07/14/2003 Meeting Minutes (2) - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Caucus/Regular Council Mtg. 7-14-03 Page 6 in front of the High School is about 25,000 square feet of space. They will more than double the size, that's projected facilities improvement. Tomorrow we are meeting with the Facilities y Manager for the project. Eventually this will be a levy issue either for next year or even early 2005 I believe, to support this. It's a County Regional Library. The County has purchased two properties which lie immediately adjacent to the Library, east of the Library. If you know where the driveway comes out and that kind of dogleg again between Miner Road and the exit. driveway for aright-turn only if you are coming in from the west. That driveway is going to be shifted two houses to the east so there will be a 4-way intersection opposite Miner Road and it will make a much better traffic movements all the way around. It will also then concurrently allow for the expansion of the Library facility itself. They are talking about programs coordinated with the Art Museum, Cleveland Institute of Music. They really want to turn this into a cultural mecca, a real focal point. I just got a real preview over the phone in talking with the Facilities Director. I will report back more on this but the potential impact for our community is very substantial; it is very important. It is, by the way, one of the reasons we had looked at those 2 properties: the Polz properties that we purchased which have been recently razed--those 2 houses that kind of fell into disrepair at the other end next to Joyce. So, overall, some of the change that is going to come along in this area, I think will be an improvement for the better; something to take note of. We'll be getting more detail tomorrow. A1terCare -Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony -Mayor Rinker said on Thursday, A1terCare has its ribbon-cutting ceremony and, if you will recall, for Governor's Village, this is the second phase if you will, the skilled nursing facility: AlterCare which is technically a separate entity but the two are joined at the hip, if you will, at that site. I may not be able to make it but I would _ ~ certainly urge everyone from Council. They've gotten such good grades from everybody and it's such a wonderful use of land in that area. If we can make a good showing on Thursday from 4:30 to 7 p.m. There is aribbon-cutting ceremony at 5:45. They've always been supportive and I know we've always been supportive as well. Resolution supporting the City of Cleveland's efforts to go forward with a new Convention Center -Mayor Rinker said as I indicated in the memo that I gave to you Friday; and I did this because we had such a brief window of opportunity, but I have asked that Council pass a resolution tonight in support of the City of Cleveland's efforts to go forward with a new Convention Center facility. Again, to cut to the chase on this, for the competition that we face among middle-tier cities throughout the country, cities such as Pittsburgh, Baltimore; if you look at their track records, if you look at the dedication of public dollars, private dollars, facilities, improvements that they have made, Cleveland is just not quite there. Back in 1988, we were very low in the number of hotel rooms we had and some of the facilities, some of the amenities that Cleveland had were less. We are all aware of some of the projects since that time which have stirred up a certain amount ofcontroversy-between Gateway, between Cleveland Browns Stadium; each one of those projects understandably has had some retractors, but the goal has been to improve a revenue stream into northeast Ohio. As I alluded to in the memo, it is pretty impressive-some of the statistics that show that the amenity business-the tourism business- - we're not simply talking people coming in as they did this weekend for the tall ships-which had thousands of people congregating down at the waterfront, the lakefront, but for a lot of the bread and butter kinds of conventions where a City like Pittsburgh can hold 4 conventions at one time (a smaller, a medium size convention for some trade group.) They have 30 trucking docks. They