Ohio's largest metros are carrying the state's economy

Rays of employment hope shine brightest on Ohio's largest
cities. Without them, Ohio would have lost 18,000 jobs in
the past five years. With them, Ohio gained 227,000 jobs.
And the job growth momentum in Ohio's largest cities,
especially the 3Cs, appears to be increasing (KJP file).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

When it comes to describing Ohio's economy, there's the 3Cs and then there's everyone else. With a few exceptions, if you want to find a job in Ohio, the best place to look is Ohio's three largest metropolitan areas -- Columbus, Cincinnati and Cleveland.

Consider that, since the start of 2015, Ohio has gained 227,000 jobs, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The 3Cs accounted for 216,000 of those new jobs.

But it gets more compelling than that. If you add in the employment data from Ohio's next three largest metro areas -- Dayton, Toledo and Akron -- the employment in the state's six largest metro areas grew by 245,000 jobs.

In other words, Ohio would have lost 18,000 jobs in the last five years if it wasn't for Ohio's largest metro areas. It's safe to say that Ohio's six largest metro areas and especially its three largest are carrying the state's economy.

And the 3Cs are sustaining their near-decade-long momentum based on the job growth numbers displayed in the charts posted at the bottom of this article. I began to research that momentum when I wrote an article last month about Cleveland's documented $1.25 billion growth in individual taxable incomes since 2016.

But Cleveland's newfound job growth (after the prior decade's job losses) was doubled by that of Columbus and Cincinnati. All three cities are seeing billions of dollars of real estate investment pouring into their urban centers.

And it's not limited to their downtowns. Long-neglected neighborhoods like Cleveland's Hough, Cincinnati's Over-The-Rhine and Columbus' Olde Towne East are seeing investment unlike any era since the 19th century.

Billions of dollars in new investment are pouring
into Ohio cities from local, national and interna-
tional investors. Cleveland has been no exception
as more than a dozen new high-rises are planned
downtown. Plus, numerous mid-rises and single-
family homes and rapidly expanding businesses
are enjoying new investment (APhotoshopman).

In contrast, Ohio's smaller metro areas, smaller cities and rural areas aren't doing as well as their big brothers. Their job growth has slowed, stopped or reversed course in recent years.

While demographers have coined the term "Fifth Migration" to describe the flood of Millennials and, to a lesser extent empty-nesters into America's larger urban centers since before the 2010s, it appears there is another demographic contributing to this ongoing migration pattern more recently.

The new urban migrant is the former small-town and rural resident who is fleeing conditions ranging from stagnant or declining job prospects, to the agglomeration of agribusiness, to the closing of small-town/rural hospitals, to the relatively poorer quality of Internet connections.

The Fifth Migration was detailed in a 2016 report by The Center for Population Dynamics at the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University (CSU).

To put this migration into context, the CSU report said the First Migration was the pioneers that settled North America; the Second Migration from farms to the factory towns; the Third Migration to the great metropolitan centers like Cleveland; and the Fourth Migration to the suburbs of these centers.

With the apparent movement of rural Ohioans to its larger cities (and to other cities nationwide), this migration pattern has much in common with the second and third migrations from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s.

Another factor in this migration pattern that has not been seen in past decades (at least, not since the early 1800s) is the movement of employers and residents from more expensive coastal cities to large, albeit less expensive cities in Ohio. NEOtrans documented this in articles in early 2018 and again in late 2018.

Large and small employers are moving into Ohio's biggest
cities to attract more talent, especially the young, creative
kind. Among those desiring to move in is Cross Country
Mortgage, currently in suburban Brecksville. This fast-
growing employer will reportedly renovate and move
into historic buildings in the Superior Arts District
on the east side of Downtown Cleveland (KJP).

Ohio's 3Cs have big-city amenities without the expense of the coastal cities. As a visitor to Ohio once remarked, "Cleveland is the smallest big city I've ever visited and Cincinnati is the biggest small town I've ever visited."

Ohio's declining small-city, small-town and rural employment situation along with its growing larger metro areas has some important political considerations locally, statewide and nationally as well.

While Cleveland has always been a center of strength for the Democratic Party, Columbus and Cincinnati were not. That is changing. Today, more Democrats are getting elected to municipal and county positions in Greater Columbus and Cincinnati.

But, as more rural residents move to Ohio larger cities, will these cities change the views of these new arrivals or will these migrants change the electorate's voting patterns in Ohio's larger cities? And it remains to be seen how these changes will affect statewide issues like gerrymandering, education and transportation investments or national matters like future presidential races.

