EVERYONE thinks it's a great idea
Submitted by lmcshane on Sat, 06/02/2007 - 07:16.
So declares Bonnie Teeuwen ODOT's returning District 12 chief in this month's AAA Motorist, as she describes the Opportunity Corridor, the proposed highway from East 55th St. to University Circle. Well, count me as one person, who is not everyone. I think the plan stinks. I want to see a return to civilized boulevards in this city. Real tree-lined boulevards. I think that there should be a way to make federal and state funds available to restore our boulevards (to include bikes): East Boulevard, West Boulevard, Martin Luther King Boulevard, Lakeshore Boulevard, Clifton Boulevard..And redesign other thoroughfares that should be boulevards : Chester, Superior, Detroit, Broadway, Harvard-Denison, Miles and Pearl. We need to size down, not up. And, what's the point of the Euclid Corridor, if we are building a parallel corridor for the rich folks?
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Regional Economics Action Links North East Ohio
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Also need to renew life on boulevards
No argument here, but they boulevards and neighborhoods need to be repurposed. Each of those Boulevards had good public transportation - trolleys - and dining, entertainment, shopping and business sections - they were built as walkable human scale townships and neighborhoods - planned developments. We need to rebuild around that, for each boulevard - view them as spurs to unique neighborhood townships, and people need to show loyalty to their neighborhoods and shop and eat there. Each major segment of each boulevard and surrounding neighborhood should have an improvement club or council and they should meet regularly and work with CDCs, council, etc. to drive improvements. The Fed won't rebuild the neighborhoods - they will fund demolition and some types of housing projects and major road projects but look where all that gets us - best to keep them out. A few 100 businesses and a few 1000 property owners should have enough self interest, and economic reason to invest in improvements in their own neighborhoods - e.g. community wifi and portal, neighborhood newspaper, shared advertising, security cameras, landscaping, public art, street fairs, pavers, holiday promotions and decorations, historic tours, etc... I think this is a responsibility not well taken by very many neighborhoods - I'm still figuring out how good this is in Ohio City and East Cleveland west, and will report back.
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Bonnie may think so, but I don't
I have been posting about this opportunity at GCBL. Here's the link.
Check out how this is another attempt at the failed Lee/Clark Freeway plan. Imagine if they had done this.
We have enough car-ways; we need more animal friendly greenways We need more opportunities, but not for people; we need wildlife corridors so the deer can get from the Doan Brook to Big Creek. They are reputedly interbreeding because they can't move through the congested areas they get into in town.
The drawing's in the ODOT plan you posted Laura takes a lot of green -- way too much for me. If those folks need to get to University Circle so damned fast, they should get a map and figure out how to turn left on E55 and right onto Woodland and then cut through south of the Clinic. Woodland makes a lovely green corridor for travel to the eastside without going through downtown already. It is scary to think that ODOT can't read a map. It is even scarier that the folks who are operating on you at the Clinic or UH or teaching you at Case can't either.
some nice things going up on
some nice things going up on east blvd, 975 east blvd, near parkgate.
MLS ID# 2309976
also on Superior
S/L 9 SUPERIOR AVENUE
CLEVELAND, OH 44108
MLS ID# 2342414
east 105 hertitage lane and ashbury run, its good to see investment.
I wonder if they could culdisac some of the street before they reach 105? south and north blvd, westchester?
I think it is funny if you look at 44108 demographics bratenahl washes out the low values, you get a median of 85K which is high for most of the area, it has over 500 listing and many are below 30k, heck 100s are listed below 10K! For those that like mixed income that as about mixed up as you can get!
I wish ODOT would spend 5 million to estimate a tunnel for 90 between bratenahl and cleveland. The park was meant to connect to the lake, the highway really destroyed that!
how to follow up on your post
Michael,
I don't know how to follow up on your post. How do I find the MLS listings you reference? When you say "some nice things going up", do you mean for sale or under construction?
How did you look at the demographics? Are you a realtor?
Cul-de-sac what street?
Could you provide some links to the references you make, please? Photos and maps would help, too. I am flying blind here...
I agree that a greenway from the Cultural Gardens along Martin Luther King Drive and the Rockefeller Park Greenhouse connecting the lakefront at Dike 14 and Gordon Park is a good idea. I doubt that a tunnel is a possibility though considering lakefront soils. The Lake Plains aspect is at play here for certain even though we now have created Confined Disposal Facilities along the urban lakefront which cause youngsters like Hannah Fritzman to wonder why we aren't a beach community. Here's an explanation of our glacial history.
Here's an overview of the area in discussion, I think.
Yes Susan, new construction
Yes Susan, new construction www.realtor.com, the demographics are of that area as well the area between Rockefeller Park and Forest Hills Park is all 44108. The demographic are of 44108.
North blvd and South blvd are cross streets between East Blvd and East 105th street.
I assume we all have goggle earth? It does not use MLS or parcel numbers…it should. But you can find streets very easy with it; see roads trees, the shoreline.
They are building town homes on East Blvd and also on Superior.
If you take a few minutes and visit the site, you can search all the homes for sale in a zip code, 44108 it has so many homes under 10K it is sad.
The green belt to the lake already exits; it was interrupted at the interstate. I was joking about the tunnel but where the interstate crosses it needs consideration.
A good area architecturally, all the way from University Circle to the lake.
No other information is available on the town homes associated with the MLS numbers that I can find.
Gordon Park remembered
The Elms Entrance to Gordon Park, Cleveland, Ohio
Check out the postcards of the park at Cleveland Public Library.
The telling intro trails off as an incomplete sentence:
"Gordon Park was deeded to the city by William J. Gordon in 1893 and is located along the lakeshore at East 72nd Street and south along Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard for a short distance. It is connected to Rockefeller and Wade Parks by a series of"
When in fact as Michael noted above in actuality it is disconnected from Wade Park and Rockefeller Park by an obtrusive multi-lane highway.
The Elms are long gone, but more trees could improve our recognition of Gordon Park as a park and connections to the lakefront with the neighborhoods could persist despite the ugly smelly high-speed raceway.
I agree with moving into the neighborhoods along the parkland Michael. The neighborhoods flanking Martin Luther King Boulevard have some magnificent homes and beautiful 4 and 6 unit apartment buildings overlooking the tree-lined boulevard.
Lois -- maybe Walk and Roll can expand up the hills on either side of MLK someday and let cyclists and pedestrians see the lovely (if unsafe) neighborhoods on either side.
Ward boundaries can be a problem though. Do Sabra Pierce Scott and Fannie Lewis concentrate on the borders of their wards when they know that at any time the ward boundaries can be redrawn? Why make and effort along a border that may become a feather in another council person's hat? (Go to their pages above and download the street guides to see the boundaries). When the boundaries are ignored they create a vacuum where dangerous activities can and do flourish.
We have a multitude of Community Development Corporations and layers of bureaucracy between the resident (or potential resident) and the actual neighborhood. Does this help matters? I don't know -- maybe it is just workforce development.
If you go to find information on the various neighborhoods of Cleveland in Neighborhood Link they "all looka jus the same" as Pete Seeger would sing (actually the song is by Malvina Reynolds).
Shrinking cities - growing neighborhoods
I think the unrealized opportunity right now, when Cleveland and the inner ring are down and out, is to really plan out what we have leaft right now, as far as good existing building stock, infrastructure, schools, neighborhood districts, libraries, and parks and greenspaces, and really plan out where there are good neighborhood centers and anchors and focus development there and concentrate new development in concert with neighborhood development - rebuild 77 square mile Cleveland as dozens of villages. They won't have their own governments or police powers but they will be large enough to plan for their immediate neighborhoods and watchout for their own. They can work together to support neighborhood businesses and to market the neighborhood to other neighborhoods. Each neighborhood would include many churches and at least one CDC and council member along with many neighborhood watch and parent teacher organizations, etc.
Between the neighborhoods will be less densely developed - much will be cleared, leaving a few houses here and there - streets can be redrawn - parks and greenbelts can be added - new "new-urban" and suburban-style developments will pop-up. Knowing all this will happen, it is critical we get serious about overall regional and Cleveland planning - now is when the big deals are being brokered.
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Property values are low and
Property values are low and it is a good time to build a land bank, and develop a plan. They see extending development to Superior and through on East 105th.
