Good morning, everybody.

We will go ahead and call this meeting of the transportation role in the committee to order.

Thank you.

We have a forum.

There's no legislation, so we don't need a forum on these no excused absences.

For uh council members Bishop and Davis, and I believe Councilman Starr is gonna be coming late.

He had a ribbon cutting, and I'm sure others will trickle in as well.

Uh this is our fourth of four previously scheduled meetings uh pertaining to the proposed closure of Burke Airport.

Uh up to date.

We have uh discussed just general site conditions, we've talked about uh the financial aspects of Burke as as it operates currently.

Uh, we discussed two weeks ago uh the procedures through which one would close an airport.

And today, uh what was originally planned had been sort of an abstract maybe conversation about the Northeast Ohio real estate market and how it would align with this uh property.

Since then, Mayor Bibbs administration has come forth with a concept of a fit.

I want to be very clear that what we're gonna be talking about today is not a definitive plan.

Again, there is no legislation before this body uh pertaining to the closure of the airport.

However, since the administration has gone through the effort of demonstrating at a high level what the site could accommodate, what the economics of it would be, I think it would be more useful for us to talk about that rather than to talk about uh things more abstract uh than than that presentation.

Uh so with that, I'll invite the administration and uh the North Coast Waterfront Authority forward as I turn it over to you.

If there's anyone in the audience who is interested in public comment, uh to the left of the clerk, uh, there is a sign-up sheet at the end of the uh presentation and all of the questions from council.

Uh, we'll be able to have public comment where you can come forward and have three minutes to address the body.

And with that, um, if Deputy Chief Trevasano, good morning.

If you could introduce your side, especially since there's a new introduction to be made.

Of course.

Uh Jessica Trevasano, Deputy Chief of Staff and Chief Strategy Officer.

Um, I'll let my team who's at the table with me introduce themselves.

Tom McNair, Chief of Integrated Development.

Uh Scott Skinner, uh, executive director of the North Coast Waterfront Development Corporation.

Uh my name's Jason Russell.

I'm the VP of Real Estate and Development for the North Coast Waterfront Development Corporation.

Focus on planning and development of our North Coast.

Good welcome.

And and with that, I will turn it over to you for uh what I'm sure is going to be an interesting presentation for all.

Go ahead.

Thank you.

Um, so good morning, everybody.

We are here to talk about uh redevelopment of Berkeley Front Airport.

Uh we're gonna start with an overview, meeting purpose, uh, give you a brief update on the Lakefront Stadium site.

Uh, we're here to talk about BERC, but they are proximate, and I know there's uh questions about how those two sites relate to one another.

We're gonna talk about the redevelopment context about clay Cleveland's real estate market overall.

We're gonna talk about principles and constraints related to redevelopment of Burke, concepts and uses.

We're gonna talk a bit about the air show, economic input, community input, and then anticipated next steps.

We've got uh a lengthy presentation for you, so thanks for giving us giving us the time.

So overall, um, with as it relates to redeveloping Burke Lake Front Airport, a recreation focused concept at Berkeley Front Airport would require minimal public funding.

It would increase resident access to four hundred and fifty acres of Lakefront considerably, and it would generate five times more direct tax revenue to the city every year than Burke Lake Front Airport currently generates.

I'll pause just to maybe re-emphasize in previous meetings.

Uh, we've really focused on the direct tax impact of the airport in that land.

So this isn't talking about like heads and beds and you know, all of the ancillary tax benefits.

This is truly just like income property, parking tax, you know, direct tax benefits from the site to the city.

Uh the redevelopment concept that we'll show you today is relatively low-hanging fruit and would generate five times more direct economic impact, uh, direct tax revenue to the city.

Uh, we'll talk about today how redeveloping BERC will not prevent an air show from operating in Cleveland.

Uh, low density recreation focused development does not prevent higher density development from occurring in the future.

When we're thinking about a choice like this, we're thinking about it in the context of you know, decades and centuries, not in just you know, what can we do in the next year or two?

And that Burke Lakefront Airport uh is a major constraint on the site that prevents development on 450 acres of publicly controlled land.

Uh this meeting purpose, I've said it at each of the three, and I'm gonna end with it as well, is to provide us Cleveland City Council and the public with a clear fact-based understanding of the legal, financial, operational, and market realities associated with Burke Lakefront Airport, so that any future decision regarding its closure or continued operation is informed, transparent, fiscally responsible, and aligned with the long-term interests of Cleveland taxpayers.

Uh in our previous meetings, we uh uh we'll kind of call back to all of them in today, but uh just to summarize on January 21st, uh we talked about the historical, legal, operational, and other regulatory factors uh related to BERC.

At that meeting, we talked about how significant due diligence exists on the site, and that there are relatively few unknowns uh of it of the site.

We've talked about how low density development does not require unusually high costs for environmental remediation, geotechnical work, or infrastructure, and that the land at Berk Lakefront Airport is similar to land on the lakefront that we see today.

You know, we've built a stadium, uh Rock Hall, a science center, restaurants, housing, all on land that is almost identical to what Burke Lakefront Airport is.

We've also built an airport on the airport land.

Uh on February 4th, we talked about Burke and the budget.

Uh at that meeting, we talked about how BERC has operated at a loss of about $900,000 annually uh over a 20-year average.

That loss was 1.7 million dollars in 2025.

Uh, we also talked about how Cleveland Hopkins signatory airlines, so you know, your deltas, your United, your jet blues, are the ones who bear that operational loss.

They're the ones who subsidize uh the costs at Burke.

Uh and that Burke brings in just around $500,000 in direct tax revenue.

Um, that's about a dollar, uh, about a thousand dollars per acre.

I I just just so that everyone has a little bit of context on how low that is.

Uh, we had a study done for us about a year or so ago by a group called uh Urban Three that started to look at TIFFs and various property values throughout the city.

Um just for context, the Steel Yard Commons Walmart produces about $700,000 an acre in taxable value.

A single family home on East 71st Street provides about 2.3 million dollars if you looked at it on an acreage basis in taxable value.

Uh the five points cafe in Chairman Slight's ward produces about 4.1 million dollars in taxable value per acre.

When you start to look at downtown, and I think look, I say this all the time, but everyone should get used to hearing things like this.

Downtown represents 2.37% of our land area.

It provides about 35 to 40% of our income taxes in the city of Cleveland, which funds our neighborhoods.

It's about eight and a half times greater in terms of like taxable value than the land it sits on.

Uh the artisan apartments downtown, 49.5 million dollars of taxable value per acre.

Most expensive piece uh of real estate in all of Cleveland, Key Tower, produces 156 million dollars of taxable value per acre.

So you think about those numbers and you look at the fact that we are getting roughly a thousand dollars an acre on that, and I want everyone in here to remember as we pass the shore to quarter shore tax district, right?

Like a portion of BERC is within that, right?

So as we increase taxable value up there, we are actually supporting this very important uh uh piece of legislation that is enabling us to reach our waterfronts.

Uh last when we were just here on April 1st, uh, we talked about the process for closing Burke Lakefront Airport.

We talked about the three paths uh that we can run in our running in parallel.

Um is waiting until 2039.

That's when the grant obligations from the FAA end.

Another is the uh getting approval from the FAA through the formal sort of net benefit to aviation analysis, and the last is congressional authorization.

With that, I'm gonna hand it over to Scott to talk about or to Jason, thank you.

Uh to talk about the downtown Lakefront Stadium site.

Yes, so we have collected uh selected a new master planner for the stadium site now that the uh decision has been made uh to remove the stadium.

Uh one thing I want to make very clear is that uh community engagement that we've gotten over the several last several years is something that we are going to safeguard and uphold, especially around those core tenants around public access and economic income impact.

Those are the two things we really heard strongly from the community.

We want to make sure that as we go through the site planning process that is honored and respected.

And we will have community engagement later this summer around those initial uh site plan designs.

Additionally, the North Coast Yard will continue this year in 2026 with actually some improvements uh that will continue to activate the North Coast uh all summer long.

And the North Coast Connector project, which is the realignment of the shoreway and the land bridge, the construction is likely to break around in Q4 of 2027.

So a little bit of context uh again as we think about downtown and where all this sits.

Uh again, I I just stressed earlier, I'm gonna repeat those numbers.

2.37% of the geographic area of the city of Cleveland is our downtown.

It's 35 to 40 percent of our income tax value, right?

175 to 200 million dollars.

It's outweighed eight and a half times in terms of property tax value throughout the city of Cleveland, right?

Like downtown is the engine that actually funds our neighborhoods, uh, right?

And so uh Cleveland's downtown, which is not this is not unique to Cleveland, right?

Like American cities all over, we're seeing uh a lot of challenges surrounding commercial real estate.

This impacts our downtown.

Probably the best example I can give you of that is 200 Public Square, uh, right?

So one of our trophy Class A buildings right on public square.

Uh that building traded in 2018 for 187 million dollars.

It was then purchased in 2024 for 54 million dollars, right?

And so a large portion of what we have designed our shore to core to shore strategy is how do we embrace our single greatest natural asset in our waterfronts, right?

Like we are a two waterfront city.

I say this all the time.

We're the waterfront city that can barely see and does not touch the water, and we are changing that.

And we are changing that by putting in place a program like shore to quarter shore, which is leveraging the dollars that come in to go back and make those waterfront connections.

And you can see it all over this map.

From 130 million dollars is being invested in Irish Town Bend Park, which is gonna be the first waterfront park in America that is directly connected to public housing, uh, bringing back Scranton Peninsula to life, where we have over a thousand new people moving in uh there today, four hundred million dollars generated by shore to core to shore that is going into our Cyoga Riverfront that is allowing Bedrock uh to do things like the 250 million dollar new uh uh Cleveland Clinic Global Health Center, uh, that the Cavs are gonna be playing in, a new amphitheater, uh development across our riverfront.

Uh if you look down to our lakefront, the 150 plus million dollars that has been leverage of federal grants is going in that is allowing us to make those connections, right?

All of this is being done to bolster and reinvigorate our downtown because we cannot take it for granted.

Right.

So, and you know, one of the things that we've also heard a lot about around here, uh, and we've had a lot of commentary coming in on Berkeley Front Airport with all the different things that you can do, and why don't we make this more industrial land?

Uh, this is the reminder that I showed up here in the fall of 2023, uh, and we had uh a whopping one site in the city of Cleveland that was 10 plus acres and shovel ready.

One, right?

And so we didn't even have the ability.

When we think about like onshoring and jobs and traded sector, we did not have the ability to bring those types of companies here.

That is why we worked with you to invest $50 million in the site readiness for good jobs fund, which is now being leveraged by another $50 million by the Cleveland Foundation, and we are starting to create sites across the city.

Site Readiness Fund has now over 400 acres of land under control that is in the process of being remediated and prepared for job creation uh up and down the opportunity corridor.

Again, when I talked when I first got here, those were not sites, those were a collection of old single-family home parcels, uh streets that need to be vacated.

I think you've seen a lot of those coming to the table as we turn those into job ready sites.

There's a lot of activity that is happening behind the door there uh that is gonna be coming to fruition.

We're very excited about that.

Um then just some broad waterfront context, I think that we all want to think about.

I think this slide does a great job of showing us just how large Burke Lake Front Airport is, right?

450 acres, still content.

That is over half the size of downtown Cleveland.

If you want to think about it more in terms of our shoreline, if you go from the port authority all the way to Gordon Square Park, that's about four and a half miles of coastline.

Berk Lake Front Airport is two miles of that.

Uh right, and so uh, you know, you think about some of the challenges that we were talking about with downtown.

We don't have uh, you know, we don't we've seen a lot of shrinking office footprint, but which by the way is not new, right?

Before I got uh into the civic sector, I spent about 10 years in office design development.

Shrinking office footprint is nothing new.

Uh the pandemic certainly like put the uh uh gasoline on the fire, so to speak, on that regard.

Um, you know, and so as you're looking at those office spaces now, it's like highly amenitize office spaces, uh used to be wins.

Now it's highly amenitized office spaces and highly amenitized places, and that is what shore to core to shore is all about uh in bolstering uh uh that type of activity.

Um but also I think you when you think about uh the residential market.

We talked about some of the work that's gone on in Scranton Peninsula.

We're talking about some of the things that are going on from a mixed use perspective uh along our riverfront, around the lakefront and the North Coast waterfront development corporations.

That is things that are happening over the course of decades, right?

And an absorption standpoint.

We don't have the market right now to take 450 acres of land and just fill it with mixed use development.

Uh you know, we don't have the ability to just fill 450 acres of land of office.

Uh and so that has driven a large part of the redevelopment strategy uh that we are comprehending here.

And and I also want to say, too, one of the things that is fascinating to me.

So if you see the the big green arrow, the north-south one, that is East Ninth Street.

Uh, I always like to joke if there's 2.6 million people in our region, uh, about two million of those people think that that is the only north-south connection in the entirety of the city of Cleveland.

Uh that far right green arrow that's pointing downward, uh, that is where a new connection will be made via the shoreway.

Uh at roughly 17th and 18th, which you envision is reconnecting as kind of one-way pairs that go up and down new north-south connection.

Uh, when you have Burke Lake Front Airport as more of a destination moving on there, that activates an entire quadrant of our downtown that is largely surface parking lots, uh quasi vacant land, uh, semi-industrial type structures that have the ability to develop over the course of time uh and be activated.

So uh there's a lot of connection opportunities uh within here.

Uh and then uh lastly on this point for me.

So I got here again, fall of 2023, uh, and and there were a lot of conversations about uh Burke, and so we actually engaged this study from EESI to better understand Burke and a variety of different possibilities.

Uh one of that, and I know this has been mentioned a lot was uh what would reinvesting in Burke Lake Front Airport look like.

Uh that was looked at.

We looked at what is the actual imp economic impact of Burke Lake Front Airport today.

But then we just on a very broad level, what are different types of opportunities from a development perspective and what type of impact do that have.

Uh we explored everything from a maximum development scenario, uh, right, and I think that was modeled at 1,200 residential units, 100,000 square feet of retail, 100 key hotel room, uh, you know, and and how does that impact it?

I think is uh Chairman Slife has noted before, that would require a lot of infrastructure.

Uh the city would have to provide to enable that type of development to occur.

Uh and then we started modeling out what is minimal development look like.

And that was actually the first time that we introduced that concept of what uh youth sports may look at here.

Uh there is a um a lot of information that we're starting to see about how those types of facilities drive visitors uh and bring traffic uh into places, and so we wanted to start getting a look at what that might uh entail.

Uh I think important to note that did not get detailed into that, but looked at some base costs of what that could be and roughly like what type of uh tourism it could generate, uh, an indirect impact.

Um, and then you know, we looked at some hybrid scenarios too, with modeling more dense development uh up towards East Knight Street where there's the infrastructure for it.

Um, taking into context everything that uh Tom just went through, as we're looking at future use for uh Brook Lake Front Airport, we need to look at both site constraints that Jessica outlined a little bit earlier, as well as come up with a set of guiding principles for how we should think about what that land use should even be.

So, in terms of constraints, like Jessica mentioned, there's relatively few unknowns from a development perspective.

Uh when you're developing real estate, it's really heavy industry or prior uses that you don't know about that cause risk and cause increased potential cost.

Uh that is not the case here.

Uh that low density development does not require unusually high costs.

Uh, developing this site um from a cost perspective should be fairly similar to developing any site in Northeast Ohio.

Um, and that the land already supports development.

Jessica mentioned the other uses that are already on uh fill.

And finally, that phasing can allow allowed for more development over time.

450 acres is a lot of land.

Uh not all of that is going to be built up at once.

And as we're thinking about places that can be green spaces, parking, low density development now, when we have a market, if we have a market in the future to support more dense development, it doesn't forbid us from doing that.

As we're thinking about principles for the site, and we're gonna go through um some of the fit studies that I'm sure a lot of you have seen uh already in just a few minutes.

We're really looking at three guiding principles for how to think about this land in this opportunity.

The first is improving public access.

Again, we're gonna say it over and over again 450 acres, two miles of shoreline.

As Tom mentioned, between uh East 55th Street Marina and uh Edgewater Park, there's six miles of shoreline.

Less than 25% of that is publicly accessible.

Uh by transforming Burke into something that is publicly accessible, you're going to be well over having 50% of that land uh open to the public.

Uh second, driving economic impact by attracting visitors to downtown Cleveland.

Um talked about uh a dollar per acre of direct tax revenue coming in for Burke.

That is uh significantly insufficient uh amount of direct tack direct tax tax revenue for what that land mass is.

We should be leveraging this publicly owned asset.

