On 3/14/2019 at 1:37 PM, 327 said:

 

Easily accessible if you have a car, and even then, not as accessible as it is for those living in suburbs where retail exists.  It's difficult to sell city living on the premise that shopping must be done in the suburbs.  For a lot of people, that's not how they want or expect it to work.

 

I think youre over accentuating how big of a city Cleveland is. Its not Chicago, NY, LA.....noone living in those towns wants to have a car because it costs so much to park it and they dont need to own it when they work less than a mile away. They Walk. They Bike. They use public transit. Etc etc. This can all be done in Cleveland if you are a working professional and typically you are "getting" a parking spot along with your apartment here. Thus it becomes much easier and feasible to own that car. Hey, if you dont want to own a car thats on you but if it cost effective to store it and you can afford it......I get youre point about transit, but, the rapid and busing runs to all ends of the city and right next to plenty of shopping options. Take public transit or take an uber. Pretty simple answer as opposed to the person above saying TC should be made int an outlet mall. Good lord thats a horrible idea just to cater to the gambling public??? That serves noone who actually lives downtown any good. There are grocery stores downtown. There is "some" shopping downtown. If you want chains to move into street level shopping fine but the point of this thread was to discuss what to do with TC.

11 minutes ago, PKorf said:

 

Pretty simple answer as opposed to the person above saying TC should be made int an outlet mall. Good lord thats a horrible idea just to cater to the gambling public??? That serves noone who actually lives downtown any good. 

 

I disagree.   The retail model as a whole is crumbling, except when paired as a destination, as in outlet malls attached to a casino.   In this case would any downtown resident mind having a Nordstrom Rack, Nike outlet, or any of the host of other stores that populate these places?   Of course not--it would just be a bonus to their downtown experience instead of an empty mall.   So why not try successful model, that not only brings visitors in from the suburbs but also benefits residents?  

 

https://www.tangeroutlet.com/foxwoods/stores

9 minutes ago, PKorf said:

 

I think youre over accentuating how big of a city Cleveland is. Its not Chicago, NY, LA.....noone living in those towns wants to have a car because it costs so much to park it and they dont need to own it when they work less than a mile away. They Walk. They Bike. They use public transit. Etc etc. This can all be done in Cleveland if you are a working professional and typically you are "getting" a parking spot along with your apartment here. Thus it becomes much easier and feasible to own that car. Hey, if you dont want to own a car thats on you but if it cost effective to store it and you can afford it......I get youre point about transit, but, the rapid and busing runs to all ends of the city and right next to plenty of shopping options. Take public transit or take an uber. Pretty simple answer as opposed to the person above saying TC should be made int an outlet mall. Good lord thats a horrible idea just to cater to the gambling public??? That serves noone who actually lives downtown any good. There are grocery stores downtown. There is "some" shopping downtown. If you want chains to move into street level shopping fine but the point of this thread was to discuss what to do with TC.

 

Interesting that you should mention NYC or LA.  In my experience, with only a handful of exceptions, urban malls don't really work so great there either.

 

This is in part Forest City's fault, I agree with the other commenters here on that.  But considering Tower City's past use as a passenger rail station, asking what could be done with it is much like saying what could be done with New York's Grand Central Terminal or Washington's Union Station if the trains stopped running.  The answer is not much--as far as profit-seekers are concerned.

Part of me wants to put a good part of the failure of Tower city on the lack of expansion of the rail system by RTA. If they would've expanded the LRT to Cleveland Heights, HRT to Euclid (around lakeshore) I believe it would've fared MUCH better. Imagine having a shopper not have to worry about driving, find parking and spend a certain amount of money to pay a minimum of $10 and instead buy a $5 all-day pass. The ridership would have boomed because expanding the HRT to Euclid on Lakeshore Blvd. you're reaching the St.Clair neighborhood, as well as the Cleveland portion of Lakeshore which is FILLED with apartments and is still in great shape and was better back in the '90s and early 2000s. Those areas also rely on transit a ton so using rail to get downtown would've been a no brainer and helped both the RTA and Tower City. 

