Fairview Park officials hope to hang on to more than 400 jobs at NASA Glenn Research Center, even as the federal facility plans to move them out of the suburb.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Fairview Park officials are trying desperately to stanch a loss of hundreds of thousands of income tax dollars from the city's largest employer, the NASA Glenn Research Center.
The center plans to move hundreds of civil servants and contractors from two office buildings in Fairview Park, north of Brookpark Road, in the early stages of a 20-year plan to redevelop its Cold War-era campus.
Several hundred civil servants have already moved to NASA buildings in Brook Park, south of Brookpark Road, dealing what will be a $265,000 blow to Fairview Park's $4.6 million budget for daily operations, Mayor Eileen Patton said today.
A NASA Glenn spokeswoman said, though, that only 60 workers have moved from the site in the past two years.
In any event, Fairview Park wants to hang on to some 450 contractors that remain in the larger of two buildings at the site.
But a top NASA Glenn official said today they are scheduled to move shortly.
The exodus would mean even more pain for the western suburb, where employees have accepted a wage freeze, furlough days and lower-cost health care, Patton said.
"We can't afford to have that happen," Patton said. "It affects our employees, as well as services to our residents."
Fairview Park and NASA Glenn officials differed in their views of how development was to occur on the 19 acres north of Brookpark.
Patton said the understanding was that the smaller of the two buildings would be razed and that the larger would be rehabilitated while the contractor, Arctic Slope Regional Corp., remained inside.
Keeping the contractor was the expectation when NASA Glenn issued a request for interested developers late last year, Patton said.
But Ramon "Ray" Lugo, NASA Glenn's acting director, said rehabilitation while the contractor remained was a proposal offered by a developer most interested in the project.
"A proposal is not an agreement," Lugo said.
NASA Glenn was close to an agreement with the developer, whom Fairview Park officials identified as the Geis Cos. But negotiations ended last week without a deal, he said.
"That shocked us here," Patton said of the potential deal's demise. "We thought they were moving forward."
Patton called U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, whose district includes Fairview Park and NASA Glenn.
The deal between Geis and NASA Glenn broke down over the timing of lease payments on the NASA-owned land -- Geis would pay $200,000 a year -- and liability for any environmental cleanups required at the site, according to a background memo prepared today by a Kucinich staffer.
A Geis official said the company was still interested in the project, the memo said. A company official could not be reached for comment.
NASA's Lugo met with Kucinich and several other congressmen in Washington, D.C., today to talk about NASA Glenn matters. Kucinich asked Lugo for a written response to the background memo on the Fairview Park situation, said Kucinich spokesman Nathan White.
Fairview Park's loss has been a gain for Brook Park, which hosts most of the NASA Glenn campus. So far, some 172 civil servants have moved onto Brook Park's income tax rolls, Mayor Mark Elliott said.
That means an increase of $175,000 to $200,000 in payroll tax yearly for the suburb, he said.
He and Patton have entered sensitive talks over potentially sharing some of Brook Park's new revenue, which is sorely needed in a city that has seen the exodus of jobs from the Ford Motor Co. plant.