Abstract
David Hartt, a Shaker Heights resident, was an urban planning consultant and served on the city's planning commission and was the commercial areas coordinator. He talks about some of the advantages of living in Shaker. He describes various urban development projects in the ciy of Shaker Heights. He discusses changes in the philospohy of urban planning over the last few decades. Hartt also describes Shaker's struggles in attracting businesses to the city.
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Interviewee
Hartt, David (Interviewee)
Interviewer
Braunlich, David (Interviewer)
Project
Shaker Heights Centennial
Date
2012
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
55 minutes
Recommended Citation
"David Hartt Interview, 2012" (2012). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 915023.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/521
Transcript
David Braunlich [00:00:02] Okay, can I have you count to 10?
David Hartt [00:00:03] 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.
David Braunlich [00:00:10] Sorry, I’ve got a backup here. I had an incident earlier this year where this one did not record that I had just, I don’t know what I did or if it was some sort of issue with recording. So I have a backup here. So just heads up, if you could just keep your hands off the table. Just the microphone picks that up and I’m going to kind of be adjusting the volume here throughout. So please don’t take that for me not paying attention or anything like that. So can you tell me a little bit about your history in Shaker, or just when it began here, did you move here? Were you always a resident? Tell me a little bit about-
David Hartt [00:00:55] Well, we moved to Cleveland in ’68. Cleveland, right out of college and left a couple of years later and moved back in 1972, at which time we moved to Shaker Heights. So, no, we’re not from here. That was our basic first association with Shaker Heights. We moved to Braemar Road, which is, you know, right across Van Aken from where we are here. We lived there until 1999 and then moved into the new Shaker Glen townhouse development on Warrensville Center Road and have been there for the, 13 years. When we moved into Braemar Road, it was our first child was born six weeks later.
David Braunlich [00:01:49] What attracted you to Shaker?
David Hartt [00:01:52] Well, as I said, we had been in Cleveland and worked for William Gould and Associates, an architectural firm. And the question we always asked ourselves, why didn’t we move to Shaker the first time we were here rather than living in an apartment somewhere else? You know, in the first two years we were, you know, heard a lot about Shaker. And then when I came back, I became a partner with my old boss and he lived in Shaker. And so it made sense based on its reputation and his recommendation and to be close proximity to him, moved to Shaker.
David Braunlich [00:02:37] Now you had just mentioned that you’ve since moved, since your initial move to Shaker, you’ve since moved across town.
David Hartt [00:02:45] Right.
David Braunlich [00:02:46] Can you tell me about that? Did you, what made you, you moved. So what made you stay in Shaker and what?
David Hartt [00:02:53] Well, we overcame the temptation to move out of Shaker because of the taxes and stayed in Shaker because it had become our home. We liked the charm and the character and friendships we had developed in Shaker. And so we stayed and frankly, we had looked other places for a townhome, never settled on the right one. And then this Shaker Glen development, by new Gordon Priemer, who was the developer and he talked to me about it, and I basically said, if you build one of those, I think maybe you’ve sold one. And so he did, and we moved. So, you know, of all the pros and cons that are that Shaker has been and continues to fight, you know, where there’s the tension about whether you leave Shaker or stay in Shaker, the reasons to stay in Shaker that I’m sure you’ve heard all the time about the quality of the environment, the quality of the schools, the convenience, proximity to downtown, rapid transit, and all of those things overrode the temptation to avoid the taxes.
David Braunlich [00:04:11] Can you tell me a little bit more about the pros and cons of Shaker? You just mentioned that the pros outweighed the cons of your decision to stay, so.
David Hartt [00:04:21] Well, obviously, it’s a very attractive place. By the time we moved. Well, we moved here because of the schools. The schools had a good reputation. The rapid transit, the proximity to downtown where my office was, you know, that clearly was one of the compelling reasons to move to Shaker Heights in the first place. In ’72, we only had one car, and my wife was working as well, and she wasn’t working downtown, so she didn’t have the rapid transit convenience. I forget whether I said this, I mean, the design of the street. I’m an urban planning consultant, so I’m familiar with the history of Shaker from that perspective and understand how it compares from a design standpoint to other communities.
David Braunlich [00:05:34] Okay, well, while I’m on the subject, you just mentioned urban planning. How does it compare to other communities?
