And there are an inordinate number of questionable massage parlors along and around Whipple. Icing on the cake for some.

8 hours ago, dave2017 said:

I don't mind having The Cleveland Browns Stadium remain where it is currently located if this vision remains.   Couldn't they tear down the existing stadium and have the team play in Canton, at The Hall of Fame's field, for a few years during construction?

If Burke goes away, I would be OK with the stadium remaining at its current location.   Circumcision InfoCision Stadium in Akron might be another possibility - it is closer and has a slightly larger capacity.

I know I know...money prohibits it, but wouldn't Burke make a great place for a zoo relocation?  Add in a top notch aquarium built "into" the lake...the possibilities would be numerous.   

19 hours ago, surfohio said:

 

Wow. 

All that park like space looks pretty in that summery piece of the lakefront - but I think it’s important to have actual development in the mix - possibly some residential and/or restaurant-hotel etc happening to further activate the area.  
 

Exactly how and where is obviously up for debate but I’d love for it to be “active” and not just in the summer weather. 

Needs more residential for this to be worthwhile.  A bunch of empty grass lawns next to the lake aren't a 9-figure improvement from the current swathe of empty parking lots (IMO).  

21 minutes ago, CleveFan said:

All that park like space looks pretty in that summery piece of the lakefront - but I think it’s important to have actual development in the mix - possibly some residential and/or restaurant-hotel etc happening to further activate the area.  
 

Exactly how and where is obviously up for debate but I’d love for it to be “active” and not just in the summer weather. 

As a downtown resident, I'd use this park year round. Unfortunately, you're almost certainly right in assuming most people won't. 😞

 

I guess I just don't accept the premise that we shouldn't have nice, bountiful outdoor spaces because we live in a cold climate. We should design these outdoor spaces for winter though. Some evergreen trees will help to block some of the winter winds. 

40 minutes ago, cfdwarrior said:

I know I know...money prohibits it, but wouldn't Burke make a great place for a zoo relocation?  Add in a top notch aquarium built "into" the lake...the possibilities would be numerous.   

The zoo is fine in its current location.  I see no need to relocate it.  It would be nice to see a world class aquarium on the downtown lakefront.

Just now, Ethan said:

I guess I just don't accept the premise that we shouldn't have nice, bountiful outdoor spaces because we live in a cold climate. We should design these outdoor spaces for winter though. Some evergreen trees will help to block some of the winter winds. 

How about an ice rink?

18 minutes ago, Ethan said:

As a downtown resident, I'd use this park year round. Unfortunately, you're almost certainly right in assuming most people won't. 😞

 

I guess I just don't accept the premise that we shouldn't have nice, bountiful outdoor spaces because we live in a cold climate. We should design these outdoor spaces for winter though. Some evergreen trees will help to block some of the winter winds. 

 

Yes, and this would be years in the future and built for the future's future to enjoy. How many more residents will be added within walking distance in just the 2 Erieview apartment conversions alone...

 

Can they build a mound closer to the North end with short solstice steps to enjoy the lake? 10 to 20 feet of hill is enough to build steps and a wind buffer without sacrificing the view from most of the park. But the evergreen trees would also help, and keep some color in the winter.

 

And does this mean that the Hulett monument/statue proposal isn't being pursued anymore?

http://cdn.urbanohio.com/monthly_2022_07/image.png.93f47bd886a3f67f567f9af75f7ca4d2.png
 
Wow. 

The low rise structure next to the building reminds me of what the building on navy pier In Chicago looks like. A large structure full of restaurants and souvenir shops etc. that draws people to the area year round. I don’t mind something like that.


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Maybe this should be moved to the parks thread, but it's in response to the idea of adding park space on the lakefront downtown...

 

Cleveland has 6 lakefront parks as far as I can see.  Edgewater Park, Wendy Park, Voinovich Park, Gordon Park, Lakefront Metropark Preserve, Euclid Beach Park.  This doesn't count marinas.  Plus, continuing into the suburbs, there's a lakefront park every couple miles.

