alanr

This whole 'project' sounds a little unusual - from the way it was either 'leaked' to the public or accidentally disclosed, to the lack of specifics other than the Ferrari dealership and "condos and offices" description to its supposed sponsor. Does Mr. Moreno have any history in enterprises of this type and scale? It seems he is supposed to be the driving force behind the project. Also, who owns the land where this building is supposed to be built? Has there been any change in its status/ownership? Hopefully the PD will illuminate us all soon.

When the developers circulate the drawings with people walking outside in shorts and sitting at outdoor cafes, it would be fair to also prepare some drawings with the same areas in the midst of a hard Cleveland winter. (Nearly) everything looks good when it's nice and sunny and people are outdoor, but the developments should look good not only at their best, but also at their worst - which here in Cle means about a third of the year. Showing only the nice summer drawings makes a good impression but it's also a little deceitful - especially when this lakefront spot will bear the brunt of the elements much more so than inland parts of Cleveland.

It seems they've done a good job so far. I only wish they used a more sophisticated name. "Horseshoe" really sounds like the name one would slap onto a cow town gambling house. Other than that, I look forward to a great opening night.

I drove by the new building the other day and saw a web address where they advertise those condos; I couldn't catch the whole address, though. Does anyone have it?

Today I walked from the County Court to the City Hall on Lakeview, and I realized it would not be a bad thing if the owners of that building on St. Clair (is 212 its name?) refuse to sell it to the Medical Mart, and the Mart has to use the County building instead: if one of those two buildings is to go down and be replaced by a newer one, I'd much rather see the shabby County building go down, rather than the newer, somewhat taller, better-looking 212 building. Plus, the "skyline" on St. Clair in that area looks better already compared to how it looks on the Lakeview side. Plus, the view from Lakeview (overseeing the lake, Browns Stadium, the Great Lakes Science Center) is nicer than from St. Clair (overseeing some other buildings across the street), so a visitor to the MedMart would have a much nicer "Cleveland experience" when looking out the window.

This was just posted in Crain's Cleveland: Cleveland Clinic takes another look at expanding in Las Vegas http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20090914/FREE/909149981 I was (more than) a bit taken aback by this statement: "The Clinic has been considering <b>a move</b> to Las Vegas for at least five years." [emphasis supplied] Do they mean the Clinic is considering opening a new location there (as it did, say, in Dubai or Abu Dhabi, can't remember which one), or actually moving operations from Cleveland to Vegas?

New renderings of Flats East Bank project - P.D. article on 9/9/9 Participants in a waterfront tour hosted by Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson got a glimpse of a few updated renderings of the Flats East Bank project tonight .... see rest of article and a few nice pics here: http://blog.cleveland.com/cribnotes/2009/09/new_renderings_of_flats_east_b.html

The "Cool Cleveland" weekly newsletter of today features a piece about FEB, which you can find here: http://www.coolcleveland.com/index.php?n=Main.Visionquest2 . Mostly regurgitated info (and some debatable opinions), but, generally speaking, it's not a bad thing to (re)create a bit of buzz around this project.

A family builds a really nice mansion. It looks great - they're all excited about it, and it's the pride of the whole neighborhood. Then, as soon as it's ready, the husband decides to turn the living room into a machine shop. The wife starts a baby sitting operation in the family room. The high school boy starts building computers in the kitchen, and the grade school girl turns the foyer into an animal shelter. Pretty soon the nice mansion turns into a run-down, sore spot of the neighborhood. That's pretty much what's happening with the Midtown section of Euclid Ave. Because it *looks good*, all kinds of organizations that should have no business on a street designed to be pedestrian-friendly and foster urban development, are opening shop there: a madhouse/homeless shelter, a soon-to-be ghetto, a food factory. Why they wouldn't be required to move to, say, Carnegie or Chester, beats me. On the other hand, maybe that's the only way to fill the empty land between the two cities that together are called Cleveland, and it may just work...

