In a weak housing market, will Cleveland's Housing Innovation District move the needle?

Cleveland's biggest problem is that the city is shrinking.  The population in 1990 was 505,000 and 372,000 in 2020. 

Now that's a store.

For example the famed Heinin supermarkets local chain announced they're closing their landmark downtown store, located in a historic bank--after downsizing and rebuilding after George Floyd riots closed the store ("Heinen’s closure in downtown Cleveland raises questions about sustaining development").

 And so is the metropolitan area.  The 2020 population was about 2.1 million.  The estimate for 2026 is 1.72 million.  

1836 E. 79th Street, Cleveland, Ohio.

In that context, there's a lot of vacant buildings and lots ("Finding the Potential in Vacant Lots," New York Times) not just in the city proper, but in the suburbs too.  

I know that years ago, Cleveland's inner ring suburbs were leaders in trying to do suburban revitalization (The Northeast Ohio First Suburbs Consortium), but not quite how Arlington County, Virginia was able to because the DC metropolitan area was growing, and they could leverage the addition of Metrorail ("How DC [really Arlington County] densified," Works in Progress).

Still, Cleveland has incredibly social, community and organizational capital. In the 1990s, Cleveland  foundations worked together to force accountability and consolidation on community development corporations.  There are many foundations doing great housing work like the Catholic social justice based Famikos Foundation.  When I was there in 2002, the city had a great facade improvement program and manual.

The Cleveland Restoration Society was a leader in leveraging city monies in bank accounts to fund housing renovation.  They have a revolving fund to invest in property development.  

There are a number of firms specializing in historic preservation financing and rehabilitation of big projects like Sandvik Architects.  And the state has a historic preservation tax credit too.

And they have a program to help churches light their steeples, which I think is really cool.

The Metroparks system is fabulous, with many on the Lake Erie waterfront.  

There are great civic assets like the West Side Market and business improvement districts and community development initiatives all over.  The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  Terminal Tower is a fabulous train station.  (But all the old department store buildings, massive 1 million s.f. or more are all defunct.)

I always tout there "Business Revitalization Overlay District" as a way to coordinate investment with the public and private sectors.  They have strong design review requirements.  And the State has a strong receivership statute that allows nonprofits to take over properties, cure the title, fix them, and sell them, to bring houses back into use.

They are an example of a line I have, that cities like Cleveland 

"have a desperate willingness to experiment because they have no other choice."

More alternative weeklies need to publish "worst of" articles. Page 1, Page 2.

They still have legacy heavy rail service although it's not well used.  A great system for evaluating bus stops for amenities.  The transit system provides decent coverage, and it was the first one to connect heavy rail service to the local airport in the late 1970s.  A big Midwestern bank is still based there, and there are some other corporations.  In nearby Akron, LeBron James has invested a lot, so has the Knight Foundation.  

The Cleveland Scene alternative weekly still publishes once a month print issues, although the Cleveland Plain Dealer only prints a couple of editions each week. But their urban design writer who was great, Steven Litt, has retired.

Both the Akron and Cleveland areas have great regional bikeway plans and systems.  Plus the universities and the Cleveland Clinic constantly grow.  There are investments in public spaces, the (in my opinion) over touted Health Line BRT, etc.

Creating Cleveland heavy rail is a fascinating story.  The Van Sweringen brothers were developing Shaker Square and Cleveland Heights and they wanted transit service.  To get it, they bought the Nickel Plate Railroad system, to get the necessary right of way.  They also built Terminal Tower.  But they were ruined by the Depression.

Forest City, a regional hardware store chain, was based in Cleveland, and is long since shut down, but the firm shifted to large scale revitalization oriented real estate development in many cities, including DC.  Value City, a regional department store chain specializing in low income markets, was based their too.  It's last iteration in furniture, finally closed this year.  But the founding family, the Schottensteins, when on to be big in vulture investing.

And Playhouse Square is a national best practice example of historic preservation and arts focused development.  They've since created a CDC to build and hold property around the theaters.  

The Gordon Square Arts District is a best practice neighborhood focused arts district revitalization initiative ("A Cleveland Arts District Hustles and Rebounds," NYT).  A number of new developments complement the Capitol Theatre and two buildings converted into smaller community theaters.  Reasonably well designed new buildings too.

To me, Cleveland has a lot going on, and if I could have found gainful employment there, I would have liked to live in the city, despite its cold winters.

I think the Housing Innovation District is interesting, it aligns a wide variety of programs and systems so that both small and larger developers can participate and work with small parcels, not just big ones.  From "'Amazing neighborhoods' that deserve investment. Cleveland proposes East Side improvement district" (Ideastream/NPR)

Cleveland is proposing sweeping development efforts in the historically redlined East Side neighborhoods of Hough, Central and St. Clair-Superior.

Using a suite of economic development tools, including waived permit fees for new construction, modernized zoning codes and a new tax increment financing district, the city plans to put millions toward spurring new housing, businesses and walkable communities in neighborhoods that have been challenged by decades of disinvestment. Cleveland officials are referring to the area as a Housing Innovation District.

