8ShadesofGray

^ I was @ a party pretty much next door this weekend and they did look REALLY sharp. With any luck, once the market rebounds a little, the adjacent parcel will go quickly ... it really is a prime space.

1. I believe that's architect Robert Maschke's self-designed home that is the first big example of residential opportunities that are developing because of the proposed conversion of the shoreway into a boulevard. Someone else may have additional info on this. 2. I believe that is part of the "Big Italy" neighborhood and has historically been an Italian enclave. Again, someone else might have more specifics.

My all-too-appropriate horoscope from The Onion last week: Aries March 21 - April 19 The sight of well-manicured lawns, new and colorful homes, and friendly pedestrians can only mean one thing: You've wandered onto the wrong side of the tracks. http://www.theonion.com/content/horoscope/oct-16-2007

I think it's interesting that French figures so prominently in U.S. foreign language education. In a lot of high schools, I think French serves as the main alternative to Spanish, with German and Latin sometimes offered as additional choices (and other languages generally only available in particularly large or well-funded schools). And while I'm glad to have taken several years of French, it seems less practical than Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin, Russian, etc. when looking at immigration trends in the U.S., and prevalence of languages worldwide, particulary as French dialects in Central America and Africa differ so much from in France that I probably wouldn't be able to understand someone from Cote d'Ivoire or Haiti anyway.

Anyone know where to buy these $1 properties? That's pretty crazy. I know land bank properties go for incredibly cheap, but I was thinking in that circumstance, even vacant lots were going for $100.

I'm glad that people are being proactive about addressing houses that are in disrepair, but I wish there was a more comprehensive strategy than to bulldoze and make bigger yards. I would love to see prioritization for bulldozing in areas of contiguous vacancies and then planning to create a relatively low-cost community asset (a simple park or a community garden, for instance). I'd also like to see some strategy about reclamation of materials for use in new construction locally (and potentially selling materials to new developments outside of the region if it could viably result in a new revenue source for local municipalities). Finally, I'd love to see some more robust strategies to market "in-between properties" (those that are not uninhabitable but that are not generally going to sell very easily on the private market) to specific niches of buyers who might be interested in an "extreme makeover" investment, particularly to individuals who are not solely dependent on employment opportunities when choosing to relocate. Paducah offers an interesting model. The central Kentucky town of about 28,000 has been marketing "in-between properties" in the Lower Town District (think block after block of Ohio City turn-of-the century houses in pretty bad states of disrepair) to artists. The town's planning department increased pressures on absentee landlords (mainly through zoning restrictions, though I don't know the specifics of these examples) and then has been marketing the incredibly affordable properties to artists and providing relocating artists with $2,500 architectural planning grants. Since the program launched about 5 years ago, 100 artists from all over the country have moved to the town, renovated the houses and created a thriving arts district (http://www.paducaharts.com/). The model has been replicated in cities elsewhere, with variable degrees of success ... notably, the originator of the program has now been hired to do the same in conjunction with a university neighborhood in Syracuse, and two Pittsburgh CDCs have launched a similar program there (http://www.pennavenuearts.org/). These types of concepts take time and resources, but they result in new property tax opportunities that offset the long-term costs and also result in something more aesthetically pleasing than huge sprawling yards in urban neighborhoods. From my vantage point, we should be closely examining what new opportunities this vacant land provides us; if the municipalities lack the funding to explore innovations like this, then the foundations should take such innovations on. And ultimately, we should be collaborating with other Rust Belt cities on best practices for shrinking city models and advocating for federal funds designated specifically for this purpose.

I miss Blinker loving it on UrbanOhio and elsewhere. Sigh.

