I personally believe that the JC needs to be situated Downtown.  It's the most logical and centralized location for the county.  It's more viable than any location outside of Downtown considering transportation and convenience options.  Since the Transport Rd. location seems to be no longer an option, I wonder what the final conclusion will be.  

1 hour ago, superior said:

I personally believe that the JC needs to be situated Downtown.  It's the most logical and centralized location for the county.  It's more viable than any location outside of Downtown considering transportation and convenience options.  Since the Transport Rd. location seems to be no longer an option, I wonder what the final conclusion will be.  

Behind Tower City?

For me, The Pit makes perfect sense. 

Could a new Justice Center anchor the north side of a newly developing riverfront? 

9 minutes ago, CleveFan said:

Could a new Justice Center anchor the north side of a newly developing riverfront? 

Absolutely.  I believe there is another image on this forum of proposed towers / courthouses right on the plaza near Carl B Stokes

1 hour ago, CleveFan said:

Could a new Justice Center anchor the north side of a newly developing riverfront? 

 

Wouldn't it change the development plans already proposed?  I'm guessing that this would have to go through multiple facets of approval?  

The building to the right/east of Stokes, on Huron, is shown as office in Bedrock’s masterplan. 

Rumor has it that the Justice Center is moving to Atlanta.

I think the justice center needs to stay exactly where it is, in a renovated tower at this point. They own the building, own the land and at thos point (after all these expensive studies), should know exactly what needs to be repaired and how much it will cost.

 

I think the renovation estimates are WILDLY inflated. If the building is as bad as they say structure/infrastructure wise, why are they STILL in it? Why hasn't it collapsed? 

 

It is in serious need of updating, no doubt, but the only stories coming out of that building are the unfortunate deaths of inmates at the hands of inattentive an inept corrections officers.

 

When the County owned Huntington Garage was found to have dangerous structural issues in 2014, the county fixed them immediately. You'd think if the situation was really that bad, they would have done something other than talk for the last what, seven years?

Edited June 10, 20232 yr by Mov2Ohio

If a new jail is built elsewhere, they could build a new court tower on the old jail site. Of course that would be many years down the road since they are still trying to find a site for new jail.  And how much more would it cost by then?

 

Edited June 10, 20232 yr by LibertyBlvd

12 hours ago, Mov2Ohio said:

I think the justice center needs to stay exactly where it is, in a renovated tower at this point. They own the building, own the land and at thos point (after all these expensive studies), should know exactly what needs to be repaired and how much it will cost.

 

I think the renovation estimates are WILDLY inflated. If the building is as bad as they say structure/infrastructure wise, why are they STILL in it? Why hasn't it collapsed? 

 

It is in serious need of updating, no doubt, but the only stories coming out of that building are the unfortunate deaths of inmates at the hands of inattentive an inept corrections officers.

 

When the County owned Huntington Garage was found to have dangerous structural issues in 2014, the county fixed them immediately. You'd think if the situation was really that bad, they would have done something other than talk for the last what, seven years?

I’m with you here. I was involved in Jones Day’s renovation at North Pointe a few years ago. We methodically gutted every floor, one at a time. As we finished one floor, next floor down would move into renovated floor and we would come in behind and start gutting out the next floor down. 

 

Obviously a much smaller building, but could definitely be scaled up. Incredibly efficient and cost effective system, and project as a whole. Office building reno’s are multiple times less complicated and less expensive than residential build outs. Lots of open spaces and communal/shared areas.

However, this is a government project…….

29 minutes ago, marty15 said:

I’m with you here. I was involved in Jones Day’s renovation at North Pointe a few years ago. We methodically gutted every floor, one at a time. As we finished one floor, next floor down would move into renovated floor and we would come in behind and start gutting out the next floor down. 

 

Obviously a much smaller building, but could definitely be scaled up. Incredibly efficient and cost effective system, and project as a whole. Office building reno’s are multiple times less complicated and less expensive than residential build outs. Lots of open spaces and communal/shared areas.

However, this is a government project…….

