Is Phase 2 the image above in ExPat's March 28th post?

Is Phase 2 the image above in ExPat's March 28th post?

 

No, it's the apartment building and garage (and hotel?) shown in KJP's post in February:

 

http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php/topic,13381.msg791041.html#msg791041

Looking at the CWRU webcam, it looks like construction on phase 2 of Innova is about to start. Construction fence has been put up and no cars are parked in the parking lot anymore.

 

Link to the webcam?

Looking at the CWRU webcam, it looks like construction on phase 2 of Innova is about to start. Construction fence has been put up and no cars are parked in the parking lot anymore.

 

Link to the webcam?

https://oxblue.com/open/ccf/cwruhec

Here is a different image from the hotel operators website.

But a parking lot was just constructed just to the west of Innova, across East 97th Street.  Are you referring to construction ready to start just east of Innova?

But a parking lot was just constructed just to the west of Innova, across East 97th Street.  Are you referring to construction ready to start just east of Innova?

Yes, just to the east of Innova use to be a parking lot (phase 2 site) before the new one to the west was constructed.

Looking at the CWRU webcam, it looks like construction on phase 2 of Innova is about to start. Construction fence has been put up and no cars are parked in the parking lot anymore.

 

Drove by this afternoon.  Actual "digging" has commenced on the hotel site to the east of Innova.

Looking at the CWRU webcam, phase 2 of Innova (upper right corner) is starting to go vertical. https://app.oxblue.com/open/ccf/cwruhec

 

Fluffy Duck Cafe brings artisan bread, seasonal pastries to University Circle

By Nikki Delamotte, cleveland.com

December 05, 2016 at 10:28 AM, updated December 05, 2016 at 2:41 PM

 

http://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2016/12/fluffy_duck_cafe_brings_artisa.html

 

Board of Zoning Appeals

MONDAY, JANUARY 9, 2017

9:30

Calendar No. 16-306: 10001 Chester Ave. Ward 7

TJ Dow

10 Notices

Innova Phase 2, owner, proposes to construct a new parking garage accessory to Chester Avenue

Residential Building in B1 Two-Family Residential District. The owner appeals for relief from the strict

application of the following sections of the Cleveland Codified Ordinances:

1. Section 357.04 which states that an 18’ front yard is required and no front yard is shown.

2. Section 357.08(b)(1) which states that a 20’ rear yard is required no rear yard is shown.

3. Section 357.05 which states that a 5 foot side yard is required and on the rear third corner of

the lot a 10 foot side yard is required. No side street yard is shown.

4. Section 353.01(b) which states that a maximum height of 35’ is allowed in the ‘1’ Height

District and 75 feet are proposed. (Filed December 2, 2016)

A revamped zoning code can't come fast enough.....

I'm surprised TJ hasn't sh!t-canned this one too. I'd kill it because this bunker doesn't relate to the street at all. It's another sidewalk killer...

 

http://planning.city.cleveland.oh.us/designreview/drcagenda/2017/04212017/index.php

EUCLID CORRIDOR DESIGN REVIEW

EC2016-042 – CWRU School of Dentistry Dental Clinic New Construction: Seeking Final Approval

Project Address: 1891 East 93rd Street

Project Representatives: Brian Smith, Cleveland Clinic

Ron Reed, Westlake Reed Leskosky

Phil LaBassi, Westlake Reed Leskosky

Christopher Panichi, CWRU

Note: this project received Schematic Design Approval on February 3rd, 2017.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That is indescribably bad.

Obviously the Clinic with its setbacks and greenery is looking to minimize any claustrophobic feeling to its campus. I appreciate posters' preference for urban streetscape, but do we really need it everywhere?  Johns Hopkins has build buildings like this smack dab on the sidewalk and they are still "bunkers" and it is much more depressing than the Clinic's more open approach. Neither of these urban institutions wants or needs a lot of random passers-by, which is why they build the way they do.

