andrew0816

Lol, one of the neighboring buildings (2220 Superior Via.) was rehabbed and is currently occupied (residential and retail/commercial spaces). To see the rehab you can view these past listings for units 5, 6, and 7 (picked these because they were my favorites). And so there's no confusion these are rentals but the leasing agent normally does for sale properties. As for the other building (2206), the owner wants something like $1.3-1.5 million for it but it needs A LOT of work making a rehab at that purchase price a no-go. Would not want to see that building torn down for a new build though, but don't think the community would get behind that. As for this new development, feel bad for the tenants at 2220 who have roof top decks...some of the balconies in the proposed building come right to the roof and property line and they'll lose their view of downtown, but hey, can't assume your view will stay the same when living in a city (same goes for those in Stonebridge Tower across the street). Wonder if there'll be any structural issue with the proposed building; those three buildings are sisters and I believe were all connected at one point. With that said, doesn't look like too much excavation will have to be done given the grade difference from the viaduct to Washington. **Edited to add, should this thread be relabeled to "West Bank Flats" or something since this, "Bridgeworks" and the 1250 Riverbed proposal are separate from Nautica?

You know the straights win when we tear each other down (Note: There's an Alyssa Edwards' gif I want to use but it has a curse word or two in it and I think the mods wouldn't appreciate that)

Well, at least we (the gays) still have that historic plaque on W. 28th! I mean, any other physical sign of our presence in that area is gone, but we got a sign!

Guess we'll see, but nothing has been sent out on the block club email chain yet with a confirmed date/time

@KJP it was cancelled due to the rain. Got two emails about the cancellation and it might be scheduled for next Monday (Memorial Day)?

I think it might have to do with the company itself, outside of the Warehouse District location I believe all of their other locations have closed. Hopefully another grocer will fill the space. And for those who do not wish to drive traffic to cleveland.com the same info can be found in this Cleveland Scene article: Constantino's Market Has Closed its Uptown Location

Do you mean between 47th and 48th next to that future marketplace? If so looks like the foundation is for a single family house, it was a city land bank lot(s) but Auditor's website now shows Katalin Paroska as the owner as of 5/10/19, looks like it was also a lot consolidation. And according to LinkedIn she's some sort of Republican political consultant.

I don't know what you're basing that assertion on, but I can tell you from having been in the building that a full renovation of this building would be extremely expensive and not worth the investment. There are major structural issues, including a partially collapsed roof that has been like that since the former furniture store was operational. That was close to 5 years ago so I can only imagine how awful its current condition is, not to mention the damage that has done to the floor beneath it. And, as others have noted, there are no architecturally significant portions of the building and it's a hodgepodge of additions that makes working with the existing floor plan difficult. As for the the previous proposals, the original concept (2016) was with a different owner/developer. They then sold it to a new developer who used the same architect for the modern retail/office proposal from 2 years ago. Between those two proposals design review had made comments about "faux historic" elements so that might have been why they went in a different direction, to a more modern proposal, back then. However, it seems that they could not get that concept to work out and have since hired a new architect and scaled down the project.

@Pugu There actually is a cap and a floor, the number of wards can't exceed 25 and can't be fewer than 11 (Cleveland Ordinances, Chapter 5, Section 25). There's even a chart that shows how many wards there should be within certain population ranges. So yeah, if we added 200k people we would cap out at 25 wards.

It depends on the city, some have a mix of ward and at-large council members, some have one or the other. My hometown (Mansfield) has a mix of ward and at-large seats. Akron also has a mix (13 total, 3 of which are at-large). Cincinnati has a 9 member city council and all seats are at-large (interestingly until 1925 they had 32 members and it was a mix of at-large and ward seats). Columbus is also all at-large seats (7 total), but I believe there have been issues with council and wanting to change the make-up or rules. Like Cleveland, they've also had issues with resigning members appointing their replacements who then get an unfair advantage when the voters finally get a chance to have a say. As for other cities: Detroit - Mix (9 total, 2 at-large) Pittsburgh - Ward (9) Minneapolis - Ward (13) Milwaukee - Ward (15) Nashville - Mix (40 total, 5 at-large but note they have a consolidated city-county government) Chicago - Ward (50) Los Angeles - Ward (15) Seattle - Mix (9, 2 at-large) Atlanta - Mix (16, 3 at-large and a separately elected council president) Denver - Mix (13, 2 at-large) Houston - Mix (16, 5 at-large) I've said this before, but I think having a mix of wards and at-large members would be better as there are major draw backs from having just one or the other. We also need major reforms for how council functions (like how we replace resigning members) and there were definitely shenanigans pulled when our ward boundaries were last redrawn (lookin at you wards 1, 6, 10 and 11). And since our city had previously amended the charter to tie the number of seats to population, I think we'll probably loose a seat or two after the 2020 census numbers come out.

