24 minutes ago, CleveFan said:

KJP for Mayor!   I’ll take the 60 story version!

 

It’s a bonkers statement about the abysmal condition of the current facilities that a relatively inexpensive option could be a new 1100’ tower.

Edited November 23, 20195 yr by LlamaLawyer

13 minutes ago, CleveFan said:

I’ll take the 60 story version!

Hard pass.  The nauseating Darcy cartoons, in a city where the tallest skyscraper is the Justice Center, are enough reason to not build that tall.

Great story KJP, but small detail: the Housing Court is a division of the Cleveland Municipal Court, not a county court.  Additionally, I thought (but could be wrong) the entirety of the DR court is in the old courthouse on Lakeside?

Excited to see what corrupt, monied interests push our incompetent county government into an unnecessary and terrible decision that haunts the city for decades!

A renovated Landmark Building should suit their needs. Space, parking, and public transit. 

31 minutes ago, Sapper Daddy said:

Hard pass.  The nauseating Darcy cartoons, in a city where the tallest skyscraper is the Justice Center, are enough reason to not build that tall.

Unless that Justice Center becomes an exemplar of fairness and excellence. 

48 minutes ago, CleveFan said:

Unless that Justice Center becomes an exemplar of fairness and excellence. 

 

I was thinking the same thing. Shouldn't a building dedicated to justice rise above all others?

1 hour ago, CleveFan said:

Unless that Justice Center becomes an exemplar of fairness and excellence. 

My thought is the jokes of Cleveland having a crime problem arise when a 60-story Justice Center is necessary.  
 

Realistically though, the appearance of the building will have no tangible effect on the administration of justice for the victims of crime and those awaiting their fate.

I just hope for something beautiful and transformational without excessive frill at the expense of the taxpayer.

It could be built next to Stokes. It could achieve its desired height (from river level), be close to transit and "appear" to be a shorter high-rise.

8 minutes ago, Sapper Daddy said:

My thought is the jokes of Cleveland having a crime problem arise when a 60-story Justice Center is necessary.  
 

Realistically though, the appearance of the building will have no tangible effect on the administration of justice for the victims of crime and those awaiting their fate.

I just hope for something beautiful and transformational without excessive frill at the expense of the taxpayer.

 

It's also a civil courts tower, a housing court tower, a domestic relations tower, and possibly will add appellate and probate if they can brought on board. Justice isn't limited to ameliorating crime. It can also portend  social justice, equality and prosperity, which a fair and impartial judiciary offers.

 

And as my article from this morning reports, new construction would be least expensive of the alternatives.

 

I don't expect there's anything to worry about. I don't see them putting a 30-story courthouse on top of a 30-story garage. A 30-story garage would make drivers dizzy after going around 10 levels of parking. They might max out the employees garage at 10-15 stories and put a public garage next door with another 1,000-1,500 spaces in it.

Edited November 23, 20195 yr by KJP

1 hour ago, marty15 said:

A renovated Landmark Building should suit their needs. Space, parking, and public transit. 

Would this be possible considering the specialized needs of a courthouse building? Could be a great way to reuse the Landmark. 

1 minute ago, Clevecane said:

Would this be possible considering the specialized needs of a courthouse building? Could be a great way to reuse the Landmark. 

You would end up with some really claustrophobic feeling courtrooms. Those stories are usually built closer to 20 feet.

Relocating the city jail could end up being a "LULU" nightmare to end all "LULU" nightmares!  I think the ideal spot may be in the industrial valley, NW of the Rockefeller and Broadway intersection- it seems to be mostly trucking companies, and a lot of dirt lots/vacant areas.  I'm sure even trucking companies will complain about a jail being built near their operations, but better that than doing it in a residential area.  And I especially hope they don't build the jail along the "Opportunity Corridor"- the message that sends to those communities will be unmistakable!

Maybe put the jail by the post office. In fact, there is already some kind of pre-release facility there. 

I feel pretty good about this with Jeff Applebaum being involved. Lets bring it in on time and under budget again.

4 hours ago, LlamaLawyer said:

You would end up with some really claustrophobic feeling courtrooms. Those stories are usually built closer to 20 feet.

Whatever functions they can’t make work in Landmark, they can put in a new build here. Buying SHW old headquarters could be part of the incentive package to keep em here. Easy sell to voters.

Edited November 23, 20195 yr by marty15

23 minutes ago, marty15 said:

Whatever functions they can’t make work in Landmark, they can put in a new build here. Buying SHW old headquarters could be part of the incentive package to keep em here. Easy sell to voters.