There is an empty lot just west of 668 Euclid, adjacent to the building. I think they did some digging in there at some point. Does anyone know what's going to happen with that lot? Are they going to use it for parking, or build something on it?

Is this the beginning of the end of Ohio's nascent wind industry? http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090610/ap_on_sc/us_sci_diminishing_winds;_ylt=Ard2cclLUbXtZzdQpXope9us0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTFlOWVjb2wyBHBvcwMxMjEEc2VjA2FjY29yZGlvbl9zY2llbmNlBHNsawNub3Rzb3dpbmR5cmU- Not so windy: Research suggests winds dying down AP By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein, Ap Science Writer Wed Jun 10, 7:30 am ET WASHINGTON The wind, a favorite power source of the green energy movement, seems to be dying down across the United States. And the cause, ironically, may be global warming the very problem wind power seeks to address. The idea that winds may be slowing is still a speculative one, and scientists disagree whether that is happening. But a first-of-its-kind study suggests that average and peak wind speeds have been noticeably slowing since 1973, especially in the Midwest and the East. "It's a very large effect," said study co-author Eugene Takle, a professor of atmospheric science at Iowa State University. In some places in the Midwest, the trend shows a 10 percent drop or more over a decade. That adds up when the average wind speed in the region is about 10 to 12 miles per hour. .......

I wonder how - if at all - Dick Jacobs' passing away is going to impact this proposed project. Anyone has any insights on what the leadership at the Jacobs' Group is going to do about this prime property downtown Cleveland, in the post-Jacobs era of that organization?

Calfee has between 130-140 attorneys in their Cleveland office; plus support staff, this probably means 250-300 people. Squire Sanders has about 150-160 attorneys in Cleveland. Even though Calfee is much smaller than Squire or Jones Day globally, they're pretty strong here locally. I imagine they could be an anchor tenant for a 20+ story office building, right?

this is, admittedly, a second-hand rumor, but I heard Calfee Halter is considering moving to Jacobs' planned building in the Public Square. I guess this would be a large enough anchor tenant to push this project forward. Can anyone confirm this?

I think it may have been Wolstein who said, at a City Club presentation last week, that he wasn't worried about Huntington getting new tenants. His take was that the building has been paid "three times over" since the 1920s, and they could drop the rates to attract new tenants to "$12-13/sqf" and still turn a profit. He said that, at these rates, they'd have a great shot at attracting tenants from the suburbs. As self-serving as his point obviously is, it makes some sense. Link to the City Club presentation here: http://cityclubpodcast.optiem.com/CityClubPodcast-080423.mp3 (disclaimer - I think the one who made the comment was Wolstein, but it may well have been one of the other two guests - Doug Price or Nate Zaremba - can't remember precisely). On a related note (although this should probably be posted under "Pesht") the invitees also agreed that there is still "room" (i.e. market) for another office building downtown - an oblique allusion to Stark's Pesht. Whatever happened to the other potential tenants - Squire Sanders and Baker Hostetler? Are htey going to stay where they're now?

I read somewhere - I can't remember where, unfortunately - that Cleveland's downtown population includes the 1000+ inmates in the downtown jail by the Justice Ctr. ... could anyone point to a source confirming/denying this?

> "It would be absolutely amazing to see Pesht, FEB, and K&D's plan all moving forward at the same time." Plus, let's not forget Zaremba's Avenue District; Stonebridge; the MedMart; Euclid Corridor... these are all large downtown projects happening at the same time. They re-enforce each other in terms of density/traffic/reinvigorating the downtown, and should create the critical mass that triggers the explosion of urban life in Cleveland. Have there been so many concomitant large projects in Cleveland since its glory days, many decades ago? This looks like a quiet avalanche... with all these projects moving forward, in three years The New Cleveland will be unrecognizable!

The renovation/addition to the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law (Euclid & E18th) is almost finished. I took these pics 30 min ago:

"in the long run we are all dead." john maynard keynes.

