Oldmanladyluck

Great win last night! I can't say that I'm salty for TBS photoshopping a pic of a burning river out of jest. Maybe someone in Cleveland slept with one of the producer's wives or something. Talk about not being able to let go- we're talking about close to 50 years ago now. But whatever. Go Tribe!

Hey all- I think a thread is warranted on the hurdles faced by developers trying to build in Cleveland. We've seen many rehabs of older office buildings but little new construction in the core. All the while, there is pent up demand for new construction that builders can't meet currently due to the high costs. Meanwhile, an article posted today on Cleveland.com states that a development in Ohio City required 25 sources of funding to move forward on a $60 million project http://realestate.cleveland.com/realestate-news/2016/10/construction_starts_on_60_mill.html#incart_m-rpt-1 . What will it take for development to take off downtown and elsewhere?

^KJP- I think that means this project is beginning to move forward...

I just cant believe that this crap was the best proposal and highest bid for the land and that RTA went with it. Again, I wonder who is the new property manager there- the position was open earlier this year and it appears they selected someone with no clue about TOD for something as important as the proposed future land use at sites owned by RTA. What a joke!

I wonder who actually got the position which was open not too long ago at RTA to manage their properties, including property transfers. What a dumb move by RTA.

I thought there was a broad zoning overlay recently put in place downtown in order to allow the process to be smoother for development to take place... But it may have been specifically for the Warehouse District project and not over the entire CBD. Nevertheless, a new 340 ft building is a nice addition.

^Or the suburbs!! Ba-dum-bum... psssssh. This could potentially lead to helping with the development of NuCLEus or the East Bank. However, what buildings already have 150k sqft left? I'm pretty sure our depleted downtown has at least one. If an existing building with 150 sqft is prestigious enough for Forest-City has yet to be seen. What's scary is that I'm pretty sure MayDay put out one of "those" stories on April Fools a few years ago about the Terminal Tower turning into apartments... one of at least two that have turned into reality. That's the fifth hand.

Clarity, logic and transparency are needed in planning future of Justice Center (photos) By Steven Litt, The Plain Dealer Follow on Twitter on September 14, 2016 at 8:05 AM, updated September 14, 2016 at 8:13 AM CLEVELAND, Ohio - It's easy to hate the 40-year-old Justice Center in downtown Cleveland, a midcentury modern court, police and jail complex whose future is being debated by Cuyahoga County. Designed in the Brutalist style popular in the 1960s and '70s, the center, at Ontario Street and Lakeside Avenue, includes a 26-story tower with 44 courtrooms and adjacent lower wings that house the city's police headquarters and two monumental jails. It's vast, gloomy, confusing and aging badly. More at: http://www.cleveland.com/architecture/index.ssf/2016/09/clarity_logic_and_transparency.html#incart_river_home Still against it! :whip: :-)

Yes, but your Playskool phone doesn't. Nice pics KJP!

Interesting tidbit from the article... "Asked where launching nuCLEus stands, Stark said the company wants to close financing as soon as the city of Cleveland completes incentives requested for the project. He declined to go into more detail. A Jackson administration spokesman was not able to respond to questions by 4 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 26." Actual news!! Thanks for posting this update. I wonder what would be the hold-up of incentives from the city if Council actually knew that financing for the project is hinged on the city moving first... I don't know if the city would drag it's feet on this.

Outstanding photos once again, MayDay!

Typically, July and August are the peak months for employment in the region. The BLS has Cleveland's preliminary employment numbers for July at over 1 million for the first time since November of 2008. July 2008's numbers were 40,000 higher- but the numbers began to fall off a cliff later during the year. Needless to say, it looks like the region continues to be headed in the right direction.

I tend to agree with Berj Shakarian about tearing down the current JC. We all know and agree that it isn't the BEST looking building or complex to say the least. That goes without question. What should be brought into question- besides the potential cost of building a new complex and the location of where a new complex would be built, is what happens to the land at W. 3rd and Lakeside. I'm not confident, at all, about a developer having instant interest and the clout to build something significant at the intersection. The JC takes up an entire city block of downtown- a rather large block at that. 40 years after the demolition of a large part of downtown which created the Parking-Lot District, there's PLANS for construction on those lots, finally. I, personally, am against the large-scale demolition of the JC without seeing demoand for a larger portion of the remaining lots downtown. The Tower City Complex is still unfinished for crying out loud- some 80 years later. Don't tell me that moving the JC is a necessity, especially when it could cost over $1 billion to do.

This https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessie_(lake_monster) I actually had my mom buy that one for me- I remember I was around 9 at the time! I'm a fan of any name change that puts "Cleveland" in it- has a better ring than the "Lake Erie Monsters"; at least to me.

FWIW, the BLS shows the Cleveland region with the highest total amount of people employed since things fell off a cliff. Those numbers are still 70-80,000 less than were employed in the year 2000. We have a ways to go.

^Timing (Great Recession) and land assembly had a lot to do with that. I remember the city considering the use of eminent domain in order to get the holdouts out of the way in order for construction to begin. Remember some of the renderings the holdout property owners put together for their "plans" for the East Bank? Some were quickly put together overnight only to push the price of their land up. But that's part of the game. Stark has site control for both the Beacon and NeCLEus. One can only hope it won't be too much longer before NuCLEus gets off the ground.

^I gotta admit that was the first thing I thought of!

Nice story. Meanwhile, i think the trajectory of actual employment in the region will potentially hit the 1 million mark for the first time since 2008 by the time the summer numbers come out Preliminary projections are out for April, which have us at the highest April total of employed since 2009. On the not-so-bright side, the labor force is still 50,000 less than it was in 2008, and one could assume that many of the jobs that were lost are gone for good.

I heard one Glenville resident's perspective on E.C.'s potential merger: It's sort of like a person who is pretty broke as it is and is barely maintaining his own house which needs a roof, gutters, downspouts, a new furnace, etc., has a cousin who has lost everything, has no home at all and can't help out with food, rent, or anything else... who wants to move in. His perspective was, well, if E.C. is going to get attention when it comes to tearing down properties, fixing potholes, addressing crime, etc.- what about Glenville? What about Collinwood? What about the rest of the neighborhoods in the city which have been seeing the very same disinvestment which E.C. has seen but for a longer amount of time? How does this merger help them? It was an interesting perspective to say the least.

Cleveland's preliminary employment numbers are the strongest they've been since April of 2011... taken with a grain of salt coming from the BLS. http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LAUMT391746000000006?data_tool=XGtable

^My guess would be maybe 16k, if that, since the last census. It's amazing how much has been lost in EC. Much of its urbanity is lost though it is left standing, if that makes sense.

Outstanding photo set! I thought I would see myself in some of the St Patrick's Day pics- what a bummer :-D Downtown is looking great- and will only improve in the years to come. I've got to get over to the Museum of Art to catch the pharaoh exhibit- this photo set just pushed me to get there this weekend!

I believe the Wolstein Center is technically in Central, so I dont know if the student housing would count towards downtown's numbers if built there. I like the proposal though... I think that tearing down the Wolstein Center is needed since its costing the school so much. It should be interesting to see which developers come forward with proposals.

At face value, I don't see why a city would not be able to go above and beyond the state "minimum"... and we all know it's very, VERY hard to live on what the minimum wage is now. Without question it should be raised, and I'm glad SEIU is taking on this fight. For all the negatives that people may believe will occur (which I don't buy into), a great positive for this is that the city will look progressive nationally which would be great.

Based on the articles, I'm not too excited about this at all at this point... I'll wait and see if more comes of it next year. No need to critique the layout of what they're envisioning just yet since this is very early in the process.