^my fault mwd711

Nice find Mwd711.  I would be interested in seeing the data on Cincinnati, Cleveland & Columbus' hotel number regardless of if they would ever host a Super Bowl.

I do not think Cleveland could hold the Super Bowl. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has taught the country this lesson. We have to be the only city in America that has a hall of fame but do not hold the induction cerimonies. Why? Hotel space------they say. If Cleveland can't handle a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction, how would they handle the Super Bowl? So, I vote for CANTON---- At least they have the Pro Football Hall of Fame induction and a game,,,,,,, or Pinkerington---- they can hold the AMA Motorcycle inductions.

I would be interested in seeing the data on Cincinnati, Cleveland & Columbus' hotel number regardless of if they would ever host a Super Bowl.

 

According to Experience Columbus, there are 21,355 hotel rooms "city-wide." So, by "city-wide" do they mean the 222 sq. miles that is the city of Columbus, or the metro area? If they do mean just the City of Columbus, then that omits suburbs with decent amounts of hotel rooms, such as Dublin (which, according to their chamber of commerce, has 2,000 hotel rooms) and Westerville.

 

Experience Columbus link:

http://www.experiencecolumbus.com/meeting_planners.cfm?nav=t

 

Visit Dublin link:

http://www.dublinvisit.org/visitors/accommodations.htm

How about no city. The approaching storm and its predicted impacts on Detroit (if it comes to pass) will be the death-knell for another Super Bowl in the North.

 

How ironic... the region has seen less than 5 inches of snow since before Christmas and one of the warmest Januarys on record. But tomorrow, on Super Bowl Sunday, Detroit looks to get perhaps twice the amount of snow in one day than what they received in the last 40 days or so.

I do not think Cleveland could hold the Super Bowl. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has taught the country this lesson. We have to be the only city in America that has a hall of fame but do not hold the induction cerimonies. Why? Hotel space------they say. If Cleveland can't handle a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction, how would they handle the Super Bowl? So, I vote for CANTON---- At least they have the Pro Football Hall of Fame induction and a game,,,,,,, or Pinkerington---- they can hold the AMA Motorcycle inductions.

 

??? Cleveland couldn't host it because they don't have enough hotel rooms.  When did Canton become the hotel room mecca of Ohio?

 

I agree with you that Cleveland wouldn't be able to host it, but your logic is a bit off.

 

 

WOW. I can't belive someone took that literally. Pinkerington??? I guess I have to tell you that it was a joke. My main point is Cleveland can't host the Super Bowl.

Something tells me that if hotel rooms is the reason that Cleveland can't host the Rock Hall inductions it's not the quantity of all hotels rooms but rather the quantity of high end hotel rooms.

It would be very hard for most cities to have 17,500 three star hotel rooms.  That is a huge amount.  It makes me wonder how Jacksonville ever pulled that off.  I've never been to Jacksonville but I doubt they can have that many rooms.  Quite honestly, I'm too lazy to research it at the moment :)  Maybe they used Orlando and Daytona rooms to pad their total.  It paid off for Detroit even though I can't imagine people coming up from Toledo, especially if they are the type who will only stay in a 3 star hotel or better :)

 

I'm not sure a potential weather problem will stop another Super Bowl from coming up north though.  One, Detroit does exaggerate all their snowstorms.  They hype it to no end.  Most of the time, very little falls but people overreact.  Much more overrreaction from what I have seen in other places. 

Remember when Pontiac held the game in 1982, that was a nightmare.  Logistically, it was terrible.  Having the stadium so far from Downtown and at that time, Northern Oakland County didn't have the amenities that it has today.  Even with the  Detroit snowstorm that occurred in 82, the NFL went to Minneapolis in 1992 for a game and now, they are back in Detroit.  Perhaps it will be a 10 -15 year occurrence :)  I do agree though that Indy would be next in line for a game up north.  Perhaps in 2011 since I think that is the next open date.

 

I should also mention when people first came to Detroit for the game this week, there was a disappointment in the weather.  Some of the visitors wanted snow!  For them, it would be a novelty.  And considering  the huge winter festival that is going on at Campus Martius, the snow is badly needed for them.  Now, driving in it will be another story for them.  :-P  I'm guessing they didn't think of that at the time.  Hopefully, Detroit is prepared, they have contracted the City of Windsor to cross the border and help with all snow removal.  A good effort would help any northern city in the future in bidding for the game.

Jacksonville brought in Cruise Lines to make up for the lack of hotel rooms.

 

a timely PD article:

http://www.cleveland.com/browns/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/sports/1139132131133720.xml&coll=2

 

WHY NOT US?

