KJP

Seems to be mostly infill housing on individual vacant lots, which there wasn't a lot to begin with. A house here, a townhouse there.... KJP

Seriously. Don't dis' 'em. I have every Kraftwerk album, and have tried to find CDs to replace the records. Not easy to do. Now I've got the song Trans-Europe Express running through my head.... Steele, they were a techno band from 1970s and early 80s that made it big in Europe but we're more fringe here in the U.S. But ask any guys who were teenagers in the late 70s or early 80s and they've probably heard of Kraftwerk (doesn't matter if the teen was from the suburbs or the inner city, either. Black kids also loved Kraftwerk). "bon bon bon on the Autobahn" Now back to our regularly scheduled program "and when I hit this special key it plays a little melody...." KJP

I should have said the consultant, at that time, felt that only six cities met the benchmark. "At that time" was in the mid 1990s or so. I haven't done much traveling around Philadelphia since the late 80s, but I liked a lot of what saw then. I've seen pictures since, showing a lot of new development and restoration work. KJP

^Thank YOU! :clap: KJP

^ha! KJP

I love Slavic Village. Part of me likes it as is, ungentrified and a little rough around the edges. It's just has a genuine feel as a struggling, immigrant neighborhood. That being said, the headquarters for Third Federal Savings Bank are pretty amazing (at Fleet and Broadway). Their headquarters stick out like a healthy thumb in a sore neighborhood. Despite growing into a good-sized company, I respect them for staying in the neighborhood where the bank was founded so long ago, plus they go out of their way to put their branches in other Cleveland neighborhoods that other banks won't go near, even if the branches don't do much business. In fact, I respect that approach so much that I go a little out of my way to give them my money. KJP

True about University Circle, but I was trying to limit the inventory to stuff between the Inner Belt, the river and the lake. I was debating whether to add the Johnson Court condo tower until something has been presented to the city, but since I have Stark's broad-brush idea in the list, why not? But 515 Euclid and Carter Manor developments should be on there. I put the Convention Center on the list because the city/county does have the wherewithal to at least renovate and update the existing Convention Center which could include an enclosed pedestrian promenade over the railroad tracks/Shoreway to North Coast Harbor (possibly tied in with the Waterfront Line). Depending on where the Cav's Gilbert wants to put his 300-job call center, we can put that on the list when the time comes. But, the May Co. would be a good place for it. Speaking of which, all the projects and plans for new housing is great to create a round-the-clock downtown neighborhood, but there's gotta be some office developments in here, too. The county offices consolidation (some of which are currently located outside the downtown area) will help, as would Gilbert's call center, but something else is needed. Many times a new downtown office is built, it is to consolidate scattered office spaces and allow for expansion. Standard Oil was one example from the 1980s. Society Bank had its offices scattered all over downtown, before they were consolidated into the Society Center Tower, which added Ameritrust's offices with the merger and again with the merger with KeyBank. Now, the county is looking at doing the same thing. So who else has offices scattered all over downtown? My thoughts go to Sherwin-Williams. They have their general offices, sales offices, training centers, flooring division and technology center scattered all over Greater Cleveland, in no less than seven locations that I can think of, including their main offices on Prospect Avenue in one of the Terminal complex buildings (Guildhall?). So, as long as I'm spending Sherwin-Williams' money, where would I put their new world headquarters and technology tower? When I think of a location for a new office building, I think of only one site -- the parking lot on Public Square. No matter how many wonderful downtown projects get built, there will still be a gaping hole in the city's heart with that site remaining as a parking lot. It has to be filled, and a new Sherwin-Williams world headquarters and technology tower would be an ideal candidate for filling it. KJP

I'm not sure, but I think it's somewhere between 6,000 and 8,000. That's why I say 25K would be a huge step forward. There appears to be a large untapped market for core city housing (especially for-sale housing), as each new development fills up pretty quickly. So, all the developments in the core (downtown, Tremont, Ohio City, etc) aren't competing with each other. Each offers different features and settings. The problem with downtown is all those surface parking lots. They make too much money right now, and thus are too valuable for developers to make money at buying them and putting structures on them. And a tax placed on them could be viewed as punitive, which is unconstitutional, although the city could argue financial hardship if it taxed all of them as an opportunity cost to the community. Or it could seek to acquire them through eminent domain as the parking lots represent a visual blight, but the city hasn't been willing to go that route. KJP

