^  I agree, however,  I do wonder how much of Bedrock's riverfront plan will actually happen.  Who will fill all those buildings when there is so much vacant space now which needs to be filled?

2 hours ago, Willo said:

Democracy is messy as we have been told this week but look at the results in Columbus and Chicage vs here...In hindsight we should not have laughed at Jim Rhodes when he ventured into Northeast Ohio just before the elections pitching us a Bridge to Canada.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/1966/04/24/archives/cleveland-gov-rhodes-pushes-idea-of-lake-erie-bridge.html

 

 

This was indeed a crazy idea.  The longest over-water bridge at the time was (and still is) the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, less than half as long as would be required anywhere that would save much travel distance (Pelee Island is still 26 miles out).    LP's deepest point is 65 feet and it rarely gets deeper than 15'.   Lake Erie's maximum depth is 210'.    For this you would greatly hinder navigation on the Lake.

I believe the 210' depth is up near Dunkirk, NY.  The western basin, near the islands, is under 40', but, lol, I will accept a fact check.  For comparison, the Oresund and Kerch bridges are 10-12 miles lomg, so were talking at least four of either of them back to back.

Edited November 11, 2024Nov 11 by urb-a-saurus

3 hours ago, urb-a-saurus said:

I believe the 210' depth is up near Dunkirk, NY.  The western basin, near the islands, is under 40', but, lol, I will accept a fact check.  For comparison, the Oresund and Kerch bridges are 10-12 miles lomg, so were talking at least four of either of them back to back.

"X" marks the spot.  

 

On 11/11/2024 at 1:26 PM, LibertyBlvd said:

^  I agree, however,  I do wonder how much of Bedrock's riverfront plan will actually happen.  Who will fill all those buildings when there is so much vacant space now which needs to be filled?

If they are never built, you will never know.......

On 11/11/2024 at 1:26 PM, LibertyBlvd said:

^  I agree, however,  I do wonder how much of Bedrock's riverfront plan will actually happen.  Who will fill all those buildings when there is so much vacant space now which needs to be filled?

 

It does give me Erieview vibes.

On 11/11/2024 at 1:26 PM, LibertyBlvd said:

^  I agree, however,  I do wonder how much of Bedrock's riverfront plan will actually happen.  Who will fill all those buildings when there is so much vacant space now which needs to be filled?

I'm pretty sure they'll build each building based on Market needs and trends at that time. Look at Circle square, the first high-rise building is a traditional apartment building with two and three bedrooms. The next high-rise building? It contains a lot of Studios and 1 bedrooms due to CWRU student growth and Cleveland Clinic's new buildings coming online soon. With a slow drawn out process like the Riverfront project it allows Bedrock to look at the landscape and adjust versus constructing predetermined buildings all at once which could leave a lot of buildings empty due to changing dynamics. 

Weren’t they gunning for Park Place Technologies to build and fill a building on the riverfront? I’m sure Bedrock and the city are doing the same for other growing companies that are outgrowing their spaces.

Correct, but it was cheaper to stay in the suburbs.  And what's happening with Rocket Mortgage?  They were planning to move to a new building, but we haven't heard anything about it in a while.

6 minutes ago, LibertyBlvd said:

Correct, but it was cheaper to stay in the suburbs.  And what's happening with Rocket Mortgage?  They were planning to move to a new building, but we haven't heard anything about it in a while.

If Park Place continiue their rapid growth who knows if they will want a showpiece HQ to recruit the yutes.  We guess, the vacant nearby Progressive campus was too tantalizing given their current needs.  Can't blame them for the cautious approach post-COVID era.  We assume Rocket will soon be part of Phase 1B or 1C per their tax break obligations as KJP has mentioned previously.

1 hour ago, LibertyBlvd said:

Correct, but it was cheaper to stay in the suburbs.  And what's happening with Rocket Mortgage?  They were planning to move to a new building, but we haven't heard anything about it in a while.

 

Park Place is also consolidating in their Solon warehouses and I would imagine that downtown would be cost prohibitive for such.

9 minutes ago, E Rocc said:

 

Park Place is also consolidating in their Solon warehouses and I would imagine that downtown would be cost prohibitive for such.