While I want to agree with you, I can't. Tower City retail was being patronized in its early years. A friend of mine who was at RTA in the 1980 and 90s said that the Shaker RTA lines had pretty good midday ridership from people going to Tower City to shop. That stopped when Beachwood Place was expanded with 40 stores including Nordstrom's in 1997, when Legacy Village opened in 2003, the same year Stark renovated and expanded Eton Collection into his "Rodeo Drive of Cleveland." All of this followed ODOT's expansion of I-271 with its express lanes in the mid-1990s which exacerbated the region's already destructive sprawl. Today, people in the Heights travel east to work and shop along the I-271 corridor, not west to downtown Cleveland.

On 3/13/2019 at 12:24 PM, Enginerd said:

I’m not sure what this necessarily means, but Bernie Moreno has sold off all of his car dealerships to focus on his tech plans.

 

So it seems like this was true?  Anymore buzz about all of this as it relates to Tower City?

39 minutes ago, mrclifton88 said:

 

So it seems like this was true?  Anymore buzz about all of this as it relates to Tower City?

 

My source was pretty good ?

Here's a link to the video of the press conference on Ownum/ChampTitles for anyone interested :   

 

I mean.....he hasnt SOLD all of his companies. Just go to his website. This is in additon to what he was already doing and he eliminated a few stragglers it appears. He still owns car dealerships. Also, if anyone was confusing Ownum.io logo with Google?.....I mean they are the same colors. Maybe theyr involved somehow but this is a startup....sooooo

 

https://www.berniemoreno.com/

https://ownum.io/

 

 

 

I wonder if this April Blockchain event will provide some info about all the Tower City rumors.  Moreno et al. don't usually sponsor no-news events. At any rate I'm looking forward to it.

 

https://www.downtowncleveland.com/events/around-the-block-1?platform=hootsuite

I spoke to some construction workers at Tower City today. They said that they are in the process of installing offices on the first level of the Avenue. They also have been working on the second level installing cable (see my photograph) and there is what looks like a construction management office in the former store space for Next and have paper on the windows to keep out prying eyes. But it doesn't quite cover everything. Plus, here's a few other photos of The Avenue for posterity....

22 minutes ago, KJP said:

I spoke to some construction workers at Tower City today. They said that they are in the process of installing offices on the first level of the Avenue. They also have been working on the second level installing cable (see my photograph) and there is what looks like a construction management office in the former store space for Next and have paper on the windows to keep out prying eyes. But it doesn't quite cover everything. Plus, here's a few other photos of The Avenue for posterity....

That guy sitting at the table. His name is Austin. Nice fella ?

I'll have to say hello the next time I'm in my office next door, rather than be a peeping tom.

So if there is active construction happening now- how long before something is made public and we get an idea of what’s going on here and how it relates to these Bernie Moreno/Blockland/Google rumors??

5 hours ago, marty15 said:

That guy sitting at the table. His name is Austin. Nice fella ?

Haha, I was just gonna say "I know that guy"?

On 3/28/2019 at 2:14 PM, marty15 said:

That guy sitting at the table. His name is Austin. Nice fella ?

 

Such a shame.   What a magnificent public space when it opened, and to see it in its current state just makes me sad.

Ken Till from Bedrock announced that the Cle Film Festival will return to Tower City in .2020. So that either means the theaters will remain  and be a part of the new renovation or no major construction will be happening over the next year. Hmm...

On a somewhat related, yet unrelated note.... what happened to the search function on the forum? Am I really that blind, or is it missing?

Upper right corner of the page.

Still not seeing it

9 minutes ago, musky said:

Still not seeing it

Do you have an adblocker going? It could be blocking that element...

I dunno. User error probably. ? Check in with the admin at:

https://forum.urbanohio.com/forum/14-forum-issuessite-input/

 

It's the dark theme I use.

Moving on......

