heights library to convert old ymca gym into knowledge and innovation center

Thursday, January 17, 2013

 

The Cleveland Heights-University Heights Library is transforming a 4,000-square-foot former YMCA gym connected to its Lee Road branch into a high-tech community classroom and home for the Cuyahoga County Small Business Development Center.

 

The renovation, which broke ground in December and will be completed in June, is aimed at better serving the community while also supporting small business entrepreneurship in the Heights communities.

 

http://www.freshwatercleveland.com/devnews/heightslibrary011713.aspx

Very cool.

What does that even mean?  Will it be similar to the LaunchHouse in Shaker Heights? 

From an e-mail press release..........

___________________

 

September 23, 2013

 

MEDIA ALERT:

 

Cuyahoga Land Bank, Cleveland Heights, East Cleveland work together

To clear the path for development in North Coventry Neighborhood

 

WHO:            Cuyahoga Land Bank

                        City of Cleveland Heights

                        City of East Cleveland

                        Elected Officials

                   

 

WHAT:            A multi-site demolition in the North Coventry Neighborhood, resulting from the desire of two adjacent cities to address blight on their shared border.

 

WHEN:            9 a.m. Wednesday, September 25, 2013

 

WHERE:          14048 Superior Avenue in East Cleveland

 

WHY:              Increased foreclosures and decreased investment in the North Coventry neighborhood, which is split evenly between the cities of Cleveland Heights and East Cleveland, have resulted in increased crime, lower property values and continued disinvestment.  Determined to change the future of the neighborhood, Cleveland Heights and East Cleveland teamed with the Cuyahoga Land Bank to demolish a series of vacant, abandoned apartment buildings in order to remove the blight from the North Coventry community and clear the way for new development. The estimated cost of the first phase of demolition is $1.1 million.  With the help of state funding, the five demolitions undertaken on Wednesday and the estimated 60 more necessary demolitions marks the first step toward recovery for this community.  This is all made possible by Moving Ohio Forward Funds from Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine’s office from a National Mortgage Settlement.

 

###

Sad but probably necessary.  I just wonder what the target is for "re-development."  It's not as if that area is in high-demand, particularly the stretch of Superior where the demos will happen if I understand correctly.  The only part of the Superior triange which hold much value IMO are the properties along Mayfield and maybe the southern edge of Coventry before reaching Mayfield.

So the release says that 60 properties will be demolished...can anyone estimate about how many total properties exist in that Triangle?

 

I've previously said that I'd like to see the entire area flattened and redeveloped.  I don't have any specific ideas, but I have to believe that something decent (mixed-use?) could be put in if that area were given a fresh start.  The proximity to University Circle and Coventry has to be an attractive asset, right?  Or if that's a pipe dream, then the old adage of "addition by subtraction" seems applicable here, because for Cleveland Heights, that is one of its biggest trouble spots.

So are we saying they're going to level some of those beautiful apartment buildings along Superior?  I'm referring to the stretch from Glenmont to Mayfield.

So are we saying they're going to level some of those beautiful apartment buildings along Superior?  I'm referring to the stretch from Glenmont to Mayfield.

 

In the 1950s, my mother raised my two oldest brothers in one of those apartment buildings at Glenmont and Superior in Cleveland Heights. She also lived in one at the south end of Glenmont, in Cleveland Heights. She's not sentimental like me, so I don't know if she'll care if those buildings get leveled or not. But I do know she liked living in those apartments even though her financial situation was difficult at the time.

So are we saying they're going to level some of those beautiful apartment buildings along Superior?  I'm referring to the stretch from Glenmont to Mayfield.

 

I hope not, but my guess would be that some of them may be on the list because of decay and vacancy.  I believe Hts121 gave us a bit of history on these apartments a few months back and pointed out that these buildings are actually of lower quality than some of the other older apartment buildings around Cleveland Heights.  They may not be salvageable at this point.

60 buildings in that small area.  They're really going for the "burn the village to save it" strategy.

60 buildings in that small area.  They're really going for the "burn the village to save it" strategy.

 

Same approach that the Cleveland Clinic took with Cleveland's second downtown -- at Euclid and East 105th in the 1970s and into the early 80s. Note the sign on the marquee......

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/105th_and_Euclid_in_1981.jpg

That approach has been taken over and over in Cleveland.  Has it worked anywhere?

