Is my math off?  I thought this was supposed to be a net gain, but with Viking Hall closing (300 residents), how does adding 270 in Euclid Commons result in a gain?

 

Quote from the full Cleveland Stater article regarding the Euclid Commons Phase 2:

"the 106,963 square foot expansion will house an additional 268 students, raising the number of potential residents from 332 to 600 total." 

So the first phase of Euclid Commons that opened this past August had 332 beds.  The second phase opening this coming summer has an additional 268 beds.  This is and has always been a 600 bed project. 

 

In the previous article I posted this was said...

 

"When phase two of this project is completed this fall, another 800 students will be added to the “living-on-campus” number, bringing the total to about 1800 staying in official residential facilities — or nearly double the current figure."

 

I'm not sure what numbers the author of the CoolCleveland article is using.  He may be counting the entire 600 for the whole project, and possibly also counting the students that live in the recently acquired Heritage Suitees.  Not sure.

With my calculations there will be space for about 1,186 students

View of Euclid Commons from Euclid Avenue - 2/19/11

 

^ Thanks Mayday!

 

I don't think this has been posted yet:

 

http://www.19actionnews.com/Global/story.asp?S=14039465

 

 

 

^ Thanks Mayday!

 

I don't think this has been posted yet:

 

http://www.19actionnews.com/Global/story.asp?S=14039465

 

 

Leave it to the media to oversimplify and over-exaggerate. I guess they haven't heard of the Cleveland Clinic before. Or University Hospitals. Or the Uptown project. Or the many smaller projects in between them. See: http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php?topic=7408.msg545326#msg545326

 

Oy.

^ Thanks Mayday!

 

I don't think this has been posted yet:

 

http://www.19actionnews.com/Global/story.asp?S=14039465

 

 

 

 

"Over 85% of our students work and live in Cleveland after graduation"

 

Thats a good number, now if only we could get that many to actually live in the City of Cleveland.

I think the implication is downtown

Looked back at my old pictures, they have made some nice progress

 

September 30th

 

October 27th

 

November 22nd

 

January 18th

 

February 10th

Haha, nice transitions!

 

Thanks.

Very nice chronology in pictures, thanks for sharing!

And now it gets to host Obama today.  Should be a nice crowd, pretty weather today, people walking around checking out the new buildings, taking photos, marveling at the school's accelerating capital improvents.. A good time as any for some national exposure.

So I dont know if this has been discussed but for the Varsity Village, kind of like what Case has, since its baseball field, what about homeruns? Isn't that kind of dangerous/stupid to put dorms right by the field? Its different for Case because that is a football field, so your not going to run into the same problems.

So I dont know if this has been discussed but for the Varsity Village, kind of like what Case has, since its baseball field, what about homeruns? Isn't that kind of dangerous/stupid to put dorms right by the field? Its different for Case because that is a football field, so your not going to run into the same problems.

 

Some spacing will alleviate those concerns I believe.  I don't think they were proposing to use a dorm as one of the outfield walls or anything.  Homeruns typically don't travel THAT far over the fence and those bombs that do may just create some interesting stories.  Frankly, from a design standpoint they're probably more concerned about foul balls / homeruns hitting cars more than buildings.

Looks like they are working on the inside of the dorms today. Putting in drywall perhaps

Love the boost in vitality and foot traffic that these developments have brought to Euclid Ave over the past 5 years, buuuut, I'm wondering why they went so cheap with the exterior finishes on the Euclid Commons project???  I don't recall City Planning making a stink about it, but I've got to imagine someone brought it up.  They went to the next level with Julka and the administration building, so why cut back here? 

 

Maybe they're planning on adding some finishing touches to the first building when the second is completed, but you can see on the NE corner that the siding is just plain sloppy.  It's bothered me for months!

^The cheap look of the Euclid Commons Buildings has been commented upon and lamented numerous times in this thread and others.  What bothers me the most is that these buildings front on Cleveland's main street.

