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).

Spurred on by a rumor that rail carrier Norfolk Southern is interested in abandoning a well positioned rail line, Cuyahoga County officials are angling to preserve the right of way for a potential recreational use, Bruce blog has learned. The freight line runs from E. 55th Street through Slavic Village and Kingsbury Run to points east including Bedford Heights, Solon and Aurora. Known as the Randall Secondary, the county is eyeing it for a possible conversion to a bike trail.

Despite a recent report by EcoCity Cleveland and Ohio Association of Railroad Passengers that looks at using part of the Randall Secondary as a way to take freight rail traffic off the Lakefront, officials at the Cuyahoga County Planning Commission are apparently more interested in exploring a bike connection between the far Eastern suburbs and an extended Towpath Trail.

Whether the railroad has the right to transfer the line for any purpose depends on how they acquired it. If purchased or acquired through federal land grants they can transfer the corridor for any purpose, including trail use. If it’s an easement interest, the ability to convert to a trail depends on the language and state law.

The next hurdle will be who pays for the conversion. Federal funding such as transportation and park programs, brownfield, community development and arts programs are one way. In other parts of the country, state and local funds were tapped from departments of health, parks and transportation.

The project sponsor must pay at least 20 percent of a project’s cost, however, and expenses in similar projects have ranged from a few thousand dollars to $1 million, according to nonprofit Rails to Trails Conservancy (RTC). Unfortunately, federal and state coffers for these transit projects are dwindling. As Michael Gill reported in last week’s Free Times, Ohio Governor Bob Taft’s proposed transportation budget has ignored rails to trails and other bike and pedestrian projects (click here to comment on a statewide trails plan)

Still, many foundations and companies provide grants for trail and greenway projects and some communities have also passed referenda to specifically fund trail and greenway projects, according to RTC.

If a sale appears to be imminent and feasible, RTC advises, the next step is to determine the potential stakeholders. The communities down the line will be the organizing force behind trail implementation, and they should be the first audience to receive information about the projected benefits, costs and development framework for the trail project.

With Cleveland suffering from serious financial woes, finding ways to scrape together local matches for expensive but crucial quality of life projects such as the extension of the Towpath Trail is the work of creative masterminds at Ohio Canal Corridor, the nonprofit working to rejuvenate the Cuyahoga Valley. Tim Donovan, the group’s director, is floating the idea of creating a TIF (Tax Incremental Financing) for the proposed Steelyard Commons (the big box development at the former LTV West site).

The thinking goes that the city could use the proceeds from the TIF, or bonds sold on improvements, as a local match to build out the rest of the Towpath Trail. The local match to bring the Towpath from its current terminus at E.49th Street and Harvard Road up through the Flats to the Lakefront is expected to reach into the millions of dollars.

Sources inform Bruce blog that the city and Steelyard developer, First Interstate principal Mitch Schneider are tentatively in favor of the proposal. If neither side has put property tax abatement on the table, a TIF might serve as a perk to the city— if the proposed 1 million sq. ft. retail power center can deliver enough revenues year after year to pay off the bond debt (city tax payers wouldn’t end up being stuck with the bill like they were with Gateway).

Meanwhile, Schneider is in negotiations with the city over issues of design, and large building structures are being cleared from the old LTV West side mill site. If all goes according to plan, the city’s first big box project could be complete by 2006.

Not since the days of ‘The Mistake on the Lake’ has Cleveland experienced such a black eye as the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey report that ranks the city first in percentage of poor (31%) living within its boundaries. Of course, the media had a field day and public officials registered surprise and disdain, but the fact is, Cleveland has trended up in the poverty stats for the last three years, as long at the annual ACS survey has been used in place of the long form. What’s worse, as Bill Callahan reports in his blog, the Census numbers don’t add up—they appear to be based on totals showing Cleveland losing 10 percent of its population since 2000: “There's something badly wrong with the Census' survey techniques...If they don't have a good approximation of the number of Cleveland households, how can we rely on their estimate of those households' median income?”

Regardless of who’s the poorest city in the nation, the report may finally serve to crystallize the top issue affecting the Greater Cleveland area—poverty is concentrated in the inner city (Cuyahoga County by contrast has 15 percent of its residents living in poverty).

The city cannot dig itself out of this situation without regional cooperation. Doubters of the efficacy of regional governance need only look to Columbus, Indianapolis, Louisville—all of whom have concentrations of poverty in their urbanized areas but have chosen to handle it through regionalizing aspects of government (such as metropolitan land-use planning decisions).

