Mwd711

Comparing this to the Plums in Michigan is a mistake. While Plum does operate a couple similar locations to this, the Cleveland location won’t be one of them. Bon Appetit is the campus food provider. They license the Plum name and have put Plums at a few colleges. It will likely be similar to this location at Butler University. Students there have been unhappy with how expensive it is. https://thebutlercollegian.com/2019/11/butler-students-react-to-plum-market/

Matt was also the CEO of Rock Gaming. He helped lead the campaign to get the casinos passed and developed them.He’s always been a minority investor and has a very high profile in Detroit. He and Gilbert are basically switching roles while Matt is also leaving Gilbert’s Bedrock firm to focus on the casinos. Bedrock’s COO also left to join Cullen in running the casinos.

Bravo Brio has closed 71 locations. They might reopen but it’s up in the air. https://www.nrn.com/casual-dining/ceo-brio-and-bravo-casual-dining-brands-says-71-closed-restaurants-might-not-reopen-if

His heart might be in NYC but he bought a Mcmansion out in Bainbridge. I don’t think he’s going anyplace anytime soon. That said, he does have financial issues and has had multiple lawsuits filed against him. I’m going to be a dissenter on Sawyer’s. I ate there last month and it was an unmitigated disaster. His restaurants have been on the decline for several years now.

The Inner Harbor area itself isn’t necessarily doing bad, it’s just much of the traffic has moved down to the Harbor East development. As Harbor East exploded with upscale shops and hotels, it sucked the life out of the Harborplace Pavilions and mall. Harbor East is more a true neighborhood than what Harborplace ever was. I think that’s one reason Harborplace has struggled to stay relevant. The Power Plant on the Harbor has a few vacancies but is still hopping most days. Some new residential and office has been built there to make it more mixed use. Trying to just attract tourists is a dangerous way for a development to survive long term. Hopefully, Cleveland realizes that and anything down on the water will be made more sustainable.

The NBA has multiple marketing deals with gaming companies. They are no longer anti-gaming. MGM Resorts owns an entire WNBA team and Vegas hosts summer games. Even before that though, they allowed casino operators to own teams. Most notably, the Maloofs owned the Kings and were allowed to offer sports betting just not on the Kings themselves. https://www.espn.com/nba/news/story?id=3661587

But Gilbert will still operate the casino. All that’s changing is he now has a landlord. Leasing back casinos has become all the rage. Even the Bellagio was sold but MGM is still the operator. I do wonder about this over the long term. Hard Rock is leasing back Jack Cincinnati from VICI. It’s possible JACK continuing to operate in Cleveland is a short term play and they will look for new management down the road.

Current is no longer owned by GE. A private equity firm acquired it a few months ago. At some point, it will drop the GE name. For now at least, it still has offices at Nela Park and is still hiring. GE Lighting is sill for sale and they are actively looking for buyers. The European lighting operations were jettisoned last year.

It’s not completely out of the norm for WWDTM to visit outdoor amphitheaters. They’ve played Wolf Trap, Tanglewood and Red Rocks just to name a few. I was surprised it’s taken them this long to visit Blossom since it’s home to such a well known orchestra and it’s in a national park. As mentioned, it usually plays at Playhouse Square. An arena like Wolstein doesn’t fit the setup for the show at all.

The VGTI went out of business. Port St. Lucie owns the building and has been negotiating with the Clinic to take space in the building and to open a research center there. Vaxine is an Australian company that would occupy space with help from a state grant. As part of this, Vaxine would work with the Clinic and other occupants on research.

The Western Reserve Land Conservancy owns a good chunk of land in Hunting Valley. Its around 300 acres. The village itself owns over 100 acres. The village also has agreements with a bunch of owners under a conservation easement. I'm not sure how you could group them into one entity but I agree with you. At least the village has been proactive in protecting the lands in the area.

I get your point about the leases but Namdar got the place for nearly nothing. Anything they make is pure profit and they don’t care about the long term. When Home Depot renewed, that gave them an attractive asset, one they could sell for more than what they spent for the entire complex. Whether anyone buys it is another story, especially since the rest of the center isn’t up for sale. Anyhow, revenue doesn’t seem to be much of a concern for Namdar. Its controlled by a group of shady families that play a bunch of accounting games. Namdar likes to hold onto properties until the bitter end, watching them decay and by then you are left with a rotting shell. Some flat out close. I suppose Namdar could change strategies or the area becomes such a hotspot they get a big offer but that seems really optimistic.

Namdar isnt in the development business. They are only a landlord and a lousy one at that. Just check their history around the country. Namdar/Mason (an affiliated company) and Kohan Realty have bought tons of distressed malls across the country and do not improve them what so ever. In some cases, they even fail to pay taxes on them. The only time a Namdar/Mason or a Kohan property improves is if someone owns another piece of it. Richmond Town Square is an example of this as DealPoint Merrill bought up the Sears and Macy's and is converting it to a Cubesmart and apartments. Dealpoint tried to takeover the vacant Walmart and CH officials rejected them. I don't know if DealPoint would've proposed something similar in the Heights but that rejection doesn't look like a great idea at the moment. Namdar is trying to sell the Home Depot site at severance as HD has a lease that runs for another 15 years.

Fox Sports Grill makes sense because the owner is a graduate of BGSU. That said, I don’t see how that’s replacing Cordish’s Live concept. The Live concept is a multi tenant venue. That part might be dead but I don’t think it’s comparable except for the fact that many Live locations included an ESPN Zone or a similar sports bar.

