Bob Stark, the self-titled "poet developer" who created a more elegant Lifestyle Center at Crocker Park, is bringing together his grand plan for a $1 billion urban, mixed-use development that starts in Cleveland’s Warehouse District and extends to the Lakefront.

“This is the Creative Urban Neighborhood,” Stark told an audience at Levin College on October 17. “I’m tired of suburbia. I’ve done my time. I want something that challenges me creatively, and I want to do it now.”

Imagine a SoHo style neighborhood with well-designed, eight-story buildings that have ground floor shops and lofts above in place of the giant surface parking lots bound by W.6th and W.3rd streets and Superior and St. Clair.

After inking deals with parking lot owners, Stark sold his vision at the major retail convention in Las Vegas earlier this year. Not one retailer turned him down, he says.

“Tomorrow we can sign leases for 1 million square feet of retail. No one in the last 35 years has been able to say that.”

The key is selling the urban lifestyle, Stark says, and involving development partners like the Port Authority and the city to get public subsidies for infrastructure improvements.

“Skeptics ask, ‘Where’s the market, Bob?’ We don’t have 10,000 people a week coming in like Phoenix. My proof that this will work comes from Crocker Park. Rents are $15/sq. ft. above average. It’s all about the lifestyle.”

Stark says he has “unanimity” from the Port Authority board for his vision to push neighborhood development north to the docks next to Browns Stadium. He proposed that the Port, which can finance and own developments, literally lay the groundwork and build a large underground parking garage north of St. Clair that will serve as a platform for more surface development. It puts in the infrastructure and signs ground leases with developers. The city will add 3 to 4 million square feet of prime development.

“We have the best mixed-use site in America. It can only be done with public financing. Cities around us are investing $billions. I don’t think it will take that much.

“We have an opportunity to be urban if it’s clean, safe, and offers opportunities to be sustainable.”

Among the panelists at Levin, downtown councilman Joe Cimperman threw his support behind Stark’s project, which informally has been titled Pesht in honor of the Hungarian city which the Hapsburg monarchy planned in minute detail. Cimperman insists Pesht will happen because of the Port Authority’s involvement, the location (The Warehouse District saw population growth in the last Census), and, most importantly, because of Robert Stark’s will to get it done.

See the video of Stark's presentation at Levin College.