George Nemeth · TOIstudio’s Dru McKeown Throws Down on the Med/Con

January 25th, 2009

The highlight:

I beg that vigilant attention be paid to the project, to keep transparency high, to keep decisions informed and to make accountability for success or failure possible. This is a great case study for our city, one with tendrils further reaching and more permanent than the entertainment complexes of stadiums and arenas, one that can capitalize upon public spaces and movement to create an integrated and succinct solution that can become a strong positive image for our city; because in the end to succeed that is what the new Medical Mart and Convention Center has to become, a strong positive image that can impress upon the large volume of visitors that will be attending these functions. So that we (Cleveland) can make the flourish and statement of a city rising back up to reclaim its older glory of a vibrant metropolis, an exciting place to live, a fruitful place to work and a grand address to locate a business or industry.

Think it’ll happen?

TOIstudio: Med Mart/Convention Center as case study for growing Cleveland

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Category: Economic Development
9 Comments »

9 Responses to “TOIstudio’s Dru McKeown Throws Down on the Med/Con”

  1. Mark W. Schumann, formerly known as Some Guy on Mapledale Says:
    January 25th, 2009 at 10:22 pm

    No.

    I mean yeah, it will HAPPEN, there will be a convention center and a MediMart… but the big boom they keep talking about? No. It’s no more realistic than the 28,000 “good paying permanent jobs” at Gateway, which was supported by the EXACT SAME PEOPLE with the EXACT SAME PITCH.

    Gateway is costing county taxpayers $8 million per year over and above its dedicated sin tax.

    An excellent economic development policy would be to start with what Hagan supports and then do the opposite.

  2. lmcshane Says:
    January 26th, 2009 at 6:15 am

    I echo Dru McKeown’s sentiments. The Group Plan has never been fully achieved. This is a chance to do something right.

  3. George Nemeth Says:
    January 26th, 2009 at 10:16 am

    An excellent economic development policy would be to start with what Hagan supports and then do the opposite.

    I think it’s extremely important to define WHAT WE WANT, not what we don’t want. If we get there by defining what we don’t want, that’s cool, as long as the end we have in mind is much more positive then the path before us.

  4. anastasia Says:
    January 26th, 2009 at 10:59 am

    It’s easy to talk about the Convention Center/Medical Mart being a “success,” but given the lack of groundwork and clear definitions of what that “success” might entail and whether such “success” has ever happen anywhere as a result of building such a project, it reminds me of George Bush talking about “success” in Iraq. Every time I heard him say it, I found myself yelling “Define ’success.’” Of course, he never did — and so there was no “success.” The real problem with this project goes all the way to its inception: the assumption that it was something we had to do and justification came afterward. There was never an open public discussion of “What is the goal and are there other, better, more efficient ways to achieve that goal?” Until and unless we rewind and go back there — and we won’t — to where the idea of building a convention center is not a given but one of a range of possibilities, we’re boxed into something that ould not only be a failure but a catastrophe, given that every single convention center in cities like Cleveland, no matter how spectacular and “state-of-the-art” is being subsidized by tax dollars. We need to ask if pouring those dollars into propping up a convention center forever is going to create a comparable amount of economic development — and we need to have an honest, open, realistic discussion of how that’s going to happen.

  5. Jeremy Borger Says:
    January 26th, 2009 at 12:11 pm

    Why are people committed to sticking to a “Group Plan” that was developed over 100 years ago? Hasn’t anything changed since then?

    Let’s move forward, not look back.

  6. Justin Balck Says:
    January 26th, 2009 at 3:06 pm

    Good point on Gateway. It’s the same yahoos pitching the same tired ideas. Success never comes, jobs never come, just the bureaucrats, parasites and consultants remain.

  7. Mark W. "Some Guy on Bridge" Schumann Says:
    January 27th, 2009 at 6:59 am

    I think it’s extremely important to define WHAT WE WANT, not what we don’t want.

    Okay, what I want is the promoters of the Gateway and MediMart swindles out of office and permanently exiled from public life. Hagan and Dimora for sure.

  8. John Ettorre Says:
    January 27th, 2009 at 1:51 pm

    Jeremy, you perhaps weren’t paying attention in class when the whole notion of the importance of understanding history was discussed. The words “what’s past is prologue” are carved on the entrance of the National Archives for a reason. I would hope any educated person can understand that to fully appreciate where we should go, we first need to understand where we’ve been. And better understanding the Group Plan in a very real way helps any contemporary planner decide how to intelligently devolop the city today. None of that is at war with the obvious point you raise, that things have since changed.

  9. Mark W. "Some Guy on Bridge" Schumann Says:
    January 28th, 2009 at 6:21 am

    Money where your mouth is.

    I’ll make this bet:

    When the new Convention Center opens, you give me $10,000. Every time a medical convention is held there during the first five years of operation, I’ll give you $80. (Details: by “medical convention” I mean one that is on the list of 500 that was touted by CVB a couple years ago. I’ll hand you a check the day each medical convention opens.)

    Given that fifty medical conventions a year are planned, this is an easy 2-to-1 payoff. (50 x $80 = $4,000 per year, for five years–against your $10,000.)

    Any takers? If not, why not?