Posted on May - 14 - 2010
Greater Cleveland Partnership may exit Higbee Building space for Cleveland casino
The Greater Cleveland Partnership has been told to start looking for a new home to replace its 3-year-old suite of offices on the first two floors of the Higbee Building in downtown Cleveland — a move that could make way in the former department store for the first, early-opening phase of Dan Gilbert’s Cleveland casino.
GCP president Joseph Roman said both his landlord, Forest City Enterprises Inc., and Rock Ventures LLC, the Dan Gilbert partnership that will build and own the Cleveland casino, have suggested to him that he “start looking for new office space.”
Mr. Roman said he has not yet begun a search for space for the 99 employees of GCP and its sister organization, the Council of Smaller Enterprises.
If the casino does take the first and second floors of the Higbee Building, it also would displace Positively Cleveland, the city’s convention and visitors bureau, which has its visitor center and offices for its 34 employees on the building’s first floor.
Jennifer Kulczycki, a spokeswoman for Rock Ventures, would not confirm the plans.
“Rock Ventures is in the later stages of due diligence of the downtown Cleveland casino which includes finalizing a long-term agreement with a gaming operator as well as the ongoing evaluation of a ‘phase one’ gaming operation within the Higbee building,” she wrote in an e-mail. “Although neither of these major decisions have been finalized, we are making significant progress on both of these fronts.”
A spokesman for Forest City said the company would not comment on the potential move, which could require buying out the rest of the lease of the civic organizations, which moved into the building in 2007.
Tamera Brown, vice president of marketing for Positively Cleveland, said her organization has been aware that its space in the Higbee Building was included in the casino’s potential footprint in the constitutional amendment that voters approved last November to clear the way for four casinos statewide. However, she said she has not heard about any definite plans to take the space.
The two organizations occupy about 150,000 square feet in the 79-year-old building, which once was occupied by the Higbee Co. and later Dillard’s department store.
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