On 12/16/2018 at 12:38 PM, shack said:

That Gehry building would have been a show stopper for this town!

 

Both of these would have been great; 1200' AmeriTrust Tower and the 850' Progressive Tower.  Remember base portion of the AmeriTrust Tower was going to have a Hyatt Hotel with a ballroom topped parking garage on the west side of W 3rd Street.

 

The AmeriTrust Tower would still be the tallest between NYC and Chicago if had gone up.

Edited January 24, 20196 yr by Oxford19

1 hour ago, John D. Baumgardner said:

Sherwin-Williams sells100 of it's retail stores and pockets an easy $150 million. I am just wondering if this move is to generate capital towards building that much anticipated and elusive new World headquarters??

 

Thoughts anyone?

 

https://www.crainscleveland.com/real-estate/sherwin-williams-sets-150-million-property-sale

KJP's source has got to know something.

Yes, but the information doesn't make any sense. I don't think I have anywhere near close to the full picture to understand what's going on right now.

Edited January 25, 20196 yr by KJP

4 hours ago, John D. Baumgardner said:

Sherwin-Williams sells100 of it's retail stores and pockets an easy $150 million. I am just wondering if this move is to generate capital towards building that much anticipated and elusive new World headquarters??

 

Thoughts anyone?

 

https://www.crainscleveland.com/real-estate/sherwin-williams-sets-150-million-property-sale

I believe the company has a lot of debt to service, this could be related to that. 

Wondering how many more times I'm going to see these old renderings of The AmeriTrust and Progressive Towers in my lifetime because  every time I see them, memories flood back of dread similar to remembering certain moments in Cleveland sports history such as "The Drive" or "The Fumble". When I first heard news on the Ameritrust Tower I could barely believe what I was hearing. A 1,200 ft tower going up in Cleveland just after hearing what seemed like a week before The Society Tower proposal going public! Even though I was excited, I never got the design of the AmeriTrust Tower and to this day has me scratching my head. It looked funky and bulky. Not a fan bringing back from the dead either tower, it's time to move on. A sleek-slender tower I'd prefer for that lot but not sure how a 1,200 foot tower would mesh with the rest of the skyline but if a company such as a Sherwin-Williams would want to build at that height I'd be OK with it I suppose. ?

 

Edited January 25, 20196 yr by Mildtraumatic

5 hours ago, John D. Baumgardner said:

Sherwin-Williams sells100 of it's retail stores and pockets an easy $150 million. I am just wondering if this move is to generate capital towards building that much anticipated and elusive new World headquarters??

 

Thoughts anyone?

 

https://www.crainscleveland.com/real-estate/sherwin-williams-sets-150-million-property-sale

 

They need some cash.  As of Sept 30, cash balance was $181 million, current portion of long-term debt due $311 million. Total debt $9.6 billion.  They are earning good money, but the business is cyclical - so earnings may be down in 2019 if housing slows - and they don't want to borrow more. Sucker punch: $12 billion in goodwill and intangibles. Debt to equity: 4 to 1. In short, they need to deleverage their balance sheet some.

So funny how there’s a synchronicity to how people think sometimes. Just last night, after processing the down-sizing of Nucleus, I thought of how being a fan of downtown Cleveland construction could be like being a Cleveland sports fan. Growing up with years of sports futility- championship dreams leading at best, to heart- breaking near misses followed forever by  cruel video replays. It reminded me of the excitement of bold, Manhattan-like skyscraper visions - Ameritrust, Progressive and now, Nucleus -skyline transformers that  might’ve been -but for a series of unfortunate events - all now relegated to the “cancelled projects” file. I thought the comparison might resonate for others but after logging in, I found a very similar observation had just been made (All credit to Mildtraumatic.) Does anyone have  a rendering of what Cleveland would’ve looked like with all 3 aforementioned towers in  the current skyline?  I know it’s pure fantasy - but it would be fun to see.  And yeah, , a 1200 foot tower might be a bit much in our town - but it would be a nice aesthetic problem to actually have.  I just don’t happen to think we’ll see that from SW- or anybody else in the next decade or more. Key Towers’ reign wil probably be a very long one.  

Edited January 25, 20196 yr by CleveFan

I'm probably in the minority here, but I'd rather infill the downtown parking craters with midrise buildings and get more life in the neighborhood first, and then build another big tower in 20 years.  (It will probably be 20 years before Jacobs decides to do anything with that lot anyway.)

