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).

Add The Green Tomato to the list of independent retail stores shuttering their doors this year. The Coventry Road purveyor of super cool and kitschy items from Hello Kitty to Smart Women will close permanently in the next couple of months.

Many reasons influenced owner Gayle Lewis’ decision to close, including escalating rents on Coventry and competition from corporate mall chains. The news adds to a spate of recent independent retail closings or relocations.

Are the tactics of Lewis' new landlord to blame or is it the economy, stupid?!

Read the full article...

Last Saturday was River Day, and at Dike 14—an 88-acre landfill jutting into Lake Erie from the end of MLK Boulevard—scores of Cleveland families floated by in boats or hiked its rugged but serene landscape. Meanwhile, Cleveland Mayor Jane Campbell recently restated her intention to have Dike 14 converted into a nature preserve/park/bird sanctuary (as part of her promised Two Parks…). But, questions such as how the cash-strapped city will pay for the planning and creation of the park and its maintenance remain.

Well, Cleveland might take a page from Manatee County, Florida, which recently designated a 64-acre ‘spoil island’ as a nature preserve. The deal resulted when the county approved a $1.65 billion trans-gulf pipeline. In return, the natural gas company that removed a trench 581 miles long from the ocean for the pipeline, paid $7.2 million for it to be disposed (as a spoil island) and to create a bird sanctuary on the island. The mitigation scheme also reaped $10 million in dockage, wharfage, leases and related revenues during the construction phase of the project, Manatee County Commissioner Amy Stein writes in the March 19 edition of The Bradenton Herald.

“The Port Authority has wisely invested these revenues as matching funds for state grants to further enhance Port Manatee’s ability to retain and attract business,” Stein gushes.

Similar mitigation schemes are in the works in Cleveland. For example, The Port Authority and the State of Ohio are funding a stream and corridor restoration of lower Doan Brook and Rockefeller Park, both of which literally spill into Dike 14. The roughly $6 million project is a mitigation (or trade off) for allowing the Port to fill in Abrams Creek at Hopkins International Airport in order to build a new runway.

Perhaps through similar diligent efforts and enforcing exactions on projects that fill in wetlands around the area (have you seen Park Synagogue East’s future site lately?), a mitigation pot of funds will be designated for Dike 14?

Big box retail has established a toehold in Cleveland as Crain's Cleveland Business reported this week on First Interstate Properties plans for Steel Yard Commons, a lifestyle center which will include big box retailers. The local developer cut a deal to redevelop LTV’s former West side Mill, a 100+ acre contaminated brownfield.

The deal is a boon to Cleveland’s tax coffers, right? Undoubtedly, questions about how many permanent, decent-wage jobs will be created and whether First Interstate is seeking entitlements such as tax abatements will be part of the dialogue.

Critics point out that unsavory labor practices at big box giants as well as buildings that lack any design and the traffic congestion they create contribute to a withering of quality and authenticity (true, more than $8 million was spent to enhance the city’s traditional, mom-and-pop neighborhood centers through the ReStore Cleveland program last year).

Bruce blog wonders if this deal represents a shift in land-use policy for Cleveland? With Mayor Campbell openly courting big box retailers, will her administration put parcels such as the Chagrin Highlands, which the city of Cleveland for years insisted would not have retail centers (only office parks because of the higher income tax potential) into play?

Admirers of the First Interstate deal, such as the Cleveland developer with whom Bruce blog spoke this week, say that big box retail will be limited in Cleveland because of a lack of sites large enough and with immediate highway access in the urban core. But, that doesn’t mean developers or city officials concerned with hundreds of millions of dollars of retail purchases leaking out of the city of Cleveland will stop pursuing deals such as Steel Yard Commons.

“Why shouldn’t the city get some of that (lost revenue),” says the developer. “We can talk all we want about poor labor practices, but the reality is, the big boxes are here to stay.”

I just stumbled across your sight yesterday—I love it. I printed out the article about Lisa Kious coming back to Cleveland. I love stories like that where people come back after moving to "cooler places." It is very cool that she would be coming back to Cleveland. Sometimes things in Cleveland start to feel a little hopeless, especially when some of its biggest supporters and creative people move away. Lisa coming back is a positive note. Hopefully I will run into her at Nates or Malley's...that is, when I come back to visit or move back…
—William Marthaller, Washington, D.C.

June 9
The Cleveland EcoVillage, an urban ‘infill’ development with an environmental and social conscience, will have a ribbon cutting ceremony at 4 p.m. for the second phase of the EcoVillage Town Homes (at W. 58th St. between Lorain and Madison avenues). The last units to be built here in the center of what promises to be a revitalized urban neighborhood follow in the footsteps of the first ten units, which are all sold. They exemplify the latest in town home design (front porches, built to the street, brick construction, alley systems) and green technologies such as recycled and toxic free materials and high-performance heaters and coolers that reduce energy bills to a few hundred dollars a year.

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 Bookstore, 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.

June 16
Ohio EPA one-day green building and sustainable redevelopment training session for local governments. Ohio EPA has proposed new sustainable development/green building practices as ranking criteria for the next round of Clean Ohio funding. The agency is providing this training to explain what are sustainable developments and green buildings, and how they can benefit communities. Case studies from within Ohio provided. Call 614-644-3749 for more information.

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