8ShadesofGray

Blinker, do you know if the $20 million total includes the preservation tax credit that Detroit Shoreway is seeking from the state?

This came across to Colectivo members over our listserv. Thought it would be of general interest to the forumers ... such a great idea: Quick Facts about the Great Lakes Urban Exchange (GLUE) A Project of the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program and Great Lakes Economic Initiative What is GLUE? Much has been said about the future of the Great Lakes region by academics and traditional stakeholders in public policy. Yet rarely have 18-40 year olds, the target of scores of 'brain drain' research and attraction and retention efforts, been asked as a demographic what they envision, or how their day-to-day experiences in "declining" post-industrial cities inform that vision. GLUE, founded by two newly returned, twenty-something Great Lakes residents, is a multi-media documentary, networking, and creative research effort to do just that ...

:clap:

As with all people relocating, I'd recommend reviewing the other relocation threads for additional details, checking out www.livecleveland.org and www.downtown-digs.com and planning a trip before your move to scope out the neighborhoods. Cleveland is a city of very distinct neighborhoods, so you actually have several walkable neighborhoods with access to basics. From the sounds of it, though, I would look primarily downtown (which itself has distinctive neighborhoods ... check out the Warehouse District, E. 4th/Gateway, Theatre District and the Quadrangle) and Ohio City, the walkable, trendy and adorable neighborhood immediately to the west of downtown. Tremont is another option ... immediately south of downtown, it is walkable, DEFINITELY trendy and is home to a number of restaurants, galleries, etc., though no full-service grocery (yet). It is served by public transportation routes that will take you downtown but not by the convenient trains that service Ohio City and other Cleveland neighborhoods. Definitely worth a look. If you're interested in nice neighborhoods that are a little "grittier", a number of forumers live in both Detroit Shoreway (west of Ohio City) and Asiatown (immediately east of downtown). Both have a lot of buzz about them right now, and both have access to groceries, restaurants, etc. Further away from downtown, you have the fairly walkable Edgewater and the VERY walkable Shaker Square, Larchmere & Buckeye area. You also have a lot of new residential options popping up in University Circle, Cleveland's arts and culture organization/hospital/college hub ... reputedly, University Circle has more cultural institutions than any other square mile in the nation. The Little Italy area of University Circle is VERY walkable and pretty trendy, with a large student population, as well as the traditional Italian population living there. While any of these neighborhoods might be a nice fit for you, they're not that close to downtown. That being said, all of them are pretty well-connected and could provide you access to downtown in about 15-20 mins. There's lots of people on the forum who will be willing to help you narrow down these choices, and the advice so far recommending downtown is solid. Just wanted you to know that Cleveland has a LOT of different neighborhoods with very distinct personalities. I promise ... we've got one for you.

$650 a month for the low end?! That's pretty crazy! Not to say it's unheard of in Cleveland ... I recall a discussion a while back about the ridiculously high fees at Moreland Towers. But the price of ownership was also insanely low, which I imagine offsets this a bit.

I agree that agribusiness trends have pushed up the environmental impacts of consuming meat, but even underlying this, it generally takes more energy to produce meat than produce because a) livestock generally takes longer to develop than produce and b) raising livestock also requires the production of grains, etc. to feed animals during their development. I think you would be hard-pressed to develop a model of producing meat products that required less or equal production energy than producing produce, even on a local farm. Moreover, there has been some questioning as to whether increased meat consumption worldwide have led to more pronounced methane levels in the atmosphere. That being said, I agree, purchasing food from local vendors and food that is organic and requires less production energy devoted to preservatives and additives goes a long way toward advancing sustainability. And good points about increasing crop yields by reusing manure.

A September PD article (http://blog.cleveland.com/pdextra/2007/09/bang_and_the_clatter_theatre_c.html) actually said they would be opening the Cleveland space with a show running Feb. 1 through March 1. Maybe they're skipping this first show. According to the article, the second show would run March 14 through April 12, part of an 8-show series between now and the end of 2008.

