By Roldo Bartimole
I took a walk in downtown Cleveland after an absence of more than two years. For all the talk I’ve been hearing about the resurgence of downtown the walk was more than disappointing.
I started at the Hanna Building at E. 14th Street, walking west on the south side of Euclid Ave. to Public Square. I came back up the north side of Euclid from Public Square to E. 14th. Very disappointing.
Hundreds of millions of public dollars have been spent near or along this route – from Gateway to the south of Euclid to the northwest the still rising Medical Mart and Convention Center another. Remember the $200 million Euclid Corridor (Healthline from RTA) completed in 2008 and the $400 million ($800 with interest) Medical Mart/convention center near completion with $190 million in sales taxes already paid by Cuyahoga County taxpayers.
Damned disappointing when you pass empty store front after empty store along Euclid Avenue.
From the Hanna you first hit the 1990s Renaissance building, setback at Star Center. It has been TIFed (property taxes diverted as subsidies for the next door Wyndham Hotel). When that deal went through the subsidies added up to about $100,000 a room at the 205-room luxury hotel. When President Obama said “they don’t do it themselves” he wasn’t kidding.
Then there’s the Halle’s building, once housed a department store. It shows a forlorn first story retail outlet without retail. A dismal failure despite, once again, millions of dollars of city UDAG investment. You’d think with Playhouse Square a short walk away and Gateway not that far, there might be some action here. But it lonely.
Continuing on it is empty, empty, empty store fronts. Former retail businesses.
Further down Euclid from here to the white elephant Dick Jacobs unloaded on Tim Hagan and the boys (old Cleveland Trust historic building and its empty, deteriorating complex behind) reveals empty stores without the pretense of something happening. Not a hammer or saw in sight. Likely $50 million drained from County coffers. Out of business.
Finally, something new.
At 668 Euclid is a new downtown housing development. (The trend is to housing where office had employed people.) The street level is bland and unappealing with windows marked “Wyse,” lightly scripted on the glass for Wyse Advertising’s offices. No inviting retail, however at street level. No reason to stop unless you live there.
The lack of other retail offers no inducement for new retail. The climate for business isn’t good.
Oh yeah, there’s E. 4th Street, fed by more millions of public dollars. It showed some action at 1:45 p.m. on this Thursday, but not that overwhelming. A city official has said the city helped with $10 million in subsidies. Who makes it alone in this economy? Nobody.
The developers asked for more – that its business (Holiday Inn Express) building across the street be used to TIF for more subsidy. They wanted property valued at some $22 million to be assessed by the County at $5 million. The County settled for half, $11 million, depriving itself of revenue and allowing the revenue to be used for development.
One keeps hearing about vast investment downtown by its cheerleaders. But it certainly hasn’t inspired retail along Euclid Avenue, the town’s downtown Main Street.
As you pass 668 Euclid you glance across the street at Euclid & E. 6th where Burrow’s, a busy book/stationary used to front on Euclid. As with much of this section the former bustling corner is empty. Nothing but a shell.
A visit to John Carney’s Colonial Arcade reveals the same dismal lack of retail. There’s the same luncheonette where I often had lunch 25 years ago. One can only imagine how Carney feels about the lack of activity for his investment, also aided by city subsidies.
Carney’s south side arcade is even more disappointing.
At the adjacent arcade from Prospect Avenue through to Euclid Avenue it’s mostly empty. Much of the space is taken by a closed Baseball Heritage Museum. The walk from there to Euclid Avenue shows only empty retail.
The old May’s company building has some activity, including Cuyahoga Community College.
Back on my stroll. We hit Public Square and the new Horseshoe Casino at the Higbee building. Bad site for this kind of activity. It doesn’t seem to have spiced Tower City retail. A quick walk on the main level reveals not much else since a similar stroll in May of 2010.
I see one new business across from the casino – to come – a sign saying an Indian restaurant is coming.