David Hartt [00:05:42] I figured that- Well, the connectedness, we like the urbanness of it, or the small lots, the mix of housing types. You know, they’re the newer townhouses now, but historically there have been the various lot sizes and the apartments. The connectedness by the through streets, the design of the street pattern, which really separates the main streets from the local streets. Now with traffic patterns, some of that causes a little bit of a problem, but. The neighborhoods, the schools associated with each neighborhood, the tightness of the neighborhoods, which enables you to - historically, it did - walk to school. That’s kind of broken down a little bit with the closing of the schools and the changing of the distribution of kids to the various schools. But initially, it had that and the green space that was associated with the schools in the neighborhood. Very, very strong neighborhood identity here because of the schools, because of the street patterns, because of how the neighborhoods were separated one from the other to a certain degree.
David Braunlich [00:07:10] All right, well, can you talk a little bit more about schools as well?
David Hartt [00:07:20] Give me a hint. What are you looking for on that?
David Braunlich [00:07:23] I’m looking for anything you’d like to tell me. [crosstalk]
David Hartt [00:07:27] Well, that was one of the things that we had in mind. The quality of the schools was high. I think it still is. Maybe it’s lost a little bit of its grandeur compared to other communities. We actually moved here for the integration. Forgot that one from the get go. Our kids, you know, really, cherish is maybe too strong a word, but I know that they appreciate the fact that they went to an integrated school system and lived in an integrated community. And I should have mentioned that earlier as one of the fairly compelling reasons why we moved here in the first place.
David Braunlich [00:08:19] You wanted to go to the schools because of the integration?
David Hartt [00:08:21] Yeah. Wanted to live in an integrated environment. Still do. Which I suppose is one of the reasons why we didn’t move out of Shaker Heights, which I again failed to mention before. But, yeah, we wanted to stay in an integrated environment.
David Braunlich [00:08:40] Can you tell me a little bit on the subject of schools? Can you tell me a little, you mentioned the closing of the schools. Can you tell me a little bit about perhaps how that affected you and your family?
David Hartt [00:08:50] Well, actually, I was on the School Facilities Utilization Committee, which is a group of about 30 citizens to evaluate trends and needs and costs and so forth, and made a recommendation which wasn’t totally followed by the Board of Education, but how it affected us, not materially. We lived in Onaway. Our son- Actually, Moreland School, where we are now, this school, this building was a magnet school. And when our son went to kindergarten, the city school system had two or three magnets. And they were using the magnets to try to make sure that they were fostering integration within the school district. So this was our closest school. It wasn’t our neighborhood school, Onaway was, but it was our closest school from where we lived. And it was the magnet school for math. I think it was math. And so we. Our son went here for his first six years and then went to Woodbury. Our daughter, four years younger, went to Onaway. I guess she went to Moreland for kindergarten and then she moved to Onaway. I’m trying to think when the school, when the schools were closed, I think our kids were pretty much through the elementary grades by the time there was school closing. So there was little effect on us.
David Braunlich [00:10:42] Okay, well, not merely just you- Can you tell me, maybe you had neighbors that were affected by this? Maybe you had family on the other side of town? Anything of that sort. Can you tell me just your impressions?
David Hartt [00:10:52] Well, you’re probably asking the wrong person on that because I think we are more, first of all, our neighbors and friends all had kids about the same age. So we were all just at the end of that. And I don’t think anybody in our circles felt strongly that that was, that the closing of schools was a, was a bad thing, partly because the nearest school is still pretty close. But we’re also very receptive to change and don’t get nervous when things happen a little bit differently than they may have traditionally. So I don’t have any strong recollections of how neighbors felt about or how they were affected by the school closings that was either positive or negative.
David Braunlich [00:12:13] Can you tell me a little bit perhaps, and I don’t know if you have a good frame of reference on this or anything, but can you tell me a little bit about the opposition to school closings? About the reasons people had or anything along those lines?
David Hartt [00:12:28] Oh yeah. Well, let me back up and I’ve told this story several times because we’re on the facility, School Facility Utilization Committee. It was, and I don’t remember the specifics of the vote of what the two choices were, what we were exactly voting for or not voting for. I don’t remember that. But I do remember that it was a very, very heavily data based analysis and research of the trends in the schools and costs and so forth and looking at other schools and looking even back then at best practices. And you have the data that was framing the discussion and everybody had the same data and the same analysis and you get and use the data to get 90% of the way to your decision. And then at the end you still have to make a call as to what that data is telling you. And it was incredible that how much we relied on the data to get 90% of the way. And then the committee was split 50–50, virtually 50–50 into whether accept the recommendations or reject the recommendations. So I got off on a tangent. I forgot what the basic question was.
