2 minutes ago, KJP said:

I learned late last night there is more to this. There is another funding application.

 

Another article coming or just an update to your article yesterday? 

11 minutes ago, Luke_S said:

 

Another article coming or just an update to your article yesterday? 

 

Probably another article. 

1 hour ago, Gabriel said:

 

Yeah!!! We shouldn't try to grow. We should all root for Cleveland to get smaller and smaller and be a cute little quaint town--like Chagrin Falls!

 

Having an airport downtown has nothing to do with growth. FlexJet has their HQ at the county airport, there's charter service at Hopkins (and sidenote, sports teams don't typically use Burke anyways). The most use comes from CCF/metro helicopters, news choppers, and is only packed with planes when a national event is going on (I counted ~10 jets for Women's FF). If BKL doesn't close, the closest thing the near east side will have to decent lake access is the CHEERS plan, which, won't really be complete for 30+ years.

19 hours ago, KJP said:

 

Cleveland seeks one big grant for lakefront connector, Shoreway Blvd, multimodal station
By Ken Prendergast / June 5, 2024

 

In one of the largest single federal grant requests ever by the city of Cleveland, Mayor Justin Bibb’s administration is seeking $268 million from the federal government to tackle four main lakefront improvement projects simultaneously. The projects, which include reconfiguring the Shoreway highway into a boulevard with intersections, have the backing of the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT), Cuyahoga County and others.

 

MORE:

https://neo-trans.blog/2024/06/05/cleveland-seeks-one-big-grant-for-lakefront-connector-shoreway-blvd-multimodal-station/

I’m glad the city and county heard and responded to my griping about them yesterday in the Browns stadium thread. The influence of UrbanOhio! 😂

15 hours ago, surfohio said:

If Burke goes away does anyone think the plan calls for some some additional building height? I did really like how the Haslam plan used taller buildings to help bridge that downtown-lakefront gap. 

 

Building on the lakefront might be more difficult than we think.  Everything below the bluff is infill, which won't be as stable and thus may require different construction techniques than building on, for example, a downtown parking lot -- particularly if building "tall."

 

Secondarily, there may be legal impediments -- does the state own or have any say over what can be built on infill in the lake?

48 minutes ago, GISguy said:

 

Having an airport downtown has nothing to do with growth. FlexJet has their HQ at the county airport, there's charter service at Hopkins (and sidenote, sports teams don't typically use Burke anyways). The most use comes from CCF/metro helicopters, news choppers, and is only packed with planes when a national event is going on (I counted ~10 jets for Women's FF). If BKL doesn't close, the closest thing the near east side will have to decent lake access is the CHEERS plan, which, won't really be complete for 30+ years.

 

I can't ignore the cost of closing Burke.  It would probably cost the city $80mn to close it and $50mn or so in infrastructure projects to make Burke "shovel-ready" for a developer.  Meanwhile, it is an appreciating asset.  Let it appreciate; it doesn't cost much to wait.  When some developer offers $400mn for its 400+ acres, then close it and hand him the keys.  I don't think the city would see much payoff from closing it now.

1 hour ago, Foraker said:

 

Building on the lakefront might be more difficult than we think.  Everything below the bluff is infill, which won't be as stable and thus may require different construction techniques than building on, for example, a downtown parking lot -- particularly if building "tall."

Feel like I hear these point about difficulty or the inability to build off the infill it can’t be that different right, lots of coastal cities have high rises on infill like south beach, large parts of Boston, and manhattan in the US I wonder if it’s that much different seems like just like any other high rise you’d need to go to bedrock regardless right?

3 hours ago, KJP said:

FAA requires all Commercial Service Airports to have a reliever airport in the same geographical area and to meet specific design and size minimums with regards to runway length, tarmac area, hangar spaces and terminal spaces. Burke has it; other nearby airports don't. FAA probably will not allow Burke's closure until another nearby airport like Cuyahoga is expanded.

 

County already tried to extend a runway and expand capacity and the NIMBY's in Willoughby Hills and Richmond Heights went insane.   Advantage BKL.   It has lots of detractors, but relatively few NIMBYs. 

