PD on "End of Sprawl": new opportunities for Lakew

[Tom Bullock]

FYI in today's PD, here is a great op ed on "The end of sprawl": http://www.cleveland.com/plaindealer/st ... xml&coll=2

Key excerpts suggest Lakewood has opportunities for resurgence, if we work hard and work together:

"The collapse in the housing market and high gasoline prices are bad news for middle-class homeowners left to sift through the wreckage. But if there is consolation to be found amid the rubble, it may be that the sprawl that has characterized American life since World War II might finally be coming to an end. Given the connections between car-dependent suburban development and social ills - from climate change and the destruction of wetlands to obesity and social isolation - the end can come none too soon."

"American sprawl was built on the twin pillars of low gas prices and a relentless demand for housing that, combined with the effects of restrictive zoning in existing suburbs, pushed new development outward toward cheap rural land."

..."Over the past year or so, both of these forces have dramatically weakened. With credit tight and the demand for housing drying up (sales of new homes fell last month to the lowest level in 12 years), new construction in the exurbs is grinding to a halt."

"The death of sprawl will present enormous challenges, chief among them the need to provide affordable middle-class housing in areas that are already built up. Accommodating a growing population in the era of high gas prices will mean increasing density and mixing land uses to enhance walkability and public transit. And this must happen not just in urban centers but in existing suburbs, where growth is stymied by parochial and exclusionary zoning laws."

"We may discover that it's not so bad living closer to work, in transit- and pedestrian-friendly, diverse neighborhoods where we run into friends and neighbors as we walk to the store, school or the office."

[Bill Call]

Key excerpts suggest Lakewood has opportunities for resurgence, if we work hard and work together:

The only caveat I want to make is that as the jobs, industry, housing and retail continue their sprawl it is the inner ring suburb that becomes the outlying area.

Lakewood is uniquely situated to thrive if our elected leaders understand that bold action is needed to take advantage of a narrow window of opportunity. I think they (most of them anyway) do.

[ryan costa]

fortunately there is nearly unlimited cheap housing on the west side of cleveland and lakewood for the broad income ranges of Middle Class to buy. You can't sell a six room house on west boulevard within a few blocks of lake erie for over 80 grand these days.

Without cheap credit the housing prices won't rise too drastically as people continue moving in.

It is also possible there will be fewer drunk driving deaths when people can just walk to bars or their friends houses to drink.

Most modern furniture is designed for enormous sprawl houses: it takes up a lot of floor space without actually seating more people. There will be opportunities for new furniture marketing.

It took a lot of subsidies to keep sprawl going. Despite all those subsidies sprawl was touted by newspaper columnists as the place where Individualistic, tax hating, free trading Americans wanted to live. The last two oil wars are also basically a subsidy for sprawl.

Technically, it might be easier to mass transit workers to the big office parks and industrial centers in westlake and avon from a few points in the inner suburbs than to transport many of them from the outer burbs to downtown cleveland.

The first giant push for sprawl came after World War II. Although fewer people were coming back than had left, there was suddenly a "housing shortage". It became mostly a makework program for people to build houses, new developments, new schools, new police departments, new fire departments, and finance all of it.

[Bill Call]

Technically, it might be easier to mass transit workers to the big office parks and industrial centers in westlake and avon from a few points in the inner suburbs than to transport many of them from the outer burbs to downtown cleveland.

The plan for commuter rail service through Lakewood will facilitate just such development.

The new I-90 interchange in Avon will open up thousands of acres of vacant land for the development of new housing, industry, shopping and recreation. Its proximity to the Sandusky vacation area, Hopkins Airport, I-480 and the turnpike will create a new economic center of gravity centered at Avon. Forget Cleveland, it's finished.

The transfer of Lakewood Hospital services and facilities to the new Avon facility will also offer the Clinic the opportunity to create a West side clinic complex that will rival their current facilities on the East side of Cleveland.

Since Ohio is not gaining population that growth will come at the expense of City's like Lakewood. The window of opportunity to compete with the Avon industrial, medical, retail, housing development is rapidly closing.

Since most of the major government assisted development in this area has been designed to benefit the Jacobs group and the Jacobs group is a key player in Avon it looks like the window might already be closed. Follow the money.

[c. dawson]

wow, so if Avon becomes the new center of Northeast Ohio, then we're no longer an "inner ring" suburb, but become an "outer ring" suburb of Avon. Woo-hoo!!!! Happy days are here again!

Yep, all those folks will move out to Avon ... which will become traffic jammed like Mayfield and Mentor ... and the school system will be overwhelmed, as will city services. Because all the lovely white-flighters who move out to the far reaches have to buy giant McMansions, then they're in no mood to vote for tax increases to benefit their schools, police and fire, libraries, etc. So the rapidly-growing population overwhelms the city's services, and there's no increase in taxes to increase those services.

Meanwhile, their giant McMansions are constructed shoddily, and with materials that may prove toxic as time goes on (instead of wood, they often use "wood products" that mostly consist of sawdust and wood chips bound together with chemical products ... sounds wonderful doesn't it??), so their paradise may become Dante's Inferno.

I'm endlessly amused by the stories told to me by the woman who moved out of my Lakewood house to go to Avon to a nice new McMansion ... since she's done that, her contractor is on speed dial, because the homebuilder did such shoddy work that they have to come back on an almost weekly basis to fix things. Yet the nice old house that she left in Lakewood, my home, is built like a fortress. We've not had any problems with it whatsoever, other than having to do some work on the porch. She doesn't know her neighbors, because none of them are ever outside their house, and all the houses in her neighborhoods feature "great rooms" in the back of the house where the families spend their time, essentially turning their backs upon the street and what goes on there.