Maybe, but I think the larger downside is that one would now have to either be rich or raise a whole lot more money to campaign in those expanded wards. Not to mention when you get to office you'll now make less but still have the same staff size (our city council might pay council members more than other cities, but our council also has a much smaller staff size). Then while making less you now have more constituents and a larger geography that you are responsible for, and those citizens and places might have very different needs, making it much harder for you to work for your constituents. Given all of that, how would this proposal make city council better? If anything this could shrink the pool of good, qualified people who want to run for office. Not to say that I am happy with council in it's current form. There are definitely changes I would like to see, including the following: Re-draw boundaries to match communities/get rid of some of our gerrymandered wards (bye Dona Brady!) No longer allow resigning council members to pick their replacements Or at least cut down the time frame in which members are allowed to pick a replacement Ex: if a council member has a 1+ year left in their term, have a special election Reduce the number of council members (due to population decline), but to 15, not to 9 like in the ballot proposal AND/OR convert some members (1-3) to At-Large positions

Although I would love if we re-utilized the subway deck of the DS bridge and had streetcars running down Detroit and 25th St., I think that the 25th St corridor, as far as transit is concerned, needs improved travel times/frequencies for the existing bus lines more than an expensive streetcar line at this time. To do this I think that W. 25th should have dedicated bus lanes all the way to the Cleveland/Parma border (or at the very least to the zoo). North of Bridge 25th is more than wide enough to accommodate and the parking lanes between Bridge and Lorain would be better utilized as bus lanes. In this section of 25th buses have to weave in and out of traffic which impedes everyone; plus with people circling and trying to park on 25th now they often block the travel lanes and impeded the flow of traffic, so changing the parking lanes to bus lanes would really help travel times for everyone. And south of Lorain the curb lanes could easily transition to dedicated bus lanes; with the current construction on 25th by 90 this stretch is down to a lane in each direction and, outside of rush hour, it is clear that multiple lanes are not needed for car traffic. And having dedicated bus lanes would vastly improve travel time/frequencies/ridership for our existing bus lines in that corridor; a dedicated ROW can more than double bus speeds and haven been shown to increase ridership by 2-9% (source). A recent example of this would be 14th St. in NYC, and dedicated ROW for buses are a major component to Seattle's increased bus ridership (source). Think that the creation of these bus/transit lanes could also be done relatively inexpensively. And to even further improve the transit corridor we could also work towards decreasing dwell time (which can account to about a third of travel time) by instituting P.O.P./all door boarding, signal prioritization, and low level boarding (which I believe most if not all of RTA's buses serving this corridor already meet). But given RTA's current issues with P.O.P. and the city's unwillingness to utilize signal prioritization on the Healthline I doubt those improvements would be made.

^Yeah, the comments about parking is some BS, but to be fair the parking garage will allow for the removal of 3 parking lots and a new building for the business school.

I have not yet listened to the Sound of Ideas interview with India Birdsong myself, but if Matt Rolf's overview is any indication it looks like new leadership at GCRTA will not lead to positive change, for now: I am quite disappointed with this. Utilizing P.O.P. on the Healthline (and other bus lines) is one of the key components of improving bus service (as well as all door boarding, signal prioritization, and dedicated bus lanes). And not seeking new funding sources at this time would be understandable if changes were first going to be made that decreased waste/misappropriation of funds, but we clearly need more funding to solve our larger issues (rail car replacement, maintenance, etc.). Beyond that, I find it even more discouraging that the rail line is looked at as "dressing on the salad" and not as a major asset to our transit system. Not to mention this reliance on the failing Uber/Lyft just confounds me; it has been proven that they do more to hurt transit ridership and I don't see them operating in the same capacity for much longer as they will have to turn a profit at some point and they won't be able to do so in their current form.

Is this comment really necessary? Besides being dramatic, it's also incendiary. The "Cow Town" moniker is outdated; Columbus has come a long way over the last several decades and has made amazing strides in infill and a shift towards more dense, urban projects throughout the city. We do not succeed by putting other cities down and Ohio is blessed to have three, distinct, vibrant cities. And who says we're failing in the convention business? From the articles I've seen it looks like we are doing well and growing, but that there are improvements that can be made to attract more and larger events...and that's not a failure. We should always be striving to improve and I think that there are steps that can be taken to make our convention business stronger; like building more hotels with meeting spaces, expansion of convention center over the railroad tracks (which if done in conjunction w/ lakefront transit center could have far greater impact on our city), or other options that have no doubt been discussed in this and other, more appropriate threads like this one.

Thanks @KJP! Article seems to indicated that the interim director Carver has indeed "changed the tenor" of their dealings with the contractor and is being more assertive/aggressive than the past administration. Hopefully Birdsong will do the same.

The article also mentions that the contractor is only obligated to provide technology that was available 10 years ago, but seems to indicate that GCRTA had the option to scrap the contract but chose to implement the older technology now. For those with more knowledge, like @KJP, is that wise considering the advancements that have been made? Are we going to get a something sub-par? Will this older technology be able to adapt to knew technology and potentially work in conjunction with similar tech in other cities?

