October 12, 200717 yr kjp if you are implying that from an article you read you know that residential has cooled off so much in cleveland.....then it just wont happen for stark or wolstein. so if thats the case and any new residential is so bad an idea right now i'd say that easily settles it --- jacobs should build the big office tower. when clev is ready for more residential than the avenue+conversions it will be built. frankly, after that now i am wondering if any part of the big three will get built anytime soon. c'mon clevesters - forgeddabout nyc - but otoh columbus just built a schweet new res tower downtown. eh?
October 13, 200717 yr kjp if you are implying that from an article you read you know that residential has cooled off so much in cleveland.....then it just wont happen for stark or wolstein. so if thats the case and any new residential is so bad an idea right now i'd say that easily settles it --- jacobs should build the big office tower. when clev is ready for more residential than the avenue+conversions it will be built. frankly, after that now i am wondering if any part of the big three will get built anytime soon. c'mon clevesters - forgeddabout nyc - but otoh columbus just built a schweet new res tower downtown. eh? I think that you are overreacting a bit (respectfully said).
October 13, 200717 yr Author I'm surprised you're having such a hard time swallowing the fact that the residential real estate market is in the toilet, mrnyc. You're usually very well informed. Please consider these articles I selected from among many many others on the same subject.... ___________________________ Mortgage crash hits new home sales Sales hit 7-year low as lower prices can't clear out huge glut, new government report shows. By Chris Isidore, CNNMoney.com senior writer September 27 2007: 12:30 PM EDT NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The mortgage bomb hit the demand for new homes even harder than expected in August, leaving the nation's builders with their weakest level of sales since the summer of 2000, when the nation was struggling with a stock market collapse, rising interest rates and a looming recession. Read more: http://money.cnn.com/2007/09/27/news/economy/new_home_sales/index.htm ___________________________ Housing Foreclosures Jumped 90% in May From Year Ago By Reuters | 12 Jun 2007 | 04:11 PM ET U.S. home foreclosures in May jumped 90% from a year earlier, reflecting a poor spring housing market and foreshadowing even higher levels later in 2007, real estate data firm RealtyTrac said on Tuesday. The May foreclosures -- a sum of default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions -- totaled 176,137, up 19% from April, the firm said in its May 2007 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report. Read more: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/19193611 ___________________________ Home sales thud to 5-year low point Realtors say sales of existing homes dropped for sixth consecutive month, to lowest level in 5 years; separate report shows steepest price drop in 16 years. By Les Christie, CNNMoney.com September 25 2007: 4:17 PM EDT NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Housing markets continued to slump across the nation in August as the number of existing homes sold dropped for the sixth straight month to their lowest level in five years, according to the latest report from the National Association of Realtors. Read more: http://money.cnn.com/2007/09/25/real_estate/low_existing_home_sales/index.htm ___________________________ The New Money Pit It started with subprime mortgages. Now owners of McMansions are defaulting, and the effects of the housing bust are beginning to ripple through the economy. By Daniel Gross Newsweek Sept. 10, 2007 issue - Walking through the gated community of Black Mountain Vista on a hill in Henderson, Nev., Thomas Blanchard offers a guided tour of real-estate woe. A row of stucco duplexes that recently sold for as much as $500,000 sit empty. "That's a repo," the real-estate agent says as he stands in front of 678 Solitude Point Avenue. Then he points to the adjacent houses, where yellow patches blot the spartan lawns and phone books lie on front porches, their covers bleached from weeks under the desert sun. "No. 680, repo; 684, repo. Those two at the end, repo." Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20546324/site/newsweek/ ___________________________ Foreclosures Force Suburbs to Fight Blight New York Times By ERIK ECKHOLM Published: March 23, 2007 SHAKER HEIGHTS, Ohio — In a sign of the spreading economic fallout of mortgage foreclosures, several suburbs of Cleveland, one of the nation’s hardest-hit cities, are spending millions of dollars to maintain vacant houses as they try to contain blight and real-estate panic. