As Cincinnati moves forward with its new casino in Pendleton, Chicagoans are dealing with a political setback that is preventing a casino from operating in Illinois’ biggest city. While Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) supports the idea, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn (D) is concerned expanded gambling could open “loopholes for mobsters.” More from Next American City:
Emanuel insists that a downtown casino is so lucrative an economic development tool that any delay in construction is depriving the city of valuable tourist dollars and a new source of educational funds.
The debate is just the latest in a decades-long controversy over what role, if any, casinos can play in the revival of America’s cities. The economic downturn has given states an impetus to open up new sources of revenue, with gambling often viewed as low-hanging fruit. Twelve states have expanded gambling options in the last three years, 22 now permit commercial casinos (up from two in 1974), and Hawaii’s legislature is currently considering plans that would leave Utah as the sole state without some form of legalized gambling.
Depending on the outcome of the political struggle, Chicago could supersede Philadelphia as the largest American city with legalized gambling.
Art Modell’s two most notorious business decisions – the 1963 firing of Paul Brown and the 1996 move of the Browns to Baltimore – each had profound unintended effects in Cincinnati. Upon Modell’s recent passing on September 6, Cincinnati media noted that Brown’s ouster led directly to his 1968 founding of the Bengals, but the story is much more complex.
In 1961 Modell bought Paul Brown’s minority share of the Cleveland Browns for $500,000, and was then contractually obligated to pay his head coach’s salary for several years after his firing. It was with this money that Brown and investor Austin Knowlton established the Bengals and resolved to beat the Browns on the field and Modell in the business of owning an NFL franchise.
But the greater issue missed by the local media was Mike Brown’s 1996 negotiation of a stadium lease that, in two ways, assures the Bengals franchise he inherited from his legendary father will avoid a similar fate to Modell’s Browns and Ravens.
First, Brown will never be burdened with unpredictable stadium maintenance costs or the loss of a tenant. Second, the terms of the Paul Brown Stadium lease are so favorable that in late 2011 the Brown family paid approximately $200 million in cash to buy out minority owner Austin Knowlton. With no significant minority owners remaining, the Brown family is invulnerable to the sort of hostile takeover that brought down Art Modell — twice.
“The Move”
On December 17, 1995, just weeks after Modell announced his decision to move the Browns to Baltimore, footage of Browns fans tearing apart Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium was broadcast nationwide:
Scenes of Browns fans tearing apart Municipal Stadium were shown across the United States in 1995.
The groundwork for this mob scene was laid decades earlier, when Modell negotiated control of Cleveland Municipal Stadium from the City of Cleveland during its infamous financial crisis. The terms of the deal gave Modell all revenues – including luxury box revenue – from the city-owned stadium in exchange for upkeep and nominal annual rent. For 20 years Modell was able to maintain the 1930s-era stadium in part with luxury box revenue collected from the Indians (this lack of revenue for the Indians helped make them perennial AL East basement dwellers).
Folklore surrounding The Move speculates that Art Modell failed to anticipate that luxury box owners would abandon the Browns entirely after the Indians moved to Jacobs Field in 1994. But more astute observers assert that Cleveland’s business community used The Gateway Project – which built Gund Arena for the Cavs and Jacobs Field for the Indians but made no provision for Modell’s Browns – as a way to strip Modell of his Indians luxury box revenue and send his finances into a tailspin.
Mike Trivassono, sports host for Cleveland’s WTAM, asserts that this trap was sprung in order to transfer ownership of the Browns from majority owner Art Modell to minority owner Al Lerner. In 1999 the NFL sold the new Cleveland Browns franchise to Lerner for $500 million, and in 2012 Lerner’s son sold the team to Jimmy Haslam III for $1 billion.
The Move’s Effect in Cincinnati
After Paul Brown died in 1991, his son Mike assumed control of the team. The younger Brown, a graduate of Harvard Law School, maneuvered to put the Bengals well ahead of the Reds in negotiations with Hamilton County for a new stadium and lease – he would not be cornered by Cincinnati’s other professional sports franchise in the way Modell allowed himself to be compromised by Cleveland’s Gateway Project.