David Braunlich [00:13:55] I was asking you a little bit about the opposition to the school closings.
David Hartt [00:13:58] Oh, always a lot of opposition to that. I mean, whether it’s founded or not founded, always a lot of difference because it’s change. We have to do things a little differently. We have to go a little farther to school. We’re going to have fewer schools. So obviously we’re going to have to transcend into another neighborhood. We may have to have our kids bused because of the distance. New kids. I mean the opposition to that is partly based on my work as a planner. It’s just so much of it is related to resistance to change and we don’t like the devil we don’t know. But you know. So can I quantify who said what and how many people said this and how many people said that? No, but now if you look back, it’s the old. Well there are different people in the school systems, different families on the streets. And now I think although we don’t have kids in the schools and haven’t had for a long time, so it’s kind of a different part of the city than we’re familiar with now. But I think that everybody is comfortable with the schools because we get used to change or the people that are moving here and living here and having the kids at school didn’t know anything different. This is what they, this is what exists when they move to Shaker at this point.
David Braunlich [00:15:34] Okay, you had mentioned that when you moved here initially you were a one-car family, and part of the, one of the reasons - at least you made it seem this way - that you wanted to live in Shaker was because of the readily available transportation.
David Hartt [00:15:48] Right.
David Braunlich [00:15:49] Can you talk about that a little bit? Sorry, I have to ask very open-ended questions because I don’t want to lead you in any direction on me so.
David Hartt [00:15:58] Well, my office was downtown, it was in the Williamson building just on the eastern edge of Public Square where the BP building or former BP building, now the 200 Public Square building is. And we didn’t have a second car. We didn’t want to afford buying a second car. Supported public transit, so it made sense to try to use it. And when we were looking for houses, obviously we were considering how far do I have to walk to get to the transit. It wasn’t the only factor. So it was partly convenience, partly supportive rapid transit, partly cost economics that we didn’t want to buy another and partly because it’s comfortable to walk in Shaker, always has been.
David Braunlich [00:17:11] What about Shaker makes it easy to walk around it? What about, I mean obviously you have a bit of a community planning mindset here. So what makes it easier than, I don’t know, your neighbor Cleveland Heights or maybe Cleveland itself. What makes it easier to walk around Shaker?
David Hartt [00:17:30] Well, I’m not sure it’s particularly different than Cleveland Heights in terms of walking. Obviously the tree-lined streets, the sidewalks on both sides of the street, the closeness of where you can get in relatively short distance, whether it’s the schools or the parks or just out For a walk or the commercial. I mean, we used to walk over to Shaker Town Center. Now on Warrensville Center, we walk down Warrensville Center to get to Van Aken. We go to Pistoni’s across the street periodically. We don’t do it all the time. Nor did we when we lived on Braemar. We didn’t walk over to Shaker Town Center all the time, but we certainly could and certainly did periodically. You know, it’s the comfortable, pleasant environment of the community, but also its sidewalks and it’s shade. Yeah, I think those are the-
David Braunlich [00:18:43] Would you say part of it, it almost seems, just the impression I get from you is it almost seems aesthetically pleasing. Is that what makes-
David Hartt [00:18:50] Oh yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. If it were sun-baked and you’re walking, if you have sidewalks on both sides of your street, but it’s sun-baked and it’s not pleasant from a tree or a housing standpoint or a yard standpoint then walking, probably wouldn’t do it as much.
David Braunlich [00:19:15] Okay, I’m going to take a step back here, and I’m going to kind of pull you back into when I was talking about what attracted you to Shaker, what would have been a barrier to moving into Shaker, what would that have been for you? What was the only thing that was on your mind that you ended up weighing the pros and cons, what were some of those cons? And perhaps what are the cons now that might have been different?
