KJP

County to renovate Spring Street building Lima News, 5/31/06 A downtown Lima building will get a facelift and a new tenant within the next year. The 80-year-old building at 123 W. Spring Street has housed a hardware store and plenty of others, but it will soon play host to the Allen County Children Services Department. Agency executive director Scott Ferris said the building’s facing will be restored to its original condition, though the entrances will be changed. “It’s basically a big shell, so we need to go in and do everything,” Ferris said. The county already owns the building and considered tearing it down and replacing it, but that would have cost more, Ferris said. As it is, the renovation will cost $2.8 million, lower than originally estimated, and take about six months to complete.

Big Italy destroyed itself. When the American mafia was at its formative stages during Prohibition, Big Italy was the scene of many mob killings, some right out in the open. It was the city's first "bloody corner" -- which later moved east to Woodland and East 110th (another low-income Italian neighborhood where gang killings were frequent in the battle for control over corn sugar trade -- a key ingredient in making bootleg whiskey). By the time Elliot Ness came to Cleveland from Chicago to be the city's new safety director in the 1930s, he was toured around Cleveland by police brass. Ness was told the area just southeast of downtown was called "The Roaring Third" because it was the Third District (as it is today) and because it was out of control with gambling dens, whorehouses and violence. Worse, police corruption protected the mob-run vice spots. Ness did his best to try to clean up the area, but it remained a mess well into the 1970s, as more building fell into decay and were torn down. The Northern Ohio Food Terminal was the first major complex to demolish large sections of Big Italy. The Central Interchange came in the late 1950s, long after much of the neighborhood had been demolished. Building the Central Interchange in the middle of that neighborhood was seen as a way to improve it -- by removing it. But it only moved the problems elsewhere. Tri-C demolished more of Big Italy. Many more buildings were razed in the hopes of having a domed stadium built on that site. The rest of the area was removed when construction of Gateway began. I've posted pictures of the area elsewhere on this forum -- I think in a string about what highways did the most damage to an urban setting. Just do a search from the main forum index (though I think it's in the transportation section).

Who moves downtown and has kids? At this point, who cares? We tend to fret way too much about trying to house 25 percent of the market (the average number of households having school-age children) in the city, when first priority should go to the 75 percent. Don't get me wrong. I would love to see downtown become family-friendly. But until downtown (and its surrounding neighborhoods) is first stabilized with a sufficient number of residents and personal spending, I think it's asking a lot of families (and especially their children) to bear the burden of stablizing the core city.

The architect (Bialosky) of that street grid graphic was instructed by Stark to show the street grid and extend it to the lake, then put some buildings between the streets to show how downtown can be filled out. Thus, don't take the size, locations and layout of the buildings as gospel. They were merely shown as an example of a built-out downtown, not a specific plan for those buildings. That part will come later.

I believe they are to be roof decks.

And don't forget rail transportation can be and already is powered by electricity in many parts of the world. Most of Europe's rail system is heavily electrified, including the mainline railroads. Some segments of the U.S. rail system are electrically powered (mainly in the northeast), but long sections of freight railroads were once powered by electricity in the Northwest mountains (the Milwaukee Road), Mid-Atlantic region (Virginia Railway) and additional mileage in the Northeast but were since deactivated. I guess they figured $15 per barrel oil would be with us forever (Europe wasn't so optimistic!)....

^ The selection of Chagrin Falls is a curious one. I'm surprised a suburb like Euclid, Cleveland Heights or University Heights wasn't selected instead.

The image is not correct. Stark doesn't want to demolish any buildings. When I asked Stark about the strip of buildings on the west side of West 6th between Superior and St. Clair, he said the map was in error. I made the correction on the map I posted on page 2 or 3 of this thread.

^ They don't need to plan. They simply overwhelm us with their numbers. Nice glassy lake today. Interesting how the buildings reflect in the water.

I could spend an hour studying those. Thanks for taking them! BTW, one thing I noticed is that the top of Key Tower sure didn't look too far below the plane! Or was that a trick of a zoom lens?

I always love the "drug deal gone bad" line. That's suggesting the drug deal was somehow good at the outset! :speech: I'll shut up now (yeah right)

Either route would work, but I personally prefer the NS line through University Circle for the reasons I stated two messages ago.