3 hours ago, KJP said:

FAA requires all Commercial Service Airports to have a reliever airport in the same geographical area and to meet specific design and size minimums with regards to runway length, tarmac area, hangar spaces and terminal spaces. Burke has it; other nearby airports don't. FAA probably will not allow Burke's closure until another nearby airport like Cuyahoga is expanded.

 

I'm ambivalent about Burke.  I see a lot of higher priorities than spending any money to close it.

 

But whether Burke is closed or not, what if we build a (fast) rail connection between Hopkins and CAK, and make the argument to the FAA that CAK can provide overflow for Hopkins?  Maybe some improvements would be needed, but there is a lot more land available there than at Cuyahoga County, and that rail connection would connect both Cleveland and Canton-Akron populations to two airports.  Win-win. 

 

(And if the 3C connection can connect Hopkins to John Glenn in Columbus -- suddenly there is a much larger population connected to Hopkins and we would have three airports to choose from)

57 minutes ago, Foraker said:

 

But whether Burke is closed or not, what if we build a (fast) rail connection between Hopkins and CAK, and make the argument to the FAA that CAK can provide overflow for Hopkins? 

This is why I would love to see the CVSR line get upgrades to carry commuter rail from Cleveland down to Akron and Canton. Keep the CVSR going, but just use the line for regular passenger service. The line CVSR took to Downtown Canton goes along both CAK and Akron Fulton, as well as the big shopping centers in North Canton and the Pro Football HOF complex. Since over half of the route is already owned by government agencies and the other portion recently handled CVSR passengers, it could be a much easier process than trying to build new or dealing with the big rail operators. Being able to access 2 passenger airports from Downtown Cleveland by a direct rail trip would be amazing. And get you close to John Glenn in CBus as well like you mentioned. It'd open up a lot of potential job opportunities for people living near the line too. 

 

 

Add 2 or 3 stops in CVNP and it would lead to a tourism boost, as I believe we'd be the only National Park with frequent rail service from city to the park. People could fly in a visit the park without renting a car. People living in Downtown Cleveland, Akron, and Canton would all have great car free park access, and even skiing in the winter. Or watch a Guardians and Rubberducks game in the same day by rail. 

 

The line would just need an average speed of around 33-35 MPH to get from Cleveland to Akron as fast as driving. 

Edited June 6, 20241 yr by PlanCleveland

4 hours ago, GISguy said:

 

Having an airport downtown has nothing to do with growth. FlexJet has their HQ at the county airport, there's charter service at Hopkins (and sidenote, sports teams don't typically use Burke anyways). The most use comes from CCF/metro helicopters, news choppers, and is only packed with planes when a national event is going on (I counted ~10 jets for Women's FF). If BKL doesn't close, the closest thing the near east side will have to decent lake access is the CHEERS plan, which, won't really be complete for 30+ years.

 

Agreed. It's worth pointing out there's really no reason Hopkins couldn't accommodate much higher traffic. For comparison, LaGuardia has a slightly smaller overall footprint than Hopkins, the same number of concourses, and only two runways (whereas Hopkins has three). Nevertheless, LaGuardia has more than 3x the passenger traffic of Burke. So in other words, there's no basic reason Hopkins couldn't handle 3-5x the traffic it currently does (obviously, I'm talking about a theoretical future where the existing facilities were renovated and improved). In some wild future where Hopkins needs to handle more than 20 million annual enplanements, you could probably add several more concourses and perhaps another runway by closing the IX Center.

 

As far as the should we, shouldn't we debate on Burke above, I'll just throw my two cents, which is that I'm glad we have multiple reports coming out (soon, hopefully). I'm sure the people doing the reports have thought about every single thing that is discussed above, and much more. I personally hope Burke can be closed, but if the report says it can't be or shouldn't be, I'll be totally willing to say "ah well, at least we tried." And if the report says that Burke can and should be closed, then I would hope those who tout the economic benefits of Burke will reconsider their opinions as well.

Possibly the dumbest little mock up/idea yet, but here is building off of the idea in the Browns thread of closing Burke and getting the Browns to move all facilities to that land.  There are around 450 Acres, the colored areas take up around 240-250 acres.  I figure that is the best or most usable land as it as already in use, the rest looks like a lot more money would have to go into getting it ready.  Keep it under city/metroparks ownership for parks/wetlands/conservation.

