National study says Cleveland’s downtown among the slowest in the nation to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic

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A study looking at 62 cities across North America says downtown Cleveland is one of the slowest to recover after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Only San Francisco has had a slower recovery, according to the study published by the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California Berkeley. The national study conflicts with data published locally.
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www.cleveland.com

National study says Cleveland’s downtown among the slowest in the nation to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic

A study looking at 62 cities across North America says downtown Cleveland is one of the slowest to recover after the COVID-19 pandemic.
www.cleveland.com www.cleveland.com
 
 
Plenty of people living downtown now. Definitely still hurting from lack of office workers returning. What the city really needs is the Cavs to be good to give people a reason to be there when the weather isn't nice.
 
I work in Downtown Cleveland, and so I think this deserves a visit a few months later. Last summer the urban core was still a mess and I would agree with the articles assessment of our downtown being one of the worst to recover, but it actually has gotten a lot better in the fall and even winter, beyond my optimistic projections. Kids going back to school helped a lot, meaning mom or dad finally went back to the office. The Cavs being good also helps, when I'm leaving on a Cavs game night traffic is a bit of a headache, which at this point I don't complain about.

One big thing I've noticed, there's a lot of new restaurants that are only open for dinner. I assume it's a staffing issue, but I'm a little baffled seeing a new place and realizing the only time I could stop in is if I came back downtown for a game/show or on a weekend which I usually don't want to do.

Clevelanders know how good Downtown Cleveland can be, but we (I am including myself in this) refuse to actually take advantage of it. If Cleveland State can pull off their new master plan (it's going to have to be a miracle), Downtown Cleveland will make Short North and Downtown Columbus look like a cow town again.
 
eaglesfan216 said:
I work in Downtown Cleveland, and so I think this deserves a visit a few months later. Last summer the urban core was still a mess and I would agree with the articles assessment of our downtown being one of the worst to recover, but it actually has gotten a lot better in the fall and even winter, beyond my optimistic projections. Kids going back to school helped a lot, meaning mom or dad finally went back to the office. The Cavs being good also helps, when I'm leaving on a Cavs game night traffic is a bit of a headache, which at this point I don't complain about.

One big thing I've noticed, there's a lot of new restaurants that are only open for dinner. I assume it's a staffing issue, but I'm a little baffled seeing a new place and realizing the only time I could stop in is if I came back downtown for a game/show or on a weekend which I usually don't want to do.

Clevelanders know how good Downtown Cleveland can be, but we (I am including myself in this) refuse to actually take advantage of it. If Cleveland State can pull off their new master plan (it's going to have to be a miracle), Downtown Cleveland will make Short North and Downtown Columbus look like a cow town again.
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never stopped looking like a cow town.
 
eaglesfan216 said:
I work in Downtown Cleveland, and so I think this deserves a visit a few months later. Last summer the urban core was still a mess and I would agree with the articles assessment of our downtown being one of the worst to recover, but it actually has gotten a lot better in the fall and even winter, beyond my optimistic projections. Kids going back to school helped a lot, meaning mom or dad finally went back to the office. The Cavs being good also helps, when I'm leaving on a Cavs game night traffic is a bit of a headache, which at this point I don't complain about.

One big thing I've noticed, there's a lot of new restaurants that are only open for dinner. I assume it's a staffing issue, but I'm a little baffled seeing a new place and realizing the only time I could stop in is if I came back downtown for a game/show or on a weekend which I usually don't want to do.

Clevelanders know how good Downtown Cleveland can be, but we (I am including myself in this) refuse to actually take advantage of it. If Cleveland State can pull off their new master plan (it's going to have to be a miracle), Downtown Cleveland will make Short North and Downtown Columbus look like a cow town again.
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They are doing a good job on the river. Towpath on the West Bank is phenomenal and they are pouring hundreds of millions more in there
 
OhioBobcatFan06 said:
Plenty of people living downtown now. Definitely still hurting from lack of office workers returning. What the city really needs is the Cavs to be good to give people a reason to be there when the weather isn't nice.
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the Cavs a re downtown now? when did they move from Richfield?
 
eaglesfan216 said:
I work in Downtown Cleveland, and so I think this deserves a visit a few months later. Last summer the urban core was still a mess and I would agree with the articles assessment of our downtown being one of the worst to recover, but it actually has gotten a lot better in the fall and even winter, beyond my optimistic projections. Kids going back to school helped a lot, meaning mom or dad finally went back to the office. The Cavs being good also helps, when I'm leaving on a Cavs game night traffic is a bit of a headache, which at this point I don't complain about.

