8ShadesofGray

Question about the ownership structure. If I understand correctly, MMPI owns the center for a period of 20 years, after which ownership is relinguished. In this arrangement, does ownership return to the city or to the county?

Wow. What a nice treatment. This article actually makes me want to get together some people and do something like this. For Sale: The $100 House By TOBY BARLOW, New York Times March 7, 2009 RECENTLY, at a dinner party, a friend mentioned that he’d never seen so many outsiders moving into town. This struck me as a highly suspect statement. After all, we were talking about Detroit, home of corrupt former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, beleaguered General Motors and the 0-16 Lions. Compared with other cities’ buzzing, glittering skylines, ours sits largely abandoned, like some hulking beehive devastated by colony collapse. Who on earth would move here? Then again, I myself had moved to Detroit, from Brooklyn. For $100,000, I bought a town house that sits downtown in the largest and arguably the most beautiful Mies van der Rohe development ever built, an island of perfect modernism forgotten by the rest of the world ... ... For more information, please visit http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/opinion/08barlow.html

Cleveland-area homes can be yours for $1 each -- 133 of them, at least Shaheen Samavati, Plain Dealer Reporter How low can real estate prices go? In some cases, a buck. Banks and mortgage companies that repossess homes are selling off the vacant, often neglected properties at unprecedented prices across Northeast Ohio. The cheapest are in Cleveland and East Cleveland, where at least 1,400 homes were snapped up for $1,000 or less in 2008 -- 133 for only a dollar, according to county records ... ... For more information, please visit http://blog.cleveland.com/business/2009/03/have_a_dollar_you_can_a_house.html

Since so much of the current discussion of the housing market right now is so dour and depressing, I wanted to start a thread dedicated to the potential opportunities that could grow out of it, particularly for cities in Ohio and for industrial cities. I need my silver lining, damn it! :-)

OMG ... I actually like a PD editorial. How perplexing! ;) Save a Cleveland State University program that is trying to save the state Editorial Wednesday, March 04, 2009 A state struggling to boost its economy, promote regionalism and create fairer taxation systems can't afford to lose one of its best and brightest think tanks. Yet that is what Gov. Ted Strickland and Chancellor Eric Fingerhut propose in taking an eraser to the $5.2 million annual budget line for Ohio's Urban University Program ... ... For more information, please visit http://www.cleveland.com/editorials/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/opinion/1236159168204820.xml&coll=2

Several of my fellow Fellows are saying they want to visit Cleveland now (I'm doing my own "I Love Cleveland" campaign in Germany :) ), and one from New York says she's been wanting to get to Cleveland for some time now, specifically to check out the food scene. So the buzz is increasingly out there. And regarding a culinary district, has anyone checked out The Strip in Pittsburgh (http://www.neighborsinthestrip.com/). A great example of the type of spinoff from a market area that several people have mentioned. Given our increasing foodie reputation, I'm really surprised more hasn't happened with this.

I don't think $785 is totally unreasonable, but it seems a bit steep for the base price for a one-bedroom (with two-bedrooms starting at $1225). At least for me.

Awesome! Please do take pics! And if you get updated price info, let me know. Might be interested in something there but don't know about $785 a month :-o

Yeah, I agree, cuts must be made, but it's a real shame. These programs have helped create a palpable shift in policy priorities in the last several years. When I moved to Ohio in 2003, there was so little discussion of sustainable design or community-supported agriculture or biking infrastructure or (fill in the blank with a progressive policy consideration). These urban affairs programs are producing a new vision for our state and its cities. I would imagine a pretty considerable chunk of Urban Ohioers have gone through one of these urban affairs programs or a sister program in architecture, etc. And I wouldn't be as upset about the cut if not for Fingerhut's quote that "we know that these programs have value, but it is a statement of prioritization at this time". Just like C-Dawg indicated, this seems to be EXACTLY the time when we need to make community-wide dissemination of urban best practices and churning out new urban leaders a priority.

