Cleveland’s growing home sales AND homelessness

1 Comment / Ken Prendergast / August 8, 2018

There is an incredible story playing out among the spreadsheets and city streets in the Cleveland. On the data side, real estate market observers are watching a remarkable rise in the number of housing sales and prices in the City of Cleveland. At the same time, social service organizations and agencies are witnessing a sad downside — worsening homelessness — that needs to be addressed very soon, preferably before another cold winter sets in.

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Leveraging the Boomtown

Ken Prendergast / August 3, 2018

Cleveland’s East Side, with one big exception, is a mess. It’s got some of the worst urban poverty in the United States and is the reason for Cleveland’s #2 ranking among America’s biggest cities in terms of percentage of residents living in poverty. Only Detroit outranks Cleveland in that regard.

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Cleveland’s core entering new-construction mode

2 Comments / Ken Prendergast / June 1, 2018

The latest report from the Downtown Cleveland Alliance (DCA) on the progress of downtown had an especially interesting data set in it. That report, for the First Quarter of 2018, showed that the last of downtown’s obsolete commercial buildings (offices, warehouse, department store, etc.) being converted to residential (along with several new construction projects) will put the population of downtown Cleveland at about 20,000 people by 2020.

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Cleveland, redefined

Ken Prendergast / March 21, 2018

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?

Ken Prendergast / December 21, 2017

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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Transit station-area development activity paces region-Part 2

1 Comment / Ken Prendergast / September 1, 2017

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

1 Comment / Ken Prendergast / July 15, 2017

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

1 Comment / Ken Prendergast / May 26, 2017

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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Cleveland’s urban core only starting to reawaken

1 Comment / Ken Prendergast / September 16, 2014

To anyone who follows real estate development news closely, you are allowed to be surprised by the scale and intensity of development occurring in the cores of our largest cities. And one of the biggest turnarounds anywhere in the USA is occurring in Cleveland.

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America’s first Interstate to be abandoned – when and where?

Ken Prendergast / October 14, 2012

Sometime in the next 5-15 years, a remarkable event could occur. The first section of Interstate or interstate-quality highway will be abandoned somewhere in this country due to a lack of funds.
It will probably be a short, lightly used section of road with a decaying, expensive bridge in the middle of it. The highway department responsible for closing that section of road will try to minimize the significance of the event by calling it a temporary closure.

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