David Hartt [00:19:44] Well, taxes. Taxes. I think that’s the only kind. I don’t know whether we were conscious of the disparity in the, the relative tax rate in Shaker compared to other communities at the time. We knew they were high, but I don’t know whether we knew higher than other places, but whether we actually knew statistically that they were the highest and how much higher than the norm in other communities. I don’t know whether we knew that. Obviously now we do. But to me, there’s no other reason except I divorced the old house before we moved to a new townhouse. I was good at fixing up and wanting to deal with the old house. When we first moved in in the early ’70s and about the mid ’90s, I didn’t want anything to do with the oldness of the house. So one of the reasons we were looking elsewhere to find a townhouse is to find something new, which was hard to find in Shaker Heights at the time. There was the Prescott Place and then came along Shaker Glen. Oh, there was the Chelsea, the high-rise. And then There was Prescott Place, which was more pricey. And then Shaker Glen came in closer to our price range. And then of course, there’s Sussex Courts and South Park Row and Avalon Station and some new ones. But we moved because I divorced the house. That’s my wife’s line. And I agree with that. I just didn’t want to deal with the old house. So a liability of Shaker is that it only has older houses or it has too many older houses. So the need is the responsibility to overcome people who might feel like I do, they don’t want the old house anymore is to make sure, you told me not to put my hand on there. Is to make sure that we try to get as much new housing as we can and the city is working on it.
David Braunlich [00:22:14] You had also mentioned taxes. Can you tell me a little bit about the taxes within the town? You say they’re higher, but in what respect? What taxes are higher and how do you feel that affects families?
David Hartt [00:22:29] Well, the real estate taxes, that’s all I’m talking about. Not the income tax. I’m not considering the estate tax, anything like that, just the real estate tax. Well, I think if you find two things that are two houses, two neighborhoods, two choices that are equal, then you may choose the one, if you really believe that, you know, you’re comparing apples to apples and the only variable that is against you is the taxes, you’ll move to the lower, you know, taxing community, I think. that’s assuming you’re considering Shaker Heights equally with somebody else. Now, somebody else isn’t going to even consider Shaker Heights because for whatever reason, it may be the integration, it may be the older housing and maybe the size of the lots. So they may not even be considering Shaker Heights. But for those people that are considering Shaker Heights because of the integration, the lot size is the character, the proximity to downtown and the rapid transit. But they’re also considering other communities and maybe different factors. But they’re balancing two possibilities that they view are more or less equal. They might choose the one that has less taxes.
David Braunlich [00:24:03] Makes sense to me.
David Hartt [00:24:04] That breaks the tie. Even though the same factors may not be balancing, there may be a whole set of factors over here that are very different than these, but still they’re weighing them equally. So pick, the one with lower taxes.
David Braunlich [00:24:19] Can you tell me a little bit about businesses in Shaker? Either prominent businesses or whatever sticks on your mind, just about businesses.
David Hartt [00:24:27] There aren’t enough of them.
David Braunlich [00:24:29] Can you tell me about that?
David Hartt [00:24:30] Well, that’s, I mean, that’s been the Shaker’s struggle for- I mean, you also ought to know I was on the planning commission from, or maybe you knew this already. Yeah, you did? Yeah, I was on the planning commission. Well, my, I started my own firm in 1979, was working out of the house in Shaker and you know all this.
David Braunlich [00:24:55] No, no, please. And then I have a very small document.
David Hartt [00:24:57] Yeah, okay. So I was working out of the house in 1979. I split up with my partner downtown, worked out of the house and wasn’t doing all that well. So, and it’s no secret, picked up a part time job with Shaker Heights being the commercial areas coordinator, primarily working over at the Chagrin-Lee area to try to bolster businesses there. And then in 1991, I believe Pat Mearns’ first year as mayor, she appointed me to the planning commission. I was on the Planning Commission for 19 years. And of course we’re struggling with businesses all during that time as well. I mean, you reduce the residential tax base by increasing the non residential tax base. I mean, that’s fundamental. And the communities like Solon and Independence and Strongsville have a, you know, roughly 50% of their real estate tax comes from non residential property. And then in addition to that, they get all the income tax from employees that come into the town just for the day. We get all of our income, most of our income tax from residents who are working somewhere else and we get most of our property tax from the residential property. And so our portion of taxes that comes from commercial property is small and that significantly contributes to the higher tax rate. So if you’re asking me what’s the perspective on businesses, the city has been trying, continues to try, to shoehorn in additional non residential or higher density residential development to minimize any increases in taxes on single family residential property. And, and I think, and I think the city agrees that residential development can be an economic development tool. It’s not just relying on commercial or offices, but you can use residential to increase your tax base. Higher density.
David Braunlich [00:27:19] Well, along these lines, Shaker obviously has a very old housing stock that they’ve kept up for a lot of years. So it sounds to me very much like you’re saying that Shaker is very, as far as their income is, it’s very based on property values, as far as property taxes go, and just as far as the income of the city goes. So how does Shaker, I don’t know whether it’s making policy or something along those lines. How do they keep up property prices so that they can, you know, maximize income for the city?
