whereas whether a student does well on standardized instruments against peers statewide or graduates high school seems more cut-and-dry. Moreover, attributing parole violations to a judge, potentially 10, 15, 20 years after the fact seems a lot different than judging a teacher on whether a student graduates ... Even over the three-year time frame for the teacher of a 9th grader. I'll back down now, so we don't completely hijack the thread. Haha. But interesting parallel ... And just when my ultra-liberal mind was finally making peace with education reform. Haha.

All three of the Phase 1 buildings (the one fronting Chester between E. 21 and 22 and the two townhome-on-steroids mid-block on 21st and 22nd) look to be completely framed out. Roofing was going up on the East 22nd townhomes, and it looked like two-thirds of the windows were in on the Chester building.

You beat me to the punch! I also heard hammering inside the building when I walked by. Fingers crossed!

Work seems to be progressing at a good pace at the downtown Potbelly. It appears drywalling is done, there were several shades of paint samples (blue) on the wall and tile was getting rolled in off the truck as I walked by :)

^ And if the casino decides even more parking is needed (please no!), they now have a surface lot they can incrementally be filling in with structured parking (hopefully with ground-level retail at the very least :)), rather than having to demolish buildings to do so.

Not to assist you in getting off topic (haha), but I would think that one of the clearest differences is that it seems that it might be easier (not easy, but easier) to come up with a clear set of indicators in education and less so in judicial review. When I think of education, clear standards in my mind are how students are performing, how many students are retained, how many students graduate, how many students go on to college. There are clearly a lot more, but I think these would all be pretty universally accepted, particularly if you provide some leeway for districts where poverty/homelife/etc. present particular challenges. When I think of judicial review, it's unclear to me what indicators I want judges to be evaluated on. Case load they're able to work through? Number of cases settled? Total annual damages / prison years awarded (as either a positive or negative)? Third-party evaluation of impartiality? While I could get behind having a review panel with the power to remove judges for gross negligence, it's harder for me to imagine public consensus around merit pay because I don't think the general public has consensus around how they want the judicial branch to function. With education, at the end of the day, all parties are concerned with the outcome of a community's children. With criminal and civil law, the very nature of the process is adversarial, and it seems like some people would be advocates for defentants and some for plaintiffs. Does that make sense as a distinction?

Looks like it's CMHA senior housing ... Rendering and some more basic info at http://www.cmha.net/realestate/euclidbelmore.aspx Not sure about date of completion, though.

I'm really optimistic that this will all be good news for CMSD in the end ... Particularly with the backing of the city, the teachers' union, Democratic and Republican lawmakers, the governor and at least some charter school operators and advocacy groups. If nothing else, it starts to steer more public funding toward high-performing schools. I'm not completely sold on charter schools, but creating a local system for holding both public and charter schools to a greater degree of accountability assuages some of my concerns ... And fingers crossed, increases the odds of CMSD passing a much-needed levy in November. Most immediately, here's the result of the alliance with Breakthrough: - As of the 2010 - 2011 school year, 4 CMSD high schools (John Hay Early College, John Hay Architecture and Design, John Hay Science and Medicine and MC2 STEM), 2 elementary/middle schools (Louisa May Alcott and William C. Bryant) and one combined school (Whitney Young), serving approximately 2,045 students, had a state designation of Excellent. -An additional 3 CMSD high schools (Cleveland School of the Arts High, Design Lab and Garrett Morgan School of Science) and 12 elementary/middle schools (Ben Franklin, Clark, Cleveland School of the Arts Lower Campus, Daniel E. Morgan, Denison, Douglas MacArthur, Early Childhood Development, Garfield Elementary, Louis Agassiz, Riverside, Tremont Montessori and Valley View), serving approximately 4,859 students, had a state designation of Effective. - Campus International had not yet been rated because it was so new, but early indicators suggest it will end up in one of these two categories. - Collectively, that means that approximately 8,107 of the district's 43,202 students (18.8%) are being taught in schools that the state considers the strongest. Not an extraordinarily high number, but probably higher than a lot of people assume for CMSD. - All 3 Breakthrough charter schools that were rated as of 2010-2011 (not including 3 newer schools and 3 about-to-open schools) were rated Excellent. - If we assume all 9 Breakthrough schools will be Excellent or Effective when they hit full capacity, that's an additional 3,163 Cleveland kids in strong school buildings. - Collectively, that moves us to 32 strong public and quasi-public schools teaching 11,270 kids. It bumps up the percentage of kids in these schools in ratio to all students in CMSD and Breakthrough (46,365) to 24.3% ... About a one-third increase without opening a single new CMSD school. When you consider that CMSD would now be including Breakthrough data in its own state assessment, this could be huge for how the district fares against its suburban counterparts. More importantly, if the Transformation Alliance is effective in steering more and more students toward the most strongly performing schools, this could be a real game-changer. Even without any more schools moving into these top two categories, though, the idea that there are 25 elementary/middle schools and 7 high schools performing with or outperforming suburban school districts would probably be a big surprise for those who don't think raising kids in the city is an option. And that's before you get to our other excellent charter schools, parochial schools and other private schools!