Superior is key
There are 100s of architecturally interesting commercial and multiunit residential and mixed use buildings along Superior, which provided retail, entertainment and jobs for the people living in all the beautiful homes on all the side streets. As the people in the neighborhoods fled and the demographics became lower income the businesses fled, leaving most of these commercial buildings vacant. As we restore parts of Cleveland, and move to a new economy of many new small businesses and entrepreneurship and SOHO businesses, and the arts and multimedia expand into new neighborhoods, these livable urban neigborhods can be repurposed as villages - each with their own identities. Superior is one of the primary urban neighborhood boulevards that will be core to many of these villages - interconnects them. I'm very concerned about the segment of Superior from around Garrett Square to just past Euclid, when it moves up the hill into the Heights... terrible blight but great potential - still largely intact - could be economic engine for revitalizing many blocks in every direction.
The old Topps at Garrett Square is another very big issue!
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yes to resurrecting Superior
I often take Superior or Forest Hill as a path into and out of the Heights. The Superior Euclid intersection is horrid as regards retail. This is why I love Joe Stanley's planning ideas. I think that commuters from the Heights could flow northward down the hill whether on bikes or in cars. From there, the options expand exponentially -- they include a more direct and faster route to downtown (just stay on the leisurely Superior all the way), a quick hop along Eddy Road to the 90 East, a park and ride option at the Windemere Rapid Stop, and I assume, will soon connect to the Euclid Corridor Silver Line. This can be a major intersection for economic growth to bring some of the up the hill wealth to and through East Cleveland.
One of the best parts is that to get down the hill or up the hill, you drive by or through the lovely Forest Hills Park.
I looked for photos of the park, but found none so interesting as this turkey who can find his way from East Cleveland to Cleveland Heights seemingly better than most Heights residents. Norm -- run up there and shoot some pics while it's lush and green, will you? Save the shots of the area's best sledding hill for January. If you don't know this sledding hill, I'll provide directions when the weather is right for sledding and tobogganing.
Turkey Ridge
There is a reason Coventry and Euclid Hts area was called Turkey Ridge. I am only glad that the birds are rightfully reclaiming their turf. Birds rule!!!
Superior is not leisurely;
Superior is not leisurely; to many stoplights idling cars use more fuel. I did that once went all the way from Lee to downtown it gave me a migraine. When I drive through Forests Hills Blvd, I sometimes look up and expect to see a pterodactyl fly across. I think that street would make an ideal pedestrian street…actually it should be developed. Only allow bicycles and mopeds, I could see it all lined with old style buildings looking like a narrow street in European city. With winding paths that lead up to the park, the East Cleveland section of the park is so neglected. That park should be an arboretum a botanical garden. Development should occur around the park and East Cleveland needs a game plan, I would suggest they create burrows, Forest Hill, Euclid, Superior, Lakeview. Section by section, something!
By the way the Turkey I heard got hit by car…irony.
Forest Hills Development
THis is an amazing idea, to develop Forest Hills Blvd. from Lee to Euclid and blend it with Forest Hills Park - this could be the site of some amazing designs and offer a very unique upscale urban residential option for people who want to live near University Circle, but in a park. I'm looking at a 1905 home in the area between Euclid and Forest Hills west of Superior - there are some amazing old homes along that stretch. The strong "boroughs" need to be connected together with each other and shared assets, like Forest Hills Park, the park by Rozell, the library and East Cleveland Theater area, etc... there is a plan but it needs refinement. We'll be working on that out of the Inner Circle and Hough Bakeries complex, which I see as a central asset for several boroughs in Cleveland and East Cleveland, including University Circle.
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Critical mass
Norm, I am so excited about your plans for Forest Hills and East Cleveland. The community needs critical mass to engage the Metroparks in discussions for the management of Forest Hills Park and Dugway Brook. It took ten years for Parma, Seven Hills, Brooklyn Heights and Independence to do it for West Creek (see www.westcreek.org). Let's hope that it happens sooner, rather than later, for Forest Hills Park and protection of Dugway Brook, which runs from the Heights through Lakeview Cementery, Forest Hills Park, East Cleveland and Bratenahl to Lake Erie. Lake Erie Coastal and Riparian Forest Preserve in Bratenahl recently received state monies to help the estuary of Dugway Brook in Bratenahl.
HOW do we build that critical mass?
What's needed? How do we do it? How do we get this critical mass up and going? What has been your experience, the experience of Parma? Any of there folks able to come and talk to any of our folks? ... and who is "our folks" meaning who are the EC residents that want to take this on. Any EC residents out there "listening"?
Find a leader
Someone has to rise to the challenge to be the face of your park. In our case, that person was Dave Vasarhelyi. It helps that he works with the Trust for Public Land, now. Before TPL, he was a park ranger with the National Park Service. There are other critical people who supported this concept and have been integral from day one. We have been very lucky, but it is still a difficult proposition and it is hard to maintain momentum. Most of us had some formative childhood experience that made us value parks. I won't pretend that it is easy. I saw that the City of East Cleveland has fire personnel maintaining the parks. The City should start with a meeting between Mayor Brewer and the Metroparks. It took a long time for the City of Parma to relinquish land to the Metroparks. It could be easier for East Cleveland.
East Cleveland and Metroparks
I know at one time the East Cleveland government talked with Metroparks about Forest Hills Park - and there is a long park north of Euclid at Addy as well... very nice. I don't know if Metroparks should be involved - that is a good question. It is good that East Cleveland's side of Forest Hills Park is pretty undeveloped and wild and has limited public access and use. I need to explore it better to say if it could be redeveloped or not. But I think there are areas along the edges that could be developed to bring some life and income to the park and city... again, these are very preliminary thoughts and I need to look around this part of East Cleveland better... but what a great asset to leverage!
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Case Master Plan
Yes, a wild place without people is good in my book, too. Unfortunately, when a place is too wild and unloved, it becomes attractive to developers. I don't think anyone will slice and dice into Forest Hills Park in East Cleveland, but you never know, so there needs to be some proactive protection of East Cleveland's green space.
Norm, have you had any discussions with CWRU on the STAR project, which is within walking distance to the CWRU campus? I just read that the lead architect, Margaret Carney worked at the Architect's Collaborative founded by Walter Gropius. (Maybe she could get the Breuer building listed at their site as a great building)
In the CWRU Masterplan, four green space opportunities are prominent and connective--Forest Hills Park, Lakeview Cemetery, Rockefeller Park and the Doan Brook watershed (Ambler/Shaker Lakes).
how about a visual here...
1. Boathouse and lagoon. Includes restroom open periodically. Originally intended for storage and rental of boats and comfort facilities.
2. Rustic stone masonry bridge and spillway with cascade that drains into the lagoon.
3. Meadow vista, a smaller version of the Great Meadow. Retains much of its original character, but picnic sites, trails and meadows need restoration and trees need maintenance and replacement.
4. Graceful pedestrian bridge designed by East Cleveland Engineer Wilbur Watson and Frank Walker, architect.
5. Site of Rockefeller home with view to Lake Erie. Built in late 1870's as a sanitarium, converted in 1881 to Rockefeller summer home.
6. Great Meadow and ravines containing old growth forests. View originally extended from the site of house to Lee Boulevard.
7. Site of Rockefeller barns and stables. A portion of brick wall and brick paving remains.
8. Beautiful stone bridge built in late 1800's using stone quarried on the property. Enabled horse drawn carriages to cross a ravine to reach the Rockefeller house and stables.
9. Dugway Valley, site of a restored picnic shelter and restroom needing restoration. Dugway brook flows underground through the Valley.
10. Heights Rockefeller Building containing apartments, offices and retail space. Built c. 1930 to complement and serve Forest Hill sub-division. Andrew Jackson Thomas, architect.
11. Forest Hill Historic District comprised of 81 "Rockefeller homes on the Nation Register of Historic Places", several other unusual homes with steel supports and many other attractive homes with slate, tile, or cedar shake roofs.
Just so we have Forest Hills Park in view on this thread with its boulevards and road surrounds...
I am going there now with dog on leash just to enjoy the shady perimeter of the Great Meadow.
You're right to point out the boulevard, road and avenue distinctions ... For example, there is a distinct difference between Cedar Avenue and Cedar Road, Superior Avenue and Superior Road.
awesome meadow
The dog walk was spectacular. From atop the Sledding Hill, we could see Lake Erie reflecting the sun like a blazing thick line on the horizon. We sat on the benches there and watched as golden-winged dragonflies barnstormed the tall grasses and then walked a couple of paths along the Dugway Brook in the late afternoon filtered light.
As we emerged from the woods we saw a blue bird alight briefly in a nearby tree branch and then fly off into the wide sky above the meadow.