Westown is actually the surrounding neighborhood, not just the strip mall. It includes a pretty intact historic commercial strip between around W. 105th. The CDC is doing some interesting things there, including trying to restore the Variety Theater. And they do have a pretty wide selection of ethnic restaurants. That being said, I'm not sure that they're necessarily the first place I think of when I think of directing tourists around the city, at least not when Detroit Shoreway isn't even making the list (but residents, yeah, go check them out ... it's an interesting enough neighborhood, definitely with some good food options). Not sure how the neighborhoods on the list were selected, but Detroit Shoreway definitely seems more "tourist-ready" than many of the listed emerging neighborhoods.

^ Don't get me wrong ... I'm an all-out meat addict, without a doubt (in my two times at Market Cafe, I've already had "three" meaty sandwiches. But in the larger global context, maybe I shouldn't be. From the August 2004 USA Today Article "Global impact of meat consumption": Deforestation and grassland destruction, The world's appetite for meat is razing forests at an accelerating rate. In Central America, 40% of all the rainforests have been cleared or burned down in the last 40 years, mostly for cattle pasture. In the process, natural ecosystems, where a variety of plant and animal species thrive, are destroyed and replaced with monoculture grass. Fresh water. Water experts calculate that humans are consuming half of the available fresh water on the planet--leaving the other half to be divided among 1,000,000 or more species. Producing eight ounces of beef requires 25,000 liters of water. Water disposal. Waste from livestock production exceeds the capacity of the planet to absorb it. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that livestock waste has polluted more than 27,000 miles of rivers. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1272/is_2711_133/ai_n6148291

Cuyahoga Arts and Culture prepares to distribute cigarette tax funds Wednesday, December 05, 2007 Karen Sandstrom, Plain Dealer Reporter Cuyahoga Arts and Culture will distribute $15 million to nonprofit arts and cultural organizations in each of the next three years. Officials for the agency, which was created to administer the cigarette tax approved by Cuyahoga County voters last year, say they expect the tax will draw $19 million this year and next year and about $17.5 million in 2009 ... More at http://www.cleveland.com/plaindealer/stories/index.ssf?/base/entertainment-0/1196847437226460.xml&coll=2

I quite honestly don't know if I've ever seen a worse research methodology in my life ... This is the kind of thing that could keep a graduate student from passing their capstone/exit project/thesis. Quite clearly in the report, they indicate that sites were chosen by the author based pretty exclusively based on his 30 years of real estate experience, supplemented with web searches. He also argues at one point that walkability is being encouraged as much in suburban greenfields through mixed-use lifestyle centers as in city centers. In some metros, he lists entire cities as being walkable (such as in the Miami metro, citing Ft. Lauderdale in its entirety as a "walkable suburban town center". Really?! Riverwalk? Maybe. The city at large? Outside of the small downtown, one of the least pedestrian-oriented places I've ever visited.). It should also be noted that he cited only one walkable neighborhood in 8 of 30 metropolitan areas; these 8, then, were ranked solely based on their metropolitan population. Cleveland's large population (being the largest of the eight) is what led us to be ranked so poorly. For Cleveland, I can only imagine that the strange caveat that only neighborhoods that required no development subsidies be included worked against us ... hope no one tells him about UCI, Cleveland Foundation, Charter One, etc. in the "Uptown" area. Seriously, boo this man.

It looks as though crime is actually higher across the street and next door (@ Bounce) than in the block where Linda's Superette is ... not disputing that that place is horrible; it is. Also, I'd note that the area around Dave's looks to have a relatively high incidence of crime (with 7).

But the Commissioners' race is staggered, with Jones the only one running for re-election this year. That being said ... yeah, Dimora and Hagan may face some opposition in upcoming years.

IIRC, he has a development option on the parcel, which he could avail himself of if the Avenue District takes off and it's feasible to do a fourth phase. I don't believe he owns the parcel outright, though.

Tour sites vary from tour to tour, but it's typically a pretty thorough overview of developments on the Near West Side, Near East Side and downtown. The tour also gives participants access to community leaders working on these projects. Past sites have included Gordon Square, Battery Park, Gospel Press, Tink Holl, the Avenue District, etc. It's a bus tour, but there are a number of opportunities to get out and check things out up close and personal. Check out www.emergingcleveland.com for more information.

