8ShadesofGray

I've been thinking about this a lot. Fascinating urban nerdery! :) It's kind of the opposite of our Cleveland Neighborhoods in 2016 thread ... What neighborhoods are most at threat for a backslide. My guess is that if we don't see population gains in the under-40 market in the next decade, you're right. I'd be most worried if I was a rental property owner in the Heights or Lakewood ... Or potentially edge city neighborhoods like Old Brooklyn, West Park or Edgewater/Cudell. At the same time, I'm still hearing about plenty of people moving out of the city to Lakewood. I've also seen 20-somethings moving from places like Asiatown, Tremont and Shaker Square moving to Cleveland Heights and buying a house, courtesy of the city getting hit relatively hard by the foreclosure crisis. The opening of ownership opportunities for younger people in the inner ring is one thing that may stabilize these cities, although not necessarily the rental properties. I also think that as rents rise in places like downtown, Ohio City and University Circle, we'll see people self-selecting into cheaper rental markets; the big question for me is whether those rental markets will be places like Asiatown or Slavic Village or whether they'll be places like Cedar Fairmount and the Gold Coast.

Lot of retread on Crain's for those that have been watching OCI's savvy and crazy quick revitalization of the district. Regardless, check out the pictures! There's a lot of them ... dating back to the market before West Side Market and construction of the current Market. Two things that were really interesting for me ... aerial photographs in 1949 that showed a surprisingly large number of and surface lots and undeveloped parcels. Still looks pretty dense but had assumed that the nabe had been even denser; judging from photos from the 10s-30s, it looks like some really cool buildings had already been demoed as of the late 40s. I'd always assumed that the vast majority of the de-densification of Cleveland had occurred in the 60s and 70s. Also was fascinated by photos around the district from 1998 ... frankly looking pretty bombed out. I moved to Cleveland in 2002, and I'm amazed by how much revitalization work must have taken place just in those few years. Just a visual reminder of how much has happened on the Near West Side in just the past 15 years.

Not to mention 300 more units at the Campus Village, some by fall 2012 and the rest by fall 2013 ... We've gotta start including Campus District development in our downtown numbers! So that's 625 downtown units in the next two years ... something like 800 new residents ... without counting other viable projects, like Wolstein Phase 2, apartment conversions at the Arcade or any number of properties between East 9th and East 12th along Euclid.

I'm kind of sad that we are losing ALL tree coverage on the site. Clearly excited about this project and that it's by-and-large street-fronting, but from in-fill to streetscapes to parks, it seems like we cannot help ourselves but to cut down mid-size and large trees downtown :)

That's also the parking for the restaurants opening across the street, though. And MOCA, too? But I agree, a LOT of parking. Time to start letting transit-oriented be transit-oriented :) But IIRC, they had to actually seek permission from Planning because there wasn't the statutory minimum required per unit. Is that right? I'm thinking it was right around the same time they were flipping over how trash service, etc., would work. I also thought that parking and additional tree coverage were at least partially a concession to the Hessler naysayers. Again, it's been a long while since we were talking about that, so I could be wrong on all counts :)

Walked by last night, and it looks like the Verizon and bookstore spaces could definitely be ready for opening on Monday, as was shared on the Uptown Facebook page. But Constantino's, while looking good, still seemed to have some work to get done on shelving, etc.

Wow, I can't believe I haven't posted in here in 3 years! So in the meantime, the third offering of the conference took place last year in Detroit. Something like 400 people attended. It was great! And great to see our little Cleveland-based conference hitting the road. On that note, Rust Belt to Artist Belt 4 will be taking place in St. Louis April 12th to 14th. This year's focus is on community engagement and artist-led neighborhood revitalization. Gonna be great! Check it out: http://rustbelttoartistbelt.com/

