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LETTER to The Editor of The Plain Dealer, 11-11-07, by Joseph W. Kunzelman
``Who will stand up to preserve more land?
In response to the Oct. 17 [2007 PD] article "Farming done here from now, forever":
Thank you, Jarvis Babcock and family, for the generous, unselfish gift of 1,018 acres that surely would have been destroyed by developers.
I live in Avon. We have seen judges and city administrators allow aggressive developers to carve our city up like a big, fat turkey: "Ah, more retail. This will solve all our problems." These self-centered, power-hungry individuals and companies have destroyed acre after acre of woods and trees while driving our last little bit of wildlife up on to Interstate 90 to be slaughtered.
Did anyone really think that the I-90/[Nagel] Road interchange was not going to happen? Does anyone honestly believe that this will not continue to open the door for more businesses and residents to leave Cleveland, Lorain and the inner-ring suburbs?
Unfortunately, nobody has the guts or the money to stop this travesty.
Where are the Babcocks of Avon and the rest of Northeast Ohio?''
Joseph W. Kunzelman, Avon
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[Regarding the impact of the Nagel Rd. interchange, one of the most important things is to NOT DESTROY Detroit Road. The key to solving that problem is having alternative ways to go from Jaycox to Nagel, besides Detroit: south marginal -- Middleton - Avon Rd.; north marginal -- Chester - Clemens; both interchange marginals opening on Bradley.]
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NEWS ARTICLE from The Plain Dealer, 11-3-07, by Joan Mazzolini, Plain Dealer Reporter
``Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals compete with their expanding medical centers
Cleveland's two huge hospital systems are in a competitive game of leapfrog, hopping from one suburb to the next in pursuit of the well-insured patients ...
But it's an expensive endeavor to chase patients, or try to poach them from other hospital systems.
And the recent moves have the two Cleveland systems butting up against other hospital systems in Summit and Lorain counties that don't seem that pleased by the closeness.
"There are four hospitals that are in Lorain County and none operating at capacity," said Jim Simone, vice president of finance for EMH Regional Health Care System. The Elyria hospital will be celebrating its 100th anniversary next year.
Simone said the Clinic's plans for a new big medical facility in Avon will "make it difficult for all of us to survive."
"There's not a need for it," Simone said. "We don't need more facilities. There's only so many chest X-rays you can do, even if you put X-ray machines on every corner." ...''
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: jmazzolini@plaind.com
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NEWS ARTICLE from The Plain Dealer, 12-25-07, by Michael Scott, Plain Dealer Reporter
[Smog Sprawl]
``AVON -- As development spreads, bad air follows, critics say Smog sprawl - it could be coming soon to a suburb near you.
Smog sprawl is the environmental notion that air pollution trails after residential and industrial development as it surges out from the city center to once-rural suburbia and beyond.
In other words, as we move out to the country, we drive longer and farther to get to work, we pump out more pollutants along the way and foul up the fresh air we drove out there for in the first place ...
[Northeast Ohio] is already under federal mandate to reduce air pollution -- both ozone and particulates -- by 2009, putting virtually every transportation or commercial/industrial development decision under an increasingly detailed environmental microscope.
But there's not always a clear-cut answer when balancing the transportation needs of one growing community with the broader concerns of the region.
That's why planners have to consider, for example, whether the privately funded and fast-tracked interchange to be built in Avon will add to air pollution in that Lorain County suburb -- and the entire region.
Critics are certain that it will.
"This is a community where they're putting in a new interchange and where they're planning low-density, automobile-dependent land use," said David Beach, director of the Center for Regional Sustainability of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. "That's hardly a sustainable approach in an age of climate change and scarcity of energy resources." ...
The city's population surged from about 7,000 to more than 17,000 in just more than a decade. Further, it ranked as the 67th-fastest growing community in the nation from 2000-07, Mayor James Smith said. The community already has two I-90 exits: Ohio 611 on the western end and Ohio 83 near the center ...''
