i'm going to name my first born son Frantz Pastorious Scavnicky.

He'll hate you forever, reinforced every time he has to sign checks.

Cuyahoga's Medical Mart tax bucks national trend

 

Posted by Sarah Hollander and Joan Mazzolini September 16, 2007 15:00PM

Categories: Breaking News

 

When Cleveland's new convention center opens, it will be thanks to everything from shoelaces to refrigerators and new cars. Beginning Oct. 1 and continuing for the next 20 years, anyone buying almost anything in Cuyahoga County will contribute to the cause.

 

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2007/09/cuyahogas_medical_mart_tax_buc.html

 

 

From WKYC.Com

 

Search for potential Medical Mart locations

 

Created: 9/19/2007 3:57:49 PM

Updated:9/19/2007 4:09:26 PM

 

CLEVELAND - In the search for a possible Medical Mart location, Cuyahoga County Commissioners are now looking at East 9th Street and Prospect.

The site may replace the plan for the county headquarters building.

 

Sources also tell Channel 3 News that the Ameritrust Tower is also in the running along with the old Higbee's building and the present Convention Center.

 

Some people are wondering if there is enough room for a Medical Mart and Convention Center.

 

More at wkyc.com

WTF

^ I couldn't have said it any better.

This is very interesting.  Do you suppose they might want the site or the building as it stands?

And, what does this say about the commissioners' planning for the admin bldg?

Obviously physically and financially impossible.  Why report such nonsense?

The site may replace the plan for the county headquarters building.

Man oh man.. ODD..

maybe the commissioners are just f*cking with the Forest City.  Just like when they selected Ameritrust over Higbees for the County HQ, and then Sam Miller pulled the Tower City Convention Center plan in protest.

Boy would I love to learn the backstory behind this!

Ugh %@!!  ... another Cleveland circus?  I sure hope not.  Just stick w/ Tower City and build the damn thing.  Can't anything get done in this town w/o the histrionics?... geez...

Ugh %@!!  ... another Cleveland circus?  I sure hope not.  Just stick w/ Tower City and build the damn thing.  Can't anything get done in this town w/o the histrionics?... geez...

 

      Stop with the Tower city stuff. Use the money to expand the old  CC and build an subway down detroit.

^consider it done.

""It,s one of the sites we think ought to be considered," said Commissioner Tim Hagan."

 

Suuuure... let's consider it! How about we take the footprint of a comparable facility... say Pittsburgh's convention center and see how it might fit at that site:

 

What the heck - for sh!ts and giggles, how about the Columbus convention center?

 

Commissioner Hagan, as a taxpayer (aka someone who pays your salary), I respectfully ask that you remove your head from your arse when you contemplate site selection. Thank you! :-)

^ooh, now put the merchandise mart on there.

...and a new hotel!

Plus parking, too.

That can all go on the Erie Street Cemetery! :-P

Yeah and they can tear down a bunch more of those "old" buildings.

too funny mayday.

 

say i got an idea for ya timmy, hows about just keep the damn thing buried underground right where it already is and quit fiddling around?

Perhaps he's proposing such an absurd site so we eventually say "well, I guess the Tower City site ain't so bad"?

i think you may be right. in that case, pretty cagey of him!

 

Or perhaps it's a way to signal to Forest City, "Yours is the only site we're seriously considering ... don't sweat it", while also having being able to say two years from now, "Hey, look back at the newspaper ... I advocated Prospect and E. 9th".

 

Hypothetically, if the Commissioners were to choose to forego the new County Administration Center, would they need to seek reapproval for a new site plan before demolishing Breuer? Or does the permit to demolish stand regardless of use (e.g. clearing the site to make the parcel more palatable for private development)?

From the Med Mart blog - looks like it will be finalized by December:

 

 

 

To me, the most exciting aspect is they are accepting proposals an qualifications for CM this month. 

Sales tax for convention center begins today

Posted by Sarah Hollander October 01, 2007 12:14PM

Categories: Breaking News

 

You might have noticed things cost a little more today in Cuyahoga County.

 

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2007/10/sales_tax_for_convention_cente.html

 

 

Hurray!!

You might have noticed things cost a little more today in Cuyahoga County.

 

And then again, most people probably didn't. But since Sarah didn't have better way to start her article, she chose to begin it like that.

My favorite $7.99 lunch cost me $8.61 today after tax instead of the usual $8.59.

 

Big dent in the wallet.

Thank you for your contribution.

^filament of a light bulb

Cuyahoga County seeks attorney Fred Nance to lure Medical Mart

Friday, October 05, 2007

Joe Guillen and Sarah Hollander

Plain Dealer Reporters

 

High-powered attorney Fred Nance, who had been tapped by a business group to help bring a new convention center and Medical Mart to Cleveland, could also be working for taxpayers.

 

Cuyahoga County is in negotiations to hire Nance and his firm, Squire Sanders & Dempsey, in its effort to open the facilities with a significant private investment, officials said.

 

Nance's fee -- higher than the $200 hourly rate the county typically gives outside legal counsel -- would be paid using money that was set aside for the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Convention Facilities Authority, a defunct group the county commissioners officially dissolved at their meeting Thursday...

 

 

more at: http://www.cleveland.com

It's a little strange to me that the GCP is choosing who serves on these committees and that these committees are then making recommendations regarding where the facilities would be located and how. It seems like GCP would have some conflicts of interest given their membership base and their real estate work. More importantly, I believe the Facilities Authority would be required to abide by sunshine laws, while groups like the GCP, unless formally empowered by the commissioners, wouldn't. I could be wrong here, but that seems like an attempt to keep the decision-making process out of the public eye.