 

During the film festival last week, I did walk through the mall to peek inside as many storefronts as I could. Some had work being performed in them, some did not. Nothing I saw made my eyes pop with a wow factor though

 

 

Going through Tower City a couple of times last night to/from the Blue Line, it was kinda surreal that here I was in a mall, with the normal amount of foot traffic you would be seeing in any suburban mall, and yet just about every storefront was empty. The trains certainly generate the foot traffic in that place. I'm sure with whatever new form it takes on, some retail will be able to survive if its the right mix and amount.

On 4/13/2019 at 4:33 PM, PoshSteve said:

Going through Tower City a couple of times last night to/from the Blue Line, it was kinda surreal that here I was in a mall, with the normal amount of foot traffic you would be seeing in any suburban mall, and yet just about every storefront was empty. The trains certainly generate the foot traffic in that place. I'm sure with whatever new form it takes on, some retail will be able to survive if its the right mix and amount.

 

Well I just turned 53, I've lived long enough to watch Terminal Tower/Tower City transform three times in my lifetime.  I can still remember how I would walk from the Shaker Rapid (seperate station) to my office at BP.  Being excited for the "Tower City" transformation.  Being customer No 3 at Barneys!  Shopping until I couldn't carry any more bags. Taking my oldest niece and two oldest nephews downtown to shop, like my mom did with me and my brother.   Remembering the "downtown jingle".

 

Whatever happens next, I hope it works for whats best for the city.  At this point in time, I wouldn't mind having retail in TC, but would rather have connective retail at street level to connect to the downtown residential developments.  

Anybody catch Budish’s state of the county address? ?

 

Edited April 19, 20196 yr by marty15

On 4/13/2019 at 4:33 PM, PoshSteve said:

Going through Tower City a couple of times last night to/from the Blue Line, it was kinda surreal that here I was in a mall, with the normal amount of foot traffic you would be seeing in any suburban mall, and yet just about every storefront was empty. The trains certainly generate the foot traffic in that place. I'm sure with whatever new form it takes on, some retail will be able to survive if its the right mix and amount.

 

I'm guessing that rent is higher than in a suburban mall.   But when it's all said and done, it's afflicted by the same issue facing most indoor malls:  being unable to control loitering gracefully.

 

I was down there last year taking my daughter on her first trip to the observation deck.  I saw plenty of people just hanging around that likely belonged to that subgroup that think catcalling is socially acceptable and a good way to meet women.   While they don't and won't bother me for multiple reasons, female customers are different and won't go where they feel uncomfortable.....and they are more likely to shop brick-and-mortar than men are.

^ Anyone catcalling should definitely be asked to vacate but I have an issue with asking people to leave who are merely loitering. Loitering, by definition, is doing nothing. I have spent time in Tower City just "loitering" and I have never been bothered by security. 

10 hours ago, marty15 said:

Anybody catch Budish’s state of the county address? ?

 

 

Well, it proves at least one thing -- I've got good sources for my blog! ? 

How's this for a confirmation: Bernie Moreno just retweeted this tweet of mine...

 

 

I just asked Moreno on Twitter messenger if he had a few minutes to talk about City Block at Tower City. He responded: "not yet."

So in reply to the tweet above... Stan Bullard said "Blockland. Site sighted." to which Bernie Moreno just tweeted "Less likely than likely at this point."

 

So that is um... not so good?  Or am I mis reading this 

He must of deleted the tweet..  I dont see it on that thread anymore

Moreno hasn't untweeted his retweet.

If you lived in or did business with a civilized country not named the USA, you might realize how big blockchain is. Hopefully we won't continue to be outcasts and treat it like the metric system.

1 hour ago, Terdolph said:

I feel bad about this.  I think that blockchain is largely a scam.  I hate to see the TT dissembled for this.  It could do fine if the city would pony up the cash, like lots of other cities have done to put an anchor department store at Tower City.  

 

Also, I think that the apartments are a bad idea.  The city needs some decent Class B office space too.

you may be confusing block chain (distributed ledger technology) with crypto currency....   crypto currency is built on block chain technology...

2 hours ago, Terdolph said:

I feel bad about this.  I think that blockchain is largely a scam.  I hate to see the TT dissembled for this.  It could do fine if the city would pony up the cash, like lots of other cities have done to put an anchor department store at Tower City.  

