By around 2016, Jackson and FitzGerald say, you’ll be able to walk or bike from a redesigned Public Square, past a 600-bed hotel next to the Global Center on Health Innovation -- formerly the Medical Mart -- along the grassy public mall downtown and across a bridge to the lakefront.
FitzGerald says the plan accomplishes a longtime goal.
FITZGERALD: “For the first time, really in the history of the city, we are fulfilling this dream of connecting the lakefront to the life of the city.”
The plan calls for $350 million in new construction and improvements. About $260 million will go into building a new hotel where the current county administration building now stands. Much of the rest will go toward refurbishing Public Square and building a new bridge from the convention center to the lakefront.
FitzGerald promises the public won’t have to pony up.
FITZGERALD: “It’s going to be funded without any new taxes.”
The hotel will be funded through a bond sale and tax revenue left over from the Medical Mart project, which has come in under budget. Additional money will come from hotel revenue, a hotel bed tax and an assortment of public sources. The city and county are also hoping for a federal grant to complete the bridge project and charitable donations to supplement other work.
The county will likely own the hotel property and sign a contract with a company to manage it. FitzGerald says there’s already been interest.
FITZGERALD: “We’ve talked to basically all of the major hotel chains and we’re getting a lot of interest. And it’s not whether they’re interested. I think there will end up being a competition between the hotel chains. I’m pretty confident about that.”
Cleveland city councilman Joe Cimperman says this is just the latest step in a revitalization of downtown, which he represents.
CIMPERMAN: “14,000 people living downtown helps this. Having an environment where people want to be on E 4th Street helps this.”
Not everyone is enthusiastic about this plan. Norman Krumholz is a former planning director for the city of Cleveland. He’s now a professor at Cleveland State University’s Levin College of Urban Affairs.
The way he sees it, the plan benefits people who own property downtown. What the city really should be doing, he says, is mustering similar resources to fix problems in the neighborhoods.
KRUMHOLZ: “The streets in the neighborhoods are falling apart…the schools are in terrible shape…housing in some neighborhoods is coming apart at the seams…We have, after all, 15,000 vacant, abandoned houses in the city of Cleveland, and they’re depressing property values in the neighborhood.”
City councilman Zack Reed has represented parts of the Mt. Pleasant and Kinsman neighborhoods on the city’s east side. He says he agrees the city should invest downtown -- but he says it also needs to pay attention to other parts of Cleveland.
REED: “Because it can’t be us against them. It can’t be uptown against downtown. But while you’re doing downtown, you have to be doing uptown.”
Mayor Frank Jackson says that additional tax revenues from the hotel and other development will help to fund city services. He says the city has been talking about downtown development long enough and it’s time to move forward.
JACKSON: “The best plan you have is the one you’re doing, not the one you’re talking about. And this is a doing plan.”