22 minutes ago, Foraker said:

I'm probably in the minority here, but I'd rather infill the downtown parking craters with midrise buildings and get more life in the neighborhood first, and then build another big tower in 20 years.  (It will probably be 20 years before Jacobs decides to do anything with that lot anyway.)

 

No, I agree. One of the successes of Pittsburgh - and granted they have geographic limitations that promote density - is that they have dozens of buildings in the 10-20 story range. For some reason, I feel like we as Clevelanders would rather 1 80 story tower get built instead of 4 20 story buildings. 

40 minutes ago, Foraker said:

I'm probably in the minority here, but I'd rather infill the downtown parking craters with midrise buildings and get more life in the neighborhood first, and then build another big tower in 20 years.  (It will probably be 20 years before Jacobs decides to do anything with that lot anyway.)

 

Which is why I'm pleased about the new philosophy behind the nuCLEus redesign. It offers a much more realistic chance of getting built.

 

Sure, I'd love to see supertall get built on the Jacobs Lot. And we almost got it again in 2016. But if a developer said he's going to build the 21-story office building that Jacobs/Hines proposed in 2008, I'd be OK with that. Clearly Sherwin Williams doesn't have the cash reserves right now to pull the trigger on a new HQ (especially one that they would own). My understanding is that they are considering lease options on new offices. Some of the space needs I'm hearing don't jibe with their existing locations around town, which is confusing. So I can only assume that the lease/space needs/options being bandied about are for a new location. But I don't know that for certain. Like I said above, I'm not getting information on the full picture. Because SHW nearly pulled the trigger on a new HQ in 2016 and are an even larger company now, I think it's safe to say they clearly want a new HQ, but the company's financial position post-Valspar isn't ideal for jumping in with both feet.

Edited January 25, 20196 yr by KJP

1 hour ago, YABO713 said:

 

No, I agree. One of the successes of Pittsburgh - and granted they have geographic limitations that promote density - is that they have dozens of buildings in the 10-20 story range. For some reason, I feel like we as Clevelanders would rather 1 80 story tower get built instead of 4 20 story buildings. 

 

I would definitely prefer the eighty story tower because it becomes symbolic of the city.  Twenty stories gets lost in the shuffle, eighty stands out.  It becomes part of the city's signature.  A new and changing signature means a city moving forward. 

 

Ironically, that's also why I disliked the Nucleus design.   Twenty stories that looks like a jenga tower or a Brazilian favela?   No big deal.   Fifty?  No thanks.

Agreeing the need to do some major infill first with buildings ranging from the 20 story variety will do wonders on the perspective of how outsiders view the city and those already there. Portland, Oregon doesn't have huge towers but their downtown is flourishing isn't? If the infill is done right Cleveland may start attracting Corps. from outside the state not just from the region but I do have a strong opinion that lot should be untouched until a major icon tower can be put there no matter how long it takes (though I don't have to see it everyday). 

 

I'm over the tall version for Nucleus, just get it right with the smaller version and speed it up!.

Edited January 25, 20196 yr by Mildtraumatic
added an idea.

How viable are large office buildings as technology becomes more advanced and the way we use office space changes? The space needed per person is a lot smaller. There isn't really a need to be tethered to a cubicle or office, let alone actually physically being at work. Jacob's property would be fine with a 15-20 story building.

23 minutes ago, imjustinjk said:

How viable are large office buildings as technology becomes more advanced and the way we use office space changes? The space needed per person is a lot smaller. There isn't really a need to be tethered to a cubicle or office, let alone actually physically being at work. Jacob's property would be fine with a 15-20 story building.

 

That argument doesn't fully make sense. If your typical office worker needed say 200 square feet of space, but now with "technology" and some people tele-commuting, he/she needs only, say 50, then you need only 25% of the space for THOSE workers. So an existing 20 story buidling need only be 5 stories. But if you want MORE workers there and you want to grow your city, you need a building taller than 5 stories.  Hence if the Jacobs Tower at 100 stories could serve, say 10,000 workers, but now would serve only 2500, rather than make it 25 stories, keep it at 100, and bring in 40,000 workers. That is what will grow the city and make the city more vibrant. 

