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Good afternoon good afternoon.

Good afternoon, and welcome to the City Club of Cleveland, where we are devoted to conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

It's Friday, January 9th, and I'm Kevin Clayton, executive vice president and chief impact officer for the Rock entertainment Group and a member of the City Club board of directors.

It's our first form at the City Club of 2026.

Welcome back.

And what an honor it is to introduce today's forum, which is presented in partnership with the Greater Cleveland Partnership and part of the City Club's Local Heroes series.

It's a series that spotlights champions right here in Northeast Ohio, whose hard work changes the way we view ourselves and our community.

Today we will hear from my friend, my colleague, and more importantly, my boss.

Nick Barlage, CEO of Rock entertainment Group and the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Rock entertainment Group is not just a Cavs basketball monsters hockey winning streaks in league standings.

It is a company that also aims to give back, serve as a community asset, and demonstrate true leadership in shaping Cleveland's rise in the lineup is a much anticipated riverfront project, which includes both the Cleveland Clinic Global Peak Performance Center and Chasm, an immersive entertainment venue, in 2027.

And also, there's a WNBA franchise is right around the corner, returning to Cleveland.

And that's going to happen in 2028.

In a recent interview with Crain's Cleveland Business, Nick reminded us that and I quote a strong urban core is the strongest form of the heartbeat of a region.

It's if the heart is strong, the body will be stronger.

Today we'll hear more about opportunities of head of Rock entertainment Group to grow national interests and invest in the region, as well as Rock's role as a leading economic engine in Cleveland's rise.

Moderating the conversation is Freddy Collier, senior vice president of strategy and new initiatives with Greater Cleveland Partnership.

He brings decades of experience in urban planning, public policy and strategic planning.

He previously served as Cleveland's director of city planning under mayor Frank Jackson.

Before we begin, a quick reminder for our live stream and radio audiences.

If you have a question during the Q&A portion of our forum, you can text it to (330)541-5794, and the City club staff will try to work it into the program now.

Members and friends.

The City Club of Cleveland, please join me in welcoming Nick Barlage and Freddy Collier.

Well, first of all, thank you all for that great introduction.

And I'm really excited to be, interviewing you and moderating this, conversation.

Nick and I just want to start out by giving you a couple of stats.

Our community has been the subject of numerous headlines, but fortunately, many of those headlines as of late have been positive.

And here's some of what those are.

So in the last several months, more news and rankings have featured Cleveland as a top jobs growth region with strong housing, industrial and industrial construction markets.

Cleveland's unemployment rate remains below 4% and is lowest in Ohio, and among the lowest in the Great Lakes.

More college graduates are staying in Cleveland, greater than 51% of the class of 2024 graduates from regional colleges remained for their next opportunity.

And more importantly, the Bank of America Research Institute ranks Cleveland as a fast growing population.

Metro.

So in many respects, Cleveland is truly on the rise.

So I think we need to give ourselves a round of applause for that.

But what I want to talk about today is really more importantly, what is your role in that?

So when we think about the role of team owners and CEOs of sports franchises, it's evolved over the years.

You have to juggle sports, entertainment, community engagement and more importantly now economic development.

So from your perspective, what do you feel is the civic responsibility of owners and CEOs of sports franchises in the modern era?

Yeah.

First, thank you, Freddie, for all those stats.

And thank you Dan and and everybody for the warm welcome Kevin as well.

And I just want to thank this room.

You know, it's it's it's pretty inspiring to see so many partners and friends and community advocates, gathered here today to listen what we're going to, what we're going to talk about.

Because at the end of the day, we all have equity in this rise and in these stats that that Freddie mentioned.

Going back to the core of your question, you know, our role and we just don't see this as me singularly.

We see this as our entire group, Rock entertainment Group, led by our chairman Dan Gilbert, whose vision and resource unlocks so much of these opportunities.

But for us, you know, we're we're simply.

And I don't mean to sound simple about this, but we are stewards of this asset while we control it.

While we lead it, while we drive impact.

And this asset, it's a community asset.

You all vote on this asset.

Every single game that you come to, every single concert that you attend.

Every single thing that you engage with us on.

And for us, it's very important that we reciprocate that engagement and that support and being about more than just wins and losses.

Don't get me wrong.

I want to be really clear.

I'm not trying to take a stance, trying to solve anything as an eight seed right now that you guys, you guys wouldn't think.

But we are about wins and losses, but we are about so much more than that.

And when you really study where we are in the country and in the world right now, you know, Covid kind of thrust us into this experiential, driven economy.

And when you look at the growth of the experience driven economy over the years from 2019 until right now, and you take the Covid years out because that was like an accelerant, that really is an anomaly.

The experience based economy is, is, is growing somewhere between 20 and 25% every single year on a compound annual growth rate.

And so for us as CEOs or owners or stewards of it as our entire team, it's really about how do we harness that?

But then how do we do it in a way where we give back to the community and we reciprocate the impact that we receive by making sure and in our case in particular, it's going to be about creating a world class kind of first of its kind sports, entertainment and experientially driven neighborhood, which was otherwise known as the Gateway District, which will now have dimensions of diversification to it that will look entirely different.

People will be able to engage with it in different ways.

People will be able to live there in different ways.

And we'll talk a little, a little bit about that in a little bit later.

So for us, it's, it's it's simple.

We want to make sure that we're doing right by doing well for the community.

And anytime we put Cleveland on our chest, no different than whether it's the Cleveland Clinic or Cleveland Cliffs or some of the other companies that share our name.

We want to take Cleveland to the world, and we want to do it in a way that showcases all of the great assets that we have.

You know, when we were recruiting.

And I'll stop up to this, but we were recruiting, the NBA to bring the All-Star game here in 2022.