It's a government project and government is notoriously bad at maintaining things (seemingly even more so in Cleveland). 

 

It's also a much older building, and has issues with asbestos IIRC.  

I feel like this argument pops up time and time again. Since there's now been multiple studies by multiple different teams I can say that I was part of at least one of the study teams without compromising who I am. Unless something has changed since the study I was part of, the structure of the building is largely fine, as is the building facade, but the interior of the building? Oh boy, it's a mess. Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing and Technology systems were all done on the cheap when the facility was first built in the 1970s then minimally upgrades and maintained since. The problem is more that the very core of these systems is in such bad shape that in order to do a phased renovation of the building, the very cores of the system would need to be done in phase 1 anyway. For example, staff in the facility told us that they won't drink water from the fountains there because they don't trust it to be safe. Assuming there's something to that, if you just upgrade the plumbing one floor at a time you'll likely have water flowing through contaminated pipes to get to the renovated floors, completely negating your brand new piping. You also have the problem of all government facilities like this where every fiefdom will use their own funds to do minor upgrades in their space, so you have incompatible systems (or at least systems of different vintages throughout). This isn't a uniquely Cleveland problem, I've seen it in a bunch of cities, but it IS a problem. Usually this is more things like lighting and data networks. Another example? The elevator company has someone on staff at the facility FULL TIME because the elevators break so often.

 

It hasn't help that every time the county has asked for a study, they then turn around and ask for the Cliff's Notes version of the Cliff's Notes version and publish that to the world instead of the reports that are generally multiple hundreds of pages. A 5-ish page report that just basically says "it's bad" with some numbers in it doesn't do a good job at illustrating what's really wrong vs the original reports that have detailed photos, analysis, maintenance records, etc for all the systems showing why it's going to be more expensive to fix things than to just build new. A motivated developer with deep pockets could likely do something truly special with the building, the high deck to deck heights and wide open floor plates around the elevator core could make for great residential, but the county building new is the right call. The only reason we're even still debating this is the very people responsible for the upkeep of the facility got mad when they were called out for it's horrible shape.

Edited June 10, 20232 yr by CLEeng
More information

^Having practically "lived" in the complex for much of my working life I find most of what at @CLEeng has outlined above very credible.  What I do find interesting is that there was so much value engineering of the mechanical systems way back when, as, if I recall correctly, when it first opened in 1976 it ended up being hugely over budget.  Obviously, even if that were not the case, the systems are now approaching fifty years old, are dated and worn out and probably were not maintained very well, as suggested above, over the years.

 

I have vivid memories-actually nightmares-of the time they completed renovated the court tower elevators sometime in the late 90's or early 2000s.  It took FOREVER (in my mind over a year but maybe it just seemed that long) and resulted in some pretty comical visuals every morning during court rush hour when people had to actually show up in person for hearings, pretrials and case management conferences and the like, among other things, along with the regular employees just trying to get to their offices.  It was like the Mexico City metro every morning.  The lines extended well into the atrium from the elevator banks and moved at a snails pace.  When a cab arrived it was like a cat fight trying to get on and you could barely breath they were packed so tight.  You always had to have a strategy so you did not end up being late for whatever you were doing on the upper floors.  The stairs were well used once you got on the upper floors and had to move to another floor.  I can recall even using the stairs if I only had to go to the 10th or 11th floor.

Edited June 10, 20232 yr by Htsguy

On 6/10/2023 at 5:38 PM, CLEeng said:

I feel like this argument pops up time and time again. Since there's now been multiple studies by multiple different teams I can say that I was part of at least one of the study teams without compromising who I am. Unless something has changed since the study I was part of, the structure of the building is largely fine, as is the building facade, but the interior of the building? Oh boy, it's a mess. Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing and Technology systems were all done on the cheap when the facility was first built in the 1970s then minimally upgrades and maintained since. The problem is more that the very core of these systems is in such bad shape that in order to do a phased renovation of the building, the very cores of the system would need to be done in phase 1 anyway. For example, staff in the facility told us that they won't drink water from the fountains there because they don't trust it to be safe. Assuming there's something to that, if you just upgrade the plumbing one floor at a time you'll likely have water flowing through contaminated pipes to get to the renovated floors, completely negating your brand new piping. You also have the problem of all government facilities like this where every fiefdom will use their own funds to do minor upgrades in their space, so you have incompatible systems (or at least systems of different vintages throughout). This isn't a uniquely Cleveland problem, I've seen it in a bunch of cities, but it IS a problem. Usually this is more things like lighting and data networks. Another example? The elevator company has someone on staff at the facility FULL TIME because the elevators break so often.