Buhc of movement on the city sweets front: - Sweet Moses just announced that they will be piloting a new series of old-fashioned soda fountain drinks. - Colossal Cupcakes is scheduled to officially open for business tomorrow (!!!!!) - George's Doughnuts is open at St. Clair and 24th. I'm not 100% it's brand new, but it's either new or underwent a storefront renovation b/c I walk through there pretty frequently and never noticed it. Looks pretty cute ... Old-school doughnut joint-type look. Really hope it makes it ... An obviously big fan of Campus District / Asiatown, but this doesn't strike me as a top-tier place to open a dessert and coffee spot. But make a special trip and support them anyway ... It'd be nice to see more food and retail along St. Clair :)

Great look at how downtown Cleveland's population is not only rising but how that rise is disproportionately among people 22-34 ... in a region that's losing this age group overall. Also a good look at how these trends play out in Ohio City, Tremont, Asiatown and Central. Not Dead Yet: The Infill of Cleveland's Urban Core by Richey Piiparinen MetroTrends, Urban Institute Mark Twain once said the "report of my death was an exaggeration". Perhaps the same thing can be said about the City of Cleveland. While Cleveland's struggles are real, there are signs of a revival, particularly in Cleveland's downtown district. Moreover, select neighborhoods on the periphery of downtown are also showing signs of vitality. And while time will tell if the city is filling in its donut hole so to speak, the fact remains: there is a pulse ... ... More at http://www.metrotrends.org/spotlight/Cleveland_Spotlight.cfm

I think master planning for Asiatown is just getting kicked off. There's an old strategic plan for Asiatown in place, but I think you're probably talking about the Transportation for Livable Communities Initiative plan for Superior and East 36th (http://www.noaca.org/asiatranspstreet2010.pdf). To the best of my knowledge, there hasn't been a comprehensive plan for other streets in the district outside of Superior and that little section of East 36th between St. Clair and Superior. I believe funding is in place for a scaled-down implementation of this plan along Superior as part of a larger reconstruction of Superior all the way up to I believe East 105th. I'm not sure if construction is slated for 2012, though. My understanding is that a number of these approved streetscape improvements are running behind schedule.

I do regret not putting up a fuller list of neighborhoods in the poll, which reflected some biases about what neighborhoods already WERE booming residential centers. But looking at Ohio City and what's happened there over the past year, or what's been happening around downtown, we could have probably also surveyed where the "established" nabes would be :) Looking at the Census maps, I think it's also interesting to see that where visual evidence of investment is the greatest and where population is gaining are not necessarily the same thing. Downtown and University Circle saw big residential booms, but other areas of population growth were in the southwest neighborhoods (Kamm's, Riverside and the near east neighborhoods (Asiatown, Midtown/Central, parts of St. Clair Superior and Euclid-Green). My guess is that these areas are disproportionately drawing larger households than the near west nabes are ... larger families, immigrant households, multi-student units, etc.

My understanding from chatting with them a couple times was that ADA compliance was a major hindrance to any plans for basement expansion. Their position seemed to be that they weren't worried about special events down there (like Made in the 216) but that their understanding was that a retail presence down there would require elevator installation, something that wasn't financially feasible for them at present.

All very valid. But there's traffic anxiety that's from an anti-urban perspective (i.e. I don't want my trip to take an extra 5 minutes. This is a disaster!) and anxiety from a semi-urban perspective (i.e. I hope all that traffic doesn't scare people away from the neighborhood businesses ... I could never get there and gone on my lunch break) and anxiety from an urban perspective (i.e. I hope that extra traffic doesn't lead the city to make missteps like they have with creating high-speed, low-pedestrian thoroughfares like Chester and Carnegie). Given a decades-long track record of favoring the automobile, I think this last concern is completely valid, particularly as some of these arguably questionable auto-oriented decisions aren't exactly ancient history (permitting the removal of a historic block for a casino valet station without ground-level presence comes to mind). Traffic can be a good thing. Pedestrian focus and mass transit focus clearly are a good thing. But only if our elected officials, appointed officials, traffic engineers, developers, etc. understand that more parking and wider streets are not necessarily a good thing. Guess I'm just interested to see how the powers-that-be will react to such a high volume of proposed parking with very little street-level presence and partially connected by an overhead walkway.