I totally missed the paragraph about the 50 million square feet! Let's take stock of what's on the drawing board.... > CSU urban village north of the campus, plus its associated developments along Euclid and Prospect > Zaremba's proposed $100 million housing development along East 12th/13th > Developers Diversifed's $170 million Flats East Bank housing development > Relocated/consolidated Cuyahoga County offices (ex-Ameritrust tower?) > Some form of convention facilities new/rebuilt > District Park, if Marous' money troubles can be worked out > Lakefront redevelopment > Inner Belt reconstruction (hopefully realigned with a kick-ass Central Viaduct) > Euclid Corridor transitway > And something somewhere by Stark that could be huge Anything else I'm missing? KJP

Cleveland needs me and loves me? To quote Nazareth, "Love hurts" or Tina Turner, "What's love got to do with it?" or the J. Geils Band, "Love stinks" or Amanda Perez, "Love is pain." Did I miss any others? Methinks I just took this thread in a whole new direction... KJP

Not if they want to see the market stay in the doldrums. Sometimes, developers need to push the market a little. Too bad FCE doesn't take this approach. There is a risk in it, but isn't that what growing is all about? I was just talking with someone about what site Stark is eyeballing. The article says "between Huron and Prospect." The only underutilized sites I can think of between those two streets is the section east of Ontario to the Pointe at Gateway. There are two large surface parking lots in the area, one of the Gateway parking decks and several smaller buildings, including Myers University. See the lower-center portion of MayDay's picture.... To fit millions of square feet of anything into that small space (assuming that is the proposed space), Stark would have to build some pretty tall buildings and a lot of them. For comparison, Key Tower is 1.538 million square feet. Stark is talking 10 million to 11 million square feet. That's about seven Key Towers, or 14 towers in the range of 25-30 stories. It's also about 4,000 residences, if my math is right (which needs double-checking!). At current construction costs per square foot, that's roughly $1.6 billion, putting it on par with the Terminal Tower complex of 1930 and all its railroad access routes. Yet, Stark and the Carney Family built Crocker Park for $420 million, so it's not that big of a leap for Stark to propose a $1.6 billion project. Hell, I say go for it. KJP

Some builders carry personal vendettas against each other, but most leave the emotion of out of their business dealings. When there's money to be made, alliances are broken or made accordingly. I think Stark would be perfect for such a development. He gets "it" when it comes to urban redevelopment, new urbanism, etc. He's probably still got a bad taste in his mouth afte I wrote an article about 16 months ago, after a Lakewood councilman accused Stark of trying to oppose the West End development. But, if Stark can reach out to Jacobs, then I can reach out to Stark again. I would love to work with him on describing his vision for downtown. Guess who I'm calling on Monday.... KJP

Hagan was on the NOACA Governing Board at that time. I think he might have been chairman. And the facts you mentioned were reasons why Dual Hub didn't happen. By the way, one of the reasons why Hagan recently ran for, and got back on the county commissioners is because he wants to shake up NOACA. He has said it has become too stagnant and needs to become a greater catalyst for regional change. KJP

Seriously. In fact, I'm remembering there wasn't even a vote by NOACA's Governing Board on the Dual Hub project. RTA's board selected a rail option for the Dual Hub in 1994 or 1995, but couldn't get support from NOACA's board to seek federal funding for it (either with or without a board vote). RTA and the city had the local funding needed, so no public vote was required. In November 1995, RTA's board instead went with the busway and, a month later, NOACA's board approved seeking federal funds for it. KJP