450 acres of publicly controlled land um on a waterfront in a downtown does not exist elsewhere in North America, and we should be leveraging it to drive more economic impact, both uh through direct tax revenue to the city as well as bringing visitors uh into the city to stay in hotels, to go shopping, to go to restaurants.

Uh and then third, a financially viable model.

Uh we don't wanna be in a place where Burke Lakefront Airport closes, and then it's heavily reliant on government subsidies or philanthropy to redevelop.

Um we are looking at uses that are privately financed, but they can also increase amount of public access uh to the waterfront and to this land.

So those are the three sort of guiding principles that we're looking at as we talk about Burke.

Um so we assembled a small cohort and coalition to look at and analyze potential uses for uh the future of Burke Lakefront Airport through those three guiding principles.

Uh that coalition is the city, county, North Coast Development Corporation, Metro Parks, the Port, Destination Cleveland, Greater Cleveland Sports Commission, uh, Black Environmental Leaders Association, and Greater Cleveland Partnership.

So this group came together uh to uh identify what those three guiding principles are going to be, and then look at land use through that through that lens.

Um we assembled two hypothetical fit studies as well as an economic impact analysis of those fit studies.

Uh Councilman Slife mentioned earlier, but I do want to reiterate this is these are not master plans.

These are not formal plans of what we are going to build that are going to be adopted.

These are really meant to inform us on whether or not we should pursue closing Burke, whether whether or not there are possible uh redevelopment opportunities that hit those three criteria, and I think they do that.

I'm just gonna say that for I think a third time because I think it's really important.

Uh, which is these conceptual Fit studies are meant to be a piece of information to inform whether folks support the idea of closure.

These aren't what is necessarily going to be built.

This is pretty low-hanging fruit that does not require a lot of public infrastructure money, it doesn't require a lot from the public to get there.

Uh, what we're gonna show you today.

Uh, and so when we're thinking about, and I think you all have asked us this question, yeah.

No, if Burke was to close, what is going to go there?

We don't know what is going to go there, but this is an opera uh some options of what could go there.

And what we'll talk about and what um we'll kind of get to at the end is any of these options is going to have more direct tax revenue to the city of Cleveland than what Burke Lakefront Airport currently does.

They're all going to increase public access dramatically.

They're all going to help in their efforts to transform the Cleveland into a waterfront city.

So just want to really emphasize that.

Again, if there was for anything that's going to be built would be based on a substantial planning process, this is meant to help inform decisions around whether you support closing Burke or not.

It's also meant to facilitate a conversation like this one and a broader one with the community.

We will talk about this later as well.

We have a community survey that's received over 5,800 responses.

And in the first sort of batch of responses, what we actually heard a lot of was I can't even fathom what you would put there because it's too big.

Um this has actually helped us as we sort of we've we've actually bifurcated uh responses before these images were released and responses after these images were released, so folks can uh evaluate them and have some ideas of what could go on Burke, and they could actually look at a plan and see what is possible.

So I'm gonna go through these uses for these two FIT studies, sort of west to east briefly, and then Jason can dive into further detail uh about them as well.

So, starting on the west with that yellow band you see, um, uh, that is meant to be uh marina or uh waterfront boardwalk.

We've seen these be enormously successful drivers of economic impact and drivers of uh public access in other cities across the country.

Uh Toronto, uh Chicago, Detroit, all have used these to drive more business down there.

On that, on that marina, we also look at boat slips as well as some low density uh development.

Think like what you see on Voinovich.

So restaurant opportunities, small business opportunities, uh places for folks to conquer uh congregate on the water.

Uh the northern uh part of that yellow band, you see a sort of brown area.

That is uh meant to be amenitized RV camping facilities.

This is a use that I knew nothing about a couple months ago, um, but have done a lot of research into it.

Jason will talk about this more, but these are also enormous drivers of tourism with a significant that drives significant uh direct revenue uh to cities.

Uh again, a use that is privately financed and that does not necessarily uh have it does not have to come from public subsidy.

What you see is on a majority of this plan is uh competitive youth sports facility.

Um so these are enormous drivers of economic impact and of visitors to areas all over the country.

The Greater Cleveland Sports Commission estimates that anywhere from 400 to 600 families could be coming to Cleveland almost every weekend to use facilities like this.

And the families that need to stay in hotels, need to go to restaurants, uh, need activities from a competitive market perspective.

Uh you don't see these sort of uses in urban areas because there's never sufficient land, and we don't lack for that here.

Um these are normally in suburban areas or even or even rural areas, and we think from a competitive advantage perspective, families that are coming in for use sports competitions are uh gonna have a much stronger desire to come to downtown Cleveland where there's things to do in the five hours you have between a soccer game uh as opposed to another location.

Um you see uh uh orange field house, it looks small relative to to the rest of the site, but that is a seven-acre building uh that could contain volleyball courts, hockey, basketball, all sorts of indoor uses, as well as a variety of outdoor fields.

Because this is publicly owned land, we've also seen this model be successful in other markets where while competitive use sports tournaments take place solely on the weekends, that also gives us gives us an opportunity to open it up uh to the general public for free use as a rec center uh during the week when there are not actual tournaments there.

So, again, a privately financed use, because these are profitable businesses uh that can provide additional public access to the site.

Within this network, you see about 10 miles of walking trails uh or biking trails that can connect directly into uh the county trail on North Marginal that's under construction uh right now.

Again, giving folks things to do between games and sports facilities or just places uh to bike along the water.

Uh moving further east, you see about a hundred eight 180-acre uh public park.

This was put together in consultation with uh Cleveland Metro Parks as something that uh that we think is is viable as possible and would add significant public space uh to downtown Cleveland, significant green public space to downtown Cleveland.

And then the final item you see is that purple box at the bottom uh right corner uh that is meant to be a verte port uh that can serve Cleveland Clinic, um, other sort of private uses.

Uh lots of companies around here need uh around the area have a need for uh helicopter pad and not necessarily a full runway.

So we can still fulfill a lot of the uh a lot of the traffic that goes on Burke right now in in sort of the Burke annual users, uh helicopters are a large portion of that, uh, while only taking up two to three acres for a verteport as opposed to all 450 acres for an airport.

The next version you see is the very similar plan, but rather than a public park, uh this is an 18-hole uh public golf course.

Um when we think about again those key principles in those uh of economic impact, financiality, and public space.

What these two plans are meant to do are sort of pull on different levers uh of those principles.

So while this version of a plan has less sort of open public space, um it is uh a even a public golf horse like this is a use that is generally privately financed through traditional debt and traditional um equity.

Um I I would add in uh Metro Parks has a number of these across the area during winter, they're used for winter recreation, think cross-country skiing or other uses like that uh as well.

I would only add uh I know the port was here for our very first meeting.

Uh both of these plans maintain the confined disposal facilities that the port uses for its dredge and clearing uh cleaning dredge material for use uh and and other uses.

So the CDF 9 is is still shown in all of these plans.

So as Scott mentioned, uh one of the concepts is to create a larger waterfront um arena for the city of Cleveland and really the region.

And we've seen our our sister cities across uh the country on the waterfronts really emphasize that and and really take advantage of that waterfront.

Toronto, Chicago, Boston, Detroit has added some new pieces.

And the important piece is we always talk about accessibility for cars and pedestrians when we build developments, but we live on a Great Lake, and boats is a big part of the culture here.

And so if we can get more boats to come to the central business district, that drives energy and activity.

And you've seen that certainly in Chicago along the Chicago River.

Um that just brings people from all over the region who have a boat to come and visit and go to a concert or whatnot.

And oftentimes that drives room nights as well, and obviously uh food and beverage.

Uh and as Scott mentioned, a big part of that is you could use grants to fund this, uh, and they're also privately financeable as well.

So a great opportunity to really bring more people into our central British district.

Can I just add in one item there just to hammer home the point that's in the slide?

The Chicago River Promenade drives 27 million dollars in solely concession revenue.

So again, thinking about sales tax being able using the site to drive sales tax, it has been enormously successful in driving driving that directly to Chicago.

So the RV park, and similar to what Scott said, uh I am not an RV person, so as we did research and learning about this, uh our RV popularity has grown significantly since the pandemic, and surprisingly, the demographic of individuals purchasing RVs has come down significantly as well.

Uh it used to be the average age was in the late 50s, now that is in the late 40s, as more millennials and Gen Zs use RVs as a different way of recreation.

And so these parks, they're really more actually most of them are called resorts because they have fitness clubs, pools, clubhouses, and other sports facilities on the site.

It really is, if you think about it, it's a hotel without a room, and you bring your room to the facility, and the facility has the amenities in itself.

And these are growing mostly in uh suburban and rural areas, and so the proximity to the central business district allows folks who maybe are coming to the town, again, like I said, for a concert that don't want to stay in a hotel room, but they can bring their bring their whole family in one vehicle and still have a great experience and stay overnight.

Uh, and the longer they linger in downtown Cleveland, the more money they will spend uh within our our community.

And again, as Scott mentioned, these are infinitely uh able to be privately financed, uh, and it's really growing as an industry.

You can see a 35 billion dollar industry with your average daily spend of 165 per individual.

Uh and so as you think about RVs are traditionally designed to bring you know couples and families, uh, that starts to amplify uh the economic impact.

And the number of people who are employed by those uh RV resorts as well uh can help increase our job and income tax revenue uh from the site.

So Scott mentioned competitive uh competition ready sports facilities.

Uh if there are any folks with young children they know where you get the travel schedule every year and you find out six weekends out of your summer, you're gonna be traveling somewhere in Indiana or Pennsylvania for a tournament.

Uh and for better or for worse, those are typically in more uh rural areas, and I'll just use the Sandusky example outside of Cedar Point and Spire out in Giorga County.

You know, as a family, if you're bringing your entire family to those locations, it's great that your children are playing, but then after the games or between the games, what do you do?

And especially if you have one child who's playing and one child who's not playing and just can't sit still.

Being so close to our central business district allows us to say, you know, I'm gonna take uh our daughter to the you know the Great Lakes Science Center, while son plays soccer or the Museum of Illusions on Euclid Avenue.

Uh and then those folks, instead of staying in some uh uh hotel out in the Ruhr, is now say, like, okay, we're gonna go to Playoff Square after the game is over, we're gonna eat, we're gonna stay in a hotel downtown.

It starts to drive those bed nights that we certainly need in our business uh central business district uh and drives additional other tax revenue.

So just some examples here, and these are examples in more rural areas, so we could think of ours would likely be amplified is in uh Albertville, Alabama, about a 20 million dollar uh annual economic impact.

Uh and then in Vernon Ford, uh Iowa, that generates about 1.5 million visitors uh just at the sports complex, and additional 25 million dollars in economic impact.

And again, as Scott mentioned, these are uh privately financed because of the opportunity that they present.

Uh and uh I think equally as important of all the things I just mentioned, is that given the tournaments are typically on weekends, there's a great opportunity to work with the the folks who would operate this to provide public access on these high quality fields for the residents of the city of Cleveland.

Uh something I think we sorely need to make sure our our children have great opportunities to grow as athletes uh uh in our city.

Tom can I I just want to add real quick on the e-sports thing, and I want to be very clear about this.

Like, this is an economic development play, right?

Youth competitive youth sports is a 65 billion dollar industry today.

It is projected to go to a 154 billion dollar industry by 2035.

Uh and you can look all over the country, but facilities like this do not exist in in major American downtown.

They do not.

They're in suburbs, they're in exurbs.

Detroit is trying.

If you go to look at Ralph Wilson Park, where they're building a new WNBA facility, right next, they're starting to build some some competitive youth soccer fields, but they can only do a handful of that.

Like I had the opportunity.

That the reason we kind of slipped this into the ESI study a few years ago.

I had the opportunity to meet Janelle Fairman, who's the economic development director for City of Westfield outside of Indianapolis a couple of years ago, uh, where they have the Grant Park Sports Complex.

The Grant Park Sports Complex sits on 400 acres of land in suburban Indianapolis.

That place generates 2.5 million, 2.5 million annual visitors, right?

Like a little bit of context there.

Cleveland Brown Stadium, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Great Lake Science Center, 1.6 million visitors annually, uh, right?

It has a 100 million dollar annual spend uh that goes on there.

It is the 16th largest sports venue draw in the country.

Like they're starting to attract things around it that are like they're building a city out of that sports complex being in the center of it.

But again, we don't have to go all the way to Indianapolis.

If you just look at what is happening at the Sports Force Complex over there, which centers largely on baseball, uh, that place has a 25 uh million dollar uh annual impact, economic impact.

You may recall the Cleveland Browns had a 31 million dollar annual economic impact.

That sits on 50 acres, right?

That's a third of what we're showing on here, which again gets to the context of the size of Burke, right?

We would only be showing right now, we're showing a third of the uh of the site being used for something like this, and something one third of what we're proposing is generating 25 plus million dollars in economic impact and 15,000 room nights a year, right?

We talk about like building on our strengths.

You have an organization representing the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission, uh Destination Cleveland.

You want to talk about some organizations that punch above their white and the ability to bring events here that are driving things, and uh, I think Jason mentioned uh, you know, folks and what they do in between games.

I've sat at my daughter's AAU basketball games in my in my minivan eating baloney sandwiches in between games because there's nothing around us.

Here you can walk to the Rock and Wall of Fame.

You're in town for the weekend, you can stay, you can go to the Cosm up the street, Playhouse Square.

Like there are opportunities all around us that are sitting on here.

Um and I also want to tee up uh and hit on what Scott was saying as it relates to that kind of community benefit uh that goes in here.

I think most of you know uh in my prior life to this, uh, you know, one of the best things that I was ever a part of, and your former colleague Kerry McCormack was a big part of it too, uh, was the creation of what is now known as Near West Recreation, uh, which started out as a 68 child youth t ball league uh in Ohio City has grown to serve over 1,800 kids, primarily on the city's near west side.

54% of those kids live below the poverty line, right?

And they deserve every single opportunity that the folks living in a place like Lakewood or Shaker Heights deserve in their ability to play sports.

You guys want to know what our single biggest challenge with Near West Rec was?

It wasn't even raising the roughly 400,000 a year that we had to raise to make sure that those kids living below the poverty line had access to that programming.

It was finding court time for basketball in the winter, because it's so hard.

And that is not just like a city of Cleveland problem.

If you look like locally and regionally as we get into this, try finding ice rink time around here for like local youth sports.

Like, there is a line out the door of people that need these types of facilities during the year that can program this, right?

And so again, if you're asking my opinion, unequivocally, this is something that we should be looking at because it doesn't exist anywhere else.

Uh, and we have the infrastructure in place, I think, to blow it out of the water.

Thanks, Tom.

So another piece of the conceptual plans included over 10 miles of uh walking and biking trails.

Uh I think we all are very familiar with um with the metro parks and the tremendous trails they have through uh Cyoge County and frankly beyond.

Uh if you go on a Saturday, likely the most of the trailhead parking lots are full as people are enjoying the the recreation opportunities.

And and and trails in Ohio, two dollars for in economic value for every dollar spent to create them, so double the uh what the investment is.

And then also the Topath Trail through Scrand Peninsula has driven a lot of private investment.

Uh uh Director McNair mentioned earlier, the the new thousand people who are living on Scrandon Peninsula, those type of investments are driven by the public investments to create access to things that people really want to uh enjoy.

And I also want to hit home, uh, the metro parks are great, but you have to drive to go get to most of the metro parks, right?

And so, especially as you think about the east side of Cleveland, having access to great high-quality trails on our lakefront is something that is sorely missed that generations have been fighting for, and it's an opportunity for us to create that here and uniquely right on the lakefront that has incredible views, and frankly, cool in the summertime when it's 90 degrees outside, right?

You've got Lake Breeze.

And these are things that can be built through grant opportunities through philanthropy through working with uh other folks again to avoid the public investment uh from the city of Cleveland.

Uh public parks, very similar to what we talked about with uh with walking trails, but I think the great opportunity here is creating a great public space that can be really defining of our city.

Uh we show examples of uh Millennium Park and Golden Gate Park, uh both in Chicago and San Francisco, but having that signature park that defines the city of Cleveland that can amplify and bring individuals to the area that come to the space just to get a picnic by the lake or to play great frisbee or soccer or football, just great open space for people to enjoy both actively and passively, however they choose, but having that in abundance and easily accessible uh and those visitors continue to drive economic impact to our to our central business district.

So a golf course, uh great example here in Chicago of a golf course right on the waterfront.

Uh we've seen Michigan and and Wisconsin uh utilize these to great success.

Uh those golf courses bring both regional and national visitors to to their locations.

So it's an opportunity for uh us to create additional economic impact for the region.

Uh estimate bringing about 20 million dollars and additional annual impact from uh from those uh visitors to the golf course, and uh also this is uh as an opportunity to be priorly financed.