"When we think about the Housing Innovation District, it's 'How can we create an area that really incentivizes people to bring new housing,' but [also] really builds wealth block by block in the neighborhood for the existing residents that are here," Tom McNair, the city's Chief of Integrated Development, told reporters in St. Clair-Superior on Wednesday morning. "Because St. Clair Superior, Hough, Central: these are amazing neighborhoods that for far too long haven't gotten the type of investment they deserve."

Lake Erie beach, Cleveland Metroparks.

BUT, at the end of the day, you need households to live in the buildings.  It's not about what the neighborhoods deserve, it's about what the market will support.  

I read a couple of articles on small developers in Chicago and Pittsburgh ("Six new townhomes. Zero buyers. And one developer on the brink," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) who built market rate housing in emerging neighborhoods (so weak not strong) and they couldn't sell them.  Or the houses wouldn't appraise for a mortgage, because of the prevailing housing prices.

I am constantly amazed to see community revitalization programs in specific areas that have spent many hundreds of millions, and it's hard to see improvements, even though they are and usually key civic assets, plus housing--although my line from decades ago, that building better housing for poor people doesn't rebuild broken micro economies all that much, which was my lesson from H Street DC ("Ah, the H Street Community Development Corporation"). 

An awesome house for $325,000 in the Ohio City neighborhood across the river.

OTOH, even marginal additions of population make a difference ("Community revitalization initiatives for smaller communities | marginal attraction of people and commerce even in small amounts makes a difference").

And to be fair, they've really pulled together a lot of policy changes, financing, land etc. to make things happen.  It will be interesting to watch even though I think that it's really tough to move the needle in weak markets.

Boston wonders if they can re-support nightlife based on the results so far from the World Cup

People waited to be seated outside The Union Bar. Photo: Christian Kantosky, Boston Globe.

The Boston Globe has been writing about the impact of the World Cup on the city's nightlife.

Where the Scots cleaned out alcohol supplies ("‘We’ve never seen anything like it’: Patrons emptied bars and liquor stores in Boston this weekend"), the city extended open hours till 3 am ("Governor Healey signs bill allowing 3 a.m. last call for the World Cup, expanding public drinking through July"), outdoor public drinking zones, like Bourbon Street in New Orleans, etc.  

So the Boston Globe wonders if "Boston nightlife is in the midst of a grand social experiment. Can the good vibes last?."

As someone who worked on commercial district revitalization for 20 years in DC and wrote a lot about this issue, they missed the biggest possible point and difference, the addition of many tens of thousands of people from out of the area who were there for nightlife.

-- "Aging cities | Maintaining economic dynamism in the face of aging populations at the city and metropolitan scale" (2025)

-- "Richard's Rules for Restaurant-Based Revitalization: New business models are needed for 2025" (especially the comments where I quote from relevant articles I come across)

-- "Experience economy/nightlife: Boston, LA, Pittsburgh, London, Santa Monica" (2025)

-- "Planning programming by daypart, month, season: and Boston Winter Garden, DC's Holiday Market, etc." (2016)

Bourbon Street.

Temporarily, World Cup cities are functioning more like 24/7 nightlife districts in Las Vegas, Miami, and not quite NYC, plus Bourbon Street in New Orleans, Beale Street in Memphis?.  People go to those cities to party.  

I follow Reddit Las Vegas and people write about going there and being drunk and/or high for most of their stay.  Maybe the Scots were like that.  Not Bostonians.

Plus the super posh clubs with bottle service and all night dancing, massive pool parties in Vegas, etc.

Beale Street.

A traditional city, at least in the US, just doesn't have that kind of latent populations always going out, and willing to be shitfaced and then go to work.  Concerns like:

• Having to work two jobs
• mobility when drunk
• the impact of smartphones on entertainment choices, less ability to socialize
• the cost of going out
• consumption of experiences
• labor for the establishments and the the rise of the cost of goods sold, 
• rents and changing business models due to work from home reducing office visits
• people drinking less
• People consuming edibles instead of drinking, 
• mocktails (just as expensive to produce, lower margins, 
• etc.

Make it a lot harder to go out.

Big Pickup Trucks and SUVs Kill

 According to the New York Times (""The Deadly Rise of Giant Trucks and S.U.V.s" (NY Times article on taller hoods and larger blind-spots)"), 10% of the increase in pedestrian deaths--which have risen at a rate in the US higher than other countries--is because people's purchases shifted from low profile cars to high profile trucks and SUVs.  And that 10% number only includes deaths on roads, not in parking lots, private roads, or driveways.

Left turns are the biggest source of crashes resulting in death.  The way that the article describes the various blind zones of the Chevy Silverado truck are exactly the circumstances that killed an elementary school child in my neighborhood a few years ago ("Salt Lake City girl struck, killed in crosswalk near elementary school," Salt Lake Tribune).

It was worse than shown in the simulation because the driver was short, making the blind zones even bigger.  From the Times:

To analyze how these blind zones have changed, we used a three-dimensional scanner to compare sightlines in four of the most common pickups today — the Chevrolet Silverado, Ford F-150, GMC Sierra and Toyota Tacoma — with their counterparts from the 1990s or early 2000s.

The Silverado’s blind zones have nearly doubled.

The Sierra’s and the Tacoma’s grew by about 60 percent.

The smallest increase was the F-150’s. Its blind zones grew by about 25 percent.

Money. ‘King of the Road’. 

Our overall findings match what we found in court records and heard from dozens of experts who reconstruct crashes for police and lawyers. Today’s S.U.V.s and pickups promise more: more seats, more space, more safety, more power, more domination, more prestige.

And, for automakers, more money.

They are the source of virtually all of the U.S. auto industry’s profits, said Mark Wakefield, an industry expert at the consulting firm AlixPartners. For nearly a decade, Ford and G.M. have said in their annual reports that their earnings depend on larger S.U.V.s and pickups. The cost of making bigger vehicles is usually not much higher than it is for cars, because they are often built in automakers’ most efficient factories and the extra raw materials are relatively cheap.

Left: 1998 Chevy Silverado.  Right: 2021.

Yet customers are willing to pay much more for them. The average sticker price for a full-size pickup is $70,000, double that of a sedan, according to Cox Automotive. (Some people pay more to soup up their trucks with “lift kits” that raise their suspensions.)

The State of Utah is investing in a pro-nuclear public affairs campaign leading up to getting one of those new mini nuclear reactors

Decades ago when I worked for the Center for Science in the Public, I learned about corporate campaigns to promote industrial production of various products that were often harmful, like tobacco (Tobacco Advertising: The Great Seduction).

Food companies did advertising too pushing unhealthy products.  I once made a comment to a journalist at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about how McDonald's spent more on advertising in one day than CSPI's annual budget.

CSPI was really big on fighting alcohol advertising.  At the time liquor companies had an agreement to not advertise on television but that started changing around the time I worked there.  CSPI fought it.

Personally I didn't think it was a big deal as beer and wine were advertised and it seemed unreasonable to ban advertising of products when 80% of the population had no problem with it.

OTOH, advertising would increase consumption leading to more problems.  Like with sports betting today ("The impact of exposure to wagering advertisements and inducements on intended and actual betting expenditure: An ecological momentary assessment study," Journal of Behavioral Addictions) or vaping ("How Social Media Promotion of Vaping Targets Teens," Yale School of Medicine).

CSPI published a couple small books on "Marketing Booze to Blacks" and "Marketing Disease to Hispanics," back when alcohol and tobacco companies were big supporters of minority group organizations, minority media, and museums, aimed at selling their product disproportionately to people in distressed circumstances.

I was proud when I got a blurb in a column in the Columbia Journalism Review about a black media company specifically criticizing CSPI when hawking for ads.

Later there's been good coverage about this wrt plastics ("Plastic Wars: Industry Spent Millions Selling Recycling — To Sell More Plastic," NPR).  When we were in DC, there was a campaign against an city legislation to start a recycling deposit program, with the message that it would impose burdens on small stores.

Communications presentation board on the dangers of tobacco, Harambee African American Tobacco and Health Network.

WRT smoking, I was pleasantly surprised to go to a Juneteenth event in Ogden Utah and saw that two different organization booths featured anti smoking campaigns.

Anyway, for awhile the State of Utah has been running a campaign to "counter the mis-beliefs we have about nuclear energy" without acknowledging that there are reasonable concerns.  I've heard radio spots, but hadn't seen online ads.  This one is over the top.  It costs a f* of a lot more to pay for storing one barrel of nuclear waste and it isn't safer than properly packaging leftovers.

-- 3 Advanced Reactor Systems to Watch by 2030, US Department of Energy

-- "Utah and Industry Leaders Announce Major Nuclear Energy Partnership in Brigham City," Brigham City

-- "Utah officials announce Brigham City as state’s ‘nuclear hub’," Trementon Leader

The cost to store one barrel of nuclear waste ranges from $2,000 for low grade waste to many hundred thousands of dollars for highly radioactive waste.  One advantage of the new reactors is that are supposed to not generate as much waste and I think they claim they'll be able to use existing waste as feedstock.

Of course, the other big pro-corporate campaigning going on now is for data centers--it supports your use of the Internet ("Meta Campaigns to Change Opinions on Data Centers," New York Times).

From the article:

Meta, OpenAI, Google, Microsoft and Amazon have embarked on a building spree in the A.I. race, investing hundreds of billions of dollars to erect data centers to develop the technology. In doing so, they have fueled an increasingly political issue, with President Trump and lawmakers across the country criticizing the computing sites for driving up energy costs and straining local water supplies.

So in November and December, Meta spent $6.4 million to run a series of ads — including the one about Altoona — in the television markets of eight state capitals such as Sacramento, Salt Lake City and Tallahassee, Fla., as well as Washington, D.C., according to data from AdImpact, an analytics firm.

Headline in Utah Business Magazine for a story on real estate development: Growth is Life and Stopping Growth is Death

 

An old colleague-advocate in DC used to say "developers are like sharks, if they don't build, they die."

-- The article.

There isn't a trash can at the bus stop at 700 East and 2100 South, but there is a City Weekly box, and people deposit trash in it

 

Not unlike how kids play on elements in the public environment that aren't designed as play spaces, but they use them because there aren't alternatives, this City Weekly newspaper box is used for trash disposal at a busy intersection with a bus stop with no trash can (nor a shade screen, despite Utah's brutally hot summers).

(Apologize as it's not the best photo.  I forgot to check for resolution after I took it.)

Why don't electric bike manufacturers step up and develop a standard for a rear light that could include turn signals as well?

This is a RadPower bike but it's an endemic problem.  