Which is, arguably, a good thing. Less distractions - more productivity.

 

I don't know if I'd call public input into a project built with half a billion dollars of public money a distraction.  Doing a planning study to find the best site, and then completely ignoring it and going and doing a new site search, that is a hell of a distraction in my eyes, though.  There was a fair amount of public input the first time.  This time?

Exactly. How many times does the process have to be repeated?

I'm not saying ignore the studies already complete. I just sick of hearing that we need a new one.

All of the sites have been selected. There are market studies done.

Let's move on this already (although, I would not be surprised to find out this has already been done).

 

Shocker! :roll: :roll:

 

 

Public officials want Medical Mart site to be downtown

 

Chicago-based developer considering University Circle, too

Friday, October 26, 2007

Joe Guillen and Henry J. Gomez

Plain Dealer Reporters

 

Officials working to bring a Medical Mart to Cleveland are focused exclusively on downtown sites for the project, which includes a new convention center.

 

But an executive with the Chicago company involved in the deal said he has not ruled out locations beyond the city's central business district - including University Circle.

 

"We understand they like a downtown location," said Mark Falanga, senior vice president of Merchandise Mart Properties Inc. "Cleveland will benefit from this center just the same whether it's located [in] downtown Cleveland or if it's on the outskirts."...

 

 

more at:  http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1193387710264590.xml&coll=2&thispage=1

So when does the site committee supposed to select a site?    Is it sometime in December?

Initially I felt the MM and CV should go downtown but now as i really think about it, Midtown  between Cleveland State and Cleve Clinic would not be a bad idea. It would connect Euclid from Case to Downtown.  The street will now become homegenious in activity and vibrancy.  The commissioners are adamant about the CV and MM being dowtown but are they really educated to know what truly is the best location for the city?  I am not saying downtown is not the best location but leaving the decision to Dimora and Hagan just doesnt make me feel right.  Just a thought outside the box?

i understand your fears about Dimora and Hagan, but it would be a huge mistake if we put this in Midtown. We would have yet another island of development whose growth is stunted because it is disconnected from the rest of town.

^I agree.  The MMM should ABSOLUTELY be downtown.  The downtown office complex desperately needs the spin-off synergy of this project.  Like so many other projects in this town, like the now-in-limbo, time/money wasting County Admin project, it is very distressing to hear this unfocused site-selection talk. We know how, in this town, the too-many-chefs-spoil-the-stew mentality that destroys so many promising projects as MMM.  Fact is, the initial talk was Tower City.  I feel there is far more upside there than any other location.  At worst, I'd reluctantly settle for the CC site.  But talk of anywhere else, esp outside downtown, spells trouble with the Capital T.  We really need to hawk our 'leaders' like DiMora and Hagan who may, in time, feel the need to sell out to the out-of-town interests and put the thing in Midtown, amidst sprawl and decay.  These folks don't care about Cleveland other than to turn a buck.  It's up to Cleveland to stand up and advocate which location is mutually in OUR best interests...

 

... and that location is NOT in Midtown close to the Clinic.

I still wonder how much of this site selection is just "talk" to make Cuyahoga county residents think that they (Commissioners) didn't just give the development to Forest City, whether they really did or didn't.

I've said it once, I'll say it again:  More "sites" = More leverage for the MM people

Although it does at first seem plausible to put the MM near the Clinic, it is definitely a bad idea to isolate it from the rest of the activity of downtown. The MM and CC along with it would add so much to downtown. I hope, though, that since it is a MEDICAL Mart, that its distance from the Clinic and University Circle won't quash the project in some way or make it seem less attractive.

Anywho, is there a site along Euclid that would have a synergy with existing or planned developments? 

^668 Euclid - Atrium Building

I've said it once, I'll say it again:  More "sites" = More leverage for the MM people

 

Leverage for what?  This was pitched as a win-win proposition for MM and Cleveland, not a win for MM and screw Cleveland, which is what isolating this project in the Midtown no-man's land would be.  Look, we already have a multi-billion dollar operation in Midtown... it's called the Cleveland Clinic.  The idea of MM was to boost our downtown convention business while opening a medial merchandise house, featuring prime downtown convention space, hotels and all the big-city spin-offs in the same city as to tap into the strength of our world-famous research hospitals...

 

... One of the problems I see again and again with big Cleveland projects is we often lose focus on the bottom line.  Can we, for once, do what was proposed to be done to boost our city and not waste time, money and patience catering to one man's or group's personal agenda at the expense of the best interests of the city? 

 

Dual-hub.  The Inner Belt rebuilding. The new County Administration building project (total mess) ... Won't we ever learn?  Isn't a definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result?

Long life likely for I-X Center

Former owner seeks to renew lease after runway plan stalls

By JAY MILLER

4:30 am, October 29, 2007

 

It doesn’t look like the International Exposition Center will be disappearing after all — and it just might end up back in the hands of the man who formerly owned it.

 

Raymond Park, whose Park Corp. leases the I-X Center, said he has begun negotiations with the city of Cleveland, which owns the colossal exhibition hall near Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, to extend Park’s lease beyond its 2014 expiration date.

 

More at crainscleveland.com http://www.crainscleveland.com