And I think the last piece that Scott also mentioned, but the opportunity to use it differently in the winter time uh provides a great opportunity for cross-country seeing, which is uh difficult to do in the city of Cleveland, but also very popular.

Cross-country skiing.

Uh so just skiing across the snowpack.

Thank you.

Uh additional um, as I mentioned, uh winter recreation and the idea of potentially creating great changes within the golf course, it could be uh great sledding hills too uh for families to enjoy in the winter time.

Uh lastly, uh averteport, as Scott mentioned, helicopters are a big portion of the operations currently at Berkeley Lakefront Airport, our health care providers, obviously with Metro, UH, and Cleveland Clinic, but also our local TV stations and others uh use uh the helicopter port.

So this is um an opportunity for us to maintain those uses that are critical uh for the region on site.

Uh and again, uh this is an opportunity for to provide that use without uh investment from the city of Cleveland.

Uh so now we're gonna pivot a little bit and talk about the air show.

Uh Jessica and I will talk about this together.

Um I can say definitively the air show can continue to operate if Burke closes.

There are countless examples nationally of airshows operating from remote locations.

The experience is a little bit different than it is currently, but most air shows across the country uh do operate from remote locations.

For for the Cleveland Air Show, uh it's less of a logistic logistics concern and much more of an economics uh concern of whether or not they can continue to operate.

Uh we believe there is still an opportunity to retain a paid visitor experience on the future loose uh land use of Burke, uh resolving that that economic uh issue.

Uh I've spoken to four other air show producers um across the country, and all uh unanimously and vehemently uh concur that the Cleveland Air Show can continue to operate without Burke.

Um and you know, we're eager to engage with the folks who run the air show.

We've been trying to get some time with them and uh we're working to schedule a meeting some point uh in late May.

Uh this is just uh an image of sort of a hypothetical viewing area.

Um I'm sure you all have gotten the same feedback that we have from the air show, which is you know, concerns that the air show cannot go forward in its current state.

Um, which I I think I just want to maybe give you some context of what that current state is.

Um, our air show is currently like a 2.3 million dollar air show.

That's what it costs in revenue to that they bring in and what it costs to put on.

Um other air shows are around 300 to 500,000 to put on.

Um, and our air show pays for that 2.3 million dollars by charging ticket fees.

Um, you know, it's $50 for anybody 11 years old and up to go to the air show.

There's cost to park, there's cost to you know be there.

Um, not saying that that's impossible to do on the site.

In fact, we've kind of shown where you could put uh ticketed viewing area for premium seats for the air show if this is something that they were interested in.

Uh we've been, you know, we're interested in talking to them about ways to continue to have the ground exposition, you know, having having the planes on site instead of just a remote air show.

Um but our air show is very protective of Burke Lake Front Airport because it's how they generate their revenue to continue operating as their 501c3.

So I've heard stories of people who are trying to watch the air show from city-owned parking lots where like the air show hires security and tells them that they shouldn't be watching from those parking lots because the air show wants people to go pay for tickets to watch at Burke Lake Front Airport.

Um to say, you know, I think we're very interested in working with the air show to think about maybe their existing model isn't what's gonna work without Burke, but a model for an air show is going to continue to be very possible in the city of Cleveland, even if Burke closes.

So as we wrap up the last couple slides here, I'm gonna just briefly give an overview of the economic impact analysis that was conducted uh on these two hypothetical fit studies.

I'm gonna preface it with saying both the economic impact and the annual tax revenue and the job growth is solely focused on the site of Burke Lakefront Airport and is not inclusive of uh folks staying in hotels uh coming to a youth sports competition, is not inclusive of sales tax from folks going to restaurants when they're coming to visit these areas.

So this is just the uses that we've outlined here.

Uh it's a 600 to 800 million dollar one-time economic impact.

Uh 2.5 million dollars in direct annual tax revenue, again, generated solely on the site, and that is a 5x multiplier of what that site generates currently.

Uh 3,000 construction jobs to build the images that you've seen as we've gone through these, as well as 170 permanent full-time jobs in the city of Cleveland to operate the uses that we've just went through.

Um, and again, that is just on the site.

That is does not uh include any any job uh jobs created as a result of this outside of uh of the Burke Laifront Airport site.

It in the the conclusion, the three sort of last bullet points here, concluding uh the economic impact analysis were it would result in a significant increase in visitor spending to the city.

It would enhance Cleveland's overall competitiveness to attract new businesses and residents and would likely generate a much greater economic benefit than maintaining current airport operations.

Like I mentioned, we've also been uh uh asking folks in the community what they think of some of these uses, and I'm just gonna go through some high-level uh information here.

Uh NCWDC uh engage Land Studio, who's reached out to every one of your offices uh a couple times.

Uh we've either attended or have scheduled uh community meetings in wards three, four, five, six, eight, nine, twelve, uh, and fourteen plus Fairfax and St.

Clair Superior uh events that are coming up.

If I I'll invite all of you here directly, if there are uh community meetings in your wards where you would like to hear feedback from your residents on Burke Lake for an airport, please let me know.

Um our team is more than happy uh to attend and to solicit that feedback.

Uh we hand out these surveys in person.

We've also collected the collected them online uh in 5,800 responses in uh just over a month, which I think is indicative of the the conversation around Burke right now.

Uh 70% of people consider Cleveland a waterfront city.

Uh 85% are supportive or very supportive of creating a more accessible lakefront.

And you can see uh the bar graph on your rights, uh the sort of preferred uh options for what folks want to see there.

And again, this is without a lot of communication on giving giving the information that we just gave you on what some of these uses could drive in terms of economic impact.

So some of the top ones you see are multi-purpose trails, restaurants, open park space, and sports and recreation facilities.

And then this is the the last slide, finally.

Um in terms of next steps with where we are with Burke, uh, you know, we'll continue to engage this body.

Uh if Burke were to close, we obviously need to secure support from the federal from our federal delegation.

Uh we'll continue to engage with you uh with the users of Burke Lake for an airport.

We're having regular conversations with uh business owners as well as the users of Burke currently, and we'll continue that, um, as well as in possible conversations with the possible operators interested in redeveloping uh Burke.

Upon uh formal approval for closure, if and when that happens, uh at that point we would start sort of a more formal master planning process with more robust and traditional community engagement.

Because again, I'll say it one last time.

This is not meant to be the definitive master plan for the site.

This is a study of what sort of concepts could drive economic impact, could increase public access, and have financially viable uh funding models.

So if we were to get uh clarity on the the likelihood and timeline of Burke closing, at that point we would do a more formal master planning process, and just like any uh planning and development process, that would all come through this body as well.

And and maybe just before we open up for questions, comments, thoughts from you all, I just want to emphasize you know, Burke Lake Front Airport, I think the the whole purpose of these hearings has been again to give you all the information to decide where you sit and whether you support the closure of work or not.

Um to me, we really cannot, it is it is almost impossible.

It is impossible for us to look at any of these really exciting opportunities uses that could be at Burke until we have a decision on closure.

You know, it's we are have talked a lot about the impact of closure, the process of closure, the budget, you know, what the opportunities are for Burke.

Um, but we have to get to the point of deciding to close to make any of this a reality.

And so Scott and I were talking about, you know, this earlier today with with a group of folks, and um they asked, like, well, have you thought about XYZ and Scott Point out?

Like, we're on step seven of a hundred, right?

Like there is still a lot of work to be done here.

Uh this whole goal is really to help you all do your due diligence and make sure that you have the information that you need to decide where you stand on this.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh I I don't have too many questions.

I've been engaged in a back and forth on this, but I would like uh to, if you're able to speak a little more, so your analysis is that essentially the direct tax revenue of the airport today is about half a million dollars.

This proposed concept could be two and a half million dollars.

To what so when we talk about like in macroeconomics, like free trade, and I think we get caught up a lot in if we engage in something, it's going to have a higher revenue, so higher is good, and we don't talk about like the displaced element of that, like kind of the debits and the credits.

What what of the current uses at Burke?

How would the current uses at Burke be absorbed either on site, elsewhere within the region, and what share of the current half million dollars do you think we would retain in addition to new revenue should Burke close?

Yeah, it's a it's a great question, Councilman.

And we the CHA or the ESI study that we referred to from 2024 is online and kind of talks about this in detail.

So I'm gonna do my best to recall, but I might give um a follow-up answer.

A lot of that $500,000 is parking related to parking, parking revenue, parking taxes.

Uh the the ESI study assumed that at least half of that would stay.

I think you know, we didn't look at this specific site, but uh some of only a small portion of this is parking.

As it relates to airport, like the the two main uses on the site right now are the airport and the confined disposal facilities.

The CDFs won't stay in you know any of these concepts, and so no change there.

Uh the airport economic impact is really, you know, what our studies have shown is that we can move all of nearly everything to Hopkins, with maybe the exception of flight schools, which are pretty low economic impact, which would then you know likely go to the county airport.

And so when we think regionally, you know, we wouldn't be losing that tax benefit.

Uh we would just be relocating it to Hopkins.

Okay, and as a follow-up to that point, um has there been an analysis done so that theoretically, Burke closes things move to Hopkins.

What percentage of growth opportunity at Hopkins today is taken up by shifting Burke services over to Hopkins?

And really the question for this committee being how do we most strategically leverage Hopkins moving forward and and uh would shifting Burke into Hopkins forego other opportunities available to us currently there.

Yeah, to my knowledge, it would not have us forego any opportunities at Hopkins.

Um I could have Brian Francis follow up with a more detailed analysis of of why that is the case.

Um but in you know, one of the things that we've looked at really closely is if we were to close Burke, what would its impact be on Hopkins?

And the impact is positive.

Okay, my my final question.

You've noted that uh a facility like what's shown on the screen here, a youth sports facility is is privately financed.

In other so Westfield, Indiana, Sandusky, Ohio, elsewhere, have those been purely privately financed?

Has there been some public component really trying to understand what yes the city would be gaining new revenue, but for what duration of time would the new revenue be subsidizing some ask of the city whether that is needed or just expected.

Uh I think it's an important number to build into our analysis, although I appreciate that this is not a full analysis at this point.

Yeah, I I I would say that uh Councilman Slife, uh broadly speaking, most of those facilities do use some level of public-private partnership on there.

I think what is largely interesting about them, uh, you know, when you look at the direct impact, right, in property tax and things like that, it it's not it's it's not like that dense development that we were talking about that really drives value per acre uh that goes on.

But of course, if we wanted to get to that, one it would require that we need a market for those things, two, it would require the city to put a lot of infrastructure in place.

So what these facilities provide more so than that direct impact.

So you're not having to give as much up in terms of like a TIFF or things of that nature, right?

But like it's the indirect spend uh that comes with that, and that's that broader economic impact.

Like another one of the examples that's out there is in Spooky Nook, Pennsylvania.

Uh they have the largest indoor facility out there.

I think it's about 750,000 square feet.

They have an 87 million dollar annual economic impact.

So I think what you're trading off for on the youth sports thing is more direct income that comes from property taxes and things of that nature, and you pick up more of an indirect spend.

And and I would just add in there's a lot of these across the country, and there's many, many different examples of how they are financed.

There are many that have sort of a public-private partnership component where there are incentives or uh land discounts, things like that to help facilitate development.

There are also plenty that are entirely privately financed by a developer who raises traditional debt and equity for the project.

And maybe just what one additional point is when we think about redevelopment on Berg Lakefront Airport, similar to the stadium site, the city is the one who owns the property, and so we have a lot of we have as much leverage as you could possibly have to dictate both terms of an agreement and public access related to any of those agreements.

Thank you.

So moving forward and maybe even offline, I would like to get a better sense of you know, uh, discussions on how these sorts of facilities are financed.

So if you live in Ward 15, uh West 168 is being resurfaced this summer, hooray.

It's costs 550,000 to do the entirety of West 168th Street.

So more than I guess what Burke currently generates the budget.

And and and I I bring it up because it's I think sometimes numbers are large, but when you consider how big Cleveland is and what the scale of needs are, when you start dividing that those dollars by 15, not necessarily because everything has to be divided by 15 equally, but just for sake of discussion, you know, numbers, the the direct impact into a neighborhood gets pretty small uh pretty quickly, and and you know, I don't want to end up in situations where you know it's it sounds like a lot of money, but then you're like, oh, it turned out it was only three thousand dollars, and it doesn't, it's not enough money to do anything of impact.

So I I think my interest in understanding potential asks of the public sector in anything that happens at Burke is to try to ascertain what we are foregoing and for what duration of time uh so that we can determine is are we talking about direct revenues that have a measurable impact uh someone living on you know Seville Avenue or or Mun Road or anywhere in between?

Or or is it uh is is it is it a large number for the budget, but but it still doesn't satiate our needs to uh uh uh deal with all of the deferred maintenance and neighborhood investment that that we hear from residents wanting on a day-to-day basis.

But I think that that that really becomes a numbers exercise it would be useful to understand more specifically how other facilities are financed.

We're happy to put together some case studies for you for how what the business plans have looked like for some of those those other facilities.

Okay.

Uh thank you.

I'll turn it over to Councilman Jones, and then I have Palencic.

It's really good to take a look at um the suggestions that have been made.

Um Mr.

Chairman to uh Mrs.

Trivasano, can we get a copy of the report uh that you showed the breakdown in the slides here?

Um as relates to um the public perspective and opinion on the site.

Yeah.

Okay.

And um when you broke these analyses down here, I just want to really focus a little bit on it.

Just a tad here.

Um you stated that in the response uh 70% uh it says, do you consider Cleveland a waterfront city?

Was that the question that was asked and of the respondents?

It was 70% that said yes.

Uh to the council through the chair, yes.

That was the that was the exact question that was asked.

That did was there any questions uh that was asked on what the citizens would like to see there on the lake front?

Uh to the councilman through the chair, uh yes.

Um so we there's one, there's a place where folks can just comment where what qualitatively uh their own ideas and whatever they want to see, and we've collected that and we've sort of uh categorize them, and that's part of uh a report that we can share with you.

Uh additionally, we asked just point blank all of the uses that you see on the screen in this presentation here, and just ask folks sort of yes or no for these uses.

And how how did this uh this uh uh opinion poll go out?

How was it done?

I didn't get it.

No one asked me.

Uh sure to the councilman to the chair.

Why didn't they ask me?

Um uh respectfully uh councilman.

Uh we did reach out to you three or four times via email.

My cell phone.

Sure.

Okay.

And Scott, you have it.

Sure.

So you could have called me.

Sure, we'll give you a call.

Right.

Um, this has also been heavily publicized.

We've been in neighborhood block club meetings in wards three, four, five, six, eight, nine, twelve, and fourteen, and are eager to go.

You've been into those neighborhoods already.

Yes.

Did the survey happen into those communities where we're given the copies of surveys, or did they go online and do the survey?

Both.

Um we have an online uh obviously option that folks can go online on their phones or on their computer too.

We also have actual cards that we can hand out uh to get responses directly there as well.

And and councilman, I I would add um the survey is still live and up, and we're not done collecting information.

Um we're sort of at a uh a midpoint, so eager to come out to your ward and attend your community meetings and talk about it as well.

I appreciate that.

Uh Mr.

Chairman, um the plans that we have here.

Um how long have we been working on these plans?

To the councilman through the chair, uh a handful of weeks.

Not a very long time.

I mean, you can you can sort of this is just a rough sketch now.

This is a rough sketch from what where how are we drawing this all together?

Is it coming from the actual survey, or is just how is this put together?

Well, so I would say a a couple things.

Um Scott talked a little bit about the the group of stakeholders that were convened to kind of brainstorm some ideas from at least the civic sector.

Um that's you know, including uh metro parks, it includes Destination Cleveland, the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission, um all of those folks, the county um it this is also a uh reflection of the years of work done in Lakefront master planning and what we've heard from community members about what they want to see both on the stadium site but about the lakefront generally that kind of underpins everything.

And there's also been hundreds of years of master plans done for the lakefront, some on BERC, some on the stadium.

So I this specific picture, a couple weeks, uh, but it is underpinned by literally a century of people working on what to do with our lakefront.

And and to be more specific, we took the data that we have from the three years of community engagement the city did on the stadium site from the community engagement work that Metro Parks did on Gordon Park and for the Cheers Project in their sailing center, uh, as well as community engagement data that exists from uh past versions of Lakefront master plans for this site as well as for the stadium site, and looked at it really through that lens.

We have dating back 20 or 30 years, there's been pretty much ongoing community engagement on potential uses for uh for the lakefront.

Now you talked about some of these plans.

Do you do can you make some of those available as well to me?

Yes, they are they are available, and we'll make sure that you're is it like a room I can go in to like you know a skiff and take a look at it like that.