Bluebirds= Happiness
Blue birds are making a comeback in some parts. I am watching for them to reappear on a stretch of Schaaf Rd. that looks like good real estate to them. Put out a meadow and they will come. I heard the Cedar waxwings yesterday, too. High pitch, drunken twitters. Are there some mulberry trees nearby?
King Hill and Queen Hill
FYI for this winter ...
Some where in the vacinity of 5, 8 and 9 is what we use to call King Hill and Queen Hill. THE best snow sledding hill in metro Cleveland - bar NONE. The one at Cain Park in Cleveland Heights on the Taylor Rd side doesn't hold a candle. But be warned King Hill is no joke and NOT for the faint of heart - or real little kids.
??? Forest Hill between Lee and Euclid ???
I'm a little confused here. The intersection of Lee and Forest Hill BLVD (NOT Ave.) is the very beginning of the park. There is nothing but park until you get to Forest Hill BLVD and Terrace. There on one corner is the new water / sewer pumping station (I guess that's what that thing is), the entrance to the lawn bowling area, a reasonably well kept, and clean apartment complex on both sides of Forest Hills Blvd. (affordable, clean housing for East Cleveland residents -vs- upscale??) and a short hop to your right (north east) Huron Hospital.
A tiny bit further past the apartment complex is a less than attractive, barely clean but always full and VERY active shopping plaza that has been there for years and seldom has an empty store in all of the 25+ years I've been knowing the place. Opposite on the north east side of Forest Hill Blvd. is an interesting but less than well kept but still being used brick building (MAYBE art modern??? - where are our architectural historians), a HORRIBLY sited, to the point of being down right dangerous bank (Try taking your marginally ambulatory mother-in-law into that place in the winter when there is ice and snow) and a gosh awful Taco Bell that is used as much for a cut through to beat the light at the CORNER OF EUCLID and FOREST HILL BLVD.
So I'm not getting what or where this development needs to go in. Your not talking about the park itself are you?
If so, I'd have to vote a major NO!
But those streets that are north east of the intersection of Terrace and Forest Hill Blvd., meaning those streets that run between Terrace and Euclid have a LOT of old boarded up, in some place torn down so there are lots, and / or marginally maintained home. But home of such architectural wonder - all Queen Anne confections of some interesting sort or another - that they should be the target of development, not the actual park land itself. Hope I heard that wrong.
I have no money and no expertise, but my ideas are many. One of which is something I call the 5 by 5 plan. It would require RECRUITING locally, regionally, and nationally a mixture of families of various strips to make a commitment to be BUY, rehab, and remain in 5 houses on 5 adjacent streets / blocks for 5 years. No one goes into a 5 by 5 until you have at least firm clear commitments from at least 3 by 3 for the first year, 4 by 4 the second year, and the final 5 by 5 the third year. Someone recently told me they heard of such a plan in another city and IT WORKED!
You would need to do something like this to create strength in #'s because most of the streets between Euclid and Terrace have a lot of pretty rough characters. It ain't no picnic. One of the 2 streets running toward EC City hall, Beersford I believe, right in front of the police station, rival the horribleness of Hayden. LOTS of vacant or VERY poorly maintained rentals / houses. Seems like the very first place to start a 5 x 5 development plan would be immediately around the present City Hall (which itself needs to be torn down and rebuilt. Ideal location across from Windermere Rapid and adjacent to the Library - to bad that mini shopping plaza / laundry mat is in the way. EC can't afford an imminent domain fight.)
ALSO - as you travel Terrace headed east / north east, especially close to Shaw High, there are sections on blocks, houses next to houses along Terrace itself that are beautifully kept, so there is a history and some bit of a toehold remaining in that section. But most of them are seniors on fixed incomes now. Now's the time to inject some life into the space with a 5 x 5 plan.
FYI - I know you know Norm, but for those that don't - and this does get people confused. Forest Hill BLVD runs more or less North South and is the street you are talking about that intersects Euclid. However, at the intersection of Forest Hill BLVD and Terrace, if you turn LEFT (west south west), Terrace goes one block, intersects SUPERIOR and once it crosses Superior becomes Forest Hill AVENUE. This too is another potential gold mine for a 5 x5 with some MAGNIFICENT grand old houses. In fact, there are a few intrepped souls that already have started rehabing some of the home. One house is getting real cedar shake shingles restored. You ought to know :o)
5X5 and development around Forest Hills Park
I agree with everything you suggest. The 5X5 plan is a good structure to what I have in mind, which is to really dive in to a property in one of these neighborhoods and analyze all the pros and cons of the experience - I have an offer on a house in the neighborhood between Forest Hills Avenue and Euclid I hope will be accepted Monday, in which case I'll start posting about the project. Hopefully that will encourage others to follow. There are lots of great properties in East Cleveland and they are significantly undervalued, especially in consideration of plans for the area.
The 5X5 model sounds interesting. I also think we should try to attract as many artists as possible. I was thinking of a package where we assemble property for artists to live-work that needs rehab - lots of the run down homes can be bought for under $10,000 - salvagable multi-units for under $10,000 per unit... many in the landbank could be had for near-free. Put a vocational training and intern workforce together with the artists to make the properties safe, tight and up to code but no finish work - the artists take them on from there, paying whatever the carrying cost is, which should be under $300 per month per storefront/loft or 2/3 bedroom unit - perhaps up to $500 for a large house. Probably a lease with option to buy - there will be historic tax benefits that must be captured, which may require the buildings be held by an investor group for 5 years before being sold. Perhaps all the residents of the properties could be shareholders in the holding company - the tax details need to be worked out. In any case, it would then be a competition among the artists to see who can trick out their house or unit the best - artists in multi-units would need to work together as a team on outdoor and common art and improvements. Streets would work together on street improvements, community gardens, green spaces, lighting, wifi, etc., and larger neighborhoods would think bigger. The #1 objective would be improvements for all, so the artists would be expected to be catalysts for creative change through their homes and presence there. The desired outcome would be like Ohio City, where homes can be showplaces. There are already many showplace homes in East Cleveland - add more and there will be tour buses driving through as a regional attraction.
And yes, I do think there could be some very intelligent development around some edges of Forest Hills Park that could bring $1,000,000s to park improvements, $1,000,000s to the city in taxes, and bring more of the Rockefeller-estate wealth and stability down the hill from the Heights back to Millionaires Row where it is needed - that will help attract more upscale retail and development all the way along Euclid and drive improvement of the surrounding neighborhoods. That accomplished, and with redevelopment around the east side of East Cleveland, around the Star, then the challenge is to expand redevelopment north into Cleveland, and that will be challenging. Superior and around the park by Rozelle and Eddy are good places to begin.
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I agree with Laura that
I agree with Laura that Forest Hills should be protected, and wonder if the residential development on the east side of Superior were controversial when they were built?
I really do like the concept of a European style-walking street where Forest Hills Blvd cuts through the park. It is a ravine and tree covered; it also has a four-lane road and may be wide enough to develop without removing any trees. It is about 1.5 miles and it would be difficult to develop with out access for residents and businesses. Things like trash removal, deliveries and just residents moving in and out. I think that a two-lane road would create potentially developable strips of land on either side or perhaps just one side?
I am basically looking for locations to add in housing that would be marketed to household incomes of 65K and up. That land could support 1000 units, 1.5 miles is good length and many of the structures could be two to four stories. A thousand residences at 65K or better is at least $1,300,000 in income tax each year. It could be said that the taxes would recuperate the investment in the infrastructure needed that being road reconstruction and utilities access. Once that is done then parcels could be developed and sold by private developers.
Basically developing from the Cleveland Heights border, streets and curbs decorative lighting, I believe the hill is marketable and should be addressed first. Then into Terrace road and the side streets, that is all about historical preservation loans.
Euclid and Superior would be all about business and retail as well as residential, but really needs a good inventory of businesses. Square foot and what rates are currently being paid for the space. Also what is recoverable and what is sacrificial, Superior and Euclid should be addressed with Cleveland and University Circle. It is possible to over build and only so many units can be sold. But the Circle has potential customers that are the market. They want urban eclectic not suburban strip malls, build it and they will come.
If you acquire that piece of property then you will really be stakeholder, for some reason I have had East Cleveland on the brain, I think the forest hills idea could be developed seriously, it could be the starting point.
Let the Park be a Park - PERIOD
I'm not getting it.
Am I envisioning the wrong street, the wrong map, what? But it seems I’m not. If I’m thinking of the wrong location, then as I have asked several times before, someone please tell me to the other wise.