 

KJP - Quick question, and I apologize if you have already addressed this BUT was the possibility of a tall Justice Center tower the "other big downtown news" that wasn't SHW or is there still another announcement lurking?  

The Justice Center project is certainly a whale like Sherwin-Williams' HQ is (or the reactivation  of the two Ford plants). But it's not the big project. I hope some day it will even progress far enough to where I can share it. Even if it doesn't happen, there's a lot of other projects out there cooking and many of them are not yet public.

Imagine - SHW is not the big  project! KJP, can you at least give us a percentage of how likely it is that this mystery project materializes? 

Yeah, why can't you share it, KJP?

Because the people who shared it are under non-disclosure agreements and they promised to let me know if it progresses far enough to warrant an article.

 

So, how about that Justice Center??

 

By the way, I imagine if they put the new courthouse tower somewhere near Tower City Center. Then they put the new jail campus somewhere around the East 34th rapid station or may be over a new rapid station just south of the Inner Belt. And then they built the Cleveland Police Department headquarters near the East 79th rapid stations. The amount of travel back-and-forth between these facilities using the rapid lines would create new sources of ridership. And these big public sector investments could catalyze some substantial spin-off developments and momentum especially at the East 79th stations which are an urban prairie now. 

Edited November 25, 20195 yr by KJP

Here's a visual presentation of my idea I described above....

^ Great idea and location.

 

Isn’t this where the speculated ‘Cleveland Force’ stadium was being imagined? Is this why nothing has happened with that idea?

9 minutes ago, roman totale XVII said:

^ Great idea and location.

 

Isn’t this where the speculated ‘Cleveland Force’ stadium was being imagined? Is this why nothing has happened with that idea?

 

The county may be searching for sites but I wouldn't call it a hard search yet. They know they have to replace the jails. That's a given. So I don't think they've nailed down a site yet, let alone this site.

 

I haven't heard a peep about the soccer stadium (regardless of location) since I wrote that article.

Just now, Terdolph said:

There will be no new tower.  The existing center will be renovated.  There just isn't enough $$ or bonding capacity, or political will to do anything else.  This "exercise" in looking at alternatives is just for show to make it look like the required alternative due diligence was done.

 

You have a right to your own opinion but not to your own facts. Read the report or at least the presentation. Renovating the existing Justice Center is the most expensive option and will take decades to accomplish due to the sequencing required.

A poster in the big Soccer thread posted that his source said things are still ongoing as far as the stadium is concerned.

1 hour ago, Terdolph said:

I understand your point.

 

My point is that the cash flow requirements for renovating the existing tower are far less and can be accommodated without any borrowing at all.  That is politically far more palatable in the present Cuy. County economic environment than floating $2 billion in new bonds, which would be political suicide.

 

If you did understand, you would note that the cost to renovate the courthouse tower is 56 percent of the cost of building a new tower of the exact same size -- in other words, one that would be 187,000 square feet short of the space that's needed. And I don't believe that takes into account escalation costs of having to take more time to work around people working in an already over-crowded building.

 

1 hour ago, simplythis said:

A poster in the big Soccer thread posted that his source said things are still ongoing as far as the stadium is concerned.

 

That's good to hear.

 

I responded with a question here:

 

 

Edited November 25, 20195 yr by KJP

Just now, Terdolph said:

I made my point, the reader can decide.  

 

Decide based on what? Inaccurate information? The choice is to spend less to build new or spend more to renovate old while adding another 400,000 square feet of new facilities, meaning the entire project will take the better part of 20-25 years by having to sequence renovations on the existing site. By the time the work is done, the first parts of the complex renovated will soon be due for renovations.

 

If everyone believed your bad information, we would all have to spend more in taxes and get less services in return. No thanks. Please, read the damn report or at least my article summarizing it. Don't read the PD article. You won't learn anything from it.

Wow

Please take the squabbling to private messages.

Just now, MayDay said:

Please take the squabbling to private messages.

 

No thanks. Carry on.

A new courthouse can be built next to Stokes. If it can be done on a 1928 building here, it can be done in Cleveland.

 

https://www.miamiherald.com/site-services/newsletters/real-estate-newsletter/article238485213.html

Stokes is the federal courthouse tower on Huron at Superior built in 2002. Are you referring to the old county courthouse on the north side of Lakeside Avenue at Ontario?

Edited December 18, 20195 yr by KJP

No. Isnt there available land adjacent to Stokes, southeast of Huron or is that the possible SW site?