Brown knew from his experience sharing county-owned Riverfront Stadium with the Reds, and Modell’s loss of the Indians, that the NFL’s financial structure cannot work in multi-purpose stadiums. He also knew that terms that removed Bengals ownership from any responsibility in maintaining or upgrading their future stadium were essential to eliminating unknowns from later years of the lease.
It is important to recognize that the lease is structured so that the Brown Family – Mike Brown will be in his 90s if he lives to negotiate a new lease –will enter negotiations in the mid-2020’s in a position of financial strength, rather than Modell’s state of desperation.
Political and Cultural Fallout In the 12 years since the first game was played at Paul Brown Stadium, Hamilton County’s financial obligations to the Bengals have remained a current event. The media and serving Hamilton County Commissioners are correct in placing some blame on the Commissioners who structured the stadium fund around an expected 3% annual increase in tax receipts. The source of the ongoing stadium controversy, however, is largely the creation of Hamilton County’s current commissioners who continue to play politics with the residential property tax rollback enacted in 1996.
The deal cut to fund the construction of Paul Brown Stadium has plagued Hamilton County since its passage. Photograph by Jayson Gomes.
By refusing to budge (except in 2010) on the inconsequential amount of money the rollback saves county homeowners, they are able keep the county in a perpetual state of crisis. They have then used this artificial crisis to justify shady activities, such as the recent sale of Drake Hospital.
The Long-Term Future of Paul Brown Stadium
Part of the 1990s effort to fund construction of two new stadiums in Cincinnati involved smearing Riverfront Stadium. A stadium celebrated as “The Jungle” during the 1988 Superbowl year was suddenly derided as “sterile”. Images of exposed parking garage rebar convinced the public that the stadium was too costly to repair. And other cities –notably Cleveland and Pittsburgh – had already started on new stadiums.
Save an unforeseeable change in the NFL’s revenue sharing arrangement, upon the expiration of the Bengals lease in 2026, Paul Brown Stadium should still be a profitable home for the Bengals or another NFL franchise. This means the motivation for a new football stadium will not come from the Brown family or the ownership of a replacement NFL franchise, but rather Hamilton County, should it determine that renovation and ongoing maintenance costs will approach the cost of debt service on a new stadium.
Lost in the never-ending stadium conversation in Cincinnati was the news that even after the epic drama and financial promise of The Move, Art Modell was forced to sell his majority ownership of the Baltimore Ravens in 2004 to a minority owner. As a result, just 1% of Ravens ownership will be passed onto his heirs.
In 2026 memories of Art Modell and The Move will have faded in Northeastern Ohio and his heirs might have completely exited Ravens ownership. But the grandchildren of the man Modell fired back in 1963 will still be in the football business, in complete command of a franchise worth well over $1 billion, and in negotiations for a new lease with Hamilton County or the ownership of a stadium elsewhere in the country.
It was eleven years ago today that two glass, steel and concrete towers that once dominated the skyline of Manhattan fell in the worst terrorist attack in the history of this country and thousands of lives were lost. But these photographs from the 1970’s by Brooklyn native Baldwin S. Lee and Professor of Art at the University of Tennessee look back on a time when the then recently completed World Trade Center stood above the struggling old city below it.
At the time of its completion in 1971 the World Trade Center complex boasted 16 million square feet of office space in three low rise buildings and two 110-story towers designed by Minoru Yamasaki. The World Trade Center held the record for the world’s tallest buildings from 1971 to 1973 after being surpassed in height by the Willis Tower in Chicago. More World Trade Center photographs from Professor Lee:
Many commentors on our previous story defended 3CDC and claimed that such parking provisions at the Mercer Commons Garage would allow for less parking at future developments. Adam Gelter, 3CDC’s Vice President of Development, echoed these thoughts and stated that future developments would in fact utilize the parking garage, although only some of those projects have been financed, and even fewer approved for zoning variances by the City of Cincinnati.
