KJP

Downtown’s new AJ Rocco’s reopening in May By Ken Prendergast / April 25, 2024 If you remember AJ Rocco’s as a coffee shop in the neighboring Caxton Building in Downtown Cleveland, the new AJ Rocco’s is going to be a big change for you. Restaurant-bar owner Brendan Walton and building owner Paul Shaia spared no expense in renovating a 19th-century bank building at 828 Huron Rd. to its Gilded Age glory with all of the rich woodwork, brick walls and metal decorative elements one would expect in a cozy downtown pub. MORE: https://neo-trans.blog/2024/04/25/downtowns-new-aj-roccos-reopening-in-may/

Waiting on a construction loan like everyone else.

Um, that's frozen concentrated orange juice. If you're going to use 80s pop culture to be funny, at least get it right, Mister Beeks.

Next up, another attempt at building a lake-to-river shipping channel! Its no longer viable since the steel mills are mostly gone, due in part to the higher-cost railroads which are now mostly gone too! https://www.library.kent.edu/special-collections-and-archives/proposed-lake-erie-ohio-river-canal-and-grand-river-reservoir

Hope a train doesn't catch on fire again!

That looks like a city I would like to live in.

Cleveland’s Central-Fairfax: the next hot zone? By Ken Prendergast / April 24, 2024 Cleveland’s Central and Fairfax neighborhoods haven’t been a hot zone for new real estate development since the Jazz Age of the 1920s and 30s. Back then, streets like Cedar, Central and Quincy were hopping with jazz clubs, speakeasies, flappers and gangsters. Aside the many night spots were factories that hummed with tens of thousands of jobs during the daytime hours. Most were tightly clustered along the four-tracked Pennsylvania Railroad that was elevated in 1915 to reduce traffic congestion. MORE: https://neo-trans.blog/2024/04/24/clevelands-central-fairfax-the-next-hot-zone/

We're going to have some big news coming out shortly -- the outcome of work I was involved in a decade ago. I'll have a NEOtrans article on it. And yes, this probably counts as a bomb. 💣

It's probably too big in total. Perhaps it could be pursued in pieces unless TurnDev has some magic elixir it can bring to bear.

This is potentially a lot bigger than just this one property. Working on an article about it.

Agree. That's a good issue to raise at the the upcoming public input meetings.

As promised. New graphics plus one extra added in the article....

Work Begins on $12B High-Speed Rail Connecting Los Angeles, Las Vegas The project is touted as the first true high-speed passenger rail line in the nation. https://www.ien.com/product-development/news/22893728/work-begins-on-12b-highspeed-rail-connecting-los-angeles-las-vegas

I should have better images posted later today.

Huh, a correlation between housing/healthcare and a perception of safety on the subway. Ditto for opinions by people who don't ride it often. Who'da thought that...

Told ya I'd turn it into an article! 😁 Downtown’s next crane may be MIA for a while By Ken Prendergast / April 23, 2024 While the nation’s employment is high and incomes are rising, in many respects, the slowdown in new real estate construction projects is the worst the nation has seen since the credit crunch of 2008-10. Back then, everything stopped. Nothing new was getting built. Things aren’t too different now unless you’re building new data centers, warehouses or small housing projects. MORE: https://neo-trans.blog/2024/04/23/downtowns-next-crane-may-be-mia-for-a-while/

New Downtown Lakewood plan, grocery store announced By Ken Prendergast / April 22, 2024 Sitting dormant since Lakewood Hospital was closed in 2016 and demolished in 2019, a 6-acre city-owned site in Downtown Lakewood has a fresh strategy and a new tenant to potentially and finally reactivate it. While that strategy and a new tenant, a neighborhood grocery store, was enthusiastically received by City Council members at a committee meeting tonight, it remains to be seen whether it can overcome financing hurdles affecting it and all other projects nationwide. MORE: https://neo-trans.blog/2024/04/22/new-downtown-lakewood-plan-grocery-store-announced/

Incoming!

Tower City’s Astro lifts off tomorrow By Ken Prendergast / April 22, 2024 Yes, a new restaurant at Tower City Center in Downtown Cleveland really is out of this world. And The Astro Restaurant is going to lift off at 11 a.m. tomorrow, one block from the neighboring RocketMortage offices. But since the restaurant will be open only for dinner, it may prove to be popular for people attending evening events at the RocketMortgage FieldHouse just down the street. MORE: https://neo-trans.blog/2024/04/22/tower-citys-astro-lifts-off-tomorrow/

Someone posted in another thread that they heard the hillside work may force the river channel to close for months. I asked Port Authority CEO William Friedman about it. Here is his reply: "Shipping on the Cuyahoga will not be closed. The contractor is working with navigation stakeholders to determine the best method for installing the bulkhead while keeping shipping traffic moving. The Port places the highest priority on uninterrupted shipping to the steel mill and other maritime-dependent industries. Which is, after all, the reason for the stabilization along with ensuring the safety of people and other critical infrastructure in the vicinity of the hillside." Will Friedman Port of Cleveland

In Harlan Hatcher's book on the Western Reserve, he noted that people were assigned to travel around to visit the reserve's first settlers because they were so lonely and disconnected from each other.

Yes. I noted in the article that their deed transfer gives them tenant rights.

And Chef Boyardee!

Superheroes hokey?? 😮

Sherwin-Williams: already outgrown its new HQ By Ken Prendergast / April 19, 2024 With the completion of Sherwin-Williams’ new Downtown Cleveland headquarters tower delayed well into next year, the global coatings giant has a some extra time to consider its options on how to handle various aspects of its unanticipated growth. Since the company has already outgrown its new HQ before it is finished, that means weighing a second HQ tower, expanding remote work, as well as addressing parking and commuting options. MORE: https://neo-trans.blog/2024/04/19/sherwin-williams-already-outgrown-its-new-hq/