They also have plenty of room to grow in Highland Heights. They are not going anywhere. 

New BLS numbers for Cleveland.

 

https://www.bls.gov/regions/midwest/oh_cleveland_msa.htm

 

They look pretty good. Supposedly, we have the lowest unemployment rate in more than two decades.

Numbers look good, need more workers, unemployment rate is much lower than other Ohio metro areas.

 

https://ohiolmi.com

 

map here has updated info for all Ohio counties

1 hour ago, LlamaLawyer said:

New BLS numbers for Cleveland.

 

https://www.bls.gov/regions/midwest/oh_cleveland_msa.htm

 

They look pretty good. Supposedly, we have the lowest unemployment rate in more than two decades.

 

What I found interesting was that the non-farm payroll exceeded the  labor force by only 25000.  Before June, it was usually a difference of 50,000 or more.  I am guessing that large reduction was the result of adding Ashtabula County to the Cleveland MSA.  The remaining excess of payroll over laborforce pretty much has to be commuters from Portage and Summit Counties; I would have expected that number to be greater and Ashtabula's to be less.  Wrong, apparently, meaning Akron is a more powerful "magnet" than I had thought.

I posted this over in the Akron-Canton business thread about Summit County's foreign trade zone. The article included the following,

 

The primary zones are based at customs points of entry — in this case, the Akron-Canton Airport.

 

The zone has subzones as well, including areas within the 10-county area of Ashtabula, Trumbull, Mahoning, Columbiana, Portage, Summit, Stark, Medina, Wayne and Richland counties, that are specifically permitted to be used in designated industrial parks, often for manufacturing.

 

Excluded from the subzones is Cuyahoga. Does anyone know if Cuyahoga has a primary zone of its own; either at the Port or Hopkins? If not it would seem like a prime opportunity to create one and extend subzones to Lake and Lorain counties.

 

I think my preference would be for Cuyahoga's primary zone to be at the County airport, but I'm just learning about these so not a well formed opinion. Burke is another obvious candidate. 

 

14 minutes ago, Luke_S said:

Though this already existed, the Development Finance Authority taking this over seems well timed as they are better positioned to market this to businesses. It will hopefully offer some stability to local businesses.

 

Takeover of Summit County’s Foreign Trade Zone could be timely switch to help businesses avoid, delay tariffs

by Arielle Kass

November 27, 2024

 

With President-elect Donald Trump pledging to increase taxes on goods from China, Canada and Mexico with the intention of bringing manufacturing back to the United States, some companies might benefit from a local opportunity that could help them delay — or even avoid — paying the higher fees.

 

It could also make the Development Finance Authority of Summit County’s plan to take over the administration of the Foreign Trade Zone particularly well timed. The zone is now administered by Summit County; the DFA is not a county agency.

 

...

 

The Summit County-based Foreign Trade Zone is a secure area that is under the supervision of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Even though it’s physically located in Ohio, for the sake of tax purposes, it’s considered to be outside the United States.

 

https://signalakron.org/takeover-of-summit-countys-foreign-trade-zone-could-be-timely-switch-to-help-businesses-avoid-delay-tariffs-development-finance-authority/

 

Edit: A quick Google search would have given me my answer... The Port is designated as a Foreign Trade Zone

https://www.portofcleveland.com/foreign-trade-zone/

Edited November 27, 2024Nov 27 by Luke_S

Cleveland Business News says at least two foreign manufacturers are looking at "hundreds of thousands of square feet" of industrial space in the area, planning to get in ahead of the Trump-proposed tariffs.

 

https://www.bizjournals.com/cleveland/news/2024/12/09/canada-mexico-manufacturers-tariffs-cleveland.html?utm_source=st&utm_medium=en&utm_campaign=ae&utm_content=CL&j=37780593&senddate=2024-12-09&empos=p4

Ironically, at least one of them is bringing in lots of foreign workers with expertise to manage the facility and they need work visas to come here. They will hire locally too, but I thought it was ironic considering Trump's stance on immigrants. I would like to see both to help boost and sustain the local population.

