What happened to the Cleveland velodrome [via fresh water cleveland]
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Columbus Rides Bikes
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fast track: can indoor bike racing rescue slavic village?
LEE CHILCOTETHURSDAY, MARCH 10, 2011
Marie Kittredge recalls firsthand when the national foreclosure crisis landed in her beloved neighborhood of Slavic Village.
"In a short period there were about a dozen empty houses on East 75th Street [off of Broadway]," says Kittredge, Executive Director of Slavic Village Development (SVD), a nonprofit community organization that serves the neighborhood.
For years, shady investors had inflated sales prices by using freshly rehabbed homes as comparables. Ironically, many of these rehabs were fixed up and sold by SVD.
"We'd sell a rehabbed home for $80,000 and they'd buy grandma's house next door for $30,000, slap a coat of paint on it, and sell it for the same price," Kittredge says. "A year later, the house would be in foreclosure."
That was back in 2007. These days, Slavic Village is digging itself out of the crater left behind by the housing market's crash. In fact, the neighborhood is enjoying green shoots of renewal -- evidenced in new urban farms, city parks, football fields and recreation trails. So much so, in fact, that Slavic Village has begun to rebrand itself as a hub for urban recreation.
The most ambitious project is a proposed $7.5 million indoor cycling track, which would be the only indoor velodrome east of the Rockies. Plans call for the recreational facility to be built at Broadway and McBride, on the former site of St. Michael's Hospital. That facility closed in 2003, and when it was subsequently torn down by the City of Cleveland, yet another vacant lot took its place. [continue reading at fresh water cleveland]
"In a short period there were about a dozen empty houses on East 75th Street [off of Broadway]," says Kittredge, Executive Director of Slavic Village Development (SVD), a nonprofit community organization that serves the neighborhood.
For years, shady investors had inflated sales prices by using freshly rehabbed homes as comparables. Ironically, many of these rehabs were fixed up and sold by SVD.
"We'd sell a rehabbed home for $80,000 and they'd buy grandma's house next door for $30,000, slap a coat of paint on it, and sell it for the same price," Kittredge says. "A year later, the house would be in foreclosure."
That was back in 2007. These days, Slavic Village is digging itself out of the crater left behind by the housing market's crash. In fact, the neighborhood is enjoying green shoots of renewal -- evidenced in new urban farms, city parks, football fields and recreation trails. So much so, in fact, that Slavic Village has begun to rebrand itself as a hub for urban recreation.
The most ambitious project is a proposed $7.5 million indoor cycling track, which would be the only indoor velodrome east of the Rockies. Plans call for the recreational facility to be built at Broadway and McBride, on the former site of St. Michael's Hospital. That facility closed in 2003, and when it was subsequently torn down by the City of Cleveland, yet another vacant lot took its place. [continue reading at fresh water cleveland]
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