 

I can only guess that, of course cost, has much to do with it and the fact that CSU was moving into uncharted waters with the new dorms and did not want to over reach (it appears they have been very popular so it would have been nice if they did go the extra mile).  I also might venture that perhaps much has to do with the fact that the dorms were developed privately rather that it being solely a CSU project (designed and built like the student center of education building).  I would imagine CSU had some say but who knows how much.  I think the city dropped the ball here more than anyone...should have demanded higher standards, especially on Euclid.

 

Hopefully the new dorms on Chester will make us all proud.

Agreed.  In the future, City Plannng needs to consult UO before approving any faux-vinyl siding downtown.

They aren't attractive, but at least they interact well with the street and they'll bring lots of extra foot traffic. So no big complaints from me.

If you look at the renderings it shows that the new building that fronts a large portion of Euclid will be brick on the street side so I don't think this will be as much of an issue as some people think. 

North Campus is not supposed to have new dorms.  The focus there is on market rate housing, but I guess that remains to be seen.

 

Sorry to bring up an old topic - I've been absent for quite some time and hadn't kept up on the discussion.  There's really no excuse for the shoddy materials here and yes, multiple interests dropped the ball.

 

 

^^In my mind it is not just the siding materials (much of which is awful).  The design itself is suburban chic, the windows  look cheap and out of place and the floor heigts seem strange.  This could have just been done better.

^ I wouldn't go as far as calling it suburban because you wouldn't find anything like them in the suburb.  Now if there was a small parking lot infront of the building fronting Euclid avenue and the building was shortened by two stories, then i would call it suburban. And I dont think the siding is that big of a deal as long as it doesn't show up on the Euclid Avenue side of the building.

^Sorry buddy...these things are just hideous.

I know this is an ignorant question, but can someone please tell me how I can make the dialogue of these strands fit the normal page size?  I never had this problem before, but now many of the discussion strands seem to be "out of wack".  I apologize for my ignorance

I know this is an ignorant question, but can someone please tell me how I can make the dialogue of these strands fit the normal page size?  I never had this problem before, but now many of the discussion strands seem to be "out of wack".  I apologize for my ignorance

 

Best place to ask that question is here:

http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/board,10.0.html

Are there any new renderings of this?  From the planning commission:

 

DF 2011-009:  CSU Pedestrian Infrastructure Master Plan

Cleveland State University Downtown Campus, Ward 8

Project representatives:  Ed Schmittgen, CSU; Albert Filoni and Tyler Niedzwicki, MCF

 

http://planning.city.cleveland.oh.us/designreview/drcagenda/2011/03042011/index.php

If you go on their website: http://www.csuohio.edu/offices/architect/

They have what they call the "2010 CSU Master Plan PPT". It's a PowerPoint of what has been done and what is coming up. I belive some of the slides encapsulate the work you are asking about.

It's in the green bar on the right.

They are putting up bricks on the side of the dorms today. Sorry no pictures

Real brick or a veneer?

I heard you guys like signage. there is some kind of crazy sign going up in front of the new student center. At the base is a wide circle that looks like its made of pipes radiating out in a circle, then a tall white pole in the center, with three electronic signs staggered vertically. At the very top are the very small letters CSU, made of the same material as the rest.

 

Sorry no picture, take a drive and see it, its quite big.

So many different ways to travel past it, and you say "drive." Oy. :police:

Sorry, born and raised in sweet ole suburbia, whether I like it or not. Driving is ingrained in me, where I live there are no sidewalks. But I understand, one day I will live in the city, sans car.

I understand. I'm just ragging on ya. I lived in Geauga County for 15 years.

I heard you guys like signage. there is some kind of crazy sign going up in front of the new student center. At the base is a wide circle that looks like its made of pipes radiating out in a circle, then a tall white pole in the center, with three electronic signs staggered vertically. At the very top are the very small letters CSU, made of the same material as the rest.

 

Sorry no picture, take a drive and see it, its quite big.

Before anyone gets upset about the sign, I don't think it's going to stay in front of the Student Center.

^ Wait, so where will it go?

