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July 9, 2008
Forest City in the News
Forest City Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards megaproject is mentioned in a quote in an opinion piece covering Cleveland's costly and floundering convention center.
One critical point is that municipalities are subsidizing nearby hotels to serve the convention centers, even though they are privately developed and owned. The idea seemed farfetched until we stumbled over an article about a Forest City hotel project in Pittsburgh that's awaiting subsidies.
Cleveland Indy Media Center, WHERE'S IS THAT MEDICAL MART THAT IS COSTING US 40 MILLION A YEAR
I e-mailed Heywood Sanders, professor of Urban Studies in the Dept. of Political Science at Trinity University at San Antonio and a long-time student of issues involving convention centers. I wanted to find out his current outlook on new convention centers, and particularly Cleveland’s situation.
“The prognosis looks grim,” writes Sanders as he notes that a number of major urban development projects – naming Ballpark Village in St. Louis, Grand Avenue in Los Angeles and Atlantic Yards (Forest City project) in Brooklyn – “are being scaled back or halted.”
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“Add that all together with a convention market that remains overbuilt, with a number of cities trying to bail out their centers with publicly-financed large hotels (mentioning Portland, Ft. Lauderdale, Dallas, Kansas City and our Columbus),” and the outlook, as he says, is “grim.”Sanders concludes, “Frankly, I never thought the Medical Mart was a workable deal. I don’t think MMPI (Merchandise Mart Properties, Inc.) is in any rush to do it now. And if the county moves ahead on its own, well…”
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Westin expansion stalled, but Hilton on the way
The county won't subsidize a convention hotel that would not provide at least 400 new rooms -- a number that's necessary to meet the 1,000-room threshold needed to attract major conventions, Onorato said.
Cleveland developer Forest City Enterprises Inc., owner of the Westin Convention Hotel, has worked with the city-county Sports & Exhibition Authority, owner of the convention center, as the developer of a proposed hotel projected to cost $104 million.
Plans were to provide a $34 million subsidy from state gambling proceeds to supplement Forest City's private contribution for the project.
Onorato, though, said it might be necessary to solicit proposals from other developers. Forest City indicated recently that, because of increasing costs, it might reduce the size of such a facility to about 300 rooms.
Brian Ratner, president of East Coast development for Forest City, said yesterday that the company remains involved in the project. Forest City has been waiting for the Sports & Exhibition Authority to award the public funding, he said.
Posted by lumi at July 9, 2008 4:06 AM