David Hartt [00:27:53] Well, Avalon Station is an example. Sussex Court’s an example. South Park Row, where the city went out and initiated changes to the zoning, changes to the zoning text, to enable that kind of additional housing to come on board. I mean, they’ve been thinking about Van Aken intersection for years with the air rights project over the rapid transit was proposed in the ’80s to developing on the Farnsleigh lot, to, oh, gosh, all kinds of possibilities to increase development and vitality, not just the, not just for economic development, but to freshen up the quality of development that are in those locations. So the city’s been striving to pull that off for decades, and it’s a continuous struggle. I was involved in the Shaker Town Center, which was redeveloped. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen pictures of the old Shaker Town Center, but at the time when it was redeveloped in the mid ’80s, late ’80s, that there was a push to put the buildings on the north side right on the street, just like the south side. And this was when this whole notion of neotraditional development and trying to replicate the old downtowns was first becoming in vogue in the region and to a certain degree in the nation. But the citizens, the steering committee that was advising saying, you can’t do that, it won’t happen now, now being the mid ’80s. I think they were right that you couldn’t expect at that time for anybody to develop, and obviously the developers that proposed confirmed that you couldn’t expect anybody to develop anything at that time other than what I would call a traditional suburban shopping center with the building setback and the parking in front. Now, you could probably do it because there’s so much more interest in both doing the urban, the more traditional urban development. And the market is much stronger for that in terms of businesses wanting to locate there and putting housing associated with it. And Avalon Station is kind of an example of that. And then the market collapsed and of course that went all to heck. So the- What- So I think what I’m saying is, even though we fell short of doing that with the redevelopment of the Town Center, if we get out of this economic malaise that we’re in now, I think that there will be more opportunity to do some of the things that the city’s been coveting for 30 or 40 years that they haven’t been able to do, and I’m hopeful anyway, I like to keep my dream hat on that that will happen.
David Braunlich [00:31:28] As far as the future development of this, you mentioned that for a long time, the city has been thinking about fixing up the Van Aken intersection. You just said that, right? Okay. Not far off-
David Hartt [00:31:41] In fact, if you want to know the history of when I moved to Cleveland in 1968, working for an architectural firm, William Gould and Associates, they had a contract with Shaker Heights to do the service center, the design and develop of the service center, Sussex, not Sussex Court, Sutton Place, which is a townhouse development that goes back to the early ’70s. And there was a street reconfiguration associated with that. And I spent, a young graduate out of college with a master’s degree spent several days with tracing paper doing sketches proposing the reconfiguration of the intersection at Van Aken, Warrensville Center, and Chagrin. And it’s just incredible, all the alternative concepts that were developed. And at that time, one of the hopes was that the rapid would go under of the intersection, under Warrensville Center Road, and come out where the Somerset is now, on the east side of Warrensville Center, east side of Warrensville Center, and kind of south of Northfield, but all kinds of configurations to try to change that intersection, get rid of the six points that come in and make it flow better and so on. It’s a challenge. So I think what this is saying is 40 years later, 45 years later, we’re getting there, we’re going to do it. And what’s being proposed is consistent with some of the illustrations that were being, or concepts that were being bandied about back then.
David Braunlich [00:33:31] I’m not going to mention who, but I’ve interviewed at least one other person who was involved in city planning, and I believe the phrase they used for some of the plans for Van Aken was pie in the sky. I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit about that development in general, like why has it taken 45 years? I mean, what about that intersection has scared Shaker from doing anything for 45 years?
David Hartt [00:34:02] Well, you can’t say that. You can’t say it scared Shaker. No, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t say- Are you talking about circulation or development or both?
David Braunlich [00:34:10] Talking about whatever direction you want to take this. I’m following you.
David Hartt [00:34:14] Yeah, you can’t say it’s scared Shaker. You can’t say that. It may have been too expensive, and the developers may not have wanted to do it, but I don’t think Shaker was scared. There may have been a little issue with political will and political interest to doing it, but it’s more a function of whether the money is there. Because I think Shaker always knew it was important to do this stuff. But if you didn’t have the money to do the roads and you didn’t have the developers to build the projects, then you can’t blame the city. And then the city, of course has to worry about how much they’re going to subsidize something like that. Because if you subsidize it too much, your whole purpose of doing it, which is to get additional tax base and revenue coming in, you totally erode the possibility of achieving your objectives. Why it took so long, why the developers weren’t interested? Because there was so much momentum building outward on greenfield sites. And it was, and it still is, extremely expensive to rebuild built properties. Extremely expensive because the property owners expect the value of their property based on what’s on there now. Then you have to tear it down. You may have to do some environmental cleanup. So how do you make these sites competitive with the alternatives that are available? And that’s the age old problem. It’s the age-old problem in this business.