Yikes. And this is right next door to the new mixed-use building? Depressing.

Obviously the Clinic with its setbacks and greenery is looking to minimize any claustrophobic feeling to its campus. I appreciate posters' preference for urban streetscape, but do we really need it everywhere? Johns Hopkins has build buildings like this smack dab on the sidewalk and they are still "bunkers" and it is much more depressing than the Clinic's more open approach. Neither of these urban institutions wants or needs a lot of random passers-by, which is why they build the way they do.

 

Yes, it needs to be everywhere. The Clinic has been destroying the existing urban streetscape and replacing it with atrocious crap like this for decades.

Obviously the Clinic with its setbacks and greenery is looking to minimize any claustrophobic feeling to its campus. I appreciate posters' preference for urban streetscape, but do we really need it everywhere?  Johns Hopkins has build buildings like this smack dab on the sidewalk and they are still "bunkers" and it is much more depressing than the Clinic's more open approach. Neither of these urban institutions wants or needs a lot of random passers-by, which is why they build the way they do.

 

There's a lot of room in between smack dab on the sidewalk and this land eating monstrosity.

 

FWIW, I find the Clinic's campus far more depressing than the Hopkins medical campus or any of the Clinic's other urban peers.

Obviously the Clinic with its setbacks and greenery is looking to minimize any claustrophobic feeling to its campus. I appreciate posters' preference for urban streetscape, but do we really need it everywhere?  Johns Hopkins has build buildings like this smack dab on the sidewalk and they are still "bunkers" and it is much more depressing than the Clinic's more open approach. Neither of these urban institutions wants or needs a lot of random passers-by, which is why they build the way they do.

 

Wow... Everywhere? It's called a city, but sorely lacks the density necessary to be accessible, inclusive and livable to people of all economic strata. This is supposed to be a clinic to serve the neighborhood, a significant portion of which chooses not to or cannot afford cars. And it's an urban setting. It's supposed to be intimate and walkable. If that's claustrophobic to you, there's a better place for an isolationist, car-dependent land use plan like this. It's called the suburbs.

WRL keeps crapping out some terrible work over here. Damn shame.

This is great. When filmmakers need stock footage of "EVIL CORP" they have a new place to shoot.

 

Seriously. This looks like an armed facility where they are going to regenerate body parts.

People on this form are more creative with their words than Cleveland architects are with their plans!

^^^  Wow did I step on a land mine.  :-o  This particular clinic is intended to train dentists using indigent patients. All dental schools do it; it's a fact of life. Portraying it as a "local" facility was politically expedient. The Clinic doesn't want to blend into the community; it wants to be a distinct campus; call it sterile if you wish. It wants a sense of serenity and security for its patients.

 

And Johns Hopkins would trade east Baltimore for land holdings like the Clinic's in a Maryland minute.

Dental school looks just like a parking deck.  Maybe it's intended as an homage, like the Longaberger basket building?

 

The clinic has only itself to blame for the state of the neighborhood around it.  How much serenity does all that wreckage provide?  How much additional security is needed because the neighborhood is so undesirable?  CCF is hacking off its nose to spite its face, how very medical of them.

The Clinic doesn't want to blend into the community; it wants to be a distinct campus

 

I think that is a inherently problematic mentality when the organization is part of an urban environment. It could still be visually distinct and still conform to a logical density for the environment.

 

It wants a sense of serenity and security for its patients.

Regardless of the level of serenity intrinsic to a surface parking lot and unusable green space, I don't find anything particularly serene about this building. I'd argue that this wouldn't fly in a neighborhood where the Clinic would be forced to regard residents as stakeholders in their community.

 

If requiring buildings to have minimal setbacks to preserve a dense streetscape results in a claustrophobic experience, it means the buildings are poorly designed (like this one), not the planning philosophy.

I'm equally as concerned that the jumbled East 93rd intersection with Chester won't be resolved. There will still be two traffic lights. At the least, put in a dedicated turn lane going west on Chester to funnel those people out of the left lane. What a cluster@@@@ of an area already.

