August 30, 20213 yr Getting rid of the parking on the couple of blocks where it is allowed and expanding the sidewalk is a no brainer and would simply maintain the traffic status quo. Indeed the sidewalks are ridiculous narrow and should be expanded given the significant amount of pedestrian traffic. I guess the big question is whether the businesses on that stretch would rather have parking in front of their stores or bigger sidewalks. I am sure that would generate a lively debate.
August 30, 20213 yr 2 minutes ago, Htsguy said: Getting rid of the parking on the couple of blocks where it is allowed and expanding the sidewalk is a no brainer and would simply maintain the traffic status quo. Indeed the sidewalks are ridiculous narrow and should be expanded given the significant amount of pedestrian traffic. I guess the big question is whether the businesses on that stretch would rather have parking in front of their stores or bigger sidewalks. I am sure that would generate a lively debate. By the way if it were not for the new top of the hill garage I would never suggest getting rid of the parking on Cedar as previously finding parking in the area could be a nightmare (years ago almost got into a fist fight with a guy in the lot across the street behind the grocery store while looking for a spot).
August 30, 20213 yr 2 hours ago, Htsguy said: Getting rid of the parking on the couple of blocks where it is allowed and expanding the sidewalk is a no brainer and would simply maintain the traffic status quo. Indeed the sidewalks are ridiculous narrow and should be expanded given the significant amount of pedestrian traffic. I guess the big question is whether the businesses on that stretch would rather have parking in front of their stores or bigger sidewalks. I am sure that would generate a lively debate. Since it was the businesses there that banded together to pay for the jersey barriers, the businesses probably would rather have the outdoor dining space than the parking. Time will tell. Lively debate indeed -- people are still protesting Top of the Hill. I do like the idea of expanding the sidewalk in this area. Maybe you could allow on-street parking there in the new "curbside" lane after 5pm or something (most of the traffic is flowing toward UC in the morning and away from UC in the evening, so reducing traffic to one lane in the evening shouldn't be a problem -- as long as you manage the merge coming into the business district -- but that's no different than what we deal with at Cedar-Taylor).
August 30, 20213 yr 16 hours ago, Mov2Ohio said: Don't shoot me, bit I think the best solution at the Cedar/Euclid Heights intersection, thru Cedar Fairmount is a Pedestrian Brodge over Cedar. Infrastructure wide it would probably be less expensive than trying to re-engineer these intersections and it would provide hassle free crossing for pedestrians. Given the lack of space on the landing side on the sidewalk on the north and south sides of Cedar, you would probably have to add elevators for access, but this way you make it easy to cross, and don't crimp the flow of vehicular traffic through these intersections. I completely agree that reconfiguring that Cedar hill-Cedar-Euclid Heights intersection is going to be an extremely difficult and expensive task and there are no easy or simple solutions. (Same for Cedar-Fairmount-Derbyshire-Grandview.) Pedestrians and cyclists crossing to Overlook is a problem. The no-stop right-turn coming up Cedar hill is a problem. Harcourt is a problem. It can really suck to be a pedestrian at some of these intersections. But I doubt that we could ever get a pedestrian bridge approved that would work well in this area. At least if you can get to the south side we now have a nice bike path down Cedar Hill and you can cross (if you can move quickly) at Murray Hill. And if you're on the north side you can cross Euclid Heights and have the median as a refuge. I'd want to think about closing Harcourt, eliminating the right-turn-on-red at the top of Cedar Hill, and adding a pedestrian refuge/median to help pedestrians cross Cedar -- far cheaper than a bridge (don't forget the maintenance costs on the bridge) "Don't crimp the flow of traffic!" is what gives us an ever-expanding highway system and the commensurate increases in maintenance expenses, and horrible "places" for pedestrians. No one wants to walk beside speeding traffic and its noise and pollution. I would redesign the street to slow the traffic down to 25mph while keeping it moving (fewer stoplights) (Driving through Little Italy isn't horrible, even though it can be slow, because generally you can move through). Slow but steady is better than fast with stop-and-go. That would probably be the best we could hope for. Edited August 30, 20213 yr by Foraker removed sentence.
September 14, 20213 yr Watching tonight's Cleveland Heights City Council meeting and during the public comment portion of the meeting Paul Volpe spoke for about 5-6 minutes and set a match to the current conceptual plans for the Cedar-Meadowbrook project. Ironic since the firm he founded (and retired from a number of years ago), City Architects, came up with the current proposal. He passionately offer his help for free and indicated he had come up a significantly different vision that still fit Flaherty and Collins' goals, including economic goals, and looked forwarded to sharing with the Planning Commission staff.