I dunno ... I grew up in the outer ring, and frankly, it's not such a wonderful thing. That's why I chose to move to the inner ring.

I've been to Avon. I'm not impressed. It ain't all that and a bag of chips!

[Anne Steiner]

good post--c.dawson.

on a similar note, we have friends who live in an Avon Lake mcMansion and have been spooked by the high rates of childhood cancer and have been trying to sell since last summer. While they don't plan to buy in Lakewood, they are hoping to buy in RR, or Bay.

[Bryan Schwegler]

The transfer of Lakewood Hospital services and facilities to the new Avon facility will also offer the Clinic the opportunity to create a West side clinic complex that will rival their current facilities on the East side of Cleveland.

Do you have a link to this information being confirmed? I've not heard of any plans to move Lakewood's medical facilities to Avon.

Just wondering where you may have gotten this information from...

[Bill Call]

Do you have a link to this information being confirmed? I've not heard of any plans to move Lakewood's medical facilities to Avon.

Just wondering where you may have gotten this information from...

Pure speculation.

The most recent annual report I have is from 2005.

Employees:

2005 1,383
2004 1,008
2003 1,060
2002 1,424

Emergency room visits:

2005 36,770
2004 38,925
2003 39,101
2002 36,449

Surgeries

2005 6,748
2004 6,949
2003 7,354
2002 7,164

Out patient visits

2005 160,857
2004 156,915
2003 153,699

Unreimbursed Care

2005 $28.7 million
2004 $21 million
2003 $12 million
2002 $11 million

Riddle: A patient walks into the Clinics Westlake facility and announces he has no insurance. Is he sent to Lakewood or is he treated in Westlake?

Surgeries, emergency room visits and employment are trending downward. Unreimbursed care is trending upward. More Lakewood doctors and procedures once performed in Lakewood are being moved to Westlake. The Clinic has announced its intention to build a large facility 10 minutes away in Avon. What does it mean?

I'm only expressing an opinion. What do you think?

Now, before I get into too much trouble let me say that the Clinic and Lakewood Hospital are wonderful institutions staffed by some of the best trained and most highly motivated people in the business. However, the Clinic is a businsess that rents the hospital.

Too some extent the Clinic can make up the unreimbursed care with payments from the paying customer. BUT at what point does the unreimbursed care exceed the profit made on the paying customer?

Maybe there has been a turn around in the last two years. If I get a hold of more recent annual reports I'll post the numbers.

I guess this is off the subject of urban sprawl but maybe not. If there is an empty building where Lakewood Hospital use to stand the job of renewal becomes a lot harder.

[Brad Hutchison]

on a similar note, we have friends who live in an Avon Lake mcMansion and have been spooked by the high rates of childhood cancer and have been trying to sell since last summer. While they don't plan to buy in Lakewood, they are hoping to buy in RR, or Bay.

Anne, this could be describing exactly my wife's sister and her family. They're freaked out by health concerns, don't even brush their teeth with tap water, but can't sell, because, besides everythong else with the home market, they bought one of the first (poorly contructed) McMansions in a new McDevelopment, so why would someone buy a "used" house when they can build a new one down the street?

[Dee Martinez]

Mr. Call I share you concern about LH and the Clinic. If youve ventured off topic Im going along with you.
Under the operating/lease agreement I dont believe the Clinic can shut LH down but Im not sure under what terms they have to keep it open. For all we know, the Clinic could turn LH into a corn and bunion removal center and still satisfy its obligation to the city.

Also distressing to me is what has happened to the availability of doctors in Lakewood. There are currently no cardiologists with offices in the city. My mothers opthamologist has moved to Westlake. I just found out that my dermatologist has gone there too. I cant believe this is good for overall quality of life in Lakewood.

[Bill Call]

Under the operating/lease agreement I dont believe the Clinic can shut LH down but Im not sure under what terms they have to keep it open. For all we know, the Clinic could turn LH into a corn and bunion removal center and still satisfy its obligation to the city.

The lease requires the Clinic to:

"continue to provide residents of the City from facilities located within the City acute care medical/surgical services...obstetrical/gynecological services, 24 a day emergency room providing trauma services, intensive care services and rescue squad/paramedic services.."

The Clinic has the right to transfer all the rights and responsiblities to another non-profit entity (aka leave town). I don't see that they are under any obligation to run a full service hospital.

For political reasons they wouldn't just shut it down. However, a slow bleed policy works just as well.

If they were committed to the City instead of using the profits of the last 15 years to finance its expansion into Westlake the Clinic could have built new facilities at:

Clifton & 117th or
Madison & Hilliard or
Detroit & 117th or
I-90 and 117th or
Anywhere along Detroit as part of a larger office, retail, medical center.

I also think that there is a policy to encourage/transfer paying customers to Westlake and Lutheran and encourage the non-payers to use Lakewood Hospital.

Within a certain range, through the miracle of modern accounting, the Hospital makes exactly what the Clinic wants it to make.

[Jim O'Bryan]

For political reasons they wouldn't just shut it down. However, a slow bleed policy works just as well.

...
Anywhere along Detroit as part of a larger office, retail, medical center.

Within a certain range, through the miracle of modern accounting, the Hospital makes exactly what the Clinic wants it to make.

Bill


You always amaze me.

When was the last time you drove down Detroit? Ever notice the two other affiliates of the Lakewood Hospital/Clinic? One just built. Of course you realize the Clinic is slowly taking over the building West of it. Right, the millions they spent on the Diabetes Center there? I am sure you walked through it before the comment. How did you like The Rockport outreach center?

At what point wouldn't the hospital make exactly what the Clinic wants? That is the nature of the beast. Not just the Clinic, University Hospital and ever other one in the world.

Non-profit has nothing to do with profits, we both know that. It is how the profits are distributed, right?


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