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11/25/2015
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VOL. 36, NO. 48
NOVEMBER 30 - DECEMBER 6, 2015
35th Anniversary
THE DISH: Design work Company spruces up food spots P. 4
Business of Life Arcade games TinyCircuits gets large response for miniature look
FINANCE: M&A Beefed-up Bober Markey is thriving
P. 22-23
P. 5
The List
FOCUS: General Counsel
CLEVELAND BUSINESS
A look at some of NEO’s top legal minds P. 13-21
The region’s largest hospitals P. 27
Are they worth the trouble? Former city leaders weigh in on Browns 20 years after Modell’s decision BY KEVIN KLEPS
Michael Polensek needed a break from the Cleveland Browns’ 30-9 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers on Nov. 15. The veteran Cleveland city councilman went to a Bratenahl dog park, and soon was joined by other Browns fans. “Everybody was coming up after the game. They were all depressed and (ticked) off,” Polensek said. “One woman had a Browns sweatshirt on. She zipped up her jacket to cover it up. “She said, ‘I don’t even want to display it anymore.’ ” Frustration has been one of the few constants for the Browns since they returned in 1999. In 2015, the more prevalent emotion seems to be anger, which is understandable for a franchise that has won fewer than a third of its games in the last 17 seasons. It’s been 20 years since Art Modell announced he was moving the franchise to Baltimore. In the aftermath, the Browns have had two winning seasons and zero playoff victories. Dr. Joe Congeni, the director of sports medicine at Akron Children’s Hospital, wrote a book, “Cleveland’s
SCOTT POLLACK
kkleps@crain.com @KevinKleps
Bitter Pill: A Diagnosis of Injured Title Dreams and Die-Hard Fans,” that details the tortures of being a Cleveland sports fan. Congeni has heard some of the Browns’ tormented followers ponder a whopper of a “What if?”
In hindsight, would Cleveland have been better off without the Browns? “They do say that,” Congeni said. “I think it’s been a four- or five-year trend of real negativity. There’s so much negativity. I can’t even listen
to the talk shows anymore.” Crain’s asked that question to several of the prominent leaders involved in the fight to bring back the Browns. It’s a frustrated bunch, but a group that, for the most part, isn’t going to let 17 mostly bad seasons
obscure the overwhelming sentiment of Northeast Ohioans in 1995. Hunter Morrison, the city’s planning director under former Cleveland Mayor Michael White, remembers his department serving as “the SEE BROWNS, PAGE 26
Shaping the superblock Plan for downtown apartment towers was long time coming BY STAN BULLARD Entire contents © 2015 by Crain Communications Inc.
sbullard@crain.com @CrainRltywriter
Plans for a multimillion-dollar development of a flotilla of apartment towers surfaced for the sea of parking lots northwest of Public Square in downtown Cleveland after decades of subsidiary status and failed projects allowed the area between West St. Clair and West Superior avenues to come into its own.
The focus for decades was on the eastern side of the property at West Third Street to provide parking for nearby, Public Square-facing developments, while old buildings on the west end of the block fell one by one to age, disrepair and demolition. Simultaneously, the concept of downtown living was going from experiment to mainstream as 19th century warehouses and garment factories in the Warehouse District became loft apartments. Chris Ronayne, president of Uni-
versity Circle Inc. and former Cleveland planning director, said the site weighed on his conscience as an opportunity for redevelopment of downtown to make a splash with great scale — or to remain a missed opportunity. “We thought it might become a first-inning pitch for what downtown could become,” Ronayne said. “Instead it’s being played out in the middle innings.” Certainly it’s a big change from SEE SUPERBLOCK, PAGE 6