8ShadesofGray

I won't counter the counter-cyclical argument. But I wasn't referring to their behavior in system-wide downturns but rather how they behave when a move incrementally impacts their bottom line ... either when a store is underperforming or when another nearby municipality incentivizes the move or when they are converting from a standard store to a super-store. This thread started out noting that nearly 300 Walmart stores are vacant, suggesting that they aren't 100% dedicated to remaining in their initial site. As a business, they have every right to react to their bottom line. But it is my contention that a) mom and pops will respond to a wide range of factors, including bottom line, while a big box is likely only motivated by short-term increases to shareholders and that b) because mom and pops are, almost by definition, small, it is easier for the market to absorb this space than to fill a hulking greenfield plot with a new tenant. And there are clear implications for taxpayers when a greenfield development is left shuttered, since they often require substantial subsidy through tax incentive and infrastructure construction in exchange for the promise of a ROI to taxpayers through sales tax and income tax receipts. In the absence of some promise of return to the hosting community, I wonder the wisdom of making this public investment. They may tend to develop in underperforming commercial strips and vacant big box parcels. But by and large, this is not where the moms and pops were that they displaced. I'm referring to the traditional urban shopping corridors that end up vacant, in exchange for sites that are largely on the outskirts of a city, if within city limits at all, and more probably, are in an exurban location. Like you, I don't prefer to see Walmart in the middle of a dense, urban neighborhood, but I also don't prefer to see the business corridors within the city to remain vacant or to increase the transportation burden for city residents to access retail.

The apartments directly over Corner Alley are the Euclid Park Apartments, part of MRN's East 4th developments, and they're getting built out as we speak. Nice units. I looked at a one-bedroom on the second floor, app. 750 sq. ft. for $850. You can get additonal information from the leasing office on East 4th next to Pickwick & Frolic. The apartments above Bang and Clatter are the WT Grant Lofts. I think they are pretty similarly priced, and I believe there is leasing info available on the front door. The best thing to do for an apartment search in this area is to get out and walk around. Most buildings either have an on-site leasing office with regular hours or posted contact information.

You're right ... I do feel the need to fight your analysis. I try to stop ... must ... keep ... going. No, must really stop. I agree that we tend to aggrandize mom and pop, but by the same token, I think you are undercutting their potential economic value in the community: 1. Owned primarily by individuals living and working directly in the community. More likely to be moved by social factors than a large remote corporation, unless the large remote corporation can show an immediate or near-immediate benefit to shareholders for addressing said social factor. An assumption on my part, but I believe Walmart is more likely to build on a greenfield than a mom and pop, less likely to renovate a building to its historic condition, more likely to leave a community when its economic returns drop suddenly, more likely to leave a community for another community offering tax incentives, etc. While such firms are quite savvy in heeding local trends, I would still argue that companies run by locals are more likely to be locally responsive ... except when the PR of being locally responsive raises Walmart's bottom line. 2. Mom and pops tend to be, by definition, small operations. This encourages decentralization of goods and services and an increase in direct competition. The barriers to entry for competing against a mom and pop convenience store are considerably less than trying to compete head-on-head with Walmart. Accepting the economic dominance of Walmart when it comes to both price and diversity of product, competition is stifled and activity is centralized ... again, largely in greenfields removed from the city and leading to considerable disinvestment in existing retail infrastructure in cities and inner suburbs. 3. Decentralized mom and pop shops give consumers greater recourse to subpar treatment. Given a number of small retailers offering similar and overlapping product lines, a consumer can more easily vote with their pocketbooks. Because the hierarchy of command is so significantly simpler, a consumer can also communicate much more easily with employees and owners with authority to act than in a Walmart hierarchy. Not suggesting that there aren't clear economic benefits that Walmart provides, but I just can't buy an argument that Walmart is economically superior to communities in every sense.

Hot, hot, hot!

It's being addressed in some innovative ways, although granted, the problem is probably still larger than the response that we can deliver. Still, from everything I've read, it appears that Cleveland is actually at the forefront of developing solutions to the vacancy crisis. http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,18003.0.html http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,3936.msg395067.html#msg395067 http://neighborhoodprogress.org/uploaded_pics/reimagining_final_screen-res_file_1236290773_file_1241529460.pdf

Cleveland Public Art has posted updated pics of the Edgewater Hill Blue Birds. They look fantastic! http://www.clevelandpublicart.org/projects/completed/edgewater-hill-blue-birds

"A city perennially desperate for something to cheer about can now let loose three hip-hip-hoorays" Are you effing kidding me? What is wrong with this newspaper?!