Which I've mentioned on and off in blog entries over the years.

WRT marketing, e bikes can be f*ing expensive.  RadPower doesn't offer a payment plan.  Trek does.

Amenity planning for urban mixed use districts: A dog park for Union Market?

Please clean up after your dog sign, 4th Street NE, Union Market, Washington, DC

One of my forthcoming DC entries is about how it turns out "I was a force for gentrification in the city," even though I never intended that to be the primary outcome.

20 years ago, working to "save Union Market," in which I was a key player but not the lead ("Musing about Union Market on the death of Paul Pascal"), I outlined a concept for a retail plan that would work with what the market was at the time, food sales mostly, with some non food wholesale businesses too.  (* For insight into the campaign to save the market, see the addendum.)

-- "Retail planning and the Florida Market"

Washington Post graphic.

An entry in 2009 made the point that mixing residents and food businesses was somewhat incompatible, that in such situations residents become advocates for reducing the business focus of the area.  

One of the concerns expressed about the New Town redevelopment plan imposed on the Florida Market District through DC City Council legislation is the fact that by putting residents and industrial uses in close proximity, you add all the elements necessary to create significant conflicts.

This happened when people moved into housing built on an old parking lot at the Capitol Hill Hospital on 7th Street and Massachusetts Avenue NE.  And elsewhere in many places.

-- "Putting industrial uses and residents in close proximity can be a problem"

Me leading a tour of the then "Florida Market" in 2008.  Flickr photo by Mr.TinDC.

Being there last week, I think so far there is a reasonable balance between remaining legacy businesses (a minority of the previous number), mixed with new very upscale food businesses and retail including (as opposed to how "back then" the more low income focus of the DC Farmers Market building), and the apartment buildings.

But it's not like I'm there all the time.  So I don't know.

Don't complain about trash and rats when you don't provide waste cans and street and sidewalk cleaning.  Back when old line DC politicos and business interests were pushing their very average shopping and entertainment center approach (think the failed project in Prince George's County that replaced the old Cap Centre Arena), they touted their project as a way to combat rats and trash ("Developer Peddles a New Vision for an Old Market," Washington Post).

What DC Farmers Msrket, now the Union Market building looked like in 2008.  Below 2026.

My response was, the city doesn't provide any waste cans or trash collection services.  If you want to deal with public space maintenance, deal with it.  It's still messy.  But there are trash cans now, and a lot of them.  Maybe not enough and they're probably not emptied enough, but it's way better than before.

Residential housing imposes different demands for public space management and the provision of amenities.  One of the things we never talked about was with the addition of large apartment buildings, even though they provide a lot of recreational amenities on site, there was probably a need to plan for additional amenities and public spaces.

It turns out, of course, that there is great academic research on the topic.  This journal article from Progress in Planning published long after the Florida Market battle, but its conclusions seem particularly apt, "The key to sustainable urban development in UK cities? The influence of density on social sustainability."

► Dense neighbourhoods are more likely to provide good access to services/facilities. 

► Dense neighbourhoods are more likely to provide poor access to quality green space. 

► Residents in denser neighbourhoods are more likely to report feeling unsafe. 

► Generally, less social interaction occurs in denser neighbourhoods.

The point isn't to take such conclusions for granted, but to address the defects/deficits in purposeful ways, building systems that make communities better as a routine outcome.

Dog park potential of this inadvertent corner pocket park on W. 25th Street in Ogden, Utah.

I know I missed this on the H Street plan in 2003.  We should have tried to create some pocket parks on the corridor using parking lots and other interstitial spaces..  

Same with the NoMA plan--I proposed doing one c. 2005 and one was done, but we didn't include much in the way of amenities if I remember correctly.  

The NoMA business improvement district, once it was created, made that a major focus ("NoMA revisited: business planning to develop community," "(In many places) Public improvement districts ought to be created as part of transit station development process: the east side of NoMA station as an example," 2016).

Was in Ogden yesterday and they--because they did so much damage with urban renewal--have a lot of these kinds of spaces in their downtown area.  But land being at a premium in DC, it's harder.

Placemaking as a necessary element of property development.  The best informed property developers recognize the importance of integrating amenities into developments.  Although my line about it they do it only to make money, and so will only invest in such so long as the marginal return is positive, in terms of reduced vacancy of apartments and commercial spaces, with high retention rates.

-- "New trends in making offices attractive: high quality amenities | Downtown place values" (2025)

-- "How Gabriel Chipperfield beautified Bayswater," Financial Times (use archive.ph for access)

-- "ULI report: The Case for Open Space Why the Real Estate Industry Should Invest in Parks and Open Spaces" (2024)

-- "As office-centric downtowns struggle, suburbs cater to the laptop crowd," Washington Post

From the FT article:

Placemaking is nothing new. The idea of designing urban space for humans rather than cars took hold in the 1960s, and the term describing the process of creating buzzy, people-centric districts gained traction in the ’70s. What used to be the domain of urban planners, however, is now deemed an essential strategy in property development. It’s no longer good enough to fill a building with people, you need to curate a vibe around it. 

This, of course, has less to do with civic duty than the eventual payoff: it is much easier to fill developments in pleasant surroundings where shops, restaurants, schools and creative spaces are on the doorstep. Not all get it right: the development of London’s Elephant and Castle has led to heavy criticism of extreme gentrification and placing profit over people. King’s Cross, meanwhile, with its glass-encased offices, dining destinations and art college, Central Saint Martins, is widely viewed as a success story.