^I don't know.  What I do know is that it was determined that the sign was not going to be used as was originally thought due to the low quality of the graphics that it could display.  Images would look fine if you were at least 100 feet away, but any closer and it would become difficult to interpret.

It wasn't displaying when I saw it, but the way the screen looked, I could tell that the quality of the screen would be very poor. Still, I think I like the sign.

I have a complaint about the current progress of CollegeTown...in particular CSU's side of things.

 

University-owned entities close too early...very early.  How can you have a 24-hr neighborhood full of students with a library that closes at 6 pm during a weekday?

 

I have a friend who attends Cleveland State, currently lives in Little Italy, who is/was considering moving down around campus.  She said she has changed her mind recently and would much prefer to live in a neighborhood.  Confused, I tried to tell her CSU is trying to build a neighborhood around campus, and she said it doesn't come close to comparing or feel welcome at all.

 

She told me, for example, about yesterday:

 

She took the Euclid Corridor down to CSU to work on a paper that was due by Midnight last night.  It was about 1:50 pm and decided to get lunch at the Student Center at the local wrap place.  They have posted hours of closing at 2 pm and when she was half-way in line, they notified everyone they were closing and her and the 10 other people still in line would have to go somewhere else--it was exactly 2 pm.

 

Annoyed she walked around and all other lunch places were closed...except for Bar Uno.  She ended up finding somewhere outside.

 

Then, she was back in the library at around 5:45 pm (remember this is a weekday...Friday), when the announcement came over the loudspeaker the library would be closing in 15 min.  Now her teacher had given instructions to email in her paper before midnight, and she was getting kicked out of here own university library six before her work was due.  At promptly 6 pm, the workers came around and shut all the computers down.  Frustrated, she called me and asked where else she could go to finish her paper, and asked when the CWRU library closes....I told her, it doesn't...as long as you are a student.  In fact, CWRU has at least two 24-hr computer access areas on campus. 

 

So she left Downtown and returned to University Circle to finish her paper.

 

The point is all this is although CollegeTown is slowly progressing, CSU itself seems to be sticking to the older commuter school ways of doing business.  Anyone agree??  She basically told me it makes more sense for her to commute instead of living around campus Downtown.

Is this development news?

^ Interesting. Friday they treat like a weekend from what I just looked up. Those food places in the student center stay open till 6(still early) on monday though thursday, cafeteria stays open in 10, and bar uno till midnight. The library also stays open till 10 during the week. But then friday comes and they close everything way earlier like your friend experienced.

Is this development news?

 

Yes--in regards to CSU's current policies of the area, that could potentially affect development.  Changing CSU's policies can better promote the area as a dynamic place to live, specifically the livability of CollegeTown...spurring more development and getting more bodies down there.

Hopefully once the new dorms open the "demand" will go up and they will be forced to keep those places open longer

That's exactly the problem.  Things on campus don't stay open late because after classes, most students are heading back to their homes off-campus, oftentimes in the suburbs.  If/when more students start living on campus, you'll see campus buildings and nearby businesses staying open later.

To Murray Hills complaint -- Yes, operations in the student center do close earlier on Fridays than during the rest of the week.  The cold hard facts are that the demand simply isn't there yet to justify staying open later.  I was keeping the bookstore open until 6pm on Fridays but after averaging about $5 in sales from 5pm to 6pm the decision was made to pull back to 5pm.  We actually looked at all days and hours to make sure we were being effective in our use of labor and meeting the demands of our customer base.

 

I will pass along your friends experience to my counterpart in the food service operation.  If I had a line at the bookstore when it came time to close, I certainly wouldn't close until everyone had made their purchases.

 

They started laying red brick today on the Euclid side of the dorms.

Edit: Here is a little better quality picture of the brick

 

 

 

Yay.  Real brick.  I was genuinely scared, given other materials used, that they were going to pin up a veneer which you see in many suburban buildings of the same general design.

^ hey hts121, I just put up a better picture, shows the actual color more. Still a little more red in real life though

Good brick color, too.

^^^^I'm glad to see the "Bookstore Has Moved" sign is still in place.  You'd be surprised how many phone calls we get asking what happened to our building.