Some charter school supporters urge opposition to Cleveland schools reform legislation Sunday, April 29, 2012 By Reginald Fields, The Plain Dealer COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Some charter school backers say the Cleveland school reform legislation would unfairly limit school choice options in the city and are taking their concerns directly to state lawmakers. The plan would allow Mayor Frank Jackson to appoint a Transformation Alliance panel that could block future charter schools from opening in the city unless they meet a set of academic criteria the panel would later develop. As lawmakers begin this week to deliberate over two companion bills -- House Bill 525 and Senate Bill 335 -- objections from charters are threatening to be a major sticking point. Jackson wants a new law in place soon to help start a fall levy campaign, and legislators are expected to go on summer break by Memorial Day with or without an agreement on the plan ... ... More available at http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2012/04/cleveland_schools_legislation.html

Breakthrough charter schools play central role in Cleveland school district's plans Sunday, April 29, 2012 By Patrick O'Donnell, The Plain Dealer CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Charter schools were once the bad guys in the minds of school district officials, who considered them a horde of profiteers out to pillage students and dollars from traditional public schools. Not anymore. At least not when it comes to the Cleveland school district and its chosen charter partner, Breakthrough Schools ... ... More available at http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2012/04/breakthrough_charter_schools_p.html

Sorry to hear that :( Not sure if it helps, but you might try to using DCA's Downtown Navigator (http://www.downtownclevelandalliance.com/experience/downtown-navigator.aspx). You can pull up a map of available parking, but unfortunately, it looks like you have to go into their individual profiles to see if they take credit card ... But I see what you mean ... Many of them do not.

I'll step in the line of that spoiled fruit and say that we should take one teeny-tiny section of surface parking and convert it into mixed-use new construction. Fronting either W. 24th Pl or W 24th St, between the market and the Ohio City Farm, you could really start to densify one of the most glaringly large surface lots in any of the city's up-and-coming neighborhoods. And because the buildings on West 25th aren't all that tall, you could preserve form at a 3- or 4-story effort. Ground-level cafe, grocers, etc., second floor office, one or two floors of apartments. It's a relatively short block (roughly the same linear feet as one side of the Uptown development) ... Judging from the costs of Uptown and Campus Village, I'm guessing you're looking at $15 million, presumably with the city already owning the land? And then that can fit into a larger 20-year plan for incrementally building out most of the West Side Market surface lot and building out Market Ave across the surface lots between 26th and 28th and filling in the gaps along 25th south of Lorain. A boy can dream :)

Some updates on efforts to increase artist in-migration in Cleveland: - CPAC has launched a new one-stop website for artists who live here or are thinking of moving here, www.mycreativecompass.org. This is a single place where artists can find out all sorts of support programs in Cleveland ... art training, business training, networking, insurance, space, employment, calls for artists, grants, loans, etc. - Northeast Shores is busy converting vacant, foreclosed housing in North Collinwood into new ownership opportunities for artists. Artists can get fully renovated, modernized, energy-efficient houses for as little as $65,000. The rehab work is heavily subsidized, so in some cases, artists are able to pick up a house for $50,000 less than the cost of rehab. - For artists who want to take a vacant house that needs some minor repairs and do the work themselves, Northeast Shores is offering houses for $5,000. No typo there :) - If you refer an artist (or a buyer) to Northeast Shores and they ultimately buy a house, you get a $500 referral fee. Get crackin', UrbanOhio! - CPAC, Northeast Shores and NoteWorthy Federal Credit Union have launched a new $150,000 low-interest loan program for artists who are building out art space in North Collinwood. This is funding specifically for projects that a traditional lender would typically say no to because there's no perceived increase in resale value ... Like a musician soundproofing an attic so they can do recordings, a painter converting a garage into an art studio, a printmaker who needs to buy a printing press, etc. CPAC provides 25% collateral on every loan, which reduces the risk to the borrowing artist and knocks the interest rate down. This is a way to start funding art space that might not be commercial or "business-y" in nature. - CPAC and Northeast Shores launched the Artists in Residence grants program. Over the next two years, the program will provide $100,000 to artists living or working in North Collinwood to carry out community art projects in the neighborhood, addressing issues like public safety, youth engagement and vacancy through the arts. In the first round, the program's giving out $30,000 ... But 38 applications came in requesting $230,000! Kind of tells you how much interest there is among artists to get more engaged in neighborhood revitalization. - CPAC and Northeast Shores announced the winners of the 2012 Cleveland Arsenal award, a $1,000 award for people out their sharing their love of Cleveland and doing grassroots marketing of the city, particularly related to the arts (but not just the arts). The 2012 winners are Sam Allard, Daniel Brown, Valerie Mayen, Gina Prodan and Rick Stockburger. - Northeast Shores and CPAC are getting ready to launch a marketing campaign toward artists nationwide, letting them know about Artists in Residence, North Collinwood and Cleveland more generally, as a good place to move to. This will be everything from direct mail to social media to advertising to subsidizing visits to Cleveland to check it out. Stay tuned for a new website and more details :)