Chipperfield is thankful for a private equity partner who agreed to sink “a couple of million” into retail ideas that “might not make money”. In reality, the projects are commercially successful.

As far as dogs go, I remember touring new buildings in NoMA 15+ years ago and being shocked at how the buildings included wings where dog owners could live, and on site facilities, like dog washing.  But still, dogs need to be walked and that imposes demand for different kinds of accommodations outside of a building. 

Downtown amenities need more focused consideration | Mixed use districts require recreation center planning.  WRT parks planning, I wrote about this in terms of different needs for different scales ("Another example of the need to do comprehensive parks, recreation and civic assets planning at multiple scales, including neighborhoods like Columbia Heights," 2019).

It didn't specifically discuss Downtown.  Earlier, I wrote about this when a related item was before the Zoning Commission.  Back then, apartment buildings downtown successfully lobbied for a change in zoning requirements for them to reduce the amount of required recreational amenities.  They probably do provide some because people want them.

WHAT I suggested is that they should have had to pay recreation impact fees and the city should have created recreational amenities downtown.  Specifically, a recreation center.  At the time, there had been a YWCA at the corner of G Street and 7th Streets NW across from the MLK Library and Gallery Place, and it was unusual in its set of amenities as having a full sized pool.  But they sold it off and no such facility open to the public exists there.  

Similarly, this happened with the old YMCA building on Rhode Island Avenue NW just west of Dupont Circle.  They sold it off for the money, but I would have redeveloped the site, but with the inclusion of a new urban recreation center as part of the project, mixing civic and for profit functions, but vertically.

Mixed use commercial and residential districts are often ignored when creating such facilities.  Eg in DC there are plenty in the outer part of the city.  But not in the core.  In Salt Lake City, the County provides recreation centers although the city may fund the buildings.  But there are at least two serving core areas.  There could be more.  Although here residents including us, may be close to rec facilities in the county but not in Salt Lake--we go to one three miles away in Millcreek, but now I mostly go to the Wagner Jewish Community Center--it's closer and as I build my stamina again, it's an easier bike ride, etc.

Later in my writings about Silver Spring, I suggested creating a combined recreation center, arena, and roof top athletic facilities ("Creating the Silver Spring/Montgomery County Arena and Recreation Center (+ and a roof-top athletic field?)").  Something like that could be done in downtown districts, not just in DC but across the country.

General amenity planning in mixed use districts.  Writing about the post covid initiative to convert "unneeded" office buildings to housing and to attract more residents, I called for program planning to integrate a wider range amenities into Downtowns.  Although this should be extended to mixed use districts like Union Market or The Wharf.

-- "The unintended consequences of converting office buildings to housing: the need for public safety; schools; amenities" (2022)
--"What is the competitive advantage for the post-covid city? Doubling down on place values"(2022)
--"Downtown St. Paul needs 20,000 more people to thrive | implications for urban revitalization in the post covid city" (2024)

-- "From more space to socially distance to a systematic program for pedestrian districts (Park City (Utah) Main Street Car Free on Sundays)" (2020)

-- "Place-making: Reimagining and reinventing public spaces for communities" resources page, Parks for London

Public space planning and the Buckhead Collection.  In terms of public spaces, years ago (15+) I wrote about the open space and amenities planning program for the Buckhead district of Atlanta.  At the time it seemed to be one of the most comprehensive studies of the issue for dense urban districts.  I should have integrated it better into my thinking about this scale of planning.  

It was spearheaded by the Buckhead Community Improvement District, the business improvement district for the area, which is far more intense than equivalent districts in DC.  

It's funded by commercial property, and I wonder if there is that tension I've previously identified with BIDs providing services to residents, but with limited opportunities for residents to express their voices independent of business interests.  When I would raise this issue in DC, it flew over the heads of most BID staffers.  They had never considered the question.  

At least with the Buckhead CID they have formalized partnership relationships, including a number of resident-based organizations like the sustainability focused Livable Buckhead and the historic preservation organization Buckhead Heritage.  With a change in longtime leadership, the Buckhead Coalition joined forces with the CID, Livable Buckhead and the Buckhead Business Association in a more formal way.

It didn't call for a full array of park spaces, given the land constraints and the reality that not all types of park and recreational facilities can be nor should be implemented in one place.  For example, larger facilities offer more activities, and are delivered at the regional scale. 

Below are the seven types of spaces they identified as primary needs for urban districts.  Each is a single page summary, and the full plan is The Buckhead Collection: The A Greenspace Vision for City of Atlanta Council District 7 + Buckhead CID.  

I reordered it slightly.  Dog parks were at the end, but they are part of park spaces not the other categories.  The "framework" is (1) public spaces from small to large; (2) trails and paths and the pedestrian network [should be expanded, see "Planning for place/urban design/neighborhoods versus planning for transportation modes: new 17th Street NW bike lanes | Walkable community planning versus "pedestrian" planning,"]; (3) cultural resources; (4) public art.