WHY do we NEED to make the park into a housing development - even if it is on the boulevard of Forest Hill Blvd and doesn’t need to take any tree? For WHOSE benefit? Do the people of East Cleveland have any say in this? The people of Cleveland Hts for that matter?
If we can talk about restoring old houses and restoring old factories, and bakeries, and old apartment complexes because of their original and unique qualities, then why are folks shifting on a dime to make Forest Hill Blvd and Forest Hill Park into something it clearly NEVER was?
That is one of the most refreshing and conscious shifting short drives that connects one back to some semblance of nature or takes one away from the insanity of daily modern life if even only for a brief 2 or 3 minutes up or down that hill. Why, oh why do you want to wreck it?!?!?!?!???
Develop Superior at Terrace, Develop Terrace.
It's a gosh awful shame that those two old apartment buildings right there at Superior and Terrace (Forest Hill AVENUE) have gone straight to hell. Back in the day, they were the BHOMB! Who knows what architectural features MIGHT still be left in those buildings, what old growth wood MIGHT be salvaged out of those buildings and re-worked. Go there. Even if you have to tear them down because they are to far gone and then rebuild as close to the style and sensibility of the original apartment buildings.
And don't forget. The citizens of EAST CLEVELAND and Cleveland Hts. have to make that decision about how things are going to be zoned and ordinanced to allow for building on Forest Hill Blvd.
For others OUTSIDE of that community to, on the one side talk about preservation, and claim to be for grassroots collaboration and empowerment, but on the other side glibly talk about fantasies of building apartments and houses on FHBlvd totally devoid of the parks long standing usage and without ANY discussion of what the citizens of EAST CLEVELAND wants is some where between pure folly and sheer arrogant presumptuousness!
LEAVE OUR PARK ALONE !!!!
If you want to do something, consider the suggestions and ideas of other on this board of how we get, for example, Metro Parks to assist with better maintaining Forest Hill Park on the East Cleveland side.
By the way - - When people talk about the views and how lovely it is, and where they have walked through the park, are you talking about the Cleveland Heights side or the East Cleveland side? Every time I go to the East Cleveland side, there are plenty of people using the park, (and NO - they will not mugg you or rob you !) so don't assume East Clevelanders don't enjoy their park, even if we don't have a lot of money to pay for manpower, or the gasoline for tractors and mowers.
Walter's Grove
Here is a link to a message board for a group in Parma. They lost a green space to a developer who was related to a county official. I think that Forest Hills has enough critical mass to protect it from developers. See http://www.fhho.org/ I am not trying to be an alarmist, but always stay vigilant. Dugway Brook has to be the focus of protecting the whole park, because the quality of the park depends on water quality. David Beach wrote an excellent account of the creek. I will try and find it. Susan, can you get him to post it again? Most of Dugway Brook is buried along Forest Hills Blvd on it's way to Lake Erie. Actually, to return to the concept of "boulevard." Cleveland's definition seems to be boulevard=buried creek.
Dugway Brook and Forest Hills
Grant to help preserve lower Dugway Brook
Posted by djmiller [at] plaind [dot] comMay 16, 2007
The Ohio Department of Natural Resources announced this morning that it will receive nearly $2 million in federal funds to help preserve some of the last remaining natural areas along Lake Erie's shore.
The Lake Erie Coastal and Riparian Forest Preserve in Bratenahl will receive $1.014 million to buy 19.5 acres of mature forest, the 100-year floodplain of Dugway Creek and a rare estuary. Old-growth woods are habitat for migrating birds. Total cost of the acquisition is $2.2 million.
Port Clinton and the Trust for Public Land will receive $875,000 to buy 3.4 acres of shoreline, wetlands and coastal marsh.
More info from the Department of Natural Resources
Grant to help create Bratenahl preserve
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Joe Guillen
Plain Dealer Reporter
Bratenahl- Twelve undeveloped acres that border a Lake Erie tributary and are a natural habitat for many plants and animals will be preserved forever thanks in part to a $1 million federal grant.
The money, awarded Wednesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, will allow the village to buy the land and eventually create a larger nature preserve.
In addition to environmental benefits, preserving the land will maintain Bratenahl's desired mix of housing and open areas, Mayor John Licastro said.
"There's no doubt this would've been developed," said Mark Skowronski, director of land protection for the Western Reserve Land Conservancy. "This is highly sought-after-type property."
About $300,000 of the grant will go toward buying the land. The village will use $600,000 of its own money and $250,000 in private donations to complete the deal.
The land, known as the Dale Ross property, is near the Lake Erie shore - north of Lake Shore Boulevard near Corning Drive. It also borders Dugway Creek, which empties into the lake and is home to a vast array of vegetation and creatures, from fish and frogs to migrating birds.
Bratenahl expects to complete the deal by September and to eventually create a 19.5-acre nature preserve called the Lake Erie Coastal and Riparian Forest Preserve.
In a joint effort, Bratenahl, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and the Western Reserve Land Conservancy applied for the grant to defray the $2.2 million cost of buying all the land for the preserve.
The grant's remaining $700,000 will help buy that land. Negotiations with the property owners are ongoing, Licastro said.
This project was one of 17 nationwide and two in Ohio to receive grants through the Coastal and Estuarine Land Conservation Program. In Port Clinton, a plan to acquire 3.4 acres along the city's waterfront received $875,000.
Map of the area: confluence of Dugway with Lake Erie.
Here’s another map of the area from the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District.
A quick look at the following chart tells us that the 2 Combined Sewer Overflow outfalls on the Dugway have these numbers of predicted overflows (per year):
CSO Identification number CSO Location - Description (ESTIMATE)overflows per year
230 DUGWAY BROOK, APPROX. 600' UPSTREAM OF LAKESHORE BLVD. 76
231 DUGWAY BROOK, APPROX. 600' UPSTREAM OF LAKESHORE BLVD. 77
If you move over to the Doan Brook, and take a look at the number of outfalls along its winding path, you might note that the Dugway looks almost pristine. Particularly when considering that Forest Hills Park not having (we hope) the volume of chemical running off it as do the stately Chemlawns of the homes in Shaker and Cleveland Heights, but the brook does originate in the Heights. (Aside: I didn’t know the Doan Brook was a real estate development firm. Did you? with no names and a cell phone number…)
Anyway, Dugway Brook in Forest Hills “A branch of Dugway Brook enters the park on the south side through a large culvert. Above ground for only a short distance, the creek flows sedately over shale, eventually converging with an above-ground tributary. The creek then flows into another large culvert and does not resurface in the park”
I believe one might trace this culvert to the one that flows along in the connector wetland that Cleveland Heights filled in between Cain Park and Cumberland Park – the creek flows through Cumberland Park and then goes under Mayfield Road to enter the south side of the park if it is the one I am assuming it is. From the Cleveland Heights Historical page: “One of the great things about Cleveland Heights is that well over half its residents can walk to a park in 15 minutes or less. Three of those parks (Cain, Cumberland and Forest Hill) are all part of the same watershed: Dugway Brook.
"In 2005 the City of Cleveland Heights offered these services toward the watershed’s maintenance: “Many stormwater issues were addressed in 2005, including a continued survey on Dugway culvert outfalls, stream debris cleaning in Nine Mile Creek, bacteriological analyses of potential sanitary sewage in the storm system, and the completion of the catch basin GPS inventory.
Approximately 33,015 feet of sanitary sewer mains were serviced and 4,750 feet of storm sewers were cleaned. In addition, 1,436 catch basins were cleaned, and 58 inlets and basins were rehabilitated, restored or repaired. All rebuilt basins had new castings installed with the message “Do Not Dump” embossed on it.”
Let’s say thank to the well-to-do of Bratenahl who have the good sense to save the lower Dugway and its floodplain from development. And let’s remember the laws of plumbing and watersheds; _____ flows downhill. Watersheds are our natural geographic concerns and with more and more pavement we are all beginning to learn this. I have posted on this issue before.
Laura -- Thanks for posting the Forest Hills Neighborhood Association site link. I found there their newsletter which had many great stories about the very area (including Terrace Road) we are corresponding about in this thread including one about living in the park. Hope you enjoyed your visit to the park on Sunday.
Dugway Brook
Thanks for the insight. So that is what one sees that feeds under the little stone bridge just to the west of the duck pond.
where is Dugway Brook?
Laura,
David and Marc dug out the Dugway Brook story. A good one indeed, David at his most lyrical; hearkening back to the EcocityCleveland site days. Thanks for asking.
