Emmy Award-winning Feagler & Friends is a lively, weekly half-hour television discussion of local and national issues impacting lives in Northeast Ohio. Hosted by award-winning journalist and former Plain Dealer columnist, Dick Feagler, Feagler & Friends explores the various issues behind today's news. With a changing ensemble of "friends" ranging from journalists to community and political leaders, Feagler & Friends takes on issues from many different perspectives. Always entertaining and never boring, Feagler & Friends is the program for people "in the know" in Northeast Ohio.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Topics: Economy, Politics, Health, Other
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A Special Edition of Feagler & Friends

Medical Mart and Convention Center…What Now?

The panel: Peter van Dijk, architect, FAIA; Edward ‘Ned’ Hill, Dean, Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs, Cleveland State University; Steven Litt, art and architecture critic, The Plain Dealer.

Cleveland’s proposed convention center and Medical Mart has hit a major snag. Cuyahoga County’s partner in the project, MMPI of Chicago, has announced it no longer wants to include Public Hall in the project and that it wishes to build the new Medical Mart structure on Mall C, across Lakeside Avenue from the convention center. MMPI officials were in the city this week explaining that Public Hall was written off because renovation costs would be tens of millions of dollars higher than first projected. Mall C became the primary site for the Medical Mart, MMPI said, after negotiations with private landowners stalled.

It’s not clear yet if Cleveland’s Mayor and City Council will go along with the changes. They’ll have to accept less for the city-owned old convention center minus Public Hall and they’ll have to decide if they want to give up a highly-visible downtown green space.

Given these new developments, is the project still viable as an economic engine and is it a good fit for the downtown landscape?

Send questions and comments to feagler@wviz.org.