• Plazas
• Central Gathering Space
• Neighborhood Parks
• Community Greens
• Dog Parks
• Conservation Parks
• Greenways & Trails
• Historical & Cultural Resources
• Public Art

But while the plan is great on the spaces, ultimately they missed the need for a public recreation center.  There are some limited facilities in some residential districts. And a variety of for profit or nonprofit facilities like a pool, tennis, and fitness facilities. Probably most of the residents in apartment buildings stick to facilities in their buildings.  

But like what I suggested years ago in Downtown DC, public recreation centers should be included in mixed use districts.  Plus, for workers they'd have the added value of being able to provide shower and locker facilities for bicyclists.  

The Downtown YMCA in Indianapolis used to offer a dedicated bike support facility at City Market but it shut down ("City Market's Bike Hub Is Rolling Forward," Indianapolis Monthly).  But that kind of facility should be integrated into a downtown public recreational facility, serving multiple demographics and users.  

In Santa Monica, Bike Center Santa Monica is a bike shop that rents bikes and supports commuting (in a separate operation with secure bike parking, showers, and lockers, independent from government support other than likely cheap rent in a city parking structure), with a shop with roll up doors.  It's well located in a prominent location in a city parking structure, one block from the Downtown Santa Monica Metro Station and the Third Street Promenade pedestrian mall.

Dog park planning.  In planning for park, recreation and open spaces in urban districts, dog parks are one of the categories that should be included.  The Buckhead plan suggests two types, neighborhood ones but still with a fair amount of amenities, and larger ones serving multiple districts.

-- Dog runs 

---- Basic amenities including water fountain, waste stations. seating areas, fencing, shade| shelter, durable surfaces (typically not organic turf)

---- Experience:  Fulfills basic needs includingcanine to can in en interaction, socialization. canine exercise, waste disposal

-- Destination dog parks 

---- Full range of amenities including water fountain, waste stations, seating areas, segregated recreation areas, shade structures, water | beach access, agility courses | structures, trails | paths, larger exercise areas, restroom facilities, waste recycling, dedicated parking

---- Experience:  Provides a complete recreational experience including canine | canine interaction and socialization, canine/human recreation and interaction, larger size allows for increased flexibility and a greater variety of park programming, potential community event site.

It can be tough to pull off ("Going to the dogs").  In Salt Lake, the Park I'm on the board of is basically a 110 acre dog park already, and I don't want to fence off currently open space for dogs.  Especially because in a driving community like the Salt Lake Valley--people go to dog parks by car, and the traffic load and parking demand that would be induced far exceeds our current capacity.

But this small fenced in pet area at a rest stop on I-15 in Brigham City, Utah demonstrates you don't need a lot of space for it.  

Union Market has these kinds of spaces available.  Interestingly, I didn't take a contemporary photo, but some of the vintage produce sheds still exist on a still unused property on 6th Street NE at Penn Avenue.

This photo, by MrTinDC, from a market tour I led in 2008 shows what the shed space looks like.

The no longer in operation Bark Social in North Bethesda, Montgomery County, Maryland.

A mixed private-public option.  Another option along the lines of seeding amenities in new developments, in a dense building environment like a downtown or district like DC's new neighborhoods of Union Market, the Navy Yard, the Wharf, or the Parks at Walter Reed, maybe the way to go is to subsidize the private bar restaurant dog-friendly facilities that shut down recently,  because they aren't that profitable.  Add coffee/cafe functions, and don't require memberships.

Bark Social was one of those firms ("Meet your dog’s new favorite happy hour destination," Post).  This is in line with my long ago recommendation that community recreation plans should incorporate acknowledgement of and recommendations for for profit facilities too, to have a complete plan.  

Jud and Jane Wollard, both 58, of Silver Spring, sit with their dog, Murphy, on the left, as other dogs come around to be petted. Kate Bunker, 68, of Silver Spring, is on the right, and Havi Reguejo, 40, of North Bethesda, is in the center. People and dogs enjoy a Friday morning at Bark Social, a social club for dogs in North Bethesda. (Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)

And like my suggestion that for profit bike shops could be subsidized by including them in community recreation centers, maybe that's true for dog accommodations too--Bark Social has a couple of locations still.  But maybe the urban sites were just too costly.  That's where subsidy may be a reasonable consideration. Although on equity grounds, people might complain, but if it's money from a self-tax, like a BID or Green Benefits District fee, it doesn't come at the expense of other government budget priorities.

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"Saving what is now Union Market" | Inside and Outside campaigns to bring about change.  Interestingly, I hadn't thought about it this way back then, but above I mention Paul Pascal and his key role in helping the market district forge a way better future than the one being proposed back then by legacy politicos and business interests.  What's there now is far better than what "New Towns" ever proposed.

I suppose I was the leader of the "outside campaign" bringing public attention to the issue, leading tours, taking journalists on tours who then wrote stories, talking to student groups.  Paul was the leader of the "inside campaign" dealing with the political and economic elites (think "Growth Machine" and "Urban Regime" theory) who could discard the New Town initiative and lay the path for the other.

Both were necessary.  But very different.  Too often those of us in outside campaigns think we're the primary difference makers.  Sometimes we are.  Sometimes we aren't.  But there is no question that both make a stronger whole.