I think the owner overextended himself when he opened Sammich in North Collinwood. It was a disaster and only open a few months. That had to set him back quite a bit. I think this was mentioned in another thread but we should note Trentina's closure. Trentina had a fairly high profile and had national praise so its a big deal for it to go away. It was also one of the more formal places in town.

I wonder if health care training is a big reason for that. The Clinic and UH employ thousands of people who are here just for research, training and/or continuing education. Some are here for months, some years. You have a sizable chunk that stay here permanently but I know plenty who consider this a temporary stop and move on.

As a native Detroiter, I'm skeptical that the Illitches are going to do anything big. They always talk big but almost never deliver. I just came back from Detroit and outside of the arena and the new HQ (which is way behind schedule), all I found was a bunch of new Illitch branded parking lots and some windows on the empty Eddystone. Quite frankly, DTE has done more in that area with Beacon Park than the Illitches have done with their growing acres of concrete.

I've wondered about this too. The new Hudson's building will be massive. Who is going to fill the office space? Is Gilbert assuming that his companies will keep growing so he will need the space? What happens if the mortgage market crumbles? Quicken won't be needing any new hires will at some point trim people. It's great that Detroit is making a comeback but its almost all on the backs of one company and one person. Reminds me of the old days where the auto industry was the only thing keeping the city vibrant. Now you can add mortgages and a few tech firms, especially for downtown.

What great pictures! As a native Detroiter, I have so many great memories of heading Up North (and when I say Up North, I mean north of Clare, not Monroe!) and I am way overdue to go back. I loved the area so much, I strongly considered going to college in either Traverse City or the Soo. I can chime in a little bit about those billboards. You do see some in Michigan although they are much more prominent in Mid Michigan and areas around Holland. Those are by far and away the most conservative sections of Michigan and always have been. I can remember seeing Pro-life billboards all around Clare and that was 30 years ago! The map showing Trump's counties is fairly meaningless as I can easily drag out a map from 2008 and 2012 and show a bunch of counties that Obama won. He won overwhelmingly and it wasn't just on the backs on the urban areas. Traverse City itself is fairly liberal. Clinton won there. It might not be Saugatuck but its hardly militia country. Petoskey, Charlevoix and Harbor Springs are more traditional big money Republican resort towns. Then you have the outer areas filled with hunters and fishermen. All in all its kinda a weird area as many vacationers come from liberal Chicagoland.

Indeed, Jacobs Group is almost a dormant company. They've been selling off land or in some cases, they are almost silent partners. They don't develop much of anything on their own anymore. Their last major development was Cabela's and that was nearly four years ago. The Public Square lots aren't even listed on Jacobs' own website although much of that site is very outdated. I'm not sure how Jacobs Group's ownership group is structured and I'm curious to know how local it is. As mentioned, Jeff Jacobs lives in Florida. His company is based in Colorado. Most of his major developments are out West. He's been buying up quite a bit of property in Reno. His Cleveland holdings are the only ones that don't include casino gaming of some kind. That leaves Nautica as an outlier among all of his investments. I think that's one reason it takes a backseat. His focus is on casinos, not real estate.

What rules are you talking about? I've voted absentee in every election for the last 12 years. I filled out a form, dropped it in a mailbox, and then they sent me my ballot. Nothing about that has changed. I do it the same way, as I did back then. If I had to guess, many of the gains are due to parties pushing early voting. It is flat out encouraged on both sides of the political spectrum.

1 - cleveland.com and the PD are two different entities and have separate bosses. Cleveland.com doesn't handle the business section. I'm not sure who the current business editor is, but yes the PD does have one. Michelle Jarboe, Teresa Murray, Ginger Christ, John Funk, Brie Zeltner, etc. all work for the PD. Chris Quinn runs cleveland.com while George Rodrigue handles the PD. There's some redundancy and the parties don't really get along. These groups don't even work in the same building and haven't for many years. When reading bylines, you'll probably notice that the more professional stories are almost always bylined by PD writers. The PD doesn't do much in the way of clickbait. That's cleveland.com's job although PD writers have felt pressure on that end. 2 - The PD ran a story on the lead lawsuit. It was the lead story in Tuesday's business section. It was an AP story but that's probably because the ruling was out of town. The PD covered that story a lot when it first happened 13 years ago. This case dragged on forever which is why it fell out of the spotlight.

I'm pretty sure that depends on age. Babies and toddlers aren't impressed by bike and running trails. They need places to play. They need enrichment. I really don't know what OC offers when it comes to that but I do know that the Heights area doesn't lack in those areas at all. You tried to imply that it does.

Guess you’ve never heard of the Nature Center at Shaker Lakes. Or all the various arts and educational programs in the Heights and it’s surrounding areas. Not to mention all the parks, playgrounds and the bevy of private schools parents can choose from. And University Circle. Really, the list goes on. To say there’s nothing of interest for kids in the Heights is a very bizarre statement. Almost everything I do with my child is in the Heights area. We are hardly bored and unhappy.

Its not likely as Gilbert has been the rumored future owner of the Tigers for a long time. Chris Ilitch has zero interest in baseball while Gilbert has longed to own a team for decades. MLB has very strict rules about owning teams and casinos which is why Marian Ilitch is not considered an owner of the Tigers. She's the majority owner of Motor City Casino and couldn't have any financial stake in the Tigers. Really, this is a good time to sell a casino. Theres been a ton of sales and management changes just over the last couple of years. Once MGM, Penn National and Caesars created REITs, they all went on acquisition sprees. That's created a shakeup inside the gaming industry. Locally, Presque Isle and Hard Rock Rocksino are under new ownership. If an REIT buys out Gilbert, another company will be brought in to run the place. Most likely it will be a company affiliated with the REIT, although thats not the case at Hard Rock.