 

I count 18 parks in and around downtown. Wendy Park, Heritage Park, Irishtown Bend- coming soon, Rivergate Park, Canal Basin Park, Settlers Landing Park, Fort, Huntington Park, Willard Park, Public Square, Mall A, Mall B, Mall C, Perk Plaza, Voinovich Park, Progressive Field*, First Energy Stadium*, RoMoFiHo*, Aquarium* (*I know these are questionable as parks, but they are recreation and leisure facilities)

 

On the other hand, Emporis.com defines a skyscraper as a building over 100m (330').  Cleveland has 18.  SHW will make 19.

 

So I gotta ask...do we really need more park space?

10 minutes ago, Dino said:

So I gotta ask...do we really need more park space?

Cleveland is 80th out of the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the USA when it comes to park acreage according to the Trust For Public Land. So the answer to your question is pretty definitively yes. 

33 minutes ago, Ethan said:

Cleveland is 80th out of the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the USA when it comes to park acreage according to the Trust For Public Land. So the answer to your question is pretty definitively yes. 

This says Cleveland ranks 23rd.

 

https://www.tpl.org/city/cleveland-ohio

 

Cleveland often ends up looking bad in these comparisons because only city-owner parks are counted in some listings; that leaves out Cleveland Metroparks.

Cleveland is 80th out of the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the USA when it comes to park acreage according to the Trust For Public Land. So the answer to your question is pretty definitively yes. 

There are studies that show how close proximity to park space increases property values, so given the sea of parking lots and underutilized space throughout the city, my hunch is that more park space will make it more likely that these parcels will get redeveloped. Everyone deserves to live within a short walking distance of a park.


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57 minutes ago, Dougal said:

This says Cleveland ranks 23rd.

 

https://www.tpl.org/city/cleveland-ohio

 

Cleveland often ends up looking bad in these comparisons because only city-owner parks are counted in some listings; that leaves out Cleveland Metroparks.

Cleveland ranks 23 overall, but that is taking into things like amenities, park equity, access, and investment. If you only look at acreage (which is the relevant question to whether we need more park space) Cleveland ranks 80th.

 

You can play with the weighting here.

 

https://parkserve.tpl.org/customranking/?3916000

 

Edit: see below, our percent of land used for park is less than 1/3 of the median for the top 100 cities. Even if you assume they are missing a few parks, Cleveland is well behind by this metric. 

Edited July 8, 20222 yr by Ethan

On 7/7/2022 at 1:27 AM, dave2017 said:

I don't mind having The Cleveland Browns Stadium remain where it is currently located if this vision remains.   Couldn't they tear down the existing stadium and have the team play in Canton, at The Hall of Fame's field, for a few years during construction?

 

It holds 23,000.   I can't see that happening.

1 hour ago, Ethan said:

Cleveland is 80th out of the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the USA when it comes to park acreage according to the Trust For Public Land. So the answer to your question is pretty definitively yes. 

 

And if we are talking about lakefront parks/properties specifically, >90% is privately owned. So we could do with more access to our coast. 

 

https://www.countyplanning.us/projects/cuyahoga-county-lakefront-public-access-plan/#:~:text=Currently%2C over 90% of the,across the Lake Erie shoreline.

56 minutes ago, E Rocc said:

 

It holds 23,000.   I can't see that happening.

More likely Columbus …

2 hours ago, Ethan said:

Cleveland is 80th out of the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the USA when it comes to park acreage according to the Trust For Public Land. So the answer to your question is pretty definitively yes.

Agree to disagree.

 

TPL has a park score of 23; I found a stat that Cleveland is 33rd in acres/resident, but all of these are misleading because they are looking at the entire City or region.  I was talking about the context of our downtown.   I happen to think that downtown is well served by nearby parks.  

 

Interestingly, TPL has an interactive map that shows where it suggest parks are needed.  The downtown lakefront has tiny sections labelled as a moderate priority.

https://parkserve.tpl.org/mapping/index.html?CityID=3916000

2 minutes ago, Dino said:

Agree to disagree.