The sub tagline, I know David Gilbert can be here because he's he got it ill.

But, the sub tagline we used in the pitch was we're a world class city with world class assets without the world class ego.

And and we think that that's something that is really important that we continue to harness as a community, that allows us to be great stewards of these assets while we're here.

And no ego, but a lot of swagger, confidence, confidence.

So tell us a little bit about your journey to this role.

How did you get here, where you are CEO?

I don't, I don't I don't love talking about myself, but just quickly, you know, I grew up in Minnesota in the Twin Cities.

Great, great, great family.

Played tried to play college hoops for about three and a half years, got hurt a little bit, and then just decided I got to stick around sports, kind of have this sports bug.

Before that, I, I will say humbly, I failed out of pre-med, so that kind of shoved me into this situation a little bit.

But, you know, I started, I started working for a minor league baseball team in Minnesota.

The the the year, the my second semester of my senior year, and then the summer after, and I went to a decent school, and I remember my, my parents were sitting there and they were kind of wondering, you know, that that summer I worked on a not a salary but a stipend and, and, and that summer, I did the math.

I made $1.72 an hour.

After I graduated in my, you know, at the end of the summer, my parents were kind of said, they're going, okay, what are you doing?

You got a little bit of student loan, and this is a pretty expensive college.

And.

And then I got a job in Phoenix working for the Suns in the Mercury.

Literally selling tickets out of a box office, making an hour minimum wage, 10% commission.

You know, all those things and was just kind of off to the races from there.

I just I knew once I got in I could do something with the fact of, you know, being willing to work hard and having a positive attitude and, and, and also, you know, being of somewhat of a commercially minded person.

And so I spent some time in Phoenix, spent some time in Charlotte, came to Cleveland, actually, for five and a half years.

Which is where I really built a great relationship with Dan.

When I worked for the team the first time, I was recruited to go back to Phoenix with a lot of different reasons personal and professional.

We took that opportunity.

My wife was living in L.A.

and she could relocate her career and, and then, eight and a half years ago, actually about almost nine years ago now, I got a call from from Dan to come back.

And I was I was floored.

I mean, we had stayed in touch and we had texted and, you know, I saw all the great things he was doing in Detroit.

And obviously we were going through a pretty unique run on the court here at the time.

And, when he called, I was like, me, you sure?

I'm like, all right.

I mean, you know, and, my wife was like, well, you know, did you negotiate at all?

Did you did.

I was like, no, I'm ready to go.

And so, you know, and in good candor, we've been back now for eight and a half years.

Cleveland is home for us.

It is is absolutely.

If you ask our two daughters, they don't remember being born in Phoenix.

They will tell you that they are from Cleveland.

And I think that is that that is is pretty awesome.

And, it's a it's a great community to raise a family.

So excited to be it's a great story, man.

Let's talk about the bricks and mortar, the work.

Rocket Arena, one of the largest sort of economic drivers of economic activity in the county.

Without question.

Talk us a little bit about the rock block and your vision, for that area.

Yeah.

Going back to this kind of thesis of this experientially driven economy that we live in, you know, if you study consumer behaviors at all and you look at Gen Z or millennials, they actually value experiences more than they value possessions.

And that's not going to surprise any of you in this room.

And so when you think about it, they would rather go to an experience something or travel somewhere than they would buy something or own something.

And so and I'll come back to that in a second.

And so for us, you know, Dan and I sat down about a year and a half ago and we said, hey, look, you know, you can always keep you kept asking me like, what's the next big headquarters that's going to move to Cleveland?

What are we going to do?

How are we going to recruit?

What can we do?

What can we make it more prolific?

And we kind of just looked at each other and we said, well, what can we do with the assets in the platform that we have?

And, you know, so we start we started out and we started we kind of sent ourselves around the world in a lot of different ways.

And I actually not because he's here, but I give I give Tom a lot of credit.

He pushed us to go see Manchester and Manchester City.

And when you study that community, which is very similar to Cleveland by the way, not it's a little bit bigger of a city than us, but it was born in the in the industrial age, had an incredible boom back in the late 1800s, 1800s, all the way through to the early 1900s.

And then as labor became cheaper in other parts of the world, went through a pretty down, downtrodden time.

Great musical background, by the way, in Manchester, which, you know, which is similar to us.

And when you go there and you study it, they have these two world class soccer clubs, Man City and Man United.

And when we were looking at it, we said, look, if they can do this in Manchester, we sure as hell can do this in Cleveland.

And and so that started us down a pretty confident path that we were on to something.

And then we on a parallel path.

We are constantly hunting for new endeavors, new ventures.

And we were out with Kazam for it'll be four years ago this August.

We were one of the first groups that when actually saw it in salt Lake City in Utah.

And so we were building these relationships kind of throughout the industry.

And like I said, we were lucky Covid thrust us into this experience driven economy.

And so for us, we said, well, look, we're not going to wait until the next big bank picks Cleveland or the next big business picks Cleveland.

We're going to pick Cleveland.

And so let's make sure that we can do what we do well.

But let's start wrapping ourselves around it.

And I'll share some numbers with you.

And I showed some of these before.

But when you think about it, when we bring the WNBA team online, we'll have about 2.1 million people that will come to Rocket Arena in a given year.

The ballpark next door, progressive field, they crossover about 2 million.

The 2 million folks Cosmo will bring about 750,000 people per year to the district.

We're working on a couple of other venues that will be soon to be announced here in this.

In this quarter, hopefully, that will push us over 5 million visitors and aggregate into our neighborhood.

Okay.

And so when you look at that direct spending, indirect or direct spending tied to Rocket Arena from from two years ago was $307 million.

This last year is $346 million, growing about 6%.

