Rta Strikes Deal for Development at Rapid Station

RTA has reached a tentative agreement with a developer to build a complex of two hotels, four restaurants, a bank branch and an indoor parking garage at the Brookpark Road Rapid Station. Developer Gilbert Singerman could start construction next year on the $16 million 1,000-car parking garage and rapid station. Singerman would have three years to line up hotels, restaurants and other tenants. An RTA board committee gave its OK on the project this week. The full board votes Dec. 21.

 

RTA Strikes Deal for Development at Rapid Station

RTA has reached a tentative agreement with a developer to build a complex of two hotels, four restaurants, a bank branch and an indoor parking garage at the Brookpark Road Rapid Station. Developer Gilbert Singerman could start construction next year on the $16 million 1,000-car parking garage and rapid station. Singerman would have three years to line up hotels, restaurants and other tenants. An RTA board committee gave its OK on the project this week. The full board votes Dec. 21.

 

whoa

 

darn i double posted this

 

this is a shock, i mean i thought RTA was all negative towards rail/rapid stuff

This is but a piece of the puzzle. RTA's board will vote on a long-range plan Dec. 21 that will include planning principals for transit-oriented developments around stations (such as at the Brookpark station). I did an interview today of RTA CEO/GM Joe Calabrese and two planners that revealed some interesting things about what they have in mind.

 

While I don't want to tip my hand as to what will be in the article, the general message was that RTA can and will do things that promote pedestrian-friendly development around rail stations, bus stops and transit centers to bring new ridership to the system without causing the large costs of having to extend transit services to new ridership sources.

 

KJP

Thats clever, if you cant bring transit to the people, bring the people to the transit.

That sign has been at that rapid sta. for a while now.  I also read about this development in the PD last year.  Sounds like it should cost more then 16 mil.  Where is this article from?

its from the PD

 

heres more of it

 

http://www.cleveland.com/cuyahoga/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1102588524123860.xml

I went ahead and merged these for you.

holy shit, i was in on the planning for this project back in february of 2002............

RTA Brookpark Road station plans get OK

Thursday, December 09, 2004

Rich Exner

Plain Dealer Reporter

RTA has reached a tentative agreement on what would be its first joint project with a developer to build hotels, restaurants and a parking garage next to a rapid train station....

 

[email protected], 216-999-3505

 

 

8 million for a station?

I've noticed you seem surprised at the cost of things. Allow me to give you a synopsis of how much some things typically cost:

 

> New railroad diesel locomotive:  $2.5 million to $3.5 million

> New railroad passenger car:  $1 million to $2 million

> Build railroad track on new right of way in rural area:  $1.5 million to $5 million per mile

> Build new rail transit track with overhead electric wires in urban area:  $10 million to $25 million per mile

> Build new four-line highway in rural area:  $10 million to $20 million per mile

> Build new eight-lane highway in urban area:  $25 million to $150 million per mile (the latter is how much the last segment of I-480 in Cleveland cost)

 

This past summer, seven miles of I-480 were resurfaced in western Cuyahoga County. The cost? $22 million.

 

ODOT has been adding a third lane in each direction to I-71 between Cleveland and Columbus... $500 million.

 

A parallel runway was built at Hopkins International Airport and the existing main runway was lengthened... $1.2 BILLION.

 

The Ohio Turnpike added a third lane in each direction from Toledo to near Youngstown... $1.4 BILLION.

 

Transportation is expensive shit.

 

KJP

Replacing an interstate bridge over a major river?  $432,000 per FOOT!  ($750MM projected for the Brent Spence, which measures 830.5', plus two approaches at 453' each - hat tip to the indispensible Jake Mecklenborg and his Brent Spence pages...)

I think I read once that Terminal Tower cost $88 million, and that was in 1928 dollars. It didn't include the cost of the new viaduct across the Cuyahoga River, or the miles of excavation and relocation of railroad approach tracks, or the electrification of the tracks and purchase of the electric locomotives to move passenger trains in and out of the terminal.

Total cost of the whole Terminal Tower project, including tracks, viaducts, electric wires over the tracks, new suburban stations in East Cleveland and Linndale was $179 million.

 

Today, that would be $1.6 billion!  And most, if not all of it was privately financed. And then the government started building highways and airports....

 

KJP

Glad to see some plans like this.  Wonder how well the parking garage will do.  It will probably be great if you could park there, then take the rapid to the airport, and not have to pay $25 per day to have it sit at some crappy park-n-ride lot.

I thought the lot at the Brookpark station was free...and I'm sure I never paid to park at Puritas.  Did they change that in the last 8 or 10 years?

Yes, parking at RTA stations is free. As stations are redeveloped with parking garages to make more land available for TOD housing, offices, retail etc. there will continue to be some free surface parking lots, though not as many free spaces available as before. RTA is counting on some people willing to pay a couple of bucks a day to park in structured decks due to better security and to keep their cars and themselves out of the elements.