Here is a summary of Ohio's employment situation, shown first in numbers and then in charts. Here is the change in employment in Ohio's metro areas over the past five years when Ohio's largest metros increased their employment momentum and all other parts of Ohio either stagnated or declined:

CHANGE IN EMPLOYMENT IN PAST 5 YEARS

STATEWIDE
Ohio +227k

OHIO'S SIX LARGEST METROS
Columbus +88k
Cincinnati +85k
Cleveland +43k
Dayton +17k
Toledo +7k
Akron +5k

EVERYONE ELSE
Wheeling +3k
Canton +2k
Lima +1K
Mansfield 0
Springfield -1k
Huntington -3k
Steubenville -3k
Youngstown -9k

Here are charts showing the changes in employment in Ohio's metro areas in the past decade:

END

New downtown courthouse tower, nearby jail campus comes into focus

Planning is advancing on four options for rebuilding and/or
replacing downtown Cleveland's massive, undersized and
decaying Justice Center complex. A steering committee
overseeing the planning voted for the four options with
a new courthouse tower downtown plus a new jail
campus somewhere in Cleveland gaining unani-
mous support from the committee (Google).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

One of Greater Cleveland's largest real estate development projects is coming into focus. And no, it's not just the Sherwin-Williams headquarters and research facilities. But both are what real estate professionals call "whales."

The other whale is the new 1.7-million-square-foot-plus Justice Center. And based on votes this week by a steering committee of Justice Center stakeholders on how to address the poorly built, crumbling and overcrowded jail, courthouse tower and sheriff's offices, there's going to be a new jail and probably will be a new courthouse tower.

Among nine conceptual options for addressing the inadequate Justice Center which saw its construction begin 46 year ago, only one option received unanimous support from among the 12-person committee. That vote was to build a new downtown courthouse tower and a new, low-rise jail campus probably somewhere in the city of Cleveland.

But three other alternatives also won enough support, albeit not unanimous, for advancing into more detailed study to refine programming as well as operating and construction cost estimates for comparative purposes. These are the options that will be subjected to further refinement, listed from most popular at the top to least popular:

• New low-rise jail campus and new high-rise urban courthouse;
• New low-rise jail campus and expand/renovate existing courthouse;
• New low-rise jail and new mid-rise court on campus site;
• New Jail 1 next to renovated Jail 2, expand/renovate existing courthouse.

These are the four primary structures at the existing Justice
Center campus, with north to the left (Cuyahoga County).

The existing 2.3-million-square-foot Justice Center opened in 1977 on 7 acres of land between Ontario and West 3rd streets, Lakeside and St. Clair avenues. The planning team that's studying its renovation, expansion or replacement is led by Cleveland-based Project Management Consultants LLC managed by Jeff Appelbaum.

One of the most notable findings by the Justice Center planning team is that a new, more modern and efficient jail combined with central booking and diversion/treatment programs for drug abusers could save the county about $27 million per year in operating costs.

That savings, if used to help service the issuance of construction bonds for the new 800,000-square-foot jail, could pay for 56 to 68 percent of the jail's construction costs, planners said. A new jail campus is projected to cost anywhere from $700 million to $800 million to build. The operating cost savings from a new jail could pay for $392 million to $544 million of the jail's construction costs.

A new Cuyahoga County Sherriff's Department headquarters is estimated to measure just shy of 100,000 square feet, the planning team said.

The Justice Center's 25-story, 420-foot-tall, 600,000-square-foot courthouse tower is in very poor condition. It will cost hundreds of millions of dollars to renovate it, and by the time that work is done, it will still be a 50-year-old, poorly-built building, planners said. And that cost doesn't take into account expanding it for the domestic relations and housing courts plus other county court-related offices located in other buildings.

Planners said that the courthouse tower needs to measure 877,000 square feet to address overcrowding. A new courthouse could grow by roughly 200,000 square feet if the Eighth District Court of Appeals and the Cuyahoga County Probate Court are also relocated into a new courthouse tower, pending further study.

For those wondering if there is 15 acres available near down-
town Cleveland for a campus-style jail complex, the answer
is a definite "yes" as the vacant land shown in red is owned
by the Ohio Department of Transportation. The blue parcel
is owned by Cleveland Black Oxide Inc. and the narrow,
green parcel is a trench owned by the Greater Cleveland
Regional Transit Authority for its rapid transit rail lines.
If combined, that site alone would suffice for a new jail
campus beyond the edge of downtown (Google/KJP).

If a new courthouse tower were built downtown with its parking in a neighboring structure and the courthouse's floorplates averaging about 25,000 square feet (they're about 29,000 square feet currently), it could be a 35-story building.

If the appellate and probate courts were included, the courthouse tower could rise to about 43 stories tall. If less square footage per floor is planned, the tower could easily eclipse 50 stories.