It'll take a pretty decent step up when the WNBA comes.

Let's say we can account for $400 million of economic impact, which is our goal in the next two, two and a half years.

The ballpark will do its thing.

I'm mean, I'm not gonna speak for them.

I see some fields folks here, but let's just say they do 300, right?

So that's $700 million.

Chasm and the other venue we're talking about, we'll bring another 150 to $200 million of indirect or direct spending on an annual basis.

Okay.

I just want everyone to sign an annual basis.

And so when you think about that, it's an experience driven economy.

And that's not including our friends at the Rock Hall.

It's not including Playhouse Square.

That's not including some of these already amazing assets we have in this infrastructure.

Right.

And so when you think about this experience based economy creating almost $1 billion hit from an economic impact perspective, that's our goal.

And that's what we're going to set out to do.

And our focus is to be fully optimized and be fully ready to go by the end of this decade.

So 2029, 2030, those are the things that we're really focused on making sure.

And by the way, that life that 5 million visitors brings safety, brings volume, brings connectivity, brings, brings and showcases our great city every single night.

The lights turn on to the world once again, right?

It's our greatest marketing platform for our community.

And so there's so many other ancillary inherent value proposition impacts that don't show up in an economic impact report.

I want to be very clear.

And so when you start to stitch all of those things together, that's what we started to focus on was, okay, let's use the momentum and the shifts in time to harness that and make Cleveland first.

And when you look at over the last 12 years, the amount of major events we've drawn to Cleveland, it's pretty remarkable.

MLB All-Star game, NBA All-Star game, NFL draft.

You know, Women's Final Four.

We got the NCAA Division one men's wrestling championships coming this year.

We've got the Special Olympics coming in 2030.

I mean, we are a big event city and we dominate big events because of how we wrap our arms around them and how we do really well.

And so all of that, by the way, these numbers aren't based on any of having any of those type of bellwether or those type of tentpole events that could take it to a whole nother level.

So for us, that's really part of the formula.

Freddie is really making sure that we're harnessing this.

And look, it isn't just about making sure people have a good time.

This is about leaving an impact both economically, but also for on a legacy level that everybody can be proud of.

And everybody can say that we're from Cleveland and damn, it feels good to be from Cleveland.

Yeah, I think that, yeah.

That's great.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

You know, when you think about your venues and you think about the psyche of the community, that's really what, what is appealing to me is, oh, we know well the psyche of, of what happens when you have these types of investments.

You start to see it happen.

But there's another level of connection.

That's the connection to the people, to the community.

You know, how do you look at leveraging these facilities for community benefit?

And we talk about the WNBA, for example.

I coach girls.

See, while basketball is nowhere near the NBA.

But it was a beautiful experience and we did win the C wild championship.

So I'm proud of it I love it.

So when you think about the WNBA and bringing a WNBA franchise to Cleveland from a psyche standpoint and attitude standpoint, what do you think that does for young women in our community and about their attitudes about leading and having access to opportunity?

Yeah, I will say this is something that's near and dear to us, but also near and dear to me.

I have two daughters at home and I always thought I would share the story.

We were in San Francisco for the All-Star game, and we got the call that we won the bid.

And and my daughters have heard a lot of stuff in life, and we can't have this agreement.

You can't say anything to your teachers or to your friends on social media.

I will tell you this.

When I got the call, you know, we I just was like, I was I let it out because it was like, you know, it was 13 or 16 other markets, all these glitzy and glamorous markets.

And we beat them all.

I mean, we beat them all, Nashville, you know, Miami, you know, all of them.

Whatever.

But we want, and the squeal, the squeal that came from my nine and seven year old at the time in the hotel room was all I needed to know, you know, and then and then looking like the, you know, fast forward, we announced in August we had set over 700, women basketball players from high school all the way through to college, come to Rocket Arena and to see the questions we did, we did a panel beforehand with, a bunch of the female leaders that are going to be helping us run this, wonderful asset.

The questions they had and the engagement and the sparkle they had in there, I was like, okay, we did it, you know, like this was an important thing.

And as as Dan says, all the time, the money and numbers, they don't lead.

They follow.

Look, we we invested to get this thing.

I'm not going to lie to you.

But that investment is already paid itself back and will pay itself back so long because it's going to create a platform of equality.

Yeah, we're going to balance the ledger.

We're going to show young girls and young athletes that this is something they can aspire to be about.

And, and we're going to we're going to do very well by doing very good with this, with this asset.

Yeah.

That's, that's that's really exciting.

This leads me to the connection and collaboration conversation.

Right.

We always talk about collaboration, but we we have this philosophy even at GCP, you know, it's not just about collaboration.

It's about coordination.

How do we coordinate.

Right.

So when we talk about connectivity and collaboration, you know, you've described the rocket, entertainment group and bedrock philosophy as for more than profit.

What exactly does that mean in practical terms.

Yeah.

So this is this is something that, you know, Dan adopted probably 3 or 4 years ago and we've all adopted it, but it's really at the end of the day, it's it's doing well by doing good.

You know, I think for us it it is about running responsible businesses.

It is about running responsible panels.

I mean, everything in here that everybody else has to do.

But it's also about reinvesting.

You know, Dan is one of these leaders that allows us to reinvest every dollar we generate.

And all of these assets right back into the community, right back into the development work we're doing, right back into the neighborhoods we're creating.

And so for us that that's really at the core of it all.

You know, last year, and calendar year 2025, we between kind between real money and in-kind we did we did about $12.2 million in giving in the community here in Northeast Ohio.

Which, is really led by our incredible social impact group.

And they really drive us and move us forward in a lot of those ways.

But for us, it's once again, it's not also just about writing checks.

