@urb-a-saurus Most of the Muny parking lot is only 200 feet wide. A modest soccer stadium site with seating for only a few thousand seats needs at least 400 feet of width. Ideally, more space is desired to have a pedestrian apron around the facility.

 

East of East 20th, there's more room but now the site is disconnected from downtown. And it conflicts with other plans -- between the city wanting that site for the extension of East 18th and property owner Amtrak possibly wanting it for a train servicing and layover facility.

 

Nothing has to be relocated or capped at the former NS intermodal yard south of the Inner Belt. BTW let's stick with realities and avoid hypotheticals 

If they were to do it, I think the site south of the innerbelt could work. I remember someone on this form (I believe @KJP) posting in regards to the Browns site search an idea(with a graphic, which I cant seem to find for anything) for how that site could work perfectly. The idea was along these lines; the Browns stadium, a parking deck wrapped with retail/restaurants and on top having hotel/apartments, a soccer stadium.... all with access from the rapid and some surface parking. If anyone remembers this and can share that graphic I'd greatly appreciate it.

 

I think that idea is the best solution for all our current stadium needs. It keeps all sports downtown, close together, using up unused areas and would activate that inactive area of the flats. It also would put a lot of owners together in one area, putting their money together and therefore hopefully needing less tax payers dollars.

Edited October 20, 20231 yr by NR

18 minutes ago, NR said:

If they were to do it, I think the site south of the innerbelt could work. I remember someone on this form (I believe @KJP) posting in regards to the Browns site search an idea(with a graphic, which I cant seem to find for anything) for how that site could work perfectly. The idea was along these lines; the Browns stadium, a parking deck wrapped with retail/restaurants and on top having hotel/apartments, a soccer stadium.... all with access from the rapid and some surface parking. If anyone remembers this and can share that graphic I'd greatly appreciate it.

 

I think that idea is the best solution for all our current stadium needs. It keeps all sports downtown, close together, using up unused areas and would activate that inactive area of the flats. It also would put a lot of owners together in one area, putting their money together and therefore hopefully needing less tax payers dollars.

 

Is this what you were thinking of?

 

From @KJP's article Browns leaning toward new stadium

If they do this right, Ohio City Bars can be the central meeting point before games and have a march over the Lorain Carnegie Bridge before the game a la American Outlaws.

18 minutes ago, Luke_S said:

 

Is this what you were thinking of?

 

From @KJP's article Browns leaning toward new stadium

That looks good, of course it places the stadium on the post office site, so it would require building a new post office somewhere else.

Brief aside, but I think it would be awesome if official plans for the NWSL team/stadium were announced coinciding with the 2024 Women's NCAA Final Four in Cleveland. From a marketing perspective given the timeline, it almost makes too much sense?! 🤯 But I digress...

Edited October 20, 20231 yr by Geowizical

4 hours ago, Luke_S said:

 

Is this what you were thinking of?

 

From @KJP's article Browns leaning toward new stadium

 

This looks good. I'm not from Cleveland and I'm not familiar with this location but I noticed you used old Crew stadium for the soccer stadium. I don't know if this is to scale but I'd recommend using the Lousiville City stadium as an example it only seats 10,000 and hosts USL and NWSL. If Cleveland was to build a soccer stadium I'd venture to guess that it would be in the 5,000-10,000 seat range. Here's hoping something gets built! I'd love to see a Cincinnati/Cleveland NWSL rivalry and a Cleveland team in the Open Cup

How big of a stadium do you think they have in mind? one foromer says 5k another says 10k and

BelievelandD1 says 20K. Personally i don't think they would get a NWSL franchise on a 5-10K stadium. 

( their is too much competition ) for this NWSL franchise. Now if they were trying to get a USL Championship franchise then 5-10 would work

Anyway, if this is 20k could this be enough to get MLS down the road.

2 hours ago, JaceTheAce41 said:

Here's hoping something gets built! I'd love to see a Cincinnati/ Cleveland NWSL rivalry and a Cleveland team in the Open Cup

Oh man me too. I love the Open Cup! It really is such a cool thing that soccer has over the other major sports. And Cleveland getting USL just makes a lotta sense. 

2 hours ago, simplythis said:

How big of a stadium do you think they have in mind? one foromer says 5k another says 10k and

BelievelandD1 says 20K. Personally i don't think they would get a NWSL franchise on a 5-10K stadium. 

( their is too much competition ) for this NWSL franchise. Now if they were trying to get a USL Championship franchise then 5-10 would work

Anyway, if this is 20k could this be enough to get MLS down the road.

