Norm, I appreciate your taking the time and having the energy to trot this all out. It needs saying again, and again, and again. The best urban redevelopment is and always has been what is grass roots and individually driven. When it gets to the scale of what Ratners, Jacobs, Stark, Schneider, and even Rubin and Rysar want to do, there's a disconnect from the public interest and a reconnect with the interests of those who are paid to move the largest amounts of money, and then move it again, and again. Whereas banks measure the velocity of money on an annual basis, real-estate developers think in quarter centuries.

When are people going to figure out that these community-development nonprofits receive funding only if they sell out the public, foreclose the public from the development process, and steer public opinion to favor investment bankers and mavens of redevelopment merchandising? "Seasonal" now means 25 years, not 3 months, but the markups are about the same. The problem with grassroots restoration is that it gets redevelopment for all of us wholesale and preserves a heritage to boot. Our community-development nonprofits are part of the markup; we've been compromised; they've been hijacked.

Is this making sense?

I don't think many people -- me included -- realize how much good development is going on in Cleveland. Your analysis puts it in better perspective. Tower Press, Shaker Square, West 4th, Hyacinth Lofts, Hodge etc. .. they add up and they have much more enduring benefits to the community. If you look at all that + what's to come in University Circle -- Cleveland's not such a bad place to live. We are so used to reading in the PD about how Wolstein is our only hope for the flats, that we need Walmart at Steel Yard Commons, no wonder we are so willing to sell our souls. Maybe the PD is the source of NEO's self esteem problem?

Norm,
 
  YOU NAILED IT!

    A friend came to brunch today and said he saw Stark interviewed by Dick Feagler with Ari Maron and Chris Ronayne, and that Stark squashed them like bugs in the debate. Stark is reported to have said and I'm paraphrasing from my friend's report, "You guys are pushing the river and the lake as attractions, and they aren't attractive -- they are dirty and smelly and no one wants to go near them." Maybe he should have said, no one can get near them. Maybe he would propose to dump his construction waste directly into the river or add it to the latest dredgefill site. Who knows? Maybe he should get into an 8 and row with the Western Reserve Rowing Association's Summer Rowing League. That would get him near the river!

    CPAC with an $800,000 org (here's their 2004 990 from Guidestar) http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2004/341/936/2004-341936190-1-9.pd... should be driving downtown development in my humble opinion. (Have you talked with Schorgl about your media center idea?) And certainly since most of the arts connections in Northeast Ohio are affiliated in one way or another with University Circle institutions, he must be nuts not to advocate Beck moving closer to our regional downtown rather than farther away.

Beck Center is in a walkable, transit accessible area; why oh why would they want to move to a drive-to-it destination? Even in town theaters (CPH, Playhouse Square) struggle as drive-to-it destination attractions.

    If Beck Center (and much of their programming seems to indicate this) is cultivating a lifestyle center crowd, then Crocker Park is the place for them, but CPT will have to expand further to accommodate the influx of traffic that will happen at their theater if controversial plays are no longer a part of Beck's programming. Much of the traffic CPT sees or at least used to see drives across the Main Avenue Bridge to attend from the arts entrenched eastside. If people in Westlake want to drive their Hummers to Crocker Park to see restagings of old Broadway favorites, then so be it. Cleveland Artists Foundation might need a more centrally located spot. I just can't see Busta driving out to Crocker Park to hang a show, but maybe I'm dreaming, and we should all be looking for funds to move to a McMansion near asphaltland. I'm going to have to spend my retirement to get a car good enough to park there...

    I walk these days to the Cedar Lee. After years of working in the arts community here, I prefer the anonymity of the darkened theater on slow nights.

I was pleased to get the following nice thoughts and further insight from the Free Times related to this Beck's Center posting, from a friend in the media. This is certainly a much more informative and well thought out and researched article than in the PD, which seems to have rewritten the Free Times article and blended in quotes that serve PD interests. After reading the Free Times posting, I am more sympatheric to the Beck, better appreciate the value to Lakewood, and conclude the problem may largey be this Unger guy.

Most insightful is a quote from the Gund Foundation:

"At the bottom of this fundamentally is the issue of sprawl," says George Gund Foundation Arts program officer Deena Epstein, talking about the situation.

"We have invested in organizations in the core city and the inner ring," she continued. "We can't afford to replicate those farther out in the suburbs, nor should we."

Hey Norm . . . just wanted to bring this story to your attention because it includes the following:

They have to decide whether their volunteer role as guardians of a regionally important arts, education and cultural-outreach operation requires them to be complicit in the poaching of one city's asset by an ambitious developer whose stated interests include manufacturing the vibrant feel of a real city in the shopping center he built just a few years ago in Westlake, a place he crafted in careful imitation of walkable, streetcar-era, mixed-use shopping districts – just like Lakewood.

...and also to say that the Free Times had this two days before the PD (City Chatter June 21), and before Beck sent its press release. Keep up the good work, and thanks for recognizing this story for what it is.