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: mscott@plaind.com
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Commentator 1 wrote:
``Methanol and oil from algae are probably our way out of the Kazakh War of 2020, just a little more than 12 years from now. The greed of the owners of oil wells, if we don't do something about it, will plunge us into a destruction that will make the sub-prime crisis look like a Sunday-school picnic. Also, push now for commuter rail so we have some way to get around when the Straits of Hormuz are blocked and every pipeline in the Middle East is blown up.''
[For more, see "Crossing the Rubicon" by Michael C. Ruppert
On the web see www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/index.shtml]
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NEWS ARTICLE from The Plain Dealer, 1-26-08, by Joan Mazzolini, Plain Dealer Reporter
``Clinic loses battle with Beachwood schools for records in tax case
The Cleveland Clinic must turn over financial information that the Beachwood Board of Education requested to make its case that the hospital's Cedar Road facility should not be exempted from property taxes, the Board of Tax Appeals ruled yesterday ...
The board's decision should move forward a case that has languished for two years, after the Clinic appealed the Ohio tax commissioner's decision that the property is taxable.
The commissioner ruled that the Clinic's Cedar Road facility was an office building for physicians where little if any charitable care is provided and that it is not eligible for a property tax exemption.
The Beachwood schools had challenged the Clinic's request for property tax exemption. Ohio law allows school districts, which receive the bulk of property taxes, to challenge exemptions.
Districts with large Clinic facilities, such as Independence, Willoughby- Eastlake and Solon, have followed Beachwood's lead. The outcome of the Beachwood case will affect their challenges ...''
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: jmazzolini@plaind.com
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NEWS ARTICLE from The Morning Journal, 3-23-08, By SCOT ALLYN, Morning Journal Writer
[New Interstate 90 interchange at Nagel Road is scheduled for completion in 2010]
``AVON -- ... The Nagel Road interchange was approved by the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency Oct. 12 [2007] ... The project, estimated to cost more than $20 million, is scheduled for completion in 2010 ...
TranSystems Corp., a traffic planning consultant, is creating the final engineering drawings for the interchange with the Ohio Department of Transportation ... This alone costs $1.7 million ...
The drawings should be done in April [2008], and the city will seek bids to do the work then. Many requirements of the Federal Highway Administration, including environmental, archaeological and other studies had to be performed ...
Avon Mayor Jim Smith said the city had to fight a tiring battle with Cuyahoga County authorities for permission to build the interchange, whose costs will be paid by the city and the Jacobs Group, a developer who owns 212 acres near the site, [and by the citizens of Avon because taxes that would have gone to Avon now will have to be used to pay off the TIFF bonds sold to pay for (how much?) of the interchange.]
"It took a lot of energy out of us, and took focus away from other things," he said. "It put a lot of stress on everyone here, and it felt like they didn't want the city of Avon to progress." ...''
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NEWS ARTICLE from The Plain Dealer, 6-25-08, by Joan Mazzolini, Plain Dealer Reporter
``Cleveland Clinic expected to get more than $1 billion in bonds to pay off old debt and to finance new facilities
The Cleveland Clinic is expected to get approval today from a state agency to issue more than $1 billion in bonds to pay off old debt and to finance the new Avon and Twinsburg facilities.
The $1.02 billion in bonds would be issued through the Ohio Higher Education Facility Commission. A change in state law allows the commission to issue the low-interest bonds for nonprofit hospitals just as it does for nonprofit Ohio colleges and universities.
Clinic officials told the commission in May that they planned to use $620 million to pay off old hospital bonds.
Those older bonds are "auction-rate," the officials told the commission. Auction-rate securities - often in the form of bonds - had offered hospitals and municipalities ultra-low interest rates on their debt.
But interest rates on these securities reset every seven, 28 or 35 days through an auction at which investors can sell off their bonds. Trouble started last year after the mortgage crisis when investors also lost confidence in auction-rate securities. If auctions fail - too few buyers to too many sellers - the interest rates that hospitals and cities pay can rise exorbitantly. Clinic officials said some of the interest rates on the bonds had risen to the maximum of 15 percent ...
