Thursday, February 25, 2010

Pop Up City Aims to Reclaim Vacant Urban Spaces


Happening Places

Terry Schwarz's Pop Up City concept is already an intriguing way to reinvent the vacant urban spaces. She's hoping it'll be much more.

By Lindsey Hoeppner
Published in Cleve. Magazine, Sept. 09 issue

Terry Schwarz wants to surprise you.

She helped create the holiday craft sale that popped up in a vacant East Fourth Street storefront in December 2007. The Bazaar Bizarre attracted 600 shoppers during its one-day run and introduced us all to a new way to make use of vacant urban spaces.

Schwarz, a senior planner at the Cleveland Urban Design Center, did not invent the concept, but she’s the one championing it locally under the name Pop Up City. As she modestly puts it, “We just brought it here and gave it a logo.”

Popularized in Germany, the concept aims to help cities that have more space than is needed for their current populations. Cleveland, which has lost nearly 10 percent of its residents since 2000 alone, easily fits the bill.

Schwarz was first exposed to the idea when the Shrinking Cities exposition made a stop here in 2007. The touring expo illustrated how unusual, unexpected happenings can generate energy and excitement. Schwarz was convinced the concept could work after watching acrobatic jump ropers during the expo’s weekend visit here.

“People started spilling out of their houses [to watch],” she recalls. “It was a beautiful moment. ... I thought, This is a useful thing we can use to renew the vitality of the city.”

Schwarz sees Pop Up City as a tool for showcasing sites that are prime spots for redevelopment or reuse. “Like the [Bazaar Bizarre] pop-up shop on East Fourth,” she says. “That space is crying out to be retailed.”

That inaugural Pop Up City affair prompted Schwarz to apply for a $30,000 grant from the Civic Innovation Lab, which financed yet more events: a one-day dog park in the Flats; the transformation of a West 11th Street pedestrian bridge into a one-night outdoor party; and Leap Night in the Flats, which turned the East Bank into a winter wonderland, complete with snowboarding, an ice rink and food vendors.

This month, Schwarz is teaming with the Ingenuity Festival for the Bridge Project, a two-day event Sept. 25 and 26 that will pack the unused trolley level of the Detroit-Superior Bridge with artists and musicians (read our preview of the event on page 71). The Ohio Arts Council is also helping fund the event, providing money to pay for important details such as insurance, security and clean up.

As Schwarz’s Pop Up City concept enters a new phase, she’s looking for partnerships with other organizations, many of which have sought her expertise in return. At press time, Schwarz was working with the Cleveland Executive Fellows, a yearlong training program for future civic leaders, on an Electric Roller Discotech — a mix of roller disco, outdoor bike polo, movies and music — set for Aug. 28 in the former Leff Electric building on East 40th Street.

Schwarz is also putting a twist on the original Pop Up City concept to help reinvent an unsightly piece of property that was once the site of a Glenville/Famicos neighborhood gas station. “It’s frustrating for people who are investing and committing to this neighborhood to have to live with this eyesore,” Schwarz says.

She wants to create a more permanent space where neighborhood residents can stage their own pop-up events. It’s a concept that she’d like to try in other locations throughout the city, too.

“It might encourage artistic entertainment. It might encourage entrepreneurship,” Schwarz says. “If Pop Up City takes hold and becomes an ongoing part of our culture, it might make people stay here.”

Friday, February 19, 2010

Want a Millenial Home? Try Fez, Morroco



Foreigners Start to Explore Market in Ancient Fez

By ABBY ARON

Published: February 11, 2010 in NY Times

FEZ, MOROCCO — At least one foreigner who has bought a house in Fez, the medieval city in northeastern Morocco, says the process requires vision and a lot of commitment.

“You are not going to find a house you love and live in it straight off,” explained Rebecca Eve, a Briton who is still renovating a house she bought two years ago in the Bab Guissa quarter for the equivalent of $110,000. “If you are lucky, you can get away with a simple upkeep project, but while the property market is in its infancy, the majority of homes require complete restoration.”

Inside the medina, or walled city, many of the 12,000 riads and dars, the local term for townhouses with courtyards, are more than 1,000 years old; “new” homes are usually at least 100. But it is this historic value that makes the Unesco World Heritage site so distinctive and heightens many buyers’ determination to restore properties authentically.

