wow -- i was wondering what that view would be like. very cool.

 

man thats a lot of sod, i hope it works out ok over time. it will take a lot of care.

 

 

It was very well maintained when it was turned from the fountains to grass.  People used the mall prior, so I dont think we should be concerned about maintenance. I do think more people will visit this attraction now, but I dont think there is cause to be worried.

Tack on Phillips:

 

Philips Healthcare, University Hospitals partner for Cuyahoga County Medical Mart venture

By Laura Johnston, The Plain Dealer The Plain Dealer

November 26, 2012 at 6:05 AM 

 

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Philips Healthcare, a major maker of medical equipment, will partner with University Hospitals to showcase the latest imaging technology at Cuyahoga County's medical mart.

 

The announcement today marks the signing of the fourth and fifth paying tenants at the downtown mart, part of a $465 million, taxpayer-financed convention center complex. It's the first announced collaboration between a health care system and a manufacturer.

 

"The opportunity is to move this new, really cool innovation into the medical mart," said Dominic Smith, general manager of computed tomography (CT scans) for Philips, which has its North American headquarters in Highland Heights. "We can develop something in the back room, then showcase it in a more public way."

 

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2012/11/philips_healthcare_university.html

It'd be great if the Mayo Clinic took a serious look at leasing space too.  What better way to lay down the gauntlet vis-a-vis one of your major competitors than to lease space in the building conceived by and located in that competitor's home town.

 

Although the med mart management would probably be skittish of recruiting Mayo in light of the undoubtedly heavy role the Clinic is playing in recruiting the major industry players.

Cleveland Medical Mart and the medical mart idea is starting to spread to general public knowledge...  St. Louis blogger writes why not a St. Louis MM and gives his facts of why.  Interesting, but I'm not sure he would win a debate about St. Louis being more of a health tech cluster than Cleveland.

 

Question is....Is St. Louis willing to follow Cleveland's lead considering that St. Louis' healthcare industry and workforce is larger than Cleveland's? The Cleveland Clinic consistently ranks in the Top #10 of U.S. hospitals - as does BJC Hospital.

 

http://nextstl.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9458&p=204366

why not a MM in Minneapolis or Chicago or Topkea?  Most major cities/metros have a decent hospital/health care system.  Nashville always seemed to pin its claims on Vanderbilt hospital.  But its much more than hospitals or the number of health care workers.  There's venture capital, r&d, diversity of health care companies and the synergy between them.  As for the clinic, its much more than just a hospital.  It has branches and affiliations world-wide.  The hospital comparisons of other cities would be better paired against UH - which is probably better than most.

 

Cleveland has an economy of scale in this sector like NYC has in business and finance.  This is why Cleveland is a health care capital and why most everywhere else is an also-ran in comparison

^^Anyone notice their caption of the "Cleveland Clinic" is UH and CWRU?

^^Anyone notice their caption of the "Cleveland Clinic" is UH and CWRU?

 

I was just about to comment on that.  Since this is a blog, I will take the "article" with a grain of salt.  It's garbage!

Just thought Id cross post my photo tour here if anyone would like to see it:

 

http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,28146.0.html

Just thought Id cross post my photo tour here if anyone would like to see it:

 

http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,28146.0.html

 

Thanks! Great photos and information.

Just thought Id cross post my photo tour here if anyone would like to see it:

 

http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,28146.0.html

I enjoyed reading these two parts:

"Johnson Controls will be moving its national sales office here from Milwaukee"

 

"The current County headquarter building is obviously being thought of as a site for a new large parking deck and hotel"

I drove by on Lakeside yesterday, and I thought that the slope creating vertical clearance for the Lakeside entrance was a stroke of genius.  Not only did it allow for the 30' ceiling height, but it gave the center a street presence that an underground facility would not normally have, as well a raised vantage point from which to view the Lakefront.