It's about, you know, for the thing I always ask our group is, what type of programs are we creating?

What type of backbone for programmatic backbones are we instilling in the community to make sure that we're impacting kids lives or people's lives, and we're changing the trajectory and showing them an opportunity that that could be created based on, based on these investments.

And so for us, that's that's really that's core to what we do and kind of core to who we are.

You know, for us, it's it's investment in the community, it's investment in the product you see on the court or it's an investment in the experience of the buildings that were in.

Those are the three things we're focused on.

And we will plow every single thing we generate right back into those, those three buckets.

That's great.

That's great.

Now with downtown being sort of the focal point, right?

We always talked about, downtown becoming a neighborhood.

And, we had some conversations about downtown housing.

And I just want to talk to you about the future of downtown housing.

What is the opportunity and really, what is the challenge?

Yeah.

So I also think this is kind of a little mantra we have in our four walls.

We have to live in as a community, the opportunity that all of these numbers create, not the challenge that they present.

I think a lot of times, sometimes we as humans get stuck in the challenges that these things create.

But just show you some numbers in downtown housing.

And this is these numbers could move a little bit based on the lines you draw.

So I want to be really clear about that.

But we have studied this ad nauseum.

And this is why we're going to start pivoting this more towards a sports and experiential neighborhood.

When you look at, the Bronx, we'll take the Bronx, for instance, the percentage of residential units in the Bronx that you can own, it's 20% Manhattan.

The percentage of residential units you can own is 25% San Francisco.

The percentage of residential units you can own is in the urban core, by the way, in the core, 38%.

In San Francisco, the average in America is 50.4%.

The housing stock in Cleveland as it currently exists.

And this last census data, 6.1%, is the percentage of downtown units you can own.

And so what that leads to is and I see this every day, we've got 68% of our workforce is under the age of 40.

I see our team members come in.

They rent an apartment.

By the way, your dwell time in an apartment is about 2 to 3 years in Cleveland.

National average is about 4 to 5 years.

But you come in, you start making some money, you save up, you buy a place in Fremont, you buy a place in Ohio City, you buy a place in Bracknell, you buy a place in the burbs, depending on where you're at in life.

Right.

If you own a building or own a unit in an urban core, the national average of your dwell time is 11.8 years.

Think about that.

If in Cleveland, if you own if you own your property, it's 17.3 years, is your average dwell time in that property.

And so what happens with those properties?

Micro economies are created when somebody lives somewhere for that long.

They got to buy groceries.

They got to they got to get health care.

They've got it.

They've got to get their, you know, their their landscaping done.

There's so many things that come from home ownership.

And I don't say that just because of Dan's background.

I mean that yes, we are very astute in this space.

And so for us, it's really about how can we create a neighborhood that people dwelling that people want to call it their home, that they can create wealth and that is really do it once again for more than profit?

And so what you'll see in rock block from the Green Technology Center as they move out, west, there's about 40% of the land we control on rock block.

It will be for sale townhomes.

That's really our goal is we want to create townhomes that we think, you know, similar to Battery Park, which you all have seen sold out great values, great great, great property value growth.

We think that's important.

We're also looking at other for sale products that could be in and around rock block and in and around the property that we own in downtown.

And so for us, yes, it's about sports, entertainment, creating experiences.

But when you start to use that as the catalyst or the front door and then you start to bring residents in, by the way, 5 million people plus residents that live for a lot longer, you get a safer downtown, you get an always on downtown.

You get people walking around the restaurants, you get people walking around to play out square.

You get people walking down to the Rock Hall, the waterfront, so on and so forth.

And so for us, that is really core to what we're trying to create.

You know, I did a speaking thing, before the New year at a law firm in town and two of the associates, two of the associates, I'm using this anecdotally.

So this is not why we're doing this.

I want to be really clear, but still, two of the associates came to me and said, I love this.

I've rented in downtown Cleveland for nine years and ten years.

Wow.

Because they couldn't find a property that they could either afford to buy or wanted to buy.

And so it's an opportunity once again, don't think about this is like, oh, poor Cleveland, this is the opportunity, right?

Like, this is this is the way that we have to look at these things.

Because if we can get to 20% or 25% or 40% at some point in time, like now of a sudden you've got a downtown that's a lot more vibrant and you got people that are, on average, dwelling and living here for a lot longer, which allows some of the population drain and some of the other things that we need that we think about, we might suffer from.

It stops a lot of that, or at least it helps to bridge it.

Right.

And so all these things and what you'll see in what we're trying to do are all about complementing, not cannibalizing.

And when you talk about connectivity, Freddie, which I think is a really good thing, there's layers of collaboration in this community.

We have to strive to get deeper on, you know, like it's one thing to say, hey, we sit in a board meeting and we know each other, but it's a whole nother thing to say, hey, how do we connect?

How do we go deeper?

You know, like we're going to spend some time going out and seeing some of the different developments around the community this this first quarter, because I want to see what other people are working on, both in the burbs but also in downtown.

And so that I think is really core to also what we're trying to do, which is we want to be great partners, we want to work with people, but we want to complement what everybody else is doing.

And there's a lot of great intentions in the city.

And so let's just work together and figure it out.

And one plus one gets us to for a whole hell of a whole heck of a lot faster, than I was trying to do it by ourselves.

Yeah.

You know, at that point about downtown, I know we spent a lot of time.

And I see Michael Diemer when they're trying to really bring apartment living into downtown back in the day, you know, you had to move to a suburb to get a quality apartment.

That's right.

Right.

So we started pushing really hard for mixed use, high density development in a form of apartment living.

But the point that you make is really, you know, interesting.

You know, we don't want downtown to just be a revolving door.

We want people to remain downtown.