 

I have no doubts that some people would be willing to do this (I'm one of them). But I'm probably not the norm, being a transit advocate. Most people are very price sensitive when it comes to their commutes, and they use transit to avoid paying to park downtown.

 

Since RTA will be gaining development revenues (ie: leases) from these ventures, why not have your parking ticket be dispensed as an RTA all-day pass (costs $3)? Thus, you pay only once for your parking/transit ride? For those who are parking in the decks to stay at one of the new hotels, patronize a TOD business, or other non-transit-ride activity, the all-day pass would simply double as a parking validation slip like what you would otherwise receive at any other paid parking deck? For weekly or monthly transit passes, issue a transit card with a magnetic strip on it that can be waved in front of an optical reader at the entrance to the parking deck to raise the gate for your car?

 

The fewer barriers (cost, convenience, simplicity) there are to using transit, the more people will choose to use it.

 

KJP

I used to have a monthly pass, and it was such a convenient thing - you go anywhere you want to go, no exact change, no asking for transfers (and then having to watch the time).  Having it include parking is a great idea.  Or maybe having two levels of monthly pass, all on the same card.  I seem to remember that the monthly pass did not include the $0.50 surcharge to go outside of the county, but I might be wrong on that...

not to be a gloom-caster but where the heck is the housing? all this transit and no housing in the project? not even a single apt building? that seems a bit weird and rather suburban-minded for a tod.

 

i take this will not be that case in future tod's at other stations (ie., the eastside's underused stations)?  i am suspicious of calabrese at best so i await your interview---when can we read it???

 

The article will run either on the last Thursday of December or the first Thursday in January.

 

The reason why no housing was included in the Brookpark station project is that RTA and the developer deem it to be a largely isolated property (isolated by I-480 and the Ford Plant). Thus, there is little opportunity to integrate with an existing community/neighborhood. That isn't the case at many other RTA station sites where housing will likely be more a prevalent feature of TOD.

 

Call the Brookpark station project TOD-light, or maybe "remedial TOD" since RTA doesn't yet have much experience with TOD. That's probably one reason why Joe Calabrese, a Westlake resident, considers Crocker Park as a TOD....

 

KJP

Ok, newbie question here......what the heck does "TOD" stand for?

aaron: tod=transit oriented development. a classic example of an older existing tod is shaker square.

 

kjp: your calabrese comment that crocker park is seen a potential "tod" has sure piqued my interest. should it? or was i reading too much into that? no wait, i'll hang on until i read your interview -- haha! i still think the calabrese is no ron tober and is in fact anti-rail transit, but i'd love to be way off base on that.

 

 

 

 

He doesn't see it as a "potential TOD" -- he sees it as a TOD now. There's even a picture of it in RTA's long-range plan, to be voted on by the full board Dec. 21. Crocker Park has some features of a TOD, but it isn't one. Transit is an afterthought there, not a key component of it from the outset. It has too much parking for it to be a TOD. But a lifestyle center like Crocker Park is a cousin of TOD, as they're both part of the New Urbanist genre.

 

KJP

are you guys talking about the costs of terminal tower as in waaay back in the day?

 

If so, it should be noted that it was the largest excavation project in the history in the USA at its time.

 

(if i'm wrong, mayday can correct me, he definately knows)

are you guys talking about the costs of terminal tower as in waaay back in the day?

 

If so, it should be noted that it was the largest excavation project in the history in the USA at its time.

 

(if i'm wrong, mayday can correct me, he definately knows)

I read someplace that at that time there had been only one excavation project in the world that was larger, and that was the Panama Canal.

^that's exactly what i heard from MayDay (i think)

Yep - the only excavation project larger was the Panama Canal (how that compares to nowadays with things like the 3 Rivers Gorge project in China, I dunno).  Remember, they had to dig over 200 feet below street level just to build the caissons (big arsed "stilts" to connect the tower to the bedrock). Not only that, the tower and station are on separate structures so the tower isn't affected (as much) by the vibrations of the trains.

 

Or was KJP referencing the re-configuration of the rapid system?

 

Anyways - as much as I love TODs, you couldn't pay me to live at this Brookpark project. The area is just downright dumpy if you ask me.

 

*Edit* What I would like to see is this station do well, and then lead to other TODs which would include residential as part of the mix.

^well there's not much charm to living under an airport and with conrail lines in your backyard, and a ford engine plant out your window

^well there's not much charm to living under an airport and with conrail lines in your backyard, and a ford engine plant out your window

 

Oh, I wouldn't worry about those things. Given the trends in American manufacturing industries, Ford will probably move the plant to Mexico, or maybe India, in a few years, and without industries as destinations for raw materials and sources for finished products, the railroad will become a recreational trail. Problem is, the erosion of our economy will leave even more of us unable to afford to live anyplace decent.