Cleveland is not a candidate to host a Super Bowl because Cleveland Browns Stadium is not domed, but that is not the only reason this cold-weather city gets the cold shoulder.

Sunday, February 05, 2006

Mary Schmitt Boyer

Plain Dealer Reporter

Detroit has Motown. We have the Cleveland Orchestra.

 

Detroit has the Henry Ford Museum. We have the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

 

Detroit has the Detroit River and Lake St. Clair. We have Lake Erie.

 

What's Detroit got that we don't?

 

The Super Bowl.

 

Why not us?

 

Short answer: No domed stadium.

 

According to NFL spokesman Greg Aiello, a city with an average early February temperature below 50 degrees must have a domed stadium to be a candidate to host a Super Bowl. Citing the projected economic impact to a community, the NFL often holds out the promise of a Super Bowl as a $300 million carrot to get those new domed stadiums built. It did it in Detroit. It did it when the new stadium was being built here.

 

"The way they put it was, You will be eligible to have a Super Bowl in Cleveland,' " said attorney Fred Nance, the chief negotiator for Mayor Michael White during stadium construction.

 

Even if -- and that's the mother of all hypotheticals -- Cleveland decided to put a dome over Cleveland Browns Stadium, the city doesn't have the 25,000 full-service hotel rooms and other necessary facilities to host the biggest sporting event in the country.

 

David Gilbert, president and CEO of the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission, is in the business of attracting sporting events to Northeast Ohio. He's as optimistic and upbeat a human being as you'll ever find, but even he acknowledged a domed stadium might not cover everything.

 

"We certainly would have to do more research," he said.

 

Gilbert said the 25,000 hotel rooms could be problematic if the NFL insisted the rooms be in full-service hotels with amenities such as room service or laundry service. Furthermore, Gilbert said, the only place with enough exhibition space would be the IX Center near the airport, quite a haul if all the other activities were centered downtown.

 

"I think there's one other important piece," he said. "I don't know what the economics are, but I'm certain that the community has to raise a significant amount of money. I think that's something we would have to explore. Would there be the willingness and the capacity to raise the necessary funds? For a Super Bowl, my guess would be yes."

 

Gilbert estimated the amount of money needed to be raised for a Super Bowl would be "well into the many, many millions." That's based on the fact that the Sports Commission had to raise $1 million for the NCAA Women's Final Four that will be held here in 2007. According to Gilbert, cities bidding to host the NCAA Men's Final Four need to raise about $2 million.

 

Jim Kahler was the Cavaliers senior vice president of sales and marketing when the NBA held its 50th anniversary All-Star Weekend here in 1997. At that time, the host city had to provide 5,000 hotel rooms and $500,000 for a welcome party.

 

"It's a magic-carpet ride," Kahler said of the amenities and transportation provided for the visiting dignitaries.

 

Forgetting the dome issue, Kahler doesn't think the city could meet the requirement for hotel rooms.

 

"For us to make our room block, we had to reach to Rockside Road [in Independence]," said Kahler, now the executive director of the Center for Sports Administration at Ohio University. "If you don't have the hotel rooms, you're not going to get it."

 

 

Big bucks are there

 

Why do cities want to host these huge sports extravaganzas? Money is a big reason.

 

Kahler estimated the economic impact of the NBA All-Star Weekend was $32 million to $35 million. The NFL projects the economic impact of Super Bowl XL in Detroit will be $300 million, although some economists doubt that. Robert A. Baade of Lake Forest College in Illinois studied Super Bowls from 1970 to 2001 and found the economic impact averaged about $92 million. He cautions it could be as little as $30 million.

 

Given that Ford Field in Detroit cost $315 million, or that it would cost an estimated $200 million to put a roof on Cleveland Browns Stadium, maybe it's not worth it.

 

On the other hand, the exposure a city gets for hosting a major sporting event is priceless. If one event generates residual tourist interest for years, think what four events would do. From the summer of 1991 to the spring of 1992, Minnesota was host to the U.S. Open golf tournament, the World Series, the Super Bowl and the NCAA Men's Final Four.

 

"That was our absolute apex," said Bill Lester, executive director of the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission that owns and operates the Metrodome in Minneapolis. "For one year, we were the epicenter of the universe for sporting activities."

 

Lester still remembers the chorus of boos that went up when it was announced that Minnesota was going to host the 1992 Super Bowl - the only other cold-weather city besides Detroit in 1982 and 2006 to be selected for that honor. January in Minnesota can be a tough sell for owners used to doing business on golf courses and yachts. Instead of pretending it wasn't going to be cold, Minnesota bid presenters embraced the winter and offered to take willing visitors ice fishing or snowmobiling. Somehow Minnesota won out over Seattle, Indianapolis and Detroit.

