toolivechris

I've always been miffed as to why there was no proposal to continue the Green Line Southwest to Pinecrest running alongside or under I-271. It would create a dynamic link between downtown and the lifestyle center spurring residential towers along the route. It would be a similar concept to how BART runs alongside 980 in Oakland to connect Antioch to the East and Richmond to the West with the rest of the Bay Area. I understand that there is a lot of NIMBY-ism in our region but if we can evolve past our Balkanized past we can create equity and mobility for all with a move like that. In regards to the subway, I would love the idea and take it a step further by burying the Blue and Green Lines where they enter residential neighborhoods in Shaker and Woodmere. It takes entirely too long to get from Van Aken to Downtown because of its at-grade crossings. I think its faster to drive.

Oh my goodness I was just thinking this! Seeing this ocean of surface parking gave me a mild anxiety attack! lol

Also, let us not forget that if the building can be salvaged, it is much less carbon intensive to renovate, repurpose and reposition the building for other uses than to demolish and build new. I personally would love to keep the building as it has character and contributes to a decent mixture of new and old design languages. Generic, hermetically sealed, glass towers with no regional vernacular can only take you so far.

NIMBYs gone NIMBY regardless of administrations.

I wish we had this level of dense foot traffic downtown everyday :(

It’s greenwashing

If the stadium were to be relocated (in Cleveland or otherwise) has anyone discussed the remediation efforts needed to make sure a lakefront residential development does not turn into a similar situation like what happened in Garfield at Transportation Blvd?

I just think there are too many moving pieces to make this site viable. You would have to have the federal government agree to sell the property, find a new suitable location for the Post Office, build new post office, raze and remediate the site, reroute Broadway which is next to a pretty sizable escarpment immediately to the south, find a new location for the corrections facility, build said facility and then you can start construction on a new stadium with limited space surrounding for mixed use development.

I did a quick Photoshop mockup of the area and even at the current stadiums footprint this site would not work without rerouting Orange Avenue and Broadway and that says nothing of the less than desirable next door neighbor.

While I like this idea in principle, the reality is this is an unrealistic proposal. The first problem is that is a federally owned site. The second is that if you pan 500 feet to the East you will a corrections site. I don’t think it is that easy to move a federal agency and I also don’t think an owner would want his multi-billion dollar development investment to be immediately adjacent to a criminal justice facility.

I respectfully disagree. These hermetically sealed built environments, where people can drive and fly into the stadium and not experience any dynamic urbanism are the antithesis of what we should be striving for in a healthy dense urban climate. This will hurt local downtown businesses and sends a message that we learned nothing from the failures of Robert Moses’ vision of modernist America. More sprawl, more carbon emissions, more self-segregation and political polarization.

From my understanding the existing tax revenues those properties generate still go to the city, county, school district etc... i.e. they were paying $5 million a year for the current value of the property in taxes. It is the revenue from the increased value of the properties that go towards paying off the costs of financing construction, its labor costs and what have you instead of to the city and other public entities. So if the land increased to a project $15 million in property taxes, $5 million still goes to the city and the remainder goes to paying off the debt for construction.

I can only agree to a certain extent. If more housing options were made available i.e. downtown for purchase condos + townhomes and if public transit is expanded, made more efficient and equitable, I can kind of see where you're coming from as it would make commutes more walkable/bikeable. I'm not saying that there is no need for offices at all, they most certainly do but, in the Midwest, however, driving 20-60 minutes in ICE vehicles that can seat 5 but only carries 1 is wasteful. The amount of space we use just to store people's cars is wasteful as well. I think we're squandering a once in a lifetime opportunity to rethink how cities and downtowns function, our relationship to work-life balance and the positive mental health effects of WFH, lowering commuting carbon emissions, as well as lowering office overhead costs. Going to the office just to be on remote zoom calls is counter-intuitive to me.

I think it should be oriented to best take advantage of the solar path and other environmental considerations to maximize heating and cooling efficiency.

Has a design build team been selected for the Canon Healthcare Research facility?