It becomes sticky.

So it's like really, really, totally appreciating it.

And I want to be also clear.

Yeah, that was the right thing.

Like to get more people, more apartments.

It was absolutely the right thing.

Yeah.

Now we're just we're mature, we're different.

We got we're bigger, we're better, we're bolder.

Right.

And so that's the next step for us.

Apartments are the gateway.

And then ownership is what really unlocks the neighborhood and the dwelling that we need for our downtown to continue to be sustainable.

That's right.

That's right.

This pivot because we only have a few few minutes.

Yeah.

We got any questions?

Yeah.

Lease and tax matters.

Oh, here's a fun question.

So, public funding for stadiums and arenas is a live debate, particularly in our city.

So given that the arena is publicly owned and governed by a lease that dates back to the early 90s, how do you explain the current funding challenge and what do you see as a fair public private balance?

Look, this is it's a great question.

I'm actually glad we got to it.

I think a couple of things.

One, thematically, we as a community, we have to look at these not as bailouts to billionaires.

You know, when Dan bought the team in 2005, he inherited this lease.

Like, we didn't create the lease.

We didn't we didn't we weren't the ones that pushed for it, you know, like, we inherited it.

So that's one, right.

And we're not looking for pity in that.

I want to be very clear.

But that is one piece of this.

The second piece of it is, you know, and you look around in some other communities, you have to look further than Columbus or Indianapolis or the Twin Cities where I'm from, or Kansas and Kansas City right now.

And what you've seen happen out there, those communities celebrate these investments.

They do, they do.

And I and I look, we're not looking for handouts and stand by the team.

In 2005, he's put $209.45 million into Rocket Arena zone money.

Since since the transformation was finished, we've put $85 million into the building in the last four and a half years.

Our own money.

And so we're not this is not about like, hey, bail us out.

Now we're we want to go pursue.

We want to go right lock in arm with the community on these on these investments.

But we have to start looking at this as these are investments in an experiential economy.

These are investments in an experience driven economy.

And they're not bailouts.

They're just they're not at the end of the day, these leases, if we want to change them, we're open to the conversation.

We would never our doors are never closed in these in these things.

And by the way, we also when we do these things, we also want to make sure we give back to the neighborhoods.

And we're very thoughtful in regards to court renovations and programing we do, and literacy things that we do across the whole city and across the region, quite frankly.

And so, yes, it is a hot topic debate and I totally understand it.

We're very sensitive to it.

But I do think as a community and I'm not like trying to sell you something.

I just think when you look at communities that are thriving and communities that are growing faster than we are, even though we've got some great momentum right now, they're celebrating these investments because they understand what they unlock.

And and I also go back to like, job Force.

It's a lot easier to recruit somebody to Cleveland with these foundational assets as a part of your bag of tricks, if you will, than it is if we don't have them.

Right.

And so really, at the end of the day, it's just about finding the right balance and making sure that we have sustainability.

But, you know, I go back to like I look at this as like, those are investments in a whole new segment of the economy that's growing and thriving.

And by the way, is only going to continue to grow and thrive.

It's the fastest.

The experience driven economy is the fastest growing segment.

Travel, leisure.

It's part of the reason why you see four Seasons and Rich and all these very sophisticated companies creating cruise ships and all these other things that are going on around, like you study this, it's evolving everywhere right in front of us.

The amazing thing is, when you look at the events we've recruited and when you look at the infrastructure we already existing, we have we have everything we need.

We just got to keep it and keep it up, to keep it up to speed.

And so if we do that, we're going to be in a phenomenal place as we go forward and we can unlock, as I talked about earlier, you know, close to $1 billion of economic impact.

And I'm not even I'm not even going, as I said, into play out square into the Rock Hall and some of the other things that we're envisioning across the city.

So it is it is a business conversation that we do need to continue to have.

I just hope the narrative around it can start to soften and shift a little bit because it just it's, you know, in a lot of times you won't hear us, you know, when they put out a news article or some of the other things, we're not going to put out a statement.

We're not going to like run to the microphone.

That's not the right thing to do.

The right thing to do is to be thoughtful and diligent around the impact that we can create, and then the return that we can ultimately show the community.

And that is what we have to continue to stay focused on.

As stewards of, of these community assets, it's great.

In my last question, before we transition to the, audience, we have a lot of state officials, local officials, community practitioners, and everyone peppered throughout this audience today.

So from your perspective, what kind of collaboration and decision making culture, do we need between Columbus City Hall, the county gateway, private investors and all of the actors, and give me two sort of concrete things that can be unlocked, with this group, if you can connect them and get them operating as one.

Yeah.

I think, you know, look, I and I, we we for for us, we're in the business of doing and getting things done and trying to, you know, put shovels in the ground and build things.

And one of the things I've noticed, because we've been heads down on this now for a couple of years, is we need to do a better job.

We being, you know, me in particular, need to do a better job of reaching out, locking arms with people and saying, hey, what are you working on?

What are you working on?

What are you working on?

You know, we need to get more out of, you know, our time together as leaders.

We need to get more out of.

We need to dig a little bit deeper.

We need to hold ourselves a little bit more accountable to retaining the conversation, and then using it to connect to back to real outcomes, you know, and I go back to this.

We should be working on things that complement each other.

I get everybody has their own businesses.

They have to protect their own profits, their own, their own, their own ways and means by which they generate their income for themselves.

I'm all about that.

We are, you know, capitalism is an amazing thing.

But at the same time, we can't as a community.

We're not Chicago, we're not L.A., we are not New York.

But what we are is a community that we can we're three degrees of separation in this community.

Let's use that.

That's a benefit.

That is a strength.

And so we can't what we can't do, though, is wake up and try to plop something next to something that competes with it, or plop something across town that competes with it.

