This is hillarious! 

OMG! We taxpayers do own the University Square garage which is falling apart!  How funny is that!  and,,,,  (read the pdf link above to get a view of the card-shark dealing which the Port is involved in).

We taxpayers do own the Port Authority debt on Myers which has zero chance of being repaid - that really cracks me up!  I can hardly breath!

How funny!

Now, if my upper lungs weren't burning from ground level ozone, I could actually chortle and chuckle about the great job generator that Mittal has been for the County...but..

I have to contain myself here,,,please stop the jokes!  I can't breath....

please, please, pleee

Is Case Campus Architect and Planner Margaret Carney related to John Carney?

Disrupt IT

How must the guys at the top of Cleveland's Forest City Enterprises feel as another Vornado sweeps into town to plop down a five-star hotel right at their doorstep?

They have put in their lot with MMPI* to bail out their struggling Tower City (the building developed by the Van Sweringen brothers who died destitute after hijacking the Burnham Plan by moving the train station to Tower City from the lakefront).

"The fortunes of the Vans rose in the 1920s. By 1929, their holdings were valued at $3 billion, mostly as a result of the high valuation of stocks on the New York Stock Exchange. Their house of cards tumbled when the Great Depression began, causing the Van Sweringen companies to falter in the 1930s. While Shaker Heights rose to join the ranks of Beverly Hills and Wellesley, Massachusetts, the rail empire suffered financial difficulties. Loans were foreclosed upon and assets were sold to meet interest payments for their debts. At the time of his death, O.P. was worth less than $3,000." - from the Wikipedia Van Sweringen Brothers

When I saw this article in the PD, Five-star hotel headed to Flats Eastbank, I recognized the name Starwood. This time it is Starwood Capital Group. At University Square it is Starwood Wasserman. Oh yes and remember that Developers Diversified (the Wolstein Group) is helping when they want to offload some of their management businesses. It's just one big, rich, happy family, eh? What must they all have been drinking in Vegas the night this stew began to simmer? Whatever it was it surely engendered a scheme to be sure we all contributed our fair share via tax incentives.

It seems it's another blustery day in the hundred acre wood (well what was once the Forest City - no longer as much of a "wood"). Perhaps with all the controversy around Atlantic Yards in New York, the guys at Forest City have given up on making a go of it in Cleveland. It does seem to be sucking up plenty of the company's energy - "In March 2008, principal developer Bruce Ratner acknowledged that the slowing economy may delay construction of both the office and residential components of the project for several years.[2] The uncertain economy and vagueness of the developer's statements have lead NY City Comptroller Bill Thompson to say "I’m not sure what that project is any longer.""

Meanwhile, the top of our own Terminal Tower undergoes an extended facelift. The whole ordeal has a sort of Ayn Rand feel to it. Is Atlas shrugging yet?

*"Vornado Realty Trust, owners of MMPI, based in New York City, is a fully integrated equity real estate investment trust. Vornado’s common shares are listed on the New York Stock Exchange and are traded under the symbol VNO."

SAFETY FIRST

TRYING TO GET ANSWERS FROM PUBLIC EMPLOYEES WHO ARE TRYING TO HOLD ON TO THEIR JOBS IN OHIO. 

It should be a simple thing: go to the municipal building department, give them an address in the town, and then look at the file (or computer) they put in front of you on the counter.    That’s how it is in many communities.  Really, today, everything should be available on the internet.

But not in University Heights, Ohio. 

 I went there this afternoon.   They said the Dealer was there last week. 

  The building department staff seemed to want to be helpful, but without the top boss (Mr. Nadeau) in the office to answer my questions, no one else wanted to speak at all.   They wouldn’t provide any paperwork.  I asked for the building permit for the erection of the shoring in the University Square Parking Garage.   I couldn’t tell if there wasn’t a permit, or if there was a permit.  I said the work just took place in the last few months, so the permit might still be open – had any inspections been made?  Was the job under engineering control?  The parking structure was one block away across Warrensville - hadn't they seen the shoring in the garage?

They had me fill out a “public records request”.    I told them their form was bogus, and that under the public records laws of the State of Ohio I had a right to remain anonymous.  I was there to get pubic information, and I didn’t need to provide them my private information to get the public information.   

They wanted my information!   What does my information have to do with getting PUBLIC INFORMATION? 