We don't need to, you we can we'll email them to you.

You know, because I haven't I you know one of the things is I know that we've had a number of plans um uh but those plans have never been like made public.

Um I'm gonna go on because I have a limited amount of time and I want to be able to um go right on in on what my colleague uh Mr.

Slife talked about is the financial side of things and is one of the things I've talked about sitting here at the table.

Um and Tom McNair opened it up with talking about this being a generator of resources for the city of Cleveland.

The the question would be because right now the city is facing a 1.8 billion dollars in terms of debt, and so with 1.8 billion dollars in terms of debt that we're facing right now, um, how does this help us uh uh begin to deal with those issues?

Because a lot of times I've sat here at this table and we've given away a lot of stuff here at this table, but we really fundamentally are not generating funds.

And it was one of the things I talked about when we started talking about Burke Lake Airport, how do we turn the city into a the capacity to really generate funds through our general fund?

And though we have these public-private partnerships, they haven't really worked out financially for the city of Cleveland.

Uh, even so far as Mr.

McNair realizes, uh, being in economic development, um, we have not been able to even get money back from people who owe us for grants and funds and that we've given to them in the past.

So, how do we, with what we're talking about here, uh another uh uh a space and time where we could potentially generate funds, how does this really equate financially?

So though we've kind of like brushed across some of the discussion here about what it could potentially generate, um, is there something concrete that you will later be able to bring to us that can help us understand, you know, that if we invest here, what does that financially mean for the city of Cleveland?

And as the councilperson stated, you know, these streets are costing us a lot of money.

You know, I do one street, it's 283,000.

I have over 275 different streets in my neighborhood.

I can only on average get six of those streets done.

Citizens want to know about, and I've got calls all day long about streets bumpity roads and stuff like that.

So I need to have something that's gonna be subsistence sitting here at this table of discussion.

And though the golf course looks nice and you know, I don't know what it's gonna really look like at the end of the day, the ideals and the concepts look good, but what does it actually benefit and how does it actually benefit the citizens of the city of Cleveland?

Because right now we and we've heard the testimony of uh Mike Palenzig earlier, we lost the the the Browns, um, and we've lost a lot in the city of Cleveland.

So the question is in my mind, how do we turn this into a financial possibility of uh of being able to have something that's gonna be a win-win, not just for those who are rich and wealthy and local development corporations or CDCs or whatever, however you want to put the the ideal and concept together or the construct.

The issue is how do we in the city of Cleveland when we're making these investments behold?

And how do we um get a return on our investments?

And how do we on the other side, and so one of you guys can answer this because I know my time is limited.

So it's an issue of investments and how do we get a return.

And then the next issue is uh we used to have um down here in the flats.

It was a real attraction for us.

Uh I remember when I was much younger, Tom probably remember those days.

Uh and um it was packed down there, and we had a lot of uh energy, synergy down there, and then a couple of shots rang out, and now it's the issue of safety.

So when we are talking about this component here, we need to have a perspective of of what that safety means.

And and then lastly, so this th this two questions, there's a third one talking about the air show.

The air show has been here forever.

So I don't want us to have uh the poo-poo concept of oh bad, too bad, they're just not gonna be here too sad.

Um then I want to know a little bit more about is finances because you touched on that, you know.

So uh what is and how much resources is generated to the city's coffers with that with that being out there as well.

So I I can start councilman, and then I I want Chief McNair to also add uh so to the councilman through the chair.

Um one, I think high level, we share the same goal, right?

We want this 450 acres of lakefront land to be an economic engine for the city of Cleveland.

I can tell you confidently it's not doing that as a private airport that is used for fewer than 40,000 operations, and I don't see a path to it becoming that.

I understand that argument.

You made the argument well in previous pieces.

What I want to know about is how we generate what what you're talking about in terms of the presentation here.

Yes, and so um, you know, I I think Tom can add into e each of these individual uses has an opportunity to drive economic benefit to the city of Cleveland, whether it's competitive youth sports, whether it is recreation paths and marina, you know, all of these are again trying to find this balance of having a really substantial public access to be something that all Clevelanders can enjoy and access, being privately financeable.

You know, if we came and sat here and said we should the city should build a 450-acre park ourselves and maintain a 450-acre park.

I would tell you guys to kick me out of this chair and you know, don't come back until we have a better plan.

That's not what we're proposing.

You know, we know that we have to have a plan that is privately financial and that can be maintained uh by the private sector.

That's one of the benefits of all of these components here.

And then that last facet is economic impact.

You know, what are uses that are going to drive visitors, drive businesses, give people a reason to be excited to live in Cleveland because they point to this 450 acres and say that's a youth sports complex that like my kids get to go use.

That is a an amenity to me, a resident of the city of Cleveland that I am proud to have.

These are incredible walking trails that I can't wait to go use and teach my kid to ride a bike on, right?

That's not happening with BERC.

I don't hear from a lot of residents who are excited because they are flying their private plane in and out of BERC.

That's just not what's happening.

Um, so each of these individual elements has their own economic benefit.

Uh, I think when you know, and this is part of the question that councilman's life was asking is what are the individual sort of what's the business plan for each?

That's not what we're presenting today.

We are talking about a concept plan that has a lot of opportunity for the city that can be privately financed.

Once we get to the point of we have the authority for Burke to close, then we'll be able to really hit the ground running, talking to other business owners and you know, folks who want to build on the site right now.

We're just not at that point yet.

We're still at the decision-making process, and frankly, I don't want to get too far ahead of where council is.

Um, and then before I turn it back over to Tom on the air show, completely agree that the air show is a really important part of Cleveland culture and something that we want to maintain.

Um, I'm not in the best position to explain all of the the finances of the air show.

I've just looked at their 990 and know what I can find out publicly.

Um I'm really eager to sit down with the air show and have uh been asking to have that conversation with them, and my hope is that they come to city council at some point too, so you all can learn more about the economics of the air show as well.

So I I I want to say one uh through the Treasury Councilman, uh I greatly appreciate the way you phrase financial possibility out of this, and I think it is important to remember uh the opportunity in front of us for 450 acres that is on our waterfront that is immediately adjacent to downtown.

Um, there has been a lot of work that has gone into, and again, to be very clear Berkeley Front Airport is active.

There's a lot of steps that would take to close it, right?

And so it would have to close to get to that opportunity, but we've done a lot of work that we have looked at what are the direct and indirect uh uh economic impact of Berkeley for an airport.

But we've done a lot of work that we have looked at what are the direct and indirect uh uh economic impact of Burke Lake Front Airport, and we know it's not much.

And we know that that most of that revenue could be maintained within the city of Cleveland.

And so if you think about that opportunity, there's almost two different pathways you can go.

In a different market, right, you could probably pursue that more direct uh revenue approach, right?

If we had uh and and Manhattan is one of the very few office markets in the country that is truly recovered uh post-pandemic, right?

That is like driving uh office market.

If we had a residential market like Austin, Texas, where there are people flocking, like we could probably look at that direct value, right?

Where you're constructing a lot of mixed use things of that nature, but there is substantial cost to the municipality in terms of like building out the infrastructure needed to make that happen, and you would need a market to support it.

That other pathway is looking at more of the indirect uh uh aspect of how we can generate revenues on this site, and it's that's where all of these different possibilities have come from.

Like everything that came on here are things that are constructible, they are things that are financeable, and they are things that will substantially drive traffic into our downtown on a year-round basis, which creates a significant amount of indirect spend that comes out there.

And there are tons of examples of that.

And and in those uh in those examples, it costs us very little to do because these are privately financial that is coming along, right?

Like, even in the public park aspect of things, like that is teed up for a clean Ohio application the way that very few places are, right?

Like, there are ways to raise the dollars for this.

There are private companies that would absolutely come in and want to invest capital, right, to build the types of facilities that we're showing here.

And again, 450 acres is a lot.

You could do some of these things, you can do all of them, right?

There are a ton of possibilities on here.

But again, when you start looking at the numbers on this, like inequivocally, almost anything that we would do drives more revenue than what Berkeley Front Airport does.

And I've heard a lot of the arguments on like, oh, how Berk Lake Front Airport uh you know can be a tool to retrain or attract businesses.

In 1986, we had 12 Fortune 500 companies located in downtown Cleveland.

Anyone know how many we have today?

Plus, three, right?

So if this is a facility that is designed to somehow attract or retain those types of corporations, like it hasn't been doing it, uh right.

But again, I think some of the stuff that we're talking about here, you can look all over the country, you do not find those types of amenities in their downtown, and when you pair them with the infrastructure that we've already spent decades, decades investing in to create, right?

Uh again, I caught the tail end of the flats, right?

But I also remember when I moved into downtown Cleveland in the early 2000s, uh, right, there were like 2,000 people living downtown.

There's 25,000 today.

Like before we built the gateway complexes, you could have fired a cannon down West Sixth Street and not hit a soul, right?

And so today there are people that are coming on a consistent base for that.

Those were conscious policy choices that were invested in tourism, hotel driving folks downtown, right?

And sure.

The Browns, the Browns have made a decision that they are going to move to another location, and with that 31 million dollars in economic impact is gonna fast after them.

But like some of the things we're showing here can meet or exceed that, right?

And and actually, if you think about the youth sports thing, like it can exceed it in a very different way because this is not just 10 to 12 dates a year where there's a massive amount of people coming down at once that are largely going just for food and beverage, right?

The types of customers that are coming in for a facility like that, that again, those are you're bringing in the competitive stuff on weekends that is happening on a consistent basis.

Those are people that are staying in your hotels, uh, those are people that are uh again, they're gonna catch shows, they're gonna go to the cosmic and they're gonna do all these things, but it's also gonna be bringing people down to use those facilities during the weekend, right?

You build the right size indoor facility on there, that is driving people who are still coming downtown, right?

They're supporting the restaurants, they're supporting all those sorts of things.

Uh, it's supporting RTA just had to close the waterfront line because there's not a lot of traffic, right?

Like adding a facility like this that is directly connected to to public transportation is a huge advantage that goes on.

And the other thing that I continue to think about when I think about opening Berkeley Front Airport to our single greatest natural asset and connecting our downtown and our city to our waterfront, again, you think about that 17th and 18th Street connection that goes on there, our downtown almost unceremoniously ends at East 12th Street.

Right?

If you look at a map, that whole northeast quadrant of downtown Cleveland is basically surface parking lots and one-story buildings that are like quasi-vacant and no one quite knows what's going on.

You connect that to our waterfront, you've created fertile grounds for the next 30 years.

So that you would go to the city.

And I would just add one thing to the councilman through the chair.

Everything Tom said is exactly correct.

One thing I do want to point out about these specific sort of fit studies and how we've laid them out is it leaves room for future growth.

The site is so large.

450 acres is an enormous piece of land.

And looking at this image right here, if in 15, 20 years uh a large uh uh job creator, a lar a large company wants to come and relocate here, we can carve off 50 of these acres and still have a 130-acre public park on the site.

Um if we see the sort of growth that we want to achieve and we see more demand for housing and hotels and all of those things, we can carve off 20 acres and still have a 160-acre park.

So I I do I wanted to add that there that we are trying to to plan for the future and leave in flexibility if we do see the results that we want to see down the road.

With a quick follow-up.

You didn't touch upon one of the questions which is really important as and I'm sorry that you got it on the back end, you should have been on the heyday uh with the pledge.

Um so you didn't see what I saw then.

Um just a little bit.

So but the concern here, and what's really important is anything that we do has to have a safety component in it.

And I of the three questions, and it sort of kind of I get that this is conceptual, but you know, having those numbers knowing what the financial impact is going to mean for the city of Cleveland is going to be important for me uh to be supportive of it.

One, and then two, um uh if you could talk a little bit about the safety uh proposition of it, because the citizens of the city of Cleveland uh and in a number of our neighborhoods don't feel safe.

Um and I can I can certainly speak for my neighborhood, and it's one of the reasons why we've had problems uh in the flats uh in terms of the issues when I talk to the various different owners uh in the in the various different establishments, the one of the most important things to them is safety um and how we deal with that.

And I know that uh Mr.

Chairman uh to Mrs.

Trivosano and to the panel that's here talking about this subject matter, you know, you really can't control who's gonna bring a gun and have a gun.

But the issue is how do we deal with safety uh with this whole proposition and making uh this area safe for people because people are not gonna come to this to this to the downtown area to really enjoy themselves and our nice restaurants, and they certainly not gonna come here if we have all of this uh available and they don't feel safe.

So please talk about the possibilities of safety.

Yeah, to the councilman through the chair, um, you know, uh that's a really great operational question and uh hard to answer with specifics when we're still in conceptual.

What I will say is all of the partners on uh the the bottom of this image, the port, the metro parks, black environmental leaders, counties, city, north coast waterfront development corporation.

One of the reasons it was so important to get buy-in from those civic sector partners is because I anticipate it will be at least in part, if not in full, the responsibility of those partners to help us deliver.

So when we think about something like lakefront safety of uh public park, you know, Metro Parks is I think a great expert in how to do that.

They've done it very successfully in Edgewater and other parts of our downtown lakefront, or in our city's lakefront.

So I don't have a specific operational response as much as I have a um commitment of buy-in from the public and civic sector that that is a shared priority and something that we absolutely understand is foundational to make this successful.

Well, I appreciate that.

So it's something that maybe is is you get the three areas that I'm concerned about.

You know, if you can start really giving me the numbers, talking about how it benefits the city, have a safety plan or proposition of the safety plan or how it would work, uh, those are the some key points that I'd like to see.

And then ideally when it's all said and done, Mr.

Chairman finally wrapping it up, is uh when when do we expect something like this to happen if if if things are ideal?

I know that you're already in Washington, DC working on this.

Um if this closes down, when it closes down, uh, how fast are we looking at possibility of seeing this develop?

Sure.

Yeah, I I think it's it's a there's a couple things that would have to happen.

There's both the federal authority to close, and then there's any council approval that would need to happen related to the closure, and then there's also helping all of the existing businesses that are operating at Burke relocate.

Um let's say that you know, if there was an act of Congress tomorrow, I would hope that we could be at a point, I would expect that we would be at a point of really getting tangible on development within you know six months of that, being able to do the public improvement or public engagement process, getting more of a master plan, we could do that in concurrence with helping to relocate all of the existing businesses there, identifying the out the impact, and then you know, shovels in the ground 24 months after we would have that congressional authorization, assuming council was on the same page as the congressional fellow delegation.

And to the councilman through the chair, um you know Jessica mentioned this earlier, but just to reiterate it, we are on step seven of several thousand.

Right.

Like this is this is us bringing these ideas to the table of uh uh up front and right away um to get feedback and to sort of start this conversation.

So I think and to Jessica's point, if Burke were to close, or if Congress were to authorize it to close tomorrow, we're still a long ways away, and there's still a lot of work to be done before anything were to actually happen on the site.

Thank you.

Uh Chief McNair, do you have any further comment on your glory days in the flats?

Any photos, maybe?

Luckily that was before digital photos.

Hearing none, I will turn it over to Councilman Palencick, followed by Harshan Gray.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman, my honorable colleagues, and again I want to thank you, Mr.

Chairman, for your approach to this critical discussion.

Um as I've said before, we as a body um and collectively as a city, we cannot continue to make bad decisions.

Um the recent Browns decision uh will go down, probably is one of the worst decisions ever made in my time in city council.

Um absolute disaster that the Browns are leaving downtown Cleveland.

Um I'll go right in and follow up on that.

We are here now before this committee hearing about a plan for Burke Airport, but yet Cleveland Brown Stadium is leaving.

We hear no discussions about what's going on to go there.

We look at the lakefront from the air to the west of the Mather, and again, I'll quote um I'll use a little bit more um colorful language.

You can shoot a cannon off to the west of the Mather and not hit anybody in the ass down there, okay.

So we hear no plan for that portion of the lakefront, but now we're gonna focus on Burke and we're gonna eliminate BERT.

You know, if you were talking um about a site that was like when my mother grew up in Glenville, and my grandfather on 47, my great grandparents on 47th Street when it was a dump down there and a landfill, I'd say, man, I'm with you.

I'm all for you.

Let's, man, let's let's get rid of that dump.

Let's improve that lakefront park.

Let's create a lakefront park.

But what we have is an airport down there.

And an airport that's been there for some time and has been discussed at this table at one time worked.

At one time 100,000 flights out of Burke.

And I know that because the commissioners have called me.

And I've asked the commit uh the chairman of this committee at some point.

I think we're gonna have to bring people to the table who worked there or have worked there, and we do have the power of subpoena, the the city council.

I know I used that when I was council president, if people are reluctant.