We have to strategically look at like, what's best for the community, what's going to create the best return, and from a development.

And that's exactly what we're trying to do.

We're very acutely aware of what other people are working on, and I would just say this we want to compliment what all of you are working on because for us, it just that those tides raise all those ships that much faster.

And so, I do think and this is, you know, I won't say New Year's resolution, but one of the things in our group that we're working hard on is just to be more aware of what other people are working on a lot actually lock arms and to have like, concrete business conversations not just passed by.

Hey.

You good?

Good.

How's business?

Good.

Okay, cool.

We're move on to the next thing.

Now.

Like, what are you working on?

What's going on?

What's going to move the needle, what's important to you?

You know, and I think that's just the next level of the community that we can.

We can.

And when we go together.

Yeah, man, we're going to go fast.

We're going to go big.

It's going to happen quicker, and we're all going to be that much better off because of just that.

Another degree of intentionality that maybe we haven't had to date.

And that is not an indictment on anyone.

That is just we all need to be better myself.

You know, I'll be the top of the list in regards to improving in regards to that.

That's awesome and true all in attitude, right.

Thank you.

So at this time, we're about to begin our audience Q&A.

For those of you joining us via live stream and radio audience, I'm Freddy Collier, senior vice president of strategy and new initiatives with the Greater Cleveland Partnership and moderator for today's conversation.

Today, we are joined by Nick Barlage, CEO of Rock Entertainment Group, as part of our Local Heroes series, we are discussing Rock Entertainment Group's role as a leader in driving the economic development engine for Cleveland.

We welcome questions from them, everyone in the audience, including City Club members, guests and those joining us via live stream at City club.org or live radio broadcast at 89.7 KSU Idea Stream Public media.

If you like to text a question, please text it to (330)541-5794.

That's (330)541-5794, and the city club staff will try to work it into the program.

May we have the first question, please?

Yeah.

So we're starting with the text question.

It says what opportunities and challenges does the Cleveland Browns departure create for rock entertainment?

Right off the bat.

Right right off the bat Doug.

That's great.

Looks like, at least we got that one off.

Yeah, we got that one out there.

Look, I will say this and we've had many conversations with Jimmy and and Dave and the entire group at the Browns.

We are fully supportive of private businesses making private decisions for where they want to play and what they want to do.

We also think in an experience driven economy, you know, this that's a more regional now that becomes more of a regional play for them.

And certainly I understand it.

When you study the trends in the NFL, this is a trend right now.

It is it's a trend to move to the suburbs as a trend to do what they're doing.

And so we don't that's not our position to weigh in on that.

Our position more is on focusing on okay.

Once again, yes, I'm leaving the waterfront creates a hole, there's no doubt.

But as opposed to thinking about it as a challenge for the community, we have to think about it for the opportunity that it creates.

And now it becomes something that we have to say, okay, now that we have an open waterfront, that we can do whatever we want with, how do we really make this thing sing for the, for this region?

And so, I think we just have to live more in this opportunistic mindset.

And also realize they're going to deploy significant amounts of private capital in what they're and what they're doing out in Brook Park.

And so, you know, we have to just embrace those things as a region.

And we have to make sure that, once again, we celebrate these investments in these in this economy that's developing.

It's not even developing.

It's there.

It's, you know, it's it's depending on what metrics you look at.

It's tens of billions of dollars right now across the globe.

This experience driven economy.

And so, you know, we have to make sure that we now we also feel a little bit more responsibility, I will say, in making sure we get what we're doing right.

And we will get what we're doing right.

Because we care as much as we do, and we really believe that what I said it in the Crain's thing and I'll say it again, like, if this if the if the urban core, if the heart of, of a region is the urban core is strong, is that heart is is as strong as that region's going to be.

And that is really what we are focused on.

In Cleveland is, is kind of like a either or, you know, either downtown or, the urban aspect of Cleveland or the community, the distressed communities.

Right.

How can the success of Cleveland pour into, some of the other, the the success of downtown?

All right.

I love your vision.

Right.

How is that going to, flow over into the, distressed parts of Cleveland where, you know, probably a lot of those individuals don't share in, the wealth that will be generated.

And downtown, in which I am a fan of.

But.

Yeah.

you know, all these projects, we do have community benefits agreements tied to them.

We are, you know, we're right now we're 203,400 hours into the Cleveland Clinic Global Peak Performance Center on the shores of the Cuyahoga River, which is an amazing it's just a it's a remarkable investment.

In that investment, 40% of those workers live in Cuyahoga County.

28% of those workers live in Cleveland.

You know, the thing we struggle the most with, quite frankly, is finding low income trade folks that can actually do the work that we need them to do.

And so we have opportunities and we want to embrace those opportunities.

We just we need a little bit more partnership, I'd say not just in the community, but just people thinking about, you know, I was just listening to this economist the other day.

And in the I age, it's either if you make decisions or use your hands, you're a little bit insulated.

And I say make decisions, as in like leading business.

You know, some of these other things.

And there's some other aspects to that.

Right.

But we need more people using their hands, you know, and in the direct city so that we can ultimately employ them and bring them a part of these big projects.

The other thing I will say about part of the reason why we're so focused on economic impact, I mentioned the 850 $900 million.

If we get to 5 million visitors by 2030, which we will, that is all creates a heightened tax basis.

And that heightened tax basis allows the city and the county to reinvest those resources in health and human services, which we know the county needs help with right now.

You know, in, in, in, in, in education programs, which we know CMS is going through our cost is going through a big, you know, a big kind of resetting of sorts.

Right.

And so the goal and all this economic impact is to provide our public partners with resources that they didn't exist, that didn't exist anymore.