I drove by on Lakeside yesterday, and I thought that the slope creating vertical clearance for the Lakeside entrance was a stroke of genius.  Not only did it allow for the 30' ceiling height, but it gave the center a street presence that an underground facility would not normally have, as well a raised vantage point from which to view the Lakefront.

 

x2

I don't like it.  It prevents the Mall from being the one grand space it was, and imo changes the sense of place for the worse.  Practically, it makes the space less useful as a playfield (I liked to play frisbee there, others used to play soccer).  I'm sure it can still be used, it just isn't as good anymore for that, and that's something that the young, physically active residents we are trying to lure Downtown would enjoy.

That's probably not the best place to play sports, with the needs of a convention center taking the first priority. A sports field could be built anywhere, although I realize it has not. There certainly does need to be such a field in or close to downtown. But if I had to choose between that and a better-designed convention center, I choose the latter.

I am not a fan due to the deviation from the mall's original sightlines and planning. 

 

But, with this being said I realize to keep the convention center there something had to be done.  What is actually under that rise?

 

^ The front door.

^ The front door.

 

Ahh well, Burnham Plan be damned, we'll have to live with it for the next 30-40 years until the underused Convention center is deemed outmoded and a new one is built amidst controversy.

Glass half-empty guy....

 

Ahh well' date=' Burnham Plan be damned....[/quote']

 

indeed. also, don't forget CMSD selling their HQ bldg.....so much for the mall being surrounded by public bldgs....

Ahh well' date=' Burnham Plan be damned....[/quote']

 

indeed. also, don't forget CMSD selling their HQ bldg.....so much for the mall being surrounded by public bldgs....

 

Really?  The Burnham plan must be stuck to at all costs?  The CMSD building isn't being demolished, it will serve a new purpose.  Nothing wrong with that, especially if it's a new purpose which brings more people to the mall, i.e. a hotel.

That's probably not the best place to play sports, with the needs of a convention center taking the first priority. A sports field could be built anywhere, although I realize it has not. There certainly does need to be such a field in or close to downtown. But if I had to choose between that and a better-designed convention center, I choose the latter.

 

I didn't say we should place the needs of a sports field above the needs of the convention center.  What I will say is that we got an inferior design because we placed an arbitrary number on what we would spend, instead of spending what we should have to have done the project right.  It's too late now, but I'm not going to pretend that I think the solution was genius or anything but a compromise.

I didn't say we should place the needs of a sports field above the needs of the convention center.  What I will say is that we got an inferior design because we placed an arbitrary number on what we would spend, instead of spending what we should have to have done the project right.  It's too late now, but I'm not going to pretend that I think the solution was genius or anything but a compromise.

 

But I did. I said I placed the needs of a convention center over a sports field, and I could understand why others might have done so too. Though I doubt the convention center designers even considered sports programming for the greenspace, except maybe a sledding hill! Probably the only other programming they considered was using the slope as seating for Movies on the Mall.

"What I will say is that we got an inferior design because we placed an arbitrary number on what we would spend, instead of spending what we should have to have done the project right."

 

If I recall correctly, it was the decision of three former county commissioners that decided what would be spent. ;-)

Fair enough.^

And more precisely, wasn't the project budget determined by the max amount of additional sales tax revenue the commissioners were able to raise without voter approval? I guess they could have used it all for the cc, though, and not built a med mart.  But otherwise I think the realistic choice was this budget or no project at all.

 

I don't care much for the Group Plan so not concerned about disrupting it, though I do wish the hump could have been on the St Clair side with the slope facing the lake. But I don't think that would have worked with the topo and programming needs.

^I agree. The Group Plan buildings are nice to look at and have great sightlines for photos, but the nature of those buildings makes this area a ghost town. I suppose that if the train station that was planned was built there would be a little more foot traffic, but since there isn't a lot of street presence there is not much you can do to get people to walk through the malls unless they have specific business to handle in one of those buildings.

i posted a plan that i believe would activate the malls with the lakefront plan

I don't like it.  It prevents the Mall from being the one grand space it was, and imo changes the sense of place for the worse.  Practically, it makes the space less useful as a playfield (I liked to play frisbee there, others used to play soccer).  I'm sure it can still be used, it just isn't as good anymore for that, and that's something that the young, physically active residents we are trying to lure Downtown would enjoy.