David Braunlich [00:36:06] It sounds like the reason that they haven’t done Van Aken is just because it sounds prohibitively costly. Would you say it’s a fair assertion?
David Hartt [00:36:17] In the circulation, or are you talking about circulation or development or both?
David Braunlich [00:36:21] It sounded like as if you saying there was a financial impact to the city that would not be repaid.
David Hartt [00:36:26] Right now I can’t answer the question. Well, from the road standpoint, there may be of some increased political will to do it now than there was. I don’t know enough about what it costs as you look back, say you tried to project the costs every 10 years from 1968 to now versus how much money you had coming from outside sources to judge whether now is the time is right or why now versus then. I have a feeling that the money kind of, maybe it became enough of a priority from the administration standpoint that now you could really make it work or you made the commitment and now got the money, enough money to make it worth doing. But I can’t, I can’t answer all that because that’s too much statistical sorting and to judge why it’s now rather than 10 years ago. But I will take umbrage with the statement that it was the city’s, that it was the city’s fault that it didn’t go ahead. I think that was what the person said.
David Braunlich [00:37:47] Can you tell me a little bit about, we had discussed a little bit about businesses in Shaker. What can you tell me about the direction you think business is going? What’s the future of business in Shaker Heights?
David Hartt [00:38:10] Well, I’d feel much better if you’d asked me that question about three or four years from now when we have a better sense of how this economy is going to sort itself out. But as I alluded to earlier, and this isn’t just Shaker, but it is certainly appropriate to talk about in the context of Shaker. 15 or 20 years ago, we were of a mindset in this region, and not just in this region, that newer was better, and that outward was better. For whatever reason, whether it was we wanted a new home, we wanted a larger lot, we wanted to build on greenfield sites. The residential movement, the developer movement, the whole building movement was we’re going to do it outward. And we were almost fatalistic about what was going to happen in the central cities and then what was going to happen in the first suburbs because it was all going to ripple into abandonment and redevelopment and so forth. And that’s partly what prompted the first-ring suburbs to get organized and say, no, no, we got to protect our infrastructure, our buildings, our private buildings, our public infrastructure and so on, because it’s too important to worry about this continued downward spiral, which was kind of the fear. We’ve turned the corner on that as a region and we are much more interested now in the built environment and we’re much more interested from a developer standpoint, we’re much more interested from a residential standpoint, business standpoint and so on. We see it in downtown, you see it at Ohio City, you see it at Shaker Square now compared to the way it was. So how do you, so to go back to your question, I still don’t know the answer, except we have more potential to do something if the economy recovers at Van Aken and Chagrin and Warrensville Center Road than we probably had 10 or 15 years ago because of this. Because there’s much more respect and desire to want to live in a mixed use, urban type environment. So I can, you know, we approved the plan with the plan planning commission and that talks about mix of uses in the Van Aken area. Whether it looks exactly like that plan doesn’t matter as long as the principles of development and mixed use development are there. And it’s got to be something much more dense than what’s there. If it can’t be more dense than what’s there, we’re just replacing one shopping center from another. That’s not good. It’s not what I think we need in the urban environment in terms of mixed use, in terms of continuing the traditional characteristics and walkability and convenience in Shaker Heights. So that was a non-answer to an answer to a question.
David Braunlich [00:41:24] That’s what I want to hear, oddly enough. Tell me, what are some of the key businesses in Shaker? When you talk about Shaker, what would you consider to be some of the, I guess the hallmarks of Shaker?
David Hartt [00:41:43] Well, when we moved here, it was the Allstate Company. It was on Warrensville Center Road where University Management Service center is now, University Hospital’s Management Service Center. It was Allstate and it became Dalton, Dalton architectural firm. And then it became URS and then it became Office Max. I mean that’s kind of the hallmark building from a business standpoint. And then of course you got Tower east, which is more of a mixed use building. And I can’t think of any key tenants are in there now, but that, that’s another hallmark building. And then you get Shaker Hardware and then you get Van Aken Hardware, which are longstanding businesses. You don’t have Draegers anymore. But you think of Draegers as, the question has two prongs to it. It has what are the hallmark businesses because of the economic impact and what are the hallmark businesses because of the tradition and Shaker Hardware. The first two, the All State Building or the University Hospital building and the Tower east obviously represent the economic benefits. Shaker Hardware and Van Aken Hardware and Draegers. Well, you can almost put what’s the place on Chagrin? Italy, what’s it called? Not Taste of Italy, is it? No, on the south side of Chagrin. I mean that’s almost become a hallmark business now. It’s been there so long. It’s been there since the ’80s when I was working at Chagrin’Lee Heinen’s been there.