I am sure that the
I am sure that the Metroparks are autonomous, a separate division of the state government. So when you say, “assist in managing the park” that would not be realistic, the parks would certainly be protected from private development, but in reality would be a state park and no longer owned by the city.
Owning the park is an asset but also a liability, great place to enjoy but also it cost to maintain it, rest assured it is safe from development. From the position of the metropark it would also be an asset and a liability, they would be required to do all the maintenance and also patrol the park, it is in their charter. Typically inner city parks are the most expensive, they are patrolled 24x7 and there is quit a bit of infrastructure that exists in that park. The bridge across the ravine would get addressed for sure, the metroparks would have to pay for engineers to look at it and then take action on the recommendations. What they won’t do is say its good enough or that they do not have the money to repair or even, yes, replace it.
East Cleveland is a city in crisis, it has been for what 18 years, if the state never offered to take the park off the cities hand in those 18 years of receivership, why would they now.
If the city made serious consideration as to developing parts of the park, it actually may bring about protection? But that will not stimulate any type of economic recovery.
Regardless to whether a home is abandoned or fully restored, they require the same investment, that being if you want full restoration. If the person buying the abandoned home does not have the financial wherewithal to buy an already restored home then they do not have the wherewithal to restore a home. Well in part a talented person could do the work them selves and save on all the labor, except for roofs and driveway and garages, new electrical upgrades and all the other things that really require a contractor. So when the city has a property in the land bank do they require the receiver to qualify for the cost of restoration? I like the 5X5 concept signing a first right to purchase on a property based on 4 other adjacent homes also being signed. Just because a person can qualify for a 20k or 30k on a dilapidated home does not mean they have enough income to maintain it. I would not finance a home that needed 150K+ in restoration to person that only qualified for 30k. The home will never appreciate; it will never get restored, since the capital to do so does not exist.
Famico is doing it right with Heritage Lane, but the prices are very high 300K for full restored home. So we have to assume that there is some profit in that number, but that represents the highest quality restorations, actually conversions they were duplexes and are now singles.
I would assume that larger than 5X5 would be more attractive to investors, more like 100X100 and qualifications for 250K in restorations.
Low-income homes should be available, but one has to wonder how Victorian mansions ever became low income? I have to think very modest brick town homes with little or no maintenance would be best.
There really needs to be an initiative to get units of new construction that are the least cost and also highly energy efficient. The idea of a poor family heating a large Victorian with a gravity furnace and no insulation is not practical. Then we get into EAP and the costs to subsidize. Not to mention there is no future equity or inheritance value, it’s all a vicious cycle.
The low-end market needs to be very efficient and the same way you could do a 5X5 to qualify restoration you could build lists of qualified residents for low cost homes.
The problem is that qualifications need to be based on financial ability, based on standard methods. Not below a certain income, above a certain income it is a matter of getting the market to meet at a lowest possible price.
Efficiency lowers price, technology and intelligent designs and construction as well as reducing middlemen.
The population breaks out in stratification, addressing all levels is best. You can make assumption about the population, that there are people living in East Cleveland that can afford a 120K home, how many we do not know but some exist for sure. We know this because we know that the median household income includes that level within it dispersion. We also know that a person that can afford a 300K home exist but based on the median they are not likely to be many, those exist outside of the city.
Open spaces make for introducing higher income homes, without interruption or displacing what exits.
I really think that the city needs to educate high school children on personal finance. I believe it should be part of a civics program. These kids need to know what a credit report is and also what an income to dept ratio is before they are 18 and fully understand it before they get into trouble.
Correct me if I am wrong, rewarding fiscal responsibility is a good method to base any urban development policy on? It’s good to chase the carrot, but be careful not to follow it down a hole.
Victorian, qualifying and attracting new
Tell me about it ! … on heating a huge old pre-insulation, single pane windows house. We're hoping to get some major remodeling done on our 1921 (actually my husbands families home) house up and going some time this summer. And yes financing is tricky.
But the 5 x 5 would not necessarily be aimed at the lowest of income folk. There seems to me, and I think that is what you are suggesting, a concerted effort to bring a variety of income levels into home ownership, more or less simultaneously. There are a ton of horribly dilapidated houses that are literally falling down in EC. In addition, there are already, what I call, “scatter shot developments" where a house or two, maybe 4 or 5 occasionally, go into a block or street because an old structure was torn down and a new one put in its place. (I am not a builder, developer or realtor, so I don't know the language, but I'm often puzzled by how and why such "scatter shot developments" work.) These are more modest homes and appear to be geared to lower middle class, emerging families. Standing on the sidewalk and looking in, so to speak, these appear to be starting homes, and can be a place to begin a larger redevelopment process. I just don’t know how coordinated these “scatter shots” really are. I have my doubts.
A couple of examples are in two locations. One batch is on Hayden Ave. directly behind the Windermere RTA station. These houses have been up for about 5 years now. It's a collection of about 7 or so. Another example is currently under construction on Eddy Rd. in Cleveland actually just a stones throw north of Arlington. I believe there are about 5 or 6 of those.
My point being, take down the really unsaveable, and build new construction but affordable - and yes build green, or at least as green as the market can stand. While at the same time recruit for 5 x 5 restoration, financially better off newcomers to the community. As Norm pointed out about a house going for $9,000: While a bit extreme, it might take $175,000 to bring it into some semblance of being both safely livable and restored to some degree, there might be some adventurous types that see potential new growth in an old neighborhood(the early pioneers of that DREADED phenomenon – gentrification). But the new arrivals, financially a bit better off home restorers, also need to see other kinds of change and growth and “newness” which might be on the same block, some of these starter type houses, done green and in keep with the tone of the general architectural style. The 5 x 5 restorations need to be accompanied by, I guess, a 5 x 5 of starters as well. You have a better command of the lingo and the working of the industry than I.
***
As to teaching basic finance as part of the social studies curriculum: Personal finance is part of the state curriculum, and thus is supposed to be required instruction - in the 11th grade. ... Adding to this to-little-to-late, the financial and "legal" burden via NCLB is all on English/Language Arts, and Math. E/LA and Math are the two subjects tested and thus getting the vastly overwhelming majority of "you better teach this or else" mandates from the state and local education bureaucracies.
While there are standards for subject areas, standards do not necessarily mean the subject is tested. And if they are not tested, they don't get the support, the attention, or the $$$ to make anything happen, including not always getting textbooks and related ancillary materials. This year was the first year that social studies began to be phased in for testing. It may begin to see increases in funding and focused teaching. If so, kids might get more instruction in personal finance. At least in the 11th grade. And if social studies is tested, kids will be drilled on it and drilled on it, and in time you might begin to see the kids take social studies / finances seriously. But again, in the 11th grade.
BTW - science is a NON-tested subject also. Yes, like social studies, there are science teachers, and it is being taught, but ALL subjects are being demanded to reconstruct themselves, gear themselves in ways designed to enhances E/LA and math, but not necessarily to support appropriately their own innate standards and intellectual components with as much rigor or serious concern.
That old building next to Jordan Dental
Your right that we need to get people to move in for not only artists in the "studio" sense, but also tech creative types in mixed use.
How do you market campaign that? Locally, regionally, NATIONALLY? What venues allow recruitment / advertisment channels to a variety of different demographic sectors?
How do we also help support people right here right now as well?
I have often wondered about two buildings. I fear one especially might be to far gone. That is the yellowish brick multi-unit with curved balconies and such on Euclid right next door to Jordan Dental (I HATE that big UGLY sign - Yeach). Weeds and vines are growing everywhere stuff is sagging, so I don't know how save-able it is, but that has always felt to me like a GREAT place to have some live / work space that is bit more grand then the typical factory turned loft format.
On Superior about 2 blocks north / north west of the Superior Rapid station, headed towards downtown, is what appears to be a sister / twin multi-unit / row house directly on Superiror. They are seperatly owned units or townhouses, because one occasionally attempts to sell. There are people still living there, mostly elders as I can make out.
But these are just 2 buildings - - and doesn't include my favorite on the corner of Lakeview and Euclid, next to the Marathon station right at the very boundry line of Cleveland / East Cleveland.
Yeah - let's do this.
There is a mansion on Euclid for $9,900
I really like the worn multiunit at Euclid and Lockwood, which is for sale right now, I think for $125,000, and there is a mansion tucked back on the south side of Euclid by Roxbury, which is on the market for $9,900. It needs lots of work but... property is selling in East Cleveland. And if the last property you mention is the one that borders Lakeview Cemetery, I know that one well and the owner's architect was just at the Inner Circle last Friday... I hope that one can be saved too. There are so many amazing buildings in East Cleveland!
