Icecream

The convention center site never really worked. Without public hall in the mix, the current convention center site is even a worse choice. First off, Public Hall is an historic structure which needed to be revamped to preserve part of the beauty of the Cleveland Mall. It was exciting that this structure was going to have new life breathed into it by this project. Public Hall was going to include the much needed meeting areas for a convention center to work. With Public Hall cut, from the plan, those meeting areas do not exist. MMPI’s most recent drawings show that the truck access has changed to the buildings. No longer is there easy truck access which was shown in the initial plans. That leaves a convention center with almost no meeting area and limited truck access. So, what is Cleveland getting? A better convention hall? Because of the road, the main hall is bisected with a section of roof which is a mere 18 feet high. Not exactly a good height for a modern convention. Therefore, as the plan sits, we are getting a facility which is lacking meeting space, has poor truck access and will have an awkward if not substandard convention hall.

Without Public Auditorium, there is no purpose to having the convention center stuffed in between public buildings. They are making an island out of the convention center. What fun is going to a convention in Cleveland if there is nothing around there to draw people in? The upside to going to a city for a convention is the fun of activities around the convention building itself. If we surround the center with a lot of government buildings, it will just suck. Gee... Probate court to the west and city hall to the east. While in town they can either be reminded of their mortality or pick up a building permit. What great excitement. No convention will want to come here. Now that Public Auditorium is out, the convention center can go anywhere. The best place to put it is with Cleveland's new entertainment draw -- The Casino. That way we can get people from out of state may actually come to the Casino, not just prevent people who live in Ohio from leaving to gamble. The business people who come into town are therefore in the middle of entertainment possibilities which makes their visit to Cleveland fun. Fun conventions makes them want to have more conventions here.

Thomas: Sorry you did not take up our offer to tour the peninsula at the meeting. I told you it was tough to get to. Anytime you make it up here, just give a call, and I will take you around the Peninsula. -T

A legacy to the Ratners? The property does not belong to the Ratner family. It belongs to a partnership between Forest City and another company. A corporation’s job is to make money, not make a legacy for its chairman of the board. Forest City has obligations to its shareholders and to its partners to develop property in a financially reasonable fashion, not by making parks. It is pretty obvious why the peninsula has not been developed: The Scranton Peninsula has been industrial for over 100 years. It was fill added to an old swampy area. As others have said, the land is polluted. It is obviously clean enough for industrial use, but not housing. The army corps have stated that all the bulk-heading in the flats must be replaced before you build near them. Bulk-heading is somewhere between $3,750 to $4,000 a lineal foot to replace. Because it is merely fill land, you have to build either floating foundations or go down to bedrock with foundations. To build housing the land has to be cleaner, so therefor, the land has to be cleaned, hauled away or capped. Then you have to put new bulk-heading all the way around the peninsula. If you look at city records you will see that the sewers have to be totally revamped for a project that large. You are talking about millions of dollars before you even can break ground on unit one down there. You cannot phase it like other projects, because you have so much initial investment in the land. Forest City will need a big project across the river to leverage the infrastructure investment that they need to make in developing the peninsula.

Oh, they can take the land, it just might be a fight. Getting the property will add to the cost of the project. People wanted constructive criticism -- Lets look at what we know. The project has gone from $170 million to $225 million in just a short time. It does not sound like they nailed down their numbers. A 32% increase in such a short time is troublesome. Where will it stop? But lets just look at the quick numbers where they stand now: We have been told that there is 250,000 feet of retail and entertainment. Good square footage retail in town is about $25 a foot. That can be expected to generate roughly $6,250,000.00. On a 10% capitalization that means that the retail is worth about $62,500,00.00. That makes the rest of the project $162,500,000.00. That means that the residential at 330 units starts at roughly $500,000.00 each before any profit is made. Stonebridge is the best comperable even though the units are much more reasonably priced. Stonebridge's units have an absorption rate of roughly 3.5 units a month. That means that the 330 units to be built will take almost 8 years before they are all sold. That is a painfully long time because a lot of the money is going to have to be fronted before any profit is made. Of course this is making things very simple. There are a thousand other items, but it does show how this project is very bad without mega tax dollars. This is a very tough project. If Clevelanders want it to work, we are going to have to dig in our collective tax pockets to make it work. Without lots of public help, Wolstein would be crazy to do the project. A they are now, I do not think that the numbers work. This is a pioneer project. I don' t think there are any comperable numbers that Mr. Wolstein can use to judge just how his project will go. If it makes it, I think you will see other developers use his success to justify the numbers they have in their projects. It could really be a boon to this city. If it is for real, then I hope he makes it.

When you do own that much land you often spend significant amounts of money seeing what will work. When in a public company it is practically required. But the plan has no specifics. So much is still missing from it. Normally a bit more detail is in order before you go and ask for public money. He has neither land control nor the normal partners. Then again... If Wolstein can make it work I think it will be just what Cleveland needs. I want it to work. I want Mr. Wolstein to make gobs and gobs of money on the project so that other companies put their sweat and money into Cleveland. I just don't think it looks like a real project at this stage. Then again... Mr. Wolstein has made millions of dollars in real estate development, and I have not.

Sorry if it sounded like an attack. Not intended that way at all. Tone kind of gets lost when I am writing. I think this board is fun to read and the great amount of work that people have put into it makes it far better than the news sources I am used to in Cleveland. Once again, sorry if I came across poorly

It is comical... read the writing on the wall... Wolstein's project isn't real. It was released for political reasons.

Hi- I am new here, but I thought I would add my two cents Seems like their is some bad information on this board. First off there is a picture showing the Scranton Peninsula that shows some property mismarked as Scaravelli's property. The property that is marked as belonging to Scaravelli really belongs to W & M Properties which is not Scaravelli, but is conected to the Wolstein family. Scaravelli's own the property that is the marina at the base of the peninsula under the name of VLAS LLC. Both of those properties are delinquent in taxes. If you look at the court records, you will see that there is a note on the VLAS LLC property that went into default for non-payment. That note was bought up by a company backed by John Ferchill. It is all public record