Cost of a new courthouse tower wasn't provided. But based on the Carl B. Stokes Federal Courthouse Tower built in 2002 and adjusted for inflation, it could range from $400 million to $600 million, depending on the site. No site has been identified, but steering committee members said they want a new courthouse tower to stay as close to the existing Justice Center as possible.

Because the planning team was asked by the steering committee to further study renovating and expanding the existing jails and courthouse, it will add another 60 days to provide detailed cost answers.

Further study of that planning option came at the urging of committee member Brendan Sheehan, administrative judge at the Common Pleas Court. He said the other judges wanted to know the costs involved with that renovation option to compare with the new-build options.

And because all steering committee members acknowledge that the existing Jail 1, built in 1977, is completely inadequate and the Jail 2 at least needs to be renovated, the planning team hoped to begin searching for sites for a new jail campus. That will have to wait until after the refined programming and cost data is developed for the renovation option, perhaps in August.

END

Sherwin-Williams HQ+R&D site news may wait until next month

Sherwin-Williams' consolidated 1.45-million-square-foot head-
quarters will reportedly land on the west side of Public Square.
But the site for a 350,000-square-foot research center remains
undecided and is delaying the HQ announcement as well other
facilities progress. This is an unofficial massing of a proposed
HQ shown as yellow buildings at the center (Geowizical).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

A curveball thrown at Sherwin-Williams (SHW) regarding its favored research and development (R&D) facility development site has forced the global coatings giant to postpone announcing where it will put its R&D and headquarters (HQ) facilities.

That's according to sources who spoke off the record because they are not authorized to speak publicly about SHW's efforts to pursue new HQ+R&D facilities.

They said SHW had been preparing to publicly announce the HQ+R&D sites this week. But when SHW's favored site for its 350,000-square-foot R&D facility on Scranton Peninsula turned sour, it began discussions with owners of alternative R&D sites.

It also meant having to delay any public announcements. It is possible that the delay could be until sometime after SHW's annual sales meeting, to be held Feb. 10-12 in Orlando, FL.

The alternative R&D sites were not identified, but sources provided reminders that SHW's C-suite executives prefer to have the R&D facility near its HQ, meaning in or near downtown Cleveland. That preference has been reported in this blog over the past year.

A site in Brecksville, as mentioned here in NEOtrans, remains a possibility but reportedly doesn't rank as highly as sites in the city of Cleveland which SHW has called home since 1866.

Multiple sources say SHW has identified the site for its 1.45-million-square-foot consolidated HQ as the 6.82 acres of parking lots owned by the Jacobs and Weston groups just west of Public Square.

As seen from the Carter Road bridge to Scranton Peninsula,
Sherwin-Williams' Breen Technology Center is in the fore-
ground and its global headquarters is in the background, in
the Landmark Building at the upper right (Iryna Tkachenko).

The site was selected because it is large, clean, level, undeveloped, available and located in the heart of a major city's central business district. It is close to transportation, restaurants, supportive business services and increasing numbers of short-term lodging, extended-stay lodging and residential options.

SHW's HQ+R&D facilities will be developed by a joint venture between Welty Building Co. and Gilbane Building Co. that was incorporated as Welty/Gilbane JV, LLC on Oct. 24, 2019. Welty picked Gilbane on Oct. 8 after soliciting requests for proposals months earlier. Welty was hired by SHW to oversee its HQ+R&D process.

But SHW executives understandably want the facilities situation settled as soon as possible. As noted in SHW's only written, public statement about the HQ+R&D site search, Chairman and CEO John Morikis said that the company has a "a less than optimal configuration of headquarters, offices and R&D facilities across multiple locations."

SHW made that lone public statement Sept. 12, 2019, nearly one year after NEOtrans began reporting on the news that SHW was pursuing a new HQ facility and provided updates on the progress that followed.

Addressing that situation will allow the company to function more efficiently. And the sooner the facilities situation is resolved, the sooner that thousands of SHW employees and, indeed, all of Greater Cleveland can rest easier.

Unfortunately, SHW has not provided since September any official, on-the-record progress reports into its HQ+R&D process for its many interested parties. It's a process that SHW employees and Greater Clevelanders want and even deserve to know about. Nature abhors a vacuum.

END

Return of the Roaring 20s: downtown Cleveland development

The Lumen apartment tower will be downtown
Cleveland's first skyscraper completed in the
2020s. But it certainly won't be its last. Up to
13 more skyscrapers are in various stages of
planning. See the Cleveland skyline compari-
son photos below to see how much the down-
town skyline could change in the Roaring 20s
(UrbanOhio). CLICK IMAGES TO ENALRGE

Most Downtown Cleveland's skyscraper builders took a nearly 20-year nap between 1992 to 2010. That was after they finished Key Tower and the Fifth Third Bank (formerly Bank One) Tower and they started the Ernst & Young Tower at Flats East Bank.