 

YP Advocacy Groups have been working to keep Mall C as an open field, so that sports like frisbee and football can be played there.

Strap, yes, that's correct.  The problem is that they set that as the budget and designed around it, instead of even trying to find the extra funds to do the thing better.  Maybe they wouldn't have found them, and we would have been stuck with just that amount, but at least try!

Didn't the original Burnham plan call for a train station at the north end that would have blocked any lake view?

 

Read more here: http://archive.is/1GiW

 

 

 

 

Sorry for the big image.....

 

 

 

After the Van Swerigens started building the Cleveland Union Terminal complex (now Tower City Center) on Public Square, plans for the station at the north end of the Group Plan were scuttled. But there will still attempts made at reusing the lakefront for public purposes, including this 1933 plan......

 

My concept of rotating Cleveland Browns Stadium redesigned with open ends incorporates the original plan which I believe would bridge the gap between the lakefront and the malls.  Think of all the connected activity on The Malls during game days. None of my plan involves destroying the look of the malls  The view from the convention ballroom would be one end of the stadium.  The stadium field should be opened to the public in the off season since the citizens of the county helped to pay for the design.Again activating the malls. The malls continuation to the lakefront would be another flat area for Clevelanders to enjoy.

 

 

 

Given some of KJP's earlier comments, I don't think building over top of the existing rail lines would be possible.

My concept of rotating Cleveland Browns Stadium redesigned with open ends incorporates the original plan which I believe would bridge the gap between the lakefront and the malls.  Think of all the connected activity on The Malls during game days. None of my plan involves destroying the look of the malls  The view from the convention ballroom would be one end of the stadium.  The stadium field should be opened to the public in the off season since the citizens of the county helped to pay for the design.Again activating the malls. The malls continuation to the lakefront would be another flat area for Clevelanders to enjoy.

 

 

 

 

Strap, yes, that's correct.  The problem is that they set that as the budget and designed around it, instead of even trying to find the extra funds to do the thing better.  Maybe they wouldn't have found them, and we would have been stuck with just that amount, but at least try!

 

 

wait, wouldn't doing it better or right, that is, to maintain the purity of the burnham plan and also build a bigger and better cc, have involved digging out the pit rather than raising the roof?

 

that would probably have at least doubled the costs. didn't we have some projection about that back in the thread or somewhere? not sure.

 

so given such higher costs, is that what cleveland should have spent its tax $ on?

 

i bet voters would have said no way, especially with the IX available for big shows.

 

and that would be a shame to delay this project because the cc needed rebuilt pretty badly (imo the mm is just frosting until it proves itself).

 

^Yeah, I think that's right (and agree with it).  And I think the county (and convention/visitors bureau) had been looking at various funding possibilities for several years, so I don't think there was that much additional money left to be found for this type of project.

 

Under the near term plan (i.e., without raising a lot more money to "finish" Mall B), how unuasable is the main grassy area for casual athletic use?  I think the plans (and web cam) show a future path across the middle of the field which could be a hazard. Maybe that's something the YPs loveCLE mentions are trying to block, which I would be cool with.  I would much rather see active use of that grass than years of nothingness as we try to raise money, and even then, I'd rather see the money go to the "rooms" and the proposed stuff north of Lakeside.

^^It would have been substantially more expensive, though not doubling the cost.  I think the extra cost was somewhere between $100-200 million.  I think we should have spent it.  The commissioners decided not to, because they agree with you that the public wouldn't have gone for it.  I would have liked to have seen them try to cobble together some other sources of funding, but they decided to put a hard cap at $400 million, the amount raised by the quarter cent tax increase. 