 

I was roughly modeling this off of the newer Bella Center development in Copenhagen.  It's around 200 acres with about 25% of that being taken up by the largest convention center in Scandinavia and it's parking/hotels. There is also a large shopping mall, and the rest is dozens of different sized and unique looking housing builds, all centered around a new metro line running through the middle of it with large greenspace and athletic fields as well.

 

So lets say we sell 250 acres of Burke land, plus the 21 acres north of the stadium.  I'm under the assumption that the city currently owns that land, correct me if I'm wrong.  Offer Jimmy 155 acres of the Burke land, and the 21 to the north of the stadium, that is equal to the Brook Park land.  I have absolutely no idea how to price an urban waterfront sale this large.  250 acres hitting the market at once.  The West Bank of the Flats parking lots are currently on the market for about $3.1 million per acre, no idea what they will actually get.  Let's just say a bulk purchase and incentives for around $1.25 million per acre to Jimmy, that could be a bit too high though. If that state can keep that $300 million on the table, that is most of the City/County's projected cost of redoing the current stadium.  Then the other land sales plus TIF funds can help cover the remaining land bridge and boulevard costs, along with new transit to these areas.

 

A big concern would potentially be if all of this land hits the market at once, the TIF funds may not make that much going forward. The Downtown land values would be effected by all of this new available land.

 

 

Of that 150ish acres to Jimmy....

 

-- 45 acres for a copy of Spire's footprint. A mix of indoor and outdoor sports facilities. 

 

-- 20 acres for the Browns facilities and HQ.  Their current site is around 15 acres.

 

-- 16 acres to copy the Columbus Ikea footprint, you know big plans have to include Ikea.

 

-- Then there are 75ish acres left to play with for Jimmy

 

--85-95 acres for others to develop.  

 

-- rest held by the city for now

 

-- Also the 21 acres north of the stadium for Jimmy to have more housing and gameday stuff, he will probably build a VIP parking garage.

 

 

The Downtown loop on the blue/green lines could be built, and then the Waterfront line could live up to it's name by serving these new areas from Tower City.  I just made the loop around the area in blue for a potential configuration.

 

The other big thing would have to be making some rules around development. This is a dense new TOD neighborhood and shopping district. Limit % of land allowed to be surface lots, no detached single family homes, things like that.

 

Get creative with who to attract to the housing units.  Maybe market a small portion of them to the snowbirds who fly south during the winter, there will be a ton of space to fill.  Sell your Ohio house and one of your 2 cars, enjoy the extra cash in retirement while buying/renting a place here, and live in a lively lakefront shopping and entertainment district with your boat a short walk, bike, or streetcar ride away.  Set something up for those who won't use their units during most of the football season to rent it out to people for a weekend Browns game for even more retirement income.  I don't know, just adding to an already dumb idea.

Edited June 7, 20241 yr by PlanCleveland

4 minutes ago, PlanCleveland said:

Possibly the dumbest little mock up/idea yet, but here is building off of the idea in the Browns thread of closing Burke and getting the Browns to move all facilities to that land.  There are around 450 Acres, the colored areas take up around 240-250 acres.  I figure that is the best or most usable land as it as already in use, the rest looks like a lot more money would have to go into getting it ready.  Keep it under city/metroparks ownership for parks/wetlands/conservation.

 

I was roughly modeling this off of the newer Bella Center development in Copenhagen.  It's around 200 acres with about 25% of that being taken up by the largest convention center in Scandinavia and it's parking/hotels. There is also a large shopping mall, and the rest is dozens of different sized and unique looking housing builds, all centered around a new metro line running through the middle of it with large greenspace and athletic fields as well.

 

So lets say we sell 250 acres of Burke land, plus the 21 acres north of the stadium.  I'm under the assumption that the city currently owns that land, correct me if I'm wrong.  Offer Jimmy 155 acres of the Burke land, and the 21 to the north of the stadium, that is equal to the Brook Park land.  I have absolutely no idea how to price an urban waterfront sale this large.  250 acres hitting the market at once.  The West Bank of the Flats parking lots are currently on the market for about $3.1 million per acre, no idea what they will actually get.  Let's just say a bulk purchase and incentives for around $1.25 million per acre to Jimmy, that could be a bit too high though. If that state can keep that $300 million on the table, that is most of the City/County's projected cost of redoing the current stadium.  Then the other land sales plus TIF funds can help cover the remaining land bridge and boulevard costs, along with new transit to these areas.