I’m gonna stick with a guess between 15k-20k.  The Louisville stadium actually seats more than 15k ( I just looked that up).  Cleveland is a bigger city than Louisville.  The San Diego stadium seats 32k. It won’t be that big. The cleveland tourism branch will want it to be big enough to draw bigger events like qualifiers and friendlies

the parking lots north of euclid at e40 would be a cool spot for a smaller style stadium

 could incorporate that cool art deco type building that's by the rta garage 

On 10/20/2023 at 8:31 PM, Whipjacka said:

the parking lots north of euclid at e40 would be a cool spot for a smaller style stadium

 could incorporate that cool art deco type building that's by the rta garage 

So much vacant land on Euclid in general that it could be a good spot. Im still firstly in favor of sharing with CSU, but Euclid Ave seems like a good spot for it.

2 hours ago, noname said:

So much vacant land on Euclid in general that it could be a good spot. Im still firstly in favor of sharing with CSU, but Euclid Ave seems like a good spot for it.

Where on Euclid Ave are you thinking a soccer stadium could fit?

13 hours ago, X said:

Where on Euclid Ave are you thinking a soccer stadium could fit?

The OP said East 40th just north of Euclid. I think that could be a good spot. Not exactly sure about requirements for stadiums. If you have more knowledge please share.

I'm guessing they are referring to these lots, northeast corner of 40th and Euclid. Mostly parking for Regional Sewer and the County Social Services. But some other buildings would have to move including the ACLU, Level 3, and RTA.

 

Would create a pretty dynamic midtown entertainment district with the Agora and the Penn Square development in the works.

 

44 minutes ago, scg80 said:

I'm guessing they are referring to these lots, northeast corner of 40th and Euclid. Mostly parking for Regional Sewer and the County Social Services. But some other buildings would have to move including the ACLU, Level 3, and RTA.

 

Would create a pretty dynamic midtown entertainment district with the Agora and the Penn Square development in the works.

 

Yep, this area is such a sad dead zone right now. Office buildings and parking lots. Having a stadium would surely increase food options in the district. Plus high frequency of transit on Euclid and good vehicle access off of Chester!

21 hours ago, noname said:

Yep, this area is such a sad dead zone right now. Office buildings and parking lots. Having a stadium would surely increase food options in the district. Plus high frequency of transit on Euclid and good vehicle access off of Chester!

I'm hearing this site has a large apartment building proposal in the works.

22 hours ago, noname said:

The OP said East 40th just north of Euclid. I think that could be a good spot. Not exactly sure about requirements for stadiums. If you have more knowledge please share.

 

Looking at Louisville's stadium, which is mentioned upthread as being comparable to what we want, we want a site that is pretty close to 600' x 500'.  That's slightly larger than this site, even with some demos of the office building at 40th and Chester and the townhouses.  It could be squeezed, perhaps, though.

The site they seem to be considering (southeast of Progressive Field) isn't too bad.  The drawbacks to that site are the disconnect form the rest of the City and the topography.  It's a really steep site.  These things can all be dealt with somewhat, of course, but it will add cost and it still would feel like the Browns Stadium in a way.  So close, yet so far away from the rest of the City.

I think a site that would be really good for this would be the Nautica parking lots.   The land is vacant and already in an area where there are some other entertainment options.  There's also other surface parking around that could be used, or that could house a garage.  I don't think there would need to be a ton of infrastructure needed either.  And since there's not a ton of infrastructure work needed, maybe someone could find money for a pedestrian bridge across the river?  I think if you placed a bridge at the end of St. Clair, you could take advantage of the existing parking and entertainment options in the WH district and FEB.  I think that would also help encourage more development on the west bank.

The Kansas City NWSL team is building an 11,000 seat stadium that would also be a good inspiration for a Cleveland USL/NWSL stadium. 

Just for fun I placed Louisville's stadium at Nautica.

 

1 hour ago, scb0525 said:

I'm hearing this site has a large apartment building proposal in the works.

 

Yep (near the end of this article)...

https://neo-trans.blog/2023/08/29/midtown-developments-accelerate/

 

2 hours ago, Dino said:

Just for fun I placed Louisville's stadium at Nautica.

I really like this spot. While we're at it, why not tack on a permanent tennis court/center here too so that we can host more people at Tennis in the Land in future years 😮

7 minutes ago, Geowizical said:

I really like this spot. While we're at it, why not tack on a permanent tennis court/center here too so that we can host more people at Tennis in the Land in future years 😮

Access to & from games would be a logistics nightmare at the Nautica site.

3 hours ago, Dino said:

The site they seem to be considering (southeast of Progressive Field) isn't too bad.  The drawbacks to that site are the disconnect form the rest of the City and the topography.  It's a really steep site.  These things can all be dealt with somewhat, of course, but it will add cost and it still would feel like the Browns Stadium in a way.  So close, yet so far away from the rest of the City.