 

According to Jim Steeg, who ran the Super Bowl for years, the league made a commitment to include some nontraditional sites. That helps explain why Detroit was the only finalist for the 2006 Super Bowl.

 

"It's hard to put a northern site up against any of the other ones, because it's almost an instant loser," admitted Steeg, now the executive vice president of the San Diego Chargers. "It was a decision by the advisory committee in the 1990s that there almost would be parallel paths in awarding these games. One would be 'We're going to give you a game if you do everything right,' like Detroit and Houston. The other one would be a competitive one."

 

 

Roof on costs

 

So is it likely Cleveland will ever make a legitimate bid for the Super Bowl?

 

For years, visionaries have dreamed big dreams for Cleveland. When the old Cleveland Municipal Stadium opened in 1931, there was talk of hosting an Olympics, although it appears the idea never got past the talking stage. Discussions of an Olympics or a Super Bowl came up again in the 1980s, when forward-thinking citizens such as architect Richard Fleischman proposed building a roof over the old stadium and joining that complex with a new convention center to take advantage of the lakefront.

 

"There was a lot of negotiating, a lot of lobbying, a lot of caucusing behind closed doors," Fleischman said. "I don't think there was ever a stage where people seriously thought about it. I think there was a lot of hope, a lot of fascination, a lot of poetry. . . . We had all kinds of ideas about what kind of activities would make Cleveland a magnet, a destination. . . . We had to be creative. You can't sit there and wait for activities to come to you."

 

A bond issue to use property taxes to fund the dome was soundly defeated, and Vincent Campanella, the Cuyahoga County commissioner who championed the plan, was ousted in the next election.

 

Other communities think differently. Indianapolis is building a new domed stadium in hopes of luring a Super Bowl. For the same reason, Kansas City is looking at the possibility of putting a rolling roof over Arrowhead Stadium. Remodeled Soldier Field barely had opened its new doors when Chicago Mayor Richard Daley proposed building a new stadium for a second NFL team and a shot at the 2016 Olympics.

 

Architect Dennis Wellner is a founding principal of HOK Sport, an international architecture firm that has worked on the Arrowhead project as well as Cleveland Browns Stadium. The rolling roof would not work here, he said.

 

"Since the building was not planned to have a roof, you could certainly put a roof on and enclose the building, but it would be a separate structure outside the stadium," Wellner said, likening it to an old-fashioned plastic cake cover. "That type of thing could be done. It may not be easy. When we worked on the design of that building, it was a very tight site. . . . It's very expensive to retrofit existing buildings with a roof because they're much larger than they need to be."

 

Wellner estimated that kind of project here would cost about $200 million.

 

According to Nance, money was only part of the reason a roof wasn't part of the design of the new stadium.

 

"We came to the conclusion that we were not going to do a domed stadium for three reasons," he said. "It was the incremental cost, which was approximately $100 million to $110 million or $120 million more. The technology on retractables still had a lot of bugs in it. The reason the retractable roof was evaluated was that we were told by Browns fans that they wanted to sit outside. Then we were also told it would add another year to the project . . . that was the end of it."

 

Gilbert refuses to pout over the fact a dome probably is out of the question here, which means the city will never host a Super Bowl or an NCAA Men's Final Four. Instead, he's excited about the 2007 NCAA Women's Final Four, plans for an annual Continental Cup international youth soccer tournament and a possible bid for the 2011 Special Olympics.

 

"A dome would be great, but it's not the be-all and end-all for the two added events it would get you," Gilbert said. "Clearly, the Super Bowl is the biggest domestic event a community can host. There's not even a close second. If a city bills itself as only hosting the Super Bowl every four or five years, that's great, but it's a temporary impact.

 

"We don't lament the fact that we can't host a Super Bowl. We can still be, hands down, one of the top cities in America at hosting events without having the Super Bowl or Final Four. There's such a large universe out there, and you pick your specialties."

 

If Gilbert has his way, after all the kudos Cleveland earns for the spectacular job it does with the NCAA Women's Final Four next spring, sports fans in other parts of the country will be wondering, "Why not us?"

 

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

 

[email protected], 216-999-4668

 

 

To spend $200 million for a dome on top of your stadium for such rare Super Bowl appearances and for such limited NET benefits (after costs of security and city services are taken into account) is clearly not worth it.

 

Time to move on people. Nothing to see here...

Cleveland has F500 companies. The city could ask them to taught Cleveland in their national ads.

I don't think anybody is seriously considering putting a dome on the stadium, KJP. Even if Cleveland did, as we have stated before, it would hardly be enough to get a Super Bowl.  This is more just a hypothetical situation or perhaps our fantasy.  Personally, I think it would be a huge mistake to even consider such a thing in reality.

 

It also shows how we are lagging behind some regions especially when it comes to a major convention center.  The lack of a decent convention center in the city is embarassing.  If Cleveland actually did dome the Browns Stadium (which will not happen), you would still need a much larger convention center to even consider bidding for the game or any other sporting event.  To me, this discussion just accentuates how badly a new center is needed and it gives you a better idea on where Ohio cities stand with quality hotel rooms.  Both are factors in luring businesses and any events to a city, be it sporting or something else. 

i think its silly to bother with something like this, i mean obviously Detroit is using this thing as "the silver bullet to save the city" and we all know too well (especially cleveland!) how those dont ever pan out.  i cant believe theres even talk of spending that much money to dome a friggin stadium when theres much higher priorities this city should be concentrating on. 

 

btw how many hotel rooms are there in downtown detroit......???

I'm commenting more on the PD giving this such high-profile coverage. They must be really hurting for stories of substance. Although, that would mean that more of their reporters would actually have to go out and research some issues rather than wait for news to come to them!

 

As for the convention center, that's another me-too economic development game. If Cleveland wants to offer something more competitive and unique, instead of the latest franchise in a nationwide chain of convention centers, then we need to do something different that caters to our local market. That's why I like the "medical merchandise mart concept." It's a growing field, we have globally competitive medical facilities here, it's high-technology and it's a high-paying sector.

 

It's not sexy or media-frenzied like a Super Bowl, but it would be the Super Bowl of medical technologies/practices, and held here virtually every day of the year -- except perhaps on Sundays!  :wink:

 

And, by the way, we should consider a similar mart, exchange place or idea incubator for alternative fuels and energy technologies. How appropriate would it be to have that in the town where Standard Oil was founded?!? I know, not sexy enough either, like other "cure-all" solutions, such as a casino, sports stadiums or a we-got-one-too convention center. None of these make Cleveland a special place. To me, it's a suburban-like development approach for improving U.S. downtowns. Yeah, the buildings may be bigger and the area more pedestrian-oriented than the suburbs. But just as each suburb has pretty much the same features as another, so are downtown morphing into this cookie-cutter approach for them.

What exactly goes on at a convention center during a Super Bowl?  The only thing I saw on TV besides Ford Field was what looked to be some sort of mall atrium.

The only thing I saw on TV besides Ford Field was what looked to be some sort of mall atrium.

 

I think I saw the same shot you're talking about. If so, that was an above view of the  Compuware Building.

 

As for the convention center, that's another me-too economic development game. If Cleveland wants to offer something more competitive and unique, instead of the latest franchise in a nationwide chain of convention centers, then we need to do something different that caters to our local market. That's why I like the "medical merchandise mart concept." It's a growing field, we have globally competitive medical facilities here, it's high-technology and it's a high-paying sector.

 

I'm sorry, but I do not agree with that.

 

My mother is a member of AADE (American Association of Diabetes Educators). While this may seem like a small, specialized organization, its bredth is monstrous. Why? Because all the companies that make products associated with Diabetes prevention, monitoring, and assistance, come to their annual meetings to have their products tested and recommended. Why haven't they had a convention in Cleveland, a hub of medical research? The convention facilities ARE NOT THERE. This is just a fraction of the medical fields out there. They all host conventions and get togethers. How does Cleveland hope to be in the forefront of the national medical field when they can't even house one group for a summit?! Now I'm sure there are pleanty of medical organizations that have met in Cleveland multiple times, but not to the same degree that Cleveland COULD be experiencing if the proper facilities were available.

 

The Medical Merchandise Mart concept isn't an either/or with the Convention Center.  It was proposed to be an addition to the Convention Center concept.

What exactly goes on at a convention center during a Super Bowl?  The only thing I saw on TV besides Ford Field was what looked to be some sort of mall atrium.

 

the NFL Experience bullcrap, which needs quite a few hundred thousand square feet.

I think we're getting into semantics here. My point is that the medical mart would be a specialized "convention center." For two thousand years, cities have been a setting for trading products, materials and ideas. And often those cities traded in things that we're unique to their areas (Istanbul-silks/spices, Rome-wine, Boston-lobster/crabs, New York City-natural resource commodities, Chicago-livestock/crops, Los Angeles-entertainment, etc.). Simply building a convention center is not enough. It has to be different, and the medical aspect (and I submit, the alternative energy aspect too) is a specialization that will meet our specific marketplace. Just having a really cool place to meet isn't going to cut it, not when every other city has one.

 

But this should be discussed further at....

http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php?topic=6639.msg66315#msg66315