 

A big concern would potentially be if all of this land hits the market at once, the TIF funds may not make that much going forward. The Downtown land values would be effected by all of this new available land.

 

 

Of that 150ish acres to Jimmy....

 

-- 45 acres for a copy of Spire's footprint

 

-- 20 acres for the Browns facilities and HQ.  Their current site is around 15 acres.

 

-- 16 acres to copy the Columbus Ikea footprint, you know big plans have to include Ikea.

 

-- Then there are 75ish acres left to play with for Jimmy and 85-95 for others to develop.  

 

-- rest held by the city for now

 

-- Also the 21 acres north of the stadium for Jimmy to have more housing and gameday stuff, he will probably build a VIP parking garage.

 

 

The Downtown loop on the blue/green lines could be built, and then the Waterfront line could live up to it's name by serving these new areas from Tower City.  I just made the loop around the area in blue for a potential configuration.

 

Get creative with who to attract to the housing units.  Maybe market a small portion of them to the snowbirds who fly south during the winter, there will be a ton of space to fill.  Sell your Ohio house, enjoy the extra cash in retirement while buying/renting a place here, and live in a lively lakefront shopping and entertainment district with your boat a short walk, bike, or streetcar ride away.  Set something up for those who won't use their units during most of the football season to rent it out to people for a weekend Browns game for even more retirement income.  I don't know, just adding to an already dumb idea.

I don't think it's dumb. It may be a bit of a dream, but why not dream big? Some of the best accomplishments started with big dreams.

7 hours ago, BoomerangCleRes said:

Feel like I hear these point about difficulty or the inability to build off the infill it can’t be that different right, lots of coastal cities have high rises on infill like south beach, large parts of Boston, and manhattan in the US I wonder if it’s that much different seems like just like any other high rise you’d need to go to bedrock regardless right?

True, it can be done. The places where this gets done are very high demand areas where developers are willing to go the extra mile since they know the end product will demand top dollar. Toronto probably is the best example of this that would be a parallel to Cleveland's lakefront. Lots of highrises there on what I presume are fill areas. Crazy to think that Toronto was basically a peer city to Cleveland up through the 1970's, including a poorly utilized lakefront.

Edited June 6, 20241 yr by Rustbelter

10 hours ago, KJP said:

I learned late last night there is more to this. There is another funding application. 

OMG, if any of this shoreline development comes to fruition, I would think that UO will be a premium internet destination for years to come. Think of all the future construction cams to watch, photo montages from @MayDay to pour over, debates about what elevation changes the landbridge should incorporate and why the roof of the RH expansion needs to be turned into a meditation garden. 

Edited June 7, 20241 yr by DO_Summers

6 hours ago, LlamaLawyer said:

 

Agreed. It's worth pointing out there's really no reason Hopkins couldn't accommodate much higher traffic. For comparison, LaGuardia has a slightly smaller overall footprint than Hopkins, the same number of concourses, and only two runways (whereas Hopkins has three). Nevertheless, LaGuardia has more than 3x the passenger traffic of Burke. So in other words, there's no basic reason Hopkins couldn't handle 3-5x the traffic it currently does (obviously, I'm talking about a theoretical future where the existing facilities were renovated and improved). In some wild future where Hopkins needs to handle more than 20 million annual enplanements, you could probably add several more concourses and perhaps another runway by closing the IX Center

Hopkins definitely has capacity, with two runways 24/6 L&R allowing simultaneous ops.   This was by design when Continental had the mini hub here. 

The third runway 10/28 is rarely used.   In my 30+ years of flying CLE, I've only landed on it once, and that was in a Q200 turboprop on Air Canada from YYZ.  

Ohio lawmakers to unveil spending bill including millions for Cleveland land bridge, women’s soccer stadium

By Jeremy Pelzer & Jake Zuckerman

Jun. 06, 2024

 

COLUMBUS, Ohio – State lawmakers said Thursday they’re poised to move on a long-stalled $700 million spending package next week that will include money for some big-ticket items for Cleveland, including millions for a downtown land bridge and a proposed women’s soccer stadium.