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/23/us/23vacant.html ___________________________ http://www.housingfinance.com/ahf/articles/2007/jun/GHOST0607.htm Ghost Towns Subprime foreclosures could wreak havoc on apartment values By Jerry Ascierto and Dana Enfinger AFFORDABLE HOUSING FINANCE • JUNE 2007 The East Side Organizing Project (ESOP) has a creative way of getting a predatory lender’s attention—dumping 2,000 small plastic sharks on the lawn of the lending company’s top executive. Cleveland has been hit particularly hard—13,610 homes were foreclosed last year in Cuyahoga County alone, more than quadruple the 3,345 foreclosures filed in 1995, and up almost 25 percent from the 9,751 filed in 2004. That’s one foreclosure for every 96 people in the county. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s stock of foreclosed homes numbers 28,338 nationally, and of those, 3,117, or about 9 percent, are in Ohio. "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
October 13, 200717 yr I'm surprised you're having such a hard time swallowing the fact that the residential real estate market is in the toilet, mrnyc. You're usually very well informed. huh? im surprized you are trying to put words in my mouth i never said nor implied. i never said it wasnt. i did say if its such a tough residential market locally than obviously of "the big three" they should build the long planned jacobs office tower. its just offices & a hotel. i also said regardless of the res market in general locally the avenue is going up (& the aforementioned new columbus res tower is about done, and lets add in the interesting ascent res tower in the cinci area while we're at it).
October 14, 200717 yr Author huh? im surprized you are trying to put words in my mouth i never said nor implied. i never said it wasnt. Sure sounded like ya did. Doesn't matter. Nothing we say on here will have any effect on what actually gets built anyway. "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
October 15, 200717 yr what the hell do foreclosures have to do with an office and hotel tower ahh.....a gap in the skyline filled .....sorta i give a skyscraper rising on public square more chance than pesht now. stark seems adamant about building a cracker park in solon now...all after sayin "im tired of the suburbs"
October 15, 200717 yr Author That was a response to mrnyc. Thanks for paying attention. "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
October 16, 200717 yr whoah... whoah.. cleveland is FOR SURE building a 90 story skyscraper?!!?!?! :drunk: :drunk: :drunk:
October 16, 200717 yr Where'd you get 90 from? No its not yet for sure, but more probable than anytime in the last 16-17 years.
October 16, 200717 yr i don't know why everyone is so excited. Nothing will ever happen. Too much bureaucracy.
October 16, 200717 yr I wonder how much of the paperwork/planning/ red tape stuff is still valid since the last time he proposed a tower
October 16, 200717 yr I'll take our current downtown any day over downtown C'bus and its new residential tower. No offense but I would. You think our downtown has a lot of parking lots?!
October 16, 200717 yr I wonder how much of the paperwork/planning/ red tape stuff is still valid since the last time he proposed a tower Probably none of it. Other than he owns the land, and the land is zoned for a tall mixed use tower.
October 16, 200717 yr I don't understand how our town has so many parking lots yet it's hard to find parking. I mean, we've lost so much population over the years - did everyone just leave their cars?
October 16, 200717 yr "I don't understand how our town has so many parking lots yet it's hard to find parking" Hard to find parking? In downtown Cleveland? HAH! :lol: Or do you mean free-and-two-feet-from-my-destination parking? clevelandskyscrapers.com Cleveland Skyscrapers on Instagram
October 17, 200717 yr Author i don't know why everyone is so excited. Nothing will ever happen. Too much bureaucracy. You mean the bureacracy that approved Cleveland Clinic's $500 million Heart Center in three months? The suburbs would be lucky to expedite the approvals process so rapidly. I wasn't paying attention... i.e. KJP ^^^^ :-P :-P :-P ( i make joke!) I'd suggest you get more practice at making jokes except that you'll offend more people in your learning process. "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
October 17, 200717 yr No I wasn't being sarcastic. Yes the Warehouse District has its eyesores but downtown Cbus is FAR from having any room to talk. New mid-rise or not. Anyways, I'm not here to start stuff between Cleveland and Columbus but their grass isn't any greener than ours.