Obviously the Clinic with its setbacks and greenery is looking to minimize any claustrophobic feeling to its campus. I appreciate posters' preference for urban streetscape, but do we really need it everywhere?  Johns Hopkins has build buildings like this smack dab on the sidewalk and they are still "bunkers" and it is much more depressing than the Clinic's more open approach. Neither of these urban institutions wants or needs a lot of random passers-by, which is why they build the way they do.

 

 

Your standards must be pretty low if you're trying to defend this atrocity.   

Obviously the Clinic with its setbacks and greenery is looking to minimize any claustrophobic feeling to its campus. I appreciate posters' preference for urban streetscape, but do we really need it everywhere?  Johns Hopkins has build buildings like this smack dab on the sidewalk and they are still "bunkers" and it is much more depressing than the Clinic's more open approach. Neither of these urban institutions wants or needs a lot of random passers-by, which is why they build the way they do.

 

 

Your standards must be pretty low if you're trying to defend this atrocity. 

 

So I'm not going to defend this particular building given its location and the nature of its green space. However, I think you guys are dismissing his general point out of hand and that the Clinic gets a little too much flak for its love of green space. There is a growing body of evidence that the ability to look at green space outside of your hospital window really does aid in patient recovery. Quite a few hospitals around the country are attempting to add green space in urban settings for this very reason. So while I agree 100% that a lot of what the clinic does is horribly designed from an urbanism perspective... I think we should keep in mind that they're probably attempting to balance good urban design against the desire to have a pretty green campus for their patients to look at out the windows. That said, I don't like this building.

Your standards must be pretty low if you're trying to defend this atrocity. 

 

I'm not defending the building, which in the drawings offered is a ho-hummer; I'm defending the "campus" concept for medical centers. The urban version of the Cleveland Clinic most posters in this forum want is NOT going to happen.

 

Mayo has three locations: the Rochester "Campus", the Florida "Campus", and the Arizona "Campus" - none in an urban setting and Campus is their chosen word not mine.  The Cleveland Clinic's Florida "campus" is so far west of Ft Lauderdale it was part of the Everglades thirty years ago. Johns Hopkins relatively new Washington area hospital is a suburban Maryland "campus". The new Metro in Cleveland will be a campus. The existing urban medical centers today are accidents of history; they do not represent a preferred choice of location.

 

 

Have you seen the street presence of the Mayo Clinic's Rochester campus? Or the street presence of the campus of Boston's Beth Israel Deaconness Medical/Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School? Each of these are interwoven with the urban fabric of the surrounding area, produces economic synergies with it, and contributes to the street-level vibrancy of  its environs. They don't wall themselves off from it like Cleveland Clinic has chosen to do, building by building.

 

In fact going back to the 1970s the clinic has made a conscious decision to demolish the surrounding neighborhood (notably the mini-downtown at Doan's Corners) and leave it vacant rather than rebuild it much to the opposition of activist residents and council members.

 

I keep hoping the Clinic will leave its anti-urban 1970s architecture behind and find enlightenment in its urban design principles but alas this building shows they are far from such enlightenment. It remains a scary, street level ghost town of hardened bunkers despite 30,000 people working there.

Obviously the Clinic with its setbacks and greenery is looking to minimize any claustrophobic feeling to its campus. I appreciate posters' preference for urban streetscape, but do we really need it everywhere?  Johns Hopkins has build buildings like this smack dab on the sidewalk and they are still "bunkers" and it is much more depressing than the Clinic's more open approach. Neither of these urban institutions wants or needs a lot of random passers-by, which is why they build the way they do.

 

 

Your standards must be pretty low if you're trying to defend this atrocity. 

