KJP

Not yet. It's still owned by Kersdale Limited Partnership, according to Mr. Russo's website.... http://auditor.cuyahogacounty.us/REPI/General.asp?txtParcel=10110014 I suspect Stark is putting most of his staff's efforts into going after the larger chunks of land first, although he's invited all affected property owners to his presentations. And while John Coyne says he's low on the totem pole, he's being a bit modest. His family's land (3 acres) is one of the largest single properties in the Warehouse Distrct. By the way, here's the land that Kassouf owns in the affected area and under the following companies: Prime Properties Limited Partnership Flats Waterfront Association Cuyahoga Lakefront Land LLC 600 Front – 4.15 acres 1010 Front – 3.51 acres ? ? ? Front – 0.06 acres 1060 Front – 1.12 acres 1069 Front – 0.377 acre 229 St. Clair – 0.16 acre 1277 West6th – NA 1285 West6th – 0.1 1296 West6th – 0.17 1299 West6th – 0.12 ? ? ? West6th – 0.18 1290 West4th – 0.06 TOTAL Kassouf --- 9.96 acres This is what Duane Cameron of Los Angeles owns under the following companies: System Property Development Co. C-K Properties 1369-1383 West9th – 0.34 acre 1391 West9th – 0.33 acre 1397 West9th – 0.42 acre 701 StClair – 0.47 acre 715 StClair – 0.19 acre 725 StClair – 0.12 acre 733 StClair – 0.15 acre ? ? ? Frankfort – 0.15 acre ? ? ? Frankfort – 0.06 acre TOTAL Cameron --- 2.17 acres of land This is what John Coyne owns through a family company C & K Properties/C-K Investments Inc. (very similar name to Cameron's but the names on the company filings with the state are under Coyne's name)... 1151 West6th – 2.78 acres Prior to the internet, this would have taken me several days' worth of trips to the auditor's office to sift through all their records to find this stuff. And I had to cross-check it with the Ohio Secretary of State's website to learn who actually owned which companies. Even that didn't always work, so I did Google searches using attorneys names and the property owners whom I suspected they represented and was able to come up with some matches based on past legal filings. How long would that have taken me at various courthouses?? Instead, I was able to compile all this in a half a day, from my own home, and on a Saturday no less! Wonderful thing, this Internet....

Yes, that's the Waterfront Line at the left (along with Norfolk Southern's tracks). You may recall that the Waterfront Line runs between Browns Stadium and downtown's central business district.

I'd love to see that building sometime and get some photos into Sun News. BTW, I wondered where my stolen boat, the SS Minnow, went!

After thinking about it, the question you posed in City Discussion (what would the impact be) is a bit different than the one I posed here (what road would you change/remove). Your question adds a new wrinkle to this discussion which had faded away...

This thread died a while ago. Any chance of reviving it?

Similar discussion point to this: http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php?topic=8230.msg87406#msg87406

I was going back over the pages in this thread and found a couple of things of interest.... I can't say anything specific right now because I was asked to keep it off the record, but look for some big-name retailers to be publicly announced. And these are big (square footage) retailers, too. I don't know when that will happen, but I would be surprised if it is more than a matter of a couple of months. I'll keep prodding on that one. And, here's a photo of the biggest continuously unbroken piece of property owned by Kassouf in the affected area. To belabor the obvious from the picture, it's a pretty strategic piece of land....

Nice job! Now you've tempted me to set some of my pics and videos to music! Problem is, I've got nowhere to host something that large -- yet.

Doubtful. They are friends from boyhood. However, I was surprised about some comments that Khouri made to me about Wolstein, and they've been friends for 20 years. Those will appear in an article next week regarding the Flats East Bank. That article couldn't fit in this week's paper... I don't have any problems with its design, but I do agree that the lack of residential hurts it greatly. On that score, it is too small. Khouri also told me he thought other projects like the Galleria and many of the housing developments were too small, but since I had limited room, I chose to mention his opinion on Tower City since it was the largest single development in recent decades, in terms of square feet and price tag.

Welcome aboard, willyboy. Please post more often. We'd be glad to have you back in cTown.

Each rail line into Cleveland had at least one round trip train permitting a work day in Cleveland. The one that lasted the longest was a Conrail service from Youngstown to Cleveland via Warren, Garrettsville, Aurora, Solon, North Randall and many other enroute stops.

Yeah I know. Most ground-based public transportation to NYC goes either northward through Buffalo and Albany or southward through Pittsburgh and Philly. Because of topography, the railroads don't go due east from Cleveland, and for buses on I-80, there just isn't enough enroute population along I-80 to warrant many trips to go that way.

That's a great idea!

