Osupa 8 March 2010 Breaking News, MXO News 6 Comments

mxoentertainment.com

By Ms. Osupa Nia

Posted March 8th 2010

The Cleveland City Club hosted The Cleveland Coalition’s Crooked River Gaming: Event: Weaving the New Casino into Cleveland’s Existing Urban Fabric on Friday March 5th at The City Club.

There is an overwhelming interest in the Casino issue for it was standing room only.

The panel was diverse in the areas covering economic projections, architectural possibilities, details of the planned sites and the integration of measurable successes in the downtown Cleveland business community.

The key questions is can the casinos be interwoven into the downtown urban environment.  David Schwarz, President and CEO of David M. Schwarz Architects, Inc has extensive experience in the creation and development of many casino’s in the country.  He gave a pictorial presentation of how practically all casinos have been constructed to be isolated from the urban environment. They are “Island’s of Activity” or “Urban Fortresses.”

He was also very insistent that the “infrastructure of the current site plans will not allow all sites to be used.”  Mr. Schwarz thinks that Tower City is the best area on the site plan because of its easy access including public transportation.  In all site planning, the river should be employed to enhance the casino environment.

Crooked River Gaming is an urban targeted project comprised of four sites on the west bank flats area.  Site (1) is directly behind Tower City. Site (2) is the Scranton Peninsula.(3) is West 3^rd and  Site (4) is The Higbee Building as disclosed by Christopher Diehl: Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative, College of Architecture and Environmental Design, Kent State University.

Len Komoroski, President, Cavaliers/Quicken Loans Arena asserted that Crooked River Gaming is a $600million investment that will create over 4,000 jobs and 8 million persons trafficking the casinos and the  downtown business district on an annual basis.

The final panelist Thomas V. Chema: President of Hiram College discussed a key issue in that Crooked River Gaming will have to integrate the successes of architect and economic spin offs.  A design masterpiece that will spin off economic returns for restaurants, hotels, the theater district… the entire downtown business community!

I look forward to the Cleveland Coalition’s next public forum!