 

So I'm not going to defend this particular building given its location and the nature of its green space. However, I think you guys are dismissing his general point out of hand and that the Clinic gets a little too much flak for its love of green space. There is a growing body of evidence that the ability to look at green space outside of your hospital window really does aid in patient recovery. Quite a few hospitals around the country are attempting to add green space in urban settings for this very reason. So while I agree 100% that a lot of what the clinic does is horribly designed from an urbanism perspective... I think we should keep in mind that they're probably attempting to balance good urban design against the desire to have a pretty green campus for their patients to look at out the windows. That said, I don't like this building.

 

Most unfortunate for people who get sick in Paris or Tokyo.  Funny thing is, the illusion falls apart unless your room is on the first couple floors.  But hey, the more blocks we bulldoze, the more people we can heal!

Have you seen the street presence of the Mayo Clinic's Rochester campus? Or the street presence of the campus of Boston's Beth Israel Deaconness Medical/Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School? Each of these are interwoven with the urban fabric of the surrounding area, produces economic synergies with it, and contributes to the street-level vibrancy of  its environs. They don't wall themselves off from it like Cleveland Clinic has chosen to do, building by building.

 

Both institutions are working with historic locations and both include setbacks and greenery where they can. Cleveland Clinic is following the current conventional wisdom regarding medical facilities - in the US, anyway. That 'wisdom' can change, but with billion dollar investments already in place all over the country it won't happen fast. You're fighting more than just the Clinic. Be optimistic, though; lately, after some elaborate studies, medical opinion has decided that windows are good.

Doans Corners was a pretty historic, vibrant, pedestrian/transit-friendly urban place that was called Cleveland's second downtown that the Cleveland Clinic leveled in the 1970s to "get rid of crime"....

 

 

 

Compare the top photo from 1946 with this photo I shot from the roof of the Western Reserve's Fenway Manor in 2000:

 

 

Doans Corners was a pretty historic, vibrant, pedestrian/transit-friendly urban place that was called Cleveland's second downtown that the Cleveland Clinic leveled in the 1970s to "get rid of crime"....

 

 

 

Getting rid of crime may have been one reason the CC bulldozed all those buildings, but it most likely was not the only reason. How many of those buildings were already boarded up, vandalized, and had no chance of being returned to useful life because of the changing neighborhood at the time.

Getting rid of crime may have been one reason the CC bulldozed all those buildings, but it most likely was not the only reason. How many of those buildings were already boarded up, vandalized, and had no chance of being returned to useful life because of the changing neighborhood at the time.

 

I think it has more to do with prevailing urban policies at the time which we demolished neighborhoods in order to "save them." More progressive cities have moved on from those policies and rebuild, restore and create more dense, walkable, inclusive and open built environments with lots of ways to publicly access those buildings from the sidewalks.

 

If Cleveland Clinic built to engage its surrounding blocks rather than turn inward from them, we'd have more housing for employees clustered around the Clinic, with streets lined with 24-hour restaurants and all-purpose retail like a City Target, hardware stores, clothiers, and more. Instead workers and visitors drive in and out of parking garages or use shuttles to distant lots and never set foot on a sidewalk. It's such a huge missed opportunity to create economic synergies and more spin-off jobs for Cleveland and its residents who have to ride buses an average of 90 minutes just to reach 25 percent of the region's available jobs.

So I'm not going to defend this particular building given its location and the nature of its green space. However, I think you guys are dismissing his general point out of hand and that the Clinic gets a little too much flak for its love of green space. There is a growing body of evidence that the ability to look at green space outside of your hospital window really does aid in patient recovery. Quite a few hospitals around the country are attempting to add green space in urban settings for this very reason. So while I agree 100% that a lot of what the clinic does is horribly designed from an urbanism perspective... I think we should keep in mind that they're probably attempting to balance good urban design against the desire to have a pretty green campus for their patients to look at out the windows. That said, I don't like this building.