Why shouldn't this go in the transportation section? Are you planning on looking at the bicycle or using it to go somewhere?

Ha Ha. Already posted it in the business section of this forum, in a thread about retailing trends.

Amrapin, It's true that living in the valley shared with steel mills may not sound attractive, but consider where the remaining steel mills are located -- east of SYC. So unless there's an east wind, the smoke and smell from them isn't going to be very strong at SYC. And east winds are pretty rare in Cleveland. BTW, wouldn't it be pretty cool to have Target downtown? :wink:

I think that Chinatown bus is the only other alternative. Whoops I just remembered you can take a Lakefront Lines bus from Cleveland at 4:45pm, arrives in Buffalo at 8 p.m. and transfer to a Trailways of New York bus to New York City. The latter has depatures from Buffalo throughout the day, including evening depatures at 8:30 p.m., 10:30 p.m., 10:45 p.m., 11:30 p.m. and 12:30 a.m. For schedule and fare information for Lakefront Lines, click on "Route #10 - Fairfield to Buffalo" at: http://route.lakefrontlines.com/ Trailways of New York: http://www.trailwaysny.com/html/english/fares.asp Buffalo to New York City schedule: http://www.trailwaysny.com/html/english/fares_pdf/bufnyc.pdf You may also consider driving to Buffalo and catch one of Amtrak's four daily round trips to New York City. Buffalo has two stations, one downtown at Exchange Street and one in the suburbs at Depew (near the airport). Lakefront Lines bus service does not connect to any Amtrak trains at Buffalo. Here's an interesting map to show the non-Greyhound routes operating in NY state with out-of-state connections:

Looks like a good event. Here's the agenda: Ohio Hub Workshop: Ohio Hub Station Location & Economic Development July 14, 2006 9:00 AM to 3:00 PM (Registration 8:00 to 9:00 AM) Columbus/Worthington Holiday Inn 175 Hutchinson (North on US 23 at I-270 in Worthington) Registration fee: $35 (Continental Breakfast & Lunch Included) Draft Program 8 – 9 a.m. Registration, continental breakfast 9:00 a.m. Welcome, meeting purpose, program review – Marie Keister, Engage Communications, Facilitator 9:05 a.m. Trains Revitalize Communities and Attract Jobs – Scott Bernstein, President, Center for Neighborhood Technology 9:45 a.m. Anticipated Ohio Hub Economic Impacts– Jim Seney, Executive Director, ORDC Alex Metcalf, President, TEMS 10:45 a.m. BREAK 11:00 a.m. Doing the Deal: How Communities Seize Opportunities – Phil Hanegraaf, Vice President, HNTB Noon LUNCH 12:15 p.m. Announcements (during lunch)-- Marie Keister 12:17 p.m. Design Challenge: Local AIA Railroad Station Design Competition -- Diane Deane, Executive Director, AIA Columbus Chapter 12:20 p.m. Economic Benefits from Maine to Boston - Patricia Douglas, Executive Director, Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority 1:15 p.m. Your Vision: Making It Happen – Marie Keister, ALL (interactive session and discussion) 2:00 pm The Experts Respond 2:45 pm Next Steps/Action Items: Marie Keister 2:55 pm Closing Remarks: Jim Seney 3:00 pm Adjourn

Awesome! Tornadoes and even mushroom clouds have a conditional beauty to them. Their beauty, of course, is restricted to the sky, and certainly does not apply to what's happening on the ground in either case.

https://aspo-ireland.org/Newsletter67.pdf 726. The airlines admit to Peak Oil too The July issue of Airways, which is the journal of the international airline industry, carries a lead article entitled Peak Oil – The Collapse of commercial Aviation. It is a long, perceptive and well informed article by Alex Kuhlman, suggesting that the industry must plan a profitable decline. The Middle East national airlines are identified as likely survivors, noting that Emirates Airlines have recently bought 43 Airbus 380s, a very large aircraft with a low fuel-burn per seat. Meanwhile airports are being expanded in many countries based on the false assumption that the past growth in traffic can continue. ###