September 14, 20213 yr Paul Volpe and Cleveland Heights would be better off if he disappeared off into the sunset. Edited September 14, 20213 yr by w28th
September 14, 20213 yr 8 hours ago, w28th said: Paul Volpe and Cleveland Heights would be better off if he disappeared off into the sunset. Agreed.
September 14, 20213 yr 13 hours ago, Htsguy said: Watching tonight's Cleveland Heights City Council meeting and during the public comment portion of the meeting Paul Volpe spoke for about 5-6 minutes and set a match to the current conceptual plans for the Cedar-Meadowbrook project. Ironic since the firm he founded (and retired from a number of years ago), City Architects, came up with the current proposal. He passionately offer his help for free and indicated he had come up a significantly different vision that still fit Flaherty and Collins' goals, including economic goals, and looked forwarded to sharing with the Planning Commission staff. Volpe's arguments that his design is dramatically better is standard Volpe -- considering that City Arch works for F&C on this project and may have restrictions that Volpe isn't aware of, that responses to RFP requests get minimal time from the architects, and he should know that City Arch hasn't invested a lot of time into the design and won't until F&C and the city sign a development agreement. Not to mention we still don't know whether the vacant buildings on Cedar Road will be part of this project. Very frustrated that the city still has not reached a development agreement with F&C these months later -- the economic development team needs to get off its *ss and get that deal done. Its failure to do so is leaving the field open for the "we want a park instead" crowd gathering petition signatures.
September 17, 20213 yr Exciting news about Park Synagogue: https://www.cleveland.com/news/2021/09/park-synagogue-picks-a-developer-to-find-innovative-ways-to-preserve-an-architectural-masterpiece.html
September 17, 20213 yr 5 hours ago, Vincent_G said: Exciting news about Park Synagogue: https://www.cleveland.com/news/2021/09/park-synagogue-picks-a-developer-to-find-innovative-ways-to-preserve-an-architectural-masterpiece.html Very happy to hear that Sustainable Community Associates will be working on this. Good fit for Cleveland Heights. Also like how they are going to spend some time to develop a master plan before beginning actual development. The city's economic development department could take a hint from this (should have taken some time to consider the Cedar-Lee business district as a whole and get community input before approving the development at Cedar-Lee-Meadowbrook; and should develop a plan for Severance before development occurs there).
October 1, 20213 yr The student-oriented housing across from top of the hill is almost done and boy is it Uuuuuugly. I can’t believe the project got no pushback with top of the hill absorbing it all. A bit of pushback might have helped the student housing look way better.
October 1, 20213 yr 10 minutes ago, LlamaLawyer said: The student-oriented housing across from top of the hill is almost done and boy is it Uuuuuugly. I can’t believe the project got no pushback with top of the hill absorbing it all. A bit of pushback might have helped the student housing look way better. The initial renderings and description of the project was telling that this would be the case. I think there was some push back at the beginning, primarily because the project just seemed to pop up out of no where. However the push back was too little too late.
October 1, 20213 yr 21 minutes ago, Htsguy said: The initial renderings and description of the project was telling that this would be the case. I think there was some push back at the beginning, primarily because the project just seemed to pop up out of no where. However the push back was too little too late. Not terribly surprising given that (i) it's behind a wall, so not immediately visible, (ii) it's on a stretch of Euclid Heights that is not frequented by many pedestrians (it's next to a roadway with fast-moving cars heading to University Circle and downtown), (iii) it's student housing (low-cost construction) adjacent student apartment buildings, (iv) city inspectors seem to be in short supply -- for example, the planning commission required them to keep more trees than ultimately survived pre-construction activities, (iv) the historic building on the property was "saved" so the historic preservationists didn't complain, and (v) Top of the Hill across the street was getting a lot more attention (ironic that complaints about this "cheap" housing sit along side the complaints about the "expensive" housing at Top of the Hill). No, it's not particularly attractive but I think it is better than what it was, just not nearly as good as it could have been. I'm hopeful that the property will look a lot better once we have a year for the landscaping to develop, but it is student housing and I'm glad that they kept the wall to keep it out of sight.
October 4, 20213 yr College Club is just a fantastic development. Both the for sale town homes and rentals in the old clubhouse.
October 4, 20213 yr Top of the Hill and College Club will both be lovely. Overlook Park looks even more ugly in person. Thankfully what's mostly wrong with it is the awful clashing colors of the vinyl siding, which won't be too hard to change at some point in the building's life.
October 12, 20213 yr Oops. Apparently its worse during heavy rain... "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
October 12, 20213 yr 1 hour ago, KJP said: Oops. Apparently its worse during heavy rain... I would hope that the construction team is aware of this.