Up the north side of Euclid reveals the same bad planning that damaged the city’s main retail strip. The old BP building is totally uninviting as it fronts on the street for walkers. A sign in a doorway actually says, “Please use front atrium. This door remains closed & locked at all times.”
Again, uninviting space. Actually from Ontario on Public Square to E. 4th and The Arcade there’s hardly a welcoming spot.
And then The Arcade – Cleveland’s prized building for the ages – dismal. Retail is at its minimum. Lucky there’s a U. S. Postal Office or there might be no reason to enter this beautiful 1880 sky-lighted beauty. A waste.
The Arcade was flooded with subsidies to revive it. These subsidies were made when it converted from offices to a hotel: $9.6 million in tax benefits from conservation easement donations; $7.15 million in federal historic tax credits; $7 million in TIF financing from Cleveland; $2-million low interest loan from Cuyahoga County; $1-million in low interest grant from city of Cleveland; $1.5 million from the Cleveland and Gund foundations and another foundation grant of $300,000. Some $28 million to help. It is still failing.
Let’s take President Obama’s rule that you don’t do it by yourself as the truth. Some can’t do it with help.
Next comes the site of the old Ohio Savings building, a parking garage with a new business – a sandwich and soup spot on the street. It’s been years of empty street level retail. Finally, a franchise sandwich shop.
Then you hit the old empty Burrow’s, part of the old National City Bank Building, now housing the Holiday Inn Express. Office to hotel again.
Then we hit the new (I say new but it’s from the 1970-80s) National City Bank Building, now PNC bank building at 623 Euclid.
The structure was the first tax-abated building in Cleveland. It couldn’t have been more badly planned and sited. It was built away from the street. It destroyed any street level retail. PNC makes it even less appealing. The high street-level windows are blocked each with a huge paper sign with “PNC” large on it. Complete turn off.
Back in 1977 when I wrote about the city ruling that the corner of E. 9th & Euclid blighted so National City could condemn and build I ran a photo of the corner as it was. There sat a dramatic three-story Bond Clothes building. It was called the “streamlined, sale center of Bond Clothes” in “Rose’s Cleveland – The Making of a City.” It really stood out. Not a stodgy, hiding bank building.
What’s more striking about photo is the crowd of people walking on the sidewalk or waiting to cross E. 9th street. Sadly, you won’t see it duplicated today in a week of photos at that spot. The tax-abated building killed retail at a hot corner.
Across East 9th is the Huntington Building. Another major bank building having problems. There’s Joseph Scafidi’s men’s store and then five empty storefronts. Not even the disguise I remember two years ago of huge photos to block the unsightly insides. Empty, empty, empty, empty and empty. You can look into these places and see the unsightly conditions. They seem to even lack the pretense of hope.
After the parking garage there are three more empty sites with a rental office before hitting the old Statler Hotel building, now a residency.
You walk past the Sterling office building to a new avenue addition – Zach Bruell restaurant at the Cowell-Hubbard at 13th Street. One bright spot.
I wonder what the coming heavy subsidization on the East Bank of the Flats will do to this and other parts of town as we continue to shift the seating on what looks like a sinking ship. We subsidize one location that simply destroys another. What foolishness.
All in all, not a very impressive walk.
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What Would Russians Think of Republican Democracy?
To put the issue of voter suppression laws (new version of poll tax) into proper context I have a suggestion.
I believe an organization of American journalists should be recruited to carry out a project. They could form a temporary organization that would recruit foreign journalist with the task of explaining to the world American democracy now. How well does it work. Its flaws as well as its attributes.
Our news media badly need fresh eyes. Right now.
The essence of it would be to invite prominent journalists from various nations around the world to come to the United States and report extensively from an outside prospective how American democracy operates in the 2012 election.
They’d recruit from Russia, China, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and South Africa, let’s say, and other nations – especially those which have experienced repression – to provide an unpolluted vision.