I don't think it can be argued that some of those buildings have to go.  Ideally, the entire triange would be leveled and developers could work with a clean slate.  That land could be a gold mine if that was done given its proximity to the Coventry strip, LI, UC, Cumberland Park, and the Rec Center.  But I fear this is going to end up looking like Hough, with just scattered residences.  I assume there are many homeowners who like their house just fine and won't willingly just let it be demolished.

 

I guess if I was in charge here, I would require nothing but contiguous demos.  No taking down one house and then another 2 doors down and then another 4 doors down.

^You'd blow your whole budget on ED litigation.

 

That approach has been taken over and over in Cleveland.  Has it worked anywhere?

 

Northern Tremont, southern Ohio City, Central, off the top of my head.  And it's worked no worse than letting rotted apartment building stand till they start crumbling to the ground, which has also been tried all over Cleveland, especially East Cleveland.

 

I have no idea which buildings in particular are in their sites and what exactly the cities and landbank plan for the land, but carving some parking lots into the long wall of apartment buildings on that part of Superior might even help the occupied buildings last longer.  I know it's come up before, but are the streetview images hopelessly out of date for this neighborhood now?  How many of the bigger buildings are visibly vacant now?

Look, this area is a mess, one of the most blighted areas of Cleveland Heights.  I don't know what the long-term plan is or should be, but CH (and EC, which has bigger fish to fry) has let it go for far too long.  Here's another radical idea if CH/EC can get rid a significant portion of those buildings: Close off Superior north of Mayfield and extend the park/recreation area west.  There are a lot of advantages to this idea.

A few bits of news from Severance:

 

According to one of the managers for Severance, now that Walmart is out of here (woo!!), two of the new stores that will be filling the space are Villa, and Citi Trends. Not to happy about that last one.... I almost feel like it would be better to have empty space here.

 

Unrelated to the Walmart departure, Big Lots is allegedly coming to fill in the old Borders space. Decent news there at least. 

 

Sallys has pushed back their moving date to Oakwood Commons until January.

 

GNC, who originally was going to move when they opened a new store in Cedar Center, is no longer closing the store at Severance.  They will be having both.

^I drove by the new Wal Mart on Warrensville a couple of weeks ago ( I don't really go that way much) and it really is worse than I could have imagined.  It looked like I had just been transported to Streetsboro.

According to one of the managers for Severance, now that Walmart is out of here (woo!!), two of the new stores that will be filling the space are Villa, and Citi Trends. Not to happy about that last one.... I almost feel like it would be better to have empty space here.

 

Why?

^I drove by the new Wal Mart on Warrensville a couple of weeks ago ( I don't really go that way much) and it really is worse than I could have imagined.  It looked like I had just been transported to Streetsboro.

 

Streetsboro? 

From my understanding, theyre theyre on the larger end sizewise. This would then be taking up a good deal of the vacated Walmart space, most likely not leaving any room for my dream of a Kohls within walking distance.

 

OH, I almost forgot, a Taco Bell is rumored to be building on an outlot near Ihop

I hope the new slate of leaders coming in to city hall next year will compare Severance to the traditional shopping and dining centers in Cleveland Heights, such as Coventry, Cedar-Fairmount, and Cedar-Lee, and find a way to push Severance in that direction rather than continuing the exurban development pattern currently "thriving" at Severance.  Has anyone compared the city tax revenue per acre along Severance Circle to the revenue-per-acre of the traditional business districts?

I hope the new slate of leaders coming in to city hall next year will compare Severance to the traditional shopping and dining centers in Cleveland Heights, such as Coventry, Cedar-Fairmount, and Cedar-Lee, and find a way to push Severance in that direction rather than continuing the exurban development pattern currently "thriving" at Severance.  Has anyone compared the city tax revenue per acre along Severance Circle to the revenue-per-acre of the traditional business districts?

 

I dunno about this.  New development that would mimic the traditional business districts would to me have a Crocker Park / Legacy Village feel, not be authentic and would run the danger of hurting the very retail strips you mentioned.  It's a shame the Severance estate is gone and I know there's no hope for that to return, so since it's been a mall for half a century and I think at this point it's ok if the big boxes remain.  The new Walmart not withstanding, my hope is the presence of Severance gives big boxes a somewhat hidden place to reside, allowing for the authentic retail strips to thrive elsewhere. 