One big thing I've noticed, there's a lot of new restaurants that are only open for dinner. I assume it's a staffing issue, but I'm a little baffled seeing a new place and realizing the only time I could stop in is if I came back downtown for a game/show or on a weekend which I usually don't want to do.

Clevelanders know how good Downtown Cleveland can be, but we (I am including myself in this) refuse to actually take advantage of it. If Cleveland State can pull off their new master plan (it's going to have to be a miracle), Downtown Cleveland will make Short North and Downtown Columbus look like a cow town again.
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I generally agree that the summer of ‘22, after this survey, felt more vibrant…certainly much more lively than the summer of ‘21. I think COVID hit Cleveland at a particularly bad moment…just as regional tourism had really been on the upswing (summer ‘19 was really lively) and the riot in spring ‘20 did great harm as well.

Residential activity is significant but workers Downtown has limped along. Sherwin-Williams is building their HQ just across the street from me..hopeful.

I think the thing to watch is how the housing market in and around the Clinic, Case, Chester from CSU out to 105…we need to fill in that “hole” between the Innerbelt and 105th…lots of cheap land available.
 
CatAlum said:
I think the thing to watch is how the housing market in and around the Clinic, Case, Chester from CSU out to 105…we need to fill in that “hole” between the Innerbelt and 105th…lots of cheap land available.
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I know there's been attempts, but I've always thought the city should aggressively recruit the black families that left for the inner ring east side burbs to come back. Slavic Village for the same reasons. Something has to happen in those areas, there's too much value. The valuable areas of the west side in the city proper are already gentrified. I don't see where the money goes at this point other than east.

There's also the HealthLine which is an underrated form of public transport, bus rapid transit. I've taken the red line from the west side to Tower City and then the bus out to University Circle. It's pretty efficient. I wish we had something like it going down Lorain.
 
With the dedicated highway they built to the Clinic, those empty lots off 105th and Euclid (Doan's Corners) to rt 10 will become market and mixed use housing fairly quickly. I don't doubt investors have already bought it up with the city grabbing its share for section 8.
 
Was at a Slovenian event last night at the Slo Home @ East 65th and St Clair…talking about this stuff in between polkas and potica. What’s left of housing between 55th and 105th…it‘s not desirable...unlike Ohio City, for instance, or even East Cleveland…great old houses there, what’s left of them. We were disagreeing about this. I think it all has to be razed…start over...costly. Some of my pals, who grew in that neighborhood and love it (St Vitus) think it can all get “improved”…I don’t see it.

Re: the road to the Clinic (called Opportunity Corridor)…I think it‘s proving to be a good idea (though a real question about its cost). I think housing will come in that area, but it’s going to take a decade. Lots of nothing along that route, making housing easier to get going, but it’s awfully desolate.
 
CatAlum said:
Was at a Slovenian event last night at the Slo Home @ East 65th and St Clair…talking about this stuff in between polkas and potica. What’s left of housing between 55th and 105th…it‘s not desirable...unlike Ohio City, for instance, or even East Cleveland…great old houses there, what’s left of them. We were disagreeing about this. I think it all has to be razed…start over...costly. Some of my pals, who grew in that neighborhood and love it (St Vitus) think it can all get “improved”…I don’t see it.

