CLEVELAND CITY PLANNING DECISION ON BREUER TOWER

Submitted by Susan Miller on Mon, 06/04/2007 - 19:02.
06/08/2007 - 08:00
Etc/GMT-4

Public testimony will follow a presentation by RP Madison, International to Cleveland City Planning Commission. The commission will vote on demo permit for Breuer/Cleveland Trust/Ameritrust Tower. Be there early to sign in.

Check out the attachments here from the 1967 Cleveland Trust Annual Report found in the Cleveland Public Library Business Department. The article is entitled "Faith in Downtown Area – New Headquarters Building to Alter Cleveland Skyline".

Here's a familiar except, but remember this is not one of our current players speaking; it is a Cleveland Trust spokesperson in 1967:

"In announcing the new building, Cleveland Trust said that the project was tangible evidence of the bank's faith in metropolitan Cleveland. "Our faith in the future of the downtown area includes the firm belief that Euclid Avenue will continue to be the city's main street and that Ninth and Euclid will remain the community's financial center," management said.

"The new building will provide much-needed space and new facilities for our growing banking and trust business and will increase the efficiency of our entire operation. It will meet our anticipated space requirements and at the same time provide some rental area."

 

If the City Planning Commission votes to allow the demo, the Cleveland skyline will be altered for certain.

 

Location

Cleveland City Council Committee Room
601 Lakeside Avenue Room 216
Cleveland, OH
United States
See map: Google Maps
AttachmentSize
Cleveland Trust 1967 Annual Report pg 1.jpg313.81 KB
Cleveland Trust 1967 Annual Report pg 2 .jpg443.29 KB
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See Slideshow

Submitted by lmcshane on Tue, 06/05/2007 - 07:38.

Tim posted the slide show and Green City, Blue Lake commentary.

Excellent slides

Submitted by Norm Roulet on Tue, 06/05/2007 - 22:37.

Thanks Susan - this is the most informative material on the reuse of the Breuer I've seen yet, showing some good space planning and a very positive assessment for keeping the Breuer.  I think we should keep the Breuer... although I don't think it should be encased in glass, but rather should be left pretty much as is. I don't think we should use it for the County - put it to use for arts and culture - entertainment and education.

Disrupt IT

slides courtesy of Laura and Tim

Submitted by Susan Miller on Wed, 06/06/2007 - 07:41.

I wish I had posted it, but it was web savvy Laura who linked the slides Tim must have photographed. I thought the Weber Murphy Fox plan was spectacular and the forward thinking benefits built into the Breuer Tower will benefit whoever uses the building in the end.

At Meet the Bloggers discussion with Peter Lawson Jones, Tim brought comments from Bob Gaede (someone who is not silent on the need to keep the building) who had drawn plans to make the building residential. I would love to live there -- what a view!

On another note, I spoke with Don Hisaka yesterday and mentioned that his building at CSU (the University Center) is up for demo, too. He is saddened by this prospect. Having worked at CSU for 16 years, I have to agree that the building offers much to the campus (including massive amounts of embodied energy). For a campus in an urban setting, it offers a meet and greet area during inclement weather along with a place to collect many offices, two auditoriums, food service and study lounges. I say, retrofit for energy efficiency rather than demo and build new. That's another preservation/sustainability issue we will have to argue.

Who is behind CSU planning? How is it connected to UCI?

Submitted by Norm Roulet on Wed, 06/06/2007 - 10:06.

You raise a good point. CSU is not a good campus for many reasons but the solution is not to demolish and replace existing bildings that are in most ways adequate but to invest in growing the value of the university and so demand for university services and so facilities, and expand the value of the university to the region. They want to go residential - then become a university worth investing four years of your life living and wtudying there. They want to be a major arts school and build a massive and expensive arts complex - is the plan for this integrated with the plans for all the other arts school space and facility investments in town - couldn't the CSU arts school be at the Triangle, connecting MoCA and CIA? Are CSU and UCI maps connected?

Disrupt IT

I don't know the CSU planners

Submitted by Susan Miller on Wed, 06/06/2007 - 11:04.

Here's a link to their planning website: http://www.csuohio.edu/campusmasterplan/index.html

They say this: "Bookstore/Student Union: The new bookstore and Student Union are likely to be located in a combined facility, consisting of the remodeled University Center Building and the first floor of the main classroom. As an alternative, a new building could be constructed on this site to house the bookstore and Student Union. The key to this site is that it is centrally located on the campus with the main entry on Euclid Avenue."

 prefer the remodeled take obviously...

Here's something extra I found out in a phone conversation yesterday. CSU Honor's students have a full ride (tuition) + books + supplies! Now that's CSU + !

I just hope they are tuned in to the embodied energy discussion regarding the Breuer as they consider tearing down the UC.

I am leary of Honors

Submitted by DerekArnold on Thu, 06/07/2007 - 10:40.

I am leary of Honors programs...well, the scholarships that they get.  More often than not, the scholarships go to kids with the best schooling which, in Ohio, is disproportionately rich kids (due to inequitable school funding).  What does our educational system gain if a kid (who could afford college at Cleveland State anyway) gets a scholarship that could be used by an equally talented kid from a poor district who will have to get loans to cover the cost of education or to scale down his/her dream and start at a 2-year school.

These days "merit"-based aid is a little too closely tied to affluence...while the poor - to - working class kids saddle themselves with debt. 

then there's the working middleclass now poor kid

Submitted by Susan Miller on Thu, 06/14/2007 - 13:54.

Like my kid who attended public school in the Heights and landed a wallop of cash to go to a big city private college. He hates it and will transfer to a public school in Ohio (with smaller tuition and smaller scholarship which he will pay). Not all kids who merit scholarships are rich. Ours is one. Dad building homes for low income families via Habitat for Humanity, Mom working for small arts org, Cleveland Arts Prize, home outfitted with early CH tree lawn funishings. There are more like my son - some who can make a go of it in the highdollar rich kids private schools even without the spending money and clothes to compete or fit in, and others who will have to "merit a chance to learn" at CSU on a full ride.

The Cage??!

Submitted by DerekArnold on Thu, 06/07/2007 - 10:07.

The Cage REALLY should go. 

People can make arguments for the Breuer building but the monstrosity that is the University Center that consumes the southern half of the block bordered by E.21, E.22, Euclid and Chester Avenues  has outlived whatever usefulness people thought it possessed.   The building wasn't build for humans when it was designed...it really isn't now.

If they replace it with a building as green as the new Rec center they put up (which they planned from the start with sustainability in mind), then bring the wrecking ball now.