Um, but at the end of the day, I dream all the time.

Because I'm Cleveland, I never lived any place else.

I was born in Glenville neighborhood.

Now grew up in Collingwood.

I dream of all the time, and I think of all the time what was that when Euclid Avenue was a mass of humanity walking every day, and and the department stores, and I think of a uh a school system that functioned, and now we're we're confronted with 18 schools being closed and 410 teachers and administrators being laid off.

I think of what was downtown, and just right now, a closed hotel, reserve square and foreclosure.

I'm meeting this afternoon with a group of business people who are greatly concerned about downtown in the number of foreclosures.

They're telling me another six major foreclosures could be happening in the downtown area.

So I want to believe, I want Cleveland to be its best.

And I want the I just I want to see jobs and opportunity.

And so when I look at this, these wonderful schematics of what the lakefront could be if Burke disappears.

The first question being here, being on member of the finance committee.

And I asked this again, at this moment in time, who is in Washington, who is lobbying besides the mayor to kill Burke Airport?

Who have we retained?

Can the administration tell me who that is?

So the the City of Cleveland, uh to the councilman through the chair, the city of Cleveland uh is leading the efforts to uh educate and advocate for uh closure of Burke, although we also have a lot strong alignment from Greater Cleveland Partnership, uh who has also been in DC talking about Burke closing.

But do we have a lobbyist doing who's the lobbyist lobby?

Uh we have uh Kate Hallehan is the lobbyist uh for the airport that has been helping with the aviation related portions.

And do we know what that cost is, that lobbying effort?

Not off the top of my head, but I can I can't do that.

I'm gonna make that request through the chair.

And I'll say the legislation did just come through.

So the way it was explained to us was that it was the uh was and I'll pause you as it pertains to getting federal grants for runway rehabilitation at Hopkins and any anything generally, there is a lobbyist that assists port control with that uh, but that is not this person's exclusive charge on this or any other individual topic.

That's correct.

Thank you, Ken.

So the question was who is it?

So who really is it?

Who's doing it?

So the name of the firm, the lobbying firm is Hallehan strategies or something like that.

It's all uh a she being Hallehan, H-A-L-L-A-H-A-N.

And uh she's an individual that had previously worked in the Federal Government, FAA, DOT, uh that does comparable work for a number of other airports.

Thank you.

So but that's that's uh that's a part of her role, lobbying to close Burke, besides I mean we know the mayor is lobbying to close Burke.

Um do you know what the estimated demolition cost would be for Burke Airport?

To the councilman through the chair, I don't have it off the top of my head.

I don't know that there would depending on what we did with the site, there might not have to be much demolition to Berkeley Front Airport.

So uh it's in the the ESI study from 2024, the demolition cost, but uh like I said, depending you might notice the field house uh is sited similar to where the like the current terminal and hangar is.

And so depending on the use of the site, we might not have to do much demolition.

Okay, but I would ask for an updated Mr.

Chairman.

I would ask for an updated demolition cost.

Thank you.

It's 450 acres, obviously.

So we I would like to know what the estimated demolition cost is.

To the councilman through the chair on that point quickly.

Um the way that for when we're looking at privately financed uses, which a lot of these are the sports complex, these fields, demolition is built into the cost of development for them.

It's really common across the city for developers to absorb the cost, uh absorb site work and demolition costs as part of their uh business venture.

Okay.

So then you put me right into my next line of question.

On both concepts, what is the estimated cost?

Construction cost.

Uh on both concepts, the uh I'm gonna qualify this as well.

Uh same same to my last statement.

Um on both concepts, the estimated construction cost is somewhere around $600 million.

Uh however, uh nearly all of that would be privately financed when you're looking at the vast majority of these uses, uh, these are profitable businesses.

Um those are not costs that would be absorbed by the general public.

Okay.

And one, sorry, just to add to the councilman through the chair and for our our listening audience, all each of these uses is identified in the ESI study that was circulated to council and posted online and has estimated cost of each of those uses as well.

So estimated cost, $600 million for each one.

And you've indicated um again that these costs will be borne by private development, private developers.

Now I've been here for 14 consecutive terms.

If I believed in that comment, I would believe in the Easter bunny.

Okay?

Easter bunny.

And the Easter bunny would be more relevant to me.

Because I have yet to see the corporate community do it out of their own pockets on any major project here.

It's either TIFFs, it's tax abatement, it's everything else they can get.

I mean, give me a break.

I mean, the you know, I was born early, but it wasn't yesterday morning.

Anything that goes down there of $600 million project, they are gonna have their handout, like they're standing up here on Prospect Avenue.

Now come on, let's be realistic.

We have to make the right decisions.

If Burke is to leave, if Burke is to go away, then what we we have to we have to be realistic with the taxpayers and with our citizens and what this is gonna cost, Mr.

Chairman, to the administration.

In 1982, I built four ball four ball diamonds in '82 cost me 1.2 million dollars.

I mean, when I look at this Cha-ching, that's what I see here.

It's beautiful plans.

Beautiful concepts.

Again, what I need, I need to hear from somebody from the administration.

I it has been talked about the economic engine.

If Burke is going away, you gotta create an economic engine for this city and especially how it's gonna impact the east side of the city of Cleveland.

We've lost, we've lost half a city council.

We've lost half of the population of the City of Cleveland, just in from my time being here, have left.

And now we have more people blowing out because of these schools being closed.

Okay.

We have got to step back and we got to draw the line in the sand, and whatever we do on the Burke site, whether it be to reimagine Burke Airport and make it work as some people believe it can work.

Or if not, if we're going to do something else, then we have to figure out how there's going to be a real revenue stream for the City of Cleveland.

I'm trying to develop a 150 acre park right now on Lakeshore Boulevard, attached to a neighborhood.

So there is Eastside neighborhoods that are walkable to the lakefront.

I've got one of them.

I've got two miles of lakefront in my ward.

Eukli Beach, Wildwood, Villa Angela.

150 acres I'm trying to develop right now with the with metro parks.

And that's a heck of a lift.

A heck of a lift we're doing there.

And I want to thank Tom for his and his engagement with me on trying to reimagine Lakeshore Boulevard, which he knows again is a major lift what we're trying to do out there.

So what I'm looking at here is I just see dollar signs.

I see how I see how are we going to do this?

How are we going to create that economic engine that our citizens and our kids and our children for their future can benefit and how we can re-establish Cleveland is Tom indicated?

We once were right there with Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, with regard to Fortune 500 companies right there.

And I want to go back to what I said earlier.

Due to one bad decision after another, one bad decision after another, no vision or private agendas.

Those major corporations blew out of here.

They left us and they didn't look back.

And so we it is what it is.

So the comment was made that Burke generates $500,000 in revenue.

Is that from does that incorporate the private businesses that are there or there have we taken into account how many people they employ, what they're paying in taxes?

Who's calculating that, Mr.

Chairman, to the administration?

To the Councilman through the chair, the $500,000 is the direct tax revenue to the City of Cleveland.

So that's parking tax, that's income tax, uh, that's limited property tax.

That's the that is the limit of the direct tax revenue to the City of Cleveland from Breakfast.

But so that doesn't take into account the businesses that are there.

It does.

It does.

It does.

Like their income tax generated from the employees.

Correct.

Okay.

Because that's that's very important.

We that this body have a real picture as to what presently is being generated out of Burke Airport.

And then, Mr.

Chairman, the um you've mentioned been made here by about Metro Parks.

Has Metro Parks been engaged in this plan at all?

Yes.

And from what capacity have they even engaged?

Uh Metro Park staff did the plan.

They're the ones who put the plan together.

So both concepts?

Both concepts, correct.

They put them together.

Yes.

Yeah, they used in-house staff so that we wouldn't have to pay consultants to do it.

Um who would operate the golf courses?

We don't have an answer to who would operate the con the golf course yet, but we know that Metro Parks could be interested in operating the golf course.

Because thank God we can't operate a golf course.

I can say confidently it will not be the city.

I hope I hope everybody in attendance read that expose in Cleveland.com about the Highland, about what a disaster that has turned into, island golf course for the city.

So it seems like we can't we can't touch golf courses.

Okay.

We can't touch golf courses.

We can't run them.

We can't operate them properly.

So, Mr.

Chairman, I'm not going to belabor the point.

I want again, I want to thank you and my colleagues at this committee.

And my last point is this, and Ms.

Trevassano touched on it briefly.

There are lobbyists in Washington right now lobbying to kill Burke Airport.

The mayor is lobbying to kill Burke Airport.

I'm assuming there are other, we were told at the last committee that Jimmy Haslan is lobbying to kill Burke Airport as well, on behalf of the city.

And so these are all factors that we have to take into consideration as to what's been transpiring.

But there's one major factor that has never been discussed at this table.

And that the fact is this is a legislative body.

The rotunda was designed.

City Hall was designed a rotundity for separation of powers.

The administration and the council.

You're lobbying to kill a city asset.

And yet this body has no legislation before us.

There has not even been a submission of legislation to kill Burke Airport.

So I say this again to the administration.

I don't I can't speak for any of my colleagues.

But I'm not going to be disrespected.

This body, there's 15 of us now, and we're going to have to decide this body at some point what we're going to do with Burke Airport.

Are we going to continue its operation or are we going to, if the federal government acts as the administration and the mayor hopes for to kill Burke Airport?

There's going to have to be legislation submitted to us.

And I will tell you that's going to be a real interesting time.

Ain't never gonna happen.

As long as I breathe air here, I'm not gonna delegate my authority.

So, Mr.

Chairman, I would say to the administration, um, be very mindful of the of the charter, be very mindful of of your responsibilities and our responsibility, because I'm not going to, I'm not gonna punt.

I'm not gonna give up my authority.

So at some point you're gonna have to submit legislation on Burke, whether it stays or where it goes.

And Mr.

Chairman, I I'm I'm just gonna reinforce that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And just two um I guess a request and a comment.

Um there's a pool at Impett Park, it doesn't make any money, it's not supposed to make money, it's a public asset, it's a it's a service.

So I I'm asking because uh we can all agree we're not great at managing golf courses.

It would be interesting to understand from a metro park standpoint, like there's there's three Metro Parks golf courses in the Rock River Valley.

Like what revenue do they generate?

How does that compare with their tax dollars?

What how would this be different than those golf courses?

Because there's a universe where little met doesn't make money, it's a it's a service and it's a service that people really value, but tried to so we can put that into the model.

Um I also, and I just want to reiterate to the audience listening that when we talk about impacts, we're really trying to focus on direct revenues.

So if somebody works in the Burke terminal right now, they go down, they pay to park, they pay two and a half percent income tax, that's their direct revenue.

Now, if they go to subway for lunch, you know, them having been downtown and going to subway is going to, you know, that that there's a relationship there, but it became becomes very difficult for us to quantify, and that's why you see these economic impact models that are like this Denny's has a seven billion dollar economic generation.

It's so so the numbers get so so convoluted that it I I I think that they are become in in increasingly um uh that they become they became become less useful as you move away from the direct impact.

But since we are in charge of the City of Cleveland's general revenue fund, I have been asking the administration to focus exclusively on those resources so that we can have a more confident conversation rather than pinning all of our hopes and aspirations on someone getting subway three days a week versus two days a week.

Um so with that, I will turn it over to Councilman Harsh, followed by Gray and Shaw.

Thank you, Chairman Slife.

Um I'm just gonna jump right in through the chair.

Where does the dredge go from the Cuyoga River if we shut down the toxic landfill that is Burke?

So uh to the Councilman through the chair, there are currently three CDF facilities uh operating on Burke.

Uh two of them are almost at capacity, and those are two that we're not including in these fit studies, because uh in 2029 they will reach their capacity.

Uh the per one of the many purposes of the Cheers project that the port is working on is to absorb that dredge in the future.

So through the chair, they will just start building new islands of the East 55th Marina.

Correct, with the exception of there's one CDF facility in this image that you see is not touched.

CDF 9.

Uh that is a recite a recyclable CDF facility.

So they bring dredge there, it is then used for as clean that is used for fill for other construction sites.

And through the chair, if I go out to Burke right now and if I tiptoe around the airport into what is the dredge dumping site, um there's a fence there.

But if I jump that fence, who stops me from running out there right now?

The Port of Cleveland.

The Port of Fleetland.

Okay.

And through the chair, the Port of Cleveland currently provides so they they currently manage all the land out there that isn't BERC.

To the councilman through the chair, that's correct.

Okay.

And through the chair, um, as what what is uh the port think about their new dredge site?

Uh to to the councilman through the chair, the port has always intended for those two CDFs to end in 2029.

So this is no change from their operations.

What the port feels very strongly about is maintaining the CDF uh nine in perpetuity so that they can continue recycling dredge there, and that is part of why we're continuing to shut up in the site.

Um and then through the chair, so because it's been a uh so for if people listening don't quite know what I'm talking about.

Um every year, however often, we drag chemicals out of the bottom of the Cuyoga River, chemicals that have been settling there over decades and and maybe even a century now.

Uh it's it's it's it's pollution.

And we we dig it out from the bottom of the lake and we take it over there and we dump it there, and it is not healthy, it's not uh environmentally sound, uh, but it has to go somewhere else.

We don't have a shipping channel in the Cuyoga River.

So in order to keep the shipping channel open, we have to remove these toxins, and that's what's currently making the land at Burke expand.

Um so through the chair, what are the environmental impacts of having people out there on top of this?

How much time and money have we put into engaging the environmental study part of this and and what's the future look like in terms of just you know, we're not gonna give kids cancer out there golfing?

Yeah, so to the councilman through the chair, very good questions, and we've been talking about this uh quite a lot.

So uh a lot of due diligence, including environmental assessments exist um for Burke Lake Front Airport.

Um and everything that we have, tens of thousands of pages.

This is a public document as well.

Uh it's on the city's website and happy to share it with this body directly.

Uh we've had an engineering firm complete uh sort of a uh a memo um summarizing those things.

Through the chair, we've done environmental one and environmental two.

Yeah, yes.

We have.

Uh yes.

And um a majority of the site, including a majority of the CDF facilities have received what are called NFAs or no further action letters.

Okay, which means that you are able to develop certain uses with no further remediation action requirements.

Correct, yes, and the use it stays capped, um, and there's a certain amount of fill on top of it.

Okay.

Um to the uh to the councilman through the chair, one of the reasons that we're looking at low density or recreation focused development is that it doesn't require any additional remediation.

I will say we are in the process now of the what is called a uh a health human risk assessment, which sort of moves beyond just what are you legally allowed to build.

And if a toddler puts his hand in the dirt and puts it in his mouth, will there be a risk there?

Through the chair, can you share those environmental studies with us?

Yes.

I don't know if we have them already, and if we do, I apologize, but we can put them in a uh a share folder.

Um this is sort of just getting at my my next question though, which is um I'm I'm having a hard time figuring out you know how we uh have a public space in a that's privately financed.

Privately financed was one of the earlier goals, yet public space.

Um right now, Burke is publicly owned, the city owns it, right?

It's a it's publicly owned, um, but it's not public space.

You can go hang out in the terminal if you want, but you can't walk out on the runway for good reason.

Um and then the port has the rest of it.

But how do we uh manage uh private investment with retaining public access?

Sure.

Um how do those blend to the councilman through the chair, I'll start and Jason can jump in as well.

Um looking at some of the uses that uh thank thank you, councilman.

Uh uh a competitive youth sports facility specifically, right?

That is a profitable business that can be privately privately financed and privately operated.

When you are negotiating into development agreements with private developers, um we have leverage and that the city controls the dirt.

So we can ask and require through a public-private partnership or through lease negotiations that in addition to operating facilities as competitive revenue-driving youth sports uh tournaments, uh, they also need to be open on days where they're not terminant tournaments to the general public.

That's one example of the sports facility uh that the uh uh that that is sort of privately financed with public uses.

All of these uses across this plan pull on sort of different levers of those those three principles, right?

One was uh no not no significant uh uh public subsidy or sort of philanthropic need, the other was public access, and the other was uh economic impact.

So golf course, public parks, sports complex, all those are sort of pulling to different ones.

So uh it it it's it's interesting to me because you know people in Cleveland have taken to handing out tents to the homeless community lately and encouraging them to set up tent cities.

And it it's hard to imagine an RV uh location down there that it doesn't become a magnet for the unhoused.

Um yet we're talking about private investment.

They're not gonna put up with that at all, right?

Um I'm curious how we're going to interact public access that we want, public access that will be frowned upon with private investment and blending those three things.

And I'm not sure how we get around to that.

Yeah, uh to the councilman through the chair.

I think that's a it's a great point that you put put out there as you talk about potentially 10 cities, so to speak, uh coming up in like RV area.