You know, we get to 5 million visitors in and around the Gateway District.

5 million visitors would be like creating another rocket arena relative to economic impact.

And so all of that does is we want them to to deploy those resources, deploy that economic impact right back into the community.

And so I think all of these things start to create this snowball in this compounding effect that we have to stay very focused on.

And I go back to it earlier.

It's like, okay, we could wait around, but why not create it ourselves?

Why not create it with us in this room?

And and that's really, you know, what we're what we're trying to focus on.

It's a great question.

Good morning.

My name is Ron Adrian.

I sit on the board of the Cleveland Foundation, and one of our, primary initiatives at this point is no Clevelander left behind.

So sort of in a follow up to the question that was just asked, in this neighborhood that you're creating, you know, in the space that you're in, how much of the housing that will come into that area is going to be, what we would consider to be affordable housing?

It's a great question.

Yeah.

I mean, part of our the tiff that was created, with the city of Cleveland, we have, you know, I can't remember.

Deb's in here.

In Jason's in here, but it's a significant amount.

20 million, right?

Yeah, 20%.

Right.

That's I thought it was 20 million or 20%.

I got a lot of numbers in my head right now.

20% of the housing we create has to go to affordable housing.

And so there's also some things we're working on and some other aspects of real estate that we control that would blow that out of the water, quite frankly.

I just don't want to overpromise and under deliver.

I want to be really clear about that.

And so for us, that's a key focal point of receiving the tiff was making sure that a good allocation of the housing we create is affordable at the end of the day.

And so that's something we're we're very focused on.

Because yes, it needs to, you know, the thing I go back to a little bit though about that also is when you look at the land we're developing, it's parking lots, it's falling apart and it's old buildings.

It is not like we're taking old housing or previously existing housing and gentrifying it, you know what I mean?

Like, we're not that's not what we're doing.

This isn't even this neighborhood doesn't even exist right now.

You know, it literally has been parking lots and whole roads with big potholes and all that kind of stuff for a long, long, long time.

So, but that being said, I'm not making a lot of your question.

I want to be very clear.

Our focus will be to make sure we have the spectrum of housing solutions.

And by the way, we're governed to the fact that minimum that is going to be 20%.

Jerome Hamilton Jr, back to back living foundation questions.

I'm a public service fellow.

The Clinton Foundation.

And what you were talking about a little earlier in your talk, it's kind of what I'm living.

I just moved downtown, in August, so not even you know, a year of being, down there yet.

And pretty much everything you were talking about, was resonating with me, you know, just making a lot of different decisions, you know, about what I want to do with my time outside of work and how much I want to save to eventually, own a home.

Though I think the thing that I was thinking about when you were having that conversation was about third spaces, like things that, I would like to do, downtown that aren't there yet.

So with your idea of the rock block, do you have any ideas of, like, something just like something else, you know, that people could do, homeowners in that in that area, other folks downtown could flock and do after work 100%.

So there's two things I'd point to.

One is we control 38 acres on the riverfront right now.

13 of those acres will be greenspace parks, places where people will also have a a free canal and canoe and, rowing place, which you can pull right next to the Cleveland Clinic Global Performance Center and drop your canoe.

And you can drive your kayak and you can drop whatever you want in the water as long as it floats.

Hopefully.

And use the riverfront.

And that'll be coupled with 13 different acres of park space.

We're also working on there's a meet me Here park, which is a little triangle piece of land that's just south of the north garage, just north of our arena.

We've got some really unique plans for that as well.

We think that, we can't debut those yet, but we're working with Michael Diemer and his crew, at Downtown Cleveland Inc to to to really work on transforming that into more of an experience as well.

Like this also has to be something that if you own a dog, you want to be able to walk your dog through the neighborhood, you know what I mean?

I mean, these are all the things we're starting to think about.

And when you when, when Dan and I talk about this, the thing he cares the most about is connectivity.

He wants a Cavs player to be able to walk from the Cleveland Clinic Global Peak Performance Center all the way up to grade on Huron, and be able to walk right in the front door of Sherwin-Williams entrance in Rocket Arena.

I mean, that is the type of stuff that we're thinking about placemaking wise.

Because once again, we want this to be an experience.

We don't just want this to be a place where you go in, lock your door, turn on your TV, and you're done for the night.

You know, like, that's not what we're trying to establish.

So, and when you get, when you, when you want to buy something, let's talk about that too.

But but we are we're very we're trying to be very thoughtful about all of those things.

But great question.

Thank you.

earlier today, I don't know where this individual is.

I met a student who's here.

I wish he was at CSU, but he's not.

He's a John Carroll.

And I'm thinking about him as you talk about.

How about Woolford?

Yes.

Is.

As you talk about your vision for the future, there will be athletes on the court, but there's a whole army of people who are building their careers around sport and entertainment management in this community.

So I'm wondering two things.

First, if we could ask that student to stand up wherever he is right there.

I embarrassed the guy by.

He's the kind of people we want to keep in Cleveland.

So what's your vision for creating career pathways for young people who want to be a part of what your, you're imagining in your building?

Yeah, it's a great question.

Thank you for it, Laura.

Look, I would say this.

Our doors open and we are, you know, coming out of the pandemic, we employed, you know, roughly, you know, part time and full time.

We employed roughly 1300 people.

Right now, we sit and we part time and full time, we employ about 22 to 2300 people.

And that will likely grow to about 2500 people when the W and some of these other things come online.

So there's gonna be a lot of opportunities, a lot of opportunities for people we love.

You know, I think one of the things we're actually thinking about right now internally is how does the career ladder change, given a lot of the things that we're going through right now in society with technology and all these other things, but we love I mean, I just mentioned it for 68% of our workforce is under the age of 40, you know, so we love working with, you know, students.