Re: the road to the Clinic (called Opportunity Corridor)…I think it‘s proving to be a good idea (though a real question about its cost). I think housing will come in that area, but it’s going to take a decade. Lots of nothing along that route, making housing easier to get going, but it’s awfully desolate.
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It's the desolation that gives it the potentil. It's removed from the crime scene, the boarded up houses.... It's close to the museums, the hosptials, Little Italy. It's one of the few available places you don't have to build on a hill, which is desirable for mixed use. These fake villages that are all the rage. They'll buy the land, hold it waiting for construction costs to come down I suppose True, THAT could take ten years. If construction were reasonable, that place would have more palates than Amazon.
 
eastisbest said:
If construction were reasonable, that place would have more palates than Amazon.
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that’s way too optimistic…and I am relatively upbeat about it. HOMEOWNERS aren’t going into that area for years…regardless of construction costs. They will wait and see…
 
CatAlum said:
that’s way too optimistic…and I am relatively upbeat about it. HOMEOWNERS aren’t going into that area for years…regardless of construction costs. They will wait and see…
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Home-owners will go where there are homes to buy. There are a ton load of people in the medical and university fields making long commutes in order to work in that area. Many from countries in which having mansions next to sewerless ghettoes is the norm. That wouldn't even be the case here. If it's built, it will be sold as the new in place to be. I twill be optionally commutable, something many in those professions are also used to in their home countries. They're used to taking buses, walking or biking to worl. There will be a mixture of housing serving all levels of occupation and student at Case, the Clinic, University Hospitals and University houseing as well as that make-a-village I mentioned.
 
eastisbest said:
Home-owners will go where there are homes to buy. There are a ton load of people in the medical and university fields making long commutes in order to work in that area. Many from countries in which having mansions next to sewerless ghettoes is the norm. That wouldn't even be the case here. If it's built, it will be sold as the new in place to be. I twill be optionally commutable, something many in those professions are also used to in their home countries. They're used to taking buses, walking or biking to worl. There will be a mixture of housing serving all levels of occupation and student at Case, the Clinic, University Hospitals and University houseing as well as that make-a-village I mentioned.
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You would think...

However, there's been lots of easily developable land in and around the Clinic for 30-40 years...along Chester, north and west of the Clinic; south of Cedar, etc. I always thought that the Clinic, Case, UH, the whole University Circle complex, would be a good engine for housing development. It hasn't until the last 10 years...more around Case. These abandoned areas have long been viewed as unsafe even as they came to be abandoned (not unsafe imo, because no one lived there, but the reputation lingered). I think development will happen...eventually...and it is happening in and around Case...east of the Clinic. It will happen, but it ain't like turning on a light switch.
 
CatAlum said:
You would think...

However, there's been lots of easily developable land in and around the Clinic for 30-40 years...along Chester, north and west of the Clinic; south of Cedar, etc. I always thought that the Clinic, Case, UH, the whole University Circle complex, would be a good engine for housing development. It hasn't until the last 10 years...more around Case. These abandoned areas have long been viewed as unsafe even as they came to be abandoned (not unsafe imo, because no one lived there, but the reputation lingered). I think development will happen...eventually...and it is happening in and around Case...east of the Clinic. It will happen, but it ain't like turning on a light switch.
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Cities don't normally build new highways into the inner-city either. I think that changes the dynamic. Of course, it could have the reverse affect. Those living close already could see their commute from out areas options improved and take the opportunity to move further out.

There seems a movement amongst young professionals to want inner-city living that mimics Manhattan without Manhattan costs. They want to bike, walk, safe mass transit to work, food, entertainment. Of course the land hog just demolished that beautiful old theatre, not helping matters. I suppose upkeep was too much anyhow.
 
Sorry to come to the defense of the Clinic (the "land hog"), but...the "beautiful old" theater was neither. There were some older, smaller, theaters as part of the complex, but the main theater (the Bolton) was constructed in the 80's for the Cleveland Playhouse. The theater's architect was the renowned Phillip Johnson, who was born in Cleveland. The Bolton Theater received tepid reviews from the architectural world...and had a variety of problems over the years..it gets only the briefest mention in Johnson's wiki page...no picture. The Playhouse moved their "business" down to Playhouse Square (downtown) about 20 years ago. The Playhouse abandoned this theater...no one blames them for what occurred (and we are subscribers fwiw). It's easy to not like the Clinic...I get it. But, this theater had no adaptive reuse and sat on a fairly large piece of land with a big parking lot...going unused...it would have sat empty for the next 75 years.
 
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