Litt has written a column endorsing the general concept, and said he is interested in writing about it again. There are those at ODOT and its consulting firms working on this project who still believe that, if you add enough lanes, looping ramps and other capacity enhancements, that roads can be "de-congested" and make traffic steadily flow at the posted speed limits. I take an opposing view -- that no matter what is done, there will always be traffic congestion. So let's redesign this highway facility to enliven its urban surroundings by opening up land for redevelopment. Less traffic-intensive land use design, not added highway capacity, provides lasting impacts on reducing vehicle-miles traveled. ODOT's reasoning for wanting to keep the Inner Belt on the same alignment and for having the Central Interchange take up the same amount of space is for purposes of traffic flow. It appears that ODOT is concerned about shrinking the land area for the Central Interchange and replacing the looping/cloverleafing eastbound ramps from I-90 to Ontario and East 9th streets into downtown. They apparently believe that if these ramps are shortened and made to exit directly onto Ontario and East 9th without a loop, traffic would back up farther onto the Central Viaduct over the Cuyahoga Valley. Four features of the plan I suggested would address that: 1. My direct exit ramps to Ontario and East 9th would be two or three lanes wide, compared with the existing (and ODOT's proposed) one-lane loop ramps; 2. A new, direct access ramp to East 14th/East 18th would be provided to take the pressure off the exits at Ontario and East 9th; 3. New, one-way pairs of 4- to 6-lane wide, parallel streets (Marginal Roads) would be built on each side of the Inner Belt where the Central Interchange now sits, and would further absorb traffic, especially if interactive traffic signals were installed at key intersections; 4. A massive amount of downtown land would be opened up for new development, including possibly thousands of new residences within walking distance or a short transit ride from workplaces and leisure activities, eliminating the need for many car trips into downtown. Even if a single downtown residence is not built as a result of this plan (unlikely), the features in items #1, #2 and #3 should be able to absorb most weekday commuter traffic in a manner similar to the looping ramps. And, while I do think the market is there for downtown housing, it will take time to build it. So that's another reason for building the ramps in the manner I suggested in items #1 and #2. Admittedly, some traffic will continue to back up onto the Central Viaduct, but the span would be 10 lanes wide as opposed to the current 8-lane configuration. I'd like to see some computer modeling of the traffic data, that takes into the account all of the above, including what the model would show if varying levels of downtown housing where added and what percentages of their residents could be downtown workers based on market data. In my plan, ODOT probably also has concerns about the radius of the curves from I-77 to/from I-90 east. Yes, they would have to be at least as "tight" as they are now, particularly if I-77 is kept on its same general alignment just south of the Inner Belt. The section of I-77 closest to the Central Interchange could be shifted slightly south, abutting Orange Avenue, to flatten the ramps' curves. But, these ramp curves aren't the same as Dead Man's Curve, which is on a through section of an Interstate. Instead, they're at the ending point of an Interstate -- for which the design standard is less. Furthermore, there's so little traffic on Orange and Woodland avenues just south of the Central Interchange that I-77 could even stop just short of downtown and have its traffic come from or empty onto those roads as the traffic leaves or enters downtown, or is I-90-East originating/emanating. The city does this after sporting events, sending outbound traffic on city streets to enter I-77 at East 30th. Granted, I don't expect ODOT to shorten I-77 just south of the Central Interchange, but I do think there is value in using Orange and Woodland avenues to absorb some of I-77's traffic under my proposed configuration, including a pair of new entrance/exit ramps midway between the Central Interchange and East 30th to account for the loss of the higher-capacity ramps linking I-77 and Ontario and East 9th (one existing ramp is a "flyover", from Ontario, and the other is a loop, to East 9th). There is a way to do all this, if ODOT thinks in terms not only of moving vehicles, but of redesigning its infrastructure in a way that respects its surroundings and creates spaces and places that can actually remove vehicles from the highway. What exists now is a rural/suburban interchange design in a urban setting. Every time I travel on city streets through the Central Interchange area, I can't help but see what a massive, blighted wasteland this area is, especially being right next to a major city's downtown. All I can do is to keep suggesting new ways of thinking, so that this Inner Belt project doesn't become an equally massive, wasted opportunity for the community. KJP

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1110018673236120.xml Cavs owner might bring 300 jobs to Cleveland Saturday, March 05, 2005 Olivera PerkinsPlain Dealer Reporter Dan Gilbert's purchase of the Cavaliers may come with an added bonus for Cleveland: up to 300 new jobs. Gilbert, who owns the Livonia, Mich.-based Quicken Loans, an online home lender, is considering opening a Web/call center in Cleveland. The company is also considering locations in Michigan and Arizona, said Elizabeth Jones, Quicken's vice president of corporate communications. The center would employ 250 to 300 people, she said. Jones said the decision will be made in the next few months. .........