They also should look at the laws and rules adopted by various states, particularly since the election of President Barack Obama. Because his election seems to have spurred desires to regulate voting in a manner not seen before. And without obvious evidence of need. It should be examined as to the just or unjust motivations by state legislators.
The new Republican voter rules need to be viewed historically, too. How reflective are they to the old discriminatory poll tax, to the history of intimidation of minorities desiring to vote. We need an outside perspective. Our view seems to be cloudy.
It would be of value also for foreign journalists to examine how campaigns are funded, particularly in light of the U. S. Supreme Court ruling on Citizens United. A decision that allows secret financing of political campaigns by wealthy sources. Whether this cripples democracy.
This is an exceptional nation, I hear politicians repeatedly claim. I’d like to know from the prospective of others whether America is exceptional and whether this reflects well on us as a people or not.
Roldo Bartimole has been reporting since 1959. He came to Cleveland in 1965 to report for the Plain Dealer where he worked twice in the 1960s, left for the Wall Street Journal in 1967. He started publishing his newsletter Point of View in 1968 and ended it in 2000.
In 1991 he was awarded the Second Annual Joe Callaway Award for Civic Courage in Washington, D.C. He received the Distinguished Service Award of the Society of Professional Journalists, Cleveland chapter, in 2002, and was named to the Cleveland Journalism Hall of Fame, 2004. [Photo by Todd Bartimole.]
15 Responses to “ROLDO: Cleveland “Downtown Comeback” Eludes Euclid Avenue”
Angela
I am surprised that you didn’t mention the current construction taking place in the buildings on the north side of Euclid just east of the old Huntington building. Those have been a hub of some sort of activity (abatement?) all summer, after sitting dormant and crumbling for years. Some one is investing something in that block now.
Roldo Bartimole
Angela: You are absolutely right.
I actually Googled the Schofield building and then completely
forgot to mention it. Senior problem.
It did get a $1.25 million city loan and it is still being renovated.
More on it here:
http://www.clevelandareahistory.com/2010/05/pleasant-surprise-schofield-building.html
Roldo Bartimole
I’d like to remind people that 49 years ago on this day
was the march on Washington and the Free at Last
Speech by the Rev. Martin Luther King as we watch
Republican governors and state legislators around
the nation are suppressing the black vote and
repealing the votes of black citizens.
It’s shameful.
IndyCA35
Voting ID:
C’mon, Roldo, you can do better than that. Just four years ago, the PD featured an article about a homeless man who had been paid by Acorn to register 72 different times! Just because you’re homeless and black, you have no right to disobey the law. Besides, black voter turnout has not declined in those states which have passed such laws in the past.
IndyCA35
Regarding the empty retail space on Euclid, you can see the same thing in Parma. I was recently at a big shopping mall in Garfield Heights and counted eight large stores vacant. I think that the Internet has replaced a lot of shopping and that’s the reason there is less shopping space. A second reason is the near uniformity of goods downtown as anywhere else. I was recently in Europe and later saw some of the same merchandise at TJ Maxx here locally, at a lower price.
Instead of wasting taxpayer money fighting this, local governments should just let it happen.
Willy
“I wonder what the coming heavy subsidization on the East Bank of the Flats will do to this and other parts of town as we continue to shift the seating on what looks like a sinking ship. We subsidize one location that simply destroys another. What foolishness.”
While i do agree with this (it should also be noted that likely some of the companies relocating would have been in search of new class A space that may have resulted in them not longer being downtown), but it seems that you casually left out the majority of positive things that are happening along your walk route (as evidenced above). Pretty much every building along both sides of Euclid between E.9th and Play House Square are in some stage of redevelopment… Many as housing and more as hotels. Unfortunately (through no fault of effort) retail is just unlikely to work willy nilly (I mean who is supposed to keep these places in business))) without the addition of much more housing (which there is great domand for and is in progress in many of these buildings that were also left out of your story), and additional tourists and convention travlers (all of which is being addressed). I think its obsurd to expect that Tower City would already be refashinoned in such a short time (but that is coming). I think more disappointing than your impression while on your walk is the lack of real content and amount of selective observance that you encountered. Perhaps you need an overview of the plans and projects in the works that are happening to further build on and hopefully repair some of the dmage from the past.