Art-migration: Beck Debates Whether To Follow Or Fight Sprawl

By Michael Gill mgill [at] freetimes [dot] com

On Friday night, Beck Center buzzed with most of the elements that complicate life for the staff and trustees of the largest arts institution west of the Cuyahoga.

The opening of the Harry Chapin musical review Lies and Legends filled the Karl Mackey auditorium with a nostalgic poetry of compromised lives, dreams put off, and love hanging suspended, or lost. The house was a little better than half full, which is just about how it usually goes on opening night, even if the company offers top-notch performances of radio hits from the '70s, like "Cat's in the Cradle" and "Taxi."

Meanwhile, down the hall, the much smaller studio theater was sold out with a local premiere, the coming-out-of-the-closet story of an Irishman.

The rain had let up, so they didn't have to worry so much about roof leaks.

And then there was the news that the organization faces a decision that could change its fate and the personality of two cities.

According to board president Fred Unger, it was January or February when something inspired shopping center developer Bob Stark to re-visit an old idea: to ask whether Beck Center might be interested in moving from its Lakewood home of 75 years to Westlake, specifically to some land he owns near Crocker Park, which he built.

Gossip in town has it that he'll help build them a new building and maybe even pay off their debts. Beck has been through hard times, including layoffs and 15 percent pay cuts two years ago, and scaling back its prodigiously busy theater season from 11 shows to nine. So following the money might offer financial stability that the center hasn't known in decades. On the other hand, moving on out would change the center's identity and could alienate a substantial portion of the audience, including, potentially, some of the major foundations.

Whatever the gossip, Unger won't discuss details of the proposal, which he says haven't been hammered out yet anyway. Stark's communications office was unable to arrange an interview in time for comment.

It was a fortuitous time for Stark to make the query, because, Unger says, the trustees were already in the midst of redevelopment talks. A planning retreat in spring 2005 led them to the conclusion that the aging complex did not serve them well. Utility bills are sky-high. The space is inefficiently arranged. One theater has too many seats, the other too few. Neither has an orchestra pit or fly space to raise and lower scenery. And the roof leaks.

So, Unger says, the board was already discussing whether to redevelop the campus. A press release says the center wants to be "part of a neighborhood of retail shopping, residential living and other commercial activity," which describes both Crocker Park and the center's current Detroit Road location — especially if one developer's vision came true.

Developer Cecil Yates consulted with previous Executive Director Liz Horrigan on a plan he felt would solve Beck Center's building problems and help financially as well. He'd extend a street into the front of the campus and line Detroit with new retail and restaurants. He says they "went so far as to talk with a specialty grocery store." Selling the Detroit Avenue frontage would pay for the construction of a new, more efficient theater and education building where the parking lots are now.

Unger says his preference would be to give the property to a developer as part of a contract that would include building new facilities according to specifications, and lease it all back to them for maybe a dollar a year. They figure the property — five acres in western Lakewood — to be a bargaining chip worth $6 million. In return, the developer would get to build as he saw fit on the remainder of the property. Beck Center would serve as the anchor tenant, with drawing power that already brings thousands of people from all over the region to Lakewood. These are the ideas that came first.

But then along came Stark, a poet and painter in his spare time, dangling a piece of shiny new Westlake as a carrot, burdening them with a very heavy decision: whether the responsible stewardship of a perennially cash-strapped organization requires the trustees to accept his (thus far vaguely stated) offer, or whether it would be better for the continuity of the organization's brand to redevelop in the community it has called home for 75 years.

They have to decide whether they will commit Beck Center to the same pattern of out-migration that has dismembered Cleveland and is now at work on Lakewood and other inner-ring suburbs.

They have to decide whether their volunteer role as guardians of a regionally important arts, education and cultural-outreach operation requires them to be complicit in the poaching of one city's asset by an ambitious developer whose stated interests include manufacturing the vibrant feel of a real city in the shopping center he built just a few years ago in Westlake, a place he crafted in careful imitation of walkable, streetcar-era, mixed-use shopping districts — just like Lakewood.

"At the bottom of this fundamentally is the issue of sprawl," says George Gund Foundation Arts program officer Deena Epstein, talking about the situation.

"We have invested in organizations in the core city and the inner ring," she continued. "We can't afford to replicate those farther out in the suburbs, nor should we."

"At the bottom of this fundamentally is the issue of sprawl," says George Gund Foundation Arts program officer Deena Epstein, talking about the situation.

"We have invested in organizations in the core city and the inner ring," she continued. "We can't afford to replicate those farther out in the suburbs, nor should we."

"At the bottom of this fundamentally is the issue of sprawl," says George Gund Foundation Arts program officer Deena Epstein, talking about the situation.

"We have invested in organizations in the core city and the inner ring," she continued. "We can't afford to replicate those farther out in the suburbs, nor should we."

Prior to any talk of moving to Westlake, the Cleveland Foundation awarded Beck Center $200,000 to help regroup after financial challenges. Of the impact of possibly moving to Westlake, arts program officer Kathleen Cerveny said, "One would hope that there would be a look taken at how their demographic might change, and how support for the organization might change under that scenario."

