Map, chart and Meadowbrook-Lee.

Is the proposed Meadowbrook-Lee tax abated project a good fit for that part of town?

To help you decide for yourself, I am attaching a map of the foreclosures and postal vacancies in the Cedar-Lee area.

This map was created by April Hirsh, Research Assistant at Case Western Reserve University’s Center on Urban Policy and Community Development.

The map includes postal vacancy (reported by the United States Post Office), vacant lots, and foreclosure information, sheriff sales and REO properties. A REO property is “Real estate owned or REO is a class of property owned by a lender—typically a bank, government agency, or government loan insurer—after an unsuccessful sale at a foreclosure auction”. (William Roark (2006), Concise Encyclopedia of Real Estate Business Terms)

The map does not support the idea that this neighborhood can attract tenants for 71 units with an average rent of almost $2000 a month in the proposed tax-abated property.

Also attached is an inventory I conducted on  8/5/12 of the rental and retail properties along Lee Rd from Euclid Heights Blvd to Ormond and on the west side of Lee Rd from Euclid Heights to Corydon.

This inventory does not support the need for more retail/commercial space along Lee Rd.  Ask yourself which of the 2 coffee shops currently on Lee Rd are you willing to see close in order to support the coffee shop proposed for the tax abated building.  If the area needed another coffee shop, don’t you think one would have moved into one of the vacant spaces on the street? Do you remember the Starbucks on Lee that was open for a short time and then closed?

If you oppose a tax abated property on Meadowbrook-Lee (and the land is being donated to the developer), please contact the CH-UH Board of Education and ask them to vote “NO” on this proposal.

Cleveland Heights deserves a better plan than this.