I think the benefit of having it primarily finance is they'll be in control of that site.

And they're certainly not going to put up with that.

And our partners who would be operating those public spaces uh similar to like the metro parks, they're not they don't allow that either, but they could uh control that uh as well.

But through the chair, then you can't have public access if you've got private investment restricting access.

Uh councilman through the chair.

Through the chair.

Uh it's a great point, but it's also making sure that we maintain a quality public space that's for everyone, uh, and making sure that those uses uh, as you have mentioned, are not we would be detrimental to that.

But through the chair, all I'm saying is it's one or the other.

Either you're gonna have public access and you're gonna have 10 cities, or you're not gonna have public access.

I mean, you can't decide which members of the public are allowed to access it, right?

That's that's what public means is everybody can come.

Yeah, to the councilman through the chair, I I don't think I agree with that premise.

I think that there are plenty of examples throughout the city of Cleveland where we have public access and not you know unfettered public access.

Edgewater Beach is a great example, right?

That is a publicly accessible space that is still well maintained and overseen by Cleveland Metro Parks.

When we think about something like an RV facility, you know, it's not out of the question to think that we find another operator similar to Metro Parks that is able to find that balance of, oh, there's a playground available on this RV facility.

That playground is accessible for everybody to get to, but like you have to rent a space to then park your RV on the site, and if somebody's not renting a space, then you know they shouldn't have something parked there.

I think the same way that we can maybe catastrophize, we can also think optimistically about ways for us to be uh creative with these spaces.

So the idea would be to sub-lease the land to a private investor who wants who will um set up hours of operation for the public.

Okay.

It's it's to the councilman to the chair, the public access easements or those those being stipulations of lease agreements are fairly common.

And through the chair, how how long do you think a sublease will have to be in order to encourage a private investor to dump money in there?

Are we talking about a hundred-year lease or a fifty-year lease?

To the council through the chair, it depends on the use.

Um I can tell you uh housing hospitality generally generally requires some somewhere around a 75-year lease or something to be financeable.

And and I guess the qu the reason I'm asking is that if they were to privately invest down there on a sublease of 75 years and then their investment fails, or we rope into a 75-year lease on a failed uh experiment.

So to the councilman through the chair, um there are many ways to structure lease agreements with sort of performance metrics attached to them as as a condition of a lease, there's lots of ways to mitigate against that.

But I will say again, I want to reiterate these are conceptual fit studies, and we are very early in this entire process.

There are lots of challenges, lots of opportunities, and lots of things to figure out.

My concern would be that um we don't do that though.

My concern would be that we we bring somebody in, we sublese to them to be the private operator of public space, uh, they go belly up and we're just stuck in a lease that per that generates no revenue for however many generations.

So through the chair, we have to plan for failure as well as access.

Again, that is that is fairly common to set up lease terms and ways it would protect the city uh to big tenants and do things of that nature.

I also want to comment on on some of the public access points on this and a little bit on the RV park uh nature of things.

But one, there are plenty of examples around there around the public space way that we're talking about.

Great one is Steel Yard Commons, right?

Where uh the developer built uh but the developer did build through there a part of the topath trail, which is an important public connection, right?

And so if you look at a site like this, the ability to access a variety of points throughout there through a variety of trails.

Now there are ways that you can go out and raise those dollars via grants and other things, but there are ways to build into the cost of the development and just ensure that the developer is gonna bear those costs and have public access.

But you're leasing some of these into private spaces, and the RV park is a great example.

And um, well hang on, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Ms.

Chair, I have to interrupt.

I've I've got to take tight control of my time.

I have to be somewhere very, very soon.

Um I understand that there are lots of decisions left to be made, and we can we can draw a thousand paths from the point that we're at.

We can always draw a thousand paths from the point that we're at.

But the fact of the matter is when we take one step at a time, we're going to close those paths off.

And so uh closing down BERT shuts down a whole path, right?

Um through the chair, is there any reason that we can't have a golf course there right now on the land that is being occupied by the port if the port were to vacate?

Yeah, to to the councilman through the chair, uh there's a couple in there's a couple constraints of having both the port of having the um the the airport.

The airport on the site.

So, you know, I've seen some drawings that kind of put a nine-hole golf course in this very kind of northeast corner.

Maybe that's feasible, but I don't know if that gets to like the financeable portion of this this question.

So through through the chair, it's it's it's it's funny because I was at a public meeting, my my ward meeting uh the other week, uh last week or whenever, and somebody brought this.

This is the um uh Campbell administration.

I'm gonna I'm gonna lay this out so that people can take a look at it.

This is the Campbell administration's plan for lakefront development.

Which is pretty cool.

Uh it includes an 18-hole golf course just northeast of the airport.

And the airport stays put.

This is one.

Right?

And and people have said that we've had plans for the for the lakefront for hundreds of years.

We have, right?

We've had dozens of plans.

This is the Campbell administration.

It's it's got the uh cheers, the new islands out here, right?

Wendy Park is not quite beach volleyball.

But I guess my my question is this if this is available to us right now and we can develop this while keeping the BERC, why wouldn't we want to look at the potential to develop the area north and east of Burke now, right?

And see how it goes before making a decision, or we would be able to, we have an option to make a decision later on Burke and still develop this land right here.

And through the chair, uh have have you all looked at this about like doing something with Northeast while keeping BERC?

To the councilman through the chair, I think one of the challenges of that golf course specifically is it does not account for that CDF 9.

And so trying to maintain our port operations on the site is in direct conflict with what that specific plan is.

Um, we are really focused on all 450 acres and allowing for public access of that site.

The it is incredibly challenging to work with the FAA to co-locate operations with the FAA.

So it there is also a lot of people.

I don't I don't know that that was a I don't I wasn't there for this plan, and I don't know that this was uh I don't know if this was And the chief planning director of this is now the county executive, right?

So I I think that he's got a little bit of know-how when it when it comes to like these types of things.

Um I'll leave this here, but uh if you could give it back to Councilman Hudson, thank you for bringing it in.

Um I'll leave this here for people to look at because I have to get moving.

Um but I guess my last question is going to be um no that I don't have any more questions, Mr.

Chair.

I'm sorry, that was it.

Uh I just want to uh ask if we can consider more about what our potential is to redevelop Burke without having to close down Burke.

That's that's my closing thought to leave on.

Thank you.

Uh moving to Councilwoman Gray, followed by Councilman Shaw.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

I just have a brief question on the point uh you made with uh certain um with certain of these uh uh diagrams and pictures that you uh went through uh the concept of uh um of uh uh Burke Lakefront.

The first concept that you um viewed was the uh land description of um is every point for the helicopters uh for the medical uh helicopters to stay.

Um would this be your concept to replace signature uh to the councilwoman through the chair?

To the team to the councilwoman through the chair.

Um we've been having ongoing conversations with signature uh about their various operations.

Uh it seems like the better path for them would be to relocate into Hopkins, although we've also talked to them about having um medical transport or helicopter operations at both Hopkins and at Burke Lakefront Airport.

Okay, because uh knowing that when um the gentleman came to the table last time of the committee chair to the team, he did um speak on the fact that they were not offered extended contracts because I know when I did my tour, they had everyone there had wanted to stay, but they said they were not offered extended contracts, and due to the fact that uh you have now listened to a lot of the feedback combat uh you know uh uh comments that this medical service is needed due to timing of of um of organs that need to be brought in and then get to the hospitals at a certain time for saying, so now you decided to improve your own uh medical helicopters to be place signature that's already there, but to move them to Hopkins Airport.

So why would you be bring your own when we already have one there?

This is hypothetically because now everything is hypothetically uh discussed right now.

So I'm just asking a hypothetical question per se.

Yeah, to chair to anyone on a team.

To the councilwoman through the chair, uh we've been having a lot of conversations with Cleveland Clinic, signature, all of the operators.

Uh the way that their business operation works is that they typically have what they call fixed wing operation, so a plane, a small plane that will transport organs or uh people, and so they rely on some sort of runway infrastructure, um, and then they will kind of use the helicopter as the last couple mile uh solution, or sometimes they'll fly the what's actually more common is that they'll fly the fixed wing and just put them the organ in an ambulance and take it to a hospital.

Um so if there was to be a this is meant to either supplement or be in addition to maintaining that fixed wing operations at Hopkins.

Uh we've had a lot of detailed conversations with them about how we would be able to operationalize that at Cleveland Hopkins, which is not a tip, you know, most cities kind of use their main airport for all of their medical transport as well.

So the Verdeport is an example of how to you know be additive with whatever signature would need to do, as well as other folks in the market.

You know, you may even currently there's like a sightseeing helicopter tour at Burke Lakefront Airport, you know, maybe that's something that would want to continue operating from the site, even if the airport was to close.

But if we were to keep a runway on the site, you know, it would have to be at least 5,000 feet, and then we're not able to develop you know anything that we're showing here.

Okay, all right.

How uh even so what you are creating your own VR port, how much feet would these uh helicopters need to have, even to come into the landing since since Sicinger would need 5,000 feet.

What is the shortest of this particular helicopter, you know, to bring in the organs?

So what's the difference of the feet per se?

Yeah, to the councilwoman through the chair, the verte port that's shown here is about I want to say one and a half to two acres.

1.5.5 acres.

I was right in the middle.

Um so what this would allow for, that's more than enough space to land a helicopter.

This would also allow for like helicopter storage, refueling, maintenance in addition to a taking off.

I mean, helicopters can can take off and land in a really small space.

This verteport that we're showing, um, again, is just a concept, uh, but it would also support that like refueling and maintenance of helicopters.

Okay.

Since we're talking hypothetically, yeah.

I'm just you know, reviewing what you brought to the table.

Um, so the second question is um the fruit of the Cleveland Air Show, which is huge for the city.

So now you're saying that um chair to the team uh if Burke closes uh the airport could potentially remain remote where what site hypothetically chair to the team.

Thank you to the to the councilman through the chair.

So a couple just points for uh around around the air show.

Um except for one type of plane uh that only comes once every three years.

All of the planes that we look at in the sky on the air show take off and land in at Hopkins currently.

So the so Burke right now is used for static display and for selling tickets to to view it.

Okay.

Um so what we're what we're thinking, and again, we're we've been trying and are eager to engage with the airshow on this to have this conversation, is that if you look at the sports fields uh on this plan as an example, those are it is quite easy to imagine fencing those off for a weekend for Labor Day weekend.

So the air show can still have a ticketed viewer experience.

You can still go to Burke, pay $50 for a ticket, pay $50 to park, and and go in uh to actually watch uh to actually watch the air show.

Um but it is really really common.

Air shows in almost every other city that I'm aware of don't generally have that static display.

There are often places to purchase tickets to to view the show, but most of them, including for the most part the Cleveland Air Show, does actually operate remotely.

Okay, interesting.

Okay, so it is hypothetically viewing area.

If it's located somewhere else, if this is the hypothetical area.

So hypothetically, it could be.

And may I may add this viewing area is showing what could be sort of fenced off and have paid tickets.

Parking lots all around the lake front.

And so that would continue to be the case where you know people could watch the air show from you know any given point, whether it's point of edge or it's North Coast Yard or Edgewater, their backyard in my case.

Um could watch the air show.

Because I see it from my neighborhood.

I didn't come down.

I see it from exactly 93rd free.

So that would still be the case.

So I know that much.

Yes.

So my last question, I know a lot of my colleagues had already asked questions per se, so I'm not going to be redundant.

But my last question, Chair to the team, you said that uh one of your meetings, you have several wards that you've been in and you're going to come in.

Now I have ward three now.

Now ward three is on here saying that you've been there.

Where did you know where were you at in ward three without my knowledge?

If you were already there and or if you plan to come, because the last meeting I said that I would like you to come to one of my community meetings, and that just started last month.

This is the second month.

So where in Ward 3 were you at?

And I wasn't there in that meeting to know to tell the other residents to be at that meeting because the residents that I know, if I if they took if they have taken the survey online, that's all good, but I wasn't present at a meeting in Ward 3 when you were there to know that you were there.

I just want to uh uh um support my colleague uh council Jones because I know you because at the last meeting, you said you was gonna be doing the survey, and I said you're gonna be out in the community.

I wasn't contacted to know where you would be in ward three.

So, chair to the team, where were you in ward three?

So to the to the councilman through the chair, so a couple things.

One just as a follow-up to this, we talked to Councilman Jones about sharing some of that data that's actually broken down by ward as well.

So I'm happy to share with you specifically what folks in ward three uh are saying, and and likewise, councilman for your ward.

Um I can get you the name of the specific neighborhood block club uh that we attended uh for Ward 3.

It was someone from my team who is who attended that one, so um not myself individually.

Um and then moving forward, you know, we've sent uh through Land Studio, I think three or four emails to every member of this body to try to facilitate more of those meetings, and then they've also reached out to CDCs, leaders of neighborhood block clubs all around the city.

So we're working through both council members as well as sort of the existing meetings and networks as a follow-up right after this.

Um I I will I will send you an email directly uh and we can try to coordinate a time for your next community meeting to make sure that we're going out there.

All right, and I'm gonna say this.

I appreciate you go into the block clubs, yeah, but those are block clubs, smaller block club meetings for residents that uh that be at their neighborhood block clubs.

The community ward meetings are bigger than the block clubs.

They're a smaller group of uh residents that have that block hub in their neighborhood that doesn't oversee the community ward meeting that we try to push out so everyone can be there around the entire community, even though they don't show up.

We appreciate the community block clubs, we appreciate the CDCs, but only a handful of folks be at the of the block clubs and the CDCs, and it doesn't get out to the mass of residents that be at the ward community meeting.

So that's what my colleague Joe Jones was leaning to is that the community ward meetings had the ward.

The block clubs are smaller groups of meetings, and the CDC have neighborhood meetings.

So that is the statute of what the council tried to put out so we can all work together.

Yeah, and so saying the lease is give me a second, Joe Jones.

I know you want to jump in this, but it's a good one.

You would add up to it.

So just to say the least, just to say the least, please send me something because we now have in our monthly meetings now every month, and I have two.

I have one in Salvage Village, and I have one in the Buckeye area because I stretched from Cleveland from Cleveland Shaker to Sabak Village.

And also in the areas of as uh one of my constituents is um my good friend uh um uh Chief McNair.

He he he knows this too.

So we have it we have plenty of other meetings in the Cleveland Shaker area that I will like for you to attend because everyone don't come to everyone's meeting, so please we need to connect so you guys can come over to the Cleveland Shaker area or some of those meetings versus my meeting versus other meetings too.

I'm on board.

So just to say that we need to have a connection because this is a huge decision for all residents to understand what is going on with Burke Lake.

A lot of people probably go down there that I'm not aware of, and they have not even uh uh touched this at all, but just to keep this door open for them to know what's going on, at least they have a voice and they know what's happening, and then they have a say so if they don't want to say anything at all.

So respectfully uh uh that's everything supposed to go through the council, so I respect what um all councils are saying.

We can get this out to everyone if you don't know where to connect to.

And my last thing I want to say this I know change is coming.

I'm all about change.

I'm all about letting go.

I'm not about being stuck because we know change have to come to every major city.

We go to I go to major cities and see their beautiful lakefront.

And I be from one end to the next.

I have not seen these things, the brunification that these other cities have given their cities on their riverfront.

But I have, but I have walked there, but I have walked there lakefront from the urban community back to the riverfront, all the way back to the other side.

And it's astounding to see these other cities have let go and to move forward.

I'm just saying this.

I have grandsons.

I have grandkids.

I don't want my grandkids to have what I had 50 years ago.

They're supposed to have better.

I don't want to have my great-grandkids and my great-grandkins um grandkids to have what I had 50 years ago.

I'm gonna be the ancestors of my great grandkids, great-greatkids, and moving forward.

I want them to have more than what I have.

I want them to enjoy the future of what they should have different than what I enjoy.

I don't want them to be stuck in my age and my age era to say I got the same thing my nana had.

I don't want them to live that way.

We have to move on.

But sometimes we have gotten so complacent of what we already have.

Is it working anymore?

No, it's not working.

I'm the council.

I'm not against mobility.

I might I'm not gonna be here forever, but I want my I want my grandkids and my great-grandkids to have more than what I had to enjoy in my time.

So change is change is evident.

We can't stop that.

So a lot of things here is gonna happen, whether we like it or not, but we just need to understand the process of how it will happen to know that Cleveland have to grow and be viable like other cities.

These other mayors probably got their book kicked left and right for the change of what they brought to their cities, and they had to replace things that we got stuck on that they had to fight to move forward to change these things.

I understand in my mindset because um I might be down there in my wheelchair in the lakefront having fun.

So since you have to say the least, I am not against change.