David Braunlich [00:43:53] You brought up Shaker Hardware and almost you used the word tradition with it. Would you say that there’s a sense of community almost that belongs to places like Shaker Hardware? Where I had another interview, we who specifically brought up Shaker Hardware, he brought that up in reference to talking about that compared to some place like having a Home Depot nearby or something like that. Is there a sense of community that if there was a Home Depot down the street, people would rather go to Shaker Hardware because it’s the neighborhood place?
David Hartt [00:44:32] Well, I think so, yes. Yeah. It’s the size of the store and it’s convenience to get there. It’s the age old question though. If there’s the Depot, Home Depot down the street, how much impact that has on a place like Shaker Hardware. How close does it have to be or far away does it have to be to keep Shaker Hardware in business? And I don’t know how well they do. They’re still there, but they’re fighting the competition. But that’s nothing new. We have it basically in most retail chains. We’ve got Al Noles is still there. There’s another one that’s been the traditional store that’s still there. But you know, they’re under competition from a whole lot of bigger shoe stores around, DSW. So I’m sure Shaker Hardware worries about that all the time. Worries about it all the time. In fact, I got to believe because I think their prices are higher that they and we go there because, gee, it’s close, it’s convenient. I don’t want to go way over there. I don’t want to go through that big store. So we got to Shaker Hardware. But do we do it all the time? No. If we want to buy a lot of stuff or something, we’ll go to Home Depot, but they will pay the extra price to get the convenience. Or Van Aken Hardware, the same thing. But how far that carries them is a big mystery.
David Braunlich [00:46:27] Okay, I got a few last questions. They’re kind of disjointed from each other. I’ve been kind of able to follow a nice flow so far, so I’m going to take a big jump back. You talked that you moved here and you had a couple kids here. Do your kids still live in Shaker? Do they live nearby? Do they live far away? What happened?
David Hartt [00:46:49] Our son is in Chicago. He’s 40 and moved there right after college and has stayed. Our daughter, who’s 36, is now living with us because she had a midcareer change and she went back and got her master’s degree actually in England and then finished her master’s degree last August. And it’s not relative to what you’re doing. Kind of an odd subject. So she’s moved back home because she didn’t have a job and she didn’t have any money and she’s looking for a job and now she’s working at Whole Foods and part-time in Cleveland Heights until she finds her dream job.
David Braunlich [00:47:32] Is that dream job around here? Is that dream job abroad? Is she hoping to stay in Shaker, or hoping to move out or hoping to get far away from here?
David Hartt [00:47:43] Actually, when she came home she was pretty content if she found a job here to stay here. But the more she’s searching and actually she has a couple of nibbles that would be far away from here. Back overseas, actually, she was in the Peace Corps. She spent a year working. She was in the Peace Corps in Armenia. Before that, she spent a year teaching English in Korea. So she’s a world traveler, and she’d just as soon go continue to travel the world. And our son, his grandfather said, what are you going to do with the business? To me, when I retired, and I said, I don’t know. He said, well, did you ever think of Kevin taking it over? And I said, well, not really, but he’s kind of interested in what I am. So my son and I had a conversation, and I said, you know, if you want it, come back and take it over. But I will make one condition on that offer, that you have to be out of college for five years before you can come back. Because I want you to know that there’s another world out there and you have choices and you just don’t fall into Dad’s business because it’s the easiest thing to do right after college. Well, he took a job in Chicago. He’s still with the same company. He’s making more money than he could make working for me. And he’s married. And there he is.
David Braunlich [00:49:15] Complete sense.
David Hartt [00:49:16] Yeah.
David Braunlich [00:49:17] As I told you, my questions are a little disjointed, so I’m just going to- This is the question I’ve asked every interviewee so far. What I hear is a lot of positives about Shaker. Obviously, the people who still live here have warm feelings, so understandably so I get a lot of positive stories about Shaker. Do you have a negative story about Shaker that sticks out in your mind, whether it was, I don’t know, a community battle over some issue or another or just some event that happened that stuck on your mind as not being so positive?