The University Heights form is obnoxious.   Why should the public need to go on the defensive?   Just give me the x*%# file!

 No Answer.  Speak to Mr. Nadeau tomorrow. 

I told the 3 persons in the office  that I thought the conditions at the parking garage constituted an acute public safety hazard, and that I wanted to see the permit in order to determine if the work being done to shore the structure was being done with the design of, and under the supervision of, an Ohio State Licensed structural engineer. 

 I asked them if they heard what I had just said  about "public safety hazard", and the answer came somberly back, “yes”.

 I couldn’t get any specifics about Mr. Nadeau’s whereabouts,  only that I should call him tomorrow morning, that it was usual for him to be in the office from 10 to 11 am. 

I called Mr. Cuini and found out that he wouldn’t be available until at least Saturday.   It appears Mr. Cuini (one of the persons quoted in the Dealer article on 3/8/08 who sort of very obliquely and ambiquously said the garage was safe) is not a full time Engineer for University Heights, but rather works for numerous municipalities.  

I called Inland Management – the UH building department indicated that the Inland firm were “managers”of the garage,  and was put into voice mail by the receptionist.– no return call from that quarter yet.

Maybe Inland manages for the Port Authority, I will check with the Port Authority tomorrow.

I had a nice telephone conversation with Alan Simon, the engineer from Massachusetts who was the Ohio licensed (Mr. Simon shows license numbers in about 6 or 7 eastern states in his CV) engineer of record on the original construction.  

When the cracked outer “arms” of the double T’s on the garage ramps were strengthened a few months back, Mr. Simon told me he had been contacted to provide the name of the pre-cast manufacturer – the ramp repair crews would need the pre-cast shop drawings to make sure they didn’t drill into any of the pre-stressed cables when they put in the anchor bolts for the 6” I beam braces.   

I asked Mr. Simon if he was aware that there had been problems with the double T planks in the main sections of the University Square garage and Mr. Simon indicated he was not aware of the cracking problems at the ends of the T beams.  

Mr. Simon indicated that- if he understood my verbal description correctly -  beams in other similar garages were cracked at their ends  in a very minor way – and that those cracks hadn’t progressed and he did not think that they were critical.  But, with regard to the University Square parking garage cracks, Mr. Simon didn’t want to comment until he could be sure he understood what I was talking about.  I referred him to the crack photos on Realneo and said I would call him back in a day or two. 

I said that many of the cracks that I observed in the University Square parking garage also had staining, indicating that water was getting into the beams.  Mr. Simon said that such a wet condition in cracks of the beams was definitely not good. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

After  the University Square parking garage safety questions are  ironed out, the next set of questions I am leaning towards is why Dennis Wilcox has been involved both with the Port Authority and as legal counsel for Starwood Wasserman on the University Square project.  Mr. Wilcox was also a lead bond man for the Browns’ Stadium, Gateway, and other projects which received millions in funding from the Port Authority.  Why did the Cleveland-Cuyahoga Port Authority end up with the ownership of the parking structure – and not just bond it?  How much does the tax exempt ownership of the structure hurt the University Heights community and schools?   Is the tax exempt status of the parking structure an unfair competitive advantage over other Ohio malls whose parking is not tax exempt?

 Sure would appear to be.  

The tax exemption on the parking structure translated into huge additional development profits for Starwood Wasserman.   Was that intended? Was that discussed?.   Mr. Wilcox, working for Starwood Wasserman, appears to have set this University Heights parking garage deal up at a huge disadvantage to the Port Authority and to University Heights.   

Meanwhile,  the parking garage is looking for another 7 million of Port money right now to repair the garage and add ramps.  

Welcome to NEO!

  Yes--Susan, not alleging, but the cozy relationships that partner developers with public officials seems to be a recurring theme in northeast Ohio, and it becomes all too tiring to try and sort out the mess of culpability for the mistakes, which is, I suspect, the design. 

Today, I realized that 53 wooded and ravined acres in the Rocky River watershed will be impacted by yet another superfluous, big box development in Strongsville, this time by Visconsi, and unwillingly, I will have probably have blood on my hands for any mitigation funds that result from that development, just as I have blood on my hands for the unnecessary new housing construction taking place in Richmond Heights and Fred Rzepka's efforts to "develop" on lands adjacent to the Metroparks in Solon. 

The tangled web snares all of us.  My question would be, ultimately, who is the spider?