Apparently nobody cares.

 

Yes - all of the building immediately east of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame are now a giant rubble of nothingness.

Did someone say Rock-O-Meter?

Apparently nobody cares.

 

Yes - all of the building immediately east of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame are now a giant rubble of nothingness.

 

 

Sorry, just call me the Linda Evangelista of UrbanOhio - I don't get out of bed to take photos of anything less than a 10,000 sq. ft. building being demolished ;-)

 

Does that mean just in one building or total, because I think the Corps of Engineers is gone too

Posted by dsims August 29, 2008 22:45PM

 

CLEVELAND -- The old Commodore Theater in Cleveland's Collinwood neighborhood finally got to Housing Court Friday -- four years after the city condemned it -- and appears to be heading for demolition.

 

What took so long?

 

If you ask Councilman Mike Polensek, it's a Law Department that lacks the spine to drag landlords with problem buildings into court.

 

 

The rambling brick structure with a classic overhanging marquee sits at a school crossing on the corner of East 152nd Street and Lake Shore Boulevard. Decorative pieces of stone facade have been falling off the building onto the public sidewalk.

 

By Friday, the bank must decide whether to demolish or rehabilitate the building. Housing Court Judge Raymond Pianka signed the order.

 

Capital Crossing lawyer James Sassano said the bank is leaning toward demolition, which would cost about $760,000, including asbestos removal.

 

"If they decide to demo, it will be down by the end of the year," Sassano said.

 

______________________________________________________________________________________

It was demolished today, Sunday 11/17, by Lightning Demolition.  They struck fast.  So the city inspectors and EPA monitors either got paid overtime... or were not working on this job in progress.

So Lightning struck the Commodore?  :-D

 

Seriously though, another neglected beauty has been lost to oblivion.

Welcome to the forum Rusty! 

 

Tough news on the Commodore.

I took pics of what's left of the Commodore today :(  I'll post them later

Is anything going in place of the high-rise warehouse at E.18th & Cedar?  Another parking lot?

I think ODOT is demolishing it for the innerbelt project.

It's going to be their staging area, IIRC.

The destruction of North Collinwood's Commodore...

 

 

Coming Soon!  Empty dirt lot at prime Eastside intersection.

What an improvement...

such a shame

what a joke

 

i hate this fucking shit

 

why?

That building has been vacant for a decade or two. No one wanted it and it fell into such disrepair that it was no longer economically feasible to restore it. I hate seeing gems like this being lost, but until this state and to a lesser degree this country has public policies which favor restoring what we have vs. replacing it with plastic crap in the latest ring of suburbs, we're going to see more losses like this.

 

And we'll see the donut hole of poverty and abandonment in our metro areas get ever larger. Problem is, too many elected officials pay too much attention to political boundaries, whereas the institutionalized pulling/pushing forces of sprawl/blight pay no attention to such boundaries at all.

 

Only you, the electorate, can stop it.

Update on the Garden Valley demolition: 19 Of 23 buildings have been razed as part of phase I.  There's only four buildings left, and they're concentrated around where the Sidaway Bridge is located.  Between Sidaway Avenue and East 73rd Street, there's only one building left standing, the Garden Valley Neighborhood House.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is GV being demolished to clear way for newer buidings, or is there an effort to clear some space for the possibility of the Opportunity Corridor??

^ New Buildings.  It's a Hope VI project that will replace about 650 units with around 350, a la Tremont Pointe. 

 

The Opportunity Corridor has been planned for north of Kinsman somewhat adjacent to the RTA's rapid tracks. 

Looks like they are planning to tear down St. Peters Hall which I believe is the really cool building here and the one I really like (below center).  If Im looking at this right, they want to leave the really ugly building! 

From the Cleveland Restoration Society agenda. 

http://planning.city.cleveland.oh.us/landmark/agenda/photo/121108/index.php# (plans are on site)

 

St. Peter’s Hall

Case 08-056

1724 Superior Avenue

Demolition Ward 13 – Cimperman

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back the f#ck up - did you see THIS?!?

 

Cobb & Bradley Block and Acme Store Fixtures Building

5607 – 5613 Euclid Avenue

Emergency demolition

 

 

I never thought I'd be agreeing with CTownsFinest but there's a time for everything I guess. Maybe someone at the Cleveland Restoration Society can get on this, instead of dropping the ball like they did with the Breuer Tower.

These are prime examples of buildings we can't afford to lose. 

Has anyone else been following the demolition of Frank Giglio's house on West 14th in Tremont?  There's a ton of discussions taking place on realneo.us and tremonter.com. 

 

Here's the house in question:

 

 

 

 

I feel bad for Frank.  He's been going through this discussion for quite a while now.  When I met him, he was extremely friendly and just trying to live his life.  He's also been a Tremont resident in good and bad times, and to my knowledge, worked hard to attract new people to the neighborhood back in 70s.