Paint encapsulation isn't the only (or best solution) though. Often times to correctly abate a lead hazard you might have to replace/encapsulate wood door frames, thresholds, windowsills, window casings, and siding with a vinyl/aluminum. This is not a cheap or easy fix and if not done by a licensed lead contractor and following government guidelines your property wouldn't be considered lead safe, to do so the following would need to be met: Use a licensed lead abatement contractor and risk assessor Contractor would need to follow protocol for abating lead risk Containing construction zone (including exterior work, an added expense for properties w/ little to no setback) when conducting prep work (like scraping paint, removing hazardous materials, etc.) and abatement Conducting the third party approved lead abatement work (concealment, encapsulation, etc.) Post-construction cleaning that follows lead guidelines (means, methods, disposal) Third party assessor to test/sign-off/approve of work performed These requirements make the job more expensive, not mention these aren't in and of themselves easy jobs to do, even if you are going the DIY route. And I can't believe you would actually suggest that a tenant perform this work themselves, especially tenants who are not wealthy. As a real world example, I had to lead abate a property and the interior work alone was $4,500 (wet scrape, seal, paint for stabilization 16 window casings/windowsills, 2 walls, and 3 door frames. The post construction lead safe cleaning alone was $800 and the contractor charged a $500 "lead safe guidelines" fee. I know to you that might not seem like a lot of money, but for many people it is. And I should also mention that this was on a house that had been relatively well maintained, so the amount of items that had to be abated was not that extensive (many of the windows had actually been replaced with vinyl, just had wood casings/frames). Many houses that aren't lead safe need much more extensive work, including costly exterior work.

As others have pointed out, those are not apple to apple comparisons to Cleveland. Things to consider are the percent of properties that are rental vs. owner-occupied, number of properties, average/median income of each city, population change, and other demographic information. And I feel like it is also important to point out that, if you receive notice from the city/county/state, not just anyone can perform the abatement work, it must be someone who is certified by the state to do that sort of work. That added certification increases the cost of that work and, depending on the scenario, you must also need to hire a third party inspector to verify that your property is now lead safe. So, it's not as simple as just painting a windowsill and if the lead issue is with a rental property that's not something the tenant would take care of, hence the need to hold landlords accountable, which is more of an issue in Cleveland than it is in the cities you mentioned. This is not to say the city shouldn't be held accountable, the city definitely has room for improvement, but we have to acknowledge that the circumstances are different than the suburban areas with the same/similar housing stock.

And I don't recall there being a curb cut from their property onto Old Ontario St. and I don't see it in historical aerials. So, not sure how the removal of Old Ontario renders their property inaccessible now. But yeah, looks like the city messed up by not following procedure and these owners are taking advantage.

Some more background on India Birdsong, seems promising and like we might be getting the leader GCRTA has been in desperate need of: GCRTA selects India Birdsong as top choice for next CEO and GM GCRTA’s Board has entered negotiations with Birdsong who has experience managing transit systems in Chicago and Nashville. MISCHA WANEK-LIBMAN India Birdsong has been selected as the top choice to be the next CEO and general manager of the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (GCRTA). The GCRTA Board of Trustees voted unanimously on July 3 to enter contract negotiations with Birdsong following a nationwide search. [...] Birdsong is currently the chief operating officer of the Nashville Metropolitan Transit Authority where she is responsible for all of WeGo Public Transit’s bus and rail operations, including maintenance, improvement and supporting the system's 25-year growth plan. She leads more than 550 employees, including union and administrative staffers, two garages and maintenance shops, a commuter rail line and a downtown transfer central hub. Over the past year, the Nashville system has launched several improvements and initiatives, including updated bus routes with tracking services on a mobile app and tech upgrades such as USB chargers and free Wi-Fi on buses. Read More...

It seems that modifying platforms could be an inconvenience that would be ultimately pointless if there are in fact rail cars that have retractable platform gap fillers. That type of rail car would seemingly be the best option as they could be used on all three lines and wouldn't require the modification of platforms and the coordination hurdles that that would entail when switching from our current rail stock to the new vehicles. Unless I'm missing something/there's a downside of going with a vehicle with the gap fillers.

To add to W28th comment that caused some confusion, if you take a look at the developers's website, specifically their portfolio and "current projects" page and I think it is understandable as to why some people, myself included, are skeptical of the project being built as designed.

Are these just for 2018? If so, I wouldn't get so doom and gloom without looking at historic data to determine whether or not this is a trend or just the result of some outliers (like a major investment in one year in one metro that isn't indicative of normal growth)

@freethink - Wayfinding for The Flats has been spearheaded by Flats Forward, although I believe Metro Parks (and other community stakeholders) have been involved in the planning process. They hired Guide Studio (formerly Studio Graphique) for planning/design of the signage.