5 hours ago, Dougal said:

Cleveland Business News says at least two foreign manufacturers are looking at "hundreds of thousands of square feet" of industrial space in the area, planning to get in ahead of the Trump-proposed tariffs.

 

https://www.bizjournals.com/cleveland/news/2024/12/09/canada-mexico-manufacturers-tariffs-cleveland.html?utm_source=st&utm_medium=en&utm_campaign=ae&utm_content=CL&j=37780593&senddate=2024-12-09&empos=p4

 

I know BWI (pka Delphi) was getting ready to launch a plant in Indiana because of the excessive virus rules in Mexico (ironic) and I doubt they were the only ones with such in the works.  

 

So this might just require updating existing plans rather than making new ones, and could happen quickly.

On 12/10/2024 at 6:42 AM, KJP said:

Ironically, at least one of them is bringing in lots of foreign workers with expertise to manage the facility and they need work visas to come here. They will hire locally too, but I thought it was ironic considering Trump's stance on immigrants. I would like to see both to help boost and sustain the local population.

 

Importing workers may be an unintended consequence of the Cleveland MSA's spectacularly low unemployment rate, the unadjusted number was 2.7% in October.  In these circumstances itt must be very difficult to hire good workers.  

Howmet adds 60 jobs in Brecksville and Cleveland.

 

Howmet is one of those companies that has only its headquarters in one city and all its manufacturing elsewhere.  Hqs in Pittsburgh, most of its manufacturing in Ohio and California.

 

https://www.jobsohio.com/news-press/howmet-aerospace-grows-presence-in-northeast-ohio-with-tempcraft-expansion

Cleveland Business Journal listed its "top 10 Cleveland business stories" of 2024.  Eight of them were bad news and five of them were very minor matters. As an example, #9 was "Key Bank lays off 1,000 workers and sees profit drop in 2023." The BIG Key story was the Scotia Bank investment. 

 

CBJ plainly shares the PD's death wish.

 

 

 

 

3 hours ago, Dougal said:

CBJ plainly shares the PD's death wish.

 

 

CBJ is owned by American City Business Journals which, in turn, is owned by Advance Publications. Advance also owns Cleveland.com and the Plain Dealer as well as my former employer Sun Newspapers. Advance is owned by the billionaire Newhouse family. They have owned the PD since 1967 and hated Cleveland ever since.

PD is in a tough sport, they kinda just have jr bloggers now.  they don't have the best coverage in any subject anymore.

 

we're now at the point they can die and the populace won't be worse off

I still read the PD every morning for some inexplicable reason. the online version is a mess. the organization is haphazard and many of the articles are re-prints of articles that were in yesterday's Washington Post. yet I still hold out hope that there will be some miraculous resurgence in interest from the regional populace that will help return it to what it used to be. 

On 12/30/2024 at 1:08 PM, Dougal said:

Cleveland Business Journal listed its "top 10 Cleveland business stories" of 2024.  Eight of them were bad news and five of them were very minor matters. As an example, #9 was "Key Bank lays off 1,000 workers and sees profit drop in 2023."

 

Not defending the list either way but is it possible their "Top 10 stories" are simply the ones that had the most views/clicks/shares/etc? It would fit with the trend of regurgitating lazy data analytics (of questionable merit) for additional "content" instead of you know, actually putting some thought or editorial effort into curating a ranking more reflective of real community impact

 

Edited January 4Jan 4 by NW24HX

On 12/24/2024 at 2:27 AM, Dougal said:

Howmet adds 60 jobs in Brecksville and Cleveland.

 

Howmet is one of those companies that has only its headquarters in one city and all its manufacturing elsewhere.  Hqs in Pittsburgh, most of its manufacturing in Ohio and California.

 

https://www.jobsohio.com/news-press/howmet-aerospace-grows-presence-in-northeast-ohio-with-tempcraft-expansion

 

I interviewed there last year.  The place is vibrant and active.

 

It's worth mentioning it's pka Alcoa, where my grandpa and parents once worked.

Edited January 5Jan 5 by E Rocc

On 12/31/2024 at 7:58 AM, Jax said:

I still read the PD every morning for some inexplicable reason. the online version is a mess. the organization is haphazard and many of the articles are re-prints of articles that were in yesterday's Washington Post. yet I still hold out hope that there will be some miraculous resurgence in interest from the regional populace that will help return it to what it used to be. 

