Here are the documents MMPI and Forest City fired at each other this week about where to build the Medical Mart. Anyone looking for a candid final debate about the pros and cons of the two sites will find it here.
MMPI to the county -- recommending the Mall site
MMPI to Forest City -- rejecting the Tower City site
MMPI's response to PD editorial about the Mall site (click here for the editorial)
Forest City response to MMPI
Forest City consultants' response to MMPI
Lots to read, but I'll paraphrase.
MMPI: The Mall has plenty of room. It's cheaper. The low ceiling under Lakeside won't be all that bad. We'll have a huge "glass curtain" window looking out on the lake! There's plenty of parking close by. We can use tunnels to connect to hotels. 270,000 square feet is enough exhibit space. We'll have higher ceilings and way fewer columns than the current center. We'll only elevate the Mall plazas a little. We'll restore Public Hall, not degrade it. We can book trade shows there within 13 months.
Tower City's site is too narrow. A convention center there would be weirdly tall and thin. We think contractors will run from it screaming. Moving the riverbank could scuttle it all. Your ceilings would be too short. Your view of the river and Flats is ugly. Your exhibit space will be smaller than you think -- you forgot to make room for behind the scenes stuff. Your meeting rooms are lame. Your truck dock is sloped and won't work. Yeah, our site's underground, but yours would be under Huron Avenue! We don't believe your suddenly slashed cost estimates. Cost overruns could be huge. Your site costs too much.
Forest City: Our site is cheaper! We have a contractor who loves it. It's more marketable. Our architects know convention centers and are smarter than you think. Other cities have tall convention centers too. We're just going to move the river's bulkhead -- we can get permission for that in a month. We'll have windows on every floor. Our ballroom is better. Our meeting rooms are fine (or we can change them around).
Why are you rebuilding such a lame, failed old center? You didn't count all the costs at the Mall. None of your parking is on your site. Your meeting rooms are even lamer.
Showing posts with label downtown Mall. Show all posts
Showing posts with label downtown Mall. Show all posts
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
County chooses downtown mall as Medical Mart, convention center site
This is a surprise! The county commissioners have decided to build the Medical Mart and convention center on the downtown mall, not at Tower City.
MMPI, the developer, says it's figured out a way to build the project on the site of the current convention center for $108 million less than on Forest City's property on the river.
This'll stun everyone who thinks Sam Miller of Forest City controls Cleveland politics. But it's happening for a simple reason: Sam Miller does not control MMPI, and MMPI had an incentive to save money.
This summer, I was worried that the project would go to Tower City simply because Forest City was (naturally) lobbying for its proposal, while the mall site, which was publicly owned, didn't have an advocate. So when the Greater Cleveland Partnership's site committee declared that building the project at Tower City would save $60 million, who was going to argue?
But the county commissioners put a really important clause in their agreement with MMPI: the developer is responsible for all cost overruns. They did that because they knew critics would try to attack the convention center as "another Gateway." Lots of people opposed to big public downtown projects still point to the flaws in the 1991 Gateway deal, which left the public paying for lots of unexpected debt and expenses.
So MMPI threw out the Partnership's recommendation and started over. (See my earlier post about a Plain Dealer story that explained this, but not clearly.) The Chicago-based developer came up with a cheaper way to build the convention center: by using the existing center's foundation.
Yesterday's talks were held in private, a lot of details about the project haven't come out yet, and the county's deal with MMPI is still not finalized. Still, the debate about where to put a convention center has gone on for more than ten years. So this is really big news.
MMPI, the developer, says it's figured out a way to build the project on the site of the current convention center for $108 million less than on Forest City's property on the river.
This'll stun everyone who thinks Sam Miller of Forest City controls Cleveland politics. But it's happening for a simple reason: Sam Miller does not control MMPI, and MMPI had an incentive to save money.
This summer, I was worried that the project would go to Tower City simply because Forest City was (naturally) lobbying for its proposal, while the mall site, which was publicly owned, didn't have an advocate. So when the Greater Cleveland Partnership's site committee declared that building the project at Tower City would save $60 million, who was going to argue?
But the county commissioners put a really important clause in their agreement with MMPI: the developer is responsible for all cost overruns. They did that because they knew critics would try to attack the convention center as "another Gateway." Lots of people opposed to big public downtown projects still point to the flaws in the 1991 Gateway deal, which left the public paying for lots of unexpected debt and expenses.
So MMPI threw out the Partnership's recommendation and started over. (See my earlier post about a Plain Dealer story that explained this, but not clearly.) The Chicago-based developer came up with a cheaper way to build the convention center: by using the existing center's foundation.
Yesterday's talks were held in private, a lot of details about the project haven't come out yet, and the county's deal with MMPI is still not finalized. Still, the debate about where to put a convention center has gone on for more than ten years. So this is really big news.
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