The Observation Deck

I am starting another section in this section looking at the new glamor sections of Cleveland,
so that we can possibly glean what makes them attract residents, shoppers and traffic. Do
they live up to the hype, or are they better? What makes them so special, or different from us
and even more importantly how it fits into the Regional Dream.


Field Trip to Tremont. Trees have warmers like the meters, poles and trees do
in Cleveland Heights.



Tremont Scoops, where a bike rack looks like an ice cream cone.



Fairfield Meat Market.



One of my favorite places to hide out when not in Lakewood. The Prosperity Social Club.



The John 3:16 Building ("For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only S
on, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.), in the Detroit
Shoreway area.



More of a sign of the times and the past, then of the future?

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Isn't Tremont the car thieving capital of the west side?

Jim DeVito wrote:Isn't Tremont the car thieving capital of the west side?

Jim

Not sure.

One thing I have always enjoyed about Cleveland in general is that it is a pretty non-violent city.

Always better to have a ca stolen, than a mugging, murder, attack etc.. Over 90% of the time, you
need to have some form of social interaction with the person before you are shot or stabbed.

I have to think that the cars worth stealing are to the West of us. Car theft is usually tied to popular
cars that are often being repaired so that there is a market for the parts.

FWIW


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Interesting topic.

What makes a neighborhood trendy?

Tremont has high crime, lots of public housing, a mostly substandard housing stock and is a small area sandwiched between freeways and steel mills.

I think part of the attraction is the propaganda campaign run by the Plain Dealer and other media outlets to paint the area as trendy. Art walks, restaraunts and housing get more press than similar projects in Lakewood.

Part is that the quality of the new housing is actually pretty good. It is a lot better than what you see in another development that I can think of.

Maybe one or two trendy eateries can help create hype for a neighborhood. My guess is that Temont eateries get more press than Lakewood eateries. So maybe it isn't the restaraunt maybe its the press.

Can you create a trendy area?

I think so. There is a chance that the Gordon Square district just might make it. Although the design and implementation has many flaws.

Bill Call wrote:Interesting topic.

What makes a neighborhood trendy?

Tremont has high crime, lots of public housing, a mostly substandard housing stock and is a small area sandwiched between freeways and steel mills.

I think part of the attraction is the propaganda campaign run by the Plain Dealer and other media outlets to paint the area as trendy. Art walks, restaraunts and housing get more press than similar projects in Lakewood.

Part is that the quality of the new housing is actually pretty good. It is a lot better than what you see in another development that I can think of.

Maybe one or two trendy eateries can help create hype for a neighborhood. My guess is that Temont eateries get more press than Lakewood eateries. So maybe it isn't the restaraunt maybe its the press.

Can you create a trendy area?

I think so. There is a chance that the Gordon Square district just might make it. Although the design and implementation has many flaws.

Bill


In just about every "trendy" area I know about in Cleveland, Columbus, Chicago, Cincinnati,
New York, it always starts as an organic movement bore out of the area completely
bottoming out.

Right now in Collinwood I am watching a new Tremont being born. Homes block from the lake, and
a beautiful state park going for $10,000 - $25,000 dollars. Some even less. People that can afford
little more moving in. Like Tremont, and Gordon Square many are artists, musicians, free and open
thinkers that have more time than money. They buy low, fix up and hope and work to make the
community better. As in Tremont in the early days, many that bought early are getting frustrating
and thinking of moving. This has been repeated time and time again German Village, Olde Town,
Chelsea, etc. Yet in all of these areas had they been deemed "trendy" the organic part never would
have shown up nor would they be able to buy.

At a presentation about "Art Districts In Lakewood" this as one of the many facts glossed over. That
the two/three "Arts Districts" which were really one art district, one trendy area and a hotel, they
failed to explain that in Tremont, you could buy a home for $4,000 25 years before it finally
became trendy. That you could get 6,000 sq. feet of store front for $265 a month on West 6th,
and that the Colonel Arcade was allowing it to be used for FREE just to get people in the door. The
fastest turn around was the arcade, where a hotel chain saw it being used and bought it. Tremont,
like Ohio City, and now Gordon Square took decades, and West 6th took about 15 years, to catch
on. As I have said numerous times, I found it odd that the people speaking of building trendy on
the stage had actually all inherited projects well along the way, with two of them borderline
failures. While all of the "success stories" were created by Lakewoodites, that were ignored, with
the exception of the Arcade as Thomas was using himself for the success story.

I would say, what needs to be looked at for Lakewood is the "trendy areas" that have stayed that
way for 20 or more years. Coventry, German Village, and Old Town. For one of the real problems
is that people that build trendy, rarely stay after it becomes trendy. A question I posed to those
having the discussion, if we use low cost housing and coffee shops to attract artists and musicians
to make a "trendy area" how do we keep that feeling when they loathe living near the people that
buy their art or music?

FWIW

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Coventry is a very different animal than Lakewood, and there's really nothing we can do to turn Lakewood into Coventry. I say this as someone who deliberately would go to both areas as a Parma teen in the 1990s. I would go to both areas for the unique shops and such that didn't have anything like them in Parma (which is part of why I'm so horrified whenever someone talks about wanting to have more franchises in Lakewood and by what I see occupying the rebuilt/renovated commercial to the expense of the truly unique and useful.... Cerny was the only place that still had effing boots in my new foot size when I realized I REALLY needed a new pair a few weeks ago - loose ligaments have had my shoe size go up by half a size each pregnancy. Stupid national chains send the same amount of boots to Cleveland as they do to Hawaii, and send them in flippin' August, putting flip-flops out before Christmas! But I digress). We do not need a(nother) central Payless Shoe Store in the middle of downtown Lakewood, but if the rent keeps going up on the shops on the main drag then the franchises are the only ones that will be able to afford to be there. Maybe it'll help grow Madison as a retail district and fill THOSE empty shops, but it's really unfair to places that have been a staple of Lakewood for so long to get pushed to the side for inferior products and service to take their place.