 

It will have to be in an online version.   

 

Of all the things from recent history that have not become merely obsolescent but obsolete, spending major $ on paper, printing, and distribution in order to be hours behind the news cycle may top the list.  There's a reason @KJP routinely scoops the legacy media.

 

Higley hits a hundred in 2025
By Ken Prendergast / January 8, 2025

 

Back in 1925, Albert Higley Sr. did what the founders of many new companies owners did. He started building small. But unlike many new companies, his Cleveland-based construction firm didn’t stay small for long. Now, 100 years later, The Albert M. Higley Co. also known as AMHigley, is thinking big as it refreshes its image for the next century.

 

MORE:

https://neo-trans.blog/2025/01/08/higley-hits-a-hundred-in-2025/

4 hours ago, Oldmanladyluck said:

^It won’t. Team NEO will likely be on it. 

 

For those who don’t know, Team NEO is the reason Intel considered Ohio to begin with. The ONLY reason why the Cleveland region didn’t get the project is there was not enough developmental land ready to go (I believe Intel wanted 1,100 acres ready, which had not been assembled here previous to Team NEO speaking with Intel). Columbus just lost out on Foxconn previously but kept assembling land after the loss.

 

Replying here instead of in the Cliffs thread:

 

If this is true, I find it hard to believe they couldn't find ANY available land in Lorain or Medina county for the Intel plant. And now this Anduril project in Pickaway County... if Team NEO isn't inept, then I can only guess either every major company wants 1,000+ acres of land wherever they develop or the state of Ohio itself only cares about promoting Central Ohio to companies for billion dollar investments with thousands of jobs and not anywhere else. I guess I'd just like proof that TeamNEO is and has been actually trying to lure these big developments and not just letting them slip away. 😑 Rant over

Edited January 16Jan 16 by Geowizical

17 minutes ago, Geowizical said:

 

Replying here instead of in the Cliffs thread:

 

If this is true, I find it hard to believe they couldn't find ANY available land in Lorain or Medina county for the Intel plant. And now this Anduril project in Pickaway County... if Team NEO isn't inept, then I can only guess either every major company wants 1,000+ acres of land wherever they develop or the state of Ohio itself only cares about promoting Central Ohio to companies for billion dollar investments with thousands of jobs and not anywhere else. I guess I'd just like proof that TeamNEO is and has been actually trying to lure these big developments and not just letting them slip away. 😑 Rant over

I agree, I'd really like some proof/context of this claim.

Edited January 16Jan 16 by Gnoraa

A short look at aerial images on Google Earth makes it look to me like there are large, contiguous farms available within a very short distance of Downtown Columbus, while Cleveland's surrounding countryside more evenly developed with sprawl and even the further out, undeveloped land is mostly split into smaller farms and rural estates.  Anduril is going on 500 acres near Rickenbocker, less than 10 miles from Downtown Columbus, and there's such a massive block of open land there that even more similarly scaled developments could be built.  The aerial implies that land ownership is already consolidated into a few relatively huge farms, thus easy to negotiate one or a few deals to site these massive complexes.  Is there anywhere in NEO where the land is split into such large holdings, or is NEO almost entirely small farms, which would need to be individually bought out to consolidate 500 or 1000 acres?  I don't see it. 

 

What are the odds a single holdout wouldn't stop that consolidation and destroy years of negotiations?

 

There are some interesting studies for any GIS experts here to look into in this.

There are a number of articles of why Intel chose Columbus, certainly more than articles detailing why they declined the 39 other bidders:

 

Land readiness, community support, local leadership support, access to water, access to utility infrastructure, access to educated population, lack of brownfields, reputable city/schools, etc.

 

Someone had to get it eventually. It's too bad it wasn't Cleveland, but Intel had their conditions and they seem fair.

 

Edited January 16Jan 16 by TBideon

To be fair to TeamNEO, there just isn't large assemblage of land in Northeast Ohio like you can find in other parts of the state.  It's just more heavily developed in this part of the state with different mixed uses.