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1110018894236120.xml Developer talks of building dynamic downtown Saturday, March 05, 2005 Tom BreckenridgePlain Dealer Reporter The developer of Crocker Park and other distinctive projects in the suburbs says he has a grand plan to save downtown Cleveland. Robert Stark says he wants to "link arms" with community leaders and developers and build a dense, dynamic mix of stores, offices and dwellings, radiating out from Public Square and Tower City. So far, the can-do Stark is getting a "show me" response. .......

That is just a lovely area. What the hell am I doing in this town.... KJP

There haven't been any public votes on any transit projects, rail or bus, in Cleveland or Cuyahoga County, since RTA was created in 1974. The rejection of the rail option for Euclid Corridor was by the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency. And, there never was a decision by NOACA for the NEORail commuter rail plan because there wasn't enough support for it to put up for a vote by the NOACA board. I'd actually welcome a public vote on a modest project (a starter commuter rail line?) because I think the support is there. But, even that isn't needed. The funding is already out there. KJP

The meeting was frustration as there was little discussion of this concept. ODOT is officially "open" to the idea (because they have to be until a final design is settled upon), but I suspect they would rather just see this idea go away. I think they're wedded to the idea of having big, looping exits ramps at the Central Interchange to "stack" the traffic. Your example from Portland shows that's not necessary. Geez, build more residential downtown and fewer people will have to drive there -- they would already be there! So, by all means, write a letter, including one to the editors of the PD and Sun Newspapers. And your example from Portland is a good parallel to use. When referring to the alternate plan for the Inner Belt bridge and Central Interchange realignment, note that it is the Cuyahoga County Planning Department that originated the idea and was expanded upon by the Ohio Corridors Campaign. KJP

Big time. KJP

A respected urban design consultant that looked at cities with vibrant downtowns/urban cores found that having 10 percent of the overall municipality's population living downtown was the benchmark for creating the critical mass you've spoken of. The consultant said only six U.S. cities met that benchmark -- Boston, Chicago, New York City, Portland (OR), San Francisco and Seattle. But, 25,000 people living in downtown Cleveland would be a huge step forward. Don't forget there's an average of 2,000 people "living" at the county jail, which the Census includes in its tract counts. KJP