 

This may be what they are attempting, but they've done a miserable job of it over the years. There's a middle ground here: build an attractive campus with greenspace to be looked at and used; and encourage healthy activity by employees and visitors by providing attractive, safe, and shaded pedestrian circulation access and walkable destinations. But the idea the Clinic is promoting health by surrounding itself with a mote of massive, empty lawns and surface parking, demolishing every old building in a quarter mile radius, and inhibiting nearby commercial development with its butt ugly power substations, is, frankly, absurd.

Have you seen the street presence of the Mayo Clinic's Rochester campus? Or the street presence of the campus of Boston's Beth Israel Deaconness Medical/Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School? Each of these are interwoven with the urban fabric of the surrounding area, produces economic synergies with it, and contributes to the street-level vibrancy of  its environs. They don't wall themselves off from it like Cleveland Clinic has chosen to do, building by building.

 

In fact going back to the 1970s the clinic has made a conscious decision to demolish the surrounding neighborhood (notably the mini-downtown at Doan's Corners) and leave it vacant rather than rebuild it much to the opposition of activist residents and council members.

 

I keep hoping the Clinic will leave its anti-urban 1970s architecture behind and find enlightenment in its urban design principles but alas this building shows they are far from such enlightenment. It remains a scary, street level ghost town of hardened bunkers despite 30,000 people working there.

 

The CC has not walled itself off. I don't see any fences around it.

 

If it wasn't for the Clinic and its continuing expansion over the years, what would the area look like without the Clinic's investment. I would think many more empty lots then there are now, and many more structures that would still be on Cleveland's list of buildings "to be" demolished.

 

And why is the Clinic being singled out as the bad guy, and yet just to the east of it there is One University Circle being constructed without a peep about it not being built in such a way as to embrace urban design standards. One University Circle is designed like a suburban apt tower. It only abuts one street ( Deering Ave) on its south side; its other three sides are not urban friendly. Yet everyone thinks One University Circle is a great design.

 

The only development that is being planned to fit into an urban setting is the very far of University Circle City Center concept. And there is no guarantee it will come to fruition.

^One University Circle is built out pretty much to the edge of its parcel, has ground level retail and no surface parking, no? That seems like a really strong counter-example to the Clinic's approach, no?

 

These conversations are so frustrating. There is soooooo much room between what the Clinic has actually been doing and the more aggressive "urbanist" demands some people (not me) make. It's totally OK to think the Clinic should be a campus and have green space, but also think it's been doing a terrible job designing itself.

The CC has not walled itself off. I don't see any fences around it.

 

Cute. Walls/fences that discourage pedestrian synergy with the other buildings surrounding blocks are visible but take different forms such as moats of grass, Seas of surface parking, and buildings which have maybe one or two doors and only open to parking lots and have no mixed uses on the ground floor thereby limiting public interaction with each building. It's a very effective way to keep people inside and not interacting with the sidewalk or the surrounding blocks.

 

Crack open an urban architecture book or two. It will open your eyes to new ways of thinking about the city which is nothing more than just a living organism that relies on basic organic principles in order to fully function and avoid the cancer of blight.

Obviously the Clinic with its setbacks and greenery is looking to minimize any claustrophobic feeling to its campus. I appreciate posters' preference for urban streetscape, but do we really need it everywhere?  Johns Hopkins has build buildings like this smack dab on the sidewalk and they are still "bunkers" and it is much more depressing than the Clinic's more open approach. Neither of these urban institutions wants or needs a lot of random passers-by, which is why they build the way they do.

 

 

Your standards must be pretty low if you're trying to defend this atrocity. 

 

So I'm not going to defend this particular building given its location and the nature of its green space. However, I think you guys are dismissing his general point out of hand and that the Clinic gets a little too much flak for its love of green space. There is a growing body of evidence that the ability to look at green space outside of your hospital window really does aid in patient recovery. Quite a few hospitals around the country are attempting to add green space in urban settings for this very reason. So while I agree 100% that a lot of what the clinic does is horribly designed from an urbanism perspective... I think we should keep in mind that they're probably attempting to balance good urban design against the desire to have a pretty green campus for their patients to look at out the windows. That said, I don't like this building.