I feel like this would be a great site if they went the campus route. Have multiple fields to be able to host tournaments and camps. Sort of like a tennis tournament with all the fields surrounding the stadium which will host the big matchups and championship games. Have access to a new red/blue/green rapid stop.

34 minutes ago, simplythis said:

Access to & from games would be a logistics nightmare at the Nautica site.

I don't see how.  Nautica has a 19,000 seat capacity; about the same as a new stadium.  You could come from W. 25th, W. 28th, Division Ave, Center Street, there's buses at Detroit and even the Rapid at 25th or Tower City is under a mile.  Plus the whole point of urban stadiums is so that people come early/stay late to eat or have a beer.  That means people aren't all arriving and leaving at the same time.  If you add the pedestrian bridge, half the people could park downtown or even walk from Tower City creating many more access points.  I suppose if there were a game PLUS a concert at Nautica, it could get hairy, but those are the types of problems I wish our City had.

10 minutes ago, Mogradal said:

I feel like this would be a great site if they went the campus route.

I agree.  The site isn't bad on it's own, but it makes a lot more sense when paired with other uses too.

3 hours ago, Dino said:

I don't see how.  Nautica has a 19,000 seat capacity; about the same as a new stadium. 

I’m not necessarily disagreeing with your overall point, but there’s no way Jacobs Pavilion holds 19,000 people. More like a quarter of that.   

All 3 of our stadiums have pretty direct rail access, if/when we build a stadium I would hope that this would be something that is considered. If they design it properly and allow it to be used for non soccer events, it could be a boom for whatever line it connects to.


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4 hours ago, Dino said:

I don't see how.  Nautica has a 19,000 seat capacity; about the same as a new stadium.  You could come from W. 25th, W. 28th, Division Ave, Center Street, there's buses at Detroit and even the Rapid at 25th or Tower City is under a mile.  Plus the whole point of urban stadiums is so that people come early/stay late to eat or have a beer.  That means people aren't all arriving and leaving at the same time.  If you add the pedestrian bridge, half the people could park downtown or even walk from Tower City creating many more access points.  I suppose if there were a game PLUS a concert at Nautica, it could get hairy, but those are the types of problems I wish our City had.

Not many tennis enthusiasts are gonna want to roll in via Division lol.

1 hour ago, roman totale XVII said:

I’m not necessarily disagreeing with your overall point, but there’s no way Jacobs Pavilion holds 19,000 people. More like a quarter of that.   

That’s what the the internet said when I googled it but after I posted that I read more and it says it seats 5,000.  19,000 must be standing room.  But yeah.  It’s still doable but that connection to downtown would be a game changer

13 hours ago, Dino said:

That’s what the the internet said when I googled it but after I posted that I read more and it says it seats 5,000.  19,000 must be standing room.  But yeah.  It’s still doable but that connection to downtown would be a game changer

There are 4100 permanent seats at Jacobs pavilion and a total capacity of 5000 with floor seating/GA.   

 

22 hours ago, Dino said:

Just for fun I placed Louisville's stadium at Nautica.

I'd love to see this pedestrian bridge that gives 100' vertical clearance!  Or are you thinking a movable pedestrian bridge?   Somehow I couldn't see Ohio spending any money on that. 

It would probably be cheaper to just build a new pedestrian bridge... But how cool would it be to to renovate the jackknife rail bridges into pedestrian bridges? Those would be the coolest pedestrian bridges in the country! 

 

More realistically, the vision for the valley states as one of its initiatives, "implement iconic bridge pedestrian underpasses," so that's where I put the smart money on where we will get new pedestrian connections.

 

Honestly a ski-resort style gondola system could work well and move a lot of people, and could be easily gotten out of the way of passing ships. No idea on what engineering and red tape cutting would need to be done for that to be possible though. 

1 hour ago, Ethan said:

It would probably be cheaper to just build a new pedestrian bridge... But how cool would it be to to renovate the jackknife rail bridges into pedestrian bridges? Those would be the coolest pedestrian bridges in the country! 

 

More realistically, the vision for the valley states as one of its initiatives, "implement iconic bridge pedestrian underpasses," so that's where I put the smart money on where we will get new pedestrian connections.

 

Honestly a ski-resort style gondola system could work well and move a lot of people, and could be easily gotten out of the way of passing ships. No idea on what engineering and red tape cutting would need to be done for that to be possible though. 

 

Boy, if only they were something like this that has been on a lurching journey the past 10+ years… 🤔
 

 

 

On 10/27/2023 at 10:23 AM, KJP said:

 

 

Yep (near the end of this article)...

https://neo-trans.blog/2023/08/29/midtown-developments-accelerate/

 

Did NRP ever acquire the land? This seems to be hearsay if that's not confirmed.