Edited December 18, 20195 yr by Frmr CLEder

1 hour ago, Frmr CLEder said:

No. Isnt there available land adjacent to Stokes, southeast of Huron or is that the possible SW site?

 

That's the possible SW site. If SW goes to the Jacobs/Weston lots, the courthouse tower could end up there. The inverse may also be true.

On a related note:

 

https://www.cleveland.com/news/2019/12/a-new-cuyahoga-county-jail-would-likely-not-be-downtown.html

 

https://www.cleveland.com/news/2019/12/bail-reform-central-booking-and-the-justice-center-are-2020-priorities-for-cuyahoga-countys-new-top-judge.html

 

On January 1, Judge Brendan Sheehan replaced John Russo as the Cuyahoga Common Pleas Court's Administrative Judge.  Ex officio, he also takes Russo's place on the steering committee responsible for determining the future of the Justice Center.  He had some interesting comments in the article, and appears to be leaning towards a new building in downtown.  The article quotes him as "acknowledging" that renovation of the existing building would be expensive.  The article further quotes him as saying that if the public believes renovating the current JC is too expensive, "obviously we've got to move."

4 minutes ago, Down_with_Ctown said:

https://www.cleveland.com/news/2019/12/bail-reform-central-booking-and-the-justice-center-are-2020-priorities-for-cuyahoga-countys-new-top-judge.html

 

“What’s the most annoying thing about this courthouse?“

 

“The elevators.”

 

???

Redirected from the Random Developments thread...

 

39 minutes ago, simplythis said:

I think they will use tax credits on the tower and possibly police station, but i think the jailswould be torn down.  

 

 

11 minutes ago, marty15 said:

Yeah, there’s no need to tear down the main JC tower. Would make a great residential conversion.

 

True. It turns 50 in seven years, thus eligible for historic tax credits.

This property would be awful for residential conversion. Way too much interior floor space as the floor plates are massive in the interior. 

Nonsense. You line the whole outer ring with the apartments. 360 views from that building.  Elevators are all in the center already if I remember correctly. They did a wonderful job converting Lakewood Center North in a similar fashion. And it also has 500000sf of underground parking already. 

While not personally a fan of brutalism, it is nonetheless an architectural form that may be worthy of protecting.

1 hour ago, marty15 said:

Nonsense. You line the whole outer ring with the apartments. 360 views from that building.  Elevators are all in the center already if I remember correctly. They did a wonderful job converting Lakewood Center North in a similar fashion. And it also has 500000sf of underground parking already. 

I don't think you realize how large this building is. This would be a bigger undertaking than Centennial, and this building is in far worse condition. 

11 hours ago, zbaris87 said:

I don't think you realize how large this building is. This would be a bigger undertaking than Centennial, and this building is in far worse condition. 

It’ll need asbestos abatement after its vacated. Which will essentially give you a clean building. This is the same thought process that wanted the Ameritrust tower torn down. I think we’re all glad that didn’t happen. 

 

FWIW the surrounding buildings can come down. Especially the jail. We don’t need to be tearing down any skyscrapers here. It’ll be a parking lot for the next 20 years.

Edited January 21, 20205 yr by marty15

Ameritrust tower has 16,000 sf floorplates which is perfect for residential. Justice Center has 29,000 sf which is large even for a multi-tenant office building. 

Edited January 21, 20205 yr by KJP

As illustrated in KJPs rendering below, demolition of the JC would leave a huge gap in the skyline between TT and Key. It needs to either be refurbished or another skyscraper to replace it.

 

No parking lots!

Edited January 21, 20205 yr by Frmr CLEder
Emphasis on "no parking lots."

A couple of weeks ago I was in the Landmark Center in Boston. It’s an old Sears warehouse (Art Deco as opposed to Brutalist) that has been converted into office, mainly medical, and retail use. A large part of the ground floor is taken over with a Time Out branded food hall/ hawker market. My immediate thought when I entered the space is that this type of conversion would be perfect for the Justice Center. 
There’s good and bad in all architectural styles and the JC veers IMO towards the lower quartile of Brutalism. Demo’ing it though would be a huge mistake. The police station and prison though, I’ll gladly bring along a sledgehammer to help. 

It will never happen but if they keep the building it would be amazing if they built 4 story buildings to wrap the tower. Having grass lawns surrounding a downtown skyscraper is such an odd thing. 

^Similarly, I don't want to see the tower demolished for purely aesthetic reasons, but if there's a viable project that calls for its demo and replacement with mid-rise construction built out to the street, I'll happily push the plunger myself.  Architectural style aside, the Justice Center is bad urbanism in Cleveland's context.