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).

Hand-wringers of the so-called Quiet Crisis might be a little less anxious once they hear about Cleveland Heights native Lisa Kious' plans. Kious is creating affordable housing as director of housing for a non-profit, community development corporation in Seattle—but not for much longer. Although she’s enjoyed living in a city that’s hyped to be a lot hipper than Cleveland, Kious is leaving the Latte Capital for the Rust Belt

She doesn’t have a job yet, but that hasn't deterred Kious from coming home—with her boyfriend (a non-native) and a sense of optimism. She’s fairly confident that her connections here (a master’s degree in Urban Planning and her family still lives in Cleveland) will make it easier to find a job here than when she moved to Seattle during its boom.

Recently, Lee Chilcote caught up with Lisa Kious to chat about why she’s leaving Seattle, what’s pulling her back to Cleveland.

Read the full article...

A delegation of green building advocates from around the state testified last week before the Ohio Assembly, which is considering a bill to construct all new state-funded buildings using ‘green’ technologies. In this case, green means the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED program, a voluntary system that awards points for such things as rebuilding on site, using recycled materials, renewable energy systems like geothermal wells—systems that are already in buildings such as the Cleveland Environmental Center, the Lewis Environmental Center in Oberlin and President Bush's ranch in Texas.

According to one delegate, opposition to the bill has come from a petrochemical/plastics group, and from a group preferring that the LEED system be adopted as policy by the board of building standards rather than legislated. Proponents are hopeful that a rise in popularity as well as the promise of operating cost savings will help their arguments. They also point to similar green building legislation that has passed in Maryland, Maine, New Jersey and other states and say that this law will save money and stimulate Ohio's flagging economy.

“Part of what we're trying to get across is that green buildings cost very little (if any) more, and will operate less expensively,” says Melanie Kintner, education director for the Cleveland Green Building Coalition. “It would just be another requirement, like complying with the Americans with Disabilities Act.”

If the bill becomes law, it would then come down to the administration of the state to figure out how to green the state's buildings. For example, the state could mandate that schools, become green, but the Ohio Schools Facilities Commission is currently a roadblock to putting it into practice. The commission’s guidelines set a limit to how much the state will spend on each school. Greening a new school can add up to a 6 percent premium to construction, according to a local architect working on a school project. Yet, states such as Pennsylvania have slipped this block by legislating that school districts can borrow additional funds to build green based on the projected savings from energy providers.

In addition to Kintner, Cleveland architects Bill Doty and Rick Parker, Columbus architect (and registered Republican) Doug Moody, and a representative from Turner Construction spoke before the committee on Homeland Security, Engineering and Architectural Design, chaired by Rep. Michael Skindell. To email Skindell’s office with supporting testimony.

The following call for entries is for the Raw Materials section of Hotel Bruce’s Spring issue.
Theme: Summer Lovin'
The mercury's rising and the days are a long bask in the sun. Summer's here and the kids are all right. Show us the wet hot American summer things that inspire your work. Send up to three web-ready jpegs, an artist resume and a paragraph relating to the theme to amber@hotelbruce.com. Submissions must be received by May 31, 2004.

As Americans get older and less mobile, where they live starts to trap and isolate them. The Surface Transportation Policy Project (STPP), a respected nonprofit in Washington D.C., and AARP released a study that shows more than half of nondrivers past the age of 65 stay at home.

The reasons (besides personal health), is that most seniors are living in places that don't have adequate public transit or are zoned and built in a way that favors the automobile. For example, zoning in suburbs often places buildings far back from sidewalks so that a large parking lot is the walkup to stores. Add to that wider roads, and Americans age 65 and older end up making only eight percent of their trips by walking.

Street safety is cited as a major problem. In a recent STPP poll, 42 percent of Americans reported that dangerous intersections make crossing the street difficult where they live.

To read the "Aging Americans: Stranded Without Options" report.

Bruce blog was once again contemplating ways in which urban outposts such as Midtown can fulfill their fate when we came across the standout Winter 2004 edition of the Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative newsletter. In it, UDC director Ruth Durack addresses ‘landscape urbanism’—a movement toward reseeding long abandoned urban areas like Midtown or Central (where some pockets have been abandoned so long that nature is voluntarily taking back the land and sometimes the streets) with native ecosystems.

This radically simple approach is summed in a quote from urbanist Grahame Shane, who writes in Harvard Design Magazine: “This reversal of normal processes opens the way for a new hybrid urbanism, with dense clusters of activity and the reconstitution of the natural ecology, starting a more ecologically balanced, inner-city urban form in the void.”

Read Durack’s full article

Bruce blog read in Cleveland Neighborhood News, the first-rate, new e-newsletter from Cleveland Neighborhood Development Coalition, that The City of Cleveland invested $8.2 million in 77 storefronts throughout Cleveland last year. For 20 years now, the Storefront Renovation Program has provided businesses and property owners financial assistance to rehabilitate exterior surfaces of retail buidlings while increasing the employment of Cleveland residents through full-time and temporary positions.

Click here to read the city of Cleveland's press release.

May 16
The 16th annual Ohio City Home Tour, 10am-5pm on Sunday. Starting at the ticket booth at the corner of West 30th St. and Bridge Ave., the tour features eight unique structures that are emblematic of the diversity of architecture and living options in the neighborhood. Fee includes transportation via Lolley the Trolley. For more information, contact Ohio City Near West Development Corporation at 781-3222.

May 21-June 12
subURBAN, an art exhibit at 1300 Gallery (1300 W. 78th St. Cleveland, Ohio 44102) with an all-star cast of artists. Their assignment—take an existing piece of 'suburban art' such as the black ceramic panther next to your parent's fireplace, and alter it in any way they see fit. Artists include Glenn Barr, BASK, Ali KAlis, Souther Salazar and many more.

June 11
Hotel Bruce Issue #2 launch party! Celebrate the launch of the second full issue of Hotel Bruce, the journal of creative living in Cleveland, 7-9 p.m. at Joseph-Beth Shaker Square. Meet and chat with the editorial and art staff; see the content of the new issue; view an exhibit that re-envisions a long-neglected part of the city; enjoy food and spirits.
For information, email.

Share your opinion of bike lanes in Euclid Corridor with ODOT
In February, ODOT District 12 staff objected to the Euclid Corridor's proposed design for bike lanes. More specifically, local ODOT officials didn't like a detail which ends the stripe for bike lane markings well back from each intersection whenever a "choice lane" exists (straight or right turn allowed). It was the reason stated for pulling the lanes from the project. As of May 14, ODOT still has not decided, so the letter writing campaign continues.

Cycling advocates responded by pointing to an option in the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials guide which was absent from ODOT's manual. The advocates’ move was seen as instrumental in getting ODOT to retreat from its position, even though the lanes are not yet back in the design.

If you want to see bike lanes included in the Euclid Corridor project, consider writing a letter to the director of ODOT District 12 and copying Mayor Campbell (addresses below).

Cycling advocates note that the City of Cleveland is actively defending the bike lanes, and that RTA is at least neutral (simply want to keep the project moving forward). ODOT officials are the only ones who have advocated the removal of bike lanes from the Euclid Corridor.

Send letters to:

David J. Coyle
Director, ODOT District 12
5500 Transportation Blvd
Garfield Hts, OH 44125