In that two-decade span, workers built only one building downtown of 20 stories or more -- the 23-story, 430-foot-tall Carl B. Stokes Federal Courthouse Tower on Huron Road next to Tower City Center.

In the 2010s, they were quite a bit busier building skyscrapers. Their work included the 21-story Ernst & Young tower in 2012, 32-story Hilton Hotel in 2016, 29-story Beacon apartments in 2019 and the 34-story Lumen apartments that were topped off before the 2010s ended. Although The Lumen won't be completed until the end of this year.

Entering the 2020s, early as next year and likely continuing for at least several more years, it's looking more likely that downtown Cleveland will have as many skyscrapers under construction simultaneously as were built in the entire decade prior. Of course, this depends on the local and national economies. It could be a return of the Roaring Twenties for Cleveland.

Nearly a dozen skyscrapers are planned downtown, along with several more buildings in the 10-19 stories range, and a handful of shorter new buildings. Unfortunately, not all of them are going to happen. Even the most well-thought-out plans go awry for the craziest of unanticipated reasons. Some of these are early on in their planning but already have some meaningful financial backing.

The photo above was taken from Lake Erie in 2011, showing
downtown Cleveland when the first of the 2010s skyscrapers
was being built (Ernst & Young tower, at right). Compare that
to what downtown could look like (below) by the end of the
2020s (KJP/w28th). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

These planned towers are listed in order of the earliest approximate date when they could see groundbreaking:

City Club Apartments (mid- to late-2020): Proposed by the Michigan-based chain City Club Apartments as a 23-story mixed-use tower with 310 apartments and two-story retail/lobby base at 720 Euclid Ave.

Unidentified tower 1 (late-2020, early-2021): plans for residential skyscraper submitted to city for review but cannot be publicized yet.

Unidentified tower 2 (late-2020, early-2021): plans for residential skyscraper submitted to city for review but cannot be publicized yet.

Sherwin-Williams HQ tower (early- to mid-2021): Potentially a 30- to 35-story, 450- to 500-foot-tall global headquarters tower on the Jacobs Group-owned parking lot on the west side of Public Square.

Sherwin-Williams Superblock (early- to mid-2021): Potentially a 5- to 20-story office building, possibly above a multi-level parking deck and/or mixed-use base located on the Weston Group-owned Superblock immediately west of the Jacobs lot.

The Sherwin-Williams headquarters (shown in yellow in the
foreground) just west of Public Square represents one of the
biggest potential skyline changers in the 2020s. It is possible
that two buildings of more than 200 feet (with one approach-
500 feet) could result from that one development. This is an
unofficial massing of the headquarters site (Geowizical).

Unidentified tower 3 (early-2020, mid-2021): plans for a 16-story hotel/residential tower in Flats were submitted to city for review but cannot be publicized yet.

Unidentified tower 4 (mid-2021): plans for office building not yet submitted to city and cannot be publicized yet. May or may not be more than 10 stories, however.

Unidentified tower 5 (mid-2021): plans for office building not yet submitted to city and cannot publicized yet.

Flats East Bank Phase 3 (late-2021): Proposed as a 12-story mid-rise/tower apartment building over shops, restaurants and a theater at Main Avenue and West 11th Street but cash-flow problems experienced by project partner Wolstein Group have delayed this project.

nuCLEus apartment tower (late-2021): Originally proposed in 2014, lead developer Stark Enterprises inability to secure capital especially from public sources has delayed this project, especially its office tower. Project may depend on the Ohio General Assembly's passage of a Transformational Mixed Use Development tax credit which could happen this spring or summer.

nuCLEus office tower (late-2021): As with the apartment tower listed previously, this would be a 24-story tower built atop a pedestal of parking and retail on East 4th Street between Prospect Avenue and Huron Road. But the office tower would be 40 feet taller owing to the higher ceilings in an office configuration.

Lumen Act II (early- to mid-2022): Depending on the progress of leasing (yet to start) at The Lumen that's due to complete construction in late-2020, this second apartment tower for Playhouse Square could rise at the southeast corner of East 13th Street and Chester Avenue. Its proposed height isn't yet known.

Justice Center Courthouse Tower (early to mid-2022): At this time, this may eclipse the Sherwin-Williams HQ tower as the tallest building now being considered for downtown Cleveland based on its projected space needs, estimated today at 877,366 square feet. In a tower with floorplates averaging 25,000 square feet, that could result in a tower of more than 35 stories. It's proposed location, assuming that it is actually built, isn't yet known.