About $120 million will go to facilities the Clinic plans to build in Avon and Twinsburg ...``
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: jmazzolini@plaind.com, 216-999-4563
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NEWS ARTICLE from The Sun, 6-26-08, By Bryan Story, bstory@sunnews.com
``AVON -- The Richard E. Jacobs Group is continuing to buy up land near the site of the proposed Interstate 90 interchange at Nagel Road.
The Jacobs group acquired an 89-acre parcel on the north side of Chester Road just west of Jaycox Road, costing $8.9 million.
The land is close to the site of Avon Crossing, a new shopping center owned by Jacobs that is under construction and will be anchored by JC Penney and Lowe's stores.
Jacobs also owns a 220-acre site at the corner of Chester and Nagel roads that will likely be the site for a new Cleveland Clinic center and an office development ...
When the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency was debating whether to approve the in terchange, Richard Jacobs wrote a letter to the Agency urging them to let Avon ... move forward with the project ...''
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NEWS ARTICLE from The Chronicle-Telegram, 6-25-08, by Brad Dicken
``Jacobs Group buys Avon land; stays mum on plans
AVON -- The Richard E. Jacobs Group has purchased nearly 89 acres of land between I-90 and Chester Road in Avon, but the company isn't yet saying what the land will be used for.
"The Jacobs Group does not talk about plans," said company spokesman Bill Fullington.
James Eppele, vice president of the Cleveland-based company, had suggested earlier this year that at least half of the property would be turned into office space, although he said it could also end up being restaurants and stores.
The land, which was technically purchased by a limited liability company for Jacobs, was bought from Donald Brown for nearly $8.9 million on June 9 [2008], according to records in the Lorain County auditor's office.
Avon Mayor Jim Smith said the land is located next to the law firm of Wickens, Herzer, Panza, Cook & Batista and runs to the corner of Jaycox Road ...
The land is about the same distance from the state Route 83 interchange off Interstate 90 as it is from a new interchange the city plans to build farther east ...
The Jacobs Group also is working with the Cleveland Clinic on a development off Nagel Road that could bring about 300 jobs to the area.''
Contact Brad Dicken at bdicken@chroniclet.com.
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NEWS ARTICLE from The Plain Dealer, 6-24-08, by Michelle Jarboe, Plain Dealer Reporter
``Richard E. Jacobs Group buys about 89 acres along Interstate 90 in Avon
Property along I-90 recently rezoned for office, commercial use
The Richard E. Jacobs Group has purchased about 89 acres along Interstate 90 in Avon and has designs on another large chunk of land nearby.
City officials confirmed Monday that Jacobs was the buyer who paid almost $8.9 million on June 9 [2008] for property southwest of Chester and Jaycox roads. The developer, based in Westlake, bought the land from Donald Brown using the name NWQ Jaycox/I-90 LLC, according to state and Lorain County records. A spokesman for the developer declined to comment Monday.
The deal expands Jacobs' significant portfolio in a growing suburb. The developer plans a 220-acre development anchored by a new Cleveland Clinic regional campus along Nagel Road, near a proposed new interchange for I-90.
Jacobs also is developing the nearby Avon Crossing shopping center, with tenants including JCPenney and Lowe's Home Improvement. Avon officials say the developer has another 100-plus acres under contract along the north side of Chester ...
Most of that property, up for rezoning at a planning commission meeting in July [2008], belongs to Brown. After selling the land south of Chester, Brown still owns more than 150 acres to the north, according to county records.''
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: mjarboe@plaind.com
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NEWS ARTICLE from The Morning Journal, 7-31-08, by SCOT ALLYN, Morning Journal Writer
Zoning changes OK'd for future Avon interchange site
``AVON -- Hotels, restaurants, office and retail could be in the future for land on Chester Road near the future Nagel Road interchange with Interstate 90.
Last night [7-30-08], zoning changes for future commercial development on land owned by the Richard E. Jacobs Group were approved by the Avon Planning Commission.