 

Also, I think that the apartments are a bad idea.  The city needs some decent Class B office space too.

 

The only people who think blockchain is a scam are the ones who don't fully understand it.

I don't think blockchain itself is a scam.  But as for Bitcoin...

Wow, yeah. Blockchain will be involved in everything in our lives. Bitcoin isn’t going away. But I would say that 95% of cryptocurrencies are worthless projects. There’s some great ones like Brave, that created a private browser that’s far and away better than Safari or Chrome, as well as ENJIN,  a Singaporean software and gaming company. I’d stockpile their tokens if I were you. Just my two sense. Saying blockchain is a scam is pretty ignorant tho. Got some homework to do, son!

2 hours ago, Terdolph said:

I understand that it provides a documented chain of possession for a file or digital property.  Such chain of title information is valuable for limited purposes.  Exchanges of crypto currencies is one.  Auto titles are another.  For the vast majority of consumer and b2b transactions it is unnecessary.

 

There is a lot of hype surrounding it precisely because most people don't understand it, and were it might be valuable.

 

Blockchain also opens up almost unlimited applications for distributed ledger of non- financial data. If Cleveland can become a focal point of blockchain innovation, it can quite literally change the foundations of the City. I just don’t understand how repackaging a dead mall with a brand and zero blockchain infrastructure will do that. I’m not sure blockchain is a “if you build it they will come” type industry. We truly need academic, governmental, and corporate institutions behind this 100%. As well as presumably a large early adopter to be that shot of adrenaline that sparks everyone else. As a Terminal Tower tenant, I’m hoping for some spark in Tower City... but this definitely seems like one of the most risky ways imaginable to do it...

I think you guys are forgetting that Google is behind it all so it will be fine ?

I was talking with the manager at Bath and Body Works today about the changes with the mall. She was telling me most places were not having their leases renewed, but theirs was just renewed for one year. They'll be gone after next April though, and the talk is that the remaining retail spaces after the redo will be focused on food. Interestingly though, she was saying their sales have been booming since the other shops have been shutting down - the demand is there, but now there's no where else to shop?

^ Interesting... does ANYONE has any REAL insight into what is going on here?  All of these rumors about Google, and whatever is happening with Bernie Moreno ... there must be something going on but it sounds like it is changing.  I wish we knew something legit.

If you want a hint as to what will be happening in Tower City, go ahead and google (Station F in Paris). That will give you some insight as to what the future of Tower City is. Unfortunately, I can't say much more than that. 

Yes, mine was real insight. Why? First, a very good source who is under a NDA told me that the Blockland effort had selected The Avenue at Tower City for its City Block development. Moreno confirmed this to me last week.

 

A colleague of mine walked away from the Blockland effort last year because there was "no money behind it." That has changed now that Moreno has sold seven of his dealerships in the last month. How much money are we talking? From what I can tell, recent sales of car dealerships have netted anywhere from $10 million to $40 million per dealership. If Moreno netted somewhere in the middle, he could have walked away with something in the neighborhood of $150 million to $200 million. So there's money behind it now.

 

On ‎4‎/‎28‎/‎2019 at 12:07 AM, zbaris87 said:

If you want a hint as to what will be happening in Tower City, go ahead and google (Station F in Paris). That will give you some insight as to what the future of Tower City is. Unfortunately, I can't say much more than that. 

 

That's interesting.  If this is true, I wonder how many startup companies spawn from this type of model.  This could potentially create another pocket of tourism via conferences and international business. 

If Tower City is it why did Moreno say "less likely than likely at this point" ?  Is he just trying to throw us off? ?

On 4/26/2019 at 10:50 AM, mrclifton88 said:

So in reply to the tweet above... Stan Bullard said "Blockland. Site sighted." to which Bernie Moreno just tweeted "Less likely than likely at this point."

 

So that is um... not so good?  Or am I mis reading this 

 

You mentioned the tweets by Bullard and Moreno. But I'm not seeing them. Can you find them? Thx

This is what i was talking about above KJP, i dont see these tweets anywhere..