23 hours ago, imjustinjk said:

How viable are large office buildings as technology becomes more advanced and the way we use office space changes? The space needed per person is a lot smaller. There isn't really a need to be tethered to a cubicle or office, let alone actually physically being at work. Jacob's property would be fine with a 15-20 story building.

 

I'd say they are as viable as the large office buildings built over the last 100 years. If the office space becomes obsolete in the future there will still be a use for it after is useful life as office, as recent history has shown - see Ameritrust Tower, East Ohio Gas Building, etc.

1 hour ago, Terdolph said:

I would rather see something that matches the cornice height of the Renaissance hotel, 75 Public Square, the old Society bank building and the BP Tower atrium.

 

A super tall can go one block behind on West Third.

You mean like what was there before it was demo'd for the Ameritrust Tower?  Can't believe it's been 30 years since those buildings came down. 

On 1/26/2019 at 11:18 AM, Pugu said:

 

That argument doesn't fully make sense. If your typical office worker needed say 200 square feet of space, but now with "technology" and some people tele-commuting, he/she needs only, say 50, then you need only 25% of the space for THOSE workers. So an existing 20 story buidling need only be 5 stories. But if you want MORE workers there and you want to grow your city, you need a building taller than 5 stories.  Hence if the Jacobs Tower at 100 stories could serve, say 10,000 workers, but now would serve only 2500, rather than make it 25 stories, keep it at 100, and bring in 40,000 workers. That is what will grow the city and make the city more vibrant. 

It wasn’t necessarily an argument per se, just wondering. The “build it and they will come” model is not what Cleveland needs, nor will it work. Having a 1 super tall skyscraper won’t lead to a more vibrant city, especially if we can’t fill it. If someone were to come along tomorrow and say that they wanted to build a 20 story building on the empty lot, that would be great. A taller skyscraper would be great as well, but how has that worked in the 20+ years that the lot has sat vacant ?

No one is building a supertall skyscraper on spec in Cleveland. A growing company that is consolidating multiple office locations into a modern facility typically builds new skyscrapers here. The most likely candidate at this point of pursuing this approach is Sherwin Williams. They were very close to pulling the trigger on a new office tower in 2016 before they acquired Valspar and incurred significant debt (more than $11 billion of debt was on the books in the third quarter of 2017) in the process. Their debt is now dropping to near $9 billion. It was just below $2 billion before the Valspar acquisition.

 

From what I've read, SHW's first priority now is to pay down that debt. They are hyper-focused on that. Estimates are that they are able to pay off about $1 billion of their debt per year. Carrying some debt is normal, of course. It is measured by a debt-to-equity ratio. SHW's D2E ratio was at 4 in 2017 but is now below 2.5 and should be at 2 by the end of this year. Competitor PPG's D2E ratio is at 1.66, although their debt is at a five-year high. The industry average is at 1 or slightly below. It is possible that SHW's D2E ratio could approach PPG's level by level by the middle of next year, assuming cash flow and share values do no worse than remain stable.

 

Long-term capital leases count against long-term debt, so the thought that SHW leasing a HQ tower to avoid piling on new debt from building the tower themselves isn't correct. Because they might announce a new HQ tower in 2020 or thereafter, it makes sense that I'm hearing rumblings about them considering their options which do include leasing at least a smaller building or perhaps part of a larger building now. That's what the square footage numbers I've heard suggest. The point is, they are not ready to pull the trigger right now. But I am glad SHW is looking long term at what their options are when they do get their debt paid down to a reasonable level.

Edited January 28, 20196 yr by KJP

The link below is to a podcast regarding surface parking lots and their impact on Cleveland.  I wouldn't be surprised if this has already been circulating around the forum, but I just discovered it.  It's a great podcast about Downtown Cleveland.  I would recommend also watching the 5-minute video on the page.  Near the end it shows an old picture of Denver which apparently used to be a sea of parking lots.  They changed the laws / tax policy, and today Denver is much more dense and vibrant.  We need tax policy changed in order to stop these surface lot owners from holding the city hostage.  Tax policy needs to encourage development and additional tax revenue.  It should not discourage development and lower tax revenue.

 

https://www.ideastream.org/news/episode-10-clevelands-surfeit-of-surface-parking-lots

Amen to that. Maybe the right city government leadership would make a difference? 

