The picturesque Doan Brook meanders through Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights, providing walkers and joggers with a scenic backdrop. Yet the section that flows through Cleveland's Rockefeller Park remains boxed in by crumbling stone walls.

This year, a $2.5 million project to restore these portions of the Doan Brook will finally get started. The project will remove failing stone walls and concrete dams for nearly a half-mile, allowing the stream to flow more naturally while improving water quality and increasing fish populations.

"This project could serve as a model for other communities that are seeking to create healthier streams in urban areas," says Victoria Mills, Executive Director of the nonprofit Doan Brook Watershed Partnership.

The Doan Brook project was originally slated to receive $5.5 million, but was scaled back after bids came in over budget. The new plan addresses these concerns by creating natural terraces that improve drainage and reduce flooding without threatening portions of the gardens. The Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District (NEORSD) will manage the design and construction process.

Although the project is smaller in scale than originally envisioned, Mills is excited about its impact. "I am hopeful that it will spur more improvement projects in Rockefeller Park, including a new master plan," she says.

The Doan Brook improvement project was conceived in 2001, when the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ordered the city to restore the brook to compensate for the loss of 88 acres of wetland and more than a mile of Abram Creek at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. Abram Creek was destroyed to allow for a new runway to be built. The EPA required the city to complete $15 million in restoration projects, most of which have now been completed.

The brook is rare among Cleveland's urban streams because much of it remains above ground. The Doan Brook Watershed Partnership was formed in 2001 to coordinate the preservation efforts of the cities of Cleveland Heights, Shaker Heights, Cleveland and interested citizens. Over the years, Doan Brook has developed an active constituency dedicated to its renewal. The Doan Brook Watershed Partnership will hold a clean-up day on April 17th. To register call 216-321-5935 x 237 or visit the website.

The $2.5 million project will also remove some invasive species and allow limited access to the brook, but will not address flooding.


Source: Victoria Mills
Writer: Lee Chilcote

Local rowing advocates say their beloved sport is about to get even bigger thanks to the Cleveland Rowing Foundation's recent acquisition of Rivergate Park, a former marina on the East Bank of the Flats. Over the next two years, CRF will redevelop Rivergate into a seven-acre riverside recreation venue, with a boathouse, kayak rental and public park. Rivergate is part of an emerging recreation district in the Flats that includes a new skate park and bike path to Whiskey Island.

These days, it seems that everyone is singing Pittsburgh's praises. Our Rust Belt neighbor to the east recently scored a Google corporate office. And last year, perennial Cleveland-basher Forbes Magazine named Pittsburgh the country's most livable city. Ouch. Clearly Pittsburgh is doing something right. Simply put: That city is light years ahead of Cleveland when it comes to bike-friendliness -- and bike-friendly cities are more attractive to young professionals, the creative-class folks who hold the keys to economic prosperity.
 

A proposed $7.5 million indoor cycling track in Slavic Village would be the only such facility of its kind east of the Rockies. The nonprofit organization Fast Track Cycling says the velodrome would attract thousands of cycling enthusiasts while helping to transform Cleveland into a greener, healthier city. Slavic Village supporters say, Bring it on.

When Mayor Jackson promoted Andrew Watterson from sustainability programs manager to Chief of Sustainability, a cabinet-level position, he illustrated in very certain terms his commitment to sustainability. Watterson will have his work cut out for him. Recently, the City kicked off Sustainable Cleveland 2019, an ambitious 10-year initiative to leverage sustainability as an engine for economic growth while distinguishing Cleveland as a "Green City on a Blue Lake."

Justin Husher graduated with an MBA from Cleveland State University in May of 2008 -- just in time for the collapse of the financial markets.

Instead of wringing his hands, Husher considered his bleak job prospects as a sign. "I never wanted to be a banker," he told the audience at last week's forum on vacant land reuse at Cleveland State University's Levin College of Urban Affairs. His college major had been botany, and he'd always dreamed of tending the soil.

That's when Husher learned about Reimagining Cleveland, a small grants program that was launched to support the creative reuse of vacant land in the city.