 

It hasn't help that every time the county has asked for a study, they then turn around and ask for the Cliff's Notes version of the Cliff's Notes version and publish that to the world instead of the reports that are generally multiple hundreds of pages. A 5-ish page report that just basically says "it's bad" with some numbers in it doesn't do a good job at illustrating what's really wrong vs the original reports that have detailed photos, analysis, maintenance records, etc for all the systems showing why it's going to be more expensive to fix things than to just build new. A motivated developer with deep pockets could likely do something truly special with the building, the high deck to deck heights and wide open floor plates around the elevator core could make for great residential, but the county building new is the right call. The only reason we're even still debating this is the very people responsible for the upkeep of the facility got mad when they were called out for it's horrible shape.

 

Thanks for this insight!

 

To keep using the justice center it would have to be completely gutted and have the interiors rebuilt. This would require swing court space at a minimum. Since the Jail buildings and the CPD HQ are somewhat separate entities maybe something like this happens:

 

1. Cleveland Police move to their new HQ

2. The former CPD HQ is renovated into new court space

3. The tower is gutted and renovated.

4. Jail 1 is renovated

5. Jail II is renovated. 

 

Basically separate the renovations into 3 phases, Tower, CPD HQ building, then jails.

What is the estimated cost of 2-5 vs building new?  And do we want to keep a jail in the heart of downtown?  Probably not.

 

Edited June 12, 20232 yr by LibertyBlvd

Could the Rose Building be converted to a court building?  It would make sense to have the court right across from the Admin HQ. 

1 minute ago, freefourur said:

Could the Rose Building be converted to a court building?  It would make sense to have the court right across from the Admin HQ. 

Don’t know but courtrooms usually require very high ceilings.  Usually twice the height of standard office floor plates I would guess

The bottom 5 or so floors have fairly high ceilings, but the density of structural columns throughout the floors I think would preclude courtroom-sized spaces.

Gonna shut down the renovation now, not even worth discussing. A new tower is already in the works at a specified location downtown. All I can say at the moment 

New Jail News, Executive Chris Ronayne proposing to build new Cuyahoga County jail in Garfield Heights: https://www.cleveland.com/news/2023/06/executive-chris-ronayne-proposing-to-build-new-cuyahoga-county-jail-in-garfield-heights.html

 

Edited June 12, 20232 yr by GISguy

This is prime, clean land for development.  If they want a prison in Garfield Heights, put it in the landfill.

30 minutes ago, GISguy said:

New Jail News, Executive Chris Ronayne proposing to build new Cuyahoga County jail in Garfield Heights: https://www.cleveland.com/news/2023/06/executive-chris-ronayne-proposing-to-build-new-cuyahoga-county-jail-in-garfield-heights.html

 

This seems to check off a lot of the boxes for a good jail site.  It certainly is centrally located.  As a side note, wasn't this site being proposed for Ikea several years ago?

 

1 hour ago, zbaris87 said:

Gonna shut down the renovation now, not even worth discussing. A new tower is already in the works at a specified location downtown. All I can say at the moment 

That's a pretty big bomb drop there @zbaris87🤯

Garfield Heights was already mentioned by Cleveland.com last week.  As I stated earlier, downtown is a more realistic location.  The only benefit that I could foresee is for the individuals who work there that live within close proximity.  Which I don't believe is a large amount.

40 minutes ago, superior said:

Garfield Heights was already mentioned by Cleveland.com last week.  As I stated earlier, downtown is a more realistic location.  The only benefit that I could foresee is for the individuals who work there that live within close proximity.  Which I don't believe is a large amount.