As of this morning, the house was half-demolished. :-|

Wow, what a depressing morning on this thread.  All three of these buildings looks to be pre-WWI which is increasingly endangered in Cleveland.  There's very little 19th Century commercial/institutional stuff, in particular, left in this city.  And those buildings on Euclid are so bad-ass.

 

This is as a good a time as any to report something else I hear from a very reliable source: RTA is entertaining an offer from a buyer who would knock down the hulking mothballed building shell across from Galluccis on Euclid.

God damnit.  I'm speechless about the E57th Street buildings.  Wiping away some of the last vestiges of true urbanity.

A sad trio of losses.  All of these have been endangered for quite some time, with no one coming forward with any ideas to save them.

It really is sickening. In the three years since I've been back, the intersection of E. 55th and Euclid has been laid waste. As recently as 2005, most of the original buildings between E. 55th and E. 57th were still there, albiet in terrible condition, on both sides of the street. Now they'll all be gone. The Euclid Corridor, far from helping save these buildings, has actually been the primary catalyst for their destruction.

Midtown Cleveland has been pushing for the demolition of these buildings for years and has some hair-brained plan to turn this area into an outdoor mountain bike park. How inappropriately suburban can you get for this location? Not to mention the safety issues that would come from having an open air facility that's open only during the day during the warm months. Sigh.

Has anyone else been following the demolition of Frank Giglio's house on West 14th in Tremont? There's a ton of discussions taking place on realneo.us and tremonter.com.

 

Here's the house in question:

 

 

 

 

I feel bad for Frank. He's been going through this discussion for quite a while now. When I met him, he was extremely friendly and just trying to live his life. He's also been a Tremont resident in good and bad times, and to my knowledge, worked hard to attract new people to the neighborhood back in 70s.

 

Not that I want this house to be demoed, but I've heard some pretty bad things about this guy and how he's let this house go while he was very much in the position to keep it up.  It is hearsay, but I did it hear it from a good source.

There are two more demolitions on the Landmarks agenda this week. Both of them are on Franklin Blvd. I am familiar with one of the demos and I think it is a good thing (a developer wants to build his own house on the site).  I'm not exactly sure about the other demo, but I'm guessing that it is a house that is in the backyard of an existing house.

The destruction of North Collinwood's Commodore...

 

 

 

I hate to see good brick get thrown into a dump.

"Not that I want this house to be demoed, but I've heard some pretty bad things about this guy and how he's let this house go while he was very much in the position to keep it up.  It is hearsay, but I did it hear it from a good source."

 

While I'm sure we've all heard a lot, I don't know that any discussion of hearsay (from reliable sources or not) is going to result in anything productive. The "discussion" of the situation on tremonter.com unfortunately resulted in a lot of mudslinging (from ALL perspectives) and conspiracy theories. That will NOT be happening on my watch.

^don't worry, I'm not trying to stir things up. I'm just trying to add to the body of evidence wherever possible (but hearsay is not valid evidence...). I have no problem if someone proves me wrong or calls me out. I have no emotional stake in the matter and probably won't post again regarding this house as I have nothing more to add.

"Not that I want this house to be demoed, but I've heard some pretty bad things about this guy and how he's let this house go while he was very much in the position to keep it up. It is hearsay, but I did it hear it from a good source."

 

While I'm sure we've all heard a lot, I don't know that any discussion of hearsay (from reliable sources or not) is going to result in anything productive. The "discussion" of the situation on tremonter.com unfortunately resulted in a lot of mudslinging (from ALL perspectives) and conspiracy theories. That will NOT be happening on my watch.

 

Yea - it's unfortunate.  When I lived in Tremont, tremonter.com was a great place to get different perspectives on things and to find out unique things going on in the neighborhood - as well as crime watch topics.

 

Unfortunately that website has been hijacked by 3 individuals who have nothing better to do then spew hate and conspiracy theories.  It truly is a shame.

This all leads me to believe that the City is targeting abandoned and condemned buildings along main streets.  (What really sticks out in my mind is that five or so houses on "short" Grand between Kinsman and East 55th have been demo'ed in the last few months.  The houses didn't seem to be in substantially worse condition than the typical abandoned structure, but that street is a highly traveled linkage for commuters from the eastern suburbs to access I-490.)

 

It used to be that the City had a distinct priority system in place for demolition.  Critical health and safety threats were first on the list, followed by abandoned properties near schools and houses located within City of Cleveland-designated Model Blocks.  Seems like the policy has been tweaked slightly.

From what I hear - we can expect to see an upswing in demolition throughout the City.  When the "recovery" funds from the Fed are received by the City - there is going to be a fast movement to demo boarded homes in all neighborhoods.  The abandoned properties have bred crime and vandalism and the City hopes to stop it..with over 14,000 vacant homes it is unlikely that the majority of these homes can be renovated and sold to new buyers..

So with this thinking, the city would have torn down the entire Warehouse District in the early 70's.  What sound planning...

