By JAY MILLER, courtesy of Crain’s Cleveland Business
Cleveland's dreams for downtown may be coming true.
Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald and Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson this morning are unveiling a multifaceted, $350 million development package that would create a convention center hotel and would pay for long-planned improvements to a swath of downtown that stretches from Public Square north to the lakefront.
The plan is the result of a meeting of the minds between the two government leaders and a rising economy.
Because of a rise in county sales tax receipts, Mr. FitzGerald said all the plans can be done without any new taxes. The city and the county will use expected increases in bed and casino taxes for some bond financing. The mayor and county executive also anticipate securing at least $30 million from the private and philanthropic sectors.
“This (initiative) is going to point the direction for the next decade,” Mr. FitzGerald said in a meeting with Crain's editors and reporters yesterday, June 4. “This is the kind of stuff that stimulates private development.”
The bulk of the money, $260 million, will be spent on a new, 650-room hotel on the site of the current county administration building. It would be attached to the convention center and the Global Center for Health Innovation. A 350-space underground garage will help ameliorate expected parking problems at the convention center, which has no parking.
Nearly $100 million will go towards solving a major hurdle standing in the way of rejuvenating downtown Cleveland. The most important chunk of that money, about $50 million, will go toward building a bridge from the Mall to the lakefront museums east of Cleveland Browns Stadium.
The city of Cleveland on Monday submitted a federal grant application seeking $17 million for the bridge and a parking garage that would be built alongside the existing Amtrak station just south of the Shoreway.
The hotel is targeted for a spring 2016 opening because Mr. FitzGerald wants to be able to bid for one of the presidential nominating conventions that summer.
