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).

Recapping some of the top stories that appeared in Hotel Bruce and the Bruce blog in 2004 and which we hope spark a greater interest in sustainable development and urban- cultural issues.

Independent retailers, it seemed, had a very hard year keeping their doors open. And as a result, the eclectic mix in Cleveland’s neighborhood shopping centers took a hard hit. Bruce blog kept vigil over the dozens of great Cleveland retail institutions that, for one reason (category killers?) or another, were sunk in 2004.

Cleveland will make at least one of its new schools an environmental or ‘green building’ showcase. Bruce blog was the first to report that the Cleveland Municipal School District— which will spend $1.2 billion over the next 10 years to renovate or build new schools—has agreed to be a partner in building Charles Lake Elementary School in Glenville using environmental design principles. But, with the ax dropping on Cleveland Green Building Coalition’s Green Schools’ coordinator, Tim Goler, a big unanswered question remains: Who will guide the process and make sure it meets nationwide green standards?

It takes more than a commitment of money to save the pockets of remaining urban forests in Northeast Ohio (although cash doesn’t hurt). We all know that trees and wildlife don’t protect themselves, but, sometimes they are saved despite the odds.

All the evidence that, left to the normal devices, urban forests and green space will be consumed by sprawl development, can be seen on the border of Beachwood and Pepper Pike. Acres of those cities’ last stands of forest were felled for a low density, exclusive housing development called Sterling Lakes, and for a giant synagogue being built by Park Synagogue in '04. The latter benefited from a sieve like Ohio EPA permitting process (it was granted approval even though it will negatively impact the Chagrin River Watershed). The former was the untouched woods that retired attorney, long time environmental champion and Pepper Pike resident Stanley Adelstein argued in front of the Ohio Supreme Court in the 1980s that we should save.

With all the wealth located in this part of town, it’s shameful that no one had the foresight or that Pepper Pike and Beachwood—which have surpluses of tax revenue—couldn’t commit a dime to protecting this forest. They could take a lesson from Parma.

That’s right, Parma (along with Seven Hills and Brooklyn) residents, with the help of Congressman Dennis Kucinich, during the last few years stood up to the Wolsteins, who were ready to tear down that city’s last forest and open space for a big box development. The group formed the West Creek Preservation Committee and, with state and private money, created a 300-acre nature preserve right in the heart of the west suburbs. See for yourself—it's rich with oak-hickory and beech-maple trees, wetlands, 150 bird species and tributary waters of the Cuyahoga River.

The group is currently in a planning process with the Cleveland Metroparks, who has expressed serious interest in maintaining the park as part of the region’s Emerald Necklace. It’s a story of perseverance and hope. For more info, email.

Ohio’s lawmakers, aided and abetted by a group who holds extreme views on private property, almost stole Ohio’s shoreline beaches from millions in the state this year. House Bill 218 proposed moving the private property line for homeowners with property on Lake Erie to below the historic high water mark. In effect, it would have meant everyone else walking on the beach would be trespassing. The bill, opposed by a coalition of environmentalists, flew through the Ohio House. But, the Senate version was mercifully stalled in committee after a number of well respected naturalists and lawyers testified that the bill trampled on the rights of citizens to use this land, which the state is entrusted to protect.

The airing of grievances might be more than a Festivus tradition—it also works when you’re a small environmental group faced with the possibility that your project is going to be dropped. When it learned that the city of Cleveland was trying to backpedal from its promise of making Dike 14—an 88-acre peninsula jutting into Lake Erie from the end of MLK Boulevard—into a nature preserve, the citizen’s Dike 14 Committee went on the attack. It sent out word that “Dike 14 was recently dropped from the city's comprehensive lakefront planning process...and that there seem to be proposals and discussions going forward to re-open Dike 14 to the deposit of additional polluted dredgings.” Mayor Campbell, who promised to make Dike 14 and Edgewater parks the bookends in her (recently approved) Lakefront Plan, responded by writing a letter of support for Dike 14 as a park and having her planning department apply for an Ohio Coastal Management grant to study current soil conditions and to develop plans for future use for Dike 14 and Gordon Park.