October 17, 200717 yr ^Are you sure about the Ameritrust building, I recall them really trying to market that building to anyone. What I heard was that once they found that they couldn't fill it, they emptied it of the smaller tenants to keep other properties in town full(er). I don't think that means that they stopped trying to fill it, but maybe they weren't interested in having two buildings below 50%, and instead wanted one building near 100% and closed the empty one (Breuer tower) pending sufficient demand. Seems like a reasonable business practice. At any rate, it doesn't matter whether the Breuer tower was intentionally emptied or not. Let's assume I was misinformed or wrong. My point is still valid, if not clear. If we build a new tower on the square, that's a lot of new space to fill in a metropolitan area that isn't growing. See the numbers Florida Guy posted. If half of those firms move to new construction, that's close to 500,000 sq. ft. of space in older buildings that would be harder to fill. Most likely the vacated spaces would be broken up into smaller square footage spaces and not all of it would be leased. We could see Eaton Center or another building, for example, remain empty. That was what I was trying to say. If we're going to build new construction, I'd prefer to fill Wolstein's East Bank and Stark's Pesht developments before adding to the skyline. Cleveland already has a nice skyline, and Wolstein's and Stark's projects will bring more activity to the street level. That in turn could help to attract more residents and workers into the downtown in a way that I don't think a new tower would. The Avenue District is leading the way. We can watch and see whether the streets in that area are improved by the project or not. Perhaps I'll be wrong again.
October 17, 200717 yr ^it is empty. Some insiders say that they think it would be a good candidate for residential conversion. I believe that it applied for the new state historical tax credit (historical??).
October 17, 200717 yr ^it is empty. Some insiders say that they think it would be a good candidate for residential conversion. I believe that it applied for the new state historical tax credit (historical??). I agree, amazing location right in the heart of downtown.
October 17, 200717 yr ^Are you sure about the Ameritrust building, I recall them really trying to market that building to anyone. What I heard was that once they found that they couldn't fill it, they emptied it of the smaller tenants to keep other properties in town full(er). I don't think that means that they stopped trying to fill it, but maybe they weren't interested in having two buildings below 50%, and instead wanted one building near 100% and closed the empty one (Breuer tower) pending sufficient demand. Seems like a reasonable business practice. At any rate, it doesn't matter whether the Breuer tower was intentionally emptied or not. Let's assume I was misinformed or wrong. My point is still valid, if not clear. If we build a new tower on the square, that's a lot of new space to fill in a metropolitan area that isn't growing. See the numbers Florida Guy posted. If half of those firms move to new construction, that's close to 500,000 sq. ft. of space in older buildings that would be harder to fill. Most likely the vacated spaces would be broken up into smaller square footage spaces and not all of it would be leased. We could see Eaton Center or another building, for example, remain empty. That was what I was trying to say. If we're going to build new construction, I'd prefer to fill Wolstein's East Bank and Stark's Pesht developments before adding to the skyline. Cleveland already has a nice skyline, and Wolstein's and Stark's projects will bring more activity to the street level. That in turn could help to attract more residents and workers into the downtown in a way that I don't think a new tower would. The Avenue District is leading the way. We can watch and see whether the streets in that area are improved by the project or not. Perhaps I'll be wrong again. ok, i'm going to plead ignorance on this one, but how would having more people living downtown increase the liklihood of businesses moving there?
October 17, 200717 yr People like to live and work in the same area. It is a recruiting tool for companies that compete for skilled workers. Now more than ever.