I could see a sprawling site being more conducive to jail design than a smaller footprint with more floors.  I used to be pro downtown for the jail, but now with video conferencing available for hearings, arraignments, etc I don't think the prisoner transport issue is quite what it used to be.  With this being said though, it should be in a location accessible to public transit so employees and visitors can get their easily.   Downtown fills that need much better.  

2 hours ago, LibertyBlvd said:

This is prime, clean land for development.  If they want a prison in Garfield Heights, put it in the landfill.

As much as that sounds like a good idea, "trash mountain" is sinking, and long term effects of breathing in garbage fumes from underground arent very good. Here's a really well put together video about city view center, more specifically why everything went abandoned and the state of disrepair that the entire complex is in.

 

City View Center used to kill me when I lived in Garfield Heights. Why didn't they develop on the opposite side of I480 where what appears like a whole neighborhood was razed? If anyone knows what was there (I think it is 98th and Granger) please educate me.

Edited June 12, 20232 yr by RustbeltRevived
Mispelling of Razed

1 hour ago, tastybunns said:

As much as that sounds like a good idea, "trash mountain" is sinking, and long term effects of breathing in garbage fumes from underground arent very good. Here's a really well put together video about city view center, more specifically why everything went abandoned and the state of disrepair that the entire complex is in.

 

It’s not abandoned at all. Aside from Giant Eagle still being there, the rest has been repurposed as offices, light industrial, and some warehouse/delivery services. Most of the buildings are occupied.

Sorry I definitely was wrong, I thought they were replacing City View and asked why they didn't put it where the article proposed the jail. I am surprised it took this long to develop that part of 98th and Granger. I went back and read the article with my eyes more open.

20 hours ago, zbaris87 said:

Gonna shut down the renovation now, not even worth discussing. A new tower is already in the works at a specified location downtown. All I can say at the moment 

My guess is across the street from the current justice center on west third. A lot of mysterious things happening on the west side of West third recently.

19 minutes ago, Htsguy said:

My guess is across the street from the current justice center on west third. A lot of mysterious things happening on the west side of West third recently.

The County owns a decent amount of lane on the NW corner of W3rd and Lakeside. If the Shoreway were re-rerouted a bit, it could open up a lot of land. 

20 minutes ago, Htsguy said:

My guess is across the street from the current justice center on west third. A lot of mysterious things happening on the west side of West third recently.

 

Not the site unless things fall through with the favored site. Like the Artcraft Building and the CPD HQ, they'll do an RFP to comply with the law. But they know what they want.

12 minutes ago, KJP said:

 

Not the site unless things fall through with the favored site. Like the Artcraft Building and the CPD HQ, they'll do an RFP to comply with the law. But they know what they want.

When are you able to reveal which site they favor? 

Dear Lord this is a very long process

All I’ll say is I have a source very, very close to this who thinks it will not stay in cleveland and has various reasons as to why. I hate this decision just as much as anyone and think it is beyond stupid. 

1 minute ago, Clefan14 said:

All I’ll say is I have a source very, very close to this who thinks it will not stay in cleveland and has various reasons as to why. I hate this decision just as much as anyone and think it is beyond stupid. 

I imagine you are referring to the jail, as the county ex favors the Garfield Hts site which actually makes a lot of sense.  The courts are going nowhere out of downtown ever.

43 minutes ago, Htsguy said:

I imagine you are referring to the jail, as the county ex favors the Garfield Hts site which actually makes a lot of sense.  The courts are going nowhere out of downtown ever.

Yes I should have clarified, thank you.

1 hour ago, GREGinPARMA said:

When are you able to reveal which site they favor? 

Dear Lord this is a very long process

 

Not until sometime after the RFP is issued.

 

53 minutes ago, Htsguy said:

I imagine you are referring to the jail, as the county ex favors the Garfield Hts site which actually makes a lot of sense.  The courts are going nowhere out of downtown ever.