October 12, 20213 yr This makes me feel gross partly because it's an unacceptable design flaw and partly because it's posted by one of the loudest anti-development voices. I hate that this will probably add a bit of fuel for the anti-development campaigners. But, practically speaking, the city will require this to be fixed and I'm sure the developer would fix it anyway. It's not going to be a big deal.
October 12, 20213 yr 1 hour ago, LlamaLawyer said: This makes me feel gross partly because it's an unacceptable design flaw and partly because it's posted by one of the loudest anti-development voices. Edited October 12, 20213 yr by freefourur
October 13, 20213 yr 5 hours ago, cadmen said: Jeez. How did that garage pass inspection? I must be missing something, but I've been in a lot of parking garages downtown and rain does get in in that center gap -- parking garages are often not watertight. I know this issue was raised at a city council meeting and they are going to be "looking into it" -- but this didn't look nearly as bad as was described.
October 13, 20213 yr It has been mentioned/discussed/acknowledged at the last two city council meetings and is already being investigated and as @Foraker suggested above it may be determined that it is not that big an issue.
October 25, 20213 yr This is looking great. Especially like the Euclid Hts side where the townhome section fills in the space between the “tower” and older apartment buildings. Way better than the shabby house and empty space that was there. At the right scale and leaves ample room for the existing dwellings. A real win.
November 10, 20213 yr Rearview of the Top of the Hill tower looking west, and taken from the elevated outdoor parking deck behind the Starbucks/Appletree Books/Howard Hanna retail/residential strip on the north side of Cedar Road today (11/10/21). Really fits in well, IMO.
November 10, 20213 yr 44 minutes ago, Down_with_Ctown said: Rearview of the Top of the Hill tower looking west, and taken from the elevated outdoor parking deck behind the Starbucks/Appletree Books/Howard Hanna retail/residential strip on the north side of Cedar Road today (11/10/21). Really fits in well, IMO. It fits in great. Lots of density in this area of Cleveland Heights and the people who said it would be out of scale were smoking something.
November 10, 20213 yr Wow! That retail strip you're behind is really casting an absurd shadow on the parking garage. How did they ever let something like that get built with that amount of shadows? /s The times I've been by this, I'm always taken aback by how well it fits in with the neighborhood. Only half way done, and a great improvement over the grassy lots.
November 11, 20213 yr 20 hours ago, PoshSteve said: Wow! That retail strip you're behind is really casting an absurd shadow on the parking garage. How did they ever let something like that get built with that amount of shadows? They paid extra to include the shadows -- it's "artistic." And just wait until you see the shadows cast by Top of the Hill. :-) Seriously though, I think the old buildings were built before or during the 1920s and the parking you see there (a bi-level parking garage) was added sometime in the 1980s/early 1990s.
November 11, 20213 yr Shadows are yesterdays irrational moan and groan. The current grossing is that the dog walking area is to close to the condo building.
November 11, 20213 yr 3 hours ago, Htsguy said: Shadows are yesterdays irrational moan and groan. The current grossing is that the dog walking area is to close to the condo building. I drove by this morning after a meeting and it looks like they will have the brick siding up on the main "shadow-tower" within a week or so. It also looked like a lot of the windows are in -- close to buttoning things up for the winter. On the Euclid Heights side, the townhouse buildings (or whatever you call them), look really good. They blend right into the neighborhood and appear to be very well done. The "dog park" brouhaha cracks me up. We'll see, but I don't think it will end up being a dog park. I checked Google Maps today and the Earth view -- still the old image, no sign of Top of the Hill construction. Saved the image for future comparison.
November 11, 20213 yr 20 minutes ago, Foraker said: I drove by this morning after a meeting and it looks like they will have the brick siding up on the main "shadow-tower" within a week or so. It also looked like a lot of the windows are in -- close to buttoning things up for the winter. On the Euclid Heights side, the townhouse buildings (or whatever you call them), look really good. They blend right into the neighborhood and appear to be very well done. The "dog park" brouhaha cracks me up. We'll see, but I don't think it will end up being a dog park. I checked Google Maps today and the Earth view -- still the old image, no sign of Top of the Hill construction. Saved the image for future comparison. The brickwork in general looks so good. Real brick vs. crappy paneling is such a visible difference.
December 6, 20213 yr Great pics. How land in that location sat undeveloped for decades is astonishing.
December 7, 20213 yr 13 hours ago, OldEnough said: Great pics. How land in that location sat undeveloped for decades is astonishing. Based on what developers are going through to get large scale development done in Cleveland Heights, it is NOT surprising at all. When is the last time I-71 turned a profit?