I hope the new slate of leaders coming in to city hall next year will compare Severance to the traditional shopping and dining centers in Cleveland Heights, such as Coventry, Cedar-Fairmount, and Cedar-Lee, and find a way to push Severance in that direction rather than continuing the exurban development pattern currently "thriving" at Severance.  Has anyone compared the city tax revenue per acre along Severance Circle to the revenue-per-acre of the traditional business districts?

 

Severance Towne Center consists of 53.06 acres and they are paying $2.2m per year in property taxes.  Not sure how that compares to the other business districts.

I hope the new slate of leaders coming in to city hall next year will compare Severance to the traditional shopping and dining centers in Cleveland Heights, such as Coventry, Cedar-Fairmount, and Cedar-Lee, and find a way to push Severance in that direction rather than continuing the exurban development pattern currently "thriving" at Severance.  Has anyone compared the city tax revenue per acre along Severance Circle to the revenue-per-acre of the traditional business districts?

 

Severance Towne Center consists of 53.06 acres and they are paying $2.2m per year in property taxes.  Not sure how that compares to the other business districts.

 

53.06 acres sounds low.  Are you including the parking lots and outparcels?

I hope the new slate of leaders coming in to city hall next year will compare Severance to the traditional shopping and dining centers in Cleveland Heights, such as Coventry, Cedar-Fairmount, and Cedar-Lee, and find a way to push Severance in that direction rather than continuing the exurban development pattern currently "thriving" at Severance.  Has anyone compared the city tax revenue per acre along Severance Circle to the revenue-per-acre of the traditional business districts?

 

Severance Towne Center consists of 53.06 acres and they are paying $2.2m per year in property taxes.  Not sure how that compares to the other business districts.

 

53.06 acres sounds low.  Are you including the parking lots and outparcels?

 

Keep in mind, most of "Severance" isnt just Severance Town Center. Theres three high rise apartment buildings, city hall, banks, the Coral housing development, the Post Office, Time Warner, the medical office tower, Kaiser, and a church

 

EDIT: and that one office building turned condos

I hope the new slate of leaders coming in to city hall next year will compare Severance to the traditional shopping and dining centers in Cleveland Heights, such as Coventry, Cedar-Fairmount, and Cedar-Lee, and find a way to push Severance in that direction rather than continuing the exurban development pattern currently "thriving" at Severance.  Has anyone compared the city tax revenue per acre along Severance Circle to the revenue-per-acre of the traditional business districts?

 

Severance Towne Center consists of 53.06 acres and they are paying $2.2m per year in property taxes.  Not sure how that compares to the other business districts.

 

53.06 acres sounds low.  Are you including the parking lots and outparcels?

 

Keep in mind, most of "Severance" isnt just Severance Town Center. Theres three high rise apartment buildings, city hall, banks, the Coral housing development, the Post Office, Time Warner, the medical office tower, Kaiser, and a church

 

EDIT: and that one office building turned condos

 

That's everything that is owned by the ownership group that has the main retail (and associated parking).  It wouldn't include out parcels like the apartments, city hall, time warner, church (old athletic club), post office, former baker's square, etc. 

Oh, OK, thanks.  I assume that would include IHOP then?

Just think of Severance as the City dump and it is a lot easier to deal with.  All of the big box stores, the fast food restaraunts, the communist-bloc style highrises, the suburban office towers, the cookie cutter private housing developments, and City Hall are all quarantined within its confines.

You know it is strange....of any community (city) in Northeast Ohio, given the nature and mind set of the resident population (along with the education level and the fact that they are well traveled), you would think that Cleveland Heights would be fostering creative urban development principles that you see across the nation.  Obviously resources are a problem but again, that is a problem every where.  I think the powers that be might know what they want but they are just TIRED, and end up settling.

 

More and more Lakewood is becoming what CH should be (although they still make many bone headed decisions) even though they also have to deal with an aging housing stock like CH (that's an understatement...much of it is in really bad shape although it is difficult to see from the curb) and don't have the advantage of University Circle being at it's door step.

Lakewood's city leaders don't have to deal with the legacy of what a place like Severance has become.  I'd like to see a comprehensive, well thought-out plan for the future of that land.  We all realize that how that land came to be what it is today was probably a big mistake.  The mall that was constructed in the early 1960s was an attempt by the city to try to compete with what was going on in second-ring suburbia at the time.  Instead of trying to reinvent the place every few decades (the move to Big Box with Walmart anchoring was also a mistake), eventually I think that some leadership needs to come from City Hall and a plan for something better that is sustainable in the long-term needs to be developed.