Disrupt IT
Lockwood and Euclid
Yep! That's the one!
But tucked back in on Euclid by Roxbury? I'm trying to picture that one. Oh well, I'll have to go check it out. I'm very sure it will need a HUGE amount of work.
I hate that I missed the architect of the building that is right next to Lakeview.
Oh well - next time.
I call EC, indeed almost all of Cleveland and it's inner rings and "HGTV / DIY / This Old House" heaven. A gold mine of all kinds of interesting residential architecture.
South side of Euclid
The house I mentioned is on the south side of Euclid between Farmington and Roxbury. It is obstructed by a very ugly cinder block apartment building on the right, in foreclosure, which should be demolished to give the mansion the room and presence it deserves (and I can only imagine what a beautiful property was already demolished to make room for the cinderblock mess). Here we have one property that is over 100 years old, full of fine wood and fine arts and worth saving, and another one probably only 30 years old, with no redeemable value, ever... in need of demolition and off to landfill, with few if any salvageable materials. Now, imagine Euclid all the way to Public Square with all those great masterpiece building, and none of the modern crap... like imagine University Circle of the past, before the abomination of the most recent many decades, in the hands of poor leaders and planners.
Disrupt IT
idling issue
Well, leisure is based on the individual, I suppose. Sorry you got a headache, Michael.
My sustainable transportation expert friend, Ryan McKenzie of CityWheels says that for later model cars (after 1996) idling is less of an issue once the engine is warm. Now if you're driving a 1967 Chrysler Imperial this may not be the case, but apparently newer cars have fewer emissions once they have warmed up. So the dollars spent to time traffic lights so that traffic keeps moving may have backfired to a certain extent. (Perhaps not when it is addressed from a mental health perspective...) Signal synchronization makes commute times shorter and allows people to live farther and farther out with still extremely short commute times. In the big picture you could say that the money spent to time the lights has encouraged sprawl rather than Transit Oriented Development and has not improved air quality substantially by lessening idling times or auto emissions. Basically idling uses gasoline to no effect -- no forward motion -- it wastes fuel. Best is to slow down, drive the speed limit rather than race forward to the intersection where you must sit and idle. Better is ride the bus or a bike.
Here's a primer: Auto Emissions Fact Sheet found with a quick Google search.
Apparently the average standard commute is 25 minutes; so if you can go farther in 25 minutes, you may well choose a home farther away from your work site. Better is to live near your work. So, I suppose that in order for Superior to become superior it could offer folks a nice affordable safe home to live in near a job. Bike lanes and public transport would improve the air quality more readily than signal synchronization if we are talking infrastructure investments. Then there is driving the speed limit. Mostly in my experience of driving along Superior Avenue, If I am traveling the speed limit, I am not idling at intersections -- at least not very long.
Maybe Ryan will weigh in and educate us.
You do know that all cars
You do know that all cars get better gas mileage when they keep moving it is the starting and the stopping, the acceleration that consumes more fuel and all other factors that are related.
All the main drags in the city need less storefronts, they need more adjacent parking, they need lots of town homes. The endless rows of storefront are a thing of the past, I prefer parking behind or next door. I also like the idea of parallel streets for residents and elimination of the blocks, elimination of so many intersections, less through streets decrease through traffic and increase value. Timing lights is good but maybe we should just get rid of many? Basically making sections, all residential and then an area like Coventry or little Italy, then more residential. Residential enclaves and business districts as far as transit oriented development. Maybe commuter rail should do joint development planning with HUD? We only have a few locations that have train stations that actually have commerce and housing developing in tangent with rail. A good question is do continental employees live on the rail line? Or how many employees of the terminal tower live on the rail line? Maybe we could build 500 units of housing at every train station?
Superior - the originally intended main drag of Cleveland
I seem to recall reading some where - I think at the Western Reserve HS or such - that per the Burnham Plan for downtown Cleveland or Burnham plan trying to respond to the original intent of the layout of Public Square, Superior was actually always intended to be Cleveland's true main street, it's true "Broadway". How it got off kilter, I do not know. If you think about it, it sort of makes a kind of sense seeing that EUCLID was really a major RESIDENTIAL street - only later to become a commercial / business main thoroughfare. And if you look at / think about Public Square, it is Superior that makes THE bisection on a true East / West access - as well as connecting with Ohio City straight shot across the bridge. Euclid comes in at a sort of weird angle.
Long time ago, I posted my admittedly kooky (for most people) idea about Fung Shui, geomancy and energy and Cleveland being laid out and built against itself. I do still wonder if the vibration, the energy, the chi of the city (and related association with the rest of the metro area) can some how be realigned and "corrected" by doing things like returning to the original patterns and flow of the deliberately constructed Public Square and relate to that heart and center of Cleveland.
Not to mention, considering the intention and usage of our Native American predecessors.
HHhhuuummmm ... heart metaphor .... Public Square is the heart, but one of its major valves is choked off, neglected (Superior) and this “heart” has been operating off of just one artery - Euclid. Which is right now ALL jacked up.
... and 9th Street, lined with the majority of all of the major financial and investment and banking institutions in town (or whats left), including the FEDERAL Reserve Bank on the corner of 9th, are on a straight, direct and unobstructed shot DOWN to the lake with NOTHING of major size or substance there to hold, rotate and recycle back UP to the city the chi of its monetary energy. No BIG ships coming and going, no longer LOT's of movement of NEW and different things, people, $$$ coming and going back and forth from the dock to the city. No highly active business(es) generating chi, feeding people, full of activity (Capt. Franks) ON the pier.
(And at the top of the hill sits the now decades vacant - and NOW much in dispute Cleveland Trust BANK - a bank that in its heyday, had even New York take notice and give respect. ... with it Breuer building standing tall but EMPTY.)
Many say Cleveland actually began its decline more in the 40's, but it really, I believe (help me out historians) REALLY started tanking in very noticeable ways, actually SHOWING it's decline, in the mid-to late 60's, maybe 70's. Up until the 60's, mid-60's, people still gave Cleveland it's prop's. But by mid 60's, we were start to get some of that MontheL crap. By the very early 80's, it was real bad.
When did they stop birthing ships at the OLD 9th street pier and when did Capt. Franks get torn down? I. M. Pie's Rock Hall should be a NATURAL cure (glass, reflective, a pyramid) for MAJOR recycling and refreshing that energy BACK UP the hill, but it is off to the side, not directly at the end of the pier.
(Anybody know anything about the history of the design and construction of the Rock Hall? Being Chinese, I wonder if Pie was influenced by, or considering Fung Shui in his design? After all, Cleveland was in serious trouble by the time the Rock Hall was designed and built. It was obvious it needed a cure.)
Currently, aren’t there plans some where for a major water feature / water wall / something, smack dab at the foot of the 9th Street Pier as part of this newest lakefront development plan? Water is a major cure when done right, but it has to be done in a way that reflects the chi back to the city.
ANY WAY - - - Getting back to Superior Ave. It might be worth it to learn the history, the intended original purpose of Superior Ave., and consider working in ways to regenerate that energy back through that major ARTERY into the HEART of Cleveland. And that ARTERY with it's flow of chi / life force, goes directly to East Cleveland and Cleveland Heights and almost to University Heights. Get the old heart pumping again. While I am NOT impressed with this development on 14th between Superior and St. Clair (I think it's going to tank big time), in a weird way its a pointer to the kinds of things needed to bring SUPERIOR back to life.
Ugly as hell though it may be - now - maybe we all should consider using Superior a bit more often to generate our own chi back into the city.
actual usage: Chester and Carnegie
I use Chester and Carnegie (and Pearl and Fulton and Detroit) the most, after the freeway system, and I just don't know how this would fit into the heart metaphor. Perhaps Cleveland has an enlarged heart, bound in by the innerbelt, the valley, and the lake. Using Superior out to East 55th Street feels natural, but after 55th, you wonder what you're doing there, and why you're not someplace else.
Public Square is the heart / metaphor
Good old surveyor Moses Cleavland and Connecticut investors and "company" constructed Public Square in the "good olde" English / New England town square layout. In terms of European expansion, Public Square was THE center of town, the INTENDED loci for all central activities. The outer and inner belts, bridges, freeways etc. came MUCH later. It is Public Square that is the heart / center of the city per its original design.
(Also says something about the due north orientation of Ontario ending, not at City Hall, but the county court house.)
There was a suggestion I believe in the 19th century, to build Cleveland City Hall directly on one of the sides of Public Square, but the citizens, voted it down because of costs. The original city jail was, I believe, where the current Sohio / BP building stands.