The next skyscraper likely to rise in downtown Cleveland is
the City Club Apartments on Euclid Avenue west of East 9th
Street. Construction could start by the end of 2020 (Vocon).

Now that we've ventured into the future, let's see what got us here. Even the nearly skyscraper-less two decades between 1992-2012 weren't devoid of downtown construction.

Workers were busy downtown building the baseball stadium and basketball/hockey arena at the Gateway complex until 1994, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in 1995, Great Lakes Science Center in 1996, 18-story Crittenden Court Apartments in 1996, 14-story Hampton Inn in 1998, Cleveland Browns stadium in 1999, 11-story Hilton Garden Inn in 2002, 10-story Avenue District condos in 2008, plus lesser projects.

And while the 2010s saw four new-construction high-rises built downtown, it doesn't come close to describing how much construction had occurred there in the last decade. The reason is that most of that construction was actually renovations/conversions of old, obsolete commercial buildings into residential ones.

Consider that, among downtown Cleveland's 37 residential buildings 100 feet or taller, 21 of those were built as residential or were converted into residential since 2010. Only two of those involved new construction.

The supply of historic yet obsolete commercial buildings available for conversion is dwindling yet the market for more housing downtown remains strong. A recent market analysis shows another 6,800 downtown residential units are needed by 2030. To meet that demand would require building the equivalent of another 21 Lumen-sized apartment towers.

Cleveland's recent job growth and dwindling supply of obsolete commercial buildings is timely. It coincides with new financial tools like the Opportunity Zone tax breaks or that real estate investment trusts are willing to take lower, longer-term returns. And if Ohio approves the Transformational Mixed Use Development tax credit, the floodgates of megaprojects may open up.

So it should be of little surprise that new construction is taking over from what the renovations/conversions started. There would have been more than 20 construction cranes above downtown Cleveland in the 2010s if there wasn't a large inventory of obsolete commercial buildings to convert into residential.

Now that this supply is running low, the arrival of the Roaring 20s means the arrival of the downtown Cleveland construction crane is at hand.

END

Cleveland & Brecksville vie for Sherwin-Williams R&D after deal dies

Scranton Peninsula is a blank canvas waiting for developers
to make their mark. That is starting to happen on the 22 acres
of the Thunderbird site in the foreground. But another 60 acres
belong to Scranton Averell and lack any development plans.
Nine of those acres were sought by Sherwin-Williams for its
new research center but that deal is now dead (Aerial Agents).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE

Three sources confirm that a deal for Sherwin-Williams' (SHW) favored site in Cleveland for a consolidated research and development (R&D) facility is dead. Now, the question is where will the facility staffed by about 1,000 scientists, engineers and researchers land?

City and state officials, including Mayor Frank Jackson, met with SHW executives at least twice in the past week upon learning that the planned new R&D facility was at risk of leaving Cleveland, two of the sources said. But there is no word that any new sites in Cleveland were of interest to SHW.

The clock is ticking, however. SHW executives reportedly want to announce their new headquarters (HQ) and R&D facilities in the coming week.

It is worth noting that this uncertainty doesn't extend to SHW's HQ. The massive, 1.45-million-square-foot HQ will be on the parking lots owned by Jacobs and Weston groups west of Public Square in downtown Cleveland, multiple sources say. The HQ will consolidate up to 5,000 employees from multiple offices throughout Northeast Ohio and even from other states.

The site SHW wanted for its new 350,000-square-foot R&D facility is on about 9.4 acres at 1840-1888 Carter Rd. on Scranton Peninsula in the Flats. It's a floodplain across the Cuyahoga River from Tower City Center that has been home to foundries and mills since before the Civil War.

And the site reportedly has lots of environmental problems wrought by 170 years of industrial activity. Toxins from that activity remain in the soil and must be cleaned and/or covered by new, clean fill dirt before new uses can be built there.

Landing a company with deep pockets and a thousand well-paid R&D employees seemed like a wonderful motivation to finally get that land cleaned and redeveloped after languishing for decades.

As seen from the Carter Road bridge to Scranton Peninsula,
Sherwin-Williams' Breen Technology Center is in the fore-
ground and its global headquarters is in the background, in
the Landmark Building at the upper right (Iryna Tkachenko).

But two sources said the land owner, Scranton Averell Inc., appears content collecting leases from tenants like a truck terminal and a boat storage facility. Not everyone agrees those are the highest and best uses for a downtown riverfront in a city trying to move forward in the post-industrial era, however.

A well-known Cleveland developer who agreed to speak off the record confirmed that the SHW deal with Scranton Averell was dead and put the onus on Scranton Averell President Thomas Stickney.