On 1/26/2019 at 11:18 AM, Pugu said:

 

That argument doesn't fully make sense. If your typical office worker needed say 200 square feet of space, but now with "technology" and some people tele-commuting, he/she needs only, say 50, then you need only 25% of the space for THOSE workers. So an existing 20 story buidling need only be 5 stories. But if you want MORE workers there and you want to grow your city, you need a building taller than 5 stories.  Hence if the Jacobs Tower at 100 stories could serve, say 10,000 workers, but now would serve only 2500, rather than make it 25 stories, keep it at 100, and bring in 40,000 workers. That is what will grow the city and make the city more vibrant. 

 

 

for comparison, i see the upcoming new manhattan chase hq tower in midtown on park ave is supposed to be 2.5M sq ft and to have 6k employees, so that translates to 417 sq ft per person. now not all of that is office space of course, it includes mechanicals, etc., etc., but it is one example of modern new build space X people. that probably shakes out to around 200 sq ft or so per worker, so you are still right on point i would guess.

 

i also found this info on a realtor site:

 

Large offices typically range from 200 to 400 square feet, mid-sized offices typically range from 150 to 250 square feet, and small offices typically range from 90 to 150square feet. Workstations, meanwhile, average around 60 to 110 square feet per person.

Mar 19, 2018 -- How Much Office Space Do You Need? – Redwood Property Group

 

i think the main attractiveness of these new office buildings no matter how tall or how much employee space is more about other things, like newness of course, flexibility and varied floor configurations, plus higher ceilings, upgraded services like being wired for today and other amenities. in other words like the ernst and young building i would imagine, but of course we all wait and hope for something more iconic on that old jacobs site.

To be a wet blanket here, the very scary part of a major new office tower on this site is how the parking would be provided. The most likely options are both pretty bleak: (1) a huge structured parking pedestal with at least two awful street-facing facades (probably north and west); or (2) a sky bridge to a huge structured parking facility on the Weston superblock, with a horrible facade of its own (iirc, that's what the Ameritrust proposal entailed). The more hopeful solution is a sky bridge to the Weston superblock but the parking facility there being buried in the interior.

 

I'll be mostly excited when we ever see our next serious development proposal for this site, but I'm bracing myself for it to be a bit of a mixed bag. 

I don't think that's scary at all -- depending on how they're designed. I've talked to two people who have seen SHW's 2016 HQ rendering and both said that urbanists would like it. Now, I don't know what that means or even if those same plans would be dusted off in a couple of years when SHW gets its debt load down to reasonable levels. But no matter who's building a new tower here or for which tenant(s),  but I would personally like to see a glassy, high-ceiling, first-floor lobby topped by about 10-15 stories of parking (disguised to look like an office building or feature a "green wall/living wall") and 30 stories of office building above would be fine with me. I assume this building would also have service levels and loading docks in the basement, or perhaps some additional levels of parking below ground.

 

The Jacobs Lot is 50,000 sf. If the lobby/parking pedestal were built straight upward from the perimeter of that lot, that's about 140-145 parking spaces per level. Let's say SHW builds its new HQ here. SHW has 2,800 workers at its Landmark Office Towers HQ. It has approximately 550 office workers (not lab/R&D/training) at three other locations in Greater Cleveland. These numbers are growing. It's quite possible that, if SHW builds an HQ tower, it could have 3,500+ SHW workers in it by the time it's built. At 250 square feet per worker, that's "only" 875,000 sf. The rumors were that SHW wanted (wants?) a 1 million sf tower. I assume that is for future growth that could be leased or sub-leased to another user(s) in the meantime. That works out to roughly 4,000 office employees if the tower was fully occupied.

 

Therefore.... If parking for one-third of the office worker capacity was provided within a new tower, that's about 1,333 spaces on about 9.5 levels of parking if the full 50,000 sf plate was used. If parking were provided for half of the workers, and provided within a new tower, that's about 14 levels of parking. If two-thirds of office workers had a parking space, there would be 2,666 spaces on 19 levels of parking.

 

So, it might not be a bad thing if a deck was built in the Weston lots (likely smaller than what the Ameritrust Tower would have had there) -- IF it was built in a way to be shrouded by a future building or, perhaps even better, designed like 515 Euclid so it could be topped by a future office or residential tower. And that future tower was built, it might prompt another deck to built on the Weston lots, again designed to be topped with a tower, and so on.... ?

