The Observation Deck

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2008/08 ... pport.html

Forest City wants $40 million for the land needed for the convention center. The Plain Dealer calls it getting a fair deal. I call it highway robbery.

I am confident that County officials will huff and puff and then hand over the money. I mean, these are the people who overpaid for AmeriTrust Tower to rescue the Jacobs Group and the same people who overpaid for Forest City owned land to build a new jail facility.

Our County officials complain that they don't have the money to provide basic services. These same County officials have no trouble finding $40 million here or $50 million there to bail out their campaign contributors.

Am I the only one tired of this charade?

Bill Call wrote:http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2008/08/forest_city_officials_support.html

Forest City wants $40 million for the land needed for the convention center. The Plain Dealer calls it getting a fair deal. I call it highway robbery.

I am confident that County officials will huff and puff and then hand over the money. I mean, these are the people who overpaid for AmeriTrust Tower to rescue the Jacobs Group and the same people who overpaid for Forest City owned land to build a new jail facility.

Our County officials complain that they don't have the money to provide basic services. These same County officials have no trouble finding $40 million here or $50 million there to bail out their campaign contributors.

Am I the only one tired of this charade?

Bill

Outside of this little fire being in the wrong container. What you fail to realize is this is the final piece of the puzzle for Cleveland to shine again.

A convention center in the most dying city in America. Now with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Great Lakes Science Center, Browns Stadium, Gund Arena, Jacobs Field, Medical Mart we are finally set for the comeback.

Whew, thought it would never happen.

Or as Dorthy Fuldheim once said, "Can someone please tell me why we need drunk Shriners in town every weekend?"

FWIW


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I just did some quick research (I called all of them) and found that we only have 3,247 total hotel rooms currently in downtown Cleveland. This includes 1 star up to Ritz presidential suite. We also have an additional 875 around the Cleveland Clinic.

This is only a total of 4,122. Even if we max occupy each room this is only enough space for 16,488 people.

There is no way any organizers of large events will pick Cleveland without the space to house everyone.

How many more hotels are going to be built so we can have someplace for all these new visitors to stay?

Ryan Salo wrote:There is no way any organizers of large events will pick Cleveland without the space to house everyone.

How many more hotels are going to be built so we can have someplace for all these new visitors to stay?

Well there is the 40 story hotel on Sloane going up. Oh yeah some local group killed that.

I guess that will be phase two, maybe we could use some tax money for that. Surely that will be all Cleveland needs to compete with Vegas, New York, LA, Seattle, etc.


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Just a side observation, since a mention of Shriners came up.

While behavior by some participants at conventions can always be an issue, I just want to put in a good word for the Shriners here.

Shriners continue to provide millions of dollars towards helping thousands of kids with their 22 hospitals in helping children by providing special kinds of pediatric care, teaching, and research.

Children having burns, orthopedic conditions, cleft lip and palate, and spinal cord injuries, are eligible to apply to those facilities, and receive care without charge, and regardless of their financial situation. They are even transported without charge to those hospitals (Our nearest Shriner's facilities are in Cincinatti and Erie)

Shriners comprise some of the finest and most caring people I know.

if the convention attendees can't find a hotel room then we could just label them as homeless and let them stay at the shelter at the former Aviation High School.

Oh wait, they closed that down.

So the flats is mostly empty, the shoreway mostly underutilized and we need to pay HOW MUCH to try to wedge a convention center into the small gap behind Tower City?

But I guess it is absolutely necessary. I mean, how often do you read about all those conventions that end up being cancelled because they can't find an available convention center to hold it in.

I get sick and tired of hearing "well our first choice was Cleveland, but they just didn't have the space, so we moved the event to Las Vegas."

Bret Callentine wrote:if the convention attendees can't find a hotel room then we could just label them as homeless and let them stay at the shelter at the former Aviation High School.

Oh wait, they closed that down.

Another classic case of Cleveland chasing dreams, and coming up short. What is very sad about Aviation High, is that they had the perfect thing to put there, make money, build the area attract new jobs, and make a name for themselves. But it was not aviation, it was auto racing.

But the city rather close it down, cancel the race, and not let the group of investors from Chardon put up what they have now turned into a million doallar a year business elsewhere, training race mechanics.

Cleveland cannot buy a clue, and we should attach ourselves to this anchor?

