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).

For the past two years, Susie Frazier Mueller has helped to spearhead Sparx in the City, a public arts initiative that places performers on downtown streets during the summer to stimulate street life and to encourage people to come downtown. To this enthusiastic artist, Sparx in the City is not just another summer event in a busy calendar, but a strategic program that seeks to “nurture an appetite” among the public. Meanwhile, they're employing local independent artists.

Read the full article...

A nice gathering was on hand at the launch of Hotel Bruce Issue No. 2 on June 11 at Joseph-Beth in Shaker Square. Those in attendance chatted, sipped wine, surfed the issue, and viewed an exhibit that envisions redeveloping Midtown into a new urban village.

The concepts, developed by urban planners Steve Manka and Steve Rugare, offer a mix of development that captures the excitement of urban living while allowing for green space and moderate density. The pair also proposes an interesting ripple on the development plans for a Midtown biotech center. The concept shows what can happen when roughly the same square footage released from its box plopped in the middle of the lot on E. 59th and Euclid is unfolded in a linear fashion to create an interesting street wall.

The pair also fills in the missing teeth around the center and old warehouses with place making retail, such as an architectural salvage depot, and an orchard occupying the space behind the biotech center. It’s a highly imaginative but also infinitely achievable plan. See it at Hotel Bruce, and at the Cleveland Urban Design Center, upstairs from the downtown Winking Lizard.

After more than a year of widdling down and then adding on a number of interrelated projects, the massive Innerbelt redevelopment plan received the green light from NOACA, at the regional transportation planning body’s June board meeting. The project’s estimated $411.5 million first round cost, 80 percent of which comes from federal funds, will pay for some construction, but mostly technical studies.

The bulk of the funds will be directed toward straightening Deadman’s Curve ($113.9 million), rebuilding the Innerbelt bridge ($33 mil) which spans from Ontario Street to Tremont, and fixing the stretch that’s entrenched between the bridge and the curve ($21 mil). Part of the discussed redesign is to study creating a more squared off trench that brings a new frontage road and land right up to and above the Innerbelt.

Also making it to the final plan is a more detailed study of a new connector road to University Circle from I-490 ($5.3 mil); replacing the West Shoreway with a boulevard (which will receive $49 million for reconstruction); and the extension of W. 14th Street to Quigley Road, which is expected to provide truck traffic in the industrial Flats access to I-77/I-71 without having to travel through the portions of the Flats south of Scranton (this is seen as a boon to redeveloping the southern Flats with more housing and easing the way for the extension of the Towpath Trail to Cleveland).

Quietly added to the Innerbelt project is a $118 million reconstruction and widening of State Rt. 2 through Willoughby, Mentor, Painesville & Painesville Township. Each part of the project will have to pass an air quality analysis before being approved, according to NOACA.

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