Another real estate source said that, while he would have liked to have seen SHW's R&D facility on Scranton Peninsula, he said that there are other developers who are pursuing many smaller-scale projects on numerous Flats properties nearby.

But when asked if that included Scranton Averell's other properties, he wrote "No...not at all LOL ...everything except their land." He described Scranton Averell's board meetings as being "like family reunions" and not held often.

An e-mail seeking comment from Stickney, sent to his Rocky River law firm's main email, was not responded to prior to publication of this article. The e-mail also included a read-receipt, to which there also was no response.

In fairness, Scranton Averell probably wasn't going to profit by spending millions of dollars to clean its land prior to a sale that might yield a similar amount. SHW probably wasn't going to spend that money either, not when cleaner alternative sites exist elsewhere in the city and even more in the suburbs.

That means that the city, county and state would have to come up with the cleanup funds. Ward 12 City Councilman Tony Brancatelli who chairs council's Development Planning & Sustainability Committee said the city has offered business development incentives to SHW but would not comment on the substance of discussions with SHW at this time.

Valor Acres is the former Veterans Administration Hospital
site in Brecksville, located in southern Cuyahoga County.
Planned are hundreds of thousands of square feet of offices,
restaurants, shops and parking (DiGeronimo Companies).

Cuyahoga County has hired Ulmer & Bern LLP to finalize a framework of as yet unidentified incentives pledged to SHW for its new HQ and possibly its R&D facility as well.

Last spring, a representative of the DiGeronomo family said they were in contact with SHW about locating its R&D facility and possibly the HQ at Valor Acres in Brecksville, set in southern Cuyahoga County.

Valor Acres is the former Veterans Administration Hospital that was closed in 2011 and relocated to Cleveland's University Circle. The VA Hospital land was donated to the City of Brecksville.

DiGeronimo Companies won the rights to develop the 103-acre VA site. The company also spent million of dollars over the last two years to clear and clean the property so that it is development-ready.

The DiGeronimo representative would not comment on whether SHW has chosen Valor Acres for its R&D facility.

That facility would consolidate 400 research jobs out of SHW's John G. Breen Technology Center on Canal Road in downtown Cleveland, up to 400 former Valspar Corp. R&D jobs out of Minneapolis, and potentially several hundred research jobs from SHW's Automotive and Performance Coatings groups in Warrensville Heights.

David Ebersole, Cleveland's director of economic development, also would not comment.

END

Two new jobs that could change Cleveland's landscape forever

Cleveland State University's $48 million, 100,000-square-foot
Center for Innovations in Medical Professions Building that
opened in 2015 was a toe in the water for the university. It is
taking a deeper dive into health care research and education
that, along with another new bit of news, could transform the
region's economy (CSU). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE

The creation of two jobs can change a region in a significant way. Cases in point are two medically related positions -- one that was just filled and the other that was recently advertised.

Yesterday, Cleveland State University (CSU) hired a new employee that will probably be a game changer for Cleveland and Northeast Ohio. It could ultimately lead to thousands of new jobs. Yes, thousands.

And, weeks ago, Canon Medical Research USA Inc. posted a job listing for a new position at its Cleveland-area offices -- director, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) research and development (R&D). It could also lead to thousands of new jobs in the future.

First, let's delve into the more immediate news that CSU has hired Forrest Faison III, former U.S. Navy Vice Admiral and served as the 38th Surgeon General of the Navy and chief of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery from 2015 to 2019.

He was named senior vice president for research & innovation/chief healthcare strategy officer at CSU. According to a CSU press release, he will oversee the broad effort to unify and expand the university's educational, outreach and scholarship efforts in all aspects of health care, while spurring the continued growth of Cleveland as a center for medical innovation.

Consider that there is only one publicly funded medical school in Northeast Ohio -- the Northeast Ohio Medical University (NEOMED) way out in Rootstown, between Akron and Youngstown.

CSU recently partnered with NEOMED to create the NEOMED-CSU Partnership for Urban Health, which has its physical presence in the 2015-built Center for Innovations in Medical Professions Building at the southwest corner of Euclid Avenue and East 22nd Street.

With the hiring of Forrest Faison, CSU is launching a bold
and ambitious effort to position itself as one of the nation's
notable medical and health care research centers (Google).

The 100,000-square-foot, $48 million building also houses CSU's College of Sciences and Health Professions as well is the CSU School of Nursing. The first medical students to graduate from NEOMED-CSU were in 2018. And the program is small -- only 35 students. Consider that effort a toe-in-the-water for a grander vision that CSU has in mind.

Yes, Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) has a medical school but it's not a publicly funded school. Its tuition is beyond the reach of some potential applicants who end up in state schools in other cities.