Husher applied to the program, which is managed by Neighborhood Progress (NPI) and funded by the Surdna Foundation and the City of Cleveland. After he was awarded a $7,500 grant, Husher worked with Cleveland's land bank program and Bellaire Puritas Community Development Corp. to cobble together a half-acre of land on W. 130th. Pretty soon, Old Husher's Farm was born.

Husher, who sells his produce at the Gordon Square farmers market and other venues, has a passion for local food. "I like to grow vegetables with storylines, such as heirloom tomatoes," he said. "It's important to learn where our food comes from."

At last week's forum, the young farmer also offered recommendations for improving the business climate for urban agriculture. Husher's wish list includes longer-term leases with property owners and an initiative to help farmers purchase land at affordable prices. He'd also like to see a cooperative stand for urban farmers to sell locally grown food at the West Side Market.

Since Reimagining Cleveland launched in 2008, the program has funded 56 projects to creatively reutilize vacant land in Cleveland. According to the Reimagining Cleveland website, there are an estimated 3,300 acres of vacant land in the city of Cleveland.


Source: Justin Husher, Reimagining Cleveland
Writer: Lee Chilcote

At a public meeting held last week at Market Avenue Wine Bar, planners showed off designs for the future Market Square Park, an Ohio City park slated to receive a $1.5 million makeover this year from the city.

"We hope the new Market Square Park will become the de facto outdoor dining room for the West Side Market," says Ben Trimble, Program Manager with the Ohio City Near West Development Corporation (OCNW). Trimble says the park, located at the corner of Lorain and West 25th, will complement the redevelopment taking place elsewhere in the area.

Plans for revamping the park, which was completed in 1979, date back to at least 2004. OCNW selected it as a candidate for overhaul because of its dated design, lack of connection to the commercial district, and a perception that the park is unsafe.

The park, which was the original site for the West Side Market before the current building was constructed in 1912, has been a focus area for OCNW. The nonprofit helps to coordinate Open Air in Market Square, an outdoor bazaar that takes place on Saturdays throughout the summer, as well as other park programs.

When construction wraps up this fall, Trimble says the park will have "harvest tables" with bench seating, rows of new trees, public artwork with an "orchard ladder" theme defining the park's entranceway, attractive brick pavers, and an elevated stage that will be used for live music, outdoor movies, and other public performances.

Attractive new bus shelters will also be installed outside of Market Square Park. Parkworks and Cleveland Public Art, two nonprofit groups that worked on the park's redesign, say the bus shelters will be well-used. The Lorain and West 25th intersection has the second highest use of any transit waiting area in the city, second only to Public Square.


Source: Ben Trimble
Writer: Lee Chilcote

Billed as an outdoor music and arts festival, Brite Winter Festival is proof that you can indeed have fun in Cleveland, in February, out of doors. This year's dazzling array of temptations includes nine holes of snow mini golf, 24 feet of alfresco skeeball, ski-mounted bicycles, wall-to-wall music and white-hot gourmet food trucks.

 The controversy over the proposed Oakwood Commons development reinforces the need for Cleveland Heights to plan for future development, says a local nonprofit leader.

"We're being forced to react to the developer's plan because the city of Cleveland Heights does not have a plan," says Deanna Bremer Fisher, Executive Director of FutureHeights, a nonprofit that promotes community engagement in Cleveland Heights.

"I understand the need for additional tax revenue in our city, but we need to look at a highest-and-best-use study of the development site before proceeding," she adds.

The city of Cleveland Heights updated its Strategic Development Plan in 2010 for the first time in 17 years. The plan recommends that the city pursue economic development to expand its tax base, which has declined recently due to lower home values, foreclosed homes, and lack of new development. The Strategic Development Plan also recommends that the city study the feasibility of producing a land use Master Plan.

Richard Wong, the Planning Director for the city of Cleveland Heights, says that the city has no position on Oakwood Commons because a proposal has not yet been brought to the city. However, the city's 2010 Strategic Development Plan states that "redevelopment [of the Oakwood site] for big box commercial uses was strongly opposed by residents in the past and should not be considered."

The plan adds that land and buildings north of Oakwood Country Club to Mayfield Road should be considered as part of any development plan. This suggests that the city may try to leverage the project to stimulate redevelopment of the older retail area at Warrensville and Mayfield Roads.