David Hartt [00:49:49] No.
David Braunlich [00:49:50] Fair enough.
David Hartt [00:49:53] No. You know, obviously people like where they live or they wouldn’t live there. So if people who don’t like Shaker, they’re not here anymore for whatever reason. I don’t, no, I don’t think so. You know, I remember one time on the planning commission when I was- There was a cell tower proposed behind City Hall, and our neighbors were getting up in arms about the cell tower, and my wife was getting a little up in arms about the cell tower, but- So she never came to a, never came to a planning commission meeting, but she came to this one. And of course, our neighbors were flapping about the cell tower. And before I said anything, as a member of the planning commission or as I started to say something as a member of the planning commission, I said, well, I don’t exactly feel like I’m at a block party. So my wife was so angry at the neighbors that she went home. She was for the cell tower because she was so mad at the neighbors. And when I got home, she said, I don’t believe you. She said, you do this for a living, and then you volunteer to do this. I said, yeah, but that’s not really an event that went bad. It’s just the nature of what being on the planning commission is all about.
David Braunlich [00:51:31] Alright, well, let me go down that line of thinking. You had mentioned block parties, and I’ve heard a lot about block parties.
David Hartt [00:51:36] Oh, yeah.
David Braunlich [00:51:37] What can you tell me about those?
David Hartt [00:51:39] Oh, they are- That is really a cool Shaker tradition. I mean, that, we had them every year. Ours was Memorial Day weekend. They still go on. We used to get invited back when, the first four or five years. Well, we still could go back, but the first four or five years. I think we went back after we moved off Braemar Road. But that is, yeah, that’s a tradition. That’s a pretty good tradition in Shaker.
David Braunlich [00:52:13] Okay. Another question that I had skipped over-
David Hartt [00:52:15] And I think the friendships that. And I think it’s true of most streets that you really, really do build friendships, life friendships from those streets that you lived on when your kids were growing up. And it’s clearly true of us. And I think it’s true in other neighborhoods, too. I don’t know what you attribute that to, but part of it is everybody’s in their same life cycle. I think when they move onto the street, not always, but. And everything’s close together, so you see neighbors and kids see other kids. It’s not like you’re in a cocoon on your yard that’s two acres away from the next yard, and you don’t see anybody. That’s cool.
David Braunlich [00:53:05] A question I had skipped. You said that you were appointed by Pat Mearns during her mayoral administration. What can you tell me about that entire administration?
David Hartt [00:53:17] Well, before that, I was actually working for, under Steve Alford when I was employed with the city. I mean, Pat’s administration. She was very, very, she was really a people person. She was really, bring people together, reach consensus on things. Very much supported by the community. Very much hands on, very much grassroots consensus building, trying to think what was particularly unique, uniquely done during her administration. During Alford’s, Steve Alford’s administration, was the redevelopment of the town center. So that was well underway. Gosh that puts me in a bad light. She served for eight years. I can’t think of a signature project, but that’s my. As soon as I walk out the door, of course I will.
David Braunlich [00:54:27] It’ll hit you.
David Hartt [00:54:28] Of course it’ll hit me.
David Braunlich [00:54:30] Yeah, I guess one last question that kind of popped into my head and it’s a silly question, I suppose, but, what’s going on in Shaker for the fourth? What goes on here normally? Do you have fireworks in Shaker? What goes on here? Just barbecues?
David Hartt [00:54:49] In terms of us personally?
David Braunlich [00:54:52] Is there something that goes on as far as the town? I mean, obviously, I’d like to talk about yourself first.
David Hartt [00:54:56] Well, there is the fireworks. There is a parade tomorrow morning. There’s fireworks tomorrow night. When we lived on Braemar Road, we used to go to the Byron fireworks all the time. Now we can sit in front of our townhouse and see the Byron fireworks and we can sit in the back of our townhouse and see the Shaker Country Club fireworks and don’t have to leave. So we pretty much do that. Actually, tomorrow night we’re going to go down and see the Cleveland fireworks.
David Braunlich [00:55:36] So it seems like there’s a few options.
David Hartt [00:55:38] Oh, yeah, and the parade. We haven’t gotten to the parade in years. Just because it seems like more of a kid thing. Kids aren’t around, but we hear it.
David Braunlich [00:55:53] Alright. I think that’s all I have then.
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