While Cleveland Clinic gets medical students and interns through CWRU, University Hospitals Health System (UHHS) and the MetroHealth System have to import most of their medical students from outside the region.

That's part of what Faison will seek to address. He will develop new pathways and strategies designed to enhance the university’s status as a nationally recognized urban research university. Faison's national and even global stature immediately puts CSU on the medical education map.

Some potential outcomes?

Look for significant new medical school and research buildings constructed on CSU's downtown Cleveland campus in the coming years, said a source closely connected to this effort, but who was not authorized to speak publicly yet on it.

The new medical school and research facilities will likely feature thousands of students and research jobs and be a magnet for many millions of dollars of state and federal funding for education and research.

Not only will CSU's effort provide a steady and voluminous supply of students and interns for UHHS and MetroHealth, but it will likely strengthen the region's already robust healthcare research scene, the source said.

Cranes tower over MetroHealth's new $1.2 billion campus on
West 25th Street in Cleveland. It is probable that a similar
scene will soon exist on CSU's campus as the university
greatly expands its medical education and health care
research presence in Cleveland (UrbanOhio).

“(Faison's) leadership will also be critical to further our efforts to create the health care programs, technologies and workforce that will improve the lives of people throughout the community and enhance the continued advancement of the regional economy,” said CSU President Harlan Sands.

"Welcome to Cleveland, Forrest," said Akram Boutros, president and CEO of MetroHealth on Twitter. "All of us at MetroHealth look forward to working with you and your team at CSU."

Simultaneously yet independently, Canon Medical Research USA's desired hiring of a director of MRI R&D could also have significant future ramifications for Greater Cleveland's economy. First, let's consider where Canon is coming from.

Canon, long known for cameras and copiers, has wanted to expand its presence in the medical imaging business in a big way. So in 2016 they acquired industry giant Toshiba Medical Systems for $6 billion. Underneath Canon Medical System's big umbrella is tiny Canon Medical Research USA, based in Greater Los Angeles.

And last fall, Canon acquired Quality Electrodynamics LLC (QED) of Mayfield Village. Canon has designated its medical business as a new business that will expand and drive future growth for the company. The acquisition of QED furthers this strategy.

“This new relationship is a tremendous opportunity for QED and its 175 associates to continue to add new customers and products and will further drive QED’s growth and employment levels in northeast Ohio,” said QED Board member Albert B. Ratner in a written statement.

Canon's goal is to develop its research arm so that it isn't tiny anymore. Indeed, they want it to be a giant in medical imaging and an expanded R&D program will get them there. Interestingly, between Canon Medical Research USA's two principal R&D locations -- Chicagoland and Greater Cleveland -- the site where this director of R&D will be based is in Greater Cleveland.

That's a great sign for the potential expansion of this significant R&D activity. And, when combined with CSU's commitment to medical education and research, as well as CWRU's and Cleveland Clinic's established medical research capabilities, it's a sign that Greater Cleveland is on a path to strengthen its global position in this growing field.

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Ohio real estate megaproject tax credit may advance in February

Lots of great ideas for redeveloping our cities never see the
light of day because the financing for them is often difficult
to obtain due to Ohio's high construction costs and its low
rents. A tax credit to help facilitate megaprojects may move
forward next month in Ohio's General Assembly (AODK).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

Legislation that would aid Ohio real estate megaprojects and create thousands of jobs could advance in the Ohio House of Representatives next month, according to a spokesman for State Rep. Paul Zeltwanger, chair of the House's Workforce & Economic Development Committee.

The committee is scheduled to meet again on Feb. 5 to vote on whether to accept a substitute Senate Bill 39 which contains multiple amendments. News and details about those amendments were exclusively reported here at NEOtrans in December.

Six amendments to a proposed Transformational Mixed-Use Development (TMUD) tax credit bill were accepted Dec. 11, 2019 by the House's Workforce & Economic Development Committee. The committee then adjourned for the holidays.

"The plan is to accept a hopefully final substitute bill for SB 39 on the 5th (of February) that will make all parties reasonably happy," said Josh Ferdelman, legislative aide to Rep. Zeltwanger. "I can’t make any promises, but we hope to have a final committee vote Feb. 12."

He added that the committee might not accept testimony at the committee's Feb. 5th meeting. But if the committee votes to accept the substitute bill, it could take testimony on that amended legislation on Feb. 12 before deciding whether to refer it to the full House for a floor vote.

If the House votes to pass a Sub. SB 39, it sets up a possible conference committee to iron out differences with the Ohio Senate that already passed an earlier version of the TMUD tax credit legislation by a 32-1 vote on June 25, 2019. A still-older version of the bill unanimously passed the Ohio House in 2018 but the legislative session expired before the Senate could act on that version.