Work at the Mercer Commons construction site in August 2012. Photograph by Travis Estell for UrbanCincy.
In particular, Gelter, stated that the 359-space Mercer Commons Garage allows for one parking space at every unit within that development, but that those living at Mercer Commons would not be required to purchase a space. This, 3CDC asserts, will allow for the parking garage to be utilized more efficiently.
The debate becomes even more nuanced when the status of Over-the-Rhine’s historic district designation and ongoing comeback as a desirable neighborhood are taken into account.
“In a place like OTR, which is coming back strong but still has a long way to go, I think we want the neighborhood to be as welcoming as possible to visitors and to satisfy any concerns they may have about safety,” responded Kaid Benfield, director of Sustainable Communities for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). “The key for a historic district, I think, is to keep the parking from occupying so much space that it interferes with the historic character of the neighborhood.”
In addition to the Mercer Commons development, 3CDC officials say that they are planning a 30- to 40-unit residential development at the parking lot where Smitty’s once stood. Furthermore, 3CDC expects the office tenant at the Paint Building to require 25 spaces, another 15 to 20 spaces at the former Boss Cox building, and potentially 50 spaces for office users at Cintrifuse. Furthermore, project officials say surrounding restaurants could use additional parking for their customers.
“Of the seven upcoming developments, only one has its own parking, and the rest have spaces assigned at either the Mercer Garage or Washington Park Garage,” Gelter explained. “We give condo owners a right to buy a monthly space, and we refuse to assign spaces so that we can turn the spaces as much as possible.”
To that end, Gelter explained that only six parking spaces at the Fountain Square Garage are reserved at any given time for its 250 monthly pass holders.
Rendering of the $53.5 million Mercer Commons development in historic Over-the-Rhine. Image provided.
The goal would be to reduce the number of surface parking lots needed to serve new developments throughout historic Over-the-Rhine, but 3CDC officials say that what has already been put in place will probably be difficult to undo.
“We would love to get rid of and develop the Twelfth and Vine parking lot, and we would like to stop building surface parking lots to the extent that is possible,” Gelter told UrbanCincy. “However, parking lots for condo buildings only are going to be very difficult to get rid of, so we don’t want to do that anymore.”
Gelter went on to say that one potential option would be to keep the Gateway Garage open to the public. Just over one year ago Kroger purchased the 950-space parking garage from the City of Cincinnati for $4.5 million, and currently experiences low usage rates outside of workday hours.
When it comes down to it, however, it appears as though the status quo for providing parking within the urban core will continue regardless of what policies come out of City Hall.
“Some of our upcoming developments have been approved for no on-site parking, and some have not,” Gelter conceded. “The goal would be to build structured parking to minimize the extent we need to use surface and street parking, but we have to take it on a case-by-case, and block-by-block basis.”
The first phase of construction at Mercer Commons is currently underway, and is expected to be complete by March 2013. Two additional phases of work are planned to follow.
The Cincinnati Enquirer and Columbus Dispatch newspapers had planned to shift to a new tabloid-sized print version this fall, but both debut’s will now be delayed until early 2013. The Enquirer, however, will still move forward with its content subscription model, on its planned October 1 date, that will charge readers for access to its website, e-newspaper, tablet and mobile sites, and smartphone applications. More from the Cincinnati Enquirer:
The new edition had been scheduled for this fall; however, unexpected mechanical issues at Dispatch Printing in Columbus, where the new Enquirer will be printed, prompted the delay, Buchanan said.
The new format is 10 1/2 inches wide by 14 2/3 tall, is easier to manage for readers, will feature the same amount of news content, more color, and still have traditional sections. It will feature in-depth coverage of topics readers have said they’re passionate about, and more investigative stories. The paper also is revamping news and entertainment coverage.