 

Even the RFP will stipulate that it be a downtown location. No other sites outside of downtown will be considered.

19 minutes ago, KJP said:

 

Not until sometime after the RFP is issued.

 

 

Even the RFP will stipulate that it be a downtown location. No other sites outside of downtown will be considered.

 

When do they plan on beginning the RFP process?

And that usually takes like, what, 2-3 months?

Something I don't believe I have ever seen discussed in this thread is whether the county intends to move Domestic Relations and/or the Probate Court into the new building and just keep the Court of Appeals in the Old Courthouse.  If they do it could mean a few more floors of height to the new building.

1 hour ago, GREGinPARMA said:

 

When do they plan on beginning the RFP process?

And that usually takes like, what, 2-3 months?

 

Their intent to issue an RFP was announced in April but the RFP hasn't been issued yet. The city issued its RFP for the CPD HQ shortly before Nov. 2 when they announced it publicly. It had a response deadline of Nov. 14 and they announced their decision Nov. 29. I'm not saying that's what will happen with the county's RFP, but I'm saying that it could move that fast.

 

50 minutes ago, Htsguy said:

Something I don't believe I have ever seen discussed in this thread is whether the county intends to move Domestic Relations and/or the Probate Court into the new building and just keep the Court of Appeals in the Old Courthouse.  If they do it could mean a few more floors of height to the new building.

 

Back in 2020, I wrote:

 

"The Justice Center’s 25-story, 420-foot-tall, 600,000-square-foot courthouse tower is in very poor condition. It will cost hundreds of millions of dollars to renovate it, and by the time that work is done, it will still be a 50-year-old, poorly-built building, planners said. And that cost doesn’t take into account expanding it for the domestic relations and housing courts plus other county court-related offices located in other buildings.

 

"Planners said that the courthouse tower needs to measure 877,000 square feet to address overcrowding. A new courthouse could grow by roughly 200,000 square feet if the Eighth District Court of Appeals and the Cuyahoga County Probate Court are also relocated into a new courthouse tower, pending further study."

 

https://neo-trans.blog/2020/01/24/new-downtown-courthouse-tower-nearby-jail-campus-comes-into-focus/

 

In other words, this is going to be a whale. But it's not guaranteed to be a skyscraper like SHW's HQ. It could be a large, squat building like the Clinic's Neurological Hospital.

10 minutes ago, KJP said:

 

Their intent to issue an RFP was announced in April but the RFP hasn't been issued yet. The city issued its RFP for the CPD HQ shortly before Nov. 2 when they announced it publicly. It had a response deadline of Nov. 14 and they announced their decision Nov. 29. I'm not saying that's what will happen with the county's RFP, but I'm saying that it could move that fast.

 

 

Back in 2020, I wrote:

 

"The Justice Center’s 25-story, 420-foot-tall, 600,000-square-foot courthouse tower is in very poor condition. It will cost hundreds of millions of dollars to renovate it, and by the time that work is done, it will still be a 50-year-old, poorly-built building, planners said. And that cost doesn’t take into account expanding it for the domestic relations and housing courts plus other county court-related offices located in other buildings.

 

"Planners said that the courthouse tower needs to measure 877,000 square feet to address overcrowding. A new courthouse could grow by roughly 200,000 square feet if the Eighth District Court of Appeals and the Cuyahoga County Probate Court are also relocated into a new courthouse tower, pending further study."

 

https://neo-trans.blog/2020/01/24/new-downtown-courthouse-tower-nearby-jail-campus-comes-into-focus/

 

In other words, this is going to be a whale. But it's not guaranteed to be a skyscraper like SHW's HQ. It could be a large, squat building like the Clinic's Neurological Hospital.

What uses would the old Courthouse have if Domestic/Probate are moved into a new building?

20 minutes ago, KJP said:

 

Their intent to issue an RFP was announced in April but the RFP hasn't been issued yet. The city issued its RFP for the CPD HQ shortly before Nov. 2 when they announced it publicly. It had a response deadline of Nov. 14 and they announced their decision Nov. 29. I'm not saying that's what will happen with the county's RFP, but I'm saying that it could move that fast.

