The Observation Deck

From the Lakewood City Schools website:

BOARD BLDG. TO BE OFFERED FOR SALE AT PUBLIC AUCTION

The Lakewood City School District will offer for sale at public auction the Board Office building located at 1456 and 1470 Warren Road, Lakewood, Ohio 44107. The property will be auctioned on Tuesday, April 25, 2017, at 4 p.m. (EST). Minimum bid is $850,000. Pre-registration is required and will begin at 3:30 p.m. A tour of the property is set for Friday, March 31 at 9:30 a.m.

See more at http://www.lakewoodcityschools.org/News ... ZUTVD.dpuf

Here are links to a recent Observation Deck discussion and article on the subject.

http://lakewoodobserver.com/forum/viewt ... 24#p170624

http://lakewoodobserver.com/read/2017/02/07/old-schools

Can't wait to see the property on the tour, Does Lakewood need a classy hotel? With a party Center?

Guess not Jackie! However, we could use another parking lot, meters, you know, jobs, parking enforcement. We have to progress, we wouldn't want to look like the past.

That property will not be demolished..... I don't care if Trump buys it, IT WILL NOT BE DESTROYED... STOP IT RIGHT NOW. I'M asking for a movement, that property will be OFF LIMITS. if you can't use it as it is, then get the hell out of town... dO WHATEVER YOU NEED TO THE INTERIOR, MAKE IT WORK FOR YOU, DON'T TOUCH THE OUTSIDE, UNLESS YOUR GOING TO IMPROVE IT.

if YOU CONSIDERING PURCHASING THE PROPERTY, the only way THE ONLY WAY IT SHOULD BE SOLD IS, AS is, WHAT IS THERE HERE NOW,. WILL BE HERE TOMORROW. you can improve it, make it code compliant, anything, but demolition. not on the table.... look at the Clifton Club, in western Lakewood, just wonderful, IF YOUR THINKING OF changing the bones, the guts, the heart, MAYBE, WE WILL DECIDE, but my last breath, will be defending the property as it is now, those pictures I saw in the LO, god, I wished I lived in "that Lakewood", 1948, that is the bomb, terms I'd heard from young drug abusers. MY LAST BREATH will be to make sure, the building remain....

jackie---- great sentiments, but--- those structures have seen their day

Does someone have the vision and wherewithal to look at the whole Warren Road, Detroit, and old hospital site for a Lakewood suitable, demographic appropriate project?

I do.... I do.... stop the demise now..... stop trashing our most valuable assets for the sake of a god damn parking lot?

How about this, all the residents of Lakewood, the friends of Lakewood, all of Lakewood, come together, start a "go fund me page" and make sure the school property is retained and utilized to the best it can be.

are you kidding me? The city of Lakewood can't see the potential in the renovation and repurpose of this historic property? hello? what the f--k is going on,? who is in charge..... really, you actually cannot see the potential , this property has to offer? cheese & wrong

how about, friends, family, lovers of Lakewood, benefactors, start an organization which would fund projects that would benefit, reserve and preserve the LAKEWOOD tradition, culture atmosphere, the building, the charm, almost gone, lost forever, save what is left...

jackie f taylor wrote:how about, friends, family, lovers of Lakewood, benefactors, start an organization which would fund projects that would benefit, reserve and preserve the LAKEWOOD tradition, culture atmosphere, the building, the charm, almost gone, lost forever, save what is left...

jackie

Don't you get it yet? It is all a grand illusion, a hillbilly masquerade ball. Say one thing while already plotting the other.

The School Board building has been on the block since 2006 or so. I will go back and check the email thread. The Lakewood Observer was approached by Jennifer Hooper to donate $10,000 for a small park and gazebo in front of the School Board Building. I told her I would be very interested, and said let's talk. Well it had to have a gazebo, (they had a real hard on for a gazebo downtown for years) and pathways and benches. I said, not sure what $10,000 covers, and her response, "Well for us to do the study, after the School Board Building and Grant is torn down, we can do more."

Recently during the election, those radicals in the Lakewood Historical Society that are trying to save Lakewood's history, were told by the Mayor and others, FFL was acquiring the building, and it would become their headquarters, and they will save the structures. I am not sure where any of that stands, but I believe FFL lost interest shortly after the election.

There is a small group of about 15 people that keep tight reign on all groups except the Lakewood Observer, same names popping up again and again and again for decades. So to act like any of this is surprising, would be foolish, and to think they will not lie, mislead, and screw the rest of Lakewood to do it would be foolish as well.

This small handful of myopic small minds, that desperately dream in strip malls, have their eyes set on all of the funding from the hospital deal, and all of the property around it. The scheme has been in the works for along time, and to be honest I think is is desensitizing all of us. We do not expect the mayor to be honest any longer, we do not expect the law directory to be honest or forth coming with records, we do not expect finance or PR to be honest about anything and we expect them to lie, and intimidate when questioned.

