How Does That Tax Hike Feel Now?
From the PD
After owning the old Ameritrust complex at Euclid Avenue and East Ninth Street for more than two years, and doing almost nothing with it but racking up bills, Cuyahoga County commissioners are willing to sell.
This, after paying $22 million for the historic rotunda, three adjacent buildings, a parking garage and a 22-story tower so riddled with asbestos that some estimates put the cost of abatement at equal to half the purchase price.
The project that was supposed to allow the county to consolidate its work force and save money has become a tax-dollar-gobbling black hole. The county has spent or appropriated $72 million, according to figures it gave to Plain Dealer reporter Joe Guillen. And a groundbreaking isn’t even penciled in.
Meanwhile, the county’s finances have soured and its priorities changed. Building a convention center, not a new administrative building, is now the focus.
Government does have to remain flexible enough to accommodate shifts in strategy. But the problem with this is that it seemed to lack a plan from the outset. Instead of a strategic shift toward a sale, this smacks of desperation in response to a few recent expressions of interest about the property - none keen enough to come with an offer.
After several inquiries from The Plain Dealer, the county did not know exactly what price it would need to break even on the deal. Since then, county officials have pegged that number at $42 million.
This hardly inspires confidence, especially as the county begins to collect a new sales tax to use to finance the convention center.
County officials say they won’t take a fire-sale bid. But when the fiscal management of a project is as questionable as this one has been, promises of hard bargaining ring a bit hollow.
