Cedar Center North Didn't Need an Anchor Store, its Anchor is its Own Debt

As the debate rages on about how to solve the South Euclid pending fiscal crisis I have been very curious as to why the promised $750k annual revenue generated from Oakwood Commons is not being considered in the figures of both the 2014 and 2015 budgets.

Although the project might not be 100% complete, Wal-Mart would have been open for sometime and at least one of the out parcels would have been up and running by 2014 and 2015;  why not include that estimated revenue when estimating the budgets? Something did not add up and the city leaders were not answering the question.

I did a little further digging and discovered the answer. The reason why Oakwood's revenues are not being included is because Cedar Center North's debt payment is also not being included. The annual $900k payment is absorbing all of the revenue generated by both Cedar Center North and Oakwood Commons combined! That payment is ongoing for 30 years, some quick math says we are on the hook for nearly $30 Million in debt service payback.

The leaders of South Euclid made such a BAD deal in Cedar Center North that they needed to ram through the Oakwood Commons project in order to pay for the debt of CCN. At the end of the day city leaders including Mayor Welo and Councilman Ed Icove pushed through these deals knowing that the residents of South Euclid would receive absolutely no tax benefit. They failed to include this reality when they campaigned for the passage of project. If they were CEO's of a business they would have been fired a long time ago if not investigated by the authorities. This and next November can not come soon enough to make sure that at least the firing part happens!