Fencing and bollards that are not catalogue pieces but rather designed specifically for the Flats will create a distinct sense of place

The Pop Up City series is a chance to work on projects that breath new life into our abandoned urban spaces.

Artists from Germany, a hotbed of reusing industrial remnants as sports complexes and incubator spaces, will lead an upcoming Urban Design Center of Cleveland workshop, sharing ideas and visiting sites ripe for reuse around town. The series shows its lighter side on Leap Night with a host of outdoor activities in the Flats. Read more.

Pop Up City, a series that explores temporary uses of urban spaces, was cooked up by young Cleveland designers and landscape artists who peered into the dark façades and remnant steel structures of long-gone industry and imagined a cooler future.

Part of the inspiration comes from artists Tore Dobberstein and Andreas Haase of Berlin who reuse the abandoned structures of Germany’s industrial landscape for “sport." For example, they filled entire rooms in an abandoned warehouse with big foam rubber cubes to make it safe for skater boys and BMXers to launch themselves, wheels and all, off an overhanging loft or a banister (the Free Times reported on this phenomenon at last year’s Shrinking Cities exhibit at Spaces Gallery).

These "Sportification" ideas have been implemented in a number of large, government-sponsored projects in East Germany’s Ruhr Valley—that country’s Rust Belt—where artists turned abandoned steel mills into large outdoor recreation centers. Giant steel tanks—like the ones still dotting Cleveland’s Industrial Flats from the old Standard Oil days—were converted to underwater diving tanks. Or ramparts of steel towers and old bridges are now preserved as public art serving as a cool destination for tourists or the backdrop for a future movie set.

We’re five years into the modern green building era—as defined by the birth of U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED rating system—and in that time America has seen exponential growth in green building, which has had a measurable impact on energy use, USGBC Vice President Tom Hicks told a packed house at Levin College yesterday.

Hicks talked about the impact of expanding LEED to encompass neighborhood development. Cities like Cleveland, as well as counties and states, are leveraging their pilot projects to blaze a path for more green neighborhoods. It begins with finding and removing the regulatory obstacles, but the larger goal, the big prize, is being an early adopter of green building standards, both in government buildings and community wide.

Read more.

The following are examples of categories and design elements that can guide a successful waterfront revitalization plan

Access

a. Contact with water

• Ampitheater Space
• Viewing platform/overlook deck
• Water & watercraft opportunities, ferry service
• Beaches & walkways
• Public seating areas

b. Continuous public space at the edge

• Biking systems
• Public access corridors
• Promenade space

c. Open and green

• Green expanses that connect the waterfront with downtown business districts
• Large open green spaces for public recreation
• Connections to the Urban Core and Neighborhoods
• Pedestrian bridges
• Downtown skywalks & riverwalks
• Festive banners, trees, broad sidewalks
• Segregated vehicle and bike/pedestrian traffic

d. Multi-modal

• All-purpose trail systems
• Ferry system/water taxis
• Scenic drive/parking areas
• Trolley system
• Bridge bike/walking paths

e. Welcoming to all

• Floral displays/colorful landscape areas
• Locational signs/displays

Quality of amenities, activities, & design

a. Continuity of design elements

Repetition of materials and detailing to identify the waterfront area

b. Quality of construction, materials, maintenance

• Landscaping & furnishings designed specifically for area
• Signature design pieces

c. Comfort and safety

• Comfortable places to sit, lounge, or sunbath
• Water fountains
• Places for public to obtain services

d. Place Specific

Cleveland has long suffered from weak connections between neighborhoods. Pockets of activity are scattered across the city—in places such as Tremont, W. 25th Street, the Warehouse District, Little Italy and Shaker Square. Yet they are often surrounded by areas that do not support a similar level of activity because of compromised urban fabric or streetscapes that cater to cars rather than people. This prevents vibrancy from spreading and reinforces a sense of fragmentation and isolation in many Cleveland neighborhoods. Residents and visitors feel they must “stick to the beaten path” rather than exploring surrounding neighborhoods and making unexpected discoveries—one of the chief pleasures of urban life.