Edited February 2, 20196 yr by KJP

A quick question.  If SHW is concerned about paying down its debt, couldn’t it work with a developer to lease the majority of a new skyscraper that the developer could build now and SHW could occupy in the two years or so that it would take to complete?  That would give SHW time to work additional synergies from the merger with Valspar, pay down more debt and not have to wait additional time to get into a modern, efficient and more cost effective headquarters? 

25 minutes ago, Chazz Michael Michaels said:

A quick question.  If SHW is concerned about paying down its debt, couldn’t it work with a developer to lease the majority of a new skyscraper ...

 

The 6/30/18 headcount report in Crain's said that  Sherwin-Williams employed 4,940 people locally, up 615 from a year earlier. That's a pretty big jump and I suspect the musical chairs game isn't yet over. So, in addition to debt problems, the final Cleveland-area headcount may still be too uncertain for the best space planning.

 

(It would be fun to know how hard it is to sell a Minneapolis-to-Cleveland move to the Valspar folks.)     

27 minutes ago, Cleburger said:

 

At least the weather is not really a factor.   I'd worry more about the progressive, forward thinking mindset of Minneapolis moving to Cleveland, who's mayor is asleep at the wheel and is surrounded by a populace wishing it was 1955 again.  

Weather aside, I think people are generally a little more open to relocate when you option is a job in Cleveland or no job in Minneapolis.  Cleveland sells itself way too short (arts, dining, sports, great schooling options, etc).  I have no idea how big Valspar's staffing was but any increase in hiring in Cleveland should be offset by huge decreases in staffing in Minneapolis (too many redundancies).  

 

As for space planning, if SHW were to agree to lease space in a new office tower built by a developer, they would likely take 80% of the tower and would have the right of first refusal on additional floors/space if they needed it.

2 hours ago, Chazz Michael Michaels said:

A quick question.  If SHW is concerned about paying down its debt, couldn’t it work with a developer to lease the majority of a new skyscraper that the developer could build now and SHW could occupy in the two years or so that it would take to complete?  That would give SHW time to work additional synergies from the merger with Valspar, pay down more debt and not have to wait additional time to get into a modern, efficient and more cost effective headquarters? 

 

As I noted earlier, long-term leases count as debt. My understanding is that SHW has completed all of its legal work and staffing assignments resulting from the Valspar acquisition. And SHW probably isn't going to get its debt-to-equity ratio down to an industry commonplace 1:1 for another 3.5 years at current rates of highly oversimplified estimates of progress....

 
Dec. 31...2017...2018...2019...2020...2021...2022
debt.......$9.89....8.71....7.53....6.35....5.17....3.99

equity.....$3.65....3.73....3.81....3.89....3.97....4.05

Amounts are in billions

Based on data from this source: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-sherwin-williams-company-reports-2018-year-end-and-fourth-quarter-financial-results-300787224.html

 

But, it should be noted that it would probably take about three years to design and build a 1-million-square-foot, 40-story, $1 billion skyscraper. So we may hear more rumblings as early as the end of this year.

 

BTW -- Valspar had 400 employees at its headquarters in Minneapolis.

 

1 hour ago, Dougal said:

 

The 6/30/18 headcount report in Crain's said that  Sherwin-Williams employed 4,940 people locally, up 615 from a year earlier. That's a pretty big jump and I suspect the musical chairs game isn't yet over. So, in addition to debt problems, the final Cleveland-area headcount may still be too uncertain for the best space planning.

 

(It would be fun to know how hard it is to sell a Minneapolis-to-Cleveland move to the Valspar folks.)     

 

That includes a lot of R&D and manufacturing employment locally. There's about 400 R&D workers at the Breen Technology Center on Canal Road and roughly 1,200-1,300 workers at SHW's Automotive Finishes Group in Warrensville Heights. Only about 100-150 of those are office workers in the Automotive Finishes Group World HQ.

Edited February 3, 20196 yr by KJP

https://www.cleveland.com/business/2019/02/amazon-ditches-new-york-headquarters.html

 

So Amazon is skipping NYC. Can the real estate/ business people on UO email Bezos and make an earnest grassroots appeal for 1/5 of those 25,000 proposed NYC jobs? All I want is an Ameritrust Tower to look at out of the deal. 

 

I know it would result in a huge court battle but I wish the city would just grow some balls and say it cannot be used as a parking lot anymore. 

3 minutes ago, Htsguy said:

I know it would result in a huge court battle but I wish the city would just grow some balls and say it cannot be used as a parking lot anymore. 

