8ShadesofGray

Thanks for the pics, Mayday. Is it just me, or does the Education Building deviate slightly from the original rendering? IIRC, it was supposed to jut out quite a bit more on the southwest corner, whereas it's starting to look like it will be vertical now. That's my stop on the Health Line, so I sit and stare at it a couple times a week and wonder what happened to my striking corner, geek that I am :)

Alliance Defense Fund sues Cleveland over domestic partner registry (Cleveland) Plain Dealer August 13, 2009 CLEVELAND (AP) -- A conservative legal group is suing the city of Cleveland over its domestic partner registry, claiming it violates the state constitution. The Alliance Defense Fund says it filed the lawsuit on Wednesday on behalf of taxpayers. The alliance is also asking the court for injunctions to shut down the registry ... ... For more information, please visit http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/08/alliance_defense_fund_sues_cle_1.html

It will be interesting to see how this shapes up. I wonder how much sway the site visits will play, as all members of the Assembly worldwide get a vote, following presentations from the finalist cities at the annual meeting in Cologne (at the end of September). Good luck, Cleve! I'm already fantasizing about the pretty boy invasion in 2014. Oh and tax revenue and positive spin, too. Haha.

I believe I read somewhere (perhaps in this thread) that they are planning on saving six or seven "architecturally significant" components of the building. But it wasn't clear if that was doorknobs or an entire portion of the facade. A real shame. I believe the Podiatry Building has been slated for demolition for some time now. IIRC, for surface parking until they identify any need for new construction.

Haha. Regardless, I can't imagine that creating mechanisms that could potentially hamper development of public transit accessibility would please the national party too much. I wonder what the rationale is ... surely there has to be something to justify dedicating what appears to be very limited resources to this; otherwise, they could just keep quiet on it (if not support it, which seems to make the most sense for a Green affiliate).

The Green Party is supporting the ballot initiative?!

Not sure if they technically are open, though, just "in place". There are plastic signs up in the interiors (as of yesterday) that say "Coming Soon".

I'm not going to lie ... I'm primarily interested in the 3 Cs. And to be completely honest, I'm primarily interested in one particular C. There are topics that transcend my municipal interest, like state budget issues or rail plans or preservation credits or (particularly) anything to do with arts policy (e.g. I love all of your Dayton creative workforce stuff and have followed those off and on for years). But the fact of the matter is that I find news about Buffalo, Pittsburgh and Detroit to be more relevant to my work and interests than what's happening in Columbus or Dayton or Cincy. It's not that I don't want to see those places succeed; I just find both the challenges and strategies being employed in northeast Ohio tend to be dramatically different than elsewhere in the state, and so I do feel less affinity for specific real estate, economic development, neighborhood, etc. strategies outside of my region. That being said, I would love to see more coverage of Youngstown and Akron. To me, Youngstown's strategies represent some of the most innovative and far-reaching in terms of urban policy statewide (check out this amazing trailer to see what I mean ... Goosebumps), and yet this is generally not reflected in coverage by forumers here. http://vimeo.com/5686360

I'm hopeful that regional parity is just one criterion for scoring the project, rather than quotas for each region or recalculating after projects are scored. The Ohio Environmental Education Fund, for instance, provides additional points (I believe either 5 or 10 out of a possible 100) for projects in counties where few previous grants in the program have been made. Obviously, this makes it disproportionately harder for Cuyahoga County (and most other urban counties) to obtain the funding, but Cuyahoga County proposals that are able to score very high still have a chance for funding. Compare that to any system that would establish a quota for distribution or that "corrects" for distribution and you can see how we could get totally screwed.

Legally, I think Cleveland has every right to entice the move. Ethically (for the reasons freethink listed), I think they have every right. But pragmatically, I think it's difficult to offer this type of incentive package, not provide a revenue share and expect suburbs to do so when taking firms from Cleveland. Just as with the Avon highway exit, anything that rallies the exurban troops is likely to cost us in terms of regionalism in the future. The use of the term "techie" should alone warrant the loss of 225 IT jobs from your city.