Cleveland State University tries to head off budget cuts Janet Okoben Plain Dealer Reporter February 26, 2009 Cleveland State University officials are working to block state budget cuts that they say will cripple critical research at the Levin College of Urban Affairs. Gov.Ted Strickland's proposed two-year state budget, currently making its way through the state legislature, would cut out $5 million a year for the Urban University Programs. CSU, which partners with other universities through the program, is the biggest beneficiary of the state funding at $1.6 million annually ... ... For more information, please visit http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/02/cleveland_state_university_tri.html

The governor's current budget proposal cuts $5 million in funding from the Ohio Urban University Program (http://urban.csuohio.edu/uup/). This collaboration of urban affairs programs at Ohio public universities works to coordinate economic development efforts in Ohio's urban communities and to disseminate research and best practices about urban policy. The funding cut impacts Cleveland State University, Kent State, Ohio State, University of Akron, University of Cincinnati, University of Toledo, Wright State and Youngstown State. If you're so inclined, please consider contacting state officials to let them know how important this program, as well as urban affairs programs in general, are to the future of our state. Governor Strickland http://governor.ohio.gov/Assistance/ContacttheGovernor/tabid/150/Default.aspx Chancellor Fingerhut 614.466.0887 Speaker of the House Budish [email protected] Your Representative http://www.house.state.oh.us/index.php?option=com_displaymembers&Itemid=58 Senate President Harris [email protected] Your Senator http://www.senate.state.oh.us/senators/index.html

Thanks again!

Thanks! Tried to find it elsewhere in the thread and on K&D's site, but alas, nothing. Have they set up a leasing office yet?

McCleveland (or anyone else), do you have a more definitive date on when the first units will be ready for move-in? Will be moving back to the Cleve in June and might be interested if it's July or August but probably not if it ends up being September or October. Thanks!

Congratulations and best of luck! We'll definitely miss all your in-depth coverage of developments in and around Cleveland but looking forward to seeing Ohio get on board ;)

I don't particularly like football, and I still loved Go Tigers! Very good! I love, love, love documentaries, particularly social policy stuff. So here's a big looong list. A great resource for Ohio documentaries is naturally Ohio film festivals. Not to play favorites (PLUG! PLUG! PLUG!), but the Cleveland International Film Festival has a really well-developed documentary film section, and numerous social issue documentaries also show up in the Greg Gund "Standing Up" section. Local stuff usually also shows up in the Local Heroes section. Usually something from Ohio in there. This year, you have a whole lotta Ohio documentaries to catch ... An Alternative to Slitting Your Wrist (Cleveland), The End (of the World as We Knew It) (Cleveland), Not Your Typical Big Foot Movie (Portsmouth), Poly Cultures: Food Where We Live (Cleveland) and They Killed Sister Dorothy (Dayton). So consider visiting the Cleveland International Film Festival, March 19 - March 29, www.clevelandfilm.org :-D Otherwise, here are some of my favorite Ohio ones: American Blackout. Disenfranchisement of African Americans in 2000 in Florida and 2004 in Ohio. Brilliant. Will make your skin crawl. And some lovely footage of the late Congresswoman Tubbs Jones that will make you proud that she was fighting the good fight for Ohio. One of my absolute favorites. So Goes the Nation. How Republicans took Ohio in 2004 and Ohio's historic role as a bellwether state. No Umbrella. Local filmmaker Laura Paglin's look at voting irregularities in one Cleveland polling site. Crazy, crazy lines. One of the late Fannie Lewis's shining moments. Swing State. Jason Zone Fisher looks at the 2006 Ohio gubernatorial race from the inside. What an election is like for a candidate's family. Really cute. Flag Wars. A really thoughtful look at both sides of the gentrification of a Columbus neighborhood. Perspectives from existing residents (primarily African American) and in-migrants (primarily gay). Real Low Calorie Diet. Low-budget production from the New Agrarian Center. Really nice look at the grassroots local food movement forming in Cleveland. Some beautiful footage, even if it is low-budget. And then my "must-see" non-Ohio ones. For starts, there are all the really high-visibility ones from Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me, and also check out his show 30 Days ... it's great ... and the 1st episode is about living on minimum wage in Columbus) and Michael Moore (I find Roger and Me particularly good), as well as the enviro-hits An Inconvenient Truth and The 11th Hour. Then you have: Dark Dayz. My favorite documentary of all time. This is absolutely amazing, all the more so because no one who worked on it had ever made a film before. Make sure to watch all the extras. How and why the film was put together are equally fascinating to the actually film. An examination of the lives of homeless people living in abandoned subway tunnels in NYC. Born into Brothels. Close runner-up in the favorite documentary columns. How a photographer tries to lift a group of children out of the poverty of the brothels of Calcutta. Also check out the cinematographer's work in the new "Project Kashmir". The Thin Blue Line. Total classic about police corruption (I believe in Texas). An example of a documentary that catalyzed a shift in public policy. 7 Up. Another classic. Actually a series of (to date) seven films. Filmmaker chronicled the lives of British 7-year-olds from vastly different backgrounds and different education systems and checks back in with them with a new film every seven years. The last one was 49 Up in 2005 ... you can basically see footage of 42 years of people's lives. It's crazy. Space them out ... can be a little overwhelming to watch them all together since they recycle footage. The Corporation. A really long documentary about the corporate form. This sounds like the most boring thing ever imagined, right? Actually, it's pretty fascinating, and by the end, they've made a pretty compelling case of how corporations are damaging the modern world. Street Fight. Brutal mayoral race in Camden, NJ. Awesome. See How They Run. Not quite as brutal but still pretty fascinating, this time on a mayoral race in San Francisco. Deadline. Pretty amazing. Governor Ryan's ultimate decision to place a moratorium on the death penalty in Illinois. Capturing the Friedmans. Really disturbing look at the destruction of a family from both the inside and the outside. Warning ... big old focus on pedophilia. An Unreasonable Man. An awesome retrospective on Ralph Nader. Spellbound. For something a bit lighter but still a pretty interesting look at American children from a variety of different socioeconomic backgrounds.