We obviously come from substantially different political, economic and philosophical viewpoints, but I do appreciate that it seems you try to be pretty rational in your analysis. There were some interesting items in the sources you provide, although I think Walmart's self-reported average wage of $9 has been contested pretty frequently. I am willing to concede two points based on those articles: 1. That if progressives are arguing against Walmart's practices, they should be cognizant of any adverse impacts on low-income consumers ... particularly if the stat that 8 out of 10 Americans shop at a Walmart each year is accurate. 2. That if we are going to speak out against Walmart, we have to be prepared to do the same for other big-box retailers with approximately the same construction standards, labor practices and product purchase standards (i.e. whether they make purchases of goods produced in sweatshops). That means being willing to monitor and challenge practices at perennial favorite big box Target. I can't help it, I heart Target :) But their practices, on the whole, do not seem to be substantially different than Walmart, so it's probably unfair to let them escape from the blame Walmart gets, just as it's unfair for McDonald's to take the full blame for America's unhealthy diet or Starbucks to take the blame for the commodification of our neighborhood anchor locations. That being said, I still am not supportive of this business model. Even at $9/hour, a full-time worker who clocks 2,000 hours per year would not earn enough to lift a family of 3 above the 2009 poverty threshhold. Walmart is fulfilling its legal obligation by paying at or above the minimum wage, and they have no responsibility to make sure that they provide adequate funds to allow a household to be single-income, but refusal to offer a living wage does indeed have repercussions on taxpayers (even if these repercussions are less than they might be if the person was not working at all). I would welcome government financing of programs that afford workers in that kind of scenario workforce development and education opportunities. This could further incentivize people to take on a low-pay retail position and could buoy employee innovation and buy-in. Hell, I would even be willing to (cautiously) provide such a subsidy directly to a company like Walmart to develop their own workforce development program. Such a subsidy would be a fraction of the tax incentives and infrastructure expenses already offered to big boxes. Regardless, I am still of the opinion that we should be raising minimum standards for employers regarding treatment and payment of employees, as well as how they obtain their products. For instance, I have not yet seen a compelling argument for allowing the use of labor from 12-year-olds, often under the textbook elements of a "sweatshop".

I believe you're right that they have an agreement for maintenance of the existing Learning Garden set back from Chester, but I hadn't seen anything to date about this rather large-scale expansion. That would definitely make me feel better, although I would hope they have that the agreement would be pretty long-term in nature. I'm still a bit concerned about the longevity of the Tavern, given their small budget, the amount derived from private donations (which seems like it would not be very resilient in economic downturns) and what I perceive to be a disproportionate share of very old supporters. That being said, if they can pull this off, and they very well may be able to, maybe it will drive additional attention, visitation and support to them.

Just because Walmart operates within the broad legal parameters of our country does not mean that it is a desirable city resident. Even if you don't care about what their corporate model does to the built environment, to the carbon footprint of Americans, to the American workers who they prevent from unionizing or organizing for living wages, to the workers in developing countries who are being exploited for their cheap labor, you should care as a (presumably free-market) taxpayer. Central to Walmart's model is an emphasis on underpaying employees and minimizing benefits for full-time staff. It has been well-documented that the store trains workers to avail themselves of government benefit programs ... for subsidized energy, Medicaid, food stamps. I have absolutely no problem with people availing themselves of these resources when they are unable to secure work for any number of reasons; I do pause, however, when full-time workers at the nation's largest corporation are at a low enough income threshhold to tap into these same programs. One study conducted at University of California - Berkley found that California Walmart employees alone are annually collecting $86 million in public assistance. House Education and Workforce Committee research suggests that the average 200-employee Walmart costs taxpayers $400,000 in government assistance to their workers (a whopping $2,000 per employee!) (Source: Mother Jones, http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/01/america-195-week). None of this taxes into account any of the tax subsidies that the corporation itself receives, nor the public greenfield infrastructure expenditures (roads, electricity, etc.) for building these gigantic facilities in the middle of nowhere, only for them to abandon them when the next municipality's incentive comes along. If you want to be for free-market capitalism and minimal regulation in order to maximize productivity and economic output, while minimizing prices for consumers, I can agree to a point. But it seems as though we are in fact subsidizing a significant component of Walmart's EXTREMELY unsustainable model. For more information on why Walmart is hindering, not helping the United States and the world, please see: [url=http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2008/11/big-green-brother, http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2003/03/against-wal-mart, http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2007/12/woe-christmas-tree-wal-mart-buys-ornaments-chinese-sweatshop, http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2007/11/wal-mart-sues-brain-damaged-employee-reward-giving-her-health-insurance and http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2007/12/reason-4321-hate-wal-mart.