I'm also interested in what will happen with the western wall of the building. Currently, there are one or two cutouts but it is otherwise a blank brick wall. I am wondering if plans are to retain it this way or to build in windows, put up a mural, etc. And I wonder if, given the Historic Preservation credits, they have leeway to make improvements to the exterior when a portion of the exterior was not previously visible.

Ah, my mistake. I forgot how large their frontage along St. Clair is!

I think jborger was using a little hyperbole when talking about gutting the theater. But it's true that this is not uncommon for historic theater restorations. There are strong financial reasons ... it's difficult to program a theater of that size with single films (a theater only being able to have two or three showings a night) and still make the numbers work. The basic staffing requirements, along with the utilities, etc. that go into operating a theater mean they need to make sure the theater is as full to capacity as possible. Particularly when concentrating on independent films, this would be hard to do two or three times a night every night. Breaking the theater up allows them to diversify the offerings and increase their chance of drawing crowds. For similar reasons, it's not uncommon in live theatre either ... see, for instance, the restoration of the Hanna Theater. That being said, this project, as with most theater restorations, has made every effort to retain as many historic elements of the theater as possible. Check out the photographs with the cleveland.com story, and you'll see that much of value was retained. It looks like they're doing a really nice job, and I can't wait to see this and the streetscaping done in just a few months!

I stand corrected :) I will admit, I didn't take the time to do a search to see what had been said about the Cancer Hospital. Still, and correct me if I'm wrong, I cannot recall a single time that anyone has suggested that any Cleveland Clinic or UH building didn't belong on Euclid (barring discussions of design principles associated with those buildings or demolishing existing structures to put them up). The only example of I can think of, where forumers objected to the USE rather than the DESIGN is the Clinic's massive parking garage along Chester, and the Clinic's plan to shut down Euclid to through-traffic (including the Healthline). A healthy discussion about design principles of hospitals is cool for me, but catering to the belief that it's a bad project because "psychiatric hospitals scare suburbanites" seems ridiculous. And that's not aimed at any forumer ... just a general disgust at how much we as a country stigmatize mental health services, remove it from general health insurance coverage, etc., despite the fact that not treating anxiety, depression, etc. leads to serious physical conditions that we foot the bill for later. Ugh. I digress :)

Interesting. IIRC, didn't Zaremba have an option to redevelop this portion of the parcel as a component of the Avenue District? I wonder if he gave up the option or it expired or if this a hold-over upgrade (although it seems relatively elaborate if there is even a chance that it might get further developed within the next several years).

I agree with everyone about design principles ... proper frontage along the street, properly placed (and visually minimized) parking, mixed uses, etc. And I think blinker's comments about reuse of existing building stock are spot-on. Those are all valid concerns, the really proper concerns for all of us to be having. But if we're just talking about integration into the neighborhood fabric and other urban planning concerns, then I think we should apply the same degree of rigor to reviewing every Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals project along Euclid. Definitely, I have heard people on this forum talk about poor design principles with these institutions (the Sight Center comes to mind). But I don't recall any substantial discussion about the design principles of UH's Cancer Center going up or anyone suggesting that it didn't belong on Euclid Ave. And yet we have multiple pages of discussion about the proposed psychiatric hospital being detrimental to the corridor before we see a single rendering. If it's urban design we're talking about, any number of buildings along Euclid Ave. need to be considered ... from the hospitals to the setbacks and fences around Zaremba's townhomes to the suburban-style drugstores. If we're talking about a psychiatric hospital being bad because it provides mental health services, that's a different story ... and there I would definitely challenge anyone who says the use itself is undesirable. In the end, I'm much more concerned about seeing a Planning Commission, Board of Zoning Appeals, Landmarks, Design Review Boards, etc. that have teeth and will hold property developers accountable for the planning requirements already in place than I am about subsidized housing or mental health services being on Euclid Ave. And I think that if we go to Bob Brown as citizens and say "social services like that don't belong on our storied street", the response is going to be "hey, determining use (outside of zoning requirements) is beyond our purview". If our e-mail campaign focuses on preventing needless demolitions and rejecting plans that don't live up to existing planning requirements, I think we have a much better opportunity for action.

Not that I can think of ... there was the front-page Wall Street Journal story (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123992318352327147.html), but that was actually about artists repopulating local neighborhoods and about our program From Rust Belt to Artist Belt; I don't think the fellowship program was mentioned.