“You need to put the rest of your life on hold while doing it up,” said Ms. Eve, who started house hunting in Marrakech but found the prices more alluring in Fez, around 50 percent cheaper. “But it is time well spent, as there is always going to be a demand for restored medina homes.”

The historic value of such homes helps protect a buyer’s investment, according to Frances McKay of the real estate agency Francophiles, a British business that sells properties in France, Morocco and Cape Verde. “Because no two medina homes are the same, traditional properties will always keep their value when elsewhere real estate prices fluctuate,” she said.

On average, a three-bedroom unrestored property in the oldest part of the medina, the Andalusian Quarter, will sell for 250,000 to 350,000 Moroccan dirham, or $30,500 to $42,700. But while such homes are likely to have the most original features, they also are likely to need the most restoration.

These traditional homes are built of clay brick, sand and lime, which helps the walls “breathe” — making them cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. Temperatures in this city of 1.5 million range from highs of 34 degrees Celsius (93 Fahrenheit) to lows of around 2 degrees (35 Fahrenheit).

In contrast, a 20th-century home along the outer rim of the medina, particularly in the Batha and Ziat neighborhoods, can start at 1 million dirham if it has parking, a rare feature in this predominantly pedestrian city.

Ms. Eve, along with her partner, Paul O’Sullivan, and their 2-year-old son, Finlay, are renting an apartment outside the medina while they wait for work to be completed on their new home, Dar Fin, named for their son.

Like most homes here, Dar Fin’s 4,000 square feet of living space surrounds a central courtyard, where the couple have added a fountain and plunge pool. Its four floors include four bedrooms, three living rooms and a roof terrace with views of the city’s famous landmark shrine to Moulay Idriss, founder of Fez.

Ms. Eve and Mr. O’Sullivan have modeled the décor on the Nejjarine Museum, the city’s museum of wood arts and crafts that is known for its own beautifully restored woodwork.

The couple are using recycled cedar for the ceilings and chalk-white plaster for the walls at Dar Fin. “We wanted to keep the décor simple so that it felt calm in comparison to the busyness of the streets outside,” Ms. Eve said.

In contrast, most restored homes in the city are adorned with zelliges, or patterned ceramic mosaics in primary colors, along with decorative sculptured plaster, stained glass and painted wood. The more elaborate the décor, the richer the owner, or so tradition goes.

There are no restrictions on foreign ownership of property in Morocco, but foreigners are advised to ensure that a thorough title search is conducted before a sale is closed. Local mortgages are available, although only through BMCE Bank and Crédit du Maroc, and for up to half the property’s value.

The resale market has not yet taken off in Fez, partly because the city continues to be a relatively new find for foreigners. Until 2007, there were no direct flights from any European capital and only one English-speaking real estate agency.

Even today, Fez’s role as the kingdom’s religious capital and its most conservative city means a Westerner will find living there much different from a more cosmopolitan city like Marrakech.

For example, Mike Richardson, owner of Café Clock, the medina’s only restaurant to stay open after sunset, said: “People are very suspicious of Café Clock. They assume that because it is open after dark, we are doing bad things.”

The Clock, as it is known, includes a cooking school and a cultural center that offers belly dancing classes, Arabic calligraphy lessons and concerts. “It has brought life to the medina in the evenings, which is something that has never occurred in the 1,200 years since the first stone was laid,” Mr. Richardson said. “I guess that is quite a lot to get used to.”

Despite the population’s reluctance to change, King Mohammed VI has plans to modernize the “new town,” the sprawling area of concrete homes that surrounds the medina.

The project, 2015 Fez, includes the construction of two tourist developments, Oued Fès and Ouislane, with a total of three hotels, golf courses, tennis clubs and shopping malls. It is part of Vision 2010, a nationwide plan of the king’s to increase Morocco’s tourism to 10 million visitors a year by expanding hotel capacity, creating 60,000 tourism jobs and regenerating the country’s coastlines. The local plan has not gathered much momentum yet, but officials say it is still on schedule.

Some privately funded construction in the area has been delayed, however, because of the global downturn and the tightening of regulations making it harder to use agricultural land for commercial purposes.

One notable new project that is almost complete is Les Colombes, positioned on the road between the airport and the medina.