It's just it's just putting the information out there correctly to know that we have to start changing the infrastructure to bring more people into our and in our city because that's why we got redistrict.

We lost two wards, and we're hoping to get those two wards back in another another five years or so if we can build our population, but be a more of an attractive city in order for people to want to come and live in our city.

So I'm just gonna say that just we just gotta work on this uh uh better and harder and get it out to the community of just letting go.

So I'm just gonna say that just we just gotta work on this uh uh better and harder and get it out to the community uh just letting go is really uh hard uh for the city uh for the Clevelanders and stuff, but but some things probably will be main, but in the midst of it, some things has to change the loan away, so we can uh uh make sure that our our kids have more than what we have already have, so they can uh continue to uh build um in the city of Cleveland.

So I'm done to you.

That's not a good thing.

Thank you, Councilman Gray and Councilman Jones with a uh 30 second follow-up.

Quickly, um, you know, she brought out a really good point.

So for the administration, like moving forward, um, make sure you get in contact with the council people.

Um previously there's been some circumvention, you know, circumventing the process and going to side groups and organizations.

Uh you should always, if you're going to make presentations in a respective uh uh neighborhood, you should contact councilperson so that you can work through them to to make sure that all of the citizens, not just a handful, but everyone has an opportunity to voice their perspectives and opinions.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Appreciate it.

And to the councilwoman, councilman through the chair.

Um, one uh needs your help in partnership on that.

So easy.

We'll make sure our team forwards uh the emails so they're back at the top of your inbox so we can start to coordinate all of this.

And you know, we're reaching out to everyone, neighborhood block clubs, larger community meetings, we want to do all of them because they facilitate sort of different diff different outcomes.

And and and at these meetings, just to prepare you, it's less of a formal presentation like this and more of a here's a bunch of surveys, here's what we're we're working on.

We'd like your feedback on it.

But let's connect after this and we can and we can put that together.

Right.

Councilmember Shaw.

Thank you to the chair.

Um, thank you for your time, everyone here from the administration.

Uh I'll just dive in real quick.

I know I'm not a regular member of the committee, so I appreciate the thought thoughtfulness of the um team in this approach.

I I specifically came to the meeting today um just to kind of learn a little bit more and talk about I think an aspect of the conversation that I felt like has been missing, and um that's regarding housing.

I wanted to go to uh I think it's slide nine on the presentation uh that talks about the ESI study, correct.

Um I wanted to hear a little bit more about what that maximum development plan that includes 1200 units of residential units.

What does that look like?

And I know earlier um during Councilman Harsh's line of questioning, you talked a little bit about further environmental studies being done.

Um is housing feasible on this property on this site.

Uh wanted to hear more thoughts about that from the team.

Uh through the chair to Councilman Shaw, I'll kick this off and Scott uh can fill in some of this too.

Uh we looked at a lot of different scenarios in that early study on this.

One of those was a maximum development scenario.

Uh, you know, I think important to remind one, there are real constructibility issues if you want to start going more vertical on that site uh that goes on.

I think also, as councilman Slife has pointed out in a variety of of these things, there are substantial costs to start to get to that point.

You're going to need the city would have to start paying for infrastructure related to roadways, sewer, lighting, like all of those sorts of things which are gonna drive substantial costs uh to that development site.

Uh you know, which is frankly, I think as we began to look at it, um uh the complementary sides of what can be our lakefront on Berkeley Front Airport, as opposed to our lakefront that is much more connected to our grid downtown uh where current Cleveland Brown Stadium is, right?

And how these things can work together.

Um I'll hold there and I'll scott the further.

I might before we get to Scott, one thing too.

I just want to mention because we talked about this at our very first um BERC meeting.

The land there is it's submerged land, and so we have a submerged land lease.

What that means is that parceling it off and like selling property would be really challenging.

And so, like a big single family housing type typology or like that more sort of traditional neighborhood typology would from a legal and regulatory framework be really challenging.

What's less challenging is like the multifamily, you know, how apartment buildings that's more of a market question that I think Tom and Scott will continue talking about.

And there is one thing I I touched on this uh a while ago earlier, but but I did just want to add, I I think from a market standpoint of what we can continue to absorb from residential in the city uh is fairly challenging, right?

There is a lot of development that is occurring right now.

Uh I think between the riverfront and on down to the lakefront, I think there's a growth trajectory that over the course of the next 10 to 20 years and absorb some some units, but uh there was talk earlier about uh the city participating in economic development deals.

Uh we were dead every major city.

Could you pull your microphone closer to things?

We were dead last out of every major city uh in the country in terms of apartment starts.

There's a lot of reasons for that.

There are a lot of reasons that we offer residential tax abatement, and that is because we don't have the market that has that you know that level of demand for folks that are coming in here.

So to add an additional 1200 units on top of the work that is already happening in other parts of downtown parts of the city um would take a substantial um influx of rest.

Um and to the councilman through the chair to add on that uh a couple of the points a little bit.

Um so one, we talked a little bit earlier about feasibility of the site.

I think the first meeting uh way back in January, February, we talked about the site conditions.

Um so there are uh when it comes to environmental remediation, the question is always what are you building, right?

Uh the remediation required for walking trails or competitive sports facilities is different than the remediation required for uh uh a home that has a sewer line going through that all and all of these things with tap water that people are drinking.

Um additionally, from a geotechnical perspective, like soil conditions uh impact what you can build and at what cost.

So the soil conditions here are actually surprisingly good when you have to build a runway on something that airplane lands on, those soils have to be compact enough to handle some sort of low density development.

I mean, the the terminal is sort of an ex an example of that right now.

But any substantial vertical development that you're putting more than just sort of wood frame or slab on grade uh will be uh cost prohibitive both from an infrastructure perspective to the city as well as to the financiality of an actual transaction, at least right now.

Um so that's one.

Uh two, uh and and Jessica and Tom mentioned sort of home ownership or single family opportunities with the submerged land while multifamily is possible.

Um we can never actually sell the land.

And if you think about why folks want to purchase and own a home, it's to hold it for long periods of time, to ideally ideally give it to your children and grandchildren, and you cannot do that on a land lease.

So, in if there were to be housing here, it would have to be rental, most likely.

Um third, and and Tom alluded to this as well, from a housing perspective, looking across the broader market, or even just I'll call it the broader north coast market.

Um thinking about Burke and the stadium site simultaneously and in context of each other allows us to like think about increased density on the stadium site.

We want to balance public space and dense private investment.

If we are building large-scale public spaces on Burke, that probably allows us to think about sort of more dense housing specific development on the stadium site as well.

So that's sort of a component uh of this too.

And then the last thing I'll talk about is um sort of absorption and and phasing.

Tom's exactly right.

We don't have the market right now to build a thousand units of housing um on this site.

We just don't we don't have the market to absorb it.

But as we think about, and I'll start with sort of the the bedrock work that's happening right now and in the next several years, moving into the stadium site development that's happening shortly after that, moving into Burke that could be happening that could be happening after that, you're starting to look at an absorption timeline over 20 years.

And and from that perspective, we can build a market that can absorb more of that uh more of that housing stock.

Then the last thing I'll mention, and we touched on this briefly, very briefly early in the presentation, but probably didn't talk about it enough, is the way that we're thinking about laying out this site is leaving room for future phases that could be more dense housing when we have a market for it, when we have demand for it, um, and when we have you know infrastructure that could absorb it.

So you you look at sort of the the version of a plan that has a a large public park on it, or even the golf course one.

If in 10 to 15 years our population has grown significantly um and there's a lot of demand for new housing, we don't have the sort of land mass in other parts of the city to absorb that.

Um we can cut off a couple acres of uh of a green space or of a golf course or really of any of the uses and think about converting that to something that is more dense and sort of more more housing focused.

So while I don't think it makes sense to be, I guess to answer your very question in a very long-winded way but try to get direct.

I don't think it makes sense now, but we are setting the table for that to be something that could happen in the future.

Hey, I don't know if you had anything.

Okay.

We were going down the line, so they want to exclude you.

Okay.

Um thank you for that.

Um Spots and that that helps uh and I I I hear your concerns about what the market can absorb.

And my question once again, right, goes back to what do the people actually need?

And that's a different question and a reality than what the market and developers are willing to do.

Um and for me, at least right now, this is such a huge opportunity.

And I'll be frank, I I'm I'm in favor of closing the airport um for whatever that's worth, even though I'm not a member of the committee as a council member.

Um for me, uh we we've talked about developing the lakefront from for decades, right, in this city.

This is such a huge opportunity, and we have ownership of this public land and how do we utilize and and take this opportunity.

I frankly do not care about the airport um users right now.

I it's it's rich people that haven't really cared about our neighborhoods.

And I for me, frankly, the air air show as well as this military airshow that in the midst of a war that where we're bombing innocent people, this is not the military propaganda that I'm willing to push in our city.

But then it it is hard for me at the same time being in favor of closing the airport to get behind a vision when there isn't really a vision of what this would look for like.

And I understand there's barriers and there's multiple pathways, but there is no clarity on what the administration wants to do with this next.

And I know that requires council buy-in, and you want to move at the speed of trust, is what I'm hearing.

But for me, what I'm looking for the administration from in terms of being willing to commit support is what what's the vision here?

I know there's big risks, and when we talk about what the market can absorb or what we can't, that doesn't erase the fact that there is an urgent and desperate need for affordable housing in our city.

Whether that looks like ownership or whether that looks like multifamily unit, I don't think people care.

The need is there.

So for me, it's what is the city, what is administration doing about this and the lack of conversations about centering that need for people and how are we going to utilize this 450 acres to fulfill that immediate and urgent need.

Not not 10 years down the line, not 15, right?

Um and I heard uh Councilman Planzek earlier just talk about how trouble how much trouble there is downtown because of these closures, building foreclosures.

There's no affordable housing downtown.

That's part of the reason why people aren't able to don't want to stay there, and you're not getting more people who are willing to spend their time there because we're dependent on the suburban flow of people to come in, spend their money and leave.

But there's no opportunities for families to stay there.

There's no opportunity for children to be raised in this area.

And I I'm just shocked that this isn't more of a conversation of like, okay, what does it look like?

Whether that's on the um stadium site, which can sustain more of that, versus the other parts of it.

Um and so uh all that to say is that for me it is difficult to kind of full-throatedly support disclosure or get behind it when I do not see the types of needs being fulfilled that our people actually need.

And we already know that the developers and the market will be chomping at the bit to get this into private hands.

Um and once again, for me, the public-private partnerships I know, Director McNaren.

Um I've talked talked about that at length.

Um, that it's you know, it's it's public losses but private profits, and we keep seeing that happen again and again.

And a lot of the arguments I keep hearing about this was the same arguments we heard when we were developing the county was developing the convention center, right?

About what how it's gonna attract people to come here.

My question once again keeps coming back to who are we building this for?

Is it for the people that already live here, the residents of this city, or are we fantasizing and thinking about some imaginary set of people that will move here because of these amenities?

And frankly, the people of Cleveland aren't looking for more amenities, they're looking for housing and food access.

We heard this time and time again.

So that's that's what I offer.

And I I understand I'm not looking for a clear response here right now, but for me at least, this lack of commitment and and vision for what our city needs is it is frustrating.

Sure.

Um to the councilman through the chair, um, I appreciate all of that and completely understand and hear where you're coming from.

Um I can't speak on behalf of the city.

I run sort of independent 501c3, but when I think about vision, I actually don't think about two sort of two separate sites.

I think about the stadium site and Burke Airport if we're successful in doing all these things as just Cleveland's lakefront, right?

And in the future they will not be considered separate.

So I do think about the development on Burke in context of what we can do on the stadium site.

And we are, and and and Jason talked about this earlier, and if you want to add anything, please go for it.

Um we are in the process of sort of a new site plan, master plan for that stadium site right now, kicked off like last week.

Um and uh uh are taking all of the community input that we've had over the last three years for that site to sort of put something on paper.

Uh housing will be a major component of that.

There will be affordability requirements um as part of that, as part of a community benefits agreement that'll be included in there.

I expect sometime uh mid to late summer, we'll be able to have a site plan for that site that we're ready to share with you all as well as with the general public to solicit additional input and feedback and um you know look forward to continuing the housing conversation specifically.

Yeah, and uh Scott uh to the councilman through the chair, uh Scott hit on a number of things, uh especially the affordability piece in terms of having that requirement with the stadium site, and we are working with our new master planner to design that.

Um but I think a big piece of what we're talking about here too is you mentioned it's what are the community, what is the community residents of the city of Cleveland need today, right?

And so part of that is as we're looking at Berkeley Lakefront Airport and looking at the different concepts is what additional revenue can we drive out of that so that the city can provide more to the residents of the services that they're truly uh looking for and desiring, right?

So, like how do we get more out of this public asset that we have that is Berkeley Front?

So now through the Chairman Councilman Shaw one, I I greatly appreciate that question.

And you and I started a really great conversation the other day, and one that I look forward to continuing, and uh, you know, part of which I I started off with you as I do with many people.

Um we don't actually have an affordable housing problem in Cleveland.

We have an income problem.

And there's a lot of people that like it's hard for them to fathom, right?

The challenges that we face of providing housing at the price point our residents need uh when the cost of construction they are, right?

Like you look at the average uh could you said we have a what problem?

An income problem, right?

Poverty.

Yes, we poverty, yes, absolutely.

And and that is one of the reasons that we are so focused on job growth as an administration bringing high quality jobs, the average Clevelander can get access to to provide better quality housing, because again, when when you look at the challenges that we face of providing truly affordable housing to the average Clevelander, right?

So even if you do a quote unquote affordable housing deal often in Cleveland where you do a 60 percent low-income housing tax credit, oftentimes you're talking about getting rents that are like twelve to fifteen hundred dollars a unit, right?

You open that up in in the ward uh councilwoman Gray and I live in, that is the most expensive housing in the world.

Right.

We have worked so hard.

I remember Councilwoman Santana uh working on a project with her that's uh that's a uh a great project, blanket mills that's going on, which is a low-income housing tax credit, but we had to use millions of dollars of ARPA dollars, other things to write that down.

We we basically created privatized public housing just to make it approachable.

Um I don't mean to cut you of d just who are on the same page.

For me, when I'm talking about affordable housing, I do mean public housing.

Um that's to me.

What the gold standard is.

We've seen the federal and state government continue their disinvestment in this.

And this is also once more for me, more of an argument why the city should be investing in these things.

Yes, because we know that the federal and state government are refusing to do that, but that doesn't mean our people don't need it.

Yes.

Uh understood, and and and the last thing I'll say about that is I I want you to know that we're working incredibly hard on a housing strategy, right?

That we are looking forward to to come up with.

We do have, again, fundamental financial problem of how we get to the level of need in this city to deliver housing at the price point that works for all Clevelanders.

I know everyone's I'm sure you've heard variations of this, right?

Every time we look go to look to build housing or provide food access, the question always becomes where is the money coming from?

But when we're spending money for the police or any other number of things, there's always money for that.

And that's to me the question that I struggle with because I I disagree.

Um I I think we have to have a reprioritization of where we're spending our money.

I mean, just earlier this year we we authorized 27 million in overtime just for the police.

Um and I think about when the question, right?

I asked earlier at the public at the council meeting on Monday, how much is enough?

And we're it's coming at the cost of our neighborhoods and housing, food access, a number of things.

So for me, that is a reprioritizing reprioritization that I'm looking from the administration, and I believe this uh asset and opportunity is is a great way to for the administration to signal where their priorities are.

And um I I hope we get to see more of that.

So thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Uh Councilwoman Hudson had to leave, but she asked me to share that uh she was anticipating land studio's presence at a community meeting last night, and they did not arrive.

So if you could if you could reach out to that, uh Councilman Casey, and then we have three individuals who have signed up for public comment.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Mr.

Chairman, to actually Councilman Shaw, I think what you just heard was, yeah, we need affordable housing, but not at Burke.

Um and then on a to to follow up on more of Councilman Shaw's point was what are we building for the residents who are here?

The whole presentation was about how how we can get people here.

In your own admittance, you even said destination spot here, destination spot there, destination spot there.

Um what is it aside from a 10-mile walking trail that would actually bring our residents here when in our own neighborhoods, and I'm not pitting one against the other, we're closing ball fields, right?

We can't get kids out to utilize baseball fields anymore, Tom.

You know that, right?

We've got we've got uh little league baseball that that are that have to start combining near West, West Denison, old Brooklyn.

They're all combining because there's not enough kids to play.

And here we want to build some something that's gonna bring people to the city as opposed to what we keep saying is we need to open up access to the lakefront for our residents, and yet we're building RV parks, and how many people in the city of Cleveland actually own an RV?

So it is a destination spot that you want to build.

