May Building Plan gives Cleveland Negative buzz In Atlantic Cities

I know this plan is allegedly dead,(I don't believe it) but I can't drop it. It symbolises so much of what has gone wrong in downtown development plans that so often put attractions for tourists and suburban commuters above the basic structure and design of the city.

Atlantic Cities picked up the story which has some very good comments.

This is a building almost everyone who has been to downtown Cleveland has seen and admired. It's not just beautiful, but screams out how useful it is for almost anything from retail, to office and residential.

Owners of Cleveland's Historic Downtown May Building propose gutting it for Casino Parking

Image from the Wikipedia (public domain)

More about this building

OK, they were turned down by the city planning commission.

The building's owners, a Florida-based investor group, had hoped to create 734 parking spaces on four floors and remove the windows for ventilation.

An architect working on the project said that that building's ground floor would be maintained for retail, and that housing and offices were possible on the upper floors. But plans submitted to the city focused on the parking proposal, which was limited to the second through fifth floors.

The commission seemed shocked that with all the "investment", in the area, like the nearby, football, baseball and basketball arenas, the soon to be constructed massive convention center and casino, that the owners didn't see more value in renovating the building for any higher use.

Of course- creating massive single use facilities, specifically aimed at bringing in huge crowds to such a small area was almost certain to inspire just this kind of development. Already several other historic buildings had been torn down for casino parking.

My sad guess is that these neighboring developments, taken as a whole subtract, rather than add to the building's potential value for offices, or residential. How many people say, gee I want to have an office right by a casino (a small casino might be different) or a huge stadium? Fewer are likely to want to live there.

Even so, Cleveland, still has the bones of a great downtown-and this building is a very big part of that. There is also a tight and growing demand for residential space downtown. One can only hope this building can make it.

Walking Tour of Johnstown's Amazing Architecture

I have still never visited Johnstown but it always looks fascinating from the train, dramatic, Western PA landscape, old steel mills, churches and even an incline!

The Johnstown Area Heritage Association (JAHA), has a very in depth walking tour of some of downtown's historic and diverse buildings.

Once again, I will plug the idea of hosting a single day or weekend of tours so people can really discover these buildings from the inside.

A Walking Tour of Johnstown

Photo Essay On Steeltown Anthem Of The Old Weston State Hospital

My blog, hopes to tune you into some of the great and strange sites and happenings in West Virginia too.

A guest post on Steeltown Anthem has a good photo tour of the old Weston State, Mental Hospital, now known as The Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum. I've heard a few stories from someone who had to work there for a while and from what she said, the scale of suffering there was enormous.

From the pictures it looks like a pretty amazing place.

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HISTORIC TOURS OFFERED*
March 26th, 2011 – October 31st, 2011


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Open House, New York this Weekend. Why Don't We Do This?

Ever walk through a city and think, wow, I wish I could see that building from the inside?

Seems like a pretty obvious idea-pick a few days, and open up all kinds of unique buildings and interesting or historic places up for tours. New York, was actually a late adaptor of this concept, now done in over a hundred cities around the world.

"Renee Schacht, Executive Director of OHNY said in 2010: “We will be touring places and opening doors to sites that span the history of New York – from Staten Island’s Conference House, the only pre-Revolution manor house still standing to contemporary public and private spaces including The Centurion, a midtown Manhattan residential building designed by Pei Partnership Architects with I.M. Pei.”

More than 185,000 people participate in the event that includes over 300 sites, programs, events and tours, which in past years has drawn audiences from beyond the five boroughs to encompass all 50 states and many nations around the world."

In many cases, the event has grown beyond building tours to encompass all sorts of walking, bike and boat tours and more extreme forms of urban exploration. Take a hard hat tour of a building under construction or being rehabbed or perhaps an abandoned tunnel or bridge one can't normally go to. The value of this kind of thing sometimes leads to new thinking--remember that the High Line in NY was once an obscure abandoned space.

A few highlights I came up with.

Check out the 6000 sqare foot roof garden in Greenpoint Brooklyn.

Explore the historic Eldridge Street Synagogue on The Lower East Side.

Tour NY's oldest operating Whiskey Distillery in Bushwick

Learn about the design and engineering behind supertall skyscrapers.

Take a walk with a photographer down Industrial, Newtown Creek in Queens

See the Plans For The New Moynihan Station In The Old 34th Street Main post Office building

Take a canoe tour of Brooklyn's Gowanus Canal

Tour the amazing Lobby of The Chrysler Building.

See historic and long abnadoned PS 90 in Central Harlem which is now being restored.

Tour a working Art Glass Studio in a Civil War Era warehouse in Redhook

Tour Brooklyn's historic Greenwood Cemetery by trolley.

I'll stop there. Doesn't Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Youngstown, Johnstown or other great places in our region have great historic buildings and places that would be great to link together in an event like this?