 

JobsOhio uses many site tools that local entities constantly keep updated and will send out an RFI to all local entities no matter where they are in the state to see if they have the proper utilities the company is looking for, including land, buildings, etc.  They also give them tacky names like this new Anduril project - Project Thor.  I still question a lot of JobsOhio and TeamNEO, but if you don't have the land, don't expect these big sprawly data centers popping up like you see elsewhere.

With Intel specifically weren't there also other limiting factors on where these fabs can be built? I seem to remember reading something saying they couldn't be within a certain number of miles of a freight rail line because the vibration would throw off the calibration of the chip production. Could be misremembering though. 

49 minutes ago, Gnoraa said:

I agree, I'd really like some proof/context of this claim.

I actually read this myself as well. Here is the heartbreaking article.

https://www.morningjournal.com/2022/02/04/lorains-mary-springowski-credited-with-contact-that-led-to-intel-in-ohio/

I def understand the Intel requirements - my response to the original post was that I'm more concerned with TeamNEO and friends securing large and relevant investments from nationally-recognized companies in general, whether that be sprawling acreage or not - Intel was just my example. I'm sure there are a lot of investments that could be made to attract thousands of workers to the area for say a tech company or national firm where they need a vertical office building instead of hundreds of acres, but I question the effectiveness of local and state orgs in promoting our region since those projects aren't happening here either.

 

I guess I'm just tired of seeing news articles both local and national of these developments that say "X is building a shiny new plant in Ohio and will generate thousands of jobs over the next decade and oh look Ohio has such potential, what a great win for Ohio!" when it's clear they're only talking about Central Ohio.

 

Also @X maybe this resource would be helpful? 

https://properties.zoomprospector.com/OhioNEO?page=1&s[SortDirection]=true&s[radiusLat]=0&s[radius]=0&s[radiusLng]=0&s[SortBy]=maxsize&s[IsBuilding]=false&s[SizeUnits]=1

There is one 1,000+ site in all of NEO and it's actually in Wayne County. Near Grafton there are two adjacent sites that when combined = 600+ acres, but otherwise everything within reasonable driving distance of CLE is 300ac or less.

Today, nearly all of the Ravenna Arsenal, now called Camp James A. Garfield, is used by the Ohio National Guard as a military training facility, with approximately 93% of the original land being actively utilized for training purposes; the remaining area is undergoing cleanup or is used for environmental monitoring. 

Key points about the Ravenna Arsenal today:

Primary use: Military training by the Ohio National Guard

New name: Camp James A. Garfield

Land usage: Most of the 21,500-acre site is actively used for training

Production facilities: Inactive and not used for ammunition production anymore 

 

Land west of the Ravenna Arsenal toward SR14 is mostly undeveloped including as a golf course. If that can be combined with the undeveloped west end of Camp Garfield (7 percent of it is 1,500 acres, perhaps a bit more could be acquired from the Ohio National Guard), it provides a 4,800-development site. Other mostly undeveloped lands nearby might be cleared of their few users and added, too. And look at its strategic location in NE Ohio...

 

 

Besides land, it's probably hard to say we have 4,000 people with the skills they need ready for work. Columbus has land + they can say they have the strongest population growth in the state. 

 

 

2 minutes ago, coneflower said:

Besides land, it's probably hard to say we have 4,000 people with the skills they need ready for work. Columbus has land + they can say they have the strongest population growth in the state. 

 

 

I don’t think Columbus has that many at this point. With intel needing 3,000 workers and now this, not to mention the lack of construction workers to work on both of these projects at the same time and to continue building new housing. The state and the city are going to need to create huge incentives to get more housing and get it quickly. 

The Pickaway site for Anduril was a no-brainer. It's right next to an international airport and the highway.

 

I don't see how Columbus getting these huge projects is anything other than good news for Cleveland.

 

Basically all of silicon valley is actually located in the San Jose area, but it's obviously a huge benefit to San Francisco.