Another take on the same project: http://www.rrstar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060704/OPINION0102/107040024&SearchID=73249638434033 Rockford Register Star Published: July 4, 2006 COLUMNIST: Chuck Sweeny Durbin taking lead in bringing Amtrak back Monday's well-attended meeting should put to rest the question of whether there's any interest in restoring passenger train service to northwest Illinois. There is plenty of interest, and some impatience to stop talking and get 'er done. More than 100 people representing cities and counties from as far away as Dubuque, Iowa, came to the Chicago/Rockford International Airport auditorium to voice support for reinstating the Amtrak "Black Hawk" that ran from Chicago through Rockford, Freeport, Galena, Warren, East Dubuque and Dubuque in the 1970s. The enthusiasm was music to the ears of U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who called the meeting. A strong proponent of a balanced transportation system, Durbin suggested a coalescing of various groups working to bring train service this way. Hundreds of communities are clamoring for passenger rail service, and those that achieve consensus on what ought to be funded are the ones that get consideration in Washington, said Durbin, a member of the Senate's transportation committee. There are three initiatives under way to bring rail service this way, and they don't have to be competitive. The first one I call the Boone Plan, because it was conceived in Boone County in the mid-1990s as a way to extend Chicagoland's commuter trains to Belvidere on the Union Pacific line. I attended a meeting in Belvidere about it in 1997, along with Durbin, who was then a brand-new senator. Rockford took advantage of its neighbor's heavy lifting and tacked itself on to the Boone Plan a few years later. Nowadays, they call it the Northern Illinois Commuter Transportation Initiative, and there's about $3 million worth of continuing studies to determine whether to keep studying it. The second is a public-private venture I call the Scottie Plan. Scott Christiansen, the Winnebago County Board chairman, is working with owners of the Iowa, Chicago and Eastern Railroad to improve the tracks from Davis Junction to Rockford. Christiansen envisions a revitalized line that can help convince industry to locate in Winnebago County. He also wants to use the tracks to bring passenger trains out from Elgin to Davis Junction and then up to a station to be built at the airport. Christiansen's adviser is a champion of outside-the-box thinking: Rochelle's Ken Wise. The third is the Amtrak Plan, brought to the forefront by Durbin to jump-start passenger rail in northwest Illinois, the only part of the state not on the state's passenger train map. Illinois is doubling the money it spends on passenger trains to $24 million. Durbin and U.S. Rep. Don Manzullo, R-Egan, say it's time to add northwest Illinois to the map. Of the plans, the third is the only one that provides service to northwest Illinois west of Rockford. There's great interest in Amtrak in Freeport, Galena, Lena and Dubuque, and grass-roots organizations are springing up to advocate for it along the line. The Canadian National line the Black Hawk ran on is in excellent shape. Rick Harnish, who heads the Midwest High Speed Rail Association, suggests an approach that makes some sense: Use the CN line to re-establish Amtrak service on the old Black Hawk route as a first step. This requires the least study and least infrastructure work. "The schedules could allow day trips to Chicago and serve peak tourism travel needs," Harnish said. I'll have more on this Thursday. Political Editor Chuck Sweeny can be reached at 815-987-1372 or [email protected].

The Chicago Tribune has typically taken an anti-rail, anti-subsidy stance, so this positive article is a nice change for them. ___________ Amtrak sees return of Rockford passenger trains Chicago Tribune By Liam Ford Tribune staff reporter July 3, 2006, 8:12 PM CDT ROCKFORD -- With momentum building to expand passenger rail service in Illinois, opening a train line between Chicago and Rockford is more a question of when than if, a senior Amtrak official said Monday. A vote by legislators last spring to double funding for Amtrak's state-subsidized lines in the 2007 Illinois budget provides financial support to restore rail service that last ran in 1981, officials said. "If you guys want the service, it's not, Should we do it? It is, What are the next steps we need to do to get it done?" Joe McHugh, Amtrak's senior vice president for governmental affairs, said after a town hall-style meeting at the Rockford airport of backers of reopening the route. An analysis in late 2004 put the cost of creating a Metra line to Rockford at $89 million, with annual passenger ticket sales bringing in $1.6 million, still $1.7 million short of annual costs. If Amtrak restarts the service, federal law requires it to make up any shortfalls in the cost of running the line with state subsidies. Illinois Transportation Secretary Timothy Martin plans to move forward soon with a request to Amtrak to restart service. Officials backing three competing plans to bring either Amtrak or Metra rail service to the Rockford area appeared ready Monday to let the two passenger railroads figure out the best way to move ahead. The Black Hawk line once ran from Chicago to Elmhurst, then on to cities including Rockford, Galena and Dubuque, Iowa. Officials said Amtrak could use existing Canadian National tracks to restore service to Rockford. Proposals for Metra service would either go to Rockford through Elgin and Belvidere or through DeKalb County and southern Winnebago County to the Rockford airport. "We want to at least be able to put two or three options on the table, with everybody saying these appear to be the best-now let's test them against Amtrak standards and Metra standards and find out if they fit," said Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), who organized the meeting at the airport with Rep. Donald Manzullo (R-Ill.). Officials from several counties and cities that might benefit from the service spoke at the meeting. Some who have been backing particular proposals said they would be willing to work with others to make it happen. "This community is ready to help make all of your jobs easier," Rockford Mayor Larry Morrissey said, adding that the competing plans should be brought under one umbrella. "We've been in meetings before where everyone is decrying everyone else's proposal," McHugh said. "The fact that your folks understand the need for regionalism, and you've got to sort of get started somewhere, somehow, and you take steps, I think that's very mature and appropriate for this type of discussion." Manzullo said bringing rail service back will help keep the Rockford area economically viable. "I can't think of any item that would do more to invigorate economic growth and vitality and interest in making people want to not just continue to live in Rockford and invest, but to have their children stay here, than to have the railroad come to Rockford," he said. [email protected]