I guess I just don't view it as defacing ... But then outside of tagging, I'm a fan of graffiti and street art in general, which I'd argue enlivens public space, rather than detracting from it. If you feel that strongly about it, you could contact Ohio City Incorporated, the councilman or the Mayor's service line. But my opinion is that the city should be expending its limited human resources to addressing issues of broader issues of public safety and cleanliness, not actively patrolling to undue guerilla marketing of small businesses and small nonprofits.

Although, in fairness, the article also notes that: "Cleveland State is 'well above any danger zones' in terms of its debt load. State law mandates any institution with a score of 1.75 or lower for two consecutive years would be placed on 'fiscal watch.'" (Cleveland State received a rating of 3.4).

My guess is that even if they are in the public right-of-way, the city and OCI would be reluctant to remove them without a formal complaint from an adjacent building owner or the stickers causing some kind of obstruction/safety concern ... Particularly since this advertising is benefiting a local nonprofit-led, public event, not a multinational conglomerate like Sony.

As a point of comparison with the 90s, which I think really points out how this is trending ... - Outer Suburbs (Cuyahoga County only), 1990-2000, 0.4% growth; 2000-2010, 8.1% decline - Inner Ring Suburbs, 1990-2000, 5.1% decline; 2000-2010, 8.4% decline - "Outer" City Neighborhoods (not bordering downtown), 1990-2000, 5.3% decline; 2000-2010, 19.1% decline - "Inner" City Neighborhoods (bordering downtown), 1990-2000, 10.5% decline; 2000-2010, 2.8% decline - Downtown, 1990-2000, 28.1% growth; 2000-2010, 52.7% growth The exurbs (at least the Cuyahoga County ones) are starting to trend similar to the inner ring suburbs, a big difference since their modest growth/stability in the 90s. A similar pattern is happening in the city neighborhoods; the neighborhoods closest to the suburbs were considerably more stable that the inner neighborhoods in the 90s. The reverse was true in the 2000s. And through it all, downtown has of course been growing ... But almost twice as fast in the 2000s than in the 1990s. All in all, it's looking as though the core is getting stronger relative to the rest of the county ... In 2000, 13 of 16 the inner ring suburbs were doing better growth-wise than downtown and the neighborhoods that surround it. In 2010, the urban core outperformed 15 of 16 of them. Wow.

Good news (I think) on the Census data front ... According to numbers I pulled from NEOCANDO, downtown and vicinity population trends are increasingly more positive then elsewhere in the county. - At the county level, we lost 8.2% of our population between 2000 - 2010. - This loss was about the same for inner ring suburbs (8.4% loss) and other suburbs in the county (8.1% loss). For the inner ring, only 2 of 16 municipalities experienced a population gain between 2000 and 2010, Cuyahoga Heights and Linndale, and these two suburbs have a combined population of less than 1,000. Population loss for the inner ring range from a very modest 1.0% loss in Brooklyn Heights to a pretty staggering 34.4% population decline in East Cleveland. - Meanwhile, the city lost 17.1%. This is a higher rate of population decline than any of the inner ring suburbs except for East Cleveland. - That being said, the population fortune of the city is not uniform. Downtown's resurgence has been widely broadcast, but Downtown's 52.7% population increase is still pretty staggering. - Interestingly and less covered, the neighborhoods adjacent to downtown experienced a population decline, but a very modest one of 2.8%. This included a population loss of 15.3% in Tremont and 10.2% in the Industrial Valley but also a more modest loss of 4.5% in Goodrich-Kirtland and a very modest loss of 1.1% in Ohio City ... and a 5.2% gain in Central. - When you add downtown to the neighborhoods adjacent to it, the central core saw a 5.4% population increase over the decade. Unfortunately, these gains were more than offset by a 19.1% population decline in the "outer" Cleveland neighborhoods. So, in terms of county population fortunes in the 2000s, they'd be ranked as: - Downtown, 52.7% gain - "Inner" Cleveland Neighborhoods, 2.8% loss - Outer Suburbs, 8.1% loss - Inner Ring Suburbs, 8.4% loss - "Outer" Cleveland Neighborhoods, 19.1% loss