And we bring, you know, we think we've we are somewhere in the neighborhood of 35 to 45 seasonals that come in and work with us in the summer.

And I always joke with our leadership group because they want to create these seasonal jobs and they never go away.

And so it just keeps growing and growing and growing.

And so my point is, though, is that, we are wide open to partner and we absolutely want to keep people here throughout.

John Carroll.

We can meet at Crowley's for a beer if you'd like.

I live right around the corner from there.

We'd love to, you know, figure out how it makes sense.

But my point is, we are employing and we're going to continue to employ a lot of people in this journey.

Chasm alone will employ probably close to 200 people, you know, between full time and some of the different services that they have.

We're going to employ a lot of people at the Cleveland Clinic Global People Performance Center.

We're going to employ more people at this in this third dimension of development.

We can't talk about quite yet, but it's close.

So there's going to be a lot of opportunities for us.

And by the way, we're doing I send this to Freddy before we got up here.

We're doing all this because we want the region to be stickier, not just for people like us, but we want this to be stickier for young people that come in and work for Sherwin-Williams or KeyBank or the Cleveland Clinic or any of these great institutions we have, we want them to say, damn, it's fun to live in Cleveland, and I want to stay in Cleveland.

And now I can buy a house in Cleveland.

Like, these are all the things that we're focused on.

And so we will absolutely look to partner with any way that we can.

And there'll be a lot of opportunities for that.

We came down here to start off our weekend with you, and the City Club from here will be checking into the Fidelity Hotel tonight.

We're going to stereophonic at Playhouse Square.

Great.

Tomorrow will be at the Cavs game where somehow we've managed to maintain season tickets since the late 80s.

Thank you.

And, so does your last name, Clyde, by the way.

It is all right.

That's what I thought.

I thought, I thought I got a tip off about this one, so.

Yeah.

And and another three degrees of separation is a shout out to Kevin Clayton, who's been interviewed by my daughter, Samantha Clyde.

She sends her regards.

Kevin does a lot of interviews, so that doesn't really narrow it down.

I think he'll remember.

All right.

Good.

All right.

Good.

Anyway, so the only thing that I don't have in common with your vision is I am neither Gen X or Gen Z. My question would be, is there room for us more seasoned players?

And, in your and rock Entertainment's vision of the housing and ownership opportunities and the general accommodations that perhaps the boomers might?

Well, I look, I would just tell you this based on the itinerary you shared, your behavior is a whole hell of a lot closer to that generation than you may think.

So I you know, I don't.

Don't sell yourself short would be my biggest thing.

And the second part of it is this, like, look, this is a neighborhood for everybody.

You know, we're building this because we think there's a real market for for empty nesters.

We're building this, you know, you look at I look at what they just did in Shaker Heights and the building next to Van Aken.

You know, that is an amazing apartment complex.

It is filled with empty nesters.

It is not filled with people like me.

It is not filled with it is filled with empty nesters.

And so that really gave it gives us a lot of confidence to what we're trying to do.

And by the way, it doesn't matter of the age we want at all.

I mean, this is, you know, this is, and I go back to it, your itinerary would rival anybody, no matter what their age is.

And so I commend you for that.

You and Andy both.

And I would just say that, please.

You know, that these are the types of things that we need in this community is as we need.

And it's not going to be a neighborhood just built for 25 year olds.

It's going to be a neighborhood that's built for, quite frankly, more probably 50 to 70 year olds that are active, that want to be a part of things, that want to experience things.

It's going to be able to transcend.

And I think that's the unique part about it.

And the last thing I'll say is, when you live in an experience driven economy and you go to an event and you look around, whether it's the Arena Bowl or whether it's a music venue, if there is a wide swath of demographics of people age and socioeconomic status, it doesn't matter.

Race, you know?

And so it is an amazing opportunity for us to unite the community as well.

That's right.

Thank you.

John, many thanks to Nick Barlage and Freddy Collier for joining us at the City Club today.

I'm Dan Moulthrop, chief executive here.

And forums like this one are made possible thanks to generous support from individuals like all of you and including many of you.

You can learn more about how to become a guardian of free speech at cityclub.org.

Our forum today is presented in partnership with the Greater Cleveland Partnership.

It's also part of the City Club's Local Hero Series, which is presented in partnership with Citizens and Enbridge.

Thank you to all of our partners.

We also welcome.

Guests at tables hosted by.

And this is kind of a long list, so prepare yourself.

Bank of America citizens, Cleveland Cavaliers, Cleveland Clinic, the Cleveland Foundation, the Cleveland Leadership Center, Cleveland Public Library, downtown Cleveland, yes, downtown Cleveland, Enbridge, the Greater Cleveland Food Bank, the Greater Cleveland Partnership leadership Cleveland, class of 2019 Lucy and Charlie Cooley Nordson Taft, the President's Council Foundation, Thompson Hind and the YMCA of you know it, greater Cleveland coming up at the city Club just announced on Friday, January 23rd, we kick off our year long America 250 Ohio series.

It is the 250th anniversary of our nation's founding.

Presented in partnership with the America 250 Ohio Commission to start the series, which is focused on, originals in Ohio.

First, we will discuss Native American nations and the making of the United States with leading tribal law expert and University of Michigan law professor Matthew Fletcher.

Also on January 30th, how Omaha reduce Gun Violence by 50% 50%.

Join us on January 30th for that.

You can learn more about that and all of our other forums there.

A bunch that we just posted for the new year there at cityclub.org.

Thank you once again, Nick Barlage and Freddy Collier.

You guys are great.

Thank you members and friends of the City Club I'm Dan Mouthrop.

Have a great weekend.

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