Posts Tagged Forest City
Doing Damage by Doing What Isn’t Needed
Posted by Roldo Bartimole in Economic Development, Media on January 5, 2010
After a conversation about Cleveland’s past and present problems a friend asked me the other night – what about solutions? Do you have any solutions? It is a question I’ve been asked before.
No, I don’t have any solutions. I’m not looking for solutions. I don’t believe it’s my job to come up with such answers. I have one answer: We have to stop doing what we’re doing. Then we can concentrate on our problems. Then there would be time, resources and energy to deal with our real problems.
But so much energy and so many resources are expended on tasks that are not only necessary but are damaging to our communities.
Our leaders want to build too much of what we don’t need, that conflicts with what we already have and damages community that is already viable.
Forest City Enterprises Al Ratner once bragged to me about how many federal subsidies he has been able to get for projects all over the U. S.
This Brooklyn project is soaked in subsidies, not unusual for these unnecessary projects. This one, as others, includes a new arena for a Ratner family professional sports team.
Isn’t it wonderful that all over the nation we are spending billions of dollars to provide work places for multi-millionaire owners and millionaire sports players while so many ordinary people have no access to a paying job?
Washington Post columnist George Will tackles just that problem in a recent column and it has a link to Cleveland. He is talking about the Ratner project in Brooklyn, N. Y. Here’s is how he starts and I’ll provide a link to the column after this excerpt:
By George Will
On Aug. 27, 1776, British forces routed George Washington’s novice army in the Battle of Brooklyn, which was fought in fields and woods where today the battle of Prospect Heights is being fought. Americans’ liberty is again under assault, but this time by overbearing American governments.
The fight involves an especially egregious example of today’s eminent domain racket. The issue is a form of government theft that the Supreme Court encouraged with its worst decision of the past decade — one that probably will be radically revised in this one.
The Atlantic Yards site, where 10 subway lines and one railway line converge, is the center of the bustling Prospect Heights neighborhood of mostly small businesses and middle-class residences. Its energy and gentrification are reasons why 22 acres of this area — the World Trade Center site is only 16 acres — are coveted by Bruce Ratner, a politically connected developer collaborating with the avaricious city and state governments.
To seize the acres for Ratners’ use, government must claim that the area — which is desirable because it is vibrant — is “blighted.” The cognitive dissonance would embarrass Ratner and his collaborating politicians, had their cupidity not extinguished their sense of the absurd.
Here is the link to the entire article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/01/AR2010010101367.html
It’s a damned shame that all over the nation grasping developers help destroy communities, impoverish citizens and walk away with unearned millions of dollars.
Until we stop today’s marauders we have no chance to make livable communities.
The Ratners have been one of the major exploiters of Cleveland and part of the reason this city has declined so in the last 40 years.
Jacobs-Ratner Fight Continues with Issue 3 Vote
Posted by Roldo Bartimole in Economic Development, People, Politicians on October 27, 2009
October 27, 2009… Damian Guevara in the Cleveland Scene last week had a take on the Issue 3 that has been neglected by most, including me, but touches on a damaging game among Cleveland developers. They vie among themselves for advantage no matter what the cost to community.
It has cost us plenty over the years.
Guevara points out that Forest City Enterprises would be a winner if the measure passes. And that its rival, Jeff Jacobs, wants to stop it, making him the winner.
The battle between the two families – Jacobs & Ratner – has been going on in Cleveland for years. Neither cares much about the damage they cause the city.
“The question for Greater Clevelanders,” writes, Guevara, a former Plain Dealer reporter, “Do you trust wealthy pro-casino interests – in this case, Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert – to deliver on the latest promise of blue-collar and hospitality jobs, multi-million-dollar tax payments and yet another facelift of downtown Cleveland?”
I’d say no.
He calls the manipulation of the constitution inherent in a “yes” vote for Issue 3, a “deal-breaker” for many.
But the beneficiaries are clear, he notices.
“For all the vagueness of the constitutional amendment,” he writes, “there is some astounding specificity to be found in the amendment’s wording, the list of designated parcels put aside for casino construction. In Cleveland, this includes 83 acres of real estate. The Cleveland casino will, parcel-for-parcel, go on land owned by Forest City Enterprises, or the adjacent Scranton Peninsula in the industrial flats, just across the Cuyahoga river, all owned by Forest City.”
Of course, the major opponent to Gilbert’s casino desire is Jeff Jacobs, son of the late Dick Jacobs and a developer and casino operator himself.
The Jacobs-Ratner (Forest City Enterprises) battle has a long history of rivalry in Cleveland. Damaging to the city, too.
When Dick Jacobs built what is now Key Center he made it taller than Forest City’s Terminal Tower. There had been an unwritten law in Cleveland no building should be taller than Terminal Tower. That’s why the Sohio building remained shorter. They are all Public Square buildings.
Some called it developer penis envy.
When Jacobs got a special deal on the Marriott hotel, Sam Miller of Forest City demanded equal tax breaks for his Ritz-Carlton. He got it.
The biggest battle was fought over Chagrin Highlands, a plot of land more than 500 acres that the city allowed for development in 1989. Unbeknownst to anyone, Dick Jacobs was made a principal thanks to George Forbes. When Jacobs wanted to build a retail center at the same time as Beachwood Place was expanding, Mayor Michael White caused the city to sue Jacobs.
The suit stopped Jacobs’s plan; Beachwood Place, with Ratner interests, went ahead with its expansion. The suit was later dropped.
It was Jacobs vs. Ratner on the new County administration building. Jacobs sold his East 9th property to the County for that purpose while Forest City still owns its offering to the County, the mostly empty Higbee department store building.
The two factions also fought over placement of the Medical Mart/Convention Center with Jacobs winning with the location of the present city’s center.
Originally, when the plan was passed by City Council years ago for a convention center, Scranton Peninsula was its location, with Forest City promising other retail and housing development there.
So around and around these two major Cleveland forces go.
Another question to be answered is whether any principals in the deal, if passed, will be from the Ratner or Miller families. Gilbert isn’t talking about that.
Hate to make a choice on this one but I’m pulling for Jacobs this time.
Guevara’s piece can be found here: http://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/cash-of-the-titans/Content?oid=1690218