The zoning changes are for a 5-acre parcel on the south side of Chester Road that the Jacobs Group is under contract to purchase within an 88-acre parcel it bought in June, according to Jim Eppele, vice president of real estate development for the company. The commission also approved rezoning for about two-thirds of a 104-acre parcel the Jacobs Group has under contract on the north side of Chester Road. Both parcels are west of Jaycox Road.
The land is zone for office space and the zoning change is for multi-use. Eppele said his company foresees a mixture of uses for the land, which is currently undeveloped ...
The rezoning changes will go to Avon City Council Monday, Aug. 4 [2008] for the first of three public readings and council vote, according to Clinton Pelfrey, council's representative on the planning commission ...
The Richard E. Jacobs Group is also developing the Avon Crossings shopping center on SR 83 at Schneider Court. A J.C. Penney's store is on schedule to open there Oct. 5, [2008] and a Lowe's home improvement store is also under construction, Eppele said.
The Nagel Road interchange, which will be the first easterly exit from I-90 in Lorain County, is still on schedule to break ground next April [2009] ...
Avon started about five months ago to acquire property to build the interchange and its ramps ... All the land necessary to build the exits and entrances should be acquired in the next two to three months ... The interchange is scheduled to open to traffic at the end of 2010 ...''
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NEWS ARTICLE from The Plain Dealer, 8-4-08, by Joan Mazzolini, Plain Dealer Reporter
``When 400 new hospital beds open this fall in Cleveland, Southwest General Hospital's president fears a vacuum effect on his patients. "I lose sleep at night thinking about when the Cleveland Clinic opens the buildings, and we hear the giant sucking noise," Thomas A. Selden said ...
Independent community hospitals -- religious, ethnic and charitable institutions -- were once a Greater Cleveland hallmark. Now, Southwest; Parma; Medina General; EMH Regional Healthcare System, with the Elyria and Amherst hospitals; and Lake Hospital System, with its two hospitals, are all that's left.
MetroHealth Medical Center is an independent, but as a large county-owned, public teaching hospital, it stands apart, as does Akron General Medical Center, also a teaching hospital ...
Hospital mergers and expansions ... are fueled, in part, by the strength numbers give a system when negotiating contracts with health insurers or suppliers. And urban hospitals, which shoulder larger shares of uninsured patients but often have the cachet of being a heart- or cancer-center powerhouse, look at the suburban partners as a feeder system to the main hospital.
That leaves the small hospital systems and independents looking for strategies to shore up their patient bases. "The biggest threat to us is they are buying up doctors' practices," said Patricia Ruflin, Parma Community General Hospital president and chief executive.
When the Clinic or UH [University Hospital] purchase doctor practices, those doctors often stop admitting patients to the independent hospitals, sending them to the big systems instead.
UH and Clinic officials see it differently.
"University Hospitals is guided by a philosophy of community-based care designed to meet the health care needs of patients and physicians," UH President Achilles Demetriou said in a prepared statement. "We strive to build relationships with other hospitals to best meet the needs of the communities we serve.
"For example, we currently partner with Southwest General to provide pediatric and oncology services, and Lake Hospitals also is a vital partner with us in oncology services."
The Clinic also collaborates with independent hospitals. Parma's heart surgeon, for example, is a Clinic doctor who does most of his surgery at Parma, Clinic spokeswoman Eileen Sheil said ...
This "Switzerland strategy" of partnering with the two big systems has had some success, said J.B. Silvers, professor of health systems management at Case Western Reserve University. "So far this has worked to give them some of the benefit without losing their identity ...
"Cleveland is much further advanced in the consolidation of hospitals than many others," said Debra A. Draper, associate director of the Center for Studying Health System Change. The center tracks health care changes in 12 communities, including Greater Cleveland. "A lot of physicians are becoming employed by hospitals. They have to declare their allegiance to UH or the Clinic ...
As the Clinic and UH systems have expanded, old rivals have changed their views. Southwest and Parma, once competitors, now see the Cleveland Clinic as competition ...