December 7, 20213 yr 16 hours ago, OldEnough said: Great pics. How land in that location sat undeveloped for decades is astonishing. When I moved to Cleveland Heights in the early 2010s, the going rate for a 1 bd apartment in the area was about $650/mo. Why would anyone build new in that kind of market? Edited December 7, 20213 yr by LlamaLawyer
December 7, 20213 yr Point being that building something appealing to the growing employment base seemed long overdue.
December 7, 20213 yr 7 minutes ago, KJP said: E-mail your comments to: BZA Secretary Elizabeth Kukla at [email protected] Reference docket items.... Calendar No. 21-152: 11300 Hessler Road (small, new-construction apartment building) Calendar No. 21-173: 1975 Ford Drive (renovation) Calendar No. 21-174: 1981 Ford Drive (renovation) Please be polite and respectful and factual. A little humor can be wonderful. Wrong thread @KJP
December 7, 20213 yr 22 hours ago, kevincle said: Pretty great views! I believe it was taken from the 8th or 9th floor. If you open that photo on the left you can see the new college student housing across Euclid Heights Blvd. from Top of the Hill.
December 7, 20213 yr Cedar-Lee-Meadowbrook project news: At Monday night’s City Council meeting, Council authorized the City Manager to enter into the Development Agreement with Flaherty & Collins. The project now moves to the formal design review and approval process. Upcoming meetings in December: Wednesday, December 8th 7 PM – Planning Commission: preliminary presentation on the project by the Developer. The public will be able to comment at this meeting. The meeting will be online: https://clvhts.webex.com/clvhts/j.php?MTID=m6988fecf8bff76ebefeec24c19c539c3 Tuesday, December 14th 6 PM, Community Center – Parking & Traffic Workshop #2: City's consultant team will present the preliminary results of the parking and traffic studies. The public will be able to interact, ask questions, and comment at this meeting. The meeting will be in-person. Tuesday, December 21st 7 PM – Architectural Board of Review (ABR): preliminary presentation on the architectural design of the project by the Developer. The public will be able to comment at this meeting. The meeting will be online. A link will be posted on the City’s calendar prior to the meeting date. There will be no votes or approvals at any of these meetings in December. However, these meetings present important opportunities for the public to comment on and weigh in on the site planning and urban design of the project before the plan is finalized. To that end, the city is asking that the public sends its comments to [email protected] with a subject line of “Cedar-Lee-Meadowbrook Comments” and/or submit a comment via the form on the project webpage: www.clevelandheights.com/clm
December 7, 20213 yr 32 minutes ago, Foraker said: Cedar-Lee-Meadowbrook project news: At Monday night’s City Council meeting, Council authorized the City Manager to enter into the Development Agreement with Flaherty & Collins. The project now moves to the formal design review and approval process. Upcoming meetings in December: Wednesday, December 8th 7 PM – Planning Commission: preliminary presentation on the project by the Developer. The public will be able to comment at this meeting. The meeting will be online: https://clvhts.webex.com/clvhts/j.php?MTID=m6988fecf8bff76ebefeec24c19c539c3 Tuesday, December 14th 6 PM, Community Center – Parking & Traffic Workshop #2: City's consultant team will present the preliminary results of the parking and traffic studies. The public will be able to interact, ask questions, and comment at this meeting. The meeting will be in-person. Tuesday, December 21st 7 PM – Architectural Board of Review (ABR): preliminary presentation on the architectural design of the project by the Developer. The public will be able to comment at this meeting. The meeting will be online. A link will be posted on the City’s calendar prior to the meeting date. There will be no votes or approvals at any of these meetings in December. However, these meetings present important opportunities for the public to comment on and weigh in on the site planning and urban design of the project before the plan is finalized. To that end, the city is asking that the public sends its comments to [email protected] with a subject line of “Cedar-Lee-Meadowbrook Comments” and/or submit a comment via the form on the project webpage: www.clevelandheights.com/clm Are the new plans anywhere on-line
December 7, 20213 yr 8 minutes ago, Htsguy said: Are the new plans anywhere on-line I have heard that there are new drawings, but hadn't seen them until you prompted me to go look. Looks like new site plans are up on the development's website. https://www.clevelandheights.com/1154/Cedar-Lee-Meadowbrook Much improved -- it looks like they DID get control of those vacant buildings on Cedar Rd. Huge win. The new plan eliminates the buildings wrapping the parking garage, adding a dog park instead. Building on Meadowbrook lot looks the same. I think there should be pedestrian access from Cedarbrook and it is not clear to me whether there is pedestrian access between the Cedar-Lee lot building and the parking garage, and in the concept diagram it looks like this is a service area, which might not be a very nice or safe pedestrian passage. https://www.clevelandheights.com/DocumentCenter/View/10146/Updated-Preliminary-Site-Plan?bidId= https://www.clevelandheights.com/DocumentCenter/View/10145/Updated-Development-Concept-Diagram?bidId=