 

TPL has a park score of 23; I found a stat that Cleveland is 33rd in acres/resident, but all of these are misleading because they are looking at the entire City or region.  I was talking about the context of our downtown.   I happen to think that downtown is well served by nearby parks.  

 

Interestingly, TPL has an interactive map that shows where it suggest parks are needed.  The downtown lakefront has tiny sections labelled as a moderate priority.

https://parkserve.tpl.org/mapping/index.html?CityID=3916000

 

Still need to play around with this map more, but could it be 'skewed' in a sense because there is no residential development along the downtown section of the lakefront? 

^ It's not perfect.  But that park they suggest at the Port should make up for it!  Haha.

16 hours ago, CleveFan said:

More likely Columbus …

 

Kind of a sacrilege to more hard core Browns fans.   My FB group pretty universally despised the idea of the scrimmages or training camp being conducted there.

 

^ Anyone have a good handle of timeframe? 

I'm thinking the line is gonna be a long one. The faster we come up with a plan the sooner we can get in line. Unfortunately it looks like we're quite a ways off from deciding anything. Hate to get shut out of those Federal dollars.

NOACA and the city are carrying out an 18-month phase one environmental impact study including an alternatives analysis for about $5 million. Information that will guide the selection of a locally preferred alternative will be provided by that analysis and by stakeholder input. Once the LPA is selected, it could be subjected to a phase two EIS to arrive at a preliminary design, if several million more dollars are secured over a period of time. Conducting phase two could take another year or more. Final design and construction would then follow if funding can be found for it too. Reconnecting Communities funding can be used for the phase two EIS, final design as well as construction but will require non-federal funding to leverage it (at 20 percent of the total but preferably 50 percent). The more non-federal funding you can raise, the more likely you are to win federal funding. So we're probably talking somewhere around 3 to 5 years before construction might begin.

Yeah. On the one hand it's necessary to study something as potentially complicated and expensive as re-configuring the Shoreway and adding a landbridge. Government doing its due diligence. There are multiple agencies that need to be involved. On the other hand should it takes years and years to reach a determination? Somewhere in the middle is the sweet spot. I think we've begun to err on the wrong side of this equation. Today, it takes forever to build things like this in America.

 

Study good. Too much study bad.

There's studying and there's planning. All of this is required planning that must be done under the federal National Environmental Policy Act in order to be eligible for federal funds. The determination on what general course of action will be pursued is pursued in the phase one EIS/NEPA documentation. How it should be designed to mitigate impacts on natural and built environments is determined in phase two. That preliminary design, absent any modifications urged by the federal agency, gets you a Finding Of No Significant Impact (FONSI) from the agency as well as your construction cost estimate so you can apply for federal construction funds. You cannot apply for federal funds unless you have a FONSI and you can't get a FONSI without doing the requisite planning as proscribed under federal law. The final design will drill down to the placement of drain tiles, street lights, etc. 

On 7/8/2022 at 12:16 PM, Ethan said:

Cleveland ranks 23 overall, but that is taking into things like amenities, park equity, access, and investment. If you only look at acreage (which is the relevant question to whether we need more park space) Cleveland ranks 80th.

 

You can play with the weighting here.

 

https://parkserve.tpl.org/customranking/?3916000

 

Edit: see below, our percent of land used for park is less than 1/3 of the median for the top 100 cities. Even if you assume they are missing a few parks, Cleveland is well behind by this metric. 

 

 

i’m kinda a broken record about this, but seriously what the city needs more than large open parks are modern, formal, block-sized urban public square parks to encourage development around.

 

that would take a bit of creative sheparding by the city and partnering with developers, but at least it should always be in the mix of any large scale planning.

 

it would be great to see something like that between all these planned residential buildings around the stadium.

 

of course, cle already has its own style examples too, ie., like tremont lincoln (large/perfect example), franklin circle (kinda), the new gateway erieview cemetery residential development (kinda), or like midtown newton park off picture postcard newton avenue (new & nice), it just needs a lot more of it and including more formal lincoln park type versions.

 

5 minutes ago, mrnyc said:

 

 

i’m kinda a broken record about this, but seriously what the city needs more than large open parks are modern, formal, block-sized urban public square parks to encourage development around.