 

Legislative leaders said those projects will be folded into a combined $2.5 billion capital spending plan, which the lawmakers say they hope to pass by the end of this month. The final bill would include funding for hundreds of construction projects, renovations, equipment purchases, and grants around the state.

 

...

 

The House’s spending plan for its $350 million, which it passed back in February, would give roughly $70 million to one-time projects in Northeast Ohio. That includes $20 million toward a proposed $230 million land bridge connecting downtown Cleveland with the lakefront and $1 million toward building a new stadium near downtown to help lure in a professional women’s soccer team.

 

https://www.cleveland.com/news/2024/06/ohio-lawmakers-to-unveil-capital-budget-that-includes-millions-for-cleveland-land-bridge-womens-soccer-stadium.html

thank goodness the city & region finally got it together and threw in for a big transit project for the feds. stakes is high, so love’em hate’em ya gotta give a nod to the haslams too for upping the ante. now lets hope uncle joe stays in so it actually gets approved and funded. 👍

Again, not much news, but seems that the Bibb administration is maybe a bit further along in this process and I assumed. 

 

Or maybe to have meaningful and actionable study findings discussing the closure with Burke was always had to be part of the early processes. Not sure if we can make any assumptions from this.

 

FAA official met with Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb to discuss Burke Lakefront Airport closure

by Mark Naymik

June 8, 2024

 

The Federal Aviation Administration’s associate administrator of airports, Shannetta R. Griffin, who oversees national airport planning, met with Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb on May 8 to discuss the future of Burke Lakefront Airport, the FAA confirmed to Signal on Friday. 

 

In a statement to Signal Cleveland, the FAA said, “Ms. Griffin attended an informational meeting with the mayor and airport officials. The FAA did not make any commitments or decisions at this meeting.” 

 

Cleveland Director of Port Control Bryant Francis also attended the meeting. 

 

https://signalcleveland.org/faa-official-met-with-cleveland-mayor-justin-bibb-to-discuss-burke-lakefront-airport-closure/

Prepare to be bold regarding Burke. https://www.crainscleveland.com/commentary/crains-editorial-be-bold-about-burke

I'm sure this has been mentioned more than once upthread, so apologies, but if they decide to close Burke, would this be an option for a Browns stadium? Keeps it downtown and on the lake, while also getting a new stadium.

1 hour ago, GREGinPARMA said:

I'm sure this has been mentioned more than once upthread, so apologies, but if they decide to close Burke, would this be an option for a Browns stadium? Keeps it downtown and on the lake, while also getting a new stadium.

Here's where this question was asked and discussed in the Browns stadium thread. 

 

20M for the land bridge. https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/local/cleveland/ohio-general-assembly-passes-capital-budget-20-million-proposed-cleveland-land-bridge/95-037e173c-831e-4e45-908d-86848fd721f6

 

Cleveland’s lakefront has something no other major Great Lakes city has
By Ken Prendergast / July 6, 2024

 

When looking at Chicago’s enviable lakefront, it never had it. Toronto’s did, but not anymore. Same with Milwaukee’s and Hamilton’s but due to different circumstances. Detroit, Buffalo, Toledo and smaller cities like Green Bay and Erie never did. What are we talking about here? A busy mainline freight railroad routed along a major Great Lake city’s downtown waterfront.

 

MORE:

https://neo-trans.blog/2024/07/06/clevelands-lakefront-has-something-no-other-major-great-lakes-city-has/

Great to see Bibb is on board with an attempt to move freight traffic off of the lakefront. I would imagine it's going to take more heavy lifting by our reps. in Congress to find the funding to pull this off. If so, what's your best case timeline, 10 years?

Thanks, Ken, for keeping up the good fight.

 

Great article (& I know you could write these in your sleep). Hope this proposal  doesn't remain a dream. 

 

DO. 

1 hour ago, cadmen said:

Great to see Bibb is on board with an attempt to move freight traffic off of the lakefront. 

 

That's not what it says. In fact it says the opposite.