Flats stakeholders have expressed a desire to keep a similar situation from developing in the Flats. Regardless of how well-designed individual developments and public spaces might be, a true neighborhood will take shape in the Flats only if they are connected in a meaningful way. BCbD has met with groups in the Flats who have identified several key connections that must be strengthened or created between anchor developments, public spaces and adjacent neighborhoods (the Warehouse District, Ohio City, Tremont, etc.). BCbD will coordinate the design of these connections with stakeholder groups, and will hire a master architect to design these connections, with possible refinements to be made by separately hired designers.

The specific connections to be considered are:

From the Flats East Bank to the Warehouse District and Canal Basin Park

The following information was provided by Building Cleveland by Design (BCbD), a project of Cleveland Public Art and Parkworks that is leading the public space design process in the Flats District (along with stakeholder groups like the city of Cleveland, which is leading the Canal Basin Park District Plan and Cuyahoga County which is leading the public space design at Wendy Park on Whiskey Island, including connections from the West Bank of the Flats).

An important consideration is how to improve connections between anchor developments like Flats East Bank and Stonebridge to beautiful and functional public spaces. This document sets goals for public space design in waterfront districts such as the Flats. For specific BCbD public space and connector design projects, see this page.

Neighborhood Overview

Cleveland’s riverfront, long dominated by industry and a source of shame after the Cuyahoga River caught fire in the 1950s and 1960s, is now being refashioned as a place for residents and visitors to see and touch the water. The upper Flats neighborhood, in particular, is one of the most compelling places in Northeast Ohio—the place where the Cuyahoga River meets Lake Erie. With its historic buildings, bridges, barge traffic and steep hills, it has long captured the imagination of locals and visitors. The area now has a chance to achieve its full potential as a 24-hour neighborhood, with multiple private and public developments planned or underway.

Public Space Considerations

Well-designed public spaces will play a pivotal role in reclaiming the Flats and connecting proposed new developments. As the first major development likely to break ground in the neighborhood, the Flats East Bank will set the standards by which future projects are judged.

One of the most compelling places in Northeast Ohio is the area in the Flats where the Cuyahoga River meets Lake Erie (roughly the area of the river valley north of the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge). This is a unique urban setting—one of the coolest places in the country and a gateway for one of the most popular national parks. But it hasn’t come close to achieving its full potential as an asset for the region.

A number of projects (see links below) have been proposed that could dramatically improve this place and make it a central gathering place for people throughout Northeast Ohio.

Public support for these projects exists, but implementation is taking a long time because the projects are being promoted as separate pieces by different groups. If, instead, these projects were packaged as a suite of related projects, they all could gain strength by being interconnected parts of a larger context with regional significance.

Adjacent areas of Cleveland (including the Warehouse District, Lakefront, Public Square, Tower City, Tremont, and Ohio City) can all be strengthened by connecting with a coherent, vibrant public realm featuring pedestrian circulation, bike routes, and other public-use amenities). This, in turn, will strengthen the entire region.

As more large-scale developments are being planned in Cleveland, interest grows in making them as green as possible. Building Cleveland by Design (BCbD) is a new nonprofit project that is working to expand the influence of local expertise in green building, urban design and public art initially by making the Flats a green neighborhood.

The project is being managed by ParkWorks and Cleveland Public Art, and it also involves The Cleveland Museum of Natural History's Center for Regional Sustainability (host of this GreenCityBlueLake site), Kent State's Urban Design Collaborative, and other organizations.

For now, a geographic focus of BCbD's work will be in the Flats near the mouth of the Cuyahoga River. The convergence of major developments in this district — including Flats East Bank, Stonebridge, Canal Basin Park, Wendy Park, the Towpath Trail and a possible new convention center — provides an exciting opportunity to bring together high-performance building techniques and high quality public spaces.

BCbD will be managing the LEED-Neighborhood Development design and certification process for the Flats East Bank development, which is one of four pilot projects seeking LEED-ND rating in Greater Cleveland. The project also seeks to work closely with other parties involved in redesigning the Flats as a vibrant, 24-hour neighborhood.

BCbD director, Justin Glanville, says the organization will offer services in these three areas for the Flats and future projects: