The benefits of a reformed county government and new casino could yield up to $100 million annually for economic priorities, like a redeveloped lakefront, business leaders say.
View full sizeEfficiencies in a reformed Cuyahoga County government and tax revenue from a downtown casino could yield up to $100 million yearly for economic priorities, officials say.
Updated at 5:06 p.m.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Savings from a streamlined Cuyahoga County government and tax revenue from a downtown casino could yield up to $100 million yearly to leverage sorely needed projects, like a renovated Public Square and a redeveloped lakefront, top business leaders say.
Coming off November-ballot wins in which it flexed money and muscle, Cleveland's business community is thinking boldly about the impact of a casino development near Tower City and county government reform.
Business leaders went public with those aspirations this morning at the Cleveland Museum of Art's Gartner Auditorium, where some 500 business executives gathered for the annual meeting of the Greater Cleveland Partnership, the region's 17,000-member chamber of commerce.
Leaders of government reform, including business executives, want to shave county spending by 15 percent and funnel $50 million into job growth.
The city-county share of taxes on casino revenue could total $50 million annually, said Joe Roman, executive director of the partnership.
Combined, that's $100 million "in discretionary power" to help finance any number of projects and efforts, from helping small businesses to renovating Public Square, Roman said.
A fledgling effort to redo Public Square has yielded multiple creative visions to make it a friendlier, stronger hub.
The square is a crossroad among emerging developments totaling some $2 billion downtown.
They include the casino, the convention center/medical mart, the Flats East Bank development and new projects along the Euclid Corridor.
Partnership's new leaders
The new chairman of the region's most powerful business group is William Christopher, president of Alcoa Engineered Products & Solutions.
Christopher was named chairman of the Greater Cleveland Partnership's 75-member board at its annual meeting Thursday.
Christopher has led Alcoa's aerospace and commercial transportation groups for seven years. He serves on Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson's task force on economic development.
Other officers for the partnership in 2010 are:
County reform and the casino are both in formative stages, meaning it will be several years before their full impact is felt, cautioned Alcoa executive William Christopher, the newly installed chairman of the Greater Cleveland Partnership's 75-member board.
But he suggested a high priority for investing the $100 million would be redeveloping port land north of Cleveland Browns Stadium.
City and port planners envision a new, vibrant neighborhood sprouting there.
"It could permanently change the character of the city," Christopher said.
Christopher steps in as chairman just as two more issues highly valued by the business community head for the May 4 ballot.
At the Thursday morning meeting, Christopher gained resounding favor for a resolution supporting Issue 1, the four-year, $700 million renewal of Ohio's Third Frontier program, which fosters high-tech development in Ohio.
He and other business leaders hope to raise $1 million locally for a statewide campaign.
The partnership also urged support of the health and human services levy renewal for Cuyahoga County.
Other partnership efforts this year include support of the Cleveland schools reform plan. A partnership task force will recommend by spring how the partnership should invest its resources in the school district's proposed transformation.
Talks continue between business leaders in Cleveland, Akron and Canton on ways to better align and fund economic development in the region.
The effort, informally called "NEO 77," could become a formal collaboration of business leaders later this year.
The partnership is also building a statewide coalition to address deep-seated problems in the state budget.
The state's next two-year budget already faces a multibillion-dollar shortfall.
Business leaders would like to see a 10-year budget plan addressing structural problems in the way Ohio gathers and spends its tax dollars, business leaders said.