Gateway Focus Group Meeting. Attendees. Meeting Discussion. June 26, :30am 11:30am

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1 June 26, :30am 11:30am There are three primary items for the focus today: 1. Are there any specific plans for your organization that we need to be aware of? 2. Are there any specific issues or concerns that we can address? 3. Where do the opportunities exist in this area of focus? Attendees Craig Hebebrand ODOT District John Motl ODOT District Mark Alan Carpenter ODOT District Natalie Conley ODOT District Jay Schach Hilton Garden Inn Bill Beckenbach Quadrangle, Inc Scott Carpenter Fire Museum Jim Folk Cleveland Indians Thomas Starinsky Historic Gateway Peter MacEwan Tri-C Skip Smallridge CSS Jeff Broadwater Baker Amilyn Cedergreen Baker Doug Blank Baker Meeting Discussion Jay Schach (Hilton Garden Inn) confirmed that the East 9 th Street entrance to the hotel and conference center is ingress only. Jim Folk mentioned that the Cleveland Indians have no future plans for expansion, but their concerns revolve primarily around maintaining all access points. He also wanted to emphasize access during construction. Scott Carpenter (Fire Museum) will be hoping to use the parking lot under the main viaduct for special event parking in the next year or so. 1

2 Jim Folk - The lot is owned by Norfolk Southern and is leased to Gateway. Fencing has been installed to permit parking of vehicles. The dirt/gravel area to the south may be used for parking, but can also accommodate storage of circus vehicles and other large items for future events in the Gateway area. A general assumption has been that the soil under this parking lot is so contaminated that selling the parcel to a developer would be unlikely. Scott Carpenter - The Fire Museum has developed a plan integrating one potential parking option with some potential streetscape improvements in the Fire Station region (Figure 1). The Fire Museum is proposing the integrating the Central Viaduct Historic Way with the Fire Memorial Park. The Fire Museum generally plans events around Indians games and other major events. The Museum generally notifies Gateway and generally has no issues with using portions of the lot. The museum would like to see the area greened-up to minimize the concrete, and uncover the trolley tracks to some degree, as well. Figure 1: Proposed layout plan for Fire Museum/fire Station (Provided by Scott Carpenter) Scott Carpenter the Fire Museum access will be right in/right out and prefers to think of this access as more of a driveway rather than a road. The museum would prefer that access be provided from downtown, as well. Jim Folk - Cleveland Indians would be agreeable to vehicular access to their lot along the old East 9 th Street alignment. The plan will need to be sure to identify the route to get to the parking lots. 2

3 Doug Blank - Pedestrian access would be maintained along the existing Commercial Road alignment. An option for continuing to allow left turns from downtown into the parking. Before the next meeting, Baker will develop potential access options to the major portion of the lot to be used for Gateway employees. Currently there are bike lanes on the Lorain-Carnegie bridge, but they are not striped elsewhere. Further coordination will be done. Jim Folk - clarified that the Fire Museum has no formal rights to this lot. Jeff Broadwater - Baker needs to investigate the R/W disposition of the East 9 th Street bridge of the RTA. Three points will be examined: (1) Access from Carnegie side of Commercial, (2) Access from new Commercial cul-de-sac, (3) Access from New Commercial/Broadway intersection. Tom Starinsky - requests that some sort of pedestrian access be provided with the target location the northeast corner of Carnegie and Ontario (Progressive Field). Baker needs to investigate ownership of the parcel on the Ontario hillside. Tom Starinsky suggests that Marty Cader should be added to the subcommittee. Tom S. / S. Carpenter - Safety under the two bridges is a concern. Lighting should be a strong consideration. This group should look into the preferred pedestrian paths and options to make the Ontario/Carnegie intersection more pedestrian friendly. Doug Blank- A pedestrian refuge island could be considered between the two N/S movements. Tom Starinsky also brought up the possibility of enhancement improvements at East 9 th St. Peter MacEwan - Tri-C mentioned that a noise analysis has been done in the past and wanted to know the results on impacts to the administration building. Craig Hebebrand - ODOT responded that the noise nor the vibration is an issue to Tri-C per ODOT standards. Peter MacEwan- Tri-C requested that the retaining wall near their property be given aesthetic considerations. Tri-C is considering building a parking deck to replace the parking they are losing in order to maintain greenspace and avoid challenges associated with grade differences. Tri-C asked if the Retaining wall could potentially be used for the foundation of the parking structure. Tri-C has Robert M. and Greg Peckham on their Art Council who could potentially help on the enhancements. 3

4 ODOT would probably not permit shared use of the retaining wall to support the parking structure due to R/W issues. ODOT would usually have the R/W to access/inspect the wall. Tom Starinsky - The lanterns as used on Huron behind Tower City could be considered for use along the Carnegie corridor. There are old lanterns that used to be on the Lorain-Carnegie bridge that could be brought back. Jay Schach - The Hilton Garden Inn had lighting improvements made during construction. Craig Hebebrand - Opportunities exist for enhancements between the Lorain Carnegie bridge and East 9 th Street along Carnegie, but no further east than East 9 th. Skip Smallridge - The improvements made in this corridor are key in that they could set the tone for future improvements. Unification is important to consider, moving forward. Discussion occurred regarding walled fill versus structure in the downtown areas. The preference of this group is that the parking area should be left open, and close as many other areas as possible with filled walls. This would help from the safety perspective. Land use and support locations will be limited by R/W ownership. If there are any areas that need to be prohibited from pier placement, it must be stated up front. Craig Hebebrand - Design build firm will be under contract by the end of Temporary right of way necessary for construction will be provided for the D/B contractor. Jay Schach - Webster Street behind the Hilton Garden Inn has been vacated. Concern exists regarding the large brick sewer along the Webster alignment. A cave-in of this sewer occurred previously. This is a concern moving forward. There was a collective interest to treat this as an area, tie-ing these area together through lighting and pedestrian experience. It was suggested to look at using the East 14 th St. bridge to be the entrance to Gateway as a boulevard idea. There should be a cohesive nature with all of these areas at this Gateway end. Action items: Baker will develop potential access options to the major portion of the lot to be used for Gateway employees. o Access from Carnegie side of Commercial o Access from new Commercial cul-de-sac o Access from New Commercial/Broadway intersection Baker /CSS to determine parking lot layout for Fire Museum/Station and Progressive Field Baker/CSS to create elevations to see vertical clearance in/around Fire Museum/Station 4

5 Baker to talk to Dan Dougherty about o NS yard and lease with Gateway o Old E. 9 th Bridge over GCRTA (ownership) Baker to get John Binns preliminary lighting plans for Skip ODOT to add Marty Cader to Subcommittee for Bike/Ped input ODOT to check with B&N to determine if sidewalks are provided on E. 9 th and Ontario under mainline. Next Meeting The next Gateway Focus meeting will be Friday July 24 at 9:30 at Progressive Field. 5