Alright. I re-read the article. You wrote Bibb was looking at ways to revitalize the lakefront ala Mayor Campbell after Mayor Jackson tabled Jane's work. The rest of the article talks about re-routing the freight trains away from the lakefront. Putting the two together l thought Bibb was behind this new attempt. And if a re-routing were to require the Feds to sign off l assumed a little help from some of our reps. in Washington would help. If that's not what you meant then l don't know.

I really wish there was a way to bury the freight tracks in a tunnel, at least from W3rd to E9th.  Create parkland over the top so you could walk down to Shoreway Boulevard and walk to the lake.  I imagine that might require tunneling under the river, moving the port, and a million other things that are never going to happen.

 

Second best, with at least some funding already allocated, here's to the proposed land bridge and a future widening of the bridge at E9th to include better pedestrian amenities. 

If they bury the tracks, they might as well bury the shoreway too. But it won't happen. Way too expensive. Pedestrian bridge over the tracks and shoreway is the most practical option.

 

Edited July 7, 2024Jul 7 by LibertyBlvd

1 hour ago, LibertyBlvd said:

If they bury the tracks, they might as well bury the shoreway too. But it won't happen. Way too expensive. Pedestrian bridge over the tracks and shoreway is the most practical option.

 

Makes you wonder where all our money goes.  

A couple days ago I drove through an 8 mile long tunnel under Bonn Germany that keeps traffic off the city streets.   I see these all over the world, but somehow the richest and most powerful country can't pull this off.  

57 minutes ago, Cleburger said:

Makes you wonder where all our money goes.  

A couple days ago I drove through an 8 mile long tunnel under Bonn Germany that keeps traffic off the city streets.   I see these all over the world, but somehow the richest and most powerful country can't pull this off.  

The Swiss are just building new tunnels because they're bored and want to shave 3 minutes off of commute times. 

 

If Elon thought about anything more than Tesla and getting into fights on Twitter/X, he'd be trying to get a ton of infrastructure projects like this with The Boring Company. But instead he views anything other than a Tesla as competition. 

 

 

If Boring, or anyone else in the US, could offer tunnels for much lower costs than these cities are currently paying I think we'd change the way we think about potential projects. 

2 hours ago, Cleburger said:

Makes you wonder where all our money goes.  

A couple days ago I drove through an 8 mile long tunnel under Bonn Germany that keeps traffic off the city streets.   I see these all over the world, but somehow the richest and most powerful country can't pull this off.  

Well, occasionally we can.  Last Monday, I drove through the "big dig" in Boston.

6 minutes ago, urb-a-saurus said:

Well, occasionally we can.  Last Monday, I drove through the "big dig" in Boston.

Ah yes, the most expensive highway project in US history.     $24.3 Billion. 

How does a little town like Bonn afford this?  

 

At any rate, something like this would be nice on the lakefront for multiple reasons, including routing 10 axle dump semis off our city streets! 

LOL, in that vein, let's really splurge and do a highway and rail tunnel from about midway down the Muny Lot, under the Cuyahoga to near Wendy Park, eliminate the Main Avenue bridge and the NS lift bridge at the mouth of the Cuyahoga, reconnect the new road to the West Shoreway, and let the freight trains and boat traffic  run unencumbered.  Hehe.

Cleveland.com opinion/editorial piece proposing a 1/4 % regional sales tax over 30 years that would fund the new airport, a new domed stadium, lakefront development and more. The article is paywalled so if someonr can access it give us a summary.

https://www.cleveland.com/news/2024/07/a-bold-idea-for-saving-clevelands-sports-teams-and-building-a-gleaming-new-airport.html

23 hours ago, freethink said:

Cleveland.com opinion/editorial piece proposing a 1/4 % regional sales tax over 30 years that would fund the new airport, a new domed stadium, lakefront development and more. The article is paywalled so if someonr can access it give us a summary.

https://www.cleveland.com/news/2024/07/a-bold-idea-for-saving-clevelands-sports-teams-and-building-a-gleaming-new-airport.html

Lol no way the suburbanite voters would ever agree to this. INcluding the Medina, Lorain, Lake, Geauga, Summit counties. But would make the most sense. The region likes to say "it's all Cleveland" yet refuse to put it's money where it's mouth is when it comes to that philosophy

^ looks like there were two parts to that -- one is available below --

 

they certainly went big on the regionalism angle here -- i wish it luck --

 

 

 

 

Here’s how a 1/4 percent sales tax can pay for new stadiums, airport and more for Northeast Ohio

 

Updated: Jul. 08, 2024

By Zachary Smith, cleveland.com

Lucas Daprile, cleveland.com

 

 

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Envision a future where Cleveland’s sports teams play in top-notch stadiums, and the city’s airport becomes a premier hub with minimal costs for airlines.