This comes up with what I wrote about in fighting an inappropriate proposal for a hotel on the border of Sugar House Park in Salt Lake ("Learnings from a recent zoning issue I've been involved in").  There I led the inside campaign.  I understood my knowledge of the process came from all the various projects, initiatives, and plans I participated in back then, mostly in DC, some in Baltimore.  But I never was quite on the inside--sometimes, sort of--the way that Paul was in DC.

Real estate investment trusts and transit oriented development: CVS pharmacy moves from a single use site to a mixed use site on New Hampshire Avenue NW, Petworth, Washington, DC

(More from my trip to DC.  And there was so much I didn't have time get to check out--Downtown, Dupont Circle, 14th Street NW, H Street NE, Capitol Hill and Eastern Market, the mixed use Safeway on Kentucky Avenue SE, a bunch of new recreation centers, Georgetown...).  

She tools around in a used electric Fiat 500.  She gave us a tour of Walter Reed.  I think I would have missed a bunch without her chaperoning us.

And I didn't have time to meet up with people outside of our old neighbors--we came out for the high school graduation of the next door girl that "we helped raise" until we moved.

Typically, pharmacy buildings are owned by real estate investment trusts who don't want to complicate a property by making it mixed use ("Problematic outcomes as real estate investment trusts buy more "high street" retail real estate," 2015).  This is counter to good urbanism in cities, but the companies don't care.

That's why when companies like Walmart or Aldi start being okay with locating in mixed use buildings that's a big deal.  Although it's not like they care about the site design or architecture that much.  

There is an Aldi Supermarket on the ground floor of this apartment building on the 800-900 blocks of the south side of H Street NE, Washington, DC.  The Aldi on South Dakota Avenue NE seems like it's more temporary--although that means 20+ years--as the building is under-developed compared to its potential.

If it's a site they want in a leased mixed building setting, they'll take it.  But they'll still build single use buildings, but with underground parking, because land suitable for large parking lots aren't really available in the core of a city ("Lessons from Walmart's foray into DC," 2011, "The reason why Walmart is committed to a store that is part of a mixed use development," 2013). (Also see "LOL: Walmart closing stores, announces it won't move forward with two stores in lower income areas of DC," 2016).

The CVS on Georgia and New Hampshire Avenues in the Petworth neighborhood of DC used to be across the street on a parcel that needed to be heightened but never was. 

I guess they ended their lease and moved to a mixed use building.  There are still other CVS stores in the area that remain single story automobile-focused uses in Takoma DC, on 14th Street NW in Columbia Heights, and on Georgia Avenue NW by the Safeway (still single story although the one in Petworth is not) on Piney Branch Road.  So these remain fallow opportunities for better development.

What this also means for the Petworth site is that the REIT is likely to be willing to sell their single story site now that they can't get an easy tenant for it, allowing for more intense development there, which is a plus for urbanism and the city.

Single story still, while the one in Petworth that was single story has long since been converted into an apartment building with the Safeway on the ground floor.  On the other hand, that site is two short blocks to a subway station.  

Safeway in Petworth has been redeveloped for more than ten years.

This is a nice easy walk to the Takoma Metrorail station, but instead of two short blocks, it's 7/10 mile.  Subway station proximity in DC, which has a transit network contrasted to Baltimore which does not ("WMATA's 50th anniversary from the start of service, Part 5: Making a better transit network | Connecting heavy rail + light rail + railroad "), makes all the difference in properties being worthwhile to develop, or not.  

What the Safeway in Petworth used to be.

A Separated Yellow Line up Georgia Avenue would change the property values overnight, but would require wholesale rezoning like what Arlington County did with Wilson Boulevard, and DC has never gone to that length for land that is already zoned low density residential ("WMATA's 50th anniversary from the start of service, Part 2b | Lessons learned: Proposed expansions and the Metrorail system we don't have," 2026).

It does with commercially zoned land, like the liner buildings along Georgia Avenue, plus industrial land and land at transit stations ("To Create Abundant Housing, Ignore the YIMBY Playbook," Washington Monthly).  But to go beyond the liner buildings a block, the way Arlington did, hasn't been done ("How DC Densified," Works in Progress).

It shows that while the development boom in DC has been astounding, there are still plenty of opportunities for redevelopment, but Metrorail proximity is key ("Today WMATA Metrorail's 50th anniversary from the start of service | Part 1: many lessons can be found, if you look," 2026).

This makes DC's failure to leverage streetcar service for the forthcoming redo of the RFK campus into a mixed use development anchored by an NFL football stadium, all the more apparent ("Bye DC Streetcar | Too small to reshape DC policy, Big enough to spur $1 billion in economic development,").  

With the streetcar, DC's H Street NE is the most intensely developed corridor without immediate Metrorail access (although Union Station is nearby).  

Streetcar on H Street NE.

Visual simulation of what a sreetcar could have looked like on Georgia Avenue NW by Tim Hampton, then of VisArts when this was done, c. 2010.  

This is the Park Place Apartment building at the intersection with New Hampshire Avenue NW.

What Georgia Avenue NW could have looked like with a streetcar.  The apartment building is extant at Georgia and New Hampshire Avenues (built by Chris Donatelli, "Chris Donatelli, a DC real estate developer, dead at 58") but the streetcar is not.

It was proof positive that the city needed to put streetcars on Georgia Avenue-7th Street NW/SW connecting to the Wharf, Rhode Island Avenue, Benning Road-Minnesota Avenue, Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue/Southern Avenue SE, and Kennedy Street-Riggs Road to spur development by providing better transit access between Metrorail stations, but as a way to spark development more.

