I Love Me Some Peduto

[SteelCityRising]

Originally Posted by Pghuser

Sheraden is in serious decline with no end in sight. No one wants to move to Sheraden because of the belief that it's unsafe.

The East End no longer has habitable fixers in need of TLC for ~$50,000 the way it did not many years ago. These are also increasingly scarce in most of the North Side these days, too. As such when it comes time to buy my first home I'm not going to hesitate to consider Sheraden, Elliott, Allentown, Arlington, Knoxville, or Beltzhoover, despite their nefarious reputations. How will areas like these improve if people aren't willing to invest in them?

By continuing to make the inner parts of the city more and more expensive, you're going to start seeing more and more priced-out first-time home-buyers exploring the West End and Southern Hilltop neighborhoods over the next few years.

[Geeo]

SCR is on to the secret of rehabbing a neighborhood. If no one has the guts to be the first one in and to see the potential, nothing is going to change. Years ago, some urban pioneers took a chance on some small streets in East Allegheny that everyone thought were dead forever because a good portion of the neighborhood was destroyed to build I-279. Now, Avery, Pressley and Lockhart streets are some of the nicest streets in that area, and development has expanded north of East Ohio Street.

It's not easy to be the first one in, and it may take a very long time, but many of today's in-demand areas were given up for lost by most people until a few visionaries took the chance and persevered to make it happen.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by I_Like_Spam

There seems to be a just a lot of vacant land, mostly. in your pic, the one building at Sheraden Blvd and Hillsboro is still together, but all of the vacant lots where the bakery, the candy store, and Bard's used to sit are just vacant lots. The Foodland above there on the boulevard is boarded up, I can't see a future for it as a grocery as it is just too tiny for a modern supermarket.

Vacant land is ideal for a TOD project, because you don't need to displace anyone to build higher-density apartments right around the transit stop.

That said, Sheraden would need a lot of stabilization before a major mixed-use infill project would make sense. Even if there were major government subsidies greasing the skids.

[szug-bot]

Originally Posted by Pghuser

Sheraden is in serious decline with no end in sight. No one wants to move to Sheraden because of the belief that it's unsafe.

*clears throat, loudly* AHEM...!

I love Sheraden. Hear me out - first, there are wonderful homes there, either grand, and big, or nice, smaller and more modern (for the latter, check out the likes of Tyndall Street in the vicinity of where it meets Middletown Road - nice stretch of modest homes!).

I know it has its problem element (and NO, that is not code for a subtle racist inference!). I was just there today, and took the WONDERFUL west busway back to the Golden Triangle. I enjoy Sheraden's rolling roads, consistently WIDE open spaces (relatively speaking), and its character.

The older area that is a street grid system has high crime. Sheraden is a HUGE area, though - and it has much nicer, much safer areas within its designated borders.

Sidebar anecdote: waiting for the bus at the busway station, this strange woman was complaining at....someone or something to get its coat on. I thought, "Wait - does she have a baby in that carrier???" No - it was a cat. A cat with beautiful, deep emerald eyes. Turns out she took in the cat that was feral and just wandering the woods behind her house. So she put a coat on that very sweet, gentle cat (that didn't try to bolt when removed from the carrier). The woman said she was an animal lover. I might be wrong, but I'm guessing maybe her background and life wasn't so easy - she seemed uneducated, by not knowing what "feral" meant, and her colloquialisms, too. So, I guess that was a nice moment in Sheraden (but she was from another neighborhood).

[I_Like_Spam]

Originally Posted by eschaton

Vacant land is ideal for a TOD project, because you don't need to displace anyone to build higher-density apartments right around the transit stop.

That said, Sheraden would need a lot of stabilization before a major mixed-use infill project would make sense. Even if there were major government subsidies greasing the skids.

If Sheraden is going to revitalize in the area of the busway station, something needs to be done with the large "castle" fronting Sheraden Blvd and Chartiers.

Using it as an elementary school for 700 children is really underusing this community asset. When I was attending high school there, it reached its peak attendance of 2400 students in 1974 and it had additions built in the late 70's (surprisingly at the beginning of a long period of decline) doubling its size.

It would seem to be smarter to use the less distinguished Sheraden Elementary building on Allendale, Chartiers Elementary, or Steven School in Elliott- for public school students.