EMH Regional Healthcare System President Kevin Martin no longer looks at the Lorain hospital as his foe. He, too, views the Clinic, which plans to open a large medical office building in Avon, as his main rival.
"For so long we had been competitors and were hostile toward each other," Martin said of the Lorain hospital, part of a Cincinnati-based hospital chain called Catholic Health Partners."Now, we're peers."
EMH, like others, added services that helped it stand out. It started a fitness center in Avon and later added an emergency department.
Martin said he wants to develop partnerships with his doctors, similar to what the Summa system has done toward establishing jointly owned hospital-doctor facilities ...
Selden, Ruflin and Martin also are beginning to talk about ways to cooperate. Ultimately, their hospitals might partner in things such as outpatient centers. They would share costs and resulting revenue and bring medical services closer to their patients ...''
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NEWS ARTICLE from The Morning Journal, 9-21-08, By Scot Allyn, sallyn@MorningJournal.com
``Jacobs Group buying property around proposed I-90 interchange
AVON -- In spite of a Wall Street meltdown, plunging retail sales and nationally new home starts sinking to their lowest level since 1991, one Cleveland-area developer ... [has] acquired more land this summer near the future Nagel Road interchange on Interstate 90.
In August [2008], The Richard E. Jacobs Group closed a deal on 103 acres on the north side of Chester Road west of Jaycox Road for $3 million, across the street from 88 acres it purchased in June. Tomorrow [9-22-08], Avon City Council will vote on rezoning for part of the acreage that would allow stores, office space, restaurants and hotels to be built in the wooded area.
This summer's acquisition is in addition to 213 acres the Jacobs Group bought in 1999 from the Norfolk Southern Railway on Nagel Road, north of Interstate 90, according to Jim Eppele, vice president for real estate development for the Richard E. Jacobs Group ...
The Jacobs Group sold 40 acres of the 213-acre parcel to the Cleveland Clinic, which plans a medical center there, according to Heather Phillips, a Clinic spokeswoman.
The Jacobs Group is also developing the Avon Crossing retail center at Chester Road and SR 83, where a 104,000-square-foot J.C. Penney store is scheduled to open Saturday [9-27-08]. The J.C. Penney store will include a 1,500-square-foot Sephora cosmetics and perfume center inside, according to J.C. Penney's spokesman Tim Lyons.
Avon Crossing will include a Lowe's home-improvement store and Arby's restaurant set to open this fall, according to Bill Fullington, a Jacobs spokesman. Another 20,000-square-foot one-story retail building is set to open next spring for multiple tenants, Fullington said ...
The City of Avon has been acquiring property to build the Nagel Road interchange, and groundbreaking is scheduled for summer or early fall of 2009 ... Depending on weather, drivers should be using the entrance and exit ramps by December 2010. Although planned as a $19 million project, the interchange is now estimated to have a $25 million price tag ... Bids on the interchange construction will be sought by June or July [2009] ...''
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ARTICLE from The Plain Dealer, 9-19-08
[History of the Chagrin Highlands development]
``The area, owned by Cleveland, totals 630 acres in Beachwood, Highland Hills, Orange and Warrensville Heights.
In 1988, the city offered development rights for the mostly vacant land to Figgie International, a Fortune 500 company that had abandoned Cleveland for Virginia a few years earlier. In 1989, Figgie signed a deal to build and anchor a corporate office park.
The city and the suburbs agreed to a 50-50 split of income taxes from the [presumed] well-paid workers at the park. The State spent more than $100 million for express lanes on Interstate 271 and an interchange at Harvard Road ...
City officials later learned that industrialist Harry E. Figgie Jr. and his development partner, Dick Jacobs, all along had secretly planned to use the land to build a large mall.
The revelation prompted then-Mayor Michael R. White to call the project "one of the greatest swindles in Cleveland's history."
In 2006, after years of squabbles between the city and Jacobs, large retail stores began opening on 25 acres in Warrensville Heights ...