 

 

Back in 2020, I wrote:

 

"The Justice Center’s 25-story, 420-foot-tall, 600,000-square-foot courthouse tower is in very poor condition. It will cost hundreds of millions of dollars to renovate it, and by the time that work is done, it will still be a 50-year-old, poorly-built building, planners said. And that cost doesn’t take into account expanding it for the domestic relations and housing courts plus other county court-related offices located in other buildings.

 

"Planners said that the courthouse tower needs to measure 877,000 square feet to address overcrowding. A new courthouse could grow by roughly 200,000 square feet if the Eighth District Court of Appeals and the Cuyahoga County Probate Court are also relocated into a new courthouse tower, pending further study."

 

https://neo-trans.blog/2020/01/24/new-downtown-courthouse-tower-nearby-jail-campus-comes-into-focus/

 

In other words, this is going to be a whale. But it's not guaranteed to be a skyscraper like SHW's HQ. It could be a large, squat building like the Clinic's Neurological Hospital.

What a missed opportunity it would be if it wasn't a tower - though I do recall you writing an earlier article that a mid-sized tower was preferred.

Hopefully, that view has changed as this is an amazing opportunity to add to the city's skyline in a meaningful way.

I recall an article stating the court tower could be 60 stories, but perhaps that was a joke.

58 minutes ago, dski44 said:

What uses would the old Courthouse have if Domestic/Probate are moved into a new building?

That is a good question.  Lots of space for just the Court of Appeals and I guess there is a chance that even the appellate court could move into the new building.  I'll throw this out.  It could be a great location for a small downtown branch of the Cleveland Art Museum-as I understand it, at any one time significant portions of its collection are held back in storage.  However, I would guess it would cost millions and millions to retrofit the building into a museum-probably an expense the museum would not want to incur, not to mention the administrative headaches of having two locations, even if it meant a possible uptick in attendance.

1 hour ago, dski44 said:

What uses would the old Courthouse have if Domestic/Probate are moved into a new building?

 

 

The Eighth District Court of Appeals is there, too. But they're also proposed to be moved out, if the judges can be convinced. Domestic relations doesn't want to be there because case parties are mixed and in divorces/custody cases, things can get heated. So they need to be in a newly designed, more secure setting that the new Courthouse will offer. If you move everything out, the only thing that's left is a wedding venue.

 

59 minutes ago, Chazz Michael Michaels said:

What a missed opportunity it would be if it wasn't a tower - though I do recall you writing an earlier article that a mid-sized tower was preferred.

Hopefully, that view has changed as this is an amazing opportunity to add to the city's skyline in a meaningful way.

 

A mid-size tower was preferred (don't know if it still is) because a skyscraper would be more expensive to build.

 

At 877,000 SF and floorplates averaging 25,000 SF, we're talking a 35-story tower. 

 

At 1,077,000 SF and floorplates averaging 25,000 SF, it's a 43-story tower.

 

But those could be roughly halved if you build two "towers" connected by a glass-topped atrium or something like that. But now you're talking a footprint of something like 75,000 to 100,000 SF. And none of this accounts for parking.

 

1 hour ago, KJP said:

 

 

In other words, this is going to be a whale. But it's not guaranteed to be a skyscraper like SHW's HQ. It could be a large, squat building like the Clinic's Neurological Hospital.

Well all us peons would be in a better position to speculate as to whether it will be a squat building spread over many acres or a tall building due to a confined lot if you guys would let us know what the preferred mystery location is.  You're killing us.

It's 100% going to be a high rise, located somewhere in Downtown

4 minutes ago, zbaris87 said:

It's 100% going to be a high rise, located somewhere in Downtown

Great to hear.   I'd personally rather see 2x 25 story buildings over one 50 story building, especially in this application.   But either way will be exciting to see another project underway downtown! 

No, no, no. I've made my decision. It's going to be a high rise. Somewhere between 40 and 45 stories. And glass, lot's of glass. That's it.