Hotel Bruce

Welcome to the Bruce blog—a weekly update on news, events and issues affecting life in Cleveland. Reporting as it happens on transit, development, planning, environment and arts & culture.

Basically, we write about creative ideas forming, talk to the people who have an inside track on the issues, and sometimes offer a commentary of our own. (For disclosure purposes, Bruce blog is a local, independent writer who also works part-time with nonprofit organization EcoCity Cleveland. The opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of EcoCity or any other organization).

The Flying Turns. The Rocket. Humphrey’s popcorn balls. We’ve all heard the stories and some are old enough to have visited Euclid Beach Park, the amusement park by the lake in Euclid that closed in 1969. The park still has it enthusiasts and a fan club called the Euclid Beach Park Nuts, formed by the David Humphrey Scott, which is dedicated to keeping the memory alive. Or, in some cases, actual pieces of the park.

Before he died, Humphrey spearheaded an effort to buy back the park’s carrousel, and now the Nuts, along with Cindy Barber, co-owner of Beachland Ballroom, Barb Clint at Parkworks and Northeast Shores Development Corp. Director Brian Friedman are working to get it up and running again at its original location. A few hurdles exist for the group. But first, a little background on how they got this far.

Somehow, the carrousel ended up at a park in Old Orchard Beach, Maine. Six years ago when it came up for auction, the Nuts enlisted the help of Clint, then with the Trust for Public Land, to pony up the money to buy it. They restored the 54 horses and 2 carriages, but then TPL handed the carrousel over to Cleveland Tomorrow. The corporate honchos, with Mike White’s blessing, wanted to locate the carrousel at Voinovich Park, but that dream died along with White’s ‘Navy Pier’. With current merger discussions between the Growth Association and Cleveland Tomorrow, their appetite for managing fundraising for and construction of a year round building in which to set up the carrousel seems to be waning, Clint says. Meanwhile, KSU's Urban Design Center drew up plans that show the carrousel at the original location, which is now a parking lot and community playground at the Cleveland Lakefront State Park-Euclid Beach unit.

The group is working on a number of fronts at once, including getting permission from the state to take some parking to cite the carrousel and asking Cleveland Tomorrow to donate it to them. Even more thorny, KSU’s larger plan calls for a relocated state park entrance and the elimination of low-rise townhouses and relocation of their residents. The plan’s advocates are anticipating resistance from the residents and hope that the carrousel curries some public favor. Stay tuned.

The eight-member Ohio House Subcommittee on Growth & Land Use studying state expenditures on transportation and how tax policies are affecting patterns of growth held a hearing in Cleveland last week. At question is whether the state is helping to finance land-use inefficiencies such as urban sprawl. Led by Republican Rep. Larry Wolpert, who hails from Columbus suburb Hilliard, the committee heard testimony from Cleveland area elected officials and non-governmental organizations alike.

Lakewood mayor Madeline Cain opened with a criticism of state transportation spending, saying it has forced inner-ring suburbs to bear more of the cost of redevelopment by leaving little choice but to offer more tax incentives to developers. "The schools end up paying for the (urban) development because the state of Ohio has fueled those highways, which has fueled disinvestment," Cain said. "If you look at the transportation budget as an economic development budget, then we need to level the playing field. Every time you build another lane or interchange, think, where is the comparable investment in the inner-ring suburbs?"

Wolpert asked Cain for her response to private developers funding highway interchanges, such as Polaris, north of Columbus. Cain replied that the state still completely subsidizes new highway lanes, making it easy for suburbanites to commute tens of miles from the city to the far suburbs.

Tom Yablonsky, of Downtown Ohio, testified that the Warehouse District is an urban revitalization success story, and recommended that the state create a historic tax incentive program to encourage more. "Redevelopment is sometimes invisible," he said. "We had $700 million invested in the Warehouse District but it happened behind walls that are already there. Now, the city no longer has to subsidize redevelopment in the Warehouse District."

Housing developer and HBA board member Gordon Premier remarked that housing redevelopment has been spurred by people seeking quality and authenticity in community—and high-end housing. He urged the state to consider using brownfield clean up funds for residential projects.

Tim Mueller, Cleveland’s chief development officer, echoed Cain, saying that urban sprawl is exacerbated by infrastructure funding, such as the widening of I-71. "Every dollar spent in infrastructure winds up equaling another dollar to repair the damage done to the urban core," he said. "Our silver bullet is to be part of the grittier urban environment that the creative class wants." Mueller saved his harshest vitriol for suburbanites. "We built you new museums, a new Tower City, and new stadiums. Give us a mite out of your adjusted gross (revenue) for God’s sake...suburbanites end up being freeloaders."

Just when you’re starting to feel like a self-selected urban martyr, you walk through the tree-lined streets filled with stately homes in Cleveland Heights and listen to an inspired speech by William Hudnut, the former mayor of Indianapolis, once a minister, and now a research fellow at the Urban Land Institute. Hudnut’s straight shooting presentation about the assets in the inner-ring is downright inspiring.

Hudnut veered a capacity crowd at St. Paul’s Church toward depression with stats about how poverty has migrated from the core city to the inner ring suburbs. And that first suburbs are in danger of ‘ghettoization’ because they’re leapfrogged by those fleeing the city (heading to the far suburbs) and by those hipsters moving back to the city looking for the gritty urban experience.

But he also offered hope, testifying about what first suburbs are doing to pull themselves up. "I believe in what I call urban acupuncture—make lots of little changes," said Hudnut, standing tall in a gray suit and a shock of white hair. The gist of his ‘sermon’ was just get out there and create. "Think small. Plant flowers, trees, small businesses, business incubators. They all knit into the urban fabric," he said. "Invite urban pioneers to open studios in your empty storefronts. We’re going to have 60 million new immigrants over the next decade; show them that they have a place here."