There has been way way too much torn down in CLE so don't take this the wrong way..but wood frame residential from the early 20th century that predominates in many Cleveland hoods in nearing the end of it's functional life anyway. I'm talking about "lower" quality construction, obviously anything with historical significance and/or high quality wood frame construction should be preserved and re-used/saved.

^^Agreed.  You can always work with the "guts" of a building.  However, when the bones go bad.... well, there is nothing to do but demo.

 

I would only hope that the any massive demolition project in this City is taken one area at a time instead of radomly.  Clearing lots here and there and leaving them empty will do nothing to spur re-development.  But if the City can clear a meaningful plot of land, developers will have way more incentive to do something with it. 

 

Starting from the inside-out is also a good idea.  If I had any say, I would try to clear out the area from downtown to E 55 as much as possible of buildings/houses that are beyond the point of rehab. 

Frank Giglio's house yesterday afternoon (photo from jerleenjustus' Flickr page):

 

 

:(

^What's a shame is that while yes, the house needed work (maybe a LOT of work, I don't know any specifics) - they could have at least tried to salvage some of it. In a few of those shots, you can clearly see some 6-panel oak doors and other stuff "they don't make like they used to".

From what I hear - we can expect to see an upswing in demolition throughout the City.  When the "recovery" funds from the Fed are received by the City - there is going to be a fast movement to demo boarded homes in all neighborhoods.  The abandoned properties have bred crime and vandalism and the City hopes to stop it..with over 14,000 vacant homes it is unlikely that the majority of these homes can be renovated and sold to new buyers..

 

This is definitely the case.  Cleveland was allocated $16M in neighborhood stabilization funding from HERA (the "first bailout" this summer), and almost $8.5M of this allocation is budgeted for "nuisance abatement" (demo).  Most of the demos will be of ordinary woodframe houses which are beyond repair, and some of which were not really marketable (less than 1000 sf, one bathroom), given the glut of available homes, but no doubt we'll lose some gems too. 

 

The County received another $11M in NSP allocations, but less than $1M is budgeted for demo.

^What's a shame is that while yes, the house needed work (maybe a LOT of work, I don't know any specifics) - they could have at least tried to salvage some of it. In a few of those shots, you can clearly see some 6-panel oak doors and other stuff "they don't make like they used to".

 

Seriously.  I definitely recommend the following NYTimes piece about house deconstruction (focusing on a Cleveland case study) for good detail on intense salvaging, in case people haven't read it already: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/magazine/28house-t.html?scp=2&sq=deconstruction&st=cse

RED FREAKIN' ALERT!

 

Demolition has been proposed for the former LaSalle Theater property at 819-829 E 185th St. The only possible reuse I've heard of for this empty property, once cleared, is relocation of a McDonald's located on Lakeshore Blvd near E 156th St. Meanwhile, Northeast Shores Development has made overtures to the bank holding the property to purchase it, redevelop the upstairs apartments, and has designs on a commercial/retail tenant for the former theater proper, but these overtures have fallen on deaf, (greedy?) ears.

 

I'll know more after Tuesday morning, but I needed to bring this to everyone's attention ASAP. Please don't let this property go the way of the Commodore -- it's not there yet, and need not get there.

Where does Polensek stand on this?  It's like his ward is on a witch hunt for old theaters.

Where does Polensek stand on this? It's like his ward is on a witch hunt for old theaters.

 

Without wanting to put words in the Councilman's mouth, I know Mike was supportive of landmark declaration for this property. While he is very much in favor of development that will benefit the neighborhood, that development shouldn't come at the expense of the neighborhood's character. The LaSalle is a far different animal from the Commodore.

Sometimes you just have to say goodbye to old things.

You need to visit Europe and get a better sense of our place in time, EagleFan. We don't have many old things in the U.S. But we do have a lot of structures in the U.S. which are being subjected to premature obsolesence due to our wasteful land use policies that favor new construction over making better use of the investments we've already made. Maybe someday, when the U.S. grows up and gets some perspective on its place in history, it will adopt more sane and sustainable land use policies.

You need to visit Europe and get a better sense of our place in time, EagleFan. We don't have many old things in the U.S. But we do have a lot of structures in the U.S. which are being subjected to premature obsolesence due to our wasteful land use policies that favor new construction over making better use of the investments we've already made. Maybe someday, when the U.S. grows up and gets some perspective on its place in history, it will adopt more sane and sustainable land use policies.

 

You're on a roll!  I could not agree more.

You need to visit Europe and get a better sense of our place in time, EagleFan. We don't have many old things in the U.S. But we do have a lot of structures in the U.S. which are being subjected to premature obsolesence due to our wasteful land use policies that favor new construction over making better use of the investments we've already made. Maybe someday, when the U.S. grows up and gets some perspective on its place in history, it will adopt more sane and sustainable land use policies.

 

and I say E 185 St is not a bad place to start some of that mode of thinking... right here, right now... thanks, KJP