Can Cleveland Help?
There was an article in the Plain Dealer recently that was talking about the drain of talent and people from Cleveland. I thought “Cool, I’ve got a high-tech company, and want to move to Cleveland!” I figured they’d be more than happy to help my company relocate from Solon to Cleveland!
Wrong!
It turns out, there is VERY little to entice small companies like mine to move to the city. Here’s a list of what the city can do to help. I’d talked to them last year when I bought SparkBase to see what they could do. I couldn’t move the company at the time, but I figured it was only about 11mos later, so it couldn’t be that different. Wrong again. Here’s what changed.
Last year: $25,000 in interest-free loans for every job that I created for the city.
Now: That’s gone.
Last year: $75,000 low-interest loan with a $5,000 grant for moving the company to Cleveland.
Now: Nope. Nothing.
Last Year: Various Tax Abatements.
Now: Nada.
Here’s what they CAN do…
Give me a low-interest, 1 year loan on 40% of the cost of moving the company and build-out. So if we spend $100,000 on the new space, they’ll lend me $40,000 at 3% under prime for one year. To GET this magnificent deal, I need to fill out 3 sets of forms, present it to a committee, a second committee if it’s one of the 15 of 200 they look at on a quarterly basis, and yet another meeting with the Mayor if it’s chosen. Thanks, but I have better things to do with my time to save $600 in interest. (On a 1-year loan none the less!)
I really hope our city can get a Mayor that understands simple things like…a non-school tax abatement doesn’t hurt schools.
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