No offense whatsoever to the Dunham Tavern, but I question their ability to manage such a large section of land to the degree to which we would like to see. As of 2008, they had operating revenue of $106,697, of which only $13,600 went to salaries and wages of dedicated staff. Don't know the specifics, but by all appearances, it looks as though they are almost solely a volunteer endeavor. Unless this project would be paired with a substantial capital campaign that includes an endowment for property maintenance, or unless they are receiving considerable assistance and investment from someone like Parks and Rec or Parkworks, or unless they are realizing some public revenue as a result of the proposed psychiatric hospital, I just can't see how they can make this a reality, particularly in this economic climate. If I'm missing details here, I apologize to them for misconstruing the situation. But if I'm not, I can't see how this would be a preferred use. As hard as it might be to reactivate this complex, I don't want to see demolition if the ultimate use ends up being fallow field with a flower planting along the frontage.

I love E, but in looking at all the renderings, I'm really kind of blown away by F. It seems really iconic. I agree with X that this is not my highest priority for a pedestrian span ... for me that would go to a connection between Whiskey Island and both the West and East Banks. That being said, though it sounds high, $5.5 million is a pretty contained figure for bridge construction (pretty comparable to the $5.2 million spent on the Towpath's pedestrian spans over Granger and Warren ... and a much more sizeable component of that project was locally funded). And anything that might increase use of the beautiful but absolutely underutilized Voinovich Park, seems like it will only benefit interest in Phase 1 of the proposed Port redevelopment. Plus, it looks like the Port's "Crystal Square", which seems to be where they are gearing up to start, will be directly adjacent to the west of the finger and pedestrian bridge. Not crazy about the entire Crystal Square concept so far, but there would at least be some connectivity between the bridge and the port's land. I'm actually more worried about how the proposed covered walkway between the Science Center and the Mather might impact pedestrian traffic around Voinovich and connectivity to the Port's project.

F$&ker Riding Man's Ass Whole Way Out To Cleveland The Onion | August 28, 2009 | Issue 45•35 TWINSBURG, OH—Jesus Christ, area man Mark Hurley cannot f$&king believe this dumb sh!t who has been riding his ass all the way out to Cleveland, even though they're traveling on an empty three-lane highway. The asshole, who, for some reason refuses to just pass already, practically pulled into Hurley's backseat two hours ago, outside Toledo. "Come on!" Hurley reportedly hollered back at the goddamn lunatic, who is not only out of his mind, but apparently wants to get them both killed. "What the hell?" As of press time, oh God, you've got to be kidding, the f$&ker just turned on his high beams. http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/f$&ker_riding_mans_ass?utm_source=a-section

As for Jackson, I definitely give him props for the following: - Balancing the budget without severe cuts ... that's frankly huge. Many U.S. cities are seeing budget gaps in the double digits. - Trying to develop meaningful partnerships with other local municipalities to increase regionalism, although sadly, either these efforts have had minimal outcomes to date or I'm just under-informed about what those outcomes have been. - Focusing on developing meaningful international relationships, more than just the traditional "sister city"-type thing. - Prioritizing positioning the city as a leader in sustainability practices. - Deploying a data-driven community development strategy that targets money toward those areas of the city where it is most likely to catalyze private investment and/or to trigger revitalization. - Creating a five-year capital budget that laid out budget priorities for city investments in a comprehensive and thoughtful way. - Putting in a place a Planning Department that is slowly but surely increasing bike infrastructure throughout the city. - Initiating "broken window" strategies, like his crackdown on prostitution ... although his other policy, to round up stray cats seemed an unusual idea, given the range of challenges he could be addressing. - Being an advocate for the city's impoverished, while seemingly not alienating the city's business community. Few Cleveland mayors in recent history seem to have accomplished that. What I perceive to be his primary shortcomings: - Lack of community dialogue ... seemingly little emphasis on engaging citizens in government affairs or improving their experiences with government agencies or giving them opportunities to present new ideas or to air grievances (the obvious exceptions being the sustainability summit and the continuation of the Mayor's Action Hotline). - Major shortcomings as a spokesperson. While Campbell was often criticized as all talk and no action, I feel like we now have a mayor that's all action and no talk. I think that it's great that he's done so much substantive work, but I want to see someone who's constantly in the community exciting and energizing residents and businesses and nonprofits and someone who's drawing a lot of positive attention to the city with the suburbs, nationally and internationally. I'm not talking about grandstanding or puffery or public relations campaigns or perpetual electioneering ... but I do want someone who is galvanizing people into action, making them excited about how great this city is and engaging them in addressing its many challenges. I just don't understand why we can't have a leader with the pragmatism to get things done (shortcoming of Campbell?), the ethics to do it without scandal or constant bickering or cronyism (White?) and the ability to be a strong, vocal and visible leader (Jackson?) ... it doesn't seem like these are mutually exclusive personality traits.