FINALLY!!!!! Here's a major departure from past statements by the US Department of Energy. This was just published by the ASPO at www.peakoil.net ...Yet, I don't expect major media to cover this, at least here in the U.S. KJP ________________ The US Department of Energy submitted the following article for inclusion in the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO) Newsletter The Mitigation of the Peaking of World Oil Production Summary of an Analysis, February 8, 2005 A recently completed study for the U.S. Department of Energy analyzed viable technologies to mitigate oil short-ages associated with the upcoming peaking of world oil production.1 Commercial or near-commercial options include improved vehicle fuel efficiency, enhanced conventional oil recovery, and the production of substitute fuels. While research and development on other options could be important, their commercial success is by no means as-sured, and none offer near-term solutions. Improved fuel efficiency in the world’s transportation sector will be a critical element in the long-term reduction of liquid fuel consumption, however, the scale of effort required will inherently take time and be very expensive. For example, the U.S. has a fleet of over 200 million automobiles, vans, pick-ups, and SUVs. Replacement of just half with higher efficiency models will require at least 15 years at a cost of over two trillion dollars for the U.S. alone. Similar conclusions generally apply worldwide. Commercial and near-commercial options for mitigating the decline of conventional oil production include: 1) Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR), which can help moderate oil production declines from older conventional oil fields; 2) Heavy oil/oil sands, a large resource of lower grade oils, now produced primarily in Canada and Venezuela; 3) Coal liquefaction, an established technique for producing clean substitute fuels from the world’s abundant coal reserves; and 4) Clean substitute fuels produced from remote natural gas. For the foreseeable future, electricity-producing technologies, e.g., nuclear and solar energy, cannot substitute for liquid fuels in most transportation applications. Someday, electric cars may be practical, but decades will be required before they achieve significant market penetration and impact world oil consumption. And no one has yet defined viable options for powering heavy trucks or airplanes with electricity. To explore how these technologies might contribute, three alternative mitigation scenarios were analyzed: One where action is initiated when peaking occurs, a second where action is assumed to start 10 years before peaking, and a third where action is assumed to start 20 years before peaking. Estimates of the possible contributions of each mitigation option were developed, based on crash program imple-mentation. Crash programs represent the fastest possible implementation - the best case. In practical terms, real-world action is certain to be slower. Analysis of the simultaneous implementation of all of the options showed that an impact of roughly 25 million barrels per day might be possible 15 years after initiation. Because conventional oil production decline will start at the time of peaking, crash program mitigation inherently cannot avert massive shortages unless it is initiated well in advance of peaking. Specifically, * Waiting until world conventional oil production peaks before initiating crash program mitigation leaves the world with a significant liquid fuel deficit for two decades or longer. * Initiating a crash program 10 years before world oil peaking would help considerably but would still result in a worldwide liquid fuels shortfall, starting roughly a decade after the time that oil would have otherwise peaked. * Initiating crash program mitigation 20 years before peaking offers the possibility of avoiding a world liquid fuels shortfall for the forecast period. Without timely mitigation, world supply/demand balance will be achieved through massive demand destruction (shortages), accompanied by huge oil price increases, both of which would create a long period of significant eco-nomic hardship worldwide. Other important observations revealed by the analysis included the following: 1. The date of world oil peaking is not known with certainty, complicating the decision-making process. A fundamental problem in predicting oil peaking is uncertain and politically biased oil reserves claims from many oil producing countries. 2. As recently as 2001, authoritative forecasts of abundant future supplies of North American natural gas proved to be excessively optimistic as evidenced by the recent tripling of natural gas prices. Oil and natural gas geology is similar in many ways, suggesting that optimistic oil production forecasts deserve to be viewed with considerable skepticism. 3. In the developed nations, the economic problems associated with world oil peaking and the resultant oil short-ages will be extremely serious. In the developing nations, economic problems will be much worse. 4. While greater end-use efficiency is essential in the long term, increased efficiency alone will be neither suf-ficient nor timely enough to solve the oil shortage problem in the short term. To preserve reasonable levels of economic prosperity and growth, production of large amounts of substitute liquid fuels will be required. While a number of substitute fuel production technologies are currently available for deployment, the massive construction effort required will be extremely expensive and very time-consuming, even on a crash program basis. 5. Government intervention will be essential, because the economic and social impacts of oil peaking will otherwise be chaotic, and crash program mitigation will need to be properly supported. How and when governments begin to seriously address these challenges is yet to be determined. Oil peaking discussions should focus primarily on prudent risk management, and secondarily on forecasting the timing of oil peaking, which will always be inexact. Mitigation initiated earlier than required might turn out to be premature, if peaking is slow in coming. If peaking is imminent, failure to act aggressively will be extremely dam-aging worldwide. World oil peaking represents a problem like none other. The political, economic, and social stakes are enormous. Prudent risk management demands urgent attention and early action. 1 Hirsch, R.L., Bezdek, R.H, Wendling, R.M. Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation and Risk Management. DOE NETL. February 2005 _________________

The pond, bridge and fountains were actually there. The postcards were only colorized, and their content unchanged. Here's how one of those postcards looked like in its original black-and-white.... Also, here's a couple that I missed.... And a close-up of one of the Comfort Stations in front of a nearly finished Terminal Tower, in 1927 KJP

I think the name later got changed in the plans to Miller Boulevard, Ratner Road, or maybe it was White Way. I can't remember. KJP