 

Most unfortunate for people who get sick in Paris or Tokyo.  Funny thing is, the illusion falls apart unless your room is on the first couple floors.  But hey, the more blocks we bulldoze, the more people we can heal!

 

Yes, exactly, it is most unfortunate for those people. Stop trying to create a straw man argument. I'm not advocating for the Clinic to bulldoze every block in sight. I'm saying that it is ridiculous to flat out reject the benefits of greenspace on a medical campus when I'm willing to bet you've never even glanced at the literature regarding it. If you have and you don't find it compelling.. fine agree to disagree. But I do find it compelling, which is why I don't reject the concept of a medical campus with green space. And I reject the thought that a healthy urban density and greenspace have to be mutually exclusive if done right. The goal shouldn't be no green space on a medical campus, the goal should be green space done in a way to maximize health benefits to patients with as little disruption to the urban fabric as possible. Listen, I probably worship at the alter of urban density as much as anyone on this board but I do so precisely because I believe cities are supposed to serve people. And I think there's a pretty compelling argument that this is one of the few areas where block after block of nothing but buildings doesn't serve people.

 

So I'm not going to defend this particular building given its location and the nature of its green space. However, I think you guys are dismissing his general point out of hand and that the Clinic gets a little too much flak for its love of green space. There is a growing body of evidence that the ability to look at green space outside of your hospital window really does aid in patient recovery. Quite a few hospitals around the country are attempting to add green space in urban settings for this very reason. So while I agree 100% that a lot of what the clinic does is horribly designed from an urbanism perspective... I think we should keep in mind that they're probably attempting to balance good urban design against the desire to have a pretty green campus for their patients to look at out the windows. That said, I don't like this building.

 

This may be what they are attempting, but they've done a miserable job of it over the years. There's a middle ground here: build an attractive campus with greenspace to be looked at and used; and encourage healthy activity by employees and visitors by providing attractive, safe, and shaded pedestrian circulation access and walkable destinations. But the idea the Clinic is promoting health by surrounding itself with a mote of massive, empty lawns and surface parking, demolishing every old building in a quarter mile radius, and inhibiting nearby commercial development with its butt ugly power substations, is, frankly, absurd.

 

Completely agree that they've done a miserable job of it over the years. My whole point is that there is a middle ground and that it's quite frankly absurd to not acknowledge that there are benefits to having greenspace on a medical campus. 

^You did make clear you hate this particular Clinic building, so I think we're on the same page.

 

What's irritating about the Clinic is that it's so outspoken in trying to shape its operations to confront some lifestyle-related sources of poor health, like smoking and bad diets, but so utterly indifferent to others, like poor air quality, physical inactivity, commute stress, UV exposure in poorly shaded sidewalks. Forget all the militant "urbanist" rationale- there's a really straightforward public health rationale for it to design its campus better.

Well put Strap.

What's irritating about the Clinic is that it's so outspoken in trying to ...

 

That's medicine. Docs and nurses are trained to have complete confidence in their own opinions; unfortunately, this confidence often extends to matters far beyond medicine. 

What will eventually happen that may be more sympathetic to the desired urban environment is that the Clinic will eventually run out of space and be forced to fill in the surface parking lots.

Yes, exactly, it is most unfortunate for those people. Stop trying to create a straw man argument. I'm not advocating for the Clinic to bulldoze every block in sight. I'm saying that it is ridiculous to flat out reject the benefits of greenspace on a medical campus when I'm willing to bet you've never even glanced at the literature regarding it. If you have and you don't find it compelling.. fine agree to disagree. But I do find it compelling, which is why I don't reject the concept of a medical campus with green space. And I reject the thought that a healthy urban density and greenspace have to be mutually exclusive if done right. The goal shouldn't be no green space on a medical campus, the goal should be green space done in a way to maximize health benefits to patients with as little disruption to the urban fabric as possible. Listen, I probably worship at the alter of urban density as much as anyone on this board but I do so precisely because I believe cities are supposed to serve people. And I think there's a pretty compelling argument that this is one of the few areas where block after block of nothing but buildings doesn't serve people.

