I love Cleveland. When you live here, you never get bored reading about our *ahem* city leaders. For those not in the area, Cleveland has been talking about building a medical mart for a couple of years. I think every resident is still somewhat fuzzy on what a medical mart is but it seems to be a convention center type place that specializes in hosting shows focusing on sales of technology and equipment for the medical community. This is supposed to be the latest way to bring money into Cleveland.
Last year, the city enacted an additional sales tax to help pay for this thing. So far they've collected about $42 million and thus far, nothing of consequence has been done. Some lawyers and consultants have made six-figure salaries, but that's about it. The main thing they were trying to decide is a location. It was between Tower City, the complex of shopping, hotel, and rapid transit station under the Terminal Tower, and the old Cleveland Convention Center, and underused and abysmal building.
In the Plain Dealer a few days ago, they had an article about site selection. One person they cited was a guy who has been in the convention business his whole career. The Plain Dealer basically said this guy has forgotten more about the convention business than most people involved in the project know. He was quoted as saying that the old convention center is an absolutely horrible building in a horrible location and that building the new medical mart there would be an absolute disaster.
Can you guess which site our "leaders" picked? I'll bet you can. They picked the disaster site. Yes, projections indicate this may cost $100 million less than building at Tower City but what's the long term cost? The project will still cost $400 million (plus you know there will be cost overruns). If the mart ends up being a disaster and no one comes or it's hardly used, we will have wasted $400 million to save $100 million.
Granted, I wasn't part of the discussion. I haven't been in any of the meetings. Maybe these people know something I don't. But what I can say is that I have no faith in Cleveland leadership to get anything right. They screwed up the Euclid Corridor Project. They haven't managed to do anything to re-vitalize the city and if there's a wrong decision to make here, I'm sure they'll make it.
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3 comments:
Despite the record of "success" you aptly describe, I still managed to be stunned by the decision. NOW we're being told it has something to do with the foundation, or "bathtub" that underlies the exhibition halls under Mall C. WHATever. What I think is that Cuyahoga County taxpayers are going to end up taking a bath on this. Now, if PLJ can move this in a direction to grab some stimulus $$ and get the project LEED Certified, I'll reserve judgement until it's finished.
I used to defend Cleveland but basically I now think it simply blows.
Oh I don't defend Cleveland. For all it has to offer, the people are just so unbelievably cranky. And nothing ever gets done without a truckload of whitepapers first, if ever. And, as soon as one group gets a good idea, another twelve dozen groups get the same idea and call it roughly the same thing but just different enough so that they can all go after the same funding to do a study on their good idea. Then they all fold before the good idea actually can be turned into anything. Then eight to twelve years down the road, it starts all over again. Honest to God, it's like a frickin' Harry Chapin song.
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