True ... though if the one-stop center is in Chagrin Falls and the homeless are living in the Quadrangle, it's still quite a time commitment. Not to mention the scale of a one-stop center I'm sure would have the NIMBYs outraged ... particularly when they're so reluctant to even support subsidized housing, let alone services for the homeless ... and particularly when cities like Bay Village get outraged over expansion of a senior community facility. Can't imagine what those folks would say if you tried to throw up a social service center. Dick Feagler would likely have to move to Sandusky.

Market Cafe is adorable. Reminded me of a Whole Foods without the groceries. My chicken quesadilla was a tad bland for my taste (but not at all bad for an organic quesadilla ... not their fault that my parents developed my quesadilla palette with Taco Bell) and my Italian Panini was absolutely yummy ... I already want another one! The menu did seem a little meat-heavy (although they did have a decent selection of salads), with lots of burgers, pizzas, etc. They have some nice signage explaining their commitment to sustainability (local produce, low-carbon food service, green build-out, etc.) and the place has a really nice aesthetic to it ... definitely will serve a nice double as an evening wine bar, if they can draw a substantial enough crowd to maintain their current hours (I believe it's 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. right now ... don't quote me on that, though). Definitely check it out!

I agree that municipalities throughout the region should share the burden of caring for the poor. But in dealing with homeless populations, it's helpful to have resources in relatively close proximity, as these people have very limited disposable income and often don't have access to reliable transportation ... not to mention the time burden of having to go all over the county, potentially by bus, to access shelter, food, healthcare, job training, etc.

For one thing, neither the QuARTer effort nor the District of Design are based primarily in Midtown. The QuARTer isn't in Midtown at all ... it's inside the downtown Quadrangle district and the St. Clair Superior service area. The District of Design is largely in the downtown Theater, Financial, Civic and Quadrangle districts and the St. Clair Superior Service area, with a relatively small sliver (about E. 26th to E. 36th between Euclid and Payne) in Midtown.

^ Particularly as individuals less familiar with the "other side of Tremont" might question the safety of that neighborhood and would be reluctant to walk under the overpass from the W. 14th side.

Definitely a good point. But trying to figure out how this site will work in light of trying to shift the homeless away from nearby Public Square and with additional regulations preventing them from loitering on the mall and in front of the Convention Center. And while on the weekends there isn't a lot of traffic over here, I could see a worker outcry if the homeless start congregating around the Justice Center, the Old Court House and the County Admin building during working hours. It seems like we're placing more and more restrictions on where homeless people can congregate, but none of this is really addressing the underlying need for extension of coordinated services in some central, easy-to-access location. That is the solution that needs to come. Is anyone working on this? In TOTAL agreement, but it seems like there is a lack of willpower and resources moving this plan forward. I remember hearing about efforts around such a facility, with additional "one-stop shop" services about 3 years ago but have yet to see anything concrete come from those meetings, other than relocation and modernization of Mental Health Services, which I think was already in motion before these discussions.

Noticed a lot of work going on in front of the complex fronting Superior. Is that sidewalk repair? Looked like it was possibly both streetscape improvement and some kind of work on the building facade, but I could be wrong. Glad to see this work continues to be progressing at a steady pace. Out of curiosity, why didn't Graystone pursue a state historic preservation tax credit? As an aside, everyone should go check out The Factory. I was pleasantly surprised by how it's set up ... reminded me of Little Bar in the Warehouse District, though I'm not sure why, particularly as it's a rather "big bar". Very nice set-up, well-lit, modern computerized juke boxes ... but still with a watering hole feel to it. I heart it.

They overlap. If I recall correctly, The QuARTer stretches from Payne to St. Clair between E. 17th and E. 40th. The design district, I believe runs from E. 9th (or maybe E. 12th) to E. 36th and from Euclid to the lake. I could be a little off on these boundaries, but I believe the main gap is that the District of Design doesn't cover the live-work stretch along E. 40th between Superior and Chester and possibly not all of Tyler Village.

I haven't heard a word in months. Of course, this could be due to the changing real estate market along Euclid Corridor ... waiting to see which buildings get preservation tax credits from the state, which get funds through the city's "First Five" program, etc.

Nothing's wrong with it, per se, except that if the underriding issue is a public health concern around vermin, moving them to an outdoor site without restrooms, etc. (as other posters noted) doesn't really address the issue ... it just leads the rats to pack their suitcases and head two blocks to the northeast.