Amtrak seeks $300m for Great Lakes-area stations

 Cleveland’s Amtrak station occasionally sees a daylight passenger train when
one of its nightly Chicago-East Coast trains is tardy enough. When that happens,
Clevelanders get to imagine what it might be like if had normal daytime train
service like its counterparts in neighboring states and a station more befit-
ting a major city (KJP). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.

Cleveland and other Northern Ohio cities would gain new, larger train stations from a program proposed by passenger railroad Amtrak to improve its intercity services here. The program, a five-year, $300 million Great Lakes Stations Improvement initiative, represents the first time in Amtrak’s 53-year history that it has pursued such an aggressive development effort for this region and specifically for the Cleveland-Chicago route.

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Downtown’s new AJ Rocco’s reopening in May

Built in 1880 as a saloon topped by apartments, this three-story building on Huron
Road just west of East 9th Street in Downtown Cleveland was added onto twice in
its history to become The American Savings Bank. One addition was in back and
the other was this terra cotta façade that was cleaned and restored to its former
beauty to match the attention to detail of the renovations made inside for AJ
Rocco’s new home and new full restaurant concept (KJP).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.

If you remember AJ Rocco’s as a coffee shop in the neighboring Caxton Building in Downtown Cleveland, the new AJ Rocco’s is going to be a big change for you. Restaurant-bar owner Brendan Walton and building owner Paul Shaia spared no expense in renovating a 19th-century bank building at 828 Huron Rd. to its Gilded Age glory with all of the rich woodwork, brick walls and metal decorative elements one would expect in a cozy downtown pub.

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Cleveland’s Central-Fairfax: the next hot zone?

This is where Cleveland’s Central and Fairfax neighborhoods meet, at Norfolk
Southern’s elevated railroad tracks near East 71st Street and Quincy Avenue.
The railroad was once a four-track line and had many industries clustered along
it. Now the area is largely devoid of employers and poverty is far above the
national average. City, county and private leaders are working to assembly and
clean properties to market them for redevelopment (Site Readiness Fund).

Cleveland’s Central and Fairfax neighborhoods haven’t been a hot zone for new real estate development since the Jazz Age of the 1920s and 30s. Back then, streets like Cedar, Central and Quincy were hopping with jazz clubs, speakeasies, flappers and gangsters. Aside the many night spots were factories that hummed with tens of thousands of jobs during the daytime hours. Most were tightly clustered along the four-tracked Pennsylvania Railroad that was elevated in 1915 to reduce traffic congestion.

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Downtown’s next crane may be MIA for a while

It may look like Sherwin-Williams’ new headquarters tower and a potential con-
cept for a phase two tower in Downtown Cleveland. But it’s actually the Texas
Tower in Downtown Houston. Perhaps Sherwin-Williams could build a similar
tower for its expected second phase to handle its growing office employment
(Comprehensive Zoning Services). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.

While the nation’s employment is high and incomes are rising, in many respects, the slowdown in new real estate construction projects is the worst the nation has seen since the credit crunch of 2008-10. Back then, everything stopped. Nothing new was getting built. Things aren’t too different now unless you’re building new data centers, warehouses or small housing projects.

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New Downtown Lakewood plan, grocery store announced

Downtown Lakewood’s redevelopment of the 6-acre site of a former hospital com-
plex has gone through multiple iterations since Lakewood Hospital closed eight
years ago. The latest plan proposes a sequence of construction like what was an-
nnounced last fall but with a new boutique grocery store tenant that may hopefully
make this project move forward. This view is looking southwest with Detroit
Avenue on the right of the site (Dimit). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.

Sitting dormant since Lakewood Hospital was closed in 2016 and demolished in 2019, a 6-acre city-owned site in Downtown Lakewood has a fresh strategy and a new tenant to potentially and finally reactivate it. While that strategy and a new tenant, a neighborhood grocery store, was enthusiastically received by City Council members at a committee meeting tonight, it remains to be seen whether it can overcome financing hurdles affecting it and all other projects nationwide.

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Tower City’s Astro lifts off tomorrow

Astro Boy, Groot and Darth Vader guide down (or up) the stairs to the restrooms
at Astro Restaurant at Tower City Center in Downtown Cleveland. They’re just
some of the characters that liven up the family-friendly restaurant (KJP).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.

Yes, a new restaurant at Tower City Center in Downtown Cleveland really is out of this world. And The Astro Restaurant is going to lift off at 11 a.m. tomorrow, one block from the neighboring RocketMortage offices. But since the restaurant will be open only for dinner, it may prove to be popular for people attending evening events at the RocketMortgage FieldHouse just down the street.

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Sherwin-Williams: already outgrown its new HQ

With Sherwin-Williams’ new headquarters parking garage accommodating
fewer than one-third of the building’s employees, the company is developing
a parking and transportation plan to handle commuters for its new HQ and
possibly its HQ2 (KJP). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.

With the completion of Sherwin-Williams’ new Downtown Cleveland headquarters tower delayed well into next year, the global coatings giant has a some extra time to consider its options on how to handle various aspects of its unanticipated growth. Since the company has already outgrown its new HQ before it is finished, that means weighing a second HQ tower, expanding remote work, as well as addressing parking and commuting options.

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