October 17, 200717 yr "It is hard to do residential without balconies, from what I hear" http://www.fortwortharchitecture.com/bankone.htm Now let's steer this thread back on topic, folks. clevelandskyscrapers.com Cleveland Skyscrapers on Instagram
October 17, 200717 yr Author ok, i'm going to plead ignorance on this one, but how would having more people living downtown increase the liklihood of businesses moving there? Sorry MayDay, but I need to answer this question. Actually, I'll let CSU Urban Affairs folks answer it.... http://urban.csuohio.edu/economicdevelopment/knight/tools/land/marketrate.htm Maintaining an economically diverse residential base is critical to the health of a municipality. The addition of new housing units in a growing area is a necessity and an automatic outcome of population shifts. In declining areas, developing new housing is often a challenge, but it is viewed as an important economic development strategy. By retaining residents or attracting new ones to the city, local leaders hope to capture additional tax revenue. New housing not only adds to the residential property tax base, but can also contribute to the commercial property tax base by attracting new businesses. The availability of downtown residential units is particularly important. Labor markets and housing markets are directly related - housing attracts labor. More importantly, people tend to start businesses close to where they live if the market makes it possible. The availability of downtown housing may reinvigorate downtown business activity. Finally, housing is part of the amenity package that attracts business and amenities justify higher rent levels for downtown commercial space. "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
October 17, 200717 yr ok, i'm going to plead ignorance on this one, but how would having more people living downtown increase the liklihood of businesses moving there? Sorry MayDay, but I need to answer this question. Actually, I'll let CSU Urban Affairs folks answer it.... http://urban.csuohio.edu/economicdevelopment/knight/tools/land/marketrate.htm Maintaining an economically diverse residential base is critical to the health of a municipality. The addition of new housing units in a growing area is a necessity and an automatic outcome of population shifts. In declining areas, developing new housing is often a challenge, but it is viewed as an important economic development strategy. By retaining residents or attracting new ones to the city, local leaders hope to capture additional tax revenue. New housing not only adds to the residential property tax base, but can also contribute to the commercial property tax base by attracting new businesses. The availability of downtown residential units is particularly important. Labor markets and housing markets are directly related - housing attracts labor. More importantly, people tend to start businesses close to where they live if the market makes it possible. The availability of downtown housing may reinvigorate downtown business activity. Finally, housing is part of the amenity package that attracts business and amenities justify higher rent levels for downtown commercial space. that's some department head's opiniion at CSU, not necessarily fact. i am quite sure we have healthy pockets of population densities in and around Cleveland, but I don't see businesses flocking to relocate from other areas... an area is ripe for strong business development if you have a mix of several things: low cost of living, which translates to a low cost of doing business, friendly municipal tax structure, young educated work force to tap into, etc
October 17, 200717 yr flee first of all lets be reasonable -- there is no "flocking" in the cleve! trickling yes, but no flocking. and thats fine. also, as you know urban living is a huge movement in the real estate market. you can see it hapening in every major city. part of the reason is that people in traditional jobs want the option of living and playing near the office rather than wasting time commuting. i dont think its exactly right to think of it as an amenity, like a swimming pool in your apt, but i suppose it is to some. clev has enough trouble attracting people and filling positions, so i believe the expansion of downtown living options is absolutely crucial. i agree with what you say, but i think its another important key to retaining and obtaining employees.
October 25, 200717 yr ^I don’t know that there has been any real news (new or old) about this project at all. Just some word of mouth kind of stuff it sounds like. Who knows when or if any confirmation will come out.
October 25, 200717 yr ^I don’t know that there has been any real news (new or old) about this project at all. Just some word of mouth kind of stuff it sounds like. Who knows when or if any confirmation will come out. and somehow we have all babbled for 5+ pages.........
October 25, 200717 yr ^I don’t know that there has been any real news (new or old) about this project at all. Just some word of mouth kind of stuff it sounds like. Who knows when or if any confirmation will come out. and somehow we have all babbled for 5+ pages......... This thread's just the bastard child of the Pesht one: now 2.5 years, 49 ppg and, yet, nothing still announced; concrete. We UOers are a desperate lot... kinda like Cleve sports fans, no? :-o
October 25, 200717 yr Author Or just a friendly, chatty lot... "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
October 25, 200717 yr ok, i'm going to plead ignorance on this one, but how would having more people living downtown increase the liklihood of businesses moving there? I can't say for certain what would bring more large businesses to Cleveland, but I'd rather work in a downtown with ten ten-story buildings and all the potential retail on the ground floor (lunchtime variety, shops that would allow me to run some errands at lunch and before and after work, more people on the street doing the same) than in a 1000 story tower with only its own retail. So if we have a choice of Starks's plan or a Jacobs tower, my vote is for Starks. I would be happy to revisit the idea of another tower after Starks's plan is built. And I agree with what others have chimed in about above.
