Funny how this wasn't mentioned a few months ago, when the great new project was rolled out to delighted squeals at City Hall. Funny how it also wasn't mentioned in October, when the Planning Commission gave Steelyard a thumbs-up in a "design review" process with no tenants identified.
I could start reciting all the downsides of the Wal-Mart scenario, but Alison Grant's article does a pretty good job of that, so instead I'm just going with a prediction:
Unless it comes with unprecedented labor and community protection agreements (and I stress the word unprecedented, as in "highly unlikely"), a Wal-Mart in Steelyard Commons will become one of the most important issues in the mayoral election next year and may well cost Jane Campbell a second term.
You read it here first.
HOW MANY OF ME ARE THERE? An email this morning from Jeff Sugalski at CSU's Neighborhood Link:
NeighborhoodLink is the exclusive online home of the Cleveland Neighborhood Market Drilldown Study conducted by Social Compact!...You might remember that this is the study released with great fanfare in November that claims to prove the city of Cleveland has 100,000-plus more residents than shown by the U.S. Census... and also implies that our average income is even lower than the Census told us. This is supposed to be good news for retail development in the city -- which makes sense, I guess, if the retail you have in mind is Wal-Mart.
If you haven't heard about it, the Cleveland Neighborhood Market Drilldown was designed to provide the city, the local business community, and Cleveland neighborhoods with a unique set of dependable business-oriented data and market insights that cannot be accessed through traditional market sources. It aims to help fuel the flow of private capital by supporting informed business decision-making for future investment in Cleveland's inner city and undervalued neighborhoods.
You can visit the Cleveland Neighborhood Market Drilldown Study website on NeighborhoodLink and see what it has to offer at http://www.nhlink.net/socialcompact/.
It does make me wonder, though: If the Campbell Administration, which has embraced the Social Compact findings, really thinks we have a population approaching 600,000 people, why aren't they loudly demanding an immediate increase in our "official" body count for purposes of Federal funding formulas... like for the Community Development Block Grant allocation? Seems like an undercount equal to the population of Youngstown is a pretty big deal.
What am I missing?
FAIRNESS AND BALANCE: Okay, since the last two entries are somewhat snarky toward the Campbell Administration, I've got to tip my hat in the Mayor's direction for two pieces of positive news:
First, while I'm one of the many local citizens who find the return of the Convention Center issue profoundly depressing, I'm glad to see Campbell staking out an early position for renovating and expanding the existing place, instead of wandering back into the swamp created by Cleveland Tomorrow and Forest City in the last go-round. The only way to keep this thing from turning into an election-year monster is to set some reasonable limits, make clear to Cleveland voters what you're doing, and stick to it. Good move, Mayor.
And a big round of applause for the Administration's dogged effort to preserve our anti-predatory lending ordinance against state pre-emption, which won an interim victory in a state appeals court last week. This fight is about more than protecting homeowners from financial victimization, though that's a plenty good enough reason to pursue it. It's also about protecting Cleveland's battered Home Rule rights from a legislature eager to eviscerate them, any time a corporate interest (in this case, the banking industry) asks them to. Once again -- good work, Mayor. Keep it up.