Or gradually escalate the taxes until it doesn't make sense any longer as a parking lot...

15 minutes ago, gottaplan said:

Or gradually escalate the taxes until it doesn't make sense any longer as a parking lot...

 

How possible is this? Can the City of Cleveland just pass a law that says "Parking lot owners now need to pay an additional $50/month per spot on any lot they own."? Guessing it can't be that simple.

1 minute ago, jborger said:

 

How possible is this? Can the City of Cleveland just pass a law that says "Parking lot owners now need to pay an additional $50/month per spot on any lot they own."? Guessing it can't be that simple.

Without doing any legal research you certainly cannot single out one parking lot...it would have to be all of them in the city and it maybe even questionable if you can single out single use property without raising property taxes on everyone.  I don't know.  Would make a nice seminar topic for Case and Marshall law schools.  Come up with a constitutionally viable lawsuit and get an A and summer job with Jones Day (and then when you are with Jones Day you can defend Jacobs Group in the lawsuit you created?)

The city can tax parking and already does ?

 

edit: to be clear, it’s a license not a tax. http://library.amlegal.com/nxt/gateway.dll?f=templates&fn=default.htm&vid=amlegal:cleveland_oh_m&anc=JD_457.01

Edited March 12, 20196 yr by CbusTransit

26 minutes ago, jborger said:

 

How possible is this? Can the City of Cleveland just pass a law that says "Parking lot owners now need to pay an additional $50/month per spot on any lot they own."? Guessing it can't be that simple.

 Right, the city is just going to tell all property owners with parking lots they have to Spend huge amounts of their own capital to build a building that the market won't support just because people want to see something built there. That'll happen.

29 minutes ago, Mov2Ohio said:

 Right, the city is just going to tell all property owners with parking lots they have to Spend huge amounts of their own capital to build a building that the market won't support just because people want to see something built there. That'll happen.

 

The Downtowner had a good take on parking in the Jacob's lot, and Warehouse district overall and frankly, there's little incentive to make these anything but parking. I'm all about taxing the crap out of these lots and maybe we'll be subjected to less speculative buying and holding of lots and more concrete investors with actual plans. Sure, costs may be passed onto consumers, but there's no reason parking should be cheaper than an RTA/transit pass. 

13 minutes ago, GISguy said:

 

The Downtowner had a good take on parking in the Jacob's lot, and Warehouse district overall and frankly, there's little incentive to make these anything but parking. I'm all about taxing the crap out of these lots and maybe we'll be subjected to less speculative buying and holding of lots and more concrete investors with actual plans. Sure, costs may be passed onto consumers, but there's no reason parking should be cheaper than an RTA/transit pass. 

 

Impose a tax that makes it not as financially appealing and route the money to RTA, haha.

Why can’t the City of Cleveland put more 8-hour parking meters on the streets to compete with the parking lot owners? I’m thinking along Rockwell (minus Federal property), St. Clair, Lakeside, Superior, along Public Square, around The Mall (taxi stands are nearly obsolete). Additionally, diagonal parking spaces in front of the Justice Center could accommodate the dedicated police parking that takes up both sides of Ontario and open one side up for public meters.

 

I’d personally like to see a massive City-owned parking garage hidden behind historic buildings on West 6th and West 9th in the warehouse district that could serve the whole western side of downtown—more spaces, smaller footprint. If there is an inexpensive, convenient (app managed) public option with a reliable supply I think it would make being an Absentee Parking Lot Owner a lot less attractive occupation. 

 

Rather than use the courts to force lot owners to develop their privately-owned surface lots, I think that a change in public policy that seeks to add to the supply of street parking could cut into the guaranteed revenue stream that the parking industry enjoys.

A parking tax has to be applied equally to all parking lots or a court will call it a punitive tax and set it aside.

 

And the State of Ohio prohibits municipalities from levying more than an 8 percent tax on gross parking revenues. Cleveland's parking tax is 8 percent.

36 minutes ago, KJP said:

A parking tax has to be applied equally to all parking lots or a court will call it a punitive tax and set it aside.

 

And the State of Ohio prohibits municipalities from levying more than an 8 percent tax on gross parking revenues. Cleveland's parking tax is 8 percent.

Makes sense.  That is why as an alternative option we should get a group of forum members together and take turns slashing tires and breaking windows of anybody who dares park in the lot. 