For some reason, DC's elected officials still don't accept that Metrorail is the foundation of DC's economic success since 2000.  Without it, the city would be provincial like, more like a state capital that isn't all that great--like Albany, New York (which loses out because people and many state government agencies prefer New York City).

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The old streetcar network used to serve the US Capitol via a couple different lines.

I also suggested a heritage streetcar system with visitor centers and an expanded Union Station with transportation museum functions for the National Mall.

-- "Revisiting: a proposal for heritage streetcar service on the National Mall | adding service to the DC waterfront," 2022

Nice looking five story brick apartment building, Parks at Walter Reed development, Washington, DC

The Walter Reed Army Medical Center was a large hospital and research campus on Georgia Avenue NW in Washington, DC.

It was merged and moved into the Bethesda Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland.

The old campus went through a de-accession process and DC bought it and did a plan, calling for housing and retail mostly, with civic uses in some of the historic buildings.

I fell in with some people, too late in the process, who proposed instead of a predominately housing oriented project, a graduate medical education and biotechnology program for the site, with the aim of building back the jobs element of the campus--which when fully staffed had almost 8,000 employees.

The original hospital building is still there, but still hasn't been redeveloped.

But DC isn't particularly innovative when it comes to economic development planning.  They are comfortable with housing and retail, but not much of anything else ("Demolition Marks Turning Point for Decommissioned Hospital Site," Engineering News Record). From the Washington Business Journal article "Historic hospital building at former Walter Reed campus for sale":

The Parks at Walter Reed’s main square, anchored by a Whole Foods, other retail and apartments, is the centerpiece of the larger $700 million development, which is slated to include 2,100 housing units, 100,000 square feet of retail and 200,000 square feet of office at buildout. 

The long-term plan is for most of the historic buildings remaining on the campus to be redeveloped or preserved. But the development team has also marketed a few other properties on the campus, largely aimed at developers with niche ambitions.

Partly because the lead was somewhat of a wack job, even though a credentialed medical doctor with some affiliations with the Royal College of Surgeons Medical School in Dublin was part of the group and we were working with the nearby Washington Adventist University, which like many 7th Day Adventist colleges, has a number of health professional programs (Loma Linda University in California is a bonafide graduate medical school), we just never got anywhere.

Photo: Critical Systems.

Although later, lobbying directly with Congress, Children's Hospital Center took over the old Armed Forces Institute of Pathology there, which would have been turnkey for a medical school, and set it up to do research ("Children's National Health System Accepts Walter Reed Property").  

They're there, but I don't know how its progressing.  They call it the Innovation Campus ("NIH awards $6.7M to build additional lab space at Children’s National Research & Innovation Campus").  But it's a $6 billion project, so it's a big deal.

I ended up rewriting the concept for the St. Elizabeths campus in Southeast DC, where DC ended up building a new hospital.  

But that program ended up being a pretty ordinary hospital, not the public health innovator, graduate health education and biotechnology campus I proposed.  Again, because DC just isn't very innovative.

-- "Ordinary versus Extraordinary Planning around the rebuilding of the United Medical Center in Southeast Washington DC | Part One: Rearticulating the system of health and wellness care East of the River" (2018)
-- "Part Two: Creating a graduate health and biotechnology research initiative on the St. Elizabeths campus," (2018)
-- "Part three: the potential for donations around an expanded program," (2018)

-- "The new Cedar Hill Regional Hospital opens in Southeast DC" (2025)

-- "Revisiting East of the River medical care: United Medical Center" (2018)
-- "Update on DC's plans to build a new United Medical Center" (2018)

I also suggested University of Maryland could have done it at Largo.

-- "University of Maryland could seed a complementary biotechnology and medical education initiative in Prince George's County" (2021)

And I keep revising it...

-- "Hospitals as urban anchors/revitalization levers, not usually, but with great potential to serve communities in important ways: Examples are two forthcoming projects by Intermountain Health and University of Utah Health" (2023)

Although later I realized, when writing about the conversion of the Pfizer research campus in Ann Arbor, Michigan, seeding a biotechnology program is quite hard.  That facility had a lot of drugs in the pipeline which Pfizer was no longer interested in, and they willingly let new startups take them over.

-- "How the closure of a Pfizer research center in Ann Arbor, Michigan led to the development of a more robust and independent biotech sector" (2021)

Although I have to say the development is pretty impressive.  A lot is there, and nice public spaces, a super beautiful Whole Foods supermarket, and other stuff.  Lots of apartments.

Because it was designated as a historic district during the planning process, there is design review for renovation of old buildings as well as new construction.  While most buildings aren't nearly as nice and historically compatible as the one at the top of the entry, they're not terrible.  But nowhere as good as the one pictured above.

The first building is so good because it abuts a historic building.

This building has the Whole Foods on the ground floor.  It looks quite good architecturally for new construction.

The Plaza area

Whole Foods.  Because there are charter schools on the campus, the kids/youth grow up being able to experience this at lunch and after school.  It's open to all, not limited to residents of the development.  So it's a great public park amenity that the city doesn't have to pay to maintain--and couldn't at this high level of design and maintenance.