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	In which direction should convention center grow? Planners consider reaching toward lake or downtown Sarah Hollander Plain Dealer Reporter An architect's rendering of a new convention center lobby shows a 30-foot-tall wall of windows overlooking Lake Erie. Conventioneers would enter through a dramatic glass triangle bigger than the Rock Hall's signature pyramid. Another option shows an extension along Ontario Street. The block-long structure would replace a handful of nondescript buildings along Ontario Street and anchor the western edge of the historic Burnham Group Plan - three blocks of grassy malls surrounded mainly by government buildings. With Forest City's recent decision to withdraw its site behind Tower City from consideration for a new Cleveland convention center, the only remaining option is to renovate and expand the center along and under the malls. But the Convention Facilities Authority still must recommend whether to expand north or west. Seattle's LMN Architects and Cleveland's Osborn Engineers worked together on the two alternatives. The best, authority members say, would spur spin-off development, improve connections to the lakefront and add iconic architecture. The city's planning commission will meet this morning with the Landmarks Commission and Design Review Advisory Committee to discuss the options. "Functionally, they both work," LMN partner Mark Reddington said. By keeping the sprawling exhibit hall underground and out of sight in both designs, the planners dealt with a generic convention center challenge-fitting what tend to be large boring boxes into tight urban spaces. "You don't have the mass at all," Reddington said. "You only see what you want to see." Plans call for excavating Malls B and C, demolishing the sub-surface exhibit space and digging 14 feet deeper to create higher ceilings. To avoid using columns to support the roof, cables like those on a suspension bridge would span the reconstructed malls. Wedge-shaped skylight towers would bring sunlight into the space. The two designs differ mainly in the location of the ballroom, lobby, kitchen and parking. The north, or lakefront, plan takes advantage of what has been a liability-the bluff that has kept downtown separate from the lakefront for decades, City Planner Robert Brown said. The lobby and ballroom would be built against the steep drop-off behind City Hall and over the railroad tracks below. The new lobby's roof would become Mall D, an extension of the mall plan. This design would create a lobby with a sweeping view of the lake without blocking the view from the malls above. A pedestrian bridge over the Shoreway would help Clevelanders and visitors reach North Coast Harbor attractions more easily. "My impression is, there's something more emotionally inspiring about the northern option," Reddington said. Spin-off development opportunities exist between the Mall D extension and East Ninth Street. CFA member Pat Sweeney, for one, said he wants planners to get as close to the waterfront as possible and go from there. "This could be an engine for the whole lakefront development plan," he said. Mayor Jane Campbell's lakefront vision includes converting the Shoreway into a boulevard and moving the commercial shipping operations to west of the Cuyahoga River to make way for housing, entertainment and other development on downtown docks. Expanding west along Ontario Street has benefits, too, Reddington said. The lobby and entrance would be west of Mall B, across the mall from the existing entrance. The western space is closer to the city's center. And it gives Cleveland an opportunity to better define the western edge of the mall with architecture parallel with Public Auditorium, which is on the eastern edge, Reddington said. Cuyahoga County plans to move its administration building from the block in the next several years. The CFA also would need to buy and raze a parking garage and office building in the same block. A lakefront connection from the new building, although less integrated than the Mall D option, could include a Lakeside Avenue terrace and a pedestrian bridge over the Shoreway. With this option, visitors could stand at the exhibit hall's southern edge and look all the way through to a bank of windows at the end of Mall C.	<< Back
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