First Interstate Properties, the developer of the proposed 154-acre, mixed-use shopping center on the site of the former Oakwood Country Club, recently purchased the portion of the property that is in South Euclid. The Severance Neighborhood Organization, a local citizens group, has questioned the need for additional retail in the area. South Euclid officials have expressed support for the project, arguing that the city needs new retail development and tax revenue.

Mitchell Schneider, President of First Interstate Properties, has an option to purchase the Cleveland Heights portion of Oakwood. Both properties require a zoning change to be developed as retail. Schneider says he hopes to win Cleveland Heights' approval, but that he could develop the South Euclid property alone if the city refuses.


Sources: Deanna Bremer Fisher, Richard Wong, Mitchell Schneider
Writer: Lee Chilcote

When it comes to retail, how much is too much? That's the question being raised by residents who live near the former Oakwood Country Club, a 154-acre parcel where First Interstate Properties proposes to build a shopping mall that would rival nearby Legacy Village in size.

"There are moribund, vacant retail areas all over the Heights, so why do we need another mall?" asks Fran Mentch, president of the Severance Neighborhood Organization (SNO), a Cleveland Heights-based neighborhood group. "It would be one thing if the project added value, but this would only hurt existing stores."

Oakwood Commons, as the proposal is called, is a mixed-use lifestyle center on Warrensville Center Road. The retail portion of the development would be 63 acres and include a mixture of large big-box stores, smaller shops and restaurants. The developer also wants to preserve nearly half of the property by giving it to Cleveland Heights and South Euclid to create a park.

"This densely populated area is underserved by national retailers," counters First Interstate president Mitchell Schneider, "and there is more demand than can be accommodated by University Square, Severance and Cedar Center." His development would include stores that are new to the area. And because "investment begets investment," he explains, it would also lead to improvements in older retail areas.

According to a 2007 study completed by professor James Kastelic of Cleveland State University's Levin College of Urban Affairs, Northeast Ohio has a retail surplus of just over 22 million square feet. Between 2000 and 2007, the study shows, Cuyahoga County's population declined by 6% while its retail space grew by 5%.

According to Kastelic, a Senior Park Planner with the Cleveland Metroparks, new retail could only be successful by luring customers from existing areas. Because the region is not growing, he stresses, "It would cut the pie into more pieces" rather than add value.

Schneider takes issue with Kastelic's study. "Much of that retail is functionally obsolescent," he says. "When it comes to national retailers, Northeast Ohio is not over-retailed. We have fewer square feet per capita than many other metro areas."


Source: Fran Mentch; James Kastelic
Writer: Lee Chilcote

The Flats has often been called the birthplace of Cleveland. Soon, it will gain a new tagline when it's reborn as the city's first green-certified neighborhood.

The Wolstein Group and Fairmount Properties, co-developers of the Flats East Bank project, are using sustainable building practices in the $272 million project, which broke ground in December. The project's financing dried up in 2008, but the developers revived the deal, cobbling together more than 35 public and private funding sources. The first phase will include an office tower, hotel, retail and 14-acre riverfront park.

Last year, the U.S. Green Building Council certified that the project had met Phase I criteria for Leadership in Energy Efficiency and Design for Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND). LEED is considered to be the national standard for sustainable design.

"Early on, the developers committed to pursue LEED Neighborhood status, and also a green-built project," says Justin Glanville, Project Director for Building Cleveland by Design (BCBD), a collaboration of two nonprofits, ParkWorks and Cleveland Public Art, to inject more thoughtful design into prominent building projects in Cleveland.

"This is the direction the market is headed," adds Glanville. "Prospective tenants asked the developers about energy-efficient design because it lowers occupancy costs."

The Flats East Bank project meets LEED-ND criteria by incorporating LEED-certified buildings, energy-efficient lighting fixtures, the use of recycled content in building materials, roof gardens, reduced water use, and a reduced parking footprint. It also gets points for compact development, connection to the river and brown field remediation.

BCBD states that Cleveland is fourth in the U.S. in the number of projects seeking LEED-ND certification. The developers hired BCBD to complete the certification process.


Source: Justin Glanville
Writer: Lee Chilcote

The first attempt to secure the former Oakwood Country Club for park land has failed. The 90-day purchase option held by the Trust for Public Land expired recently, before the San Francisco-based group could raise enough to buy the 150-acre privately owned site, which spans Cleveland Heights and South Euclid.