Sixty-nine luxury villas, with individual prices starting at 5.1 million dirhams, are being developed by Pack Energy, a Moroccan company headed by Houria Benjelloun, one of Morocco’s few female developers. Sales are scheduled to begin in mid-March, with foreign buyers offered 50 percent mortgages at 6.6 percent interest.

Friday, February 12, 2010

Median Home Prices Up 25% Since Last Year

Median home prices in Cleveland, Akron metro areas on the rebound

By Michelle Jarboe, The Plain Dealer

February 11, 2010, 4:12PM

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Northeast Ohio house prices rebounded last year, marking a sharp improvement from the doldrums of late 2008.

In the Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor area, existing single-family homes sold at a median price of $110,100 during the fourth quarter -- up 24.7 percent from a year before, according to a report today by the National Association of Realtors. The median sale price for a house in the Akron area rose 22.8 percent from the final quarter of 2008.

These dramatic gains point to a change in the number and types of houses that are selling. In late 2008, home sales in Northeast Ohio had dwindled. The few buyers snapped up foreclosures and other deeply discounted properties. The financial system was in shambles. Banks had curbed lending. Consumers weren't spending.

Median house prices in Cleveland and Akron hit their low point during the first quarter of 2009, falling to $69,900 and $50,100, respectively. Then, a federal income tax credit for first-time buyers helped bring the market back -- attracting shoppers who weren't necessarily looking for the cheapest fixer-upper on the block.

"There was, I would say, a real knee-jerk reaction in '08 that really slowed numbers down, so this isn't a real surprise," said Carl DeMusz, chief executive officer for the Northern Ohio Regional Multiple Listing Service.

From late 2008 to late 2009, Cleveland saw the second-largest price gain of the 151 metropolitan areas in the Realtors report. Akron, where the median sale price was $105,700 in the fourth quarter, ranked third. The top gainer was Saginaw, Mich., where prices increased a whopping 53.5 percent. But the median house sale price in Saginaw was just $67,400 in the fourth quarter.

"I would not characterize it as a price jump, but more as a case of a return to normal home sales," said Lawrence Yun, the Realtors' chief economist. "In the fourth quarter of 2008, most of the transactions had been pure distress sales, perhaps empty homes in distressed neighborhoods. So the transaction price at that time was artificially low."

Nationwide, house prices were down 4.1 percent in the fourth quarter, when compared to a year before. The nation's worst-performing markets were in Nevada and Florida, where developers feverishly built houses and condos during the real estate boom. Now, those once-hot markets are floundering under the weight of unfinished projects, empty houses and foreclosures.

Friday, February 5, 2010

Downtown Cleveland property owners back renewal of special improvement district



Downtown Cleveland property owners back renewal of special improvement district

By Michelle Jarboe, The Plain Dealer

February 04, 2010, 4:45PM

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Property owners in downtown Cleveland have thrown their support --and their wallets -- behind renewed efforts to make the center city clean, safe and attractive to businesses.

Cleveland's City Council could begin voting this month on legislation to reauthorize a special improvement district, in which property owners pay to support street-cleaning crews, marketing programs and safety escorts for workers and residents. The district, created in 2005 and set to expire this year, runs from West 10th to East 18th streets and from Front to Carnegie avenues.

The Downtown Cleveland Alliance, a nonprofit group that reports to property owners, has been collecting more than $3 million a year from the district. The reauthorization would maintain the district from 2011 through 2015.

Despite the challenging economy, many owners are willing to keep paying. The fees, levied on all owners in the district, are based on property values and the length of property lines. They range from about $45 to $130,000 a year.

The renewal process requires backing from 60 percent of the district. Owners representing 66 percent of the district have responded since the alliance distributed support petitions in October, said Joe Marinucci, the group's president and chief executive.

The city is reviewing those petitions, and City Council could consider the first legislation for the district Feb. 22. The complicated legislative process could be finished by early June.

To prepare for the petition drive, the alliance surveyed property owners, downtown residents and employees. Their response: Keep cleaning up downtown, bring businesses to Euclid Avenue and find tenants for empty office buildings.

Marinucci said the alliance already is working to meet those demands. The group hopes to open a business-development center in the spring and is reviewing proposals from local firms to create a business-focused marketing strategy for downtown.