You are right on all counts. The big box developers are scheduled to get that part of the lakefront - and the plans are pathetic. They picture a real 9 hole golf course on Burke. It is all quite silly, but so is everything else you mention in your posting, and in the lakefront plan, and on the lakefront today, except for Ed's Whiskey Island!.

Disrupt IT

Improvised Schema seems to be the only place one can view the alternatives: here.

So this is what will replace the Tower. It looks sketchy to me, but then this in not unlike the rest of the process revealed to us by our esteemed county commissioners. We are told that this will be a green building, but no specs have come out as far as I can find. I see no solar panels, have not heard of plans for cogeneration of heat or radiant floors, no plans to augment the building's energy needs with wind; it doesn't look like a green roof, no onsite stormwater management. It looks like a high end mall to me. If these green elements are there, it sure would be good for the commissioners of the new county sustainability hire Joyce Burke-Jones to come out with them. So much for our history, there will probably be a picture and a plaque, maybe an explanation somewhere around a corner in the Rotunda to address the demise of the historic Tower, home to one of Cleveland's important financial institutions, but otherwise the memory will be wiped away like the rest of Euclid Avenue's history. These commissioners will go down in history like those who allowed the demolition of Millionaire's Row; wiping the slate clean for their egos. Will this new county office mall be called The Timmy and Jimmy Center? Could be...

I found this rendering and others on the "Improvised Schema" blog, and I believe this work of sophisiticated design and planning art is by the architects chosen for the new county building... or is this the primative drawing my 9-year old daughter made to illustrate her nightmare last night about her anxiety over the wretched world we are leaving her?. Nope - this is the work of real live professionals. I picture three offices in the front rotunda building... Hagan will have the dome on top, Dimora will own the wing to the right - Lawson Jones  the wing to the left, unless the others delegate him to the basement for disenting on their vote. Where everyone else goes doesn't seem to matter to anyone... not like they are having planning discussions or gathering public input. In any case, you can tell from this fine and detailed rendering that the commissioners really had the architects work through their design proposals before making the $200 million decision... note the headlights going in the wrong directions down E. 9th... they've even figured out how to reverse traffic to make this happen. As for the region thinking green... this proves it ain't so.

Disrupt IT

This is the type of innovative thinking we need here and how much you want to bet that this sort of good idea goes unnoticed by the shortsighted in our locality? Maybe Stephen Fong and Chris Diehl have the know how to collaborate with David Deming, Dan Cufaro and Ned Hill to utilize the building for industrial design, new media and the Cleveland Urban Design Center. It would anchor the collaboration right in the economic center of our city -- right where the capital needed is located. It would link the design district at its western end to the money needed to capitalize the creative industries we need to support in the region. Wow... art architecture and design come together with preservation and green building. Did we lose the number for Davis Brody Bond? Did we choose a local (rather than regional -- Erie, PA) local connection for some reason? Weber Murphy Fox (the regional partner for the Davis Brody Bond plan which saves the tower) has been awarded for their work on the CSU Rec Center (a building I can tell you from working in it for nearly two decades had numerous challenges) from the Cleveland Engineering Society. Not to throw shade on the very talented Robert P. Madison firm, but maybe we need to think more regionally when it comes to contracts. Of course, why Kohn Pedersen Fox and Madison were chosen was not revealed to us. Why the requests for proposals did not require saving the tower wasn't clear either.
CSU's award winning new Rec Center -- Weber Murphy Fox.

We have lost the Huletts, a major part of Cleveland’s industrial history; we have lost Millionaire’s Row, which could be a bustling tourist attraction. We lost the streetcars which could be used by commuters who currently clog the roadways while we attempt to reconstruct a method for their commutes along Euclid, with no promise of connecting them to the thoroughfare via other RTA routes that reach easily to the residential areas in inner ring suburbs. All the while, we move pieces around on the air, soil and water quality map for EPA attainment (while we’re miles from attainment). They tout that this will be green building, but what about green planning? People are sick with poor air quality and lead poisoning while, our schools suffer and our central city neighborhoods sink deeper into poverty, and the commissioners want a new building at the expense of a piece of art history after they just chose to enact a tax to encourage smoking to support art? What are they saying? We like art or we think artists will be the point of departure for the economic recovery for our region, so if some die for that then so be it? Issue 18, county encourages lung cancer to promote economic vitality… hmmm.

Why continue this razing; this desire to erase our history be it a symbol of doing good or doing well at the expense of others?