 

I don't think these two concepts have to be mutually exclusive.

 

I see no reason that large-scale medical buildings can't mimic some type of a superblock concept and front the street with minimal setbacks, providing a traditional urban streetscape and then having large courtyards/greenspace on the interiors. I would think that type of environment would still be far more private and relaxing.

 

I wouldn't even fret if this campus were being expanded and developed with a more cohesive site plan and utilized linear parks or central greenspace that anchors multiple buildings. However, I really think this urban campus is being constructed piecemeal with a suburban development mentality with minimal regard for the impact of the "greenspace."

No one has said the Clinic should have zero greenspace or zero campus-type features.  But the Clinic doesn't seem to want urbanity anywhere nearby, it would rather have an absolute campus with an ever-increasing buffer zone around it.  That doesn't sound like middle ground to me.

Getting rid of crime may have been one reason the CC bulldozed all those buildings, but it most likely was not the only reason. How many of those buildings were already boarded up, vandalized, and had no chance of being returned to useful life because of the changing neighborhood at the time.

 

I think it has more to do with prevailing urban policies at the time which we demolished neighborhoods in order to "save them." More progressive cities have moved on from those policies and rebuild, restore and create more dense, walkable, inclusive and open built environments with lots of ways to publicly access those buildings from the sidewalks.

 

Believe me I don't want to derail the topic, it's just interesting terminology at play.  I'm sure the progressive approach at that time was to demolish, while the conservative approach would have kept the neighborhood the same; more intact, walkabale, traditional.

^You did make clear you hate this particular Clinic building, so I think we're on the same page.

 

What's irritating about the Clinic is that it's so outspoken in trying to shape its operations to confront some lifestyle-related sources of poor health, like smoking and bad diets, but so utterly indifferent to others, like poor air quality, physical inactivity, commute stress, UV exposure in poorly shaded sidewalks. Forget all the militant "urbanist" rationale- there's a really straightforward public health rationale for it to design its campus better.

 

Yeah I think we are.

 

 

I don't think these two concepts have to be mutually exclusive.

 

I see no reason that large-scale medical buildings can't mimic some type of a superblock concept and front the street with minimal setbacks, providing a traditional urban streetscape and then having large courtyards/greenspace on the interiors. I would think that type of environment would still be far more private and relaxing.

 

I wouldn't even fret if this campus were being expanded and developed with a more cohesive site plan and utilized linear parks or central greenspace that anchors multiple buildings. However, I really think this urban campus is being constructed piecemeal with a suburban development mentality with minimal regard for the impact of the "greenspace."

 

I think that is exactly what they're intending to do though. If you look at the interactive map in their 2012 master plan (http://blog.cleveland.com/architecture/2012/01/cleveland_clinics_new_master_p.html#) it looks like they're intending to construct a line of glassy buildings (with tons of natural light + views of greenspace) with minimal setbacks between East 105th and East 83rd. A linear park will then run between those buildings from East 105th to East 83rd (broken up with interior passages where it goes through a couple buildings). Nothing in the portion of that master plan dealing with green space strikes me as a problem. While their incorporation of greenspace with respect to this dental clinic is bad, their larger plan incorporates it quite well. If they stick pretty close to that plan going forward I think the bigger problem is how they continue to use parking lots/garages rather than greenspace.

I was at the clinic today and we'll have some interesting photos to show what I mean about the clinic having turned inward in terms of their land use policies. If Only They were as good at urban planning as they are in treating Strokes (the reason I was down there today) we'd be admiring the dynamic vibrancy of the street scene.

 

By the way I will post them in the Cleveland Clinic discussion thread so we can get this thread back on topic.

^Dude you OK?

^Dude you OK?

 

Yes, but mom isn't.