Cleveland, Cuyahoga officials consider county agency to buy vacant houses Thursday, October 25, 2007 Thomas Ott and Joe Guillen Plain Dealer Reporters Cleveland and Cuyahoga County officials want to create a countywide agency that would buy houses before they can be dumped by lenders. As envisioned, the agency would raise millions of dollars for demolition, boarding windows and cutting grass. It also could snatch homes from the clutches of speculators and give cities time to ponder redevelopment ... ... More at http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/119330572060930.xml&coll=2&thispage=1

Several of the historic renovation applicants have received notices that their applications are deficient in some way. If they do not address these deficiencies within 45 days, they are subject to being denied the tax credit. Check out the link five posts up.

It's also probably worth noting that the Commissioners are continuing to face national criticism regarding any plans to demolish the tower. The National Trust for Historic Preservation has now weighed in on the debate: http://www.gcbl.org/building/rebuilding-cities/historic-preservation/raze-or-renovate-breuer-tower/preservation-efforts-for-breuer-tower.

JMasek, has a determination been made yet regarding hours of operation for the Silver Line?

^ Lots of market research is conducted at the zip code level, but this research is remarkably more detailed, as it's done at the household level. So instead of saying "12% of people living in 4411* bought from organization X", this study gives the researchers the power to say "John Smith living at 123 Cleveland Way made three purchases from organization X's theatre series, as well as a membership to organization Y. As a result, the study actually included cross-sell models ... just like Amazon.com, these Cleveland organizations are able to score households on how likely they are to make future purchases and what they would be most interested in purchasing. So, to answer your question, the data includes everyone who pays by credit card or check or, in some cases, patrons who provide a phone number when asked (zip code won't work, but with a phone number, they can do a reverse append and capture household data). International customers wouldn't be lost in most cases.

I should also reference the study: it's "Northeast Ohio Cultural Consumer Insight Project: Phase I Findings". It was released in June by the Community Partnership for Arts and Culture, the Convention and Visitors Bureau of Greater Cleveland and Elliott Marketing Group. The full community report is available upon request ... PM me if you would like it, as it was too big to attach here.

A recent market study of 12 arts and culture organizations (Cleveland Botanical Garden, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Cleveland Play House, Cleveland Public Theatre, Great Lakes Science Center, Great Lakes Theater Festival, Opera Cleveland, Playhouse Square, Rock Hall, SPACES Gallery and Western Reserve Historical Society) found that between 2001 and 2006, the organizations collectively sold to 70,214 individual households from outside of Northeast Ohio (defined as a 13-county region). These out-of-region visitors accounted for 17% of all households making purchases and 8.4% of all sales. Top markets were Columbus (4,920 households), Pittsburgh (3,682), Sandusky (3,477), Detroit (2,296), NYC (2,283), Toledo (2,208), Chicago (2,021) and Cincy (1,953). These are households that have purchased single tickets, memberships and subscriptions from our local arts and culture organizations ... and these are just 12 arts and culture organizations out of well over 100 in Cuyahoga County alone (add on a chunk of 'em in Akron, Youngstown, Canton, etc.) ... you get the idea. While the organizations varied in the geographic pull they had for drawing in tourists, they all contributed to this number ... some contributed surprisingly high amounts (unfortunately, information about the particular organizations' numbers is proprietary). The Rock Hall is CERTAINLY not the only drawing force for cultural tourism.

I'm a tentative yes.

From Cool Cleveland, 10.24.07 Tiffany Town Getting to Know the World's Largest Tiffany Window Cleveland has been called many names over the years, however I doubt anyone has ever heard Cleveland called the above name. Believe it or not, Cleveland has the right to this name, given the number and uniqueness of Louis Comfort Tiffany windows and designs in the city. Cleveland’s home to the one of the most complete buildings ever designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany and literally scores of windows from the Tiffany Studios. Few other cities have such rich treasures ... ... More at http://coolcleveland.com/index.php?n=Main.CityScapeTiffanyTown