There is a big reason Lakewood can never be Coventry, and it's Case. We don't have a large population of college students and professors living here like the area around Coventry does. Many of those college students are also carless, or share cars with their friends (or that rent-by-the-hour company that has cars parked in the lot on Euclid and Mayfield). This makes parking much less of an issue for Coventry since they have a lot more dependable foot traffic from the students, and at many (if not all) the shops there students can even use their Case ID cards as a form of payment (you can put money into an account with the university and then the student only has to carry their ID instead of cash and credit cards). Because of the student population being there, I would argue that Coventry could actually stay trendy and viable with a significantly higher percentage franchise space-fillers than Lakewood could - they have more there now than they did when I was a teen. Also, even though it is an area heavily populated with college students, there was a big fight when Coventry Elementary school was closed. Some people are taking it as a sign that the Detroit commercial district will be just fine with Grant closed because Coventry survived when Coventry Elementary closed. The problem is that much of our foot traffic in this area is parents from what I've seen (and parents of young children are generally a very desirable demographic for markerters, as we are generally high consumers of goods and services - damn kids breaking/losing my things!!! ). The center of our town is the most family-dense area of the entire city, and a lot of this is due to how walkable so many amenities are right in the center - library, Y, Grant, post office, Marc's, interesting shops, coffee options, good restaurants for a quick bite or a lingering lunch, etc. With the density of families in the area, I would argue (and have, repeatedly, until I'm looking quite smurfy) that the linchpin of this is Grant Elementary school. When I pick up my son, I see quite a few folks with Phoenix or Caribou cups in their hands, standing around waiting by the doors - who knows how many of the ones sitting in their cars had just come from one of the area shops or are going there immediately after? I didn't see that last year during dropoff/pickup at Lincoln. I hear the Grant PTA moms talking about getting together at the coffee shops and such during the day (I think maybe most of the really active ones have all their kids at school-age, personally I don't think I could maintain my sanity and a conversation with my 2 year old in any of those places). Will this continue if Grant is closed? Will our retail area suffer during the day more than anticipated by people who are looking at Coventry for what to expect for a Lakewood sans Grant?

I have driven around Tremont quite a bit (and am rather in love with the Civilization Cafe, I must admit). I'm not nearly as familiar with their school situation in that area (is Scranton Elementary still in use? That was the only elementary school I spotted in the area - looked like stuff was still up in the windows but I haven't been around it at the key times to know for sure). There's a great playground half a block from Civ, where I sent my hubby with my kids when we went to the area specifically so I could get some writing done (the novel I finished the first draft of in July has a few scenes that actually take place at the Civ, as well as surrounding areas. The main character lives in the non-trendy part of Tremont, between Scranton and W.25th, toward Metro, and winds up working in Lakewood part way through the story).

Tremont and Coventry are both interesting areas, but neither are places I'd chose to raise a family any more than NYC is. I enjoy visiting all those places. Now living in Lakewood, the other places are less interesting since I have enough unique quirky places to go in my own town, at least until the rent increases drive them out.

Lakewood really doesn't need more franchises. People don't drive to a 'burb across town to visit a franchise, they have them in their own 'burbs. It drives me bonkers how many Targets and Home Depots there are around here - it's about one every 3 exits along I90. How many areas have places like GreenSmartGifts, Melt, Souper Market, Root, Cerny Shoes, and on and on AS WELL AS daily necessities available across the street from Marc's and such AND an elementary school and such?

If we get rid of Grant and add a bunch of franchises, we're not going to be pulling in people from the burbs to frequent the place AND we make the vicinity much less appealing to families to move into, which cuts revenue for the commercial district from both ends. My perspective is that with Grant, we can survive a few franchises (because the families that live around Grant would probably shop there instead of making the trek out to a different burb). Without Grant, we damn well better foster the most quirky and trendy and really not encourage franchises at all (which also would mean not renovating the shops much, since the costs associated with the renovations make the rent too expensive for start-ups) because otherwise there will be not much to attract outsiders into the center of town. Can we really depend on the quirkiness of our shops to be an ongoing draw, though? Families are a much more reliable revenue stream for commerce.

Sorry, rambling and wandering on and off topic - been asked by a toddler for potty assistance several times while writing this which the absolute thrill of derails my train of thought (no, that's not sarcasm - my first was still in diapers when my second was born, the idea of having ~3mo of no kids in diapers before this next baby is born has me damn near euphoric tho it might not show since I'm still fighting off a head cold).

Ahmie

Ahmie Yeung wrote:Coventry is a very different animal than Lakewood, and there's really nothing we can do to turn Lakewood into Coventry. I say this as someone who deliberately would go to both areas as a Parma teen in the 1990s.

Ahmie

I am not asking for us to become a Coventry. Though I am seeing a lot of Lakewood in Cleveland
Heights, and Collinwood. Lakewood must remain Lakewood, that is what will save us in the end,
no becoming the "same as the rest with big box stores, and chains."

Will be back later, but getting ready to finish the Parma Observer. Hmmmmmmm, School closing,
voted one of the best places to raise a family, family collaborative, mayor that might run for County
Executive, and on and on.


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