As Epstein says, the prospect of moving near a shopping center in a more distant suburb raises "a lot of questions, and not all of them are financial."

The answers to many of those questions don't exist yet. Unger said in an interview Thursday that the center plans to retain consultants to study the economic impact the organization has, evaluate the arts market in both cities, and frame the argument for a fundraising campaign for either scenario.

According to in-house statistics, Beck draws almost half its theater patrons and arts students from suburbs west of Lakewood. Lakewood itself provides 24 percent of the theater patrons and 28 percent of the students. Westlake brings just 10 and 12 percent, respectively. A new building in either location would likely boost those numbers, but which would do so more is anyone's guess. The center is closer to more people in its Lakewood location, but the people in Westlake have more money.

Moving Beck Center to Crocker Park is not a new idea. Former Executive Director Bill Beckenbach says Stark made the same proposal back in 2001. At that time, though, the state had just invested $500,000 to help build music studios. Beckenbach says Crocker Park was a pipe dream at the time, and he just didn't think it would make financial sense.

Neither is it the first time a wealthy amateur artist approached the Lakewood organization with an offer that could dramatically change its future. Founded in 1932, the organization formerly known as Lakewood Little Theater got its name, main building and comprehensive vision in the mid-'70s from Kenneth C. Beck, a graphic designer and amateur painter of boating scenes who made a small fortune in the stock market. When Beck wanted a place to exhibit his paintings after his death, the city steered him toward Lakewood Little Theater. A massive fundraising campaign matched his eventual gift and the building went up.

Thirty years later, theater is just a part of the center's activity. More than 7,000 students take arts classes each year and bring in most of the center's money. About 22,000 people participate in outreach programs, especially in the inner city, which is the center's major appeal to foundations.

But it's always been a challenge to fill it to pay the bills on the convoluted assemblage of aging brick. Trustees say the city hasn't helped much, noting that Beck has never been a municipal budget line item. Lakewood Assistant Planning Director Dryck Bennett says, "The city has long worked with Beck Center in a proactive fashion." He says the city's contribution has been to allow the center to defer mortgage payments on the Armory, which Beck purchased from the city.

"Obviously Beck Center is a priority," he said.

Westlake Planning Director Robert Parry says that city has had no conversation with Beck Center trustees about the idea, but that Stark has discussed it as a way to fulfill his obligation to donate some land near Crocker Park for civic use. Meanwhile, a Westlake citizens committee has formed to explore creating a new arts organization there, independent of Stark's plans.

Unger repeated to the Free Times that "we will see who really cares about Beck Center," apparently implying that money will talk as he and his colleagues on the board consider which city will be its future home.

City Council President Bob Seelie says the city "will work with Beck Center much as they can," but that Lakewood "can't offer the moon."

Even if money is tight in Lakewood, residents have proven willing and able to fund major projects, including reconstruction of all the city's public schools, an addition to the library and a new YMCA.

Councilman Kevin Butler, whose ward includes Beck Center, says he'd want some assurance that Beck would stay in Lakewood before the city committed any money to maintenance or improvements.

Councilwoman Mary Louise Madigan has a question for Bob Stark: "If you love Lakewood so much that you built Crocker Park to look like it, why don't you just move here?"

Having visited the Beck Center for the Masumi Hayashi memorial, I found a nice facility that is poorly managed. Now that the PD is leading the campaign to move the Beck further west to Westlake and that is what the Beck board wants then they will probably get it (won't be the first Board in NEO to kill a good core asset here... look at Case). But, in the interest of having the Beck near my neighborhood as long as possible (and enjoying it while it is here) I have chosen to support operations at the current location as much as possible. But, I do wonder if there are enough core arts supporters in NEO left to support the Beck in its current location... do any REALNEO readers really care and support the Beck, for example.

My response to the Beck board wanting to leave Lakewood is to give Beck money to stay - my son starts his first class at the Beck tomorrow. Everyone else who wants to see core cultural assets in the inner core should go to the Beck website and sign up for a class or show... show them the money.

As I've thought more about this issue (along with the nearly 500 people who have visited this posting) it dawned on me that this whole Beck Blight fiasco smells of the powers that be for sprawl punishing Lakewood citizens for going against their blighted wishes for eminent domain to take over a Lakewood neighborhood for redevelopment - if the people of Lakewood won't get with the plan, we'll just destroy their entire community, one asset at a time. Where are the regionalist kum bai ahs when they are needed to protect the vitality of the regional arts and culture economy of today... singing praises for high end boutiques in Legacy Village, semi-pro ice rinks in the Crock, the job relocations to outer Shaker... praising sprawl.

Disrupt IT

What a day for citizens of the NEO urban core. On the same day ODOT announced they are putting their innerbelt nightmare to rest, the Beck Board announces they have seen the light and will not move to Westlake but rather stay in Lakewood. More details on this are to come but these are two great steps toward building a more functional and attractive region.

Disrupt IT