This week [9-21-08], manufacturing giant Eaton Corp. announced it favors leaving its downtown Cleveland headquarters for Chagrin Highlands. [Losing] the city's largest Fortune 500 company would be [a blow to Cleveland] ...''
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NEWS ARTICLE from The Morning Journal, 11-12-08. By ALAN INGRAM, aingram@MorningJournal.com
``1st phase to develop Avon land for Clinic underway
AVON -- The Cleveland Clinic has owned land in Avon for nearly a year, and officials are now preparing to present the first phase of a project to city planners.
The plans calls for a 120,000 -square-foot Family Health Center and a 61,000-square-foot Ambulatory Surgery Center on about half of the approximately 40-acre site, according to plans submitted to city officials ...
The two buildings, parking lot and the entrances on Nagel Road and Just Imagine Drive are part of the first phase of the project. The property is north of Just Imagine Drive and east of Nagel Road.
URS Corp., the engineering firm for the project, is expected to make its first presentation of the project to the Avon Planning Commission during a meeting on Nov. 19 [2008].
During the meeting, planning commissioners will have a chance to offer their thoughts on the project and how it is proposed ...
Planning Commissioners will also get a chance to review the traffic study that has already been completed. Officials decided to do the traffic study while they were working on the plans for the Interstate 90 and Nagel Road interchange so work would not have to be redone later.
The second phase of the project will be built to the north of the Family however, have not yet been submitted ...
"We're looking forward to presenting our preliminary plans for the site next week, and at this time, that's all the details that we can share," said Heather Phillips, spokesperson for the Cleveland Clinic.
An official with URS did not return calls for comment yesterday [11-11-08].''
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NEWS ARTICLE from The Chronicle-Telegram, 11-12-08, by Jason Hawk
``Cleveland Clinic has big plans for Avon
AVON -- Cleveland Clinic wants to bring four stories of doctors' offices and a two-story outpatient surgical center to Avon, along with 300 to 500 jobs.
City officials have been working with Cleveland Clinic for the last six months to map out an 181,000-square-foot facility east of Nagel Road, just north of where the new Interstate 90 interchange will be constructed ...
Joe Ferenczy, of Cleveland architecture and engineering firm URS Corp., has submitted development drawings to the city showing the layout of the proposed 40.6-acre site.
The drawings show a 120,000-square-foot health facility and a 61,000-square-foot surgical center, surrounded by 900 parking spots. The site is laid out along Just Imagine Drive and would connect to Nagel Road through property owned by the Richard E. Jacobs Group.
Ferenczy's firm, which represents both Cleveland Clinic and the Jacobs Group, is expected to make a presentation 7:30 p.m. next Wednesday [11-19-08] to the Avon Planning Commission.
Talks about the project started four years ago, but Mayor Jim Smith said the regional health care giant wanted confirmation that a new interchange would be built at Nagel Road and Interstate 90 before it would move into the neighborhood ...
Smith said taxes from jobs at the hospital would help pay for the ramps to the highway, on which construction is expected to start next fall [2009].
"Medical is such a paramount industry in Ohio," Smith said. "In Lorain County and Ohio, we need to reinvent ourselves. The days of the auto and steel industries sustaining us are long gone."
"Medical jobs can't really be outsourced, and there is always demand for them," he said. "While computer support jobs are being outsourced to India, and Ford and GM are fighting to keep plants open, medical jobs are stable," Smith said ...
The Jacobs Group owns [more than another 160] acres of commercial land around the proposed site ... The company, which participated in a traffic study for the area near the future interchange, has made it clear that it wants to woo retailers, restaurants and hotels there over the next 30 years.
Smith said a groundbreaking for the Cleveland Clinic could come early next fall [2009].
A media spokeswoman for the Cleveland Clinic declined to comment on the plans for Avon, saying only that her company is looking forward to next week's presentation to the Planning Commission.''
Contact Jason Hawk at jhawk@chroniclet.com.
See Jacobs
More Documents Relating to the June 8, 1998, Decision Against Avon
Newspaper Record of XXXXX/Jacobs in Avon
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