With this in mind, I would really love to see a list of ordinances and resolutions that Jackson has introduced during his tenure, as well as a list of Campbell's and White's. I definitely feel like that is something that does not get a lot of attention, and such legislation, even if it's not acted upon, definitely seems to be a way that the mayor can set the tone of city government (coupled with the obvious power of being able to select the department heads, who in turn can set the tone on how government functions and how well it interacts with the citizenry). I frankly am continually disappointed with leadership in the city. By and large, I think our elected officials are adequate, but I believe very few rise above the level of adequacy, and I don't see many young leaders entertaining going into local public office in the future. I would love to see mayoral and council and commissioner candidates who promote progressive policies, are fiscally responsible, can streamline permit/application processes, generally increase citizens' positive interactions with government, increase citizens' level of awareness of Cleveland's many opportunities and amenities, and empower residents to play a more active role in improving their community. Most importantly, I want elected officials who can set a positive and hopeful tone for the city, both with residents and outside our community. I want a "Yes, We Can" attitude and a message that this city is changing and changing for the better and changing with every potential resident as an innovator in this process. One of the things I would love to do would be to establish a PAC for local elected offices that would promote young progressive candidates and reward candidates that talk from an inspirational position. I would love to target students in high schools, local colleges and, of course, all of us urban nerds and from a variety of backgrounds ... something, anything that breaks the complacency of a one-party system that doesn't seem to reward, or at the very least doesn't promote, new voices and new ideas.

It will be interesting to see how this shakes out. An argument could be made that this will encourage greater attention to preservation in communities that currently undervalue it as a revitalization strategy and will increase the capacity of developers to work on such projects statewide. It's also more likely to receive future political support and a higher likelihood of expansion of credits if funds are distributed more evenly across the state. Of course, this may be at the expense of some very promising projects in Ohio's larger cities; for a number of reasons, urban centers tended to be the main winners of the awards, with Cleveland leading the pack by leaps and bounds. The point system here, as a result, has a definite pro-rural, pro-exurban bent. That being said, some of this might be offset by the economic impact points. If the technical expertise to carry out these projects is greater in the cities where they've already been awarded, those areas are probably going to continue to submit proposals with more secured funding, more promise of permanent jobs, more LEED attention, faster completion, etc. They may also benefit from lots of potential projects being near a university or a hospital or within an impoverished census tract. The poverty scale, however, presents some interesting questions. If they are using 2000 U.S. Census estimates, my understanding is that the Census tends to undercount individuals in group housing (including dormitories, correctional facilities, homeless shelters, etc.). If that's true, then downtown estimates would largely be based on the influx of higher income individuals, and the 3 Cs' city centers would be at a disadvantage for "poverty points", despite their obvious roles as providers of social services for low-income groups. This would be an absolute shame, given the number of downtown properties ripe for preservation efforts in our larger cities. Overall, I find this depressing as a Clevelander. For a project from Cleveland to garner a tax credit, it needs to make up an immediate gap of 16 points over most rural towns and exurbs. That means it needs to score 20% better than such projects within the Economic Impact section, which seems a big feat. Over time, this hurdle may lessen, as more municipalities across the state receive credits, and the regional distribution scoring starts to even out. I think some are going to sneak through from Cleveland and Cincy, just based on the strong technical expertise and size of efforts in those cities. But I would anticipate we'll see a lot of very worthy projects miss out, and the cities are more or less being punished for their ability to carry out this type of project and the volume of available properties and developers interested in preservation. Ugh.

What does the regional distribution section mean? - A project within the city of Cleveland will receive 3 of 20 points. The maximum total score that a Cleveland applicant can receive is 83. - A Cincinnati project will receive 7 of 20 points, with a maximum total score of 87. - In Columbus, you would receive 17 of 20 points, with a maximum score of 97. - If you apply for a project in Ashtabula, you automatically receive 19 of 20 points, with a maximum score of 99 (no project in the state can get 100, as no economic region qualifies for the full 6 points).

