Ken Prendergast

Ken Prendergast has worked as a journalist for publications such as NEOtrans, Sun Newspapers, Ohio Passenger Rail News, Passenger Transport, and others. He also provided consulting services to transportation agencies, real estate firms, port authorities and nonprofit organizations. Writing about cities, transportation, history and the people who create these.

Cleveland, redefined

Perhaps you’ve noticed it on the license plates of cars in your neighborhood. Perhaps you’ve noticed it while shopping for a new house. Perhaps you’ve noticed it in the new faces at your child’s school. Perhaps you’ve noticed it on local dating apps.

Something is happening in Greater Cleveland that we’re not accustomed to. They’re coming. Many are already here. Lots of them. Lots of what?

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Could the Western Reserve return to Connecticut, please?

No one in Cleveland or Akron or Ashtabula complains to or congratulates Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy. No one in Warren, Medina or Sandusky cares if U.S. Senator Chris Murphy should be re-elected in 2018. There is no sharing of state offices between Cleveland and Hartford and thus, only one direct flight between Cleveland Hopkins and Hartford Bradley. And we sure don’t call ourselves the Nutmeg State, or even the exclave of same.

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Downtown Cleveland’s next big building may surprise

Among three or four residential towers and a new skyscraper for a Fortune 500 headquarters, the next big building to rise in downtown Cleveland may surprise many. It grew out of a learning process by city officials that downtown didn’t have more than 500,000 square feet of office and garage space ready-made for the needs of its police department. And a single real estate company holds the key to making a new building happen.

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Zombies say: start building a downtown Cleveland office tower soon

In the movies, zombies can’t put two words together. In Cleveland real estate development, they are sharing a subtle yet compelling message of encouragement.
Zombies in downtown Cleveland are former office buildings awaiting renovation with significant portions of them due to be converted to non-office uses, usually residential and occasionally hotel.

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Transit station-area development activity paces region-Part 2

For those who keep track of new real estate developments in Greater Cleveland, they might be noticing something about the location of these developments. Where are most of the planned, proposed, under-construction and recently completed developments? If you said “within walking distance of a Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority rapid transit line” you’d be right!

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Cleveland transit-oriented development gains traction-Part 1

In the 1990s, the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority was considering extending the Red Line into Berea. Planners touted the economic development potential of the rail line. So a group of elder Berea residents who apparently hadn’t ever ridden the Red Line before took a driving tour of the areas around some of the existing Red Line stations.

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Cleveland markets its new industrial sites

Development of the largest shovel-ready industrial/warehousing sites in the City of Cleveland aren’t attracting much private-sector interest despite Cleveland’s low prices. Meanwhile, inner-ring suburbs offering large parcels that are almost shovel-ready are having greater success in drawing private sector interest and potentially thousands of jobs from significant planned developments.

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Bye, Euclid Square Mall; hello Amazon?

After 40 years, Euclid Square Mall is destined to be physically replaced by the latest thing in retailing — E-commerce. The mall, having closed Sept. 19, 2016 after years of limping along with two dozen churches as its remaining tenants, is vacated and officially condemned by the city for safety violations. Euclid Square Mall had succumbed to the changing retail market and population shifts long ago.

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The Cleveland skyscraper building-binge starts

Construction workers will begin building in August The Beacon apartment tower at Euclid Avenue and East 6th Street in downtown Cleveland. But that’s just the start. Those of us who like to see construction cranes over downtown will probably enjoy the skyline view for the next decade or so.

The reason is that the 28-story Beacon apartments by Stark Enterprises is likely to be the first of many new large buildings to rise downtown. How many is “many”? It could be as few as three or four and as numerous as 10.

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