Welcome to Lakewood.

Cue the music.



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Wow! Time to get this thread back on track...

http://images.ulib.csuohio.edu/cdm/sing ... 1486/rec/5

Above is the link to the Yesterday's Lakewood photo of the construction of the first Grant Elementary School, which is now the rec department offices, I believe. According to the photo, the construction of it was in 1904.

Jim,

I agree with you. Where is the historical society? Here is a link to the list of the Board of Directors for Lakewood Historical Society:

http://lakewoodhistory.org/board-staff.htm

Suddenly this boils over now? The only thing I have heard about this was a Cleveland.com article from months ago where it was said that the board was "considering" the sale of the building. Suddenly now we are already taking bids? This was, in my humble opinion, a very sneaky and underhanded process, with little to no transparency or accountability, just push, push, and push some more.

I will be making some phone calls to various agencies next week to check on the legality and well as the ethics concerning this, as it does not seem on the "up-and-up", like almost everything in this city.

Why are City Hall and now the Board of Education, apparently now chasing their tails, scrambling like mad to get all of their property transactions done? For those of you that were skeptical, hopefully it now becomes more clear why some of us have been monitoring the sale of property in Lakewood recently. Maybe something isn't right?

As a cat from a well-loved family film would say: "What's your hurry, Murray? Where ya goin'?"

If this thread is derailed again, that is maybe an indicator that the mayor is upset about this. Perhaps he knows more than he would like us to find out about.

Lori

Not sure how far off track it went, but thanks.

What we need to think about is that Lakewood City Council acted in a very selfish sneaky way in them selling off the hospital, and All but one on the schoolboard stayed with them lock stock and barrel, which I always found odd, as anything they found out would have been a public record, and none have been provided. Now they have property, The School Board Building right on the edge of the development as surprise surprise surprise, it is for sale too!

Possible scene from recent School Board meeting...



Residents of Lakewood, you have been played on a grand scale.


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Jim O'Bryan wrote:This small handful of myopic small minds, that desperately dream in strip malls, have their eyes set on all of the funding from the hospital deal, and all of the property around it. The scheme has been in the works for along time, and to be honest I think is is desensitizing all of us. We do not expect the mayor to be honest any longer, we do not expect the law directory to be honest or forth coming with records, we do not expect finance or PR to be honest about anything and we expect them to lie, and intimidate when questioned.

Welcome to Lakewood.

Back during the Mayoral election one the Mayors supporters said that the idea to replace the hospital with a recreation center was "just one of many ideas that came up in numerous brains storming sessions".

The obvious questions that I asked that were never answered:

So there were discussions about dismantling a publically owned hospital,
moving jobs to Avon,
transferring Lakewood Hospital Foundation funds to the Cleveland Clinic
transferring City funds to a foundation controlled by a small clique
and replacing it all with a tax eating recreation center

AND

No one informed the public?
No one but the Mayors pals were invited to the brainstorming sessions?
A small group met secretly for years with the purpose of destroying a hospital?

At this point even the idea of a recreation center appears to be dead. The brain storm was more like light rain.

It looks like all we will get out of this debacle is a cheesy housing development and a fake foundation.

Bill Call wrote:[quote="

No one informed the public?
No one but the Mayors pals were invited to the brainstorming sessions?
A small group met secretly for years with the purpose of destroying a hospital?

At this point even the idea of a recreation center appears to be dead. The brain storm was more like light rain.

It looks like all we will get out of this debacle is a cheesy housing development and a fake foundation.

Bill

What we have here is an enormous trust gap. When the residents trusted politicians and school board members enough to blindly trust them for decades. Then one day they found a bad influence, and sold the city out, knowingly, and as proven by their various key members, with much malice towards anyone that dare to question them.

They wanted, no demanded, and mislead the city on Grant School being torn down. A series of faux meetings, and tons of FACTS were presented why the plan was wrong, and not good for the city. Safety, Ease, Access, etc, all looked at all pointed to a school in the center of the city, yet, the very people involved in closing the hospital, insisted they needed to close Grant.

Here is the very strange deal, At no point did members of the school board that blindly backed the closing of the hospital, act like the School Board, Building Grant School, and the Post Office were not in play when behind the scenes they openly spoke of it.

The morals of our civic leaders have broken, beyond repair.

Had any one of them been honest and said, "we have a chance to package our properties with 6 other acres, and really do something, was discarded for a series of fake meetings, committees, boards, and votes to make it look like they didn't sell out the city, the city demanded to be sold out. They could have saved us the second and third civil wars they caused with their secrecy and lying.

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