As for the regional distribution points: - Up to 6 points based on the number of Ohio preservation tax credits previously distributed in your ODOD Economic Development Region, with preference given to regions with fewer previous tax credits. There are 12 such regions in the state. - Up to 7 points based on the number of Ohio preservation tax credits previously distributed in your municipality or township, with preference given to jurisdictions with fewer previous tax credits. If no previous projects have taken place in your municipality, you automatically receive the full 7 points. - Up to 7 points based on previous per capita tax credits awarded within your county. This is the number of previous tax credits received divided by the 2000 census estimate of the population for your county.

Economic impact includes: - Whether financing is secured (up to 10 points). - The amount of leverage beyond threshhold requirements (10) - The number of non-construction permanent jobs projected (10) - The length until completion, with preference given to projects that can be completed within two years (10) - The square footage of the rehabilitation, with preference given to larger projects (10) - The multiplier effect, which basically gives preference to commercial projects followed by retail/hotel followed by residential followed by institutional (5) - The percent of square footage that was previously vacant (5) - Certification that the project will achieve LEED standards (you either get 5 or 0 here) - Whether a municipal strategic plan is in place for the neighborhood where the rehab is to occur, with preference given to projects that are specifically named in that plan and plans that are 3 years old or younger (5) - The poverty level of the census tract within which the property is located, with preference given to projects in more economically distressed areas (5) - Whether the property is within one mile of a four-year university, public hospital or nonprofit research center not owned by a hospital or university (either 5 or 0).

So I took a look at the redistributive portion of the scoring formula: http://development.ohio.gov/cms/uploadedfiles/Urban_Development/Ohio_Historic_Preservation_Tax_Credit/Round%203%20Criteria%20Summary%20and%20Self%20Scoring%20Document%20-%20Ohio%20Historic%20Preservation%20Tax%20Credit%20Program%20-%20June%202009.xls. It appears that 20 of 100 points is "regional balance", while the remaining 80 are "economic impact". Going to break this into a couple of posts so it's a little more readable ... There's a lot of material here, but I think this is interesting material and is worth a little review and debate.

An old thread resurrected :) Does anyone know of a good laundry service? I (finally) found an apartment, but there is (very) unfortunately no onsite laundry machines. Because I'm car-free, I'm looking for something in downtown or close proximity ... preferably something between E. 40th and the Warehouse District. I'm going to be in the east 30s, so the east side of downtown would be great. Just to clarify, looking for a good-quality drop-off laundry service or a non-sketchy laundromat with decent hours. This is for all my laundry needs, so a dry cleaner is unfortunately not sufficient unless they do washing and drying too. Thanks :)

Point taken, but cities are not a recent development in human history. The United States might have been founded as an initially agrarian society, but cities have existed for at least 3,000 years, some quite large; ancient census work suggests that Rome had a population of approximately 1,000,000 residents as early as 2000 years ago.

According to School Digger, the student teacher ratio is 16.3:1.

Wish them the best of luck with the probate appeal ... This seems like it would definitely increase the likelihood that they will be able to proceed. I'm so proud that we have an art museum that can draw $15 MILLION off the INTEREST of trust funds EXCLUSIVELY for the purchase of art EACH YEAR. That is not including any other unrestricted endowment funds or their annual revenue intake. There is definitely a reason that this is a world-renowned institution, folks. Cha-ching. Yay Cleve!

They received a standardized incentive to move in. While that might not be available to a company that's been here 100 years (unless they are expanding their real estate holdings or adding employees or doing a green retrofit or opening a storeroom in the Design District or reclaiming vacant land or reclaiming a brownfield ... any number of expansion or improvement activities), it is available to any company of a minimum number of employees (IIRC, 15 in some cases, 5 in others). It doesn't appear to me that the incentives they were offered were any greater than for any other relocating firm. And I don't think it would matter if they were moving to a different suburb or to Phoenix or to Ottawa ... I think just about any firm will inquire about relocation incentives; if such incentives are almost universally available throughout developed countries, why would they NOT at least investigate those possibilities. All of that being said, I do think a case can be made that the mere presence of such incentives, particularly if they're disproportionate to those offered in the suburbs, could be considered poaching. But as so many have indicated, in a region with stagnant population and an abundance of site options, location near the city core is better for the region (and likely better for the firm) than dispersed suburban campuses spread over an 18-county or 7-county footprint.