It is said hindsight is 20-20. Is foresight blind or visionary?  We still have not accomplished the policy objectives of Norm Krumholz’s visionary underpinnings for equitable planning that would take Cleveland’s poor into consideration while 20 years later the city continues a downward spiral of poverty. Now the county commissioners want a high dollar admin building housed in the former footprint of the resource sucking and redistributing bank that handled the money of these blue collar workers? It seems incongruous. Three democrats acting like high rolling republicans. They might better consider how they can shrink government in this shrinking city/region. How they can do more with less and how they can help us to understand where we have been what was good and what was not and how to learn from these lessons? Maybe it is time for reconsideration and a turnaround. Maybe it is time for more people to throw up their hands and submit to the powerful backroom dealings in our opaque government in partnership with the very wealthy, those very wealthy whose tax dollars support outlying counties where their high dollar homes are nestled into the last vestiges of greenspace where they pour chemicals onto their green lawns for Sunday croquet matches.

But while we’re on the subject of outlying counties, aren’t we just beginning a discussion of regional government? Will the Breuer Tower come down to be replaced with a glass edifice (an oversized mirror) for the commissioners only to abandon it when government shifts to better appropriate resources regionally. Is this location, location, location selected based on Clevecentrism? The “crossroads” of the nation Madison referred to is at the mouth of the Cuyahoga or somewhere along the towpath trail I believe. What’s the hurry? Will we be merging county governments in 5 years and needing another new seat of government in Independence or Fairlawn?

We talk and talk about collaboration, but the innovation corridor that is well beyond our endless waiting is between LorainCCC and AkronU. These formerly considered poor relations (cities in our region) are pulling ahead with vision and agility like their Youngstown colleagues, while the Cuyahoga County Commissioners and Port Authority and City of Cleveland leaders mince around playing by old rules, unable to think outside the box or beyond the comfort zone. Say it isn't so, that Akron, Youngstown and Lorain are not ahead and will not be ahead -- can't be -- never were... Then look at Case who tossed aside Ed Morrison only to watch as the important regional discussions of economic development and planning and policy shifted to CSU and YSU long considered the poor relations.

Let's get some breathing room on this. I haven't seen any county workers without offices lately, have you?

Following is a copy of a letter Tim Ferris sent to the Commissioners. 

Here's the kicker: "The current county administration building was designed--and constructed, at additional taxpayer expense back then-- to have additional floors put on top, and it has foundations designed to bear that load, and I believe there is also space for an additional bank of elevators. We knew one of the architects (E. Furman Korb) who worked at the firm that designed it in the late '50s, and he has made this fairly well known throughout our circles."

So the County taxpayers 50 years ago put money in the bank by building high capacity footings under the present county building - anticipated growth.  And the Commissioners ignore that option - and buy from Mr. Jacobs instead.  How pathetic... READ TIM'S LETTER:  Write one of your own.  Print out the Realneo discussion and Mail  the print out to the Commissioners  Return Receipt Requested to be included in the official record.  Like Guthry's Allison's Restaurant - make it a MOVEMENT!

Jimmy, Peter, and Tim--

Personally, I do not see that taking down the larger, fairly new Breuer building and constructing another, newer, smaller building on the site makes economic sense. I have not been convinced that this is in the best interests of the people of this county. This is not a beauty contest about ugly architecture; you guys are entrusted with the stewardship of our assets, our resources, both now and into the future. You need to think not only in terms of conserving dollars, but in terms of conservation of energy, on a continuum (the carbon footprint, prior, present, and projected in all scenarios).

I still need to know why county government is expanding so that it needs additional space at all, let alone this grand scheme you're concocting with a demolition and a grand rising from the rubble of something new and glorious. The current county administration building was designed--and constructed, at additional taxpayer expense back then-- to have additional floors put on top, and it has foundations designed to bear that load, and I believe there is also space for an additional bank of elevators. We knew one of the architects (E. Furman Korb) who worked at the firm that designed it in the late '50s, and he has made this fairly well known throughout our circles.

Moreover, given technological advances and the ability to steamline functions, I wonder quite often, as do many other constituents, why all of our government entities continue to expand. Soon, everybody is going to be saying we can't afford you guys any more. This may be a world of infinite abundance, but you don't keep getting if you show time and again that you're wasteful.

It's time to conserve. Let's start by hopping onto that Third Wave (we saw Toffler in Youngstown last month) with the responsible, wise way you handle the Breuer situation. I want to be able to be proud of my county once again, and I haven't felt that way for a good long while, like about 40 years.