December 7, 20213 yr 34 minutes ago, Foraker said: I have heard that there are new drawings, but hadn't seen them until you prompted me to go look. Looks like new site plans are up on the development's website. https://www.clevelandheights.com/1154/Cedar-Lee-Meadowbrook Much improved -- it looks like they DID get control of those vacant buildings on Cedar Rd. Huge win. The new plan eliminates the buildings wrapping the parking garage, adding a dog park instead. Building on Meadowbrook lot looks the same. I think there should be pedestrian access from Cedarbrook and it is not clear to me whether there is pedestrian access between the Cedar-Lee lot building and the parking garage, and in the concept diagram it looks like this is a service area, which might not be a very nice or safe pedestrian passage. https://www.clevelandheights.com/DocumentCenter/View/10146/Updated-Preliminary-Site-Plan?bidId= https://www.clevelandheights.com/DocumentCenter/View/10145/Updated-Development-Concept-Diagram?bidId= Gaining control of those Cedar Road parcels is a great surprise and very welcome Without seeing some renderings, other than Cedar Rd., at this point it doesn't seem like they took many of the past suggestions/criticisms to heart (especially Paul Volpe's who it appeared wanted to re-design the whole project by himself). The green space on Meadowbrook just seems to be an afterthought with no incorporation into the development and the "thru street" running pass the parking garage does not seem activated and is not "a place you want to be and hang out". To be fair, I don't really know how you accomplish this given the limited space/width, the back sides of Lee Road commercial spaces and the hulking cheerless parking garage.
December 8, 20213 yr 19 hours ago, Htsguy said: Gaining control of those Cedar Road parcels is a great surprise and very welcome Without seeing some renderings, other than Cedar Rd., at this point it doesn't seem like they took many of the past suggestions/criticisms to heart (especially Paul Volpe's who it appeared wanted to re-design the whole project by himself). The green space on Meadowbrook just seems to be an afterthought with no incorporation into the development and the "thru street" running pass the parking garage does not seem activated and is not "a place you want to be and hang out". To be fair, I don't really know how you accomplish this given the limited space/width, the back sides of Lee Road commercial spaces and the hulking cheerless parking garage. Yeah, Paul Volpe. His heart is in the right place. The edge of the park space on Meadowbrook is delineated by an ATT easement that caused a lot of problems in prior attempts to develop the Lee-Meadowbrook lot. In other words, rather than deal with a difficult ATT, they just stopped the building short of the easement. How the park space is ultimately designed will be critical to how much it is loved/hated/used. FutureHeights commissioned a plan to rehab the park by Boss Dog, but has not been able to get authorization from the city to actually do anything there (that "park" is actually where Cedarbrook used to go through to Lee Rd., and the city owns that right-of-way). To your point about the pedestrian experience along the "new" street/alley and on Tullamore, I have heard a rumor that the city planning director, Eric Zamft, is interested in finding ways for the City to do or work with the developer to improve the pedestrian experience on the periphery of this project. So public pressure and suggestions would be welcomed. Looking forward to hearing how tonight's meeting goes -- anyone interested should submit comments today and maybe those comments will be addressed.
December 8, 20213 yr Marginal improvements to a site plan that was already fine. I'm looking forward to when people stop talking about this and top of the hill on Nextdoor, which may occur by 2027 if we're lucky.
December 9, 20213 yr 7 hours ago, LlamaLawyer said: Marginal improvements to a site plan that was already fine. I'm looking forward to when people stop talking about this and top of the hill on Nextdoor, which may occur by 2027 if we're lucky. Gaaahhh! He said "Nextdoor"!!!! 🤢
January 11, 20223 yr EXTREMELY frustrating news out of Cleveland Heights on the Meadowbrook development When is the last time I-71 turned a profit?
January 11, 20223 yr What a disaster. I am so pissed off at these people. About every single business on Lee Rd. has a sign advocating to build this project. The ballot measure, unfortunately, seems extremely likely to pass since 10% of the city already signed this petition, and turnout on May 3 may not exceed 20%. I want to figure out what I can do about this, but I'm at a loss. Does anyone have the actual petition language? I can't find it anywhere, not even Fran Mentsch's Nextdoor posts.
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