Cleveland Trust

I think they are ready to chase the market and put in a second runway at Burke, at least the website says that is the plan. It will be near impossible to recoup that money spent unless traffic increases dramatically. But who wants that? Why do we want thousands of planes flying a few hundred feet over downtown? I think it comes down to this : “Council President Martin J. Sweeney did not return calls for this story. But Councilman Mike Polensek discounted the chances of a Jackson-friendly council majority going against the mayor's wishes on Burke.” from this: https://www.cleveland.com/metro/2014/03/sweep_of_views_on_burke_lakefr.html

Nope. He can change course. The clock is ticking.

Oh. Okay. I’m at the beach with my kids on my cell, I don’t have perfect memory. It is upthread somewhere and not my number. Bottom line is that 111,000 in 2000 (or something) down to your number. Bad news.

Basically Burke is a joke, however, Burke’s future cannot be questioned. The younger councilmen have to wait until Jackson is out of office before a change can take place. Two more long years! We talked a little bit about how Dimora and Russo liked it when things stayed the way they were: sometimes a bridge to nowhere is a revenue stream to someone. Cynical stuff. Cleveland stuff. Bottom line is we could do better but some people will be unhappy. I get that. I don’t think there is anything you can do to make Burke viable. But according to Burke’s website looks like someone is about to make a ton of money redoing the whole thing: https://www.burkeairport.com/about-burke/operations/progress This is really gonna attract Amazon and the hipsters! I mean, I’m not implying, nor was my source implying that this has anything to do with public contracts and some money going to the right people. I’m sure Burke isn’t a bridge to nowhere. Toronto’s waterfront is overrated and if we just spend money redoing this gem of an airport we’ll get all those medical conventions at medical mart, right? I’m sure of it. You may get your wish. A total redo of Burke. I guess I’m out of luck. I was hoping to gather consensus around closing Burke but it appears we are about to be stuck with it for good. I hope you’re right.

I was citing the numbers in one of your posts for 2017 and 2018!

What about using the county airport for crop dusters? We have three airports.

Good question. It exists. I see it as a problem. It makes money but there is an opportunity to create a land Gold Rush in Cleveland. How would any configuration of Burke do that? Conversely, how would the lakefront neighborhood do that? I don’t know, I just think it would. I might be wrong. I don’t think I am given the generic data about lakefront property. i guess the big problem I see it’ll that the potentially valuable lakefront property is devalued by the actual airport property. The potential value of lake access is cancelled out for the many for the cloistered convenience of a few. If the airports in Cleveland make a miraculous turnaround I would say, “damn, I really wanted to increase the value of the lakefront land.” I just don’t see that happening.

Thank you. Change is hard, which is why Burke is still needed for 11,000 flights per year. At what point do we question it’s need to exist though? 5,000 flights?

That study cites $2.1 mil loss in 2002. Annual losses between $2-$3 million and revenues dropping. The hard part is that the savings of $7 mil would be ceasing Burke operations and using Hopkins exclusively. I’ve read the 2016 port of entry report and can’t come close either.

Yes, the Federal money came up, I think that 2002 study mentions two $23 million grants spent at Burke since 1982 (taxpayer money is cheap). The situation is that some myopic city managers are used to the old guaranteed revenue streams. They don’t see the need to change anything even as Cleveland’s population dips below 390,000.

No. It is in that study. If the land Burke sits on is developed into anything other than a park it would need further testing but it can be developed. I think it said 22 acres of the total 450 had toxins that wouldn’t be viable for housing. Not just taller development, more valuable. Airports decrease the value of land around them. Most people don’t want planes flying past their house constantly (even though Burke only has 11,000). A mansion on the lake is more valuable than that same mansion under Hopkins runway. Unless Cleveland is Bizarro World.

My neighbor is a politician. He told me some things off the record about Burke at a cook out. I can’t burn a source. I am just looking for numbers in the public record that confirm what I was told and I can’t find them. I think there is a $4 million payroll connected to Burke that no one at city hall wants to mess with even as operations there wind down. Burke is in a tailspin but some people still make a little money, it is still functional and so business as usual. So so the question is, will the next mayor spend the money to modernize Burke in an effort to increase revenues or do we stop the downward trajectory and pounce on this opportunity.

I have this study from 2002 advocating close: https://www.gcbl.org/files/resources/burkereport.pdf Additionally, Burke lost close to 50% of its traffic between 2017-2018. It is going in the wrong direction. Maybe someone on this forum knows what change can be made to make Burke a better economic engine than a developed lakefront.

You may be right. Like I said, Cleveland might be an outlier where normal principles of real estate don’t apply. Maybe we should be lucky to have that pile of limestone where the river meets the lake. It might one day be the magnet that attracts young people from all over the world to live on new inland development around Hopkins runway. It might just happen.

But what if what you have (Burke) prevents economic viability, negates demand.

Experts: Big Dig? The Interstate will always cut directly through the heart of Boston. You’re never gonna change that. To much red tape. The Federal government will never budge. Words on paper can’t be changed. Stupid Dreamers: Hold my beer!

Agree. It was always gonna be NYC and DC. And I’m not a fan of Amazon monopoly anyway. That is what I’m trying to figure out. I don’t see a benefit other than the jobs at Burke. But those jobs would not be lost in a shift to Concourse D, the city would save millions, and there might be a huge public benefit as the lakefront is reenvisioned as part of the city.

Okay. Things probably won’t change because the right people are making a their lives easier and the shrinking population here foots the bill. Don’t be surprised when the city keeps shrinking the amenities disappear. You could have a situation where the Cleveland Clinic outgrows us because we did everything we could to appease them.

What if we are losing more than $2 mil? What if we could save $7 mil by closing Burke? What if closing Burke hacks the Gordian knot that is choking demand for Cleveland real estate. Again, we have our most valuable real estate (lakefront) devalued by a money-losing airport because they are next to each other.

We would never have gotten Amazon. They want access to Congress and other government and a playground for the jet set executives. We arguably had an Amazon or two leave Cleveland, (BP, TRW)because Cleveland is kinda lame in the eyes of world cities.

Your graphic proves my point: that’s why Burke has to go. If you have those red lines you cannot use the most valuable land in Cleveland!

If an airport in the CBD is so valuable why is a shrinking city the only city with one?

Two words: flight path. Any development on lakefront land available will be truncated by the flight path of Burke. You simply cannot put a ten-story building on prime real estate in Cleveland because it is too dangerous to have it where planes takeoff and land. Lakefront property is on average 40% more valuable than property inland (there is consumer demand but product is scarce). Property by airports is dirt cheap (no consumer demand). When you have lakefront property that is also by an airport you get the Cleveland lakefront: valuable land that is for all intents and purposes dirt cheap. The demand is there for the lakefront but it isn’t there because the airport. i even stated above, and it is in the report I posted that just closing Burke removes the strict FAA limitations set on our ENTIRE lakefront. If Burke is turned into a nature preserve, we at least get the benefit of a lakefront free of those strict, height-limiting FAA flight path regulations. Those regulations are the real reason our lakefront looks more like the areas around an airport than the lakefronts of Toronto and Chicago. We will have to decide what we want to be.

Present state of Harbor View. Boy what a view tho!

We’d never recover those costs. $50 million for a new terminal losing another $35 mil (at least, may be double that) in ten years. Let’s cut our losses. This is is a unique opportunity available only to Cleveland. No other city has this much lakefront property waiting on the bench. It’s the fourth quarter.