Fran Mentch, of the Severance Neighborhood Organization, is disappointed but continues to hope that mostly undeveloped land can be preserved as a public park. As a Facebook page for supporters of this plan notes, " It is a landscape of open rolling hills with tree-lined paved paths and, most notably, a section of Nine-Mile Creek."

"It comes down to, what kind of community do we want to live in?" she explains. And the inner-ring cities of Cuyahoga County need green space, not more commercial or residential development. "If someone had wanted to develop it," she adds, "it would have been a done deal by now."

Mentch says that SNO would like to partner with other groups to raise enough money to buy the land -- the asking price is $5.9 million -- and give it to the Cleveland Metroparks. SNO recently started pushing a letter-writing campaign to Metroparks, and Mentch plans to attend the December 16 board meeting.

"If they would work with us," Mentch says, "the whole thing could move forward. … I'm very optimistic. This is our generation's Cain Park."


Source: Fran Mentch
Writer: Frank W. Lewis

Wendy Park on Whiskey Island might be Northeast Ohio's greatest greenspace success story. Less than 10 years ago, precious few Clevelanders had ever visited the site, which sits right where the Cuyahoga River meets Lake Erie. Nigh on impossible to get to, and offering little more than volleyball courts, there just wasn't much point. Steady improvements under county ownership have pushed annual visits from about 7,000 in 2006 to more than 200,000 today, and the work is not nearly over.

Last week, ParkWorks, county officials and landscape architects from San Francisco-based Conger Moss Guillard presented three versions of a Wendy Park master plan at a public forum. "I think they'll pull elements from all three that people like," says Justin Glanville of ParkWorks, "and sort of make a Frankenstein version."

The common traits among the plans are beach improvements, restored marsh area and use of solar panels wherever possible. Easier access will be achieved through a pedestrian and bicycle bridge, from the west side of the river and over the railroad tracks. On December 2, the county commissioners are expected to approve a contract with architect Miguel Rosales of Boston.

"This is an incredibly important space," says Paul Alsenas, director of the county planning commission. "There is no other place like it along our shoreline in Cuyahoga County.

Carol Thaler, the planning commission's program officer, adds that public input has shaped this project from the start. "It's a very important statement for the county," she says.

To view and comment on CMG's plans for Wendy Park, visit ParkWorks' web site.



Source: ParkWorks
Writer: Frank W. Lewis

Thomas Paine would be proud. At a time when it seems like every new idea is first floated online, Plain Dealer architecture critic Steven Litt has chosen good old-fashioned paper as the primary vehicle for his impassioned paean to beautiful surroundings, Designing a Better Cleveland.

"To the extent that Cleveland fails to make the most of public and private investments in buildings, highways, bridges, streets, parks and waterfronts, it will waste opportunities, fail to compete effectively with its peers and damage its economy," Litt writes in the introduction. "Everyone, in other words, has a stake in good design."

Litt calls the slim, gorgeously designed booklet "a mini-primer on the ways in which citizens, developers, planners and designers can raise standards of civic design in Cleveland." But it's clearly also meant to inspire.

"Economists may disagree over whether excellent architecture and urban amenities such as streetscapes, bike trails and waterfront parks are a cause or consequence of economic vitality," he writes. "Regardless, it never makes sense to spend a dollar on mediocrity when the same dollar can buy excellence. The reality is that great design demands greater effort -- on the part of clients, designers, government agencies and citizens. Cleveland continues to be plagued by a chronic sense of low self-esteem and by the notion that trying to improve the city through better design isn't worth the effort.

"THIS VOLUME REJECTS THAT VIEW."

The book grew out of Spectrum: the Lockwood Thompson Dialogues at the Cleveland Public Library, and was facilitated by Cleveland Public Art.

Since the book's inroduction in the PD, Cleveland Public Art has received nearly 200 calls requesting copies, according to executive director Gregory Peckham. "That seems like a good benchmark when it comes to the interest of the public about the subject of civic design," Peckham notes.

Designing a Better Cleveland is also available online as a PDF.



Source: Plain Dealer
Writer: Frank W. Lewis