Cleveland Clinic’s plan for center causes a fuss

The project is expected to add about 9,000 jobs to Avon over 25 years.

CLEVELAND (AP) — The Cleveland Clinic hopes to build a health clinic near a proposed interchange off Interstate 90 in the suburb of Avon, a project that some that Cleveland officials warn will contribute to the increasing flight of wealthy residents from the struggling city.

The clinic wants to build a 170,000-square-foot health center on a 40-acre plot near the proposed on-off ramps on I-90 in Avon to better serve the growing community there, Cleveland Clinic chief Dr. Toby Cosgrove said Friday.

The clinic already has a facility in Westlake but needs to expand to serve the area and hasn’t been able to find a suitable location in that suburb despite a 21⁄2-year search, Cosgrove said. It would not close the existing Westlake branch once the Avon branch was completed.

The clinic’s announcement comes as the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency, composed of elected leaders from Cuyahoga, Lorain, Median, Lake and Geauga counties, struggles to decide if the proposed $19 million interchange will help or hurt the region.

An analysis of the project’s economic consequences on the region by consulting firm D.B. Hartt Inc., commissioned by the regional agency, found the interchange would have “no material impact” on surrounding communities.

The interchange project is expected to attract nearly 3 million square feet of industrial, retail and office space along with about 9,000 jobs to Avon over the next 25 years, Hartt said.

Hartt called the shifts tiny when compared to the regional economy as a whole.

The other side

Suburban officials and Cleveland city planners disagreed. Many tiny shifts over time have contributed to the decline of Cleveland, already ranked as the nation’s fourth-poorest big city, and its inner suburbs, officials said.

The harm to the region is more akin to a “‘death by a thousand cuts,’ bleeding the region’s core of its strength and vitality,” the city said in its critique of the analysis.

Officials worry that adding a Cleveland Clinic medical center in Avon would further encourage Cleveland residents to move to the suburbs. Cuyahoga County Commissioner Tim Hagan said he instead is asking the clinic to increase its funding for medical treatment for the county’s poor.

Mayors in Elyria and Westlake said businesses there would be drawn away and their communities would suffer economically if the interchange opens, while Avon Lake Mayor Robert Berner said the project would be an overall plus for the region.

The board is set to vote on the interchange project next month.

The clinic is lobbying Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson and Cuyahoga County commissioners, who have yet to take a position on the interchange.