And a link to the video! :) Good work. I miss Tyler and the rest of the hood :(

^ I could totally be reading the numbers incorrectly. I'm using the list of data that the PD has provided (http://www.cleveland.com/datacentral/index.ssf/2009/02/ohio_has_received_billions_in.html). There, it lists "Total project cost" at $10,500,000 for Marous' work at CPT and "Estimated stimulus amount" at $200,000. I had guessed that this second amount was the request amount, since no decisions about the stimulus disbursement have been made yet. But that could be a total misread on my part.

^^ It appears to me like Gordon Square is only requesting $6.5 million in stimulus funds ... $1.5 million toward the overall $30 million project, $5 million of an app. $7.8 million parking garage. Then Marous Brothers is requesting an additional $200,000 toward the CPT part of the project. I haven't heard anything about the parking garage ... I thought it was all surface parking expansion! This would be a garage adjacent to the theater and would include secure bike parking and spaces for car-share, according to the stimulus application summary.

Gordon Square also just put up an updated newsletter on their website ... http://gordonsquare.org/newsletters/GSAD_Enewsletter_issue6.pdf. According to the update, underground street work should now be complete. Sidewalk widening and removal of utility poles is scheduled for late March. There's no end-date for the streetscape improvement, public art elements or new bus shelters, but the streetscape project is apparently app. 25% done. Meanwhile, work in the Capitol is more than 50% complete, including replacement of the roof and the HVAC system and most of the work on the two smaller theaters (and some framing elsewhere in the building). They are scheduled for an October "gala opening". Work has not begun on CPT or NWT and does not sound like it will until full funding is secured ... they've apparently passed the halfway point of their $30 million goal, but it's unclear how close they are. The newsletter also mentions that Joy Roller will be focusing more of her time on securing federal funding, which I guess explains the above request.

You closed with my quote, MayDay! Nice set! Ich vermisse das Cleve.

Fair enough. But I dispute the accuracy of Detroit-Shoreway being "one of the grittier West Side neighborhoods" and terms like "cold-cocked communities" and "eyesores" seems a bit overreaching, too. Probably just a matter of taste, but the writing strikes me as way hyperbolic.

Who is Christopher Evans? Did Dick Feagler sneak back into the PD with novelty glasses and a fake beard? It's a really nice story, and I'm glad they ran it, and I'm glad Evans is excited about it. But it's dripping with put-downs.

Anyone have a status update on the progress of the streetscape or the theater? Having trouble finding anything current on the Gordon Square website. Thanks.

BatGirl? Haha. I fancy myself more of a Catwoman. Dicks. :-D I won't be back until June, but I won't be applying b/c a) I don't really have a serious body of work and b) since I will be at least somewhat involved in the grant management process, it would be a major conflict of interests :) But still glad to see this kind of investment ... I know their are some reservations about these programs, but I can say that the city is gaining a lot of positive national attention from them in the art world.