I'm surprised to see that Dayton Cox International isn't on that list. I thought it handled something close to the number of passengers that Port Columbus did. And I don't agree with the ranking of Orlando International at all. I thought it would rank as one of the best. I think it's a beautiful airport and well managed. Yet it got a lower ranking than Cleveland or St. Louis (granted those are in different categories). Cleveland seems more like a subway station and St. Louis is way too confusing. I dunno -- rankings, sheesh!

Didn't see a better thread to place this article in, and we ought to have one to discuss general developments like this, the extent to which retail is overbuilt in NE Ohio, etc.... http://www.cleveland.com/business/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/business/115200199376580.xml&coll=2 Woodmere center getting new tenants Boutiques, upscale shops coming to Eton Tuesday, July 04, 2006 Thomas W. Gerdel Plain Dealer Reporter Ten fashion boutiques and upscale shops are coming to Eton Chagrin Boulevard in a move aimed at bolstering the image of the Woodmere center as a fashion district. Most of the new tenants are relocating from other shopping areas, and some will take up space formerly occupied by former Eton businesses such as Ruth's Chris Steak House, the Bossa Nova nightclub and Solomon's lingerie store, said Darryl Whitehead, director of marketing for Stark Enterprises Inc. .........

My first reaction was to say it's not, but after thinking about it, that's not quite true. What is true is that there's no consensus from the principal players (RTA, city, business community, etc.) on what it's role should be. The city wants to see the Waterfront Line extended eastward along the lakefront toward Collinwood and promote development at its stations especially downtown, per the lakefront plan. An increasing number of developers (among them Bob Stark, Doug Price, Chip Marous, Bob Corna) want to see some sort of improved downtown rail transit circulation such as a streetcar and involve the Waterfront Line in some way. And, as recently as the late 1990s, RTA studied having the Waterfront Line turn southward down East 17th or 18th streets, run between Playhouse Square and CSU, pass through the St. Vincent Charity Hospital/Tri-C area and rejoin the Rapid lines somewhere between the Campus station and the Inner Belt. The routing would have created a loop of downtown, help stimulate development on the eastern side of downtown and improve downtown circulation. Since then, I can't recall RTA issuing any official goals or plans for the Waterfront Line, not even a statement about how it could help promote development along it to boost ridership. That's bothersome, particularly when RTA can get a better rate on bond-financed development than the port authority can, yet the port authority has financed more than $1 billion worth of new development. The Waterfront Line in its current form would likely see new ridership from Flats East Bank, Lighthouse Landing and certainly Pesht. But the parts of Pesht that would impact the Waterfront Line the most would be the later phases, built on port authority along the lakefront. Stark & Friends want to start in the Warehouse District, which isn't going to affect the Waterfront Line right away (except for maybe the northern parts of it, but where are those residents going to ride to that they can't walk to just as quickly?). There is a a new nonprofit group which recently netted Chip Marous to serve on its board called Lake Shore Electric Railway (formerly Trolleyville USA). Their plan is to build an historic streetcar in the downtown area. But first, they want to have a permanent place to store its transit cars (they are being stored temporarily under Tower City Center, in the pre-1990 Shaker Rapid station). Next, they want to use the Waterfront Line to run their historic transit cars on weekends and for special events. When the cross-lake ferry starts, Lake Shore would like to build a spur off the Waterfront Line to the pier at the end of West 3rd Street. And, long-term, their goal is to have a downtown streetcar system, possibly including one or both of the cross-river bridges' subway decks (Detroit-Superior and/or Lorain-Carnegie) to serve Ohio City. RTA has done a very nice thing in agreeing to store the historic transit cars for them. But the future of downtown rail transit is also in storage, with various factions not yet in agreement over what that future should be. I'd love to see all parties come together with a policy statement, shared goal and action plan for creating a true downtown rail circulation system and how it should mesh with emerging and as-yet unknown real estate development plans. When that happens, downtown will become a much more cohesive, interconnected place and, dare I say it, a truly dynamic neighborhood.