 

We need to focus on shared prosperity, not on jealousy. For a long time the three Cs have been equally large and economically important metros. But it seems extraordinarily likely that within a decade or two Columbus will stand out as the largest and most economically significant of the three. That's just the way it is. And it's going to benefit Cleveland and Cincinnati, not harm them. Both legacy cities will get a bunch of spinoff and support business, which will enrich them. They will also continue to be more important cultural centers than Columbus, will have their own industries in which they shine above and beyond Columbus, and they will both probably be more affordable as Columbus eventually becomes actually expensive, not just midwest expensive.

 

The main takeaway should be how essential high-speed rail is. You should be able to get from downtown Cleveland to downtown Columbus in an hour and from downtown Columbus to downtown Cincinnati in 45 minutes (or maybe an hour if Dayton is a stop on the way).

10 minutes ago, LlamaLawyer said:

The main takeaway should be how essential high-speed rail is. You should be able to get from downtown Cleveland to downtown Columbus in an hour and from downtown Columbus to downtown Cincinnati in 45 minutes (or maybe an hour if Dayton is a stop on the way).

This right here, if high speed rail could connect the 3 Cs all these projects would benefit the entire state. Taking a train to south Columbus from Cleveland or Cincy could be a doable time for any job. It’s sad that the leaders of the state don’t seem to be pushing this at all though. 

I have to disagree. The reality is Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati are competing for a fixed pie of jobs and population. Columbus transplants often  come from other Ohio cities, which is great for Columbus but not the regions who are losing out their educated 20s and 30s population.

 

And that's if they even stay in Ohio.

 

I also don't know if regions 130 miles away will get spinoff businesses, at least to any material amount. 

21 minutes ago, LlamaLawyer said:

Basically all of silicon valley is actually located in the San Jose area, but it's obviously a huge benefit to San Francisco.

 

We need to focus on shared prosperity, not on jealousy. For a long time the three Cs have been equally large and economically important metros. But it seems extraordinarily likely that within a decade or two Columbus will stand out as the largest and most economically significant of the three. That's just the way it is. And it's going to benefit Cleveland and Cincinnati, not harm them. Both legacy cities will get a bunch of spinoff and support business, which will enrich them. They will also continue to be more important cultural centers than Columbus, will have their own industries in which they shine above and beyond Columbus, and they will both probably be more affordable as Columbus eventually becomes actually expensive, not just midwest expensive.

Interesting way to frame this LlamaLawyer, I never really thought about it that way. However I'll just say that San Jose is half the distance to San Francisco as Cleveland/Cincinnati are to Columbus and I think Bay Area regionalism is stronger compared to the individual regionalism still prevalent in the 3Cs which are competing with eachother. I remember in my ethics of engineering class at OSU recently learning from an industry exec about the aerospace infrastructure the state is trying to build up by leveraging NASA Glenn/OAI and Wright-Patt with Central Ohio companies to create jobs/supply chains between the three regions. I hope you're right and that other industries will follow suit and benefit all, not just one or another.

Edited January 16Jan 16 by Geowizical

Not having a governor from the Cleveland area isn't helping.

True, but it's not like Celeste or Voinovich helped turn the tide.

 

Lausche was pretty solid though.

Also, we lost Sherrod Brown and replaced him with Bernie Moreno. Ugh.

 

Fantastic Cleveland representation.

The salient point here is the access to Rickenbacker coupled with the fact that there are already a couple of turnkey buildings that they can start moving into. A similar location doesn't exist in Cleveland. 

A major problem NE Ohio has, especially in Cleveland/Cuyahoga County, is all the infighting going on.  I've lived here for 30 years and I've always been amazed at all the grudges and infighting between leaders here.  Case in point, the drama over the Browns stadium.  While much time and energy is spent on bickering, opportunities continue to slip away.

 

It seems like a cultural thing among the leadership here.

Edited January 16Jan 16 by DHubb

2 minutes ago, DHubb said:

A major problem NE Ohio has, especially in Cleveland/Cuyahoga County, is all the infighting going on.  I've lived here for 30 years and I've always been amazed at all the grudges and infighting between leaders here.  Case in point, the drama over the Browns stadium.  While much time and energy is spent on bickering, opportunities continue to slip away.

 

What leaders are infighting over the Browns? Bibb, Ronayne, and Council all seem to be on the same side against Haslam.

 

The distraction is Haslam being a bad actor.