Cleveland Notes
Cleveland Clinic actually has a handy relocation guide for incoming residents, listing out the various neighborhoods to live in, what shopping and services are in the area, and so on. It’s very handy.
The theory will be to rent an apartment at the beginning. I really can’t imagine myself plunging into the intricacies of lawn care, leaf removal from the gutters, and shoveling lake effect snow from the driveway if we get a house immediately. We’ll transition into suburban life later. In the meantime, the rent for a 2BR/2BA apartment in a luxury Cleveland hi-rise is around $1100/month. A 3BR is generally under $1500/month. After the Darwinian world of New York City real estate, I feel like we’re some sort of superorganism about to be unleashed on an unsuspecting Arcadia. A ground floor studio in Park Slope is $1300/month. After selling the apartment here, I can afford to bum around for a few months while I figure out what to do there.
ApartmentRatings.com has been helpful in the search, at least for weeding out undesirable sites. We’re going to look seriously at the Statler Arms, which is closer to Downtown and will mean a reverse commute for Grace to get to the hospital. There’s also a number of similar places in Cleveland Heights or Mayfield, a bit further out. We’ll fly out in mid-April to take a look around, and will be prepared to sign for a place at that time, though we may need a May trip, also. Grace probably starts in mid-June, and the initial move will just be with the Civic; we’ll pick up some basic furniture at the local Wal-Mart until I bring everything else in the big move later this year.
Banking is one thing that has to be taken care of. The campus has a number of ATMs, though the main one is from Key Bank and they no longer offer free checking. One of the other banks mentioned in the CCF package is National City, which apparently has a “Switch” program that helps people migrate their other accounts to them. Plus, you get a free fleece blanket. I think Grace will move her New York account over at the beginning. I’ll probably keep my accounts, since I don’t see an obvious reason to do more than open up a free checking account at National for ATM access, and then occassionally write checks to move some money from the old accounts as needed.
We’ve ordered a Rand McNally map from Amazon. We’ll get a city guide once we hit a bookstore there for the April trip. Remarkably, there are few resources for Cleveland in New York bookstores. We’ll have to set up a formal checklist of stuff to take care of.