Everything works hand in hand. Unfortunately it is not an easy or cheap road getting there.
Dale
Your quote here is incorrect:
“After the parking garage there are three more empty sites with a rental office…”
1117 Euclid Ave., home to HW Beattie & Sons is now occupied by a fantastic, contemporary fine art gallery named William Rupnik Gallery, who has been operating from this location for nearly a year now. You should really stop in and speak with the owner, William. He’s doing great things with little resources. His business does not get the attention or the recognition that it deserves. Your misquote is conducive with this.
Furthermore, Statler Arms may not be a “crown jewel” on Euclid, however, the coffee shop in their lobby, Copper Moon, serves one of the best damn cups of coffee in town… unbeknownst to most.
Also, didn’t you notice all of the renovation happening in the three buildings on the north side, between the Huntington Bldg. and the Statler Garage?? Workers have been preparing the space for a new boutique hotel that is slated to open late 2013.
Your perspective sounds extremely pessimistic. In case you have forgotten… Rome wasn’t built in a day.
Dale
Roldo,
It should also be noted that you are incorrectly addressing Angela’s comment… Angela is referring to the boutique hotel site that I referenced in my earlier comment…. the buildings on the north side between Huntington and Statler Garage. Your comment about the Scofield Bldg. addresses the property on the SW corner of Euclid and 9th.
S. Brooks
Ah, Roldo…you are sadly correct. There’s nothing downtown anymore, except Playhouse Square, and with parking in the rear and nothing enticing in front, who needs to stroll down Euclid anymore. And the casino, carefully chosen to pay the landlord’s bills in the “heart of the city” is so not a family activity. The difficult traffic pattern through the whole Euclid Ave. corridor, Square to Square to Circle just doesn’t work. The subsidies only work for the developers; the city continues to lose. Prediction: there isn’t a place in the downtown area that will serve as an anchor. Some of us remember a vibrant downtown, most under the age of 50 don’t even know how to get down there any more!
snarky
Roldo,
Great article!
You for got the part about the general theme of contemporary downtown becoming a dipsomaniac themed amusement park , replete with suds for the duds and dudes on nearly every corner.
Weave around your same Euclid Avenue route any evening after midnight and take your chances to be puked on , insulted , or simply amazed by the frat boy behavior exhibited by the inebreates.
Roldo Bartimole
Sorry if I missed an art gallery. There are some places that
don’t seem to be open and that might have been my error.
Can’t recall any development cited as a boutique hotel. Sorry.
The continued subsidization of development in one part of town
that essentially “steals” activity from another doesn’t only happen
in Cleveland.
Severance Center will be damaged by the Walmart development
on a former golf course, as it was years ago by Beachwood Place,
which now has competition at Legacy Village, formerly open land,
which likely could suffer if another piece of open land former golf
course is developed for retail. There’s just so much business in a
shrunken city and a shrinking county.
Roldo Bartimole
Indy: Your comments on voter suppression are not valid.
Here’s one of the latest court rulings:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/31/us/court-blocks-tough-voter-id-law-in-texas.html?_r=1&hp
Anastasia P
Indy, you don’t provide a link to the alleged homeless black man who allegedly was paid by ACORN! ACORN! ACORN! to register 72 times (a misconception — people were not paid to register, but to collect registrations, which unfortunately did result in collecting some faulty ones). But you are mistaking registration fraud for voter fraud and they are two very different things. In fact, people who collect voter registrations will always collect some bad ones, whether deliberately to make money or because people don’t remember if they’re registered. Whether the registration worker thinks they’re legit or not, they are legally required to turn them in to the board of elections whose job it is to then go through them and ascertain if they are legitimate. If there are 72 identical registrations, only one at most will ever be registered to vote.