There are many great things about Lakewood, but I'm not convinced they're headed in the right direction in terms of urban development, either.  They tore down a historic movie theater for a McDonald's and now want to tear down another.

Once you take away Severance, the rest of the business districts in Heights are enviable compared to the rest of NEO.  Go and stand at the Taylor of Taylor and Cedar to see the difference in development strategies between CH and UH.

^^^Actually, I think Severance was more of an attempt to compete with Shaker Square and Downtown than the second ring. I don't think there was much high quality retail in the outer burbs back in the early 1960s.  Maybe a little bit at East Gate or something(?).

 

I've always found it a little surprising that there's never been an upscale, traditional retail strip in Cleveland Hts or Shaker Hts, the kind you find in tony suburbs of other cities.  Just seems like a quirk of history, with Shaker Square filling that niche for several decades, then Severance for the next couple, and then the middle ring malls.  At some point there will probably be a critical mass of shopping dollars in the City of Cleveland again and I bet we see a new high quality shopping cluster emerge either downtown, University Circle, or Cleveland Hts.

Once you take away Severance, the rest of the business districts in Heights are enviable compared to the rest of NEO.  Go and stand at the Taylor of Taylor and Cedar to see the difference in development strategies between CH and UH.

 

Thats one of my favorite things to show people when talking about the difference between Cleveland Hts and neighboring suburbs. Although you just have to drive a few blocks up Taylor to see that Cleveland Hts did the same exact thing with the strip center with Pizza Hut and Family Dollar. Parking out front, set far back from the road with a lawn at least the size of the parking lot, and right across from the gorgeous Taylor Tudors, apartments over street level retail spaces, right along the sidewalk. I feel like this city has been pretty bipolar in development.

 

BTW, does anyone know what use to be where that strip center is now? I hope it wasnt more Tudors like across the street... This has been bothering me since I moved here.

 

BTW, does anyone know what use to be where that strip center is now? I hope it wasnt more Tudors like across the street... This has been bothering me since I moved here.

 

"South Taylor has lost some houses but also a few commercial buildings - for example, the small restaurant at 2104 and the buildings at 1901-39, demolished for Taylor Commons Plaza."

http://www.chhistory.org/FeatureStories.php?Story=LostClevelandHeights

 

 

There was a pretty large May Company that opened in the 1950s at Cedar-Center Plaza at Warrensville that we frequently visited when I lived in Highland Heights in the 1970s. It was often called May's In The Heights. But Eastgate and Golden Gate didn't open until I-271 was built in the mid-60s. Eastgate also had the coliseum entertainment complex which was just a big money laundering operation for the mob (as was the Front Row Theater). Richmond Mall also didn't open until the 1960s.

 

When we wanted to shopping for basic stuff, we went to May's In The Heights, to Severance or we went downtown, which had the merchandise the suburban stores didn't have. Damn... I'm starting to sound like my father!

 

OK, enough fun! Back on topic! ;)

 

BTW, does anyone know what use to be where that strip center is now? I hope it wasnt more Tudors like across the street... This has been bothering me since I moved here.

 

"South Taylor has lost some houses but also a few commercial buildings - for example, the small restaurant at 2104 and the buildings at 1901-39, demolished for Taylor Commons Plaza."

http://www.chhistory.org/FeatureStories.php?Story=LostClevelandHeights

 

Thanks! I dont think Im going to be getting around to anything else tonight now that I have that site to go thru... I like to imagine what this neighborhood was like before that eyesore was put in, and now I can a little better!

Once you take away Severance, the rest of the business districts in Heights are enviable compared to the rest of NEO.  Go and stand at the Taylor of Taylor and Cedar to see the difference in development strategies between CH and UH.

 

Yeah, sometimes when I'm over there (which is almost daily) I let my imagination run wild and think about how cool it would be if University Heights encouraged someone to tear down that vacant old KFC building and put in something to mirror the vibrancy that Melt has brought across the street.  Some sort of developmnt that comes up next to the street and maybe even calms northbound traffic a bit with street parking.  It seems to me that it must only be another one of those flukes of early 20th century cartography that that Northeast corner of Cedar-Taylor is part of University Heights and not Cleveland Heights.