 

Do I think it needed to be built?  Yes.  Am I happy with the resulting design decisions? No, I don't think that the new Mall space will be as attractive or usable as the old, let alone an improvement.  That is what I was saying.

the current project is $465M and i am no engineer, but $1-200M seems like quite a lowball number for redoing that whole pit. regardless, adding in those costs would be getting into some serious coin. so if the still gateway-leery public would not go for it, why take money from elsewhere? doesn't that mean the public does not think this is worthy of spending that kind of $$$ on? let the county be creative about cobbling money from other sources for other projects. at the very least it would have resulted in delays of who knows how long.

 

 

I love Cleveland's history and the great architecture that we had, but I hear a lot of arguments that revolve around "That goes against the Burnham plan," or "That's not how Burnham would have done it." 

 

But it doesn't take into account a lot of the changes that have occurred since it was put together.  We have suburbs now and downtown isn't the hub it used to be.  (imagine the cleveland.com comments if there was a plan to build a "municipal pool" downtown today)  The automobile rules.  The malls are not a centerpiece of downtown.

 

I don't mind deviating from a 100 year old plan.

I think people should give the malls a chance and see what the views will be like once this is complete.  I was skeptical about the slope until a couple weeks ago.  I was at city hall for a meeting and saw the mall c gate open so I walked on in to see progress.  I took a couple crappy (very crappy) cell phone pics.  It's interesting that while you lose that sweeping view into downtown and the war memorial fountain, you gain two very neat linear axis that I think give greater prominence to the old federal courthouse and the old library.  Mall B was still gated so I did not get up on the hill, but I'm sure the lake views will be fantastic and someone earlier posted the city view from the hill which was also fantastic.  The hill may not have been the perfect solution, but I think it will add visual interest, as well as functionality to the CC.  Now it's time for creative minds to program the hill and the rest of the space!

How big was the grass field on the old Mall B?  Is there a chance that even with the slope, there is still roughly the same sized field available?

The grass field on the new mall should be larger that the old version.  The design of the new mall, including the slope, makes for a much more usable space than the old design.  The old version above was in between a plaza and a field which thereby failed at both purposes.  Since I now live in DC I see favorable comparisons between the new mall and the National Mall.  (Of course they were both designed by Burnham).  The Mall in DC allows for lots of random physical activity for the many young people of the area, such as flag football and ultimate frisbee.  Plus, one of my favorite summertime activities is Screen on the Green, where old movies are shown on a projection big screen on the Mall at night once a week.  The new slope of the Cleveland Mall is ideal for such an activity, and superior to the National Mall because it creates a natural amphitheater.  In DC you often have to strain to see over fellow picknickers on the flat ground.  People sitting on the slope of the Cleveland Mall, facing south, would have a perfect view for some classic movies, which would provide an excuse for some office workers to stay downtown after dark.

ryanfrazier, here in Cleveland, ParkWorks offers Movies on the Mall (when the malls aren't torn up for a new $465 million being built underneath them!)......

 

http://www.pluggedincleveland.com/events/22085/movies-on-the-mall-blades-of-glory.html

 

http://www.gcbl.org/calendar/2007/08/movies-on-the-mall

Good to hear.  I hope they do it again once the mall's complete.

Good to hear.  I hope they do it again once the mall's complete.

 

 

+1 !!!    :-D

This should be some good exposure for the MM right when it opens:

 

Cleveland Clinic to host Innovation Summit at medical mart

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2012/12/cleveland_clinic_to_host_innov.html#incart_m-rpt-2

Should be perfect for worldwide exposure to the new center.

 

This should be some good exposure for the MM right when it opens:

 

Cleveland Clinic to host Innovation Summit at medical mart

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2012/12/cleveland_clinic_to_host_innov.html#incart_m-rpt-2

View from E.3rd and Rockwell

Thanks, McLovin, I was just wondering how hat view was shaping up.

Does anybody know if Stryker has leased any space in the Medical Mart?