 

that would take a bit of creative sheparding by the city and partnering with developers, but at least it should always be in the mix of any large scale planning.

 

it would be great to see something like that between all these planned residential buildings around the stadium.

 

of course, cle already has its own style examples too, ie., like tremont lincoln (large/perfect example), franklin circle (kinda), the new gateway erieview cemetery residential development (kinda), or like midtown newton park off picture postcard newton avenue (new & nice), it just needs a lot more of it and including more formal lincoln park type versions.

 

Mature trees make for great parks. (Lincoln). This city hates mature trees anywhere. 

1 minute ago, marty15 said:

Mature trees make for great parks. (Lincoln). This city hates mature trees anywhere. 

 

well the squares have to actually exist first before dealing with it falling apart for whatever reasons.  😂

 

but that brings me to another point about them. if a new one is built say in midtown or whereever and developers build around it, then you can get a park association going to help with upkeep. 

 

even our little opioid crackhead triangle square here in staten island where we live now has an active friends of the park group of volunteers and kids that swoop in to clean it up and to have little weekend events.

 

so keep hope alive!  👍🏽

21 hours ago, KJP said:

There's studying and there's planning. All of this is required planning that must be done under the federal National Environmental Policy Act in order to be eligible for federal funds. The determination on what general course of action will be pursued is pursued in the phase one EIS/NEPA documentation. How it should be designed to mitigate impacts on natural and built environments is determined in phase two. That preliminary design, absent any modifications urged by the federal agency, gets you a Finding Of No Significant Impact (FONSI) from the agency as well as your construction cost estimate so you can apply for federal construction funds. You cannot apply for federal funds unless you have a FONSI and you can't get a FONSI without doing the requisite planning as proscribed under federal law. The final design will drill down to the placement of drain tiles, street lights, etc. 

There is a lot of discussion about why it is so expensive to build in the US and NEPA is one of those reasons identified 

Edited July 14, 20222 yr by Enginerd

Technically you're right Ken. First study, then planning. Some ideas are studied to death and never got to the planning stage. Some have very little study but a whole lot of planning especially if they involve multiple Gov. jurisdictions. I guess my point was we seem to take an extraordinary long time to build things today.

 

Anyone who watches Real Time with Bill Maher will recall his looooog fight with government officials just to get some solar panels on a shed to work. One jurisdiction after another had to sign off. Took him years. That is ridiculous. 

 

It's one reason why rail struggles here. Wasn't that simple light rail down Euclid going to cost so much we had to replace it with a bus when we already had a damn bus line. Every agency has to sign off. That takes time and adds to the expense. There used to be a better way. I'm not saying throw the baby out with the bath water here but we have to simplify government regulation enough so we can build in a reasonable time frame and at a more affordable cost.

Rail in the US ranges from $100 million/mile to $2.5 billion/mile. Clearly something is broken.

1 hour ago, mrnyc said:

 

 

 

but that brings me to another point about them. if a new one is built say in midtown or whereever and developers build around it, then you can get a park association going to help with upkeep. 

 

 

Terdolph Park Association, LLC. 

3 hours ago, mrnyc said:

 

 

i’m kinda a broken record about this, but seriously what the city needs more than large open parks are modern, formal, block-sized urban public square parks to encourage development around.

 

Have you been to Perk Park since the redesign? I think that fits your description. In my experience it's a great template for more parks along the Lakefront. 

3 hours ago, marty15 said:

Mature trees make for great parks. (Lincoln). This city hates mature trees anywhere. 

 

The City hates all trees in general lol. 

Look at how vibrant and active our lakefront is :///
*taken from dwntowncle instagram




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Clearly we need another 18-month study to determine whether or not the lakefront should be utilized or remain a giant inaccessible concrete park.

19 minutes ago, GREGinPARMA said:

Look at how vibrant and active our lakefront is :///
*taken from dwntowncle instagram




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Look at it on the Canadian side.  They barely use it at all.

 

The Port is a pretty important economic usage, though it may not be exciting to some.

