heightsfan

This project seems ripe for a "Whatever Happened To?" column in the PD.

It'd be great if the Mayo Clinic took a serious look at leasing space too. What better way to lay down the gauntlet vis-a-vis one of your major competitors than to lease space in the building conceived by and located in that competitor's home town. Although the med mart management would probably be skittish of recruiting Mayo in light of the undoubtedly heavy role the Clinic is playing in recruiting the major industry players.

I figured the comments would be bad. I started reading, and within 10 seconds saw that word and just closed the article... While the comments are less than artful and the rhetoric over-the-top, the underlying skepticism expressed is not wholly unwarranted. While I'm certainly glad our med mart's main competitor has bowed out, the Nashville mart's failure does suggest the med mart concept continues to be a very tough sell. That fact would seem to be further bolstered by our own mart's ongoing struggles in attracting paying tenants, let alone wish-list anchor tenants. Let's not forget that we have $500 million in taxpayer money at stake here.

I don't know, what about the Aldi grocery store or suburban church built next door to it down in the East 80s. I'm not sure the corridor had much impact on the design of the projects conceived before the project was funded. Indeed, the Clinic's heart center and UH's Seideman Cancer building barely interface with the street at all, and are hardly pedestrian friendly. Indeed, Seideman doesn't even have a Euclid entrance. No question. But how would it be designed? Like the Cole Eye Institute was -- its pedestrian interface placed away from Euclid? Or like the Heart center was -- its interface placed facing toward Euclid?

Let's be honest though. Much of the billions of dollars in construction projects along the corridor was committed long before the project had any funding. Projects like the $500 million Clinic heart center and the $350 million art museum expansion are routinely counted as part of the "development" spurred by the corridor. Those projects were already in the pipeline when the corridor was still a pipe dream. Not to diminish the impact of the project, but it's had nowhere near the impact cited in these articles.

According to Louis Vuitton's website, they already have the "store within a Saks" concept at Beachwood. Is that true? (sorry, I do not go to that Saks). If Hugo were to do the same at Beachwood Saks, would LV stay? At that point you're creating a luxury mall within a department store, no? Yes, the Louis Vuitton store within a store is already in the Beachwood Saks. Hugo Boss is contemplating doing something similar in the men's department of the store. It would not push out the Louis Vuitton space.

One new trend being adopted by some luxury retailers is to include a store within a store. For example, Louis Vuitton built out quite a large store within Saks, and staffs it with their people. I've heard rumors that Hugo Boss plans to do the same thing at our Saks.

With a few notable exceptions (Burberry, Cole Haan, Henri Bendel, Hugo Boss, Armani AX), Cleveland has a good cross-section what I would qualify as upper-mid to low high-end retail. And what we lack in freestanding stores, places like Saks, Nordstroms, and Kilgore Trout pick up the slack. The truly upscale retail stores - Barney's, Van Cleef & Arpels, Georgio Armani, Hermes, Cristofel, Jil Sanders, Theory, Ferragammo, etc., are never coming to Cleveland or any other mid-tier Midwest city for that matter. As for the Container Store, it's a glorified Bed Bath & Beyond. I'm not losing any sleep over our lack of that. The bigger issue here is that Lyndhurst has a generally bad track record of doing good/smart development. Legacy Village is far from a shining example of outdoor retail and is easily outdone by Crocker Park, Easton, and even Eton Collection. If the City had any good develoment sense, they would have insisted on Legacy having one or more parking garages instead of a sea of surface parking with its accompanying run-off. The city also does little to enforce its housing code or otherwise work to improve the existing housing stock. Nor has it done much of anything to improve or enhance its main commercial thoroughfare along Mayfield, much of which is beyond tired looking. For all these reasons, I fear the city would approve just about anything on the Acacia property, with little regard to doing things right or preserving the integrity of the land. Better that it be kept something of a green suburban oasis.