"hemming things in a tight location" is exactly what "density" means. Density leads to traffic, not the other way around. High density would be much better accomplished in the TC area, where there is already a basis to build upon, than in the Mall area, which right now is probably one of the lowest-density places downtown. From the TC area, density - and traffic - can spread around as restaurants, retail space etc. reach full capacity and other stores, bars & restaurants open nearby. Plus, with less hotel rooms nearby, compared to the Mall location (1850 v. 3000+), this would either generate more traffic back & forth to hotels, or more probably a new 500+ rooms hotel in one of the empty lots by Superior. This could jump-start Pesht or a similar project. The assumption seems to be that the CC will necessarily be a big ugly box that we need to hide somewhere (like, underground). Why so? The Gund Arena could have been a big ugly box - but it's not; it looks nice and it's a Cleveland landmark. A CC with a modern design on a sloped location would certainly contribute more to the skyline than a hole underground. I don't mean to set off (again) :-D someone's inferiority complex by comparing Cleveland to other cities, but look at where the highest density is in other cities: in crammed locations bordered by rivers/estuaries/gulfs etc. The best place to start if we want to achieve high density is right by the river, not inland.

Mostly everyone agrees that Cleveland really needs higher density downtown. How would the Mall location increase density? It barely would, compared to TC. One of the most promising locations downtown where higher density can be built on an already-existing base is the TC area. Now that the city has one shot at increasing density, why waste that shot on a second-rate location (Mall) and ignore the most promising spot (TC)? Whether FCE would get a free ride is irrelevant to this debate (I have no connection to FCE whatsoever). Hate of FCE - which seem to be a recurring theme when it comes to the TC location - is a pointless argument and shows bias. Also, how would a Mall location contribute to Cleveland's skyline/image, if the CC is built largely underground (correct me if I'm wrong)? It wouldn't. I think that's a huge negative. Economic development is important, but so is Cleveland's skyline. Burying the CC in the ground contributes 0 to the skyline. We don't have the luxury of Chicago or NY, of having 2-3-4 mega-projects every year; we've got one shot, and we need to get maximum bang for our bucks. Looking at both density and skyline, I can't see how the Mall location is better than TC.

Does anyone have any "big picture" figures? (or knows where to find them?) - total price tag for the CC & MM combined - projected annual revenues - projected economic activity likely to generate (vendors, hotels, etc.) - time frame: when will they break ground? when will they open for business? This should generate a bunch of additional activity downtown (I am thinking of projects such as Pesht): new hotels, entertainment, shopping areas, etc.

Here's why I think Pesht - or other mega-projects that will cover those empty lots in the Warehouse district - will be built: the gas right now is incredibly cheap. It should be at least $6/gallon, and over the next 2-3 years should go above $10/gallon. That's b/c China and India are reaching the tipping point where hundreds of millions of people will be able to suddenly buy a car. Gas consumption will skyrocket, and so will gas prices. Therefore people will start crowding together to save on transportation costs, and so will do businesses. Employees will want to be closer to work; providers, closer to clients. There will be a construction boom in every downtown where there's still room to build - and Cleveland has a lot of room left. Public transportation will become a top choice; the downtowns will become busy and dense. Trains will get en vogue again: cheaper than trucks to transport goods, and cheaper than airplanes to transport people. In Europe the price of gas has almost always been pretty much double what's here; the downtowns are also a lot denser. My two cents: soon, those empty parking lots downtown Cleveland will become very hot pieces of real estate. So will those abandoned empty buildings & lots down in the Flats. On the downside: imagine an empty, decrepit Westlake or Solon, with abandoned, boarded McMansions ...

Any updates on Pesht? Has Stark been able to bring any large tenant on board? I wonder how the development at Ameritrust is going to impact Pesht; looks like there are now at least three developers with advanced plans competing for five super-tenants: East Flats, Stark, and K & D.