Worth waiting

6:00 am, February 20, 2006

Cleveland really could use a new downtown convention center, but we’ve been saying that for more than a decade. So, what’s a few more months of waiting to find out whether a new convention hall possibly could be linked in some manner to a medical merchandise mart?

Civic leaders have made a wise choice in giving the medical mart’s prospective developer, Merchandise Mart Properties Inc. of Chicago, time to evaluate whether our town would be a great place for medical product makers to showcase their wares. Cleveland is in competition with other cities for this potential project, but we can’t help but believe the presence of the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals of Cleveland — two well-regarded centers of medical research — is a selling point in its favor.

We also think it doesn’t hurt that Cleveland provides the developer with something of a blank slate for creating a medical mart. Because government officials have yet to decide where to locate a new convention center, the possibility exists that the medical mart and the convention hall could be connected or could be located in close proximity to each other so that they could play off their joint potential for attracting large medical gatherings to the city.

At the request of the civic officials who appoint its board members, the Convention Facilities Authority has put its planning efforts for a new downtown convention center on hold until Merchandise Mart decides whether to develop a medical mart here. It may be months before that decision is made, but it is a significant enough project that it’s worth the wait.