 

Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer have proposed a groundbreaking way to fund these crucial facilities through a regional quarter-percent sales tax and manage them with a special commission. This plan would aim to generate $20.1 billion over 40 years, securing new stadiums for the Browns, Guardians and Cavaliers, relieving minor league teams of debt and building a state-of-the-art airport.

 

While it’s an ambitious and politically challenging idea, our analysis shows it’s financially viable and could finally bring regionalism to Northeast Ohio in a meaningful way.

 

 

more:

https://www.cleveland.com/news/2024/07/heres-how-a-14-cent-sales-tax-can-pay-for-new-stadiums-airport-more-for-northeast-ohio.html

Again for the ten thousandth time on the tunnel. At that point its a shipping channel that's way too deep to effectively tunnel under. From encyclopedia brittanica:

 

"Upon reaching the lake plain about 6 miles (10 km) from its mouth, it continues as a sharply meandering stream, entrenched to a depth of 60–125 feet (18–38 metres), before emptying into Lake Erie at Cleveland, where its mouth forms part of Cleveland’s harbour." 

 

Are we willing to dig 6-12+ storeys underground? The tunnel would have to start at Lakewood and Bratenahl to have a reasonable slope. 

I don't know what the Encyclopedia Britannica is smoking because the depth of the river channel and harbor is approximately 28 feet and has to be constantly dredged to maintain it. That said, a 21-foot-tall rail tunnel would have to be built some feet below that. So we're probably looking at a tunnel floor depth of about 60 feet below the water's surface which has an elevation of 569 feet. The tracks approaching the Cuyahoga River drawbridge to the east and west already have gradients up to 0.78 percent. Anything near a 1 percent grade is pretty steep for a long, heavy freight train. Tunneling below the river would require moving the starts of descent to the lake basin by another 2 miles farther away both east and west. Those descents currently start near Lorain Avenue on the West Side and McCracken Road on the East Side.

4 hours ago, originaljbw said:

Again for the ten thousandth time on the tunnel. At that point its a shipping channel that's way too deep to effectively tunnel under. From encyclopedia brittanica:

 

"Upon reaching the lake plain about 6 miles (10 km) from its mouth, it continues as a sharply meandering stream, entrenched to a depth of 60–125 feet (18–38 metres), before emptying into Lake Erie at Cleveland, where its mouth forms part of Cleveland’s harbour." 

 

Are we willing to dig 6-12+ storeys underground? The tunnel would have to start at Lakewood and Bratenahl to have a reasonable slope. 

 

Not sure where you're getting this info.  The Cuyahoga is dredged to about 30'.    I'm on the river all the time with a depth finder and can confirm this.  

Rather than building an expensive tunnel wouldn't it make more sense to re-route the trains around downtown? Sure it will also require expanding lines and probably updating existing lines but doing that has got to be cheaper than digging a tunnel.

I'm more interested in whether it can be rerouted even further south. The suggested alignment is still adjacent to dense residential areas.

13 hours ago, mrnyc said:

Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer have proposed a groundbreaking way to fund these crucial facilities through a regional quarter-percent sales tax and manage them with a special commission. This plan would aim to generate $20.1 billion over 40 years, securing new stadiums for the Browns, Guardians and Cavaliers, relieving minor league teams of debt and building a state-of-the-art airport.

Who is paying this tax?  is it just Cuyahoga County?  Or are the 6 bordering counties also included?  Further out?

 

Honestly, if we're going to raise the sales tax again, it ought to be used to pay for things that have a wider benefit than stadiums.  Progressive Field is undergoing a renovation now and should be perfectly usable (with maintenance) for decades, if not longer.  There's no reason it couldn't be Cleveland's version of Fenway, which is over 100 years old.  RMFH is in great shape, too.

