Cleveland City Council Wants Your Thoughts on Closing Burke

Cleveland City Council wants to know what you think about Burke.

It’s why Ward 15 Councilman Charles Slife, also the head of Council’s Transportation and Mobility Committee, lead the call and plan to open up City Hall for feedback. That is, what do Clevelanders actually think should happen with the city’s oldest airport?

An outcome that, in Slife’s mind, isn’t all said and done. Despite Bibb’s two contracted studies into its closure. Or the Haslams supporting a shut down. Or data showing air traffic is half of what it used to be in the early 2000s.

“The future of Burke Lakefront Airport is one of the most significant land-use decisions in our city’s history,” Slife said in a statement Tuesday afternoon.

“We must look beyond the aesthetics and scrutinize the legal, budgetary, and infrastructural realities of any proposal for the site,” he added. “Our goal is to determine if closure is not just desirable, but practical and financially responsible.”

Which is what research shows so far: specifically, that Burke currently operates at a loss of about $9 million per year. And that developing those 450 acres—say, with a new neighborhood of apartments, or a second Blossom—to their full potential, one of Bibb’s studies predicted, could bring Cleveland roughly $92 million a year.

But Burke’s end wouldn’t come without backlash. In December, Scene talked to members of a coalition that formed recently to protest a decision that they say is narrow-minded and negligent of Cleveland business.

“Why can’t the two just coexist?” George Katsikas, the owner of Aitheras Aviation at Burke’s Gate 7, told Scene at the time. “In my mind, a multi-purpose use of this land makes more sense.”

Slife, who typically takes a hard-nosed, cautious stance on big business, seemed to show sympathy for both businessmen like Katsikas and for Clevelanders who may be skeptical of new apartments. Even when market reports smile on new mid- and high-rises in Midwestern cities.

Especially when an avalanche of new buildings are coming—from a potential reuse of the Rockefeller Building on West 9th, to Bedrock’s $2 billion makeover of the Cuyahoga River shoreline, to whatever is to come on the land where Huntington Bank Field presently stands.

“We cannot afford to close an airport for a redevelopment project that the market cannot sustain,” Slife said, “or the City cannot afford to maintain.”

Here’s when Clevelanders can show up at City Hall and have their say:

January 21. “Expenses and Obstacles to Development.” Council will entertain thoughts and questions along the lines of—what would new buildings actually cost? New utility lines? What about the viability of building on “fill” land?

February 4. “Budget Implications and the General Fund.” Council will hear comments on how Burke would operate economically if it shifts from an enterprise fund—meaning self-sustaining—to more of a public entity, like if a massive park is built on its land. Can the city pay for that?

April 1. “The Regulatory Path to Closure.” What exactly needs to happen from a legal standpoint for Burke to shut down without snafus? Any legal strategies—like if Bibb gets sued—will be discussed.

April 15. “Market Absorption and Real-World Appeal.” Council will entertain thoughts on what a new neighborhood (Burke Point?) may actually look like, and whether or not developing the entire land will be fiscally sensible.

All meetings will be open to the public and held in City Hall’s Mercedes Cotner Committee Room 217.

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