On 10/27/2023 at 1:34 PM, Dino said:

I don't see how.  Nautica has a 19,000 seat capacity; about the same as a new stadium.  You could come from W. 25th, W. 28th, Division Ave, Center Street, there's buses at Detroit and even the Rapid at 25th or Tower City is under a mile.  Plus the whole point of urban stadiums is so that people come early/stay late to eat or have a beer.  That means people aren't all arriving and leaving at the same time.  If you add the pedestrian bridge, half the people could park downtown or even walk from Tower City creating many more access points.  I suppose if there were a game PLUS a concert at Nautica, it could get hairy, but those are the types of problems I wish our City had.

Agreed, but there is no transit route currently that extends in the Flats West bank. Now, with potential residential development coming online in the next years that could change. But I'd prefer a site that has great access to transportation at it's doorstep.

1 hour ago, noname said:

Did NRP ever acquire the land? This seems to be hearsay if that's not confirmed.

 

Property acquisition is often a year-long process. By the time the parties are willing to say anything publicly (and I'm surprised NRP said anything here), it's not news anymore. It's history.

2 hours ago, noname said:

Agreed, but there is no transit route currently that extends in the Flats West bank. Now, with potential residential development coming online in the next years that could change. But I'd prefer a site that has great access to transportation at it's doorstep.

The Nautica site is within a 1/2 mile, or under a 10 minute walk, from 6 bus lines at 25th and Detroit, plus the train stop at Settler's Landing.  That's like walking from Tower City to Progressive Field.  I would consider that pretty good access.

Most everyone on this forum prefers rail centered nodes of activity. Unfortunately that is something we no longer seem sble to do because of the cost. Other countries and even some US cities ARE able to do it but somehow, someway we have made rail unaffordable for most US cities and that's a damn shame as it's by far my favorite way to get around.

What Cincinnati has done, and what Columbus is doing is what we should strive for. An isolated, car catering complex is NOT it. 

 

Cincinnati’s is a great example of what a stadium on CSU’s campus would look/feel like in its surroundings.

What Cincinnati has done, and what Columbus is doing is what we should strive for. An isolated, car catering complex is NOT it. 
 
Cincinnati’s is a great example of what a stadium on CSU’s campus would look/feel like in its surroundings.

Don't get me wrong, I like this plan. But also this is separated from Downtown and sits next to the freeway just like the proposed site in Cleveland. This is why I don't necessarily oppose that site because it gives us an opportunity to correct and activate that site and "extend" downtown.

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That Cincinnati density is impressive. Its got a European feel. Not real tall but a lot of organic activity.

On 10/31/2023 at 2:33 PM, Dino said:

The Nautica site is within a 1/2 mile, or under a 10 minute walk, from 6 bus lines at 25th and Detroit, plus the train stop at Settler's Landing.  That's like walking from Tower City to Progressive Field.  I would consider that pretty good access.

That grade change alone is enough to stop alot of people from walking there... Again, don't think this is likely, and would be a potential nightmare without better RTA service.

On 10/31/2023 at 9:57 PM, MyPhoneDead said:

Don't get me wrong, I like this plan. But also this is separated from Downtown and sits next to the freeway just like the proposed site in Cleveland. This is why I don't necessarily oppose that site because it gives us an opportunity to correct and activate that site and "extend" downtown.

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Yeah, Columbus location is very isolated. Try getting there via public transit.

6 minutes ago, noname said:

Yeah, Columbus location is very isolated. Try getting there via public transit.

 

It's definitely not isolated. It's less than a five minute walk from the busiest bus lines. 

On 11/2/2023 at 12:14 PM, noname said:

Yeah, Columbus location is very isolated. Try getting there via public transit.

It’s not isolated at all. Strange comment. 

On 11/4/2023 at 7:44 PM, jeremyck01 said:

It’s not isolated at all. Strange comment. 

I have to ask, have you ever been there without using a car? It is certainly isolated in the most true sense of the word. I am sure that the improvements they are making to the district are helping it feel like it's less on an island, which is great.

It's an easy half-mile walk from the #3 and #8 bus at Nationwide and Neil. Flat route. Nice sidewalks. Shade trees. I would think many people, even in a country where walking a half-mile might otherwise cause a revolution, would expect to walk such a distance to a stadium.

 

That's why a stadium just south of the Inner Belt probably isn't a big deal. There's lots of parking around there, could be a rapid station, and there's the potential for Flats development to extend south to just below this stadium site.

1 hour ago, KJP said:

That's why a stadium just south of the Inner Belt probably isn't a big deal. There's lots of parking around there, could be a rapid station, and there's the potential for Flats development to extend south to just below this stadium site.

 

My rendering project currently in the works is a fictitious stadium / TOD stadium village proposal for this particular site. I'm hoping to be able to share it with y'all in the next week or two in Rando Vis thread! I reckon it's my most ambitious project yet 😅