Tim Hagan will leave Cuyahoga County just as George Bush left the country – broke, broken and deep in the hole. They both arrogantly made decisions without much thought or concern for the public.
Hagan has put Cuyahoga County into position to explode with debt.
The Commission not only faces a $1 billion cost on the Medical Mart and Convention Center but now Hagan talks of moving its entire operations out of its presently owned administration building.
The cost would be enormous just to move.
What seems to be the reason for moving the entire Cuyahoga County operation? Hint: A new convention center hotel. Our next must!
Besides, the PD quotes County Administrator Jim McCafferty, “Nobody’s going to want this building here.” Just thought of that, guys?
Do you think anyone is going to want the restaurant and parking garage in the buildings south of the administration building? These are buildings that will have to be bought if the project goes – whether the County likes it or not.
But this starts the drum beat for a new hotel. The PD is playing along, as one would expect. Conventional journalism simply can’t cover these events with honesty.
As I have maintained all along, the County – and likely the City of Cleveland – will have to subsidize a money-losing hotel and a parking facility. No private interest is going to take the risk of building a new hotel.
The same screamers who yelled, “We must have a new convention center” will undoubtedly screech, “We need a big new hotel.”
Why? The argument is familiar. We need it for the jobs it will bring to Cleveland, they insist. Don’t know if anyone else noted but Cleveland ranked third in the nation for worst cities for jobs. Forbes annually ranks the “Worst Big Cities for Jobs.”
You do remember the 28,000 jobs promised by Gateway, don’t you?
Can anyone find them?
The Plain Dealer on Saturday floated the hotel idea on its front page. The PD reported that plans could include the County Administration building in the Med Mart deal. It raised the possibility that the site be used for a new hotel. How clever.
How cheaply would Hagan sell the County building to his Kennedy friends at MMPI (Merchandise Mart Properties, Inc.)? He’s already given them access to the $400 or $500 million that will be raised by the quarter percent sales tax he pushed through the Commission. No public input, of course. The County will have to pay the interest on those sums raised to do the project.
Then, it’s “Adios” Hagan. The problem, I guess, will be Peter Lawson Jones’. He deserves it because he’s played along to get along.
In order to provide the site, of course, the County would have to move from its administration building at the corner of Lakeside Ave. and Ontario. The site would then become part of the expanding site for the Medical Mart and new Convention Center. The Med Mall site could extend from St. Clair on the south to Lakeside on the north, Ontario on the west to East 6th Street on the east.
Hagan already had the County buy a new site for a headquarter shift, you’ll remember. Then abandoned it for financial reasons. Cost too much.
Cuyahoga County purchased a block of buildings at E. 9th & Euclid. The complex includes the historic former Cleveland Trust bank Rotunda at E. 9th Street & Euclid and behind it the Breuer office building and parking structures extending to Prospect & Huron roads.
Ostensibly, County officials made the purchase as the future site for its headquarters from Cleveland’s powerful developer Dick Jacobs, former owner of the Cleveland Indians. Thanks, Dick said, but honor me, too. So they generously even promised Dick an everlasting plaque to sit on whatever is build there. It will read: “Mr. Jacobs has consistently and selflessly devoted his insight, skills and resources to the development and preservation of Downtown Cleveland and Cuyahoga County. This complex, which includes the historic Rotunda, symbolizes the legacy that Mr. Jacobs has established through his leadership in development and owning many of this County’s major commercial, retail, and recreational facilities.” It’s in the contract. Honestly.
Never so many lies in so little a space.
The purchase price was $22 million. It took a long-abandoned block off Dick’s hands. Now the cost has risen to $35 million as costs continue for the County.
There is about as much chance of that happening anytime soon as there as there would be in Hagan hanging around to see the County sink into debt and decline as a result of this blowhard’s decisions.
He’s won't be here when it all comes tumbling down. That’s the kind of guy he is.
Many of us will be here to pay the costs, however.