^^ Couldn't agree more :) Captured very effectively in the movie Urbanized: Traffic generally isn't caused by lack of capacity. It's more often caused by frequency of vehicular trips and duration of trips. And the best way to reduce people's willingness to take trips is to reduce access, not expand it. But that's where there is some room for genuine concern here ... Historically, we've been a city that expands access at the slightest sign of congestion (although, granted, we're slowly but surely getting better). I would just hate to see traffic around Mayfield and Euclid translate into converting scarce space into more parking structures or serving as a rationale for more Opportunity Boulevard-esque investments on the east side. Just think we need to be vigilant in advocating for transit-oriented development that is truly transit-oriented. Regardless, I think we can all agree that that gerbil tube gotsta go :)

I don't know if july6 is COMPLETELY off the mark ... It actually seemed a relatively well-conceived counter-argument, at least compared to the typical cleveland.bomber :) While the overall volume of traffic along the corridor may not be high, Mayfield quite often has standing traffic, particularly at peak hours. With the additions of MOCA, Uptown and Intesa if built to this scale, it's reasonable to think that this problem could be exacerbated :) I'm car-free, so I'm not honestly all that concerned, but I do think it's reasonable to question how traffic will impact the overall neighborhood. And I'd say july6 was spot-on with questioning how an additional 1,000 parking spaces could impact this corridor ... At what point do we say that transit-oriented development should rely much more heavily on ... transit services? :)

Yes, on the north side of Euclid. I don't think any has gone up on the south side (or very small patch, if it has). But all of the retail tenants opening in two weeks (!) are in the north side of the project.

Posted on the Uptown page asking about opening dates for the first retail tenants. Here's what they posted back: "Verizon, Barnes & Noble and Constantino's will be open on March 19th!" Good news! Less than 3 weeks!

^ Interesting. Any sense of how warmly this will be received? I find it intriguing that this type of tax is being explored at the same time that the admissions tax in Cleveland is stirring up a prolonged, contentious debate ... In Cleveland, nonprofit arts venues are exempt, while smaller for-profit venues like the Beachland Ballroom and the Happy Dog are facing some pretty extraordinary back tax bills (after a number of years when the city wasn't very aggressive in their collections). Some venues are suggesting that this will be the death knell of live music in Cleveland. Unlike this proposed tax, though, Cleveland's admissions tax goes into the city's general fund, rather than back to arts and culture support ... So maybe that will make it less contentious? I also find it intriguing that there's not even a mention of a tobacco excise tax. Under Ohio law, counties above a certain population level can place a levy on the ballot for up to 30 cents tax on every pack of cigarettes sold that is then dedicated funding for arts and culture. Cuyahoga County passed a ballot measure like this in 2006, and the tax is currently generating about $15 million in annual support for the arts and culture sector ... In the span of a year, this tax moved Cuyahoga County from having one of the lowest levels of per capita public funding for the arts in the country to one of the highest. The tax has also supported the Creative Workforce Fellowship, a program that's distributing $400,000 in artist fellowships every year; our research indicates that this is the largest publicly funded artist support program in the country. Given all of that, and that Akron (and even Youngstown and Cincy, to a degree) are exploring a cigarette tax makes me a little puzzled as to why Columbus doesn't appear to even be considering it.

^ Awesome! That is gonna make my weekend :) I saw that sign and thought it was just signage for the East 30th Street Cafe that was already there. Edit: I actually think this might the case, as it looks like East 30th Street Cafe has a pretty extensive sushi menu. They've been there for quite a while now but haven't seemed to get much in the way of visibility. They have one of the broadest menus I've ever seen a restaurant try to take on ... From thai to szechuan to sushi ... to new england chowder to reubens to philly cheesesteaks :o Bizarre. Haha.