 

Don't mind me; sometimes a wave of cynicism sweeps over me, and I emit unpleasant sounds. The occurrence has become more frequent since the election.

No residential units will be offered at Brookpark. Just hotels and possibly a couple of restaurants.

 

The Cleveland Union Terminal (Terminal Tower) project was served by electrically powered long-distance passenger trains that exchanged their steam locomotives (and, later, diesels) for electric ones at Linndale on the west side and at Collinwood on the East Side. About 12 miles of new railroad right of way, some sections being 10 tracks wide, were built from Linndale to Collinwood through downtown. While most of it was next to existing railroad lines, several miles were on new right of way (including the Cuyahoga Valley viaduct that RTA now uses), and required a lot of excavation just east of downtown and near the West Side Market.

 

As the Union Terminal was built in the late 1920s, construction also started on the east-west rapid transit line. The right of way was graded, bridges were built and catenary posts for the overhead electric wires were erected. But the Great Depression hit, and the work wasn't finished until 1955 when the Red Line opened for business.

 

If you go to http://www.clevelandmemory.org/cut2/ and type in "excavation" in the search function, 20 pages of pictures will come up. Browsing some of the other thousands of pictures on this site will give an indication why Cleveland Union Terminal (and what was then-called the Terminal Group of buildings) cost $1.6 billion in year-2000 dollars.

 

It was an absolutely mammoth project that demolished an entire quadrant of downtown, completely dug out a multi-acre chasm some five stories down (not to mention the 200+ foot deep caissons to bedrock) and put in its place an interconnected city-within-a-city that featured the tallest building outside of New York City. And, to reiterate, it was mostly, if not all, privately financed.

 

KJP

^well there's not much charm to living under an airport and with conrail lines in your backyard, and a ford engine plant out your window

 

hey pope! you need to get outta state more often. like out here to nyc for example. you wouldnt believe where people live. remember that movie when woody allen lived in a house under the roller coaster in coney island? well it was true (no, woody didnt grow up there but someone did -- the house was real--lol!).

 

Hey guys, I was referred to this thread after posting a comment about the Brookpark development in another spot...

 

I'm not surprised about the lack of housing here and not disappointed either...for the same reasons that several of you have cited already.  I think it is better suited for commercial and hotels, given its proximity to the airport and its current popularity as a park-and-ride spot. 

 

And to me, this definitely qualifies as "TOD," even without the full mixture of uses.  This is because people drive here to commute and any development around it is going to lure more people to the station and encourange more usage.  We're building density around stations and that's an important step. 

 

As we all know, many of the RTA's rail stations are kept well-hidden and often residents nearby don't even know of their existence.  This happens in a lot of cities, actually.  Increasing interaction and business at the site will only serve to make the whole mass transit idea more feasible and practical in a city where having a car is just so easy.

 

I like this project a lot...a step in the right direction for sure.

This just in...

 

RTA OKs plan Rapid station.  Construction starts in 2006

Thursday, March 03, 2005

By JAIME WILLIS

The News Sun

 

BROOK PARK _ Construction of the $16 million Brookpark Rapid Station will move forward now that the RTA Board of Trustees has approved a letter of intent.

 

RTA staffers made the recommendation to the board to approve the letter after some two years of discussion, Jerry Masek, media relations manager for RTA, said. The OK came on Tuesday....

 

© 2005 Sun Newspapers. Used with permission.

More details from the RTA at http://www.gcrta.org/pressreleaselist.asp?listingid=710

 

Sounds like a great deal for the RTA, Brookpark and Cleveland! 

Whatever happened to this project? Did it die? I've driven past the Brookpark station many times and there has been no sign of any action. :-(

you know, i wonder if i have the original site plan lying around in my archives anywhere......

I have a graphic of it if you'd like me to post it here.

 

I don't know what's happening with the project but the last I heard the developer was having a hard getting hotels to commit to the site. It's one of the reasons why Calabrese believes (however inaccurately) that TOD is going to be a difficult thing to accomplish in RTA's service area.

 

The office and tourism market isn't moving in Greater Cleveland, but the housing and retail market it. I realize building housing at the Brookpark site is a nonstarter, but it's also a nonstarter to base the validity of TOD in Cleveland on the Brookpark site. Of course, what's proposed for the Brookpark station isn't TOD anyway!

Anybody have news on this?

Last I heard is that the developer was having a hard time getting hoteliers to sign leases for the project.

 

Worse, that was reinforcing Calabrese's belief that getting TOD to happen around rapid stations would be a slim opportunity. So was the BS that happened with the plan to develop housing around the Ohio City station (you'll remember that the Duck Island residents fought it because it was too dense. Hey you idiots -- you live a mile from Public Square, and that's not Medina's public square!).