In fact, ACORN (which no longer exists, thanks to the a campaign of lies from the right which destroyed it because of its mission of helping poor people) was the good guy in this, flagging registrations it felt were not valid.
But since someone who fills in a registration form as “Mickey Mouse” will never actually be registered to vote, there is no problem here – and certainly not one that could ever be addressed by voter ID laws.
I understand the nuances are complicated, but it’s annoying when people try to defend voter suppression with the misconceptions and incorrect information you are repeating here.
Mike
Roldo, I think part of the problem is that you are comparing downtown Cleveland today to Cleveland of the 1960’s and you expect that it would already be back at that level from its low point of a few years back. Big projects take years to happen and we are only a couple of years out of a recession. There are also many projects in the pipeline along the stretch that you walked that should be happening within the next few years.
Downtown is also not just Euclid Ave. Much of the new development has been in other parts of downtown. There has been a lot of development around Cleveland State and restaurants popping up in empty storefronts over the past few months. I think your generally negative attitude about downtown is what has been keeping the city back. Older Clevelanders mourn the good old days while younger Clevelanders see how much things have improved over the past couple of years. A lot of people have been working very hard for the past decade to improve the city and there have been terrific results. I have worked downtown for the past 4 years and I notice a huge increase in pedestrians after work because of the increased number of downtown residents. There are many more decent places to eat and activities to attend. The downtown of the future will not be a retail wonderland. No city the size of Cleveland has a successful downtown retail scene. It will more like a neighborhood with cafes and and residents strolling about. I think you should meet with somebody more familiar with downtown that can show you the improvements made recently because they are quite apparent to people that have experienced them.
ViewFromTop
Roldo,
I’ve lived downtown for 6 months now and have already seen growth in my area (between the Theater district and Gateway district). You compare Cleveland to what it was since your last visit, 2 years ago, but if you walked to work the same way I do every day you would see the positives. I admit Cleveland still has a long way, but I’ll leave you with some things to consider.
Walking along Euclid, (west starting at E. 14th) you will see Star Plaza, a site of many events during the summer. Not far from there are several great new restaurants, a beautiful hotel and an art gallery.
As you near E. 12th, take a look into the corner of the Halle building and you will see an after school art center, with art in the windows. Keep walking and you will see some small art displays in windows of the many empty buildings. What you won’t see, is the construction and renovation going on in many of the buildings. If you walk by at the right time, you can glimpse in many of the buildings and see workers busy in renovation.
Keep walking past east 9th and keep an eye out for some local start up restaurants (Black dog, Cleveland Pickle). From there, not much is changing. Except the Colonial Market Place. Go in there around lunch time during the week and you will see a crowded cafeteria space, with some great local options (no chain restaurants in there). On the street front, there is a Cup cake specialty shop, radio shack and more. There is also a farmers market every Friday (at least during the winter).
At East 4th, try coming back at lunch time during the week or 5 PM to 10PM on weekday nights when it is nice outside, when the Cavs are in town, the night of a concert, or Friday/Saturday night. You really cannot expect much at 1:45 PM on a Thursday, the majority of the patrons are back at work. Also, try walking down West 6th around lunch or dinner time.
Tower City – truly a shame in its underutilization. It really needs an attractive big name store in there to draw consumers. The space remains beautiful and a central spot for commuters, Rapid users, people out to lunch or grabbing a cup of coffee.
General thoughts – I don’t know what you would expect the city to look like in a region where driving is a staple of life. Most downtown employees are driving (not taking public transportation, walking, etc). People want to park outside of their outside of their superstores, malls, office, and home. There is no reason for people to be between E. 9-13 on Euclid for most of the day, so I am not sure why you would expect beautiful storefronts in an area where few people currently walk. Try coming back when some projects on Euclid are finished and people are actually working/living/using the buildings. Until then, I don’t know why you expect to see a pay off and find your article a bit premature.