Speaking of the little guys prevailing…the ongoing saga to designate a bike lane in the now under construction Euclid Corridor had more turns and cliffhangers than a Rocky & Bullwinkle episode. Except here, our entrepid pair was Ryan McKenzie of EcoCity Cleveland and Marty Cader at Cleveland City Planning Department. First, Ohio Department of Transportation officials wanted to kill Ohio’s potential first urban bike lane because… well…they had never seen anything like it.

The duo patiently provided examples and specifications of how bike lanes work. Despite looking grim at times, the fight over bike lanes actually led to the city of Cleveland adopting its very own street design guidelines (modeled on Chicago’s) to ensure that it maintains local control over these questions. Although, the official bike lane designation is still in question and the verbal promise could use a written one to back it up, the higher ups at the city and RTA have promised that cyclists will have a special place in the Euclid Corridor. (Honorable mention: The Detroit-Superior Bridge pedestrian promenade fracas).

And speaking of the Euclid Corridor—Bruce blog was perhaps the first publication in town to herald the return of Midtown Cleveland, a sleeping giant that we’re so sure will be the focus of a redevelopment efforts, that we incessantly blogged it. And we focused an entire issue presenting ideas on how things might look. We commissioned a design to create a mixed-use district in Midtown that plays off existing assets like the warehouse spaces and older ones like reclaimed green space. Our team of urban planner & public artist shared an inspiring plan that enhances the gourmet foods aspects, and we offer a look at the market realities that either stand in the way or frame the rebuilding efforts.

It seems as though the local business development association took the Hotel Bruce issue as inspiration, because soon after its release, Midtown Cleveland announced it had secured a grant to study a mixed-use development and now heralds the idea on its Web site.

After devoting a serious amount of column inches in 2003 to the efforts toward bringing wind turbines to Cleveland, Bruce Blog reported on a study that looked at the feasibility of turbines on Lake Erie. Despite the knocks against them (like altering surface temperatures, affecting bird populations, and, apparently some people don’t like the way they look), wind turbines are a clean source of energy that isn’t reliant on Saudi oil.

The biggest economic issue affecting the future of Cleveland is distribution of wealth and resources. Amidst disturbing news that we’re the poorest big city in the nation, an examination of state and local policies and lack of regional tax sharing may offer some explanation of how we got here. When we allow the state to subsidize the development of greenfields through road & infrastructure development and highway interchanges to the suburbs, it brings about geographic disparities—the whole region pays for the wealthiest to have bright and shiny new shopping malls like Legacy Village and Crocker Park.

Meanwhile, a population of urbanites who choose to live and shop downtown increasingly have their options diminished. Witness the state of Tower City, which had a record breaking year in retail in 2004, but lost mainstays like Banana Republic and J. Crew soon to follow (the latter moving to Crocker Park). Where’s the indignation for how Forest City is managing Tower City from city of Cleveland officials like Councilman Joe Cimperman?

Hotel Bruce was the first to report on Ohio City Near West Development Corp.’s groundbreaking decision to remove an historic emphasis on affordable housing from its mission. The current issue's article examines a changing neighborhood—home to some of the city’s most committed activists for affordable housing who, ironically, stabilized Ohio City and, some would argue, set the stage for it to be gentrified.

In order to stem the flood of speculative subdivision housing on farmland, states like Ohio offer incentives to protect farmlands. They include purchase and the transfer of development rights, which allow higher-than-normal development densities in some parts of a community in exchange for preserving land in other parts. Purchase of development rights programs include Ohio’s $25 million Agricultural Easement Purchase Program (AEPP), which granted $6 million last year to pay farmers to permanently sell the rights to develop their land.

Unfortunately, faced with budgetary shortfalls, Ohio Governor Bob Taft announced last month that he would slash the Clean Ohio Fund (which supports AEPP) in half. It may be too late to stop the move, but expressing displeasure at eviscerating the state’s de facto sustainable development fund—it’s never too late for that.

What was your favorite moment at Hotel Bruce and/or the Bruce blog in 2004? Email us your comment.