The Observation Deck

U-Store It is a billion dollar company that owns storage facilities and office properties across the United States. Their headquarters are now in Middleburg Heights.

Since the two individuals hired to run this company refused to move to Cleveland look for the rest of the 700 or so headquarters jobs to move out of town.

Penton Media is a publishing company headquartered in downtown Cleveland. It has just been sold to an out of State company. Look for all of these jobs to be lost.

How can this be? Don't they know Cleveland is the home of the Rock-N-Roll Hall of Fame? Don't they know we have a really nice art museum?

The underlying assumption behind issue 18 is the belief that business decision makers locate their businesses in areas that have really neat museums. Shouldn't someone tell these people we have really neat museums?

Maybe if we gave them free tickets.....

The Art museum is free, so they wouldn't need tickets to it.

For all the spending on sports stadium the city does, including huge tax breaks, and the subsequent lack of any economic impact that I can see, I don't begrudge a relatively small amount of spending on the arts.

Jerry Ritcey wrote:For all the spending on sports stadium the city does, including huge tax breaks, and the subsequent lack of any economic impact that I can see, I don't begrudge a relatively small amount of spending on the arts.

I guess I agree, in part.

If I knew what they were going to spend the money on I might have voted for issue 18. The quarter of a billion dollars raised by this issue will simply evaporate. New zoo exhibits? New roof? A lot of raises? A lot of politically connected people with new jobs in the arts? Secret deals for the "arts council" to do this in exchange for that? No ones talking.

The only thing we can be sure of is that any over site will be a joke. The news media in this town will ignore misspending because they know if people find out how the money is being spent they won't give more.

As for the sports stadium subsidies: I'd rather flush money down a toilet. The teams can afford to spend 5 million dollars a year on mediocre talent because the don't have to fund their own infrastructure.

If you had the 2 billion dollars the County will spend on subsidizing athlete salaries how would you spend it?

so why did Penton and U Store It really leave?

I don't know all the answers but I believe UStoreIt had some corporate governance issues with CFO pay, etc. while Penton Media was delisted off the stock exchange years ago. It's a shame--if the new cigarette tax funding the arts started earlier, perhaps they could have been saved.

Doug

so no relation between the loss of two companies and issue 18?

Shawn Juris wrote:so why did Penton and U Store It really leave?

The two new executives for U-Store It did not want to move to Cleveland.

I have been told by some executives that they have a hard time getting people to transfer to Cleveland. The reason most often given is that there are limited job opportunities in this area. I guess they are always thinking of their next move.

I don't know much about Penton Media except that it was struggling.

This is the type of environment that feeds on itself. Fewer major companies mean fewer opportunities which leads people to leave town which leads companies to relocate because of a lack of talent.

Could the quarter of a billion dollars spent on subsidizing the "arts" (whatever that is) be better spent on something else?

If you were considering a transfer to a different city where on your list of concerns would you place the number of museums?

..

You can't really look at this in a vacuum. Without question, the arts (and not just museums, Bill), are a significant part of the quality of life equation, along with pro-sports, restaurants, etc. And I'll admit, that when Honda decided to build in Marysville, there was little concern over the lack of a theatre district. But, when you talk about liveability of any community the issues that always arise, beyond a job, are things like schools and recreational activities. If you're touting greater Cleveland the thing number one on the list is the Orchestra. And make no mistake abot how powerful the Symphony is as an ambassador for the city.

Likewise, when Cleveland was tagged as one of the top five undiscovered tourist destinations, it was the Rock hall, various museums that were the reason. I would love to see numbers on the impact that Playhouse square, Severance, the museums, Playhouse, etc. have on the overall economy....from actual employment, to related revenue streams, dining, hotels, etc. It would seem short sighted to allow those actractions to wither on the hopes that the supporting revenues could be used in the hopes of job creation only to attempt to later revitalize that which we already have. It's an asset and one which, in conjunction with other measures can be used to leverage development and rebirth.

Jeff

Was the underlying assumption that by funding the arts (specifically with a cigarette tax) we would attract more businesses? I must have missed that in the lead up to election day. While there may be some correlation between an atmosphere of "culture" and the likelihood of a business' relocation, I agree that there are factors that are more important. Did anyone vote for issue 18 with the belief that they were voting for something that would bring large employers to Cleveland, (employers unrelated to the actual arts industry)?

Actually Shawn, one of the reasons I voted for this was employment related....The orchestra is a huge employer, and these are NOT Walmart jobs. And the tie ins with CIM increase the financial impact.

Jeff

Right Jeff. The post started off with an assumption of job growth. There's a blast zone, if you will, when you consider the job impact of this issue. The most directly effected (if I understand this correctly) are the symphony and actual "arts" jobs, next level would be those that benefit from the arts districts such as restaraunts surrounding these locations or their vendors/contractors, the least related are employers such as Penton Media or U Store It. They may base their decision to relocate or stay on cultural atmosphere but I don't think that issue ever suggested or promised that we would see that happen because issue 18 passed. I'm questioning the very premise of this thread that there was ever really a link between keeping or attracting jobs and issue 18. The benefit can't reasonably be expected to go beyond the recipients of the funding. The connection just gets too cloudy to attribute a benefit or place blame.

Penton hasn't left Cleveland. It was just purchased by a guy in NYC.

I can clearly say that the move of U-Store-It's main operations from Middleburg Heights is strictly based on two new executives unwillingness to move to Cleveland from the PA and MD areas. I can understand the dislike of uprooting family from their current location, however, how fair is it to uproot hundreds of other people and their jobs just to justify two people?

Here's an article on the topic:

http://www.cleveland.com/weblogs/busine ... tml#200833

Jamie Carracher wrote:Penton hasn't left Cleveland. It was just purchased by a guy in NYC.

You are correct.

My assumption is that the redundant administrative, sales and creative jobs will be ellimiated and that the remaining jobs will be moved to New York.

U-Store it and the Amsdell Companies had big plans for Cleveland. Over the last two years their focus changed. They saw greater opportunity elsewhere.

Issue 18 was sold as a job creator. One of the ads featured a business owner who moved to Cleveland just because of the arts.

Whatever happened to the 80,000 jobs for downtown created by the Gateway Project?

I guess I don't get it. The arts are so vital, so important, so successful job creation machines that just can't make it without a taxpayer subsidy.

Perhaps the First Violinist should have a wage and benefit package of $100,000 per year instead of $150,000 per year.