Check out the NOACA TIP at http://www.noaca.org/TIP13may05.pdf starting at the bottom of Page 59 and continuing onto the next page. In case you can't open the PDF, the project is actually three projects all in a row, with a total cost of $26.371 million.... > $18.7 million reconstruction of 2.5 miles of I-480 from Tuxedo Avenue in Brooklyn Heights east to the Valley View bridge (including the I-77 ramps). > $7.671 million (actually two projects but in overlapping segments) for milling of existing pavement, patching and resurfacing of pavement along 7.18 miles of I-480 from the Valley View bridge east to I-271. No one ever said that roads were cheap -- even for maintaining them!

Shame on Cleveland for not trying to capitalize on this. We have the $7 million in federal funds for building the ferry terminal next to Cleveland Browns Stadium, and the Lake Shore Electric Railway is willing to build a spur into the terminal to operate historic trolleys (real ones) between the ferry terminal and Tower City Center. What's the problem here folks? Are we so focused on the ferry that we're losing sight of attracting a mix of water-borne passenger traffic from a variety of lake ships? Besides, who knows when the ferry will actually start operating? The cruise ships are happening now!

If absorption rates continue, I'd say someone better be planning to put up a new skyscraper ASAP (unless they want to drive prices up first). I remember during the late 1970s and 1980s that, anytime the Class A office market downtown got below a 10 percent vacancy rate, a developer cited that as his reason for putting up a spec office tower. Sounds like we're just about there -- and when DFAS is added into the picture, don't be surprised if we'll need a couple of office scrapers. EDIT: CBRE's 1st quarter 2006 market outlook was largely positive for downtown, but not as positive as the Crain's article... http://gkc2.cbrichardellis.com/GlobalMarketReports/us/cleveland1q06ofcdt.pdf Their second-quarter report won't come out until next month though.

Awesome. Hopefully soon we'll need some more office towers -- and you know where the first new one needs to go: PUBLIC FREAKIN' SQUARE

6/2/2006 State Funding Minnesota governor signs bonding bill for Northstar project It’s official. The Northstar Corridor Development Authority now can seek federal funds for Minnesota’s first commuter-rail line. Yesterday, Gov. Tim Pawlenty signed a bill that included $60 million in state bonding authority that, along with $37.5 million in bonds approved last year, will fulfill Minnesota’s 33 percent funding commitment for the $307.3 million project. Local governments along the proposed 40-mile Minneapolis-to-Big Lake, Minn., line will finance 17 percent of project cost and the Federal Transit Administration is expected to provide a 50 percent funding match. Under terms of a trackage agreement reached with BNSF Railway Co. last month, 12 weekday and three weekend trains would operate along the line, which is expected to open in 2009. ###

I think the mayor was on point for the most point. Rail systems aren't effective nor desirable in areas that have dispersed centers of employment. The mayor showed he's a moron. Such dispersal is why low-density cities don't do well on the sustainability scale. What the mayor said is like a fat man complaining that his girth shouldn't be blamed for having high blood pressure. Worse, he may have had a good time getting that belly, but he's one crisis away from risking collapse. And, are you referring to dispersed cities like Denver? It's certainly one of the sprawling, low-density cities of this nation that grew up in the post-war freeway-building boom. Denver has decided such land use patterns aren't a good way to have a viable, vibrant, connected, energetic, accessible and, yes, sustainable city. Thus, it (and cities such as Portland, San Diego and others), realized it needed to change its transportation investment strategy if it was to change its land use (because, as we all know here, transportation investments and land use forms are inextricably linked -- don't we?). Denver was able to draw more ridership than was projected to its initial light rail lines, which prompted voters to pass a $4.7 billion mass transportation bond issue to pay for new light rail lines, new commuter rail lines and one busway. It was combined with a regional land use reform strategy to entice focusing development near rail stations and transit hubs. If Denver can do it, any city can! Read http://www.mlui.org/transportation/fullarticle.asp?fileid=16880 for more info. Innerbelt guy, you seem to feel as many others do (unfortunately) that our cities are the result of some natural act that is beyond human control. In fact, the physical form of our cities is nothing but a conscious act. So why not act in an ecologically sustainable way? Any city can be what its stakeholders want it to be. It is limited only by mother nature, and by the creativity and energy of those who have a stake in that city's future.

