At this morning's Cleveland City Planning Commission, Meeting the Breuer Tower received a stay of execution, but questions as to the efficacy of this project for the county administration building remain. 

I found it interesting that the person who was there to present the County’s case for support of the demolition was not someone from the firm of RP Madison (though he was in attendance), nor someone from the county at all, but instead was Linda Henreichsen who is on the City of Cleveland Planning staff.  Though she did use the word “neutral” when describing what her presentation would entail, her words and tone were clearly supportive of the applicant’s plea for the demo permit.  We can thank Tony Coyne for an impassioned speech about the importance of this monumental decision and his point that they have not nearly enough information (none of the questions that were asked to be answered at last week’s meeting were addressed except a lame attempt to address the ceiling height issue and some more scare tactics about seismic activity).  Historic tax credits remained a mystery as yet researched. Why didn’t someone from the County Planning Commission make this case? Isn’t it the county taxes that should be used to support a case for support of the county administration project? Why did city of Cleveland residents and businesses alone have to pay for this work?

Still there is no plan from Madison’s office, and Henreichsen said that they are having difficulty planning a new edifice without knowing if the building will remain or not. Did Sasaki have this problem envisioning Gateway? Now, I thought that this happens all the time with architecture. I am not an architect, but I could easily see how one can take a site, erase what is there and imagine what could be there, draw it, propose it and defend one’s design planning.  Excuse me, but don’t architects do this all the time?  If it is so difficult for Madison why was he awarded a contract by the county for $13.5 million already? 

I am also curious as to why an elected official serves on this planning commission. Cimperman’s remarks both last week and this week with regard to the county being our “partners” seem to have politicized an issue that should be a design and planning issue not one for political gain or loss.  Already we know that Hagan and Dimora as arbiters of taste is a joke – even the parking attendant at City Hall had a good laugh when posed the question, “Who made Tim and Jimmy the arbiters of taste for the county?”  

There should be an apples-to-apples comparison between what is best for the citizens of Cuyahoga County as regards the county budget, the city and regional environment and the efficiency of the space for the offices of the county with adaptive reuse and raze and build anew options considered side by side.  We need a decision matrix. We’re not talking about a small sum or an insignificant site. So far, the adaptive reuse option is looking much smarter on all counts, for the environment, for those who will work there and for our wallets. 

If the County Commissioners are dead set on building their new administration building as a monument to their heft and power as a political legacy, they should give away the Breuer Tower and the Rotunda and begin anew on a surface parking lot somewhere in the County.  The logical place, mentioned again and again is the Northwest Corner of the “PUBLIC SQUARE”, a space which has been an embarrassment to the city and the county for years since the planning commission allowed the demolition of buildings there prematurely for an office tower that never was built.  Thank god we have been awarded more time.  Maybe it is time enough to begin an investigation as to the palm greasing that clearly is at play in this scenario that wastes taxpayer dollars, destroys a piece of significant architecture and promises even more destruction to our built environment for no apparent reason aside from egoism. And Dennis Madden can “keep his eye on" what happens with Carbone’s indictment in Lorain County… we’ll see. For today though, I can breathe again.