Bob Stark spoke with The Plain Dealer last week about his plans for redeveloping the Warehouse District.
The plan calls for 1 million square feet of street-level retail, mostly from national chains. (for reference, Crocker Park also has 1 million square feet of retail, Legacy Village has just under 600,000 and Steelyard Commons has about 650,000 square feet so far)
Some may worry the national chains would take away from the intimate, local feel of the Warehouse District, but keep in mind that famous shopping districts, such as Michigan Avenue in Chicago, is mostly national chains. You’re not going to be able to get enough local shops in to cover 1 million square feet. I don’t think this will negatively affect Style Lounge, 360 Clothing, Clothing Brigade or Adult Mart (well, that’s already a chain). In fact, it should help.
Stark is also planning 1.2 million square feet of office space (that’s the equivelent of BP Tower on Public Square. Or “200 Public Square” as they call it now…) — enough for about 5,000 workers.
He’s also looking at building 600 condos and 500 hotel rooms spread across three boutique hotels. Here’s the latest artists’ rendition:
The blue is office space, the yellow is retail and the red is condos/hotels. Other renditions seem to indicate that parking will be sandwiched between the street level retail and the office or residential space above. The “park” you see towards the top of the picture on land that is now a parking lot between West 9th, St. Clair, West 6th and an alleyway is actually on top of a multilevel parking garage. I assume it would only be accessible by the residential units that surround it. Lack of public parks and space has been one criticism of Stark’s plan.
I’ve heard some people ranting on various blogs that there’s too much vacant office space already. Volts said, “There is an abundance of empty office and retail space in the immediate area.” But Class A office space downtown is only 11 percent vacant. That’s low. And a large employer would be looking for contiguous office space, not a bunch of little areas all over the city or spread across multiple floors of Key Tower.
New spaces and projects like this make companies want to relocate to downtown Cleveland. “If you build it, they will come.” And let’s face it, Stark Enterprises is a company that’s out to make money. Don’t you think they’ve done their homework on this? Do you think they’re going to build 1.2 million square feet of office space and then say, “Gee, I hope someone moves in.” No. The leases with big tenants will probably be done before construction even begins.
The latest plans have three office buildings along Superior Avenue between West 3rd and West 6th. The building at West 3rd and Superior would be the tallest, at 22 stories — about the size of the new federal court house tower at the corner of Huron and Superior. More official plans about this strip of buildings (and possible tenants) should be announced in a couple months.
Interestingly, Stark has a “big bang theory” about this project. It’s not going to be a piece at a time. It’s going to be EVERYTHING, built all at once, between 2009 and 2011. Now that, my friends, would be sweet. But that’s a hell of a lot of construction all going on at once. It would be a major, $1.2 to $1.5 billion project that would surely create a lot of buzz and press. And that’s what Stark wants. If it takes place over 10 years, there won’t be the same excitement that would happen if it all came into being over 2 to 3 years.
Funding remains a question. Stark is looking into accessing some of the money that would come in through sales tax at the new stores and income tax on employees who work in the Warehouse District. Hopefully a plan can be put together to get this project underway.