Anyone got a map of Public Square? Try Goggling it. When you do, you will see Superior as the east west axis right through the center of Public Square. Euclid comes in at the East / South East at about a 45 deg. angle. Ontario is the due north south asix going through the center of the square, intersecting Superior.
But like I said, it is a METAPHOR, based on the original INTENT of the heart of the city.
HeART of the City
Was one of the district names tried by the StClair Superior group. I don't know which moniker they actually settled on for the design district. Alenka???
The Avenue District has
The Avenue District has pre-construction sales, some for over three quarters of a million dollars.
Zaremba knows what it is doing.
I never heard of Superior referred to as Broadway? Broadway to most mean theatre, the theatre always has been on Euclid. The entertainment industry which is more like Hollywood was concentrated around Payne Ave, the old Warner Brothers building I believe still stands.
Pei’s work is nonconforming; to apply feng shui to his work would represent conformity. His work in Asia actually was anti-feng shui and tormented traditionalists.
Superior is not that unique for a Main Street, row and rows of storefronts, they were for a walking community and often owner occupied. The strip malls and big boxes, highways and the affordability of automobiles, put them out of business.
Storefront occupancy is low, too many and not enough businesses. This made the value fall some where converted to living spaces, boarded up and an apartments built in. Poverty and crime, theft is still an issue a big issue for business owners. When you get to a certain point you cannot compete with the corporations, then you close. If you get in your car and drive to the mall then that’s it, you know the behavior that put the shoe store out of business. Patronizing local business is smart and good for the community.
Storefronts will never fully occupy any street again to the volume they once did, unless laws are passed that restrict wholesale from being owned by retail. That would say that K-Mart could buy in volume but could not sell direct they could only sell to local private stores. The entire departments of a K-mart would become separate stores, giant wholesalers and independent retailers buying out of inventory. That will never happen.
But store fronts do succeed if they are in a collection or district, the remaining spaces could be residential and green, that being having set backs and trees, landscaping. Consolidation?
Also parking is important, many of the main streets do not have enough depth public parking is important, look at Cedar Lee and also Coventry and Cedar Fairmont.
I like courts that run parallel to main streets that should be set back behind parking and have green buffers or decorative fencing or brick walls, separating residential traffic from the business district.
Main Street
Storefronts
Parking
Green space
New parallel road
-------------- -------------- ---------------- -------------
Block Block Block Block
Reduced through traffic increases property value quieter streets.
Storefronts and residential units can be rebuilt with better set backs and in some cases side parking lots, but it all has to have a good look and feel. Good examples are Crocker Park, Eaton Collection and legacy village, from a building designs standpoint. Maybe not that ornate, but something to aspire to. Integrating with existing structures, which would be renovated. If it is a poor neighborhood it need local police patrols on foot and in force, as well as be monitored with security cameras.
Beauty is in the eye of the
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder (and as Hunter Morrison said Friday, Breuer is an acquired taste -- like a dry martini). I prefer to go forward and remain back mixing old with new, not trying to make new look like it is copying old. I like the idea of a brand spanking new awesome modern building next to a lovingly restored old one. I prefer this in residential as well as commercial districts. However, that said, there is good and bad architecture. A big box store is not good architecture (usually not green built either). I would love to see modern green home going in as infill in the urban spaces next to the old homes and apartment buildings.
I think Eaton, Legacy and Crocker are hideous. Celebration, Florida is a cover for the raping and pillaging of other coastal communities by the St. Joe Company. It is also a cover for the fact that if Disney says they envision "new urbanist" principles they can ward off allowing homes for their low wage workers as they are doing in Anaheim, California.
Mixed income development has to be smart. We need to clean out what can't be saved (deconstruct it if possible), take stock of what can be saved and reused and plan from there. As Norm says, some of this land just needs to go back to nature. Other areas can build density. When they build, I do hope that the Design Review Board of the City of Cleveland can make room for some new, green modernist designs. I am tiring of the Paul Volpe stock design that he has tossed up in so many communities, and I'm ready for some more innovation coming out of City Architecture, but in general, container homes, Katrina Homes and many more new innovative affordable homes could add to the architectural interest of our community. Please -- no more remakes of what our predecessors could build before sustainable forestry came into existence.
I love my wood work in my 1917 Cleveland Heights home, but I would never be able to reproduce it, and a 2007 remake would be a shadow of a replica. Most of these Rysar, Pulte, Tesco homes are just that -- tacky wannbes. I don't think we need to worry about too many more of these going in since apparently Tesco already left the market, Pulte is pulling out and Ken Lurie has laid off most of his construction crew.
Then there's Cleveland Housing Network
This is what I mean by tacky. IMHO
They want $272,000.00 for this one in North Collinwood! Yech!
This is smaller, but a better design IMHO
Katrina Cottages
This is nice and modern and green...
Michelle Kaufman Designs
Why not break out and try something new, something green and affordable?
Well we share that, some of
Well we share that, some of it anyway, but I would not go so far as to say the use of interesting facades and attempting to recreate streetscapes, stores with living spaces above them as hideous, to strong of a negative for something that is replacing the old strip malls. What they did with Crocker Park and Legacy Village are contrived I’ll give you that, but not hideous. In particular I like the Crate&Barrel and the Cheese Cake Factory at Legacy, for me it all about the elements. I like the Golds Gym at Crocker, no pictures on line that I can find though, only this rendering, which does not do it justice, its yellow brick with limestone trim.
Is this hideous? Teak benches and paper birches, avant-garde chess sculpture.
Some of Legacy and Eaton are garish, but Crocker is not so garish on Main Street it looks like a city street, the busses run down Main Street.
I think about prefabs, I think it is a viable way to create a large amount of housing.
This was an approach that took place in Montreal I believe; I think it was for the expo in 76? the alst home on your list is prefab, it got me thinking.
Low income housing. Minimum wagers could afford this; they could even afford to paint it. Low maintenance! Also interesting small flats.
These sold out fast!
Interesting and yeas it could be on the same blocks as this home This as well.
Residential infill on a city street yes it is old but it could easily be reproduced.
Architectural styles can be mixed if all are well done, but when they mix strip malls and old buildings and suburban style homes it is unsettling.
It’s all about what a person wants, if they do not like landscaping then they should not have a yard, if they do then they could buy this. Low income or high income, it should not matter but people should own the home and be responsible for it. If you can not afford the maintenance you should not own it.
Walking streets (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
I like walking street and robotic garages, most of what gets built in the local areas is contrived it has elements sometimes but mostly it is lacking.
I like Avalon Station its ok, the development in Shaker and in Cleveland Heights are better than the ones going into Cleveland, it all about higher standards.
Really nice examples...
There are lots of great images and ideas linked here, and your points are well taken. There are so many interesting ways to design and build homes and neighborhoods. As I'm looking to move into a 102 year old house in East Cleveland, still standing proud and strong and looking beautiful after a century, I wonder what of today's designs and construction will survive and matter for even a decade... especially out in the 'burbs. What I want to see in NEO is some of the great insight raised at the recent "Green Affordable Housing" exhibition put into practice, as it has never been done before.
BTW - I love the rendering of Gold's Gym only for the Hummer they chose to put in the imaginary parking lot... that says it all, to me.
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I did not notice the Hummer,
I did not notice the Hummer, funny. We should not lose sight of the idea that a person could live and work and exercise all within one community. We have no data; we do not know if the person living in the community has a smaller carbon footprint, recycles basically doing the right thing. It all has to do with a smaller circle, and efficiency.
To me affordable housing are homes that can be purchased at the lowest wage possible. It has much to do with a living wage. Like an equation one side is the cost of the home the other is the wage earned, if they are equal then that should be the benchmark. It would need to be well defined and well known, the criteria detailed and how to attain it.
It has much to do with thinking outside the box, but also ruled by principles of economics and finance.
$7.25 per hr for 40hrs = $65,000.00 (3.5% @ 30yrs)
$290.00 = $290.00
It has been said that the amount of your gross weekly earnings is the maximum you can afford, and it is true. With out any other dept structure, a person making $7.25 per hour can qualify for a 65K loan.
In North Eastern Ohio construction is at $100.00 per sq ft. That gives you 650 sq ft of living space. But that also includes a basement; the factor includes a basement, but does not count the basement as sq footage. It is actually 1300 if you do.
If the homes were prefabricated then the factor drops with efficiency, and then you get a variance, if you lower costs to say $90.00 then you have either profit or use higher quality material.