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Ryan –

The immediate downtown Cleveland area has 3,898 hotel rooms. However the greater Cleveland area has 13,507 (Independence, Airport Hilton, Cleveland Clinic InterContinental Hotel, University Circle area, etc.).

http://www.positivelycleveland.com/down ... /DPG-4.pdf

I'd like them to build it on Chester Avenue. Then when tourists ask me where the convention center is i can say, "It's on Chester!".

I research the old convention center on the way to work every morning. A few years ago the criticism of it was it had too few bathrooms and the entrance to the parking garage wasn't high enough. People must have gone to the bathroom less and made deliveries to parking garages in shorter vehicles when the real Convention Center was built. we'd better spend half a billion dollars replacing it. I like the building though. It's near the mall, has strong masonry, a good view of the lake, and also adjacent to the Cleveland Public Library Main branch, which is a fine building.

The medical mart project represents more than a new convention center though. Cleveland isn't competitive politically on a national level. We don't have the environment to produce the kind of lobbyists, bureaucrats, and politicians that can make bigger deals. guys like Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff, karl rove. Guys like Trafficant and Dimora are guilty of taking up valuable seats on the money train and not operating on a higher level of graft and kickbacks and foolery and dishonesty.

Conventions that draw 1000-5000 people can be very lucrative for cities, and put bodies into hotel rooms and restaurants and clubs and bring great exposure to the city to people all across the country. As I've said here before, Cleveland can still be a solid second tier city ... but it needs a meeting place for the medium sized conventions.

Is this a cure for what ails us? Nope. But right now we essentially have no convention center. What we have is the equivalent of a glorified parking garage that can't even compete with Peoria, let alone cities of comparable size. No one should buy in that this is a fix, but I think would be a nice asset. Certainly worthy of a smarter discussion than the typical Cleveland sarcasm and negativity on display here.

PS> My comments about the current Convention Center do not include Public Hall, an architectural gem which must be preserved.

Paul Schrimpf wrote:Is this a cure for what ails us?

400 million dollars spent on Education would be a nice start.

http://www.city.cleveland.oh.us/governm ... /index.asp

With 21 meeting rooms accommodating groups from 10 to 10,000- including a grand ballroom that can accommodate 4,000 guests (1600 for a formal dinner), this venue is popular for fundraisers, conventions, conferences, weddings, and exhibitions.

The Convention Center Complex offers over 375,000 square feet of usable exhibition space which can be arranged to accommodate over 1,500 individual exhibits. The performing arts area of the Convention Center was constructed in the grand opera tradition and features a spacious 21,780 square foot registration lobby, a 10,000 seat auditorium, the 3,000 seat Cleveland Music Hall and 600 seat Little Theater. The facility maintains 300 indoor Convention Center parking spaces. Additional parking is within a short walking distance and the facility is well-served by public transportation.

Maybe if the proponents of the medical mart had spent as much time trying to attract venues to the existing convention center.....

The new medical mart is expected to cost 536 million dollars. usually the cost goes up the more that is already invested or completed. Will this medical mart compete with all the other new convention centers and medical marts? How many more medical conventions will there be? The cost of having new medical conventions ultimately comes from the cost of healthcare. historically, Professional seminars and conventions are a combination of a vacation and a business expense tax write off.

How much does it cost to host a convention? Does the organization pay a fee to rent the convention center space? Suppose it only costs 1 million dollars to rent a convention center for a week. Cleveland could have sponsored 1 major convention a month at the existing convention center for only 12 million dollars a year. 536 million dollars would be enough to keep the existing Convention Center busy for over 45 years.

Or the 1 million dollars could be spent on bribes. it takes a lot of money to legitimize bribes. you have to form a committee, the committee has to hire a consulting firm to seek renters for the convention center. that firm then has to deal with the consulting firm hired by professional organizations to find convention centers to convene at. Each firm has a lot of people who collect salaries.

There are complaints the existing convention center doesn't have enough windows. there are plenty of wide nearly empty buildings in Cleveland that have lots of Windows.

http://www.hines.com/property/detail.aspx?id=1809

The Huntington building is very wide. it has a lot of space, and many windows. It is along the new Euclid Corridor. There may even be room to build a giant auditorium on top.

Paul, I agree that a convention center is a good thing to have, when it's the right size for the market. However, my questions begin when I see the same names come up in the contracts for location. It seems like the county can't do anything on land not owned by a few select business men. If you put the convention center behind Tower City, then what happens to the already struggling Public Hall/convention space? It is essentially dead. I'd rather see the money go into the construction project itself and not just the acquisition of land.