There was a pretty large May Company that opened in the 1950s at Cedar-Center Plaza at Warrensville that we frequently visited when I lived in Highland Heights in the 1970s. It was often called May's In The Heights. But Eastgate and Golden Gate didn't open until I-271 was built in the mid-60s. Eastgate also had the coliseum entertainment complex which was just a big money laundering operation for the mob (as was the Front Row Theater). Richmond Mall also didn't open until the 1960s.

 

When we wanted to shopping for basic stuff, we went to May's In The Heights, to Severance or we went downtown, which had the merchandise the suburban stores didn't have. Damn... I'm starting to sound like my father!

 

OK, enough fun! Back on topic! ;)

 

May's ON the Heights. ;)  That building actually existed until the early 2000s, I believe, before UH's epic disaster of a retail development replaced it.

I believe it was a May Company unitl the late 80's or early 90's when Kauffmann's bought them out.

^Just a name change...Kaufmann's and May Co were the same company...just different divisions...and yes...growing up (in Maple Hts.) we knew it as May's ON the Heights (it was the more upscale May's (compared to Southgate) if that really was possible...it was not in the same league as Higbee's and certainly not Halles).

Once you take away Severance, the rest of the business districts in Heights are enviable compared to the rest of NEO.  Go and stand at the Taylor of Taylor and Cedar to see the difference in development strategies between CH and UH.

 

Thats one of my favorite things to show people when talking about the difference between Cleveland Hts and neighboring suburbs. Although you just have to drive a few blocks up Taylor to see that Cleveland Hts did the same exact thing with the strip center with Pizza Hut and Family Dollar. Parking out front, set far back from the road with a lawn at least the size of the parking lot, and right across from the gorgeous Taylor Tudors, apartments over street level retail spaces, right along the sidewalk. I feel like this city has been pretty bipolar in development.

 

BTW, does anyone know what use to be where that strip center is now? I hope it wasnt more Tudors like across the street... This has been bothering me since I moved here.

 

Not that University Heights has great development practices or anything, but part of the reason that corner looks the way it does is that it used to be a 6 way intersection, with diagonal streets coming in at both corners on the University Heights side.  They were cut off and redeveloped at a time when Cleveland Heights was building places like the strip plaza on Taylor, the apartments at Overlook and Coventry, and Severance Town Center (OK, I know they're a little past that period, but for the most part mindsets everywhere about development were still similar), so I'd say the reasons for what is at that corner are as much about the time period as they are about municipal boundaries.

 

I completely forgot about the diagonal streets.  I certainly remember the one on the southeast corner, but I don't recall it going all the way to the intersection.  I remember it dead-ending into the parking lot of that convenient store which was on the corner and eventually torn down, along with some housing, for the current strip mall.

I completely forgot about the diagonal streets.  I certainly remember the one on the southeast corner, but I don't recall it going all the way to the intersection.  I remember it dead-ending into the parking lot of that convenient store which was on the corner and eventually torn down, along with some housing, for the current strip mall.

 

This is all before I remember, but was the convenience store on the corner or next to where the diagonal street came in?  I was looking at historicaerials.com and the diagonals went through in the 1952 and 1962 imagery, but by 1970 the streets had been dead-ended, although the rights of way were still there and the sidewalks merged and ran down the middle of where the street used to be.  The next year they have is 2002, when of course the current plaza is already there.  The 1952 and 1962 images really show why nothing historic was ever near that corner, though.

The convenience store faced Cedar but was set back with a small parking lot in the front.  The lot took up the actual "corner" of that intersection.  There were two entraces, iirc.  One was on Taylor and the other was from the diagonal street.  There might have been a tiny cut street/alley through which went to Cedar from where the street ended and between where the parking lot was and the building which housed the first incarnation of Alternative Care Car Solution (after the mechanics broke away from Motorcars).

I completed renovated the storefronts of a building I own on Cedar Road.  I'm talking to two potential tenants, so fingers crossed they will be lease soon.

 

Before:

 

After:

 

Also, this building across the street just sold.  It sold for $500,000.  It previously sold for $1.2m in 2007.  I heard someone from NY bought it.

Nice job smith! Keep us posted.

Good luck! Building looks great.

Looks terrific! 

Oh you own that building?  I really hope you do end up bringing in some decent, long-term tenants to those spaces.  I thought that with Melt moving in to that corner and the Martini Skate and Snow store following them shortly after that it was going to be the start of a renaissance for that intersection, but it hasn't happened yet.

Smith, I was going to comment on the building as I saw it last week.  It looks amazing.  Love the (your) nameplate.  Did you replace the brick?