21 minutes ago, Htsguy said:

Makes sense.  That is why as an alternative option we should get a group of forum members together and take turns slashing tires and breaking windows of anybody who dares park in the lot. 

Nah man, civil disobedience is where it’s at. I propose we peacefully form a human chain at all entrances to the lot.

26 minutes ago, Boxtruffles said:

Nah man, civil disobedience is where it’s at. I propose we peacefully form a human chain at all entrances to the lot.

Ok.  You win.  But afterwards can we go out to Westlake and slash tires in the Jacob Group parking lot??

13 hours ago, Terdolph said:

The city should buy the Jacobs lot.

 

And do what with it?

 

I could see acquiring it, so it was in hand should the city need it in the future for some sort of development. In the mean time though it would probably remain just a city owned parking lot right?

 

We all realize that any old thing could have been built over the last years, but we are holding out hop that it is something tall and iconic right?

 

Things like that are not cheap and the closest we've been to something like like going up there was 30 years ago. 

 

As we've seen, the county and city would throw in tons of incentives should the right project come along. When you get the right developer, with the right plan, with the right tenants or tenant mix, and most importantly with the right capital stack, you will see a large development there. Building something that will sit empty doesn't make any sense, not to mention the fact that nobody would put up funds for something like that.

I couldn't see the city buying the lot; the sale of the lot would be several million dollars, and Its way too easy for anyone to point to the many things the city could do with the money instead.  

20 hours ago, Mov2Ohio said:

 Right, the city is just going to tell all property owners with parking lots they have to Spend huge amounts of their own capital to build a building that the market won't support just because people want to see something built there. That'll happen.

 

The change is that the property gets rezoned as some other use besides "parking".  So even though parking is currently allowed, it will never be allowed again under a change of ownership.  Then it gets taxed and valued as target development land.  which could be double or triple what a parking lot might be valued/taxed as

17 hours ago, KJP said:

A parking tax has to be applied equally to all parking lots or a court will call it a punitive tax and set it aside.

 

And the State of Ohio prohibits municipalities from levying more than an 8 percent tax on gross parking revenues. Cleveland's parking tax is 8 percent.

How well is this tax enforced considering much of the surface parking lot transactions are done in cash?  The surface parking lot lobby is such a racket.  Would love to tax them out of existence.  Lower taxes on building owners and/or give the extra proceeds to the RTA.

2 hours ago, NYC Boomerang said:

How well is this tax enforced considering much of the surface parking lot transactions are done in cash?  The surface parking lot lobby is such a racket.  Would love to tax them out of existence.  Lower taxes on building owners and/or give the extra proceeds to the RTA.

 

Lots of agreement on this site.  Would help to have the downtown business district (at least) use a land tax -- higher tax on the land to encourage owners to build up to generate more revenue per acre.  Pittsburgh has a land tax, right?  How many surface lots in downtown Pittsburgh disappeared after enactment?  (Admittedly, Pittsburgh's hill-bounded downtown was never as spread-out as Cleveland's so they probably never had as much surface parking as we do.)

I think in reality the Jacobs lot problem is a different animal than other surface lots downtown, most of which are owned by those in the "parking lot business".  While I am sure the lot does make money for the company, I imagine it is not a huge revenue source when compared to their primary focus (which unfortunately is currently developing green fields in far out suburbia which is an issue for another thread). 

 

While this is pure speculation on my part, I think the company holds onto the property because they want to be part of a huge re-development of the lot and despite their good efforts over the past 30 years (or maybe some not so good efforts) they have not been able to put something together that works.  Still, they hold on despite the embarrassment that lot is to the city.

 

Maybe they are just "tired" after years of trying (similar to poor Forest City and Tower City...making that mall work again just plain exhausted the company and their people) and it is time to sell for a decent profit to somebody with a fresh approach.

Edited March 13, 20196 yr by Htsguy

1 hour ago, Foraker said:

 

Lots of agreement on this site.  Would help to have the downtown business district (at least) use a land tax -- higher tax on the land to encourage owners to build up to generate more revenue per acre.  Pittsburgh has a land tax, right?  How many surface lots in downtown Pittsburgh disappeared after enactment?  (Admittedly, Pittsburgh's hill-bounded downtown was never as spread-out as Cleveland's so they probably never had as much surface parking as we do.)