October 25, 200717 yr ok, i'm going to plead ignorance on this one, but how would having more people living downtown increase the liklihood of businesses moving there? By making the location more convenient to workforce, primarily the high skilled workforce that is most in demand- young, creative, technology savvy people. Those are the people who are often associated with downtown housing. Also, if executive level housing is built, the executives that live there will be more likely to demand that the office stays close to their home. The residential location of executives is one of the prime determiners of where a company will move its offices.
October 25, 200717 yr Author Just ask the folks at Office Max!! "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
October 25, 200717 yr This whole talk of encouraging workers to leave their office building to shop and eat reminds me of the development of Government Center in Boston, MA. When it was conceived, it was explicitly designed to consolidate all of the local, state, and federal employees in the city without a cafeteria or other retail establishments inside in order to bolster street life downtown, and with a ridiculous number of workers (I think it was something like 25,000,) it was seen as a sure thing. Unfortunately, they didn't realize that the workers were only willing to walk a certain distance to eat and that they didn't have time or didn't want to take the bus or subway. The area immediately surrounding Government Center flourished, but it did nothing for the rest of the downtown, and in fact, it hurt those areas whence the workers were relocated. At the same time, however, the 52-story Prudential Tower was being built to the west, and contrary to everyone's expectations, an upscale shopping district developed around it. Obviously, these two developments happened in a different time and place, but it's worth remembering that Boston in the 60's and 70's was not a terribly attractive place to live or work. Anyway, my point is that we're probably over-simplifying the impact of Pesht and a potential Jacobs tower. While Pesht will certainly improve streetlife in the Warehouse District, and probably east to Lower Euclid and Superior, I don't know what kind of generalizations we can make about its impact on the rest of downtown. At the same time, a large tower may not be the end of life as we know it. There are too many variables to consider. That said, I would love to see a buzzing Warehouse district before anything else, as it could generate excitement about living downtown. One of the things that Boston didn't have in the 60's that we have now is a growing downtown population, and I think we could make great things happening elsewhere downtown by capitalizing on Pesht's success.
October 25, 200717 yr [shadow=red,left]I'd rather work in a downtown with ten ten-story buildings and all the potential retail on the ground floor (lunchtime variety, shops that would allow me to run some errands at lunch and before and after work, more people on the street doing the same) than in a 1000 story tower with only its own retail. [/shadow] Now that would be one enormous tower.... is Jacobs trying to outdo the new Dubai structure? :wink:
October 27, 200717 yr [shadow=red,left]I'd rather work in a downtown with ten ten-story buildings and all the potential retail on the ground floor (lunchtime variety, shops that would allow me to run some errands at lunch and before and after work, more people on the street doing the same) than in a 1000 story tower with only its own retail. [/shadow] AH the concept of elevator to sapce could be built on the top floor,essentialy making it the gateway to heaven,right in downtown cleveland.Let us collect all our penny to invest in this great idea Now that would be one enormous tower.... is Jacobs trying to outdo the new Dubai structure? :wink:
October 27, 200717 yr [shadow=red,left]I'd rather work in a downtown with ten ten-story buildings and all the potential retail on the ground floor (lunchtime variety, shops that would allow me to run some errands at lunch and before and after work, more people on the street doing the same) than in a 1000 story tower with only its own retail. [/shadow] AH the concept of elevator to sapce could be built on the top floor,essentialy making it the gateway to heaven,right in downtown cleveland.Let us collect all our penny to invest in this great idea Now that would be one enormous tower.... is Jacobs trying to outdo the new Dubai structure? :wink: WOW
October 28, 200717 yr ^Please don't joke about that. A couple of county commissioners we all know may be reading this thread.
November 21, 200717 yr False dilemma. There is no new news, but the project is not necessarily a rumor.
April 29, 200817 yr I wonder if Baker Hostetler is a potential tenant for Jacobs. They're currently in the NCB Building. The talk of new office towers intially focused on them and at one point I recall hearing that they were interested in going into the Jacobs property with Eaton.
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