Tremendous photos of one of America's few cities that is actually visually attractive and can energize one's soul. Here's my favorite pic -- great layering!

''A lot of those old farms and vineyards, their best crop has been houses,'' said Avon's Chief Building Officer Ken Miller. That guy needs a lesson in "net fiscal impact." One of the worst land uses for generating tax revenues far in excess of public service costs is housing. One of the best is commercial (offices, industry, warehousing). Only slightly less better is agriculture. The last two don't require the construction and operation of schools, they don't require trash pick-up, commercial requires police/fire protection plus sanitary/storm sewer but farms much less so in both cases... Too many local officials tout only the tax revenues that are coming in from new development (especially residential), while discounting the costs. If they want to tout their tax base, brag about how much agriculture they've got.

I would be surprised if it couldn't. The dock which the ferry would use is pretty big/deep -- the proposed ferry is pretty big too!

Funny you should mention that. A few months ago, when the cheapie Metra cars became a possibility, I did a guesstimate of start-up costs for such a service -- somewhere in the $35 million to $40 million. NOACA's costs are higher primarily because of the higher cost of acquiring new train equipment, and because they assumed using the much busier CSX route from Collinweood east -- hence the need for adding a third main track much of the way. NOACA consultants also assumed a major station on the lakefront (which we ought to do for intercity service), but isn't needed if you don't use the CSX route. My assumption was to use the NS route which offers the following benefits: > Access to Tower City Center via a new track splitting off from the NS main where it veers west to cross the Cuyahoga Valley. A two-track regional station could be in the vicinity of the easternmost elevator/stairwell that descends from the Gateway walkway; > Half of the 30-mile route from Cleveland to Painesville is double tracked though some of the second track in Euclid needs improvement. Other closely spaced but short sections of second track can be linked up to create more double-track segments. Up to 30 freight trains per day use this line; > The NS line passes through Cuyahoga County's second-largest population center -- University Circle, which has no highway access. Many of UC's commuters come from Lake County (Laketran just started a new bus service to UC but is very slow due to the aforementioned lack of highway access). Combined with linkages to the RTA Red Line and numerous bus routes, I suspect a regional rail service into a UC transit center would do quite well. > RTA built its Euclid Park & Ride adjacent to the NS line -- just in case the line ever saw commuter trains; > Several other potential station sites have available land, including in downtown Willoughby (a great suburban downtown!), Mentor (off Rt.306 where there are lots of hotels and several Laketran routes converging, and the future intercity rail service route on CSX is adjacent), and in Painesville, across Rt.20 from the Lake County Fairgrounds. That just about covers it. But, like with the Lorain-Cleveland route, what makes this viable is the low/no cost train equipment.

I would say the ferry, because there is less capital investment required for it, Cleveland has the money for the ferry terminal, and has a ferry operator lined up that is willing to provide the boats.

B12, thanks for the pics. The Bank News is at West 41st and Clark. And when you go under this bridge on Clark, look up at the "ceiling" where you can still see the two strips of wood planking into which electric wire supports for the two streetcar tracks were attached.

"The fact we do not have rail transit or mass transit here is a very large negative as far as they are concerned," he said. "It’s unfair to talk about the city being unsustainable because we don’t have mass transit." Um, no it's not. Wow, if that isn't someone in denial about the importance of mass transit to a community's viability, desirability and sustainability, I don't know what is. He seems to think that a city has to be large in order to have quality mass transit. Someone needs to send him to Portland, Ottawa, Calgary and, oh, my favorite -- Karlsrhue Germany -- a city the size of Dayton (273,000 city, 1.3 million metro) that has a rail transit system that's more extensive than Boston's. Now tell me this isn't the urban quality of life many of seek and that even Columbus city officials would love to have.... The streetcar also operates some 20 miles out from the city on railroad lines (something that often cannot be done in the U.S. due to weight differences with freight trains) If they build the Columbus streetcar service, the city will have greatly improved its urban quality of life and sustainability.