Oh, and in case you're curious about the $400,000 that was recently awarded to visual, media and design artists, bios and samples of their work, as well as a brief description of the process and bios of the panelists, are available here: http://www.cpacbiz.org/ftp_file/08-09/CWFcycle1FellowBios.pdf.

Just a reminder about the program. This is a relatively big deal in the arts world; grants of this size are pretty rare. So please help us get the word out to any dancers, musicians, theatre artists or writers that you might know. They must be residents of Cuyahoga County for the past two years, 18 years of age and not currently enrolled in a degree-seeking program. Otherwise, they will be judged on the merit of their work. We have three more grant workshops coming up: Workshop 3: Saturday, August 8, 2009 9:30 a.m. - 10:30 a.m. Pilgrim Congregational Church (Tremont) 2592 West 14th Street Cleveland, Ohio 44113 Workshop 4: Monday, August 10, 2009 6:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. Cleveland Heights Public Library 2345 Lee Road Cleveland, OH 44118 Workshop 5: Saturday, August 15, 2009 9:30 a.m. - 10:30 a.m. Baldwin-Wallace College Strosacker Hall College Union, Sandstone III 120 East Grand Street Berea, OH 44017-2088

So ... anyone been down and seen it in the past week? Is it all finished? Assessments?

The comments after the article were some of the most positive I've ever seen on cleveland.com; There were still a few haters, but it was amazing how many people were on there talking up the neighborhood and suburbanites excited about coming in and exploring the city. Good times!

Article also includes several photographs. Coming soon: Restored Capitol Theatre to be a marquee player in improved Gordon Square by Clint O'Connor, (Cleveland) Plain Dealer Film Critic Sunday August 02, 2009, 12:00 AM Cinema-starved West Siders, the clock is finally ticking in your favor. In just over eight weeks, on Oct. 3, the renovated Capitol Theatre will open. Really. I've seen it. It's zipping right along toward completion. The building on West 65th Street just north of Detroit Avenue, will feature three movie theaters, a beautiful new lobby, and classy old touches mixed with high-tech equipment ... ... For more information, please visit http://www.cleveland.com/moviebuff/index.ssf/2009/08/coming_soon_restored_capitol_t.html

A rendering is available at: http://www.clevelandrows.org/pdf/CRF_July_2009_Newsletter.pdf. BTW, why is this thread in the Highways section?

Not entirely Towpath-related (should we maybe start a Canal Basin Park thread?). This isn't a huge move (I think about 0.5 miles by road ... but only because the roads curve like crazy down there :)). But it does give the Rowing Foundation a permanent home and moves it to the base of the proposed park. What's striking me as really interesting are the opportunities that are bubbling up for Canal Basin Park to be a really accessible place for multiple modes of non-car transit. Using GoogleMaps' estimates, it looks like the Rowing Foundation's proposed new site would be an 11 min. walk to Settler's Landing Station, 8 mins. to the Towpath Trailhead, 7 mins. to the W. 25th Rapid Station and 2 mins. to the Ohio City Bike Co-op. That's some pretty great connectivity there. Assuming we are ever able to get the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railway to terminate here, this little peninsula of land would be a connector to the river, lake, Towpath AND the National Park ... for bikers, hikers, rowers and kayakers. Yay Canal Basin! :) The Future of Rowing and in Cleveland The CRF Board has been searching for years for a permanent home for rowing on the Cuyahoga River and our chance is NOW! Rivergate Recreation Center, presently the Commodore’s Club site, will be the home to not only rowing but public access to the river. The vision is to incorporate dragon boats, kayaking, public art, cycling, and rowing enabling a destination for downtown recreation ... ... More at http://www.cuyahogariverrap.org/YOTRnews/CRF%20Campaign%20Brochure.pdf

It doesn't hurt to bring up with building management, but it sounds a little strange. I cannot imagine that K&D would let mold problems persist unchecked. I would also imagine that, if confirmed, this would show up in the Plain Dealer. Again, doesn't hurt to check out the story's validity, but it sounds like a smear campaign to me. Rival property owner? Union picketers? Federal agents? :)