The Observation Deck

All across the Country developers and cities are building parking garages to accommodate employees and customers and to encourage business development. Here in Lakewood our leadership thinks tearing down a garage is the way to go.

If tearing down a hospital is going to be such a boon to business then wouldn't we need more parking?

A brand new 650 space parking garage would cost about $12 million. That's just 6 months worth of Cleveland Clinic administrative fees charge to Lakewood each year.

Anyway... how competent are the LHA board members if the buildings they are charged with preserving need so much deferred maintenance that they need to be torn down?

http://www.fixr.com/costs/build-parking-garage

The proposed Family Health Center is smaller than the Lakewood professional building on Belle and Madison. We are told by Jennifer Pae that the facility will have 250 employees. If the Center will be a busy place then where will all those patients park? Are we really going to tear town $15 million worth of infrastructure just to provide a really big parking lot for the Cleveland Clinic?

Where are the recreation center users going to park?

Is the City really set to replace 1,500 jobs with a 4 acre parking lot?

There will be a Council of the Whole meeting tonight at 6pm at City Hall.

I believe Dru Siley will have a presentation regarding this matter.
Council President Madigan has stated that there will be a "question and answer" opportunity.

I encourage folks to attend.

Bill Call wrote:
Anyway... how competent are the LHA board members if the buildings they are charged with preserving need so much deferred maintenance that they need to be torn down?

Bill

Let's not forget Planning and Development;s next big dream...


Turning St. Charles Green into a flat parking lot with kiosks.

It would not be so outrageous, but "Planning" has proved to be a metaphor during the
last two administration for an office in the basement of City Hall, and nothing to do with planning.

Had they even a hint of a clue, they would have made the vacant building into a parking
lot that could have proven to some at the Rock Hall in New York, they were serious about
rebuilding the area on the East end of the City.

But instead they planned "Value World" and "non-profits" for laundering money for friends to run.

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So, let’s talk about the St. Charles-Belle park/green space…

Last Tuesday, September 21st, Mayor Summers and I had a conversation on my front porch. I have a “Save Lakewood Hospital” sign in my yard and he wanted to know what prompted me to support saving Lakewood Hospital. I shared with him my reasons and emphasized that I wanted discussions and debate about this issue to be public and transparent. Additionally, I brought up the issue of a potential rec center to which the Mayor emphatically denied was ever a real plan—just maybe a fleeting thought. I don’t know why whenever someone from City Council or who supports the Mayor deny this when we are all looking at plans plastered all over the LO Deck and social media. More importantly, Mayor Summers looked me in the eye and said there would never be a rec center in Lakewood. Yet, not a week later I am reading and hearing reports that yes indeed, a rec center is the plans.

I figured since I was having an “honest” discussion with the Mayor that perhaps I could have him put to rest rumors that the park across from my home (behind the Parking Garage) would become a surface parking lot. I asked if there was a reason that Sam O’Leary’s proposal to designate this area as a park was being stalled. The Mayor explained to me that the city owns this land and so it is already a park. I responded by asking about the potential grant money that the city would gain from designating it a park. He responded that the city can put money into it—implying a grant is not needed. Then, I asked, but won’t designating this space a park protect it from, let’s say, surface parking? He reacted to me like the idea of a parking lot BEHIND a huge 1000 space parking garage investing a million dollars of renovations was nonsense. However, he did admit that a business owner on Detroit Ave. thought surface parking would be cheaper for businesses AND then admitted that when Metro was looking at Lakewood Hospital their plans called for turning this space into temporary parking during construction (by the way, there is no such thing as temporary surface parking—you can’t put back the grass & trees that are ripped out).

Overall, the parking garage which the city no longer owns is a nuisance—not big surprise. It’s a parking garage. It is never full. It is mind boggling to me that the city would even consider ripping out precious green space to put in surface parking that is not needed behind a huge parking garage with 1000 spaces that is NEVER full. It is so obvious to me that this is NOT what to do—city planning 101. Why isn’t it to them?

Yes, my neighbors and I will fight this and support Sam all we can to get this done. But, my gosh this is a fight we shouldn’t even have.

I always thought it odd that the Mayor told so many lies when the truth would serve him better. Maybe the truth is worse than we think.

So we tear down a Hospital, tear down a parking garage, office building and family health center and convert green space into a parking lot just so the Cleveland Clinic can relocate 16 doctors to a new building at Detroit and Belle?

Bill Call wrote:I always thought it odd that the Mayor told so many lies when the truth would serve him better.

Mayor Michael P. Summers to the Citizens of Lakewood ...

Getting more like,

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Kristine Pagsuyoin wrote:Last Tuesday, September 21st, Mayor Summers and I had a conversation on my front porch. I have a “Save Lakewood Hospital” sign in my yard and he wanted to know what prompted me to support saving Lakewood Hospital. I shared with him my reasons and emphasized that I wanted discussions and debate about this issue to be public and transparent. Additionally, I brought up the issue of a potential rec center to which the Mayor emphatically denied was ever a real plan—just maybe a fleeting thought. I don’t know why whenever someone from City Council or who supports the Mayor deny this when we are all looking at plans plastered all over the LO Deck and social media. More importantly, Mayor Summers looked me in the eye and said there would never be a rec center in Lakewood. Yet, not a week later I am reading and hearing reports that yes indeed, a rec center is the plans.

Dear Mayor Michael P. Summers ...





Sincerely,

Matt Markling

Come on, Jim.

It is really more like ...

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Matthew John Markling wrote:Come on, Jim.

It is really more like ...

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That's a lot of lies. But it doesn't distract from the quality of each one.