For a smaller bank with a lot of personalized services, credit unions often offer another take on the lending community. They're often very customer-oriented, as their missions are to provide the greatest degree of high-quality services to their members as possible. Again, though, it depends on where you live. For me, living in Asiatown, Noteworthy Federal Credit Union is a great option, as they're located close to me (1900 Superior) and their mission is to serve the arts community, particularly musicians. Among other things, for instance, they specialize in loans for musical instruments, which are often incredibly difficult to obtain through a conventional lender. Plus, they're great people. Another great organization is ShoreBank Cleveland, which uses bank deposits to make investments in community development in several east side neighborhoods. There are a lot of great mission-oriented institutions like these, and I've found that they tend to be very responsive and helpful. It basically comes down to where you're located (i.e. if you're not going to have plentiful branches/ATMs, is there an organization like this close to where you live or work?) and, for credit unions, whether you qualify as a member (typically, depending on what type of credit union it is, you either have to live or work within a certain geographic boundary or have a particular occupation, such as teacher or firefighter).

I absolutely agree ... I've heard many similar complaints, particularly as Zillow doesn't do a very good job of tracking interior improvements until a sale occurs. That being said, it does also provide an easy format for retrieving information about sales prices of homes and provides a context for national and regional prices and appreciation. If nothing else, it should help to dispel the myth that there are absolutely no properties appreciating/maintaining value in Cleveland.

^^ I would certainly echo seeking a development professional about this, although a realtor may have reason to paint a prettier picture about appreciation. That being said, I find it highly unlikely that absolutely nothing is appreciating in Cleveland. While foreclosures are a considerable issue, I doubt that they're affecting resale of higher-end properties, as these are two entirely different niche markets, with quite a big range of potential buyers between them. Although not perfectly accurate in its methodology, www.zillow.com is a good site for getting a cursory understanding of how particular houses are appreciating opposite the city, county, state and national market.

Fortunately, I haven't noticed anything in North Olmsted for a long time. Good one.

That's awesome. Yeah, 113 "next connect" signs will do a wonder for the visibility of the RTA. I would hope that in addition to along the Euclid Corridor, they will also find a home elsewhere in downtown's transit area, such as along Superior, E. 9th, E. 12th, etc.

$6.5 million over five counties or $5.9 million over three, right? Yeah, I'm not sure I understand why such a bolt would be threatening to our transportation planning, other than it might result in less informed transportation planning processes in Lorain and Medina counties. But if these counties are already suggesting that they should have carte blanche regarding their transportation planning and that there shouldn't be a regional plan that recognizes where concentrations of population in the region are, what's the difference? It would be interesting to see how much NOACA funding goes back to these two counties. That is, if NOACA receives federal and state funding to the tune of $530,000 due to Medina and Lorain counties' participation, does the agency distribute more or less than this amount to those counties' transportation projects?

Spectacular. 35 units sold or close to selling of 47, particularly with only 39 units visible, is pretty remarkable ... take that national housing slump! Anyone have an idea as to the timeline for anticipated completion of the full 300 units?

Nearly 70 arts groups approved for Issue 18 money October 18, 2007 Karen Sandstrom Plain Dealer Reporter A big chunk of money raised by Cuyahoga County's Issue 18 cigarette tax will help pay general operating expenses for 68 newly approved arts and cultural organizations for the next three years. The tax, 1.5 cents per cigarette, is expected to bring in about $17 million this year, the first year it's being collected, and perhaps less than that annually over the decade-long life of the tax as the number of cigarette consumers declines ... ... More information at http://blog.cleveland.com/reviews/2007/10/nearly_70_arts_groups_approved.html

Note how much NOACA would lose if Medina and Lorain counties walked ... I say see ya! Compromise on the table to keep NOACA whole Friday, October 19, 2007 Tom Breckenridge Plain Dealer Reporter The president of the Cuyahoga County commissioners says he's willing to talk about reforms, rather than see a five-county agency splinter in the aftermath of a controversial vote allowing a new Interstate 90 link in Avon. Lorain and Medina county commissioners say they will leave the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency unless the transportation-planning body adopts changes to how it votes ... ... More at http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1192783287289680.xml&coll=2&thispage=1