While the Medical Mart and Convention Center project slowly moves forward while being generously funded by a quarter-percent sales tax imposed by Cuyahoga County Commissioners collecting $800M over 20 years, the project now seems to be short of cash, even though more than $100M of tax money has already been collected. The project just received a 100 percent property tax break, and a sales tax exemption for building and construction materials, although developers Merchandise Mart Properties Inc. (MMPI) are anything but non-profit.
But for some reason, money is tight, so the County Commissioners are strongly considering diverting to MMPI a significant amount of the hotel bed tax that supports Positively Cleveland’s award-winning efforts to promote and market the Cleveland area for tourism and business travel (See http://www.PositivelyCleveland.com). Positively Cleveland’s annual budget is about $9M per year, compared to $12M for Pittsburgh and $13.5M for Detroit. The hotel bed tax makes up about 88% of Positively Cleveland’s budget. Without that bed tax money, Positively Cleveland, the region’s only marketing organization for tourism, would not be able to promote the region’s assets such as museums, attractions, restaurants and hotels to tourists and business travelers who bring in tens of millions of dollars to the regional economy.
The region’s hospitality industry is the 4th largest industry in Northeast Ohio, employing over 62,000 people and contributing $6.4 billion to our local economy.
You can communicate with your County Commissioners:
By mail:
Cuyahoga County Board of County Commissioners
1219 Ontario Street, 4th Floor
Cleveland, OH 44113
By fax:
216.443.6668 Tim Hagan
216.443.6667 Peter Lawson Jones
216.443.6669 Jimmy Dimora
By email:
THAGAN@cuyahogacounty.us
PLJONES@cuyahogacounty.us
JDIMORA@cuyahogacounty.us
Positively Cleveland asks that you also copy them on your correspondence:
Fax: 216.621.5967
Email: droche@positivelycleveland.com