It's not something for the current residents, although they'll have access to it, so we say, but the main aspect of what you've presented today, and I know that it's not a finalized thing today.

But we don't see how the average individual Clevelander would come down here except to take a 10-mile walk.

And to get here, to your point, they have to drive, right?

So it's not like somebody from the east side or the west side are gonna walk to Burke Lakefront Airport to take a 10-mile walk on a trail.

Or a golf course, right?

I mean, I'm not a golfer, so I I don't get it, but during during budget, we hear how important Highland is, right?

And how we have to invest in Highland.

Um, and then we want to turn around and you want to build something to compete with that.

So I yeah, I I understand the the idea, but um I just putting the two and two together.

And then uh Mr.

Chairman to Chief Travisano, did I hear you correctly that you said the greedy corporate partnership is in Washington advocating for the closure of Burke?

When the to the gentleman through the chair, uh they've indicated to us that when they are they they haven't done specific Burke trips, but when they're in Washington talking to congressional delegates, and we and we know their history of how well that they like to take care of the city of Cleveland, but that's a whole nother conversation and topic that we can have.

Um that's about uh did you want to talk to the council through the chair.

Um I'll let Tom sort of talk about the sports market in a second, but just to address um a couple of the points you made.

You know, it's I think Jessica mentions earlier.

Um if we came to you saying we wanted to build a 450-acre public park that was open uh to everyone all the time, we would have no apparatus to fund that, right?

Both upfront construction and operations and maintenance over time.

So all of these uses are trying to find that like balance of how do we figure out how to privately finance some of these things while opening it up to access.

So I'd add in in addition to 10 miles of walking trails, you know, one of the plans does have a hundred-acre public or 180-acre public park as a large piece of that, which would be open to the general public.

We're actively working with some of the other uses to ensure that uh Clevelanders can sort of access that uh uh those spaces as well.

And then I just pulled up sort of the uh some of the community engagement data that we've got.

Sports and recreation, trails, open park space are like what people are saying that they want as well.

So I completely agree.

Mr.

Chairman Descott, yeah.

And your surveys are these coming from Clevelanders?

Yeah, we can share the full breakdown with you.

They're both Clevelanders and non-Clevelanders.

Can you do that?

Can you do that for me for us?

Um I think one of the bigger questions that that we all have to step back and ask ourselves is 450 acres by everybody's admittance is all is is huge, right?

Yeah, are we getting in over our heads?

Right?

I mean, are we taking too much on at one at one time?

You got 30 acres that you're gonna have to develop when GCP helped that team move out of the city of Cleveland, and now you're gonna take on so you're looking at almost 500 acres.

That's gotta be the size of small cities.

Right?

It's gotta be the size of North Olmsted, probably.

To the council of the chair, it's half of downtown Cleveland.

Right.

So I do think if as we're looking at developing this, not all of this is happening in the next year or five.

I I get that, but but I think when one of my fears is that the administration and Congress is going to put something on the plate of the council that we'll be able to handle, but we're gonna be backed into a corner, right?

We're gonna wake up one day, and your GCP and the administration is gonna come to us and say, hey, guess what?

Congress said we could close the airport, and then it's gonna fall on us.

And then the and then the administration's gonna have a pipe dream plan that's gonna take 50 years to develop because we know that it's not gonna happen, you know, in four years or three years, it's just geographically too big to handle.

Um, then what do we do?

Right?

And then I'm looking forward to hearing actually from the air show.

I understand that the administration can say they can do it, but can't apply the ability, but will they do it, right?

So that that's that's a whole nother.

So I just wanted to I wanted to put that out there that uh it all sounds good, right?

But so does me being six five and you know, playing in the NBA.

That sounds really good, but I'm not 6'5, and I don't have the athletic ability to play in the MBA.

So I just want to put that out there that I I really hope we're not getting everybody's hopes up to you know, this is gonna close, and then all of a sudden we're gonna have a whole new city of Cleveland on the lakefront, which people don't even have access to the lake, right?

At Burke, it's not like we're building a beach where you know you're gonna have access to get into the water like you do at Euclid Beach or uh Edgewater or anything like that.

We're just allowing you to get closer to the water, is what we're really doing here.

Um that's opening up the lakefront, is just allowing people to get closer to the water when you've got I don't think I've ever seen the police down to control Voynovich Park for overpopulation.

So I just want to keep in mind that our our eyes bigger than our stomachs, right?

Are we biting off more than we can chew?

Are we ordering more than we're gonna actually be able to eat?

So that's just my two cents out of right now.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

So thank you.

Go ahead.

I just want to say one.

I I genuinely appreciate that question of like what is in it for Cleveland residents, and um, you know, I know Councilman Shaw touched on this uh a little bit ago too, but uh I'm nearly 50 years old, right?

Um I'm a middle-aged middle class white guy.

Um I did not grow up rich, I certainly didn't grow up poor, right?

Like full admission, I don't know what it's like to want for a need.

Um, and yet I have never taken one plane ride on Berk Lake Front Airport.

Me neither right.

I I I know one time I was traveling on a trip.

Uh I you know, for the past nearly 20 years I worked for nonprofits and now for government.

Uh it was a group traveling to Philadelphia, and the idea came up that we would like charter this plane, and the cost that was given to me was so staggering that I just thought I don't know how people do that, but not for me.

Uh, right.

So what I do know is that right now that there's 450 acres that almost no average Clevelander has anything to do with that goes on there.

Um I think that it was articulated earlier, uh, and Scott brought up it is almost shocking the lack of actual access to whether it's just uh whether maybe sitting in your city council room, you have actually better views of that's why I say it's like we are the city that can barely see and does not touch our water, and we've got like Edgewater Beach, we've got like the Nature Front Preserve, like there is shockingly little access.

It's almost impossible to go like actually have a bite to eat and look at the water, right?

Like I'm an East Side City resident.

Um I can't wait for the the Parker Sailing Center to open because there'll be a little new restaurant in there because we used to go down to that little spot, Metro Parks goes a decent amount just to like be able to sit and look at the water.

My kids are like, holy crap, like we're here.

30% of the people respond to these comments don't even consider Cleveland to be a waterfront city.

That is wild to me, right?

And so, what is in it for average Clevelanders unequivocally in every scenario of which we're talking out here, there is real access to the site.

And and and I think Councilman Palency, you said this earlier about uh, you know, downtown, what's in it for the east side?

This place goes from downtown to East 55th Street, right?

Which almost immediately gets you to cheers, right?

Which is a 300 million dollar investment over the course of time, redefining our lakeshore there.

Like there are so many east side neighborhoods that will have access to this through a variety of ways that you can just get out and open.

And by the way, we still do need real open space in the city, like high quality green spaces where people can get out and like actually like have a safe place where you can just kind of breathe in the water and like check it out.

Like you're unequivocally getting that.

And Councilman Jones, you hit on this earlier.

We have an opportunity here to bring in real revenue, which supports everything that you do.

Everything, right?

Because today, the tax revenues generated by Berk Lake Front Airport, both direct and indirect, are almost insignificant.

We know that we can replace almost all of the indirect, right?

It produces almost no direct, right?

And so what we are getting for average Clevelanders is both access to our waterfront that does not exist today.

Uh and again, it it's almost embarrassing how little of our waterfront is actually accessible for Clevelanders to get to.

And we're getting opportunity to generate revenue that can do things like fix potholes, pave streets, right?

And yes, we have to figure out a way to create more affordable housing.

I and look, we we talk about this all the time, even in but it that'll cost real money.

Uh you could take the 21 million dollars, say by police, and I'm not commenting about what's what's the right way to go there, but you could take that and you would maybe get two new affordable housing buildings out of that.

Right.

27 million.

But but again, you took 13 million dollars apiece, and you were able to get two LITEC deals a part of that, and you put that extra 13, you're maybe getting two new affordable housing deals out of that.

So our problem is significantly larger than that, right?

And and and please understand that like we're thinking about that every day.

Um that is a priority for for this administration.

I know it's a priority for you.

It's like I feel like I come down here all the time.

We talk about like housing issues, and it's like you would need infinity money uh to do the things that we want to do.

And so we gotta start somewhere.

But that is what is in this for average cleaners, right?

Direct public lakefront access opportunity to create revenue.

Mr.

Chairman to the director, you got a job to do, you're doing a good job selling it.

Um my last question is um Mr.

Chairman to to Mr.

Masano.

In this plan that you have today, or even a Scott, is there a cost to the general fund?

To to the councilman through the chair, that we don't anticipate it.

It's a six hundred million dollar kind of overall construction cost, that most of it is privately financeable.

Most of it.

The things that I don't have an answer to is like I think there's maybe 20 million dollars of like roads, you know, utilities that would be CPP that we would be putting, you know, the utility extensions.

Um I don't yet know if that would be borne by the developer.

That would be the the goal is for that to be borne by developers as opposed to by the city of Cleveland.

But Mr.

Chairman and Mr.

Osano or to Chief, I'm sorry.

Um there could potentially be a cost to the general fund if Burke goes away when there is no cost to the general fund currently with Burke being here.

It it's not something that I have a known answer to, but there is no, you know, we've already talked about Burke is subsidized by Cleveland Hopkins Airport.

This does not have a uh you know, user that would subsidize beyond you know the developers that would help.

But I but I just want to reiterate is that Burke currently is not a financial burden to the city of Cleveland, right?

We spend no general fund, no tax dollars, no anything on Burke Lakefront Airport.

Currently, today, we know that it's an enterprise fund, we understand it.

It's subsidized by the airlines.

But closing Burke could potentially be a cost to the general fund eventually, maybe down the road, whatever, could be a potential cost to the the general fund, correct?

All right, thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

We have three public commenters signed up.

When I call your name, if you could seat uh to the right side of uh Mr.

Russell here, and uh there'll be a microphone.

You'll each have three minutes, I'll keep your time.

Uh the first is Tim Lewis from Akron, if you're able to come and sit next to Mr.

Russell, and once you get going.

Do we have that map there so I could look at it and show it to the people?

Uh this isn't mine to give out I think this was the council.

No, I mean could it be spread out so I could one of the things I had in mind was if you could you need to speak into the microphone though, and you can even if you hold it uh so that people watching live can hear you.

There's an area over here that I know you wanted to build outward somewhere probably between 55th and 72nd Street.

And in addition to doing that, if you build an island out here, then the outer part of the island could protect uh the shoreline from storms and the inner part of the island, I'd be right about here.

Would be a spot where we could relocate these two yacht clubs, and then after doing that, we could redo the land configuration, something like this.

And then the trail could still go around the edges there.

Another possibility would be to add a little land here and go like that and continue the bike and eye trail along there.

Sir, could you uh hold the microphone?

I'm sorry.

Okay, so this could go over to here, a little land addition as well as what I'm suggesting there.

Oh, and another question.

Are they going to redo the end of the inner build so that it has more of a gentle curve rather than the sharp when they show over on some of these pictures?

I I think that there's been a number of plans from ODOT related to the inner belt.

I can't say specifically where the state is on that.

Okay.

Now in addition to that, where you show East 18th going north and coming to this part of the shoreway, west of Dead Man's Curve.

Is there is there any way that that might intersect that part of it, uh part this route two only, then east of that could be the interchange into the into the I-90.

And then going west would be a couple intersections as you're proposing now.

Although over by the stadium, if we just had a proposed intersection at West Third and East Ninth, but not in that spot where that is just to the east of the stadium.

If you could have that part, instead of going back into the shore, we could just go back into the uh North Marginal Road instead, have a turnaround there, as well as another one near the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

We could have people dropped off and picked up for the museum as well as for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

That is pretty much the ideas I wanted to discuss today.

Thank you, Mr.

Lewis, and uh I'll ask that uh the team on the other side of the table uh speak with you afterwards and just share.

I think there's gonna be a number of opportunities moving forward for public comment on various aspects of lakefront development.

Uh so I think that they would be eager.

I hope that they would be eager to uh take your ideas and analyze them.

And I appreciate you coming today.

Yes, thank you.

Did you say you had a quick question, Councilman Jones?

Yes.

Um looking at what we we're seeing here on page eight, thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um these are going to be new streets that are gonna be cut in where those arrows are located.

I just want some clarification there.

I do like the concept of access and cutting new streets in uh because we only have that one access.

So is it East 12th Street?

Uh and then I see another error over here which says North Coast connector all the way down the other end, more closer towards going towards the east side.

Is that going to be an opening as well?

Correct.

Yeah, to the councilman through the chair, and thank you, Mr.

Lewis for your questions.

Uh this is showing the North Coast Connector, so that's the almost um it's the 487 million dollar infrastructure project that includes the land bridge, but it also includes uh converting the shore away and adding multiple different um, like you said, cuts into that uh that shoreway to better integrate our lakefront to our grid.

So there will be improved connections at third and ninth, uh, and then additional connections at 18th.

So folks will be able to basically get off the shoreway at 18th or 17th, uh, and be able to kind of get into the that that portion of our downtown and east side uh through that.

So we uh as this project continues, we'll continue to look at ways to kind of cut into that to create a city grid.

Thank thank you for that.

Is Dennis Turchak still here?

I think that he left, and then finally, uh Mr.

Houston.

Good afternoon.

Uh good afternoon, council, and good afternoon, uh city.

Uh I don't know the proper term to use for you guys, but anyway, um, thank you for allowing me this opportunity.

Uh, one of the things that sticking out to me is that we have Huntington Beach all the way to Euclid Beach, right?

We'll have any true development whatsoever on the beach line right now.

Okay.

I I myself, like Miss Gray, I travel a lot, travel out of the country, travel to different cities, and all we seem to have at our parks right now, undeveloped parks, right?

Right now, is sand, grass, and water, right?

We have one ice cream collar, and we have one at I believe at Huntington Bank too, correct?

We have no roller skate, roller things, any any workout apparatuses, any park activities.

We have no uh horseshoe uh pits or anything to offer the residents of the city of Cleveland.

So it's kind of mind-boggling to a taxpayer, a person that has three different businesses within the city of Cleveland.

I'm not a resident of the city of Cleveland, but I have three vital businesses that I've created for the community, and it's kind of frustrating to sit here and hear you guys discuss these type of things without residents' consent.

I think we've get we've got away from it's the residents, it's the voters who determine what they want in their communities to be developed.

Okay.

I am an investor, okay?

I'm not a millionaire.

I once was a millionaire, but I did make some great investments in my city with my money.

And everything I've owned is again for the community.

Group homes, car wash, tow truck service, which I just started because I'm waiting to get a contract with the city of Cleveland next year, because I noticed that we don't have any black tow truck companies in the city of Cleveland.

Because I noticed that we don't have any black tow truck companies in the city of Cleveland.

Okay?

And I've also noticed that the tow truck companies that are here, if you look at their job right now, we have bumpers and we have debris on every city corner in the city of Cleveland.

And I'm concerned about these things, right?

I'm concerned that we we're getting away from serving the people like we should be serving the people.

Come ask the community what they desire.

Come ask the children of the school system what are we missing?

Because we're not paying attention we're making a lot of decisions in this city based on big investors that don't live in the city of Cleveland that don't live in the state of Ohio okay and I'm I'm I'm questioning what is everyone thinking about that live in the city of Cleveland that stays in this Calga County are we really paying attention to building things to make it a better place for everyone or are we just sitting here getting caught up in white collar crimes because a lot of this is following up under white collar crime and I'm watching it okay and I'm going to connect the dots a lot of these investors shouldn't be investing because it's unethical for them to do that when they're supporting other situations.

I am truly a watchdog and I am truly watching and I will find and connect the dots to where all these different funds are going to these different corporations this is where I figured out where the contracts and the money is being squandered with all these different agencies coming in and receiving taxpayer dollars and like Mr Casey just said we're going to be on the hook in a minute only is putting a golf course down there you're putting a um I believe you said a golf course a sports arena and hotels that is not revenue for the city of Cleveland most people that golf are retired.

Mr Houston thank you thank you and if if uh you all could also uh briefly speak with Mr Houston if there's other opportunities for community engagement that maybe you haven't uh been aware of to this point I think that'd be useful.

With that I want to thank everybody for being here today.

I want to thank the administration uh throughout these four hearings uh again we are not there's no specific ask before this body uh however I think it is useful for us to understand uh this at a uh high level uh as further conversations happen uh we do have some legislative items that we will need to get to between now and council recessing uh at the end of May so I'll look forward to likely over the summer some additional hearings uh related to BERC including bringing in operators however there's also some immediately pending things specifically RTA that needs to come to the table uh so just because something's not scheduled immediately doesn't mean it's not being scheduled I'm just trying to triage everything before us uh with that I will uh close out this committee on transportation mobility thank you