Master planning is underway right now (still soliciting public input), so I would imagine a planning document won't be up for another 3 to 6 months. But there is a great deal of interest/effort underway to advance the revitalization of the neighborhood (primarily focused on East 30th to East 40th, Payne to St. Clair, but also with some attention to the corridor along Rockwell). St. Clair-Superior is also nearing completion of an Executive Director search, and regardless of which candidate ultimately gets the position, I would be surprised if this individual didn't place an increased focus on development in Asiatown.

Haven't heard much about the status of this particular project, but Asiatown Master Planning is currently underway. You might reach out to St. Clair Superior about when those meetings occur, as I think the people in the room would be more likely to have heard what's going on with this project ... Or that the owners/developers might actually be IN the room.

It's difficult to say, not being in this district, but I think Kucinich exploring taking his talents to Seattle (:)) is not going to engender himself to the Cleveland end of the district, particularly with vocal critics of his presidential runs drawing attention away from the district already. Not sure what proportion of voters this is, with many Clevelanders really liking his passion and ideology and Paul Wellstone-esque populism, but I get the sense that Kaptur might have more universal support in the western portion of the district. It will also be interesting to see if Veysey plays any kind of inadvertent Nader role. Let's say Veysey pulls 5% across the district, with 4% coming from Cleveland and its environs and a much smaller 1% from Toledo and the rural counties. In a tight race between Kucinich and Kaptur, that could be enough to shift the race. In a recent 90.3 interview, Kucinich seemed to elude to this and that it might be intentional ... Something to the effect that Veysey had previously worked for a political consulting firm that's playing a very large role in Kaptur's current run. Whether this plays out on Election Day, interesting to consider what role a third candidate can play in a primary between two generally well-liked heavyweights.

A weird but fun one ... Cam showing the peregrine falcons' nesting spot on Terminal Tower. Not sure it's working at the moment, but there are some really recent stills, so looks like it's generally active. http://www.falconcam-cmnh.org/news.php

FWIW, Graham Veysey is the media artist who converted the vacant Ohio City firehouse into a live-work building (with a planned coffee shop on the ground floor) and established Cowork Cleveland (http://coworkcleveland.com/).

^^^ It's a valid point. Philosophically, I think the argument is similar to the one employed when talking about decentralizing public housing instead of putting it into a high-rise ... Bad educational performance is exacerbated when we centralize kids from non-supportive backgrounds into schools and put students that are already primed to succeed in separate schools. Pragmatically, school reform happens most effectively when parents are directly engaged in their children's education; parents with the time and means to advocate for change are much more likely to affect school-level change than are parents who are time-poor, money-poor or otherwise disinvested. Cynically, school funding is determined to a large degree by number of pupils, so not having middle- and upper-income students in the mix lowers the overall funding for the kids who need it most. I don't think any of those are arguments for putting your kids in a bad school, and I'm not advocating that you take a gamble on your kids' futures. But I think the position that suburban schools are inherently better than urban schools is a little overarching. Some of the absolute best schools in the region are in Cleveland proper. Granted, many of them are magnet schools, charter schools and private schools, but there are some great traditional public schools. William C. Bryant in Old Brooklyn, for example, has a state Excellent rating of 96.7. That's pretty comparable to a 98.7 Effective rating for Surrarer in Strongsville. That's not to say I'm making a case that there aren't a whole lot of terrible schools in the city. There are. But it's nuanced, and there are good schools out there for parents who have the time and energy to find them. One thing that we don't mention a lot either is that since the vast majority of school funding comes from property tax, and Cleveland offers 12 year abatements for rehabs and 15 year abatements for new construction, public education can actually be a lot cheaper for a homebuying parent in the city than for one in the suburbs, or that abatement can be treated as a downpayment toward private / parochial education.