Sorry, I know I'm gumming up this page, but I'm totally nerding out right now. Haha. Quick examination of downtown in particular: - In 1990, 4,954 crimes were reported downtown. This was 6.2% of all crimes reported in the city. In 1991, that number climbed to 4,974, representing the peak of downtown crime. - City crime reached its peak in 2001. Crime was already down a little downtown, with 4,230 reported crimes. At that point, downtown crime was 5.1% of all crime in the city. - Downtown crime was still high in 2005 at 4,585, representing a pretty crazy 20.9% increase in just one year (as a point of comparison, crime citywide increased only 2.5% from 2004 and 2005 ... Downtown's increase was eight-fold the city average!). - Then, in 2006, crime started dropping downtown. While citywide, we saw a 0.1% drop in crime that year, downtown saw a 13.2% drop. Followed by another 16.0% drop in 2007. Then another 1.8% in 2008. And another 9.1% in 2009. And another 9.0% in 2010. - All in all crime dropped 31.7% between 2006 and 2010. Much of the gains we made in crime reduction downtown have happened just since 2006. The city had a pretty substantial 16.9% drop in crime during the same period, but that means crime was falling almost twice as fast downtown as the city as a whole. In 2010, downtown crime represented only 4.3% of crime in Cleveland ... The lowest level in that entire 20-year period. So what do you guys think caused that? I would imagine that as population has increased, there's more foot traffic, which people always cite as one of the largest deterrents of crime. Moreover, the most recent Census shows that those gains have been all over downtown, with some of the biggest gains being made in the Campus District, Gateway and Flats West Bank. So not only do we have more foot traffic but we have more foot traffic universally throughout downtown, which could reduce the likelihood that some parts of downtown are havens for crime, while others are completely safe. It's also absolutely worth noting that the Downtown Cleveland Alliance's Special Improvement District came online in 2006. The Clean & Safe Ambassadors came online in April 2006. Aggressive panhandling enforcements were put into place in parts of downtown in early 2007. Regardless of what's leading to this, a) awesomesauce, b) What's really incredible is that it hasn't translated into higher crime in the surrounding neighborhoods; all those gains were made downtown at a time when serious gains were also made in all the adjacent nabes.

When you look at changes by total number of crimes, rather than by per capita rates, the picture is sunnier citywide. Only 7 neighborhoods saw an increase in number of crimes between 1990 and 2010 - Old Brooklyn, Clark-Fulton, Puritas-Longmead, South Broadway, Cudell, North Collinwood and Old Brooklyn. Meanwhile, 12 neighborhoods (Downtown, Industrial Valley, Fairfax, Hough, Kinsman, University, Ohio City, Tremont, Central, St. Clair Superior, Goodrich-Kirtland Park and Buckeye Shaker) saw at least a 30% decrease in the number of reported crimes between 1990 and 2010. That's some crazy movement! Downtown leads the pack with a 45.2% reduction in reported crime; when you consider that crime is about half of what it was in 1990 downtown, at the same time that the number of people living downtown has increased considerably, that's pretty staggering. Interesting that even when putting aside population increase/decrease, downtown and all 5 neighborhoods bordering it have been toward the front of the pack in terms of reduction of crime. I also find it fascinating that these dips in total crime around downtown have taken place not just in the Near West neighborhoods (a 36.3% drop in Ohio City and a 34.1% drop in Tremont) but also in the Near East neighborhoods (a 31.1% decline in Central and a 28.2% decline in Goodrich-Kirtland). This seems to point to something going on besides "more educated people with higher incomes are moving in".

I find this pretty fascinating. While per capita crime rates are about the same in 2010 as they were in 1990, this has hardly been universal across the city. 9 neighborhoods have seen pretty extraordinary reductions in crime rates, while 27 neighborhoods have experienced crime rate increases that have offset these gains. Where we're gaining, we're really, really gaining ... and in pretty concentrated areas. Outside of Kamms Corner on the southwest border and University Circle/Shaker/Buckeye on the east border, all of the gains have been made downtown and every one of the 5 neighborhoods that border downtown (Ohio City, Tremont, Industrial Valley, Central and Goodrich-Kirtland aka Asiatown). Everywhere else, per capita crime has been increasing.