The only thing that is fantasy is that 3.5% interest rate does not exist, well actually the county offers it but not for building homes, they offer it for business loans. Also many are not dept free, many have low credit scores. Also the cost of the factory and land to build on has to be granted, there is not money to cover that in the example.
Many of these older homes that may be at the end of their lives have some valuable millwork in them, before demolition much of what is in them that is oak should be salvaged and reused.
That is a lot of industry if you think about it, demolishing crew, salvage crew, salvage warehouses, new home factories, new home supply networks.
This does not happen because it threatens the construction industry and also the banking industry. It also threatens those that believe that every thing is historically significant. It also gets complicated all the preconceptions and generalizations. Some imagine rows of trailer park type homes, the nice thing about prefab would be that you can pre-approve designs and also the material and constructions are very consistent. The use of manufacturing technologies controls quality and makes for faster construction at the site.
A single person making minimum wage could afford a new home.
If a city searched for a manufacturer of homes and abated them to build a factory locally would they? Could that city guarantee them consistent business, could all the pricing be set up front. Could all the designs be pre-approved? Could the entire supply chain be based locally?
I think the fed should sponsor a one-time homeowner loan, for any construction out of the factory. That could serve as a way to regulate housing supply as well as monetary supply. Banks could be included; they could require accounts and direct deposit. They could direct withdrawals and basically prevent financial problems. They could and should restrict credit access, since the base level cannot and should not have open access to credit.
We have a lot of dumb legacy systems in this country. The government needs to ensure that supply meets demand at the lowest level and then the rest of the market will adjust around that.
Is this a scary socialist idea?
A side note, all the qualifiers such as healthcare, under 15,800 get full healthcare through metro and also are entitled for a full Pell Grant and also qualified for the earned income tax credit. So a person could be financially independent and upwardly mobile.
I like to adress things at the individual level, I like the idea of empowering individuals.
Metaphors and taking things to literal
You probably know more about the Avenue, etc. than I do. Just my gut intuition. Also - I'm more concerned about affordable housing for average workers than "high rent district" stuff.
My use of "Broadway" has nothing to do with the kinds of business positioned on it, and everything to do with it being a Broad - way, a main drag, a major throughfare.
Thanks for your in-sight and correction on my stated and admitted speculation about I. M. Pei.
RIP Turkey
You do know that the turkey has long since been dead, right. We had a blast while he was around. Stopping traffic and attacking cars. He would NOT move from in front of mine and had even the 'hood boys crackin' up and take pictures with their cell phones. Amazingly, people tried to protect that mean as h*ll bird. Saw him take off trying to attack a guy on a bicycle one day. That bird was scared of nobody nor nothing. Probably what got him killed. But he lived on the East Cleveland side. Contrary to the typical mis-reporting of the local TV media. We got to know which street and what house he tended to nest in, and it was EC.
N-links is and
N-links is and embracement, and ranks high in goggle searches. Its been addressed with CSU who is responsible for it, they have added no new content in 3years! They say it is a lack of funding. NeighborhoodLink
A tour route could include the section of East Blvd, from Parkgate Ave, interesting streets are through that area, and some would be surprised at the number of homes that have been restored.
Shakespeare Pky, North Blvd, South Blvd, Westchester, follow any of them through to East 105th and then take East 105 south to Wade Park, east on Wade Park. Then stop at the Inner Circle? It’s at the end of Wade Park.
975 East Boulevard S/L 9
975 East Boulevard
S/L 9 Superior Avenue
still don't know what s/l 9 refers to. I have to assume it is in the neighborhood of MLK.
south side of superior east
south side of superior east of MLK, they have some built already.
http://realtyone.realliving.com/Property/Details.aspx?PropID=5102811
Rockefeller Park is Cleveland's Central Park
Walk and Roll Cleveland's summer events in Rockefeller Park are the perfect time to revisit the grandeur of East Blvd. The Greenhouse is spectacular and the cultural gardens along East Blvd are an oasis. (Which begs the question ???)
Why not just live closer?
Why not just live in the area? People are moving to the city , they are buying homes around University Circle and they should, it is great area. They are building off the circle. Along the park, it’s picturesque.
Case Westerns campus now reaches through to Wade Park and the home are nice on that street all the way through to Ashbury, East 105th is getting facelift, heritage lane and Ashbury run.
Heritage Lane
I see the zip code 44108 as a great area of the city, but it needs investment, it needs large scale and comprehensive investment. 44108
These streets are right next to the Park they are connectors between East Blvd and East 105th. Minutes from the Circle downtown and the lake.
South Blvd
South Blvd
North Blvd
Need to reach critical masses
No doubt there are many great streets of historic homes, near amazing green spaces on the East Side. Driving development north from University Circle and outward from MLK in both directions is moving nicely - we need to accelerate appreciation in the region for the excellence of this area. Many challenges to redeveloping historic property and historic neighborhoods - we need to become much better at that here in Cleveland - need workforce development for building rehab and recycling - better control of lead and other toxins - as we must preserve as much of the historic building stock of Cleveland as possible - it is much of what makes this a unique place.
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North and South Blvds are
North and South Blvds are hardly connectors. They are not engineered for throughfare traffic (hell, North Blvd is one-way from E. 105th to E. 99th). My mother lives in a really cool duplex right at the corner of E. 99th and North Blvd.
Instead of Apartments, how about Walk and Roll Forest Hill
Here's a thought, while it is a bit steep, what about some version of Walk and Roll for Forest Hill Blvd that runs through Forest Hill Park as a way of bringing som positive attention and increased useage to the park and area? Maybe a means of jump starting volunteering for the Park itself.
That's a case of lying
That's a case of lying statistics. There's nothing mixed about 44108 and anyone who has gone there would know that. This is what's wrong with the housing market today. If there is a bigger FAILURE as a market, I haven't seen it.
I-90 destroyed that area...going up E. 105th under the railway/I-90 bridge is like night and day.
Get on the bus
One corridor that could and should be improved immediately would be Martin Luther King Blvd. The 50 takes this route (for the most part) across town from University Circle Rapid Station to West 117th/Madison Rapid Station. The route has great scenic potential and would drop out of town visitors off at Luke Easter Park (former Woodland Hills Park), the Metroparks Zoo and Cuyahoga Valley Towpath Trail. Out of self-interest, I would like to see RTA improve the service time on this route by eliminating the Miles loop (which should be serviced by a circulator) and adding another bus on the line to improve frequency. And call me crazy, but here is another loopy idea--start a docent program that would put retirees or aficionados on the most scenic RTA lines as conductors to assist the driver and serve as the local history answer person for anyone using the line to get from one destination to another.
...Sign me up as a docent (as soon as I can retire). I was a tour guide at the zoo in high school and I would love to be a tour guide for Cleveland, if and when, we ever get our act together. I rode a bus recently with UCI's Chris Ronayne as the tour guide--and this idea occured to me. He's a damned good tour guide, who knows his local history inside and out. So, it surprises me to see the Opportunity Corridor on UCI's agenda. Give some more bus tours Chris--and make our planners give some bus tours, too. Maybe then, they will have an appreciation for the untapped resources in our community.
RTA Presents Scenic NEO, by bus, train, bike and foot
This is a great idea, but add virtual tours. For each route, there could be many conductors - from kids to old timers, back to the trolley days, telling stories of their streets and neighborhoods. They have something like this for the Subway Tour exhibit, where they show old footage along many routes. What is produced for each route, which will actually be many video streams and galleries of stills, like graffiti, architectural highlights, churches, public art, etc could be shown on monitors on the bus as well - it shouldn't take long to assemble enough content for each route to always keep the stream fresh - offer it on-line too. Basically, what this proposes is that real neighborhoods develop stronger virtual neighborhood resources and identities - work better with institutions like RTA - leverage localized rich content to define the identity of their communities.
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Graffiti artists wanted... for their art
One of the real untapped potentials of the arts economy in NEO is to celebrate our urban artists, which include the generations of underground aerosol artists who make our back road travels so much more colorful and interesting. As one RTA feature, there should be graffiti art zones along each route, and the work should be acknowledged in literature on the bus/train and on the RTA virtual tour site.
More immediate, as an interesting educational activity to host at the Star Complex, during our open houses, I'd love to have a few aerosol artists demonstrate their art - we could dedicate a wall for this and/or provide some movable panels the artists could paint on, which could then be exhibited and sold. I'd like to see a combination of the two. Spread the word and if you know any such artists who would like to do something public, have them get in touch with me at norm [at] realneo [dot] us
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