 

The only people looking for a new home are the Browns, and that's driven 95% by vanity.  Basically, there are better uses for these dollars.  Improving/rebuilding the airport is probably a good idea (assuming we mean Hopkins), but what else is being proposed here to justify a tax that is ultimately pretty regressive and will be a bigger burden to lower-income folks to benefit billionaires?

 

Where's the beef?

14 minutes ago, Chris314 said:

Who is paying this tax?  is it just Cuyahoga County?  Or are the 6 bordering counties also included?  Further out?

 

Honestly, if we're going to raise the sales tax again, it ought to be used to pay for things that have a wider benefit than stadiums.  Progressive Field is undergoing a renovation now and should be perfectly usable (with maintenance) for decades, if not longer.  There's no reason it couldn't be Cleveland's version of Fenway, which is over 100 years old.  RMFH is in great shape, too.

 

The only people looking for a new home are the Browns, and that's driven 95% by vanity.  Basically, there are better uses for these dollars.  Improving/rebuilding the airport is probably a good idea (assuming we mean Hopkins), but what else is being proposed here to justify a tax that is ultimately pretty regressive and will be a bigger burden to lower-income folks to benefit billionaires?

 

Where's the beef?

This proposal won't happen. First, it would require the state legislature to allow multiple counties to join in a common sales tax district, and every county would have to approve it.  Neither seems likely. 

 

The proposed plan would include funds for renovating stadiums, not just building new, and it would include funds for building infrastructure at the airports (CLE and CAK), none of which is inherently bad but yeah, sales taxes hit the poor hardest.

On principle, I strongly, strongly reject the idea of this "special commission." I love voluntary regionalism, e.g. city governments working together. There is also some regionalism that the people want but local government gets in the way of (e.g. East Cleveland merger; I am sure almost all people in EC want it). That kind of regionalism is good too, and we should be willing to take power from ineffective city government and give it to the people.

 

But, on principle, I don't like the idea of forcing exurban and rural communities to join in urban projects. I really doubt that the people of Ashtabula County want to pay extra sales tax for the rest of their lives in order to pay for a stadium and airport in Cleveland. I don't want to have to take into account the preferences of someone in Ashtabula or Lake County about how the Cleveland lakefront is going to be used. They can do whatever they want with their own lakefronts (and pay for it, without asking Cleveland for help), and we can do whatever we want with our own lakefront (and pay for it, without asking the exurbs for help).

21 minutes ago, LlamaLawyer said:

On principle, I strongly, strongly reject the idea of this "special commission." I love voluntary regionalism, e.g. city governments working together.....

 

But, on principle, I don't like the idea of forcing exurban and rural communities to join in urban projects.

I'm the same way, ESPECIALLY when most of those projects largely amount to entertainment spending to increase the profits of billionaires. Also, it would create a group where rural and suburban communities have the majority for urban development. That usually doesn't go well. Look at Boston's MBTA where half of the board is made up of suburbs that only care about regional and commuter rail improvements, even though those are only 10% of the riders, while the subway lines continue to fall apart and catch on fire. 

8 hours ago, Cleburger said:

 

Not sure where you're getting this info.  

Encyclopedia Brittanica website. https://www.britannica.com/place/Cuyahoga-River

 

Even at 30 feet down, you still need a bit of clearance between the bottom of the river and the top of the tunnel. On either side you also have elevation change as you leave the flats on either bank. That's another 20+ feet of elevation change. 

People can argue for or against this particular idea but count me on the side of regionalism in some form. I think it's a crime and a complete waste of money to have so many little cities with all their redundancies. I'm also in the group that thinks we won't change much, if at all. We are a selfish people.

2 hours ago, PlanCleveland said:

I'm the same way, ESPECIALLY when most of those projects largely amount to entertainment spending to increase the profits of billionaires. Also, it would create a group where rural and suburban communities have the majority for urban development. That usually doesn't go well. Look at Boston's MBTA where half of the board is made up of suburbs that only care about regional and commuter rail improvements, even though those are only 10% of the riders, while the subway lines continue to fall apart and catch on fire. 

 

Half the GCRTA board has to live in Cleveland, but only half.   More often it's 5 to 5, 6-4 at the most.   

 

MBTA's  probably a better scenario than what we have.   That many suburban riders valuing transit.