2 minutes ago, E Rocc said:

Look at it on the Canadian side.

Who cares about the Canadian side?

18 minutes ago, E Rocc said:

 

Look at it on the Canadian side.  They barely use it at all.

 

The Port is a pretty important economic usage, though it may not be exciting to some.

 

Well there are no major cities on the Canadian coast of Lake Erie so...

 

But why would we limit it to Lake Erie only? 

 

Chicago, Milwaukee, Toronto...  All cities on the Great Lakes with good lakefront utilization. 

^ the good news is being late in the game is only to cleveland's benefit for ideas. so keep looking around at waterfront ideas, hang in there and keep the faith!

On 7/8/2022 at 12:18 PM, E Rocc said:

 

It holds 23,000.   I can't see that happening.

 

The Chargers played in a stadium of 26,000 at first in LA. The Browns could make InfoCision work, as there's room for additional seating. 

 

But it aint gonna happen. 

11 minutes ago, YABO713 said:

 

The Chargers played in a stadium of 26,000 at first in LA. The Browns could make InfoCision work, as there's room for additional seating. 

 

But it aint gonna happen. 

 

 

yeah likely not.

 

but that doesn't mean the browns couldn't temporarily do the same if they needed to.

 

like they could always do dynamic pricing and platinum seating in canton and screw the little people tix for a season while they do construction. 

 

now you might wring hands and say well they will lose fans that way ... but we know that doesn't happen.

2 minutes ago, mrnyc said:

 

 

yeah likely not.

 

but that doesn't mean the browns couldn't temporarily do the same if they needed to.

 

like they could always do dynamic pricing and platinum seating in canton and screw the little people tix for a season while they do construction. 

 

now you might wring hands and say well they will lose fans that way ... but we know that doesn't happen.

 

The Browns renovation plans won't displace them, is what I'm getting at. 

1 minute ago, YABO713 said:

 

The Browns renovation plans won't displace them, is what I'm getting at. 

 

 

i know, but i was thinking of rebuilding the stadium somewhere else, which would be ideal, if pie in the sky. that would mean long term construction. whatever happened to talk of that anyway?

4 minutes ago, mrnyc said:

 

 

i know, but i was thinking of rebuilding the stadium somewhere else, which would be ideal, if pie in the sky. that would mean long term construction. whatever happened to talk of that anyway?

 

The Philadelphia 76ers. 

 

6ers are self-financing a new arena in Center City. The Browns lobbyists were told explicitly, based on that news, that they would need some more skin in the game for a brand new stadium - so it looks like the plan is to explore renovation opportunities, which include a retractable roof from what I've heard. 

30 minutes ago, YABO713 said:

 

The Philadelphia 76ers. 

 

6ers are self-financing a new arena in Center City. The Browns lobbyists were told explicitly, based on that news, that they would need some more skin in the game for a brand new stadium - so it looks like the plan is to explore renovation opportunities, which include a retractable roof from what I've heard. 

I

 

36 minutes ago, mrnyc said:

 

 

i know, but i was thinking of rebuilding the stadium somewhere else, which would be ideal, if pie in the sky. that would mean long term construction. whatever happened to talk of that anyway?

Speaking of pie in the sky and putting lipstick on a pig, I always loved that crazy idea of plopping a giant, glass geodesic dome on top of FIrst Energy Stadium.

Reno is one thing but actually adding a retractable roof seems pretty daunting. My understanding was the stadium was built quickly and on the cheap so l wonder if it has good bones and can it withstand the weight of that roof?

 

If the cost of a new build somewhere else is north of one billion including land acquisition what will this one cost? I'm all for a retractable dome for baseball but not football. Then again, with costs being so astronomical anyway might as well pay even more for a roof so it can be used for more than football.

 

If l am being honest though, these stadium costs are insane. I understand that in order to be in the game cities have to pay the admission fee which is the cost of a stadium. And l'm a huge sports fan too but l have to admit the whole thing of outrageous salaries and even more insane costs for stadiums is a terrible waste of tax payors money when there are so, so many better things that need funding. And yet...Go Browns!

 

God we're stupid.