Starting Point: Detroit, MI
Ending Point: Niagara Falls, NY
Distance Traveled: 400 Miles
Today, I woke up at about 5:30 AM and drove to Cleveland, Ohio. As I arrived at Westside Market, I noticed that it was closed. Apparently, the market is open only a few days each week. The building and surrounding couple of blocks seemed in the process of becoming “hip,” but the overall area was very depressed.
A few miles away, I noticed Downtown Cleveland while I was driving down the highway, but at 8AM, it didn’t seem exciting enough to warrant a side trip. Instead, I thought it would be a good idea to visit the waterfront. However, the lakefront that I saw was just as depressed, quiet, and industrial as most of the city.
One bright spot of the city is Rockefeller Driveway, which passes through the Cleveland Cultural Gardens (http://culturalgardens.org/). The cultural gardens are a lengthy green parkway, displaying many outdoor exhibit areas, each of which is for a different country, culture or religion. Each exhibit includes an interesting sculpture or object relating to the country, a flag of that country, and a nicely-landscaped relaxation area. Some of the exhibits include the Albanian gardens, Armenian Gardens, Slovenian Gardens, etc.
Next, I continued to Erie, Pennsylvania, where I visited the scenic Presque Isle State Park. After the first couple of minutes driving through the beautiful parkway to the State Park, I knew I would be spending at least a couple hours at this park. My choice to spend time at the park was reinforced when I noticed bike rentals a few minutes later in the center of the park. I rented a bike and proceeded to bike ride around the 13.1 mile loop trail around the park. The trail includes beautiful bay and lake views on almost the entire trail. Also, the State Park contains lighthouses, miles of sandy beaches, park areas, picnic areas, and more.
After a few more hours of driving I arrived at Niagara Falls State Park. One of the first things I noticed was that the Canada side of the falls was much more vibrant and developed. This is probably because the actual falls are located on the USA side, and therefore the Canadian side has the beautiful view from across the river. The map below shows the USA side of the river, which contains the actual waterfalls. Although the falls are beautiful and can be peered down on, the only places you can have a horizontal look at the waterfalls are the observation deck (from above) and Cave of the Winds (from below).
The highlight of visiting Niagara Falls was descending to Cave of the Winds. An elevator descends 17 stories to the bottom of the falls, and visitors are the able to walk through a red, wooden staircases at the bottom of the falls. Depending on which part of the staircases you’re on, the water from the falls can drench a person in a few seconds. When I was in a drenching spot, I couldn’t help laughing at the humor of the idea that we were all paying money to be soaked by a waterfall. On the elevator ride up, the knowledgeable tour guide explained that each winter the wooden walkways are disassembled and reassembled using 30% new wood every Spring.
Contrasting to the hotel-filled Canadian side of the falls, I noticed only one exciting hotel in Downtown Niagara Falls. Like many downtowns on the East Coast, downtown Niagara Falls is primarily empty, dilapidated storefronts which could really benefit from city-incentivized investment/development. One privately-owned company (Niagara Falls Redevelopment LLC)(http://www.niagarafallsredevelopment.com/about-us/) seems to be very bullish on the Downtown Niagara Falls area and owns many several large development parcels in the area (one of which totals 142 prime acres). It’s website boasts about the untapped potential of one of the “world’s most famous tourist destinations.” I’m interested to see how this plays out in the next 20-25 years. Although this investment looks good from an “aerial view,” the fact that there’s no Niagara Falls noise or view, it just seems like another boring downtown. Based off of what’s for sale on Loopnet I really hope he didn’t pay more than $5/SF for this property. In my opinion, although this investor may strike gold with this investment, it would have been much smarter to acquire a property such as Blackstone’s Willis Tower instead of trying to create a market/trend in a dead Downtown area.