I fully agree with this. I live in this neighborhood but I'd prefer to see it developed over staying a golf course. I agree that the region is over-retailed but only in the lower and mid markets. Upscale? Not at all. Does anybody honestly think The Container Store wants to locate next to Walmart or Gordon Food Service? From their other locations, I find that wishful thinking. This region lacks upscale retail opportunities. I think that's why we lack so many retailers. The upscale centers are nearly full with little room to expand. The Acacia land could help solve that. The next question is what will Conservation do with it? I have a feeling it will stay a GC which adds little to the area. I don't think they have the financials to convert it to a full blown park. Not to mention, I fear the land has environmental issues. If its a all purpose park, I think it does add to the region. I'm just a skeptic they will and can pull it off. Especially since they let Oakwood go which to me, needed to be consvered much more. The Container Store is upscale? Really? You must have a very different definition of what qualifies as upscale. In any event, Legacy Village and Beachwood Place have quite a bit of available retail space to let. And a lot of what is there currently is frankly not all that high end. If the upscale stores really wanted to enter the market there is no shortage of opportunities for them to do so. So either they've concluded the market isn't there or the management companies (GGP (Beachwood) and First Interstate (Legacy Village)) aren't targeting them (which I find hard to believe).

What a fabulous addition. Go Forest City.

Wow. Go Games, Calendar Club, Cycle Leather. I can hardly wait.

I'm pretty certain the developer closed on the Westin financing, at least that's what the papers had reported. In any event, Westin's website lists the Cleveland property as opening July 1, 2013. Also, I could be wrong, but I don't think Marous is the developer; it's an investor group comprised of Sage Hospitality and Optima Ventures, who hired Marous as their general contractor. So when you say Marous has invested so much in the project they aren't going to let it go, I'm not sure what you mean.

Anyone else notice that a large number of trees on Euclid between 18th and Public Square are dying. I assume it's from the high heat and drought, but I thought they installed an underground irrigation system as part of the corridor. Guess that's not working too well. I hope someone is looking into this; hate to see the taxpayer have to foot the bill for new trees, when we paid the contractors to install a working irrigation system.

Apparently not.

Thanks for the pics. Overall, I'm thrilled with the project; my only reservations concern the exterior materials on the apartments. I have a bad feeling these buildings are going to be covered in dark gray streaks in a few years. You can already see that happening on the Seideman building at UH, which utilizes analogous materials. I also wish the design would have incorporated some small elements of brick or sandstone; would have added a bit of color, and depth.

Sorry, I just don't think of S. Euclid as a true inner ring suburb. Setting that aside, what plagues S. Euclid is decades of poor development choices by the City, which continue to this day (e.g., Oakwood, Cedar Center, all of Mayfield Road, and pretty much every other major thoroughfare). Giving S. Euclid a small chunk of the casino money isn't going to make a dent in the problems plaguing that city; nor is it going to do anything to attract jobs to S. Euclid. We need to be doing things that will cause employers and people to be drawn to the region as a whole; the best way of accomplishing that is fixing up the core. If the core is dead folks, the vultures will come swirling around the outer ring in short order.

Let's hope they get there soon before Europe implodes and the capital markets completely seize up again.

I'm seriously beginning to wonder whether this project is ever going to get underway. With a committment from Kimpton and a 98% apartment occupancy rate downtown, you'd think they would have been able to wrap up the financing by now, notwithstanding the challenging lending environment. One wonders whether the developer simply doesn't have the ability to line up any investors or has some financial troubles of its own. It would be great if the PD could make some inquiries with its sources.

Unfortunately, it looks like the surface parking across the street expanded.

That sign has been there for over a year.

Can the bridge hang a right at Circle Drive and head up Cornell, then Edgehill to my doorstep. I really don't want to burdened by ever having to walk outside and be exposed to the elements. Ever.

I'm sure he did.

What Rep. Peters doesn't know is that the $4.3 billion figure that's always tossed around includes all sorts of things that had nothing to do with the Healthline and were in the works years before we even had the federal funding--e.g., the Art Museum expansion ($350 million), the Miller Pavilion and Glickman Tower at the Clinic ($500 million), CSU Student Center, etc. Not to say the Healthline hasn't generated development, but I wish folks would try to be more honest in the amount of development that has actually been created. It's the only way you can do a fair and transparent cost-benefit analysis.

New atrium construction pics from February 2012 posted on the museum's website. http://www.clevelandart.org/about/the%20building%20project.aspx Lookin' good.

I'm guessing they will open soon. Patience, young Skywalker.