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March 2, 2009
Cleveland city councilman warns Medical Mart project is on "thin ice"
wkyc.com
Forest City Enterprises had a fit when they lost the opportunity to sell a portion of the company's Tower City site for Cleveland's new MedicalMart-and-convention-center plan. All the belly-aching earned Forest City a chance to redo the company's pitch, though a local city councilman warns that time is running out, since other cities are coming up with competing plans.
In January, Cuyahoga County commissioners announced that the current convention center downtown would be the site for the medical mart and new convention center.
But last month, developers with Forest City came up with a different plan to build the medical mart behind Tower City, one which they claim would cost millions less than building on the current convention center site.
Forest City representatives will travel to Chicago next week to present their plans to Merchandise Mart officals.
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But Polensek feels the current convention center site is the best option for the medical mart. The findings of an engineering study on whether the current convention center foundation can support the project should be released in a few weeks.
NoLandGrab: This reminds us of a famous Atlantic Yards do-over, way back in August 2005, when Forest City Ratner's lowball bid earned the company the right to exclusively negotiate the terms of the purchase of the Vanderbilt Railyard.
It will be interesting to see how this one turns out. Forest City Enterprises is very eager to get this deal done in light of the company's repeated reminders to investors and the press that it is "proactively managing [its] debt maturities."
Posted by lumi at March 2, 2009 4:48 AM