Regionalism in Cuyahoga County so far has focused on combining the tripartite county commissioners' posts into a single executive. Yet, as the recent spat between the Democratic commissioners and suburban Republican officials illustrate, productive discussions will not emerge so long as they’re led by the current powerholders. Until some form of mediation is assembled and brought in, the partisan rivals will continue to squabble and regionalism will never leave the starting blocks.

A new group of well-connected African-American executives in the private and nonprofit sector formed Policy Bridge, a public policy think tank to help the city and region focus on major issues facing communities of color. The group received $30,000 from the Civic Innovation Lab, which, according to a press release, it plans to use “to be a force for change by delivering far-reaching and realistic policy solutions...We hope to produce a region that is more fair, more inclusive and more sustainable, while identifying and engaging new leaders who will [be] sharing the challenge of insuring the improved quality of life for our community,” writes Tim Goler, green schools project manager at Cleveland Green Building Coalition and one of the founders of the group.

Cleveland’s new undercover sting operation is coming to a parking meter near you. Cleveland cops are testing out a new system to bust people—on the spot—for unpaid parking tickets, according to Civic Strategies, a strategic planning firm in Atlanta that publishes an e-newsletter about urban issues on the national scene.

The system sounds real cloak and dagger. Cops in a roving van using a hidden video camera are recording license plate numbers and connecting to a massive database through a new software program. If you are one of the 10,000 ‘scofflaws’ who owe the city $250 or more in unpaid tickets, you pop up and the cops call for a tow. “If the system works, Cleveland plans to invest $100,000 in these scofflaw van patrols. Why? Because the city has a monumental problem…a third of those who get citations don't pay them and the rest that do account for $6.6 million in revenue to the city." Bruce blog wonders, how many of these roving patrols is the city planning on buying for 100 large?

Giant Eagle was recognized last week for doing something positive to ‘green up’ its new Brunswick location (off I-71 south to St Rt 303 heading west). The new store incorporates geothermal wells (an HVAC system that pulls heat from or cools air deep in the ground) and natural daylighting to reduce the use of thousands of tons of energy over the store’s lifetime.

But, while the use of renewable energy and smarter design were being applauded, some critics were grumbling that the store’s U.S. Green Building Council LEED certification is bunk. The biggest knock against the store is being built over a wetland while a building sits abandoned on a large parcel across the street. With all of the positive PR that this will generate, some wondered if this should warrant an examination of the validity of the LEED certification system, which doles out points based on use of green technology but also reusing land and connecting it to public transit. While the Brunswick Giant Eagle won’t achieve LEED silver, gold or platinum, its general certification could threaten to devalue buildings that do. By comparison, the Cleveland Environmental Center, at Lorain Ave and Fulton with its geothermal wells, solar panel and green roof, etc. is aiming to receive LEED silver.

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources is updating its Trails Plan to help guide the development and expansion of a statewide system of recreational trails throughout Ohio. The ultimate vision of the plan is to link public lands, natural and scenic areas, and communities with a multi-modal trail system.

All trails that are planned and developed in Ohio are part of the statewide trail vision. These include projects that many local governments are undertaking to develop local trail systems to provide recreation and alternate transportation opportunities. The intent of this plan is to emphasize major statewide and regional trails and work to incorporate local linkages into the statewide network.

ODNR encourages you to review this material and provide us with any comments, input or feedback you might have by September 30, 2004

September 17
Cleveland Public Art hosts the opening of the Pedestrian Promenade at the Detroit-Superior Bridge at 1:30 pm. This $2.8 million dollar project has transformed the northern lane with a 20 ft. wide sidewalk, new shelters, light fixtures, public art that also collects data on natural elements, and a bike lane. This project is a partnership between Cleveland Public Art, the Cuyahoga County Engineer's Office, the City of Cleveland, NOACA, and EcoCity Cleveland. Your attendance will demonstrate to policy makers, government agencies, and funders that projects like this one are critical to the future of our city. Call (216) 621-5330 for more information.

September 21
RTA’s reopening of the EcoVillage/W.65th Rapid Station—a stop that neighborhood residents fought to keep open and which has become an anchor in this near West side urban regeneration project. The $3 million station was designed according to ‘green’ building standards including large, south-facing windows to capture heat from the sun and a demonstration solar panel powering light fixtures. EcoCity Cleveland will simultaneously host its annual member party and announce its Bioregional Hero Awards, 5-7 p.m.

I loved the Hotel Bruce! I was a CTS, and, later, RTA, rider from my childhood. I loved passing the un-grand old hotel for years, and considered it mine. As a rapidly aging member of the old bohemian crowd at Adele's Lounge Bar and other places in University Circle (when people actually lived there!), I had fascinating and dangerous friends who lived in the building around E. 55th and near the Hotel. I used to take the bus to see them after school—wearing my catholic girls' school uniform, no less.