Stark Enterprises' law firm, Thompson Hine LLP, drafted the first TMUD legislation two years ago at Stark's request. It did so after Stark had attempted other methods of loosening up public-sector capital funding for its mixed-use nuCLEus development project in downtown Cleveland.

Six years after nuCLEus was first announced, Stark continues to pursue the megaproject that would consist of two 24-story towers. One of those would feature 250 apartments and other 400,000 square feet of offices. They would be built atop a pedestal of 1,300 parking spaces and 80,000 square feet of commercial/retail space.

Stark Enterprises says it needs the TMUD tax credit before it
can afford to start construction on its large nuCLUS develop-
ment in downtown Cleveland's Gateway District (Stark).

In its promotional materials, Stark says nuCLEus would "serve as a significant connector to other key developments while acting as a catalyst that 'connects the dots,' creating a vibrant network of urban energy." That's why Stark contends its project should win a TMUD tax credit if Sub. SB 39 is passed.

Ezra Stark, chief operating officer of Cleveland-based Stark Enterprises, acknowledged receipt of an e-mail seeking more information for this article but did not comment.

Stark Enterprises and other real estate developers said in their testimony to House and Senate committees that major developments in Ohio's larger downtowns cost nearly as much to build as those in larger cities like New York and Chicago. However, Ohio developments command rents that are one-half to two-thirds less.

To offset the cost of "transformational" developments in Ohio, the proposed tax credit would refund to insurance companies up to 10 percent of their investment in TMUDs, as defined by the bill.

TMUDs include projects whose new or to-be-renovated connected buildings are at least 15 stories tall, measure at least 350,000 square feet and contain any combination of retail, office, residential, recreation, structured parking or similar uses.

Numerous business and civic groups testified in support of the bill. They included the Ohio Municipal League, Ohio Mayors Alliance, Ohio Chamber of Commerce, City of Hamilton, Ohio Insurance Institute, NAIOP of Ohio (Commercial Real Estate Development Association) as well as The Millennia Companies of Cleveland and Stark Enterprises.

The only group to testify in opposition to the bill was Policy Matters Ohio, a left-leaning non-profit policy research institute with offices in Cleveland and Columbus.

"Substitute Senate Bill 39 is designed to provide a unique tax credit that will foster mega-development projects that will transform Ohio's downtowns with new and robust economic development," said State Sen. Kirk Schuring (R-29, Canton), in recent testimony on the bill.

Sen. Schuring is the bill's original sponsor. He also submitted the six new amendments that were accepted by the House's Workforce & Economic Development Committee last month.

Passage of the TMUD tax credit legislation in the Ohio State
Ohio this year could open the floodgates of public and private
capital funding for real estate megaprojects in Cleveland and
other cities throughout Ohio (State of Ohio).

Most of the legislation's changes would link the release of tax credit awards more closely to the amount of state and local taxes generated by the credit, according to a summary explanation on the committee's Web page.

Specifically, the new provisions in the TMUD bill would limit the director of the Ohio Development Services Agency (DSA), which would administer the tax credit, to approving only four TMUD tax credits per fiscal year. If fewer than four TMUD applications were made or approved, the unused credits would carry over to the next year.

If more than four applications are submitted, they would be ranked by their economic value and transformational impact. The proposed change would give consideration to the new state and local taxes generated from the project and its surrounding area.

A project that has the most significant transformational impact and has a pro forma (or forward-looking financial statement) that shows the most expeditious schedule for the new state and local taxes to exceed the amount of the tax credit, would be the one that is approved.

After the TMUD credit is approved by the DSA director, the project must go into construction no later than one year after it is approved. If it does not, the approved tax credit will be rescinded, according to another amendment.

Another change wouldn't allow the state to release the 10 percent tax credit to recipients all at once. Instead, the first 5 percent credit would be issued upon the completion of construction. The remaining 5 percent would be issued as evidence is submitted showing the new state and local taxes that were caused by the project and its surrounding area.

If the evidence shows that, after the construction of the project was completed, it already generated new state and local taxes that exceeded the amount of the 10 percent credit, then a certificate for the full 10 percent would be issued.

But if the new taxes do not exceed the amount of the tax credit immediately after the completion of the construction, then the remaining 5 percent will be issued incrementally on an annual basis as evidence is shown that the new state and local taxes generated from the project and its surrounding area exceeds the amount of the additional credit. The incremental increases in the credit will be for a period of up to 5 years.

Lastly, the accepted amendments would increase the existing historic renovation tax credit percentage from 25 to 35 percent for projects in rural areas. And the bill would enhance a variety of rules stipulating how DSA will administer the TMUD program.

END