Elizabeth Baptist Church - Kinsman Neighborhood Community Meeting

Here's where you can learn about the proposed $375+ million project. Get it while you can - your say that is. $375 million tax dollars at work. Not yet. This is a new way to get from E55th and I490 terminus at 35mph to University Circle. Is it not possible to travel any number of routes at that speed to arrive in the same place without spending $375 million? What is the real "opportunity cost" of this project?

Remember there are two goals here: 1 - mobility 2 - economic development

Attend the meeting to better understand how each goal will be achieved. Or don't go and just plan to "get out your wallet".

more info - visit ODOT Urban Core Projects

Here are the slides they're gonna show you. Opens as pdf of a powerpoint presentation, of course. More info 2005 meeting notes with the history attached. More stuff - September 22, 2009 Steering Committee Meetings notes. The Greater Cleveland Partnership also has its own Opportunity Corridor push machine in something called BUGC (Build Up Greater Cleveland - sounds like a cheerleader squad, but it's not). They appointed the "steering committee". "Joe Roman, president and CEO of the GCP, also today announced the creation of an Opportunity Corridor Steering Committee that will be chaired by GCP board members Terry Egger, Plain Dealer publisher, and Jamie Ireland, managing director of Early Stage Partners." You should wonder about the Plain Dealer being on board. How can they be true journalists if they are "all for it"? Would we ever see anything but cheering for it in the PD? Can that be "fair and balanced"? And though Jamie Ireland is listed as managing partner of Early Stage Partners, he is also President of the Musical Arts Association (parent org of the Cleveland Orchestra)... wonder why he might be involved? Need more folks in the seats at Severance? Some westsiders? Surely we don't think the folks from the neighborhood are gonna turn up at a concert at Severance, except maybe once a year. Severance hall is just blocks from the terminus (for now) of the planned Opportunity. But he is also a quieter local developer - Jamie is his nickname "James D. Ireland III, Chairman and Managing Director of Early Stage Partners; president of The Elizabeth Ring Mather and William Gwinn Mather Fund; and trustee of many nonprofit organizations. (including the MAA of course, treasurer of the "collaborative" Generation Foundation) His name turned up in the yahoo news yesterday. I include all this just so you know who you might get a chance to meet at this meeting. Big money.

Opportunity Corridor, an estimated $350 (that was 4/2009 now 1/2010 it is $375) million investment, represents one of the largest public projects ever undertaken in the core city. The dual purpose transportation/economic development project extends I-490 at E.55th Street east to East 105th Street, the gateway to the Fairfax neighborhood and University Circle.

"Gov. Ted Strickland recently awarded $20 million in federal stimulus money to the project and Cleveland Mayor Frank  Jackson has pledged the city's support to maximize the project's catalytic economic potential." April 23, 2009

August 27, 2009 - The Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) today received authority to invest up to $10 million in additional state transportation funds into the Cleveland Opportunity Corridor, a proposed link between Interstate 490 and University Circle near the city’s downtown.

Is that $30 million?

This is big money folks. Your tax dollars already at work... since the Lee Clark Freeway was... how did John Motl put it? Oh yes, "I-490 was supposed to continue on through Shaker Heights and Beachwood, but neighborhood antagonism killed this proposal in the 1960s." Yes, John, and we love our Shaker Lakes Nature Center.

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