For the region’s transportation agency to state that no local funds will be required for the Avon Interchange is simply false. Yes, Dick Jacobs has offered $10 million to build the ramps, overpasses and improvements to Nagle Road near I-90, but that's not enough money to construct and widen local surface streets when traffic jams begin. And it’s not enough to justify the $70.5 million shell game that happens when Avon’s calling for more sprawl in a region of that defines growth by moving its assets around.

NOACA’s economic impact study shows the Nagle Road interchange and Jacobs shopping center driving up demand for local roads. See page 17 of the report. Build it and they will come. That’s the reality of highway interchanges—we all end up subsidizing the project—whether it’s our taxes paying for the local street improvements or the siphoning off of retail and homeowners from some other spot in the region.

If NOACA wants to maintain a full accounting of the Avon proposal, it will include a bullet point in the summary on long-term costs—an estimated $16.3 million to engineer and build surface streets, sidewalks and infrastructure and another $4.7 million for “municipal services”—that's just the new sewer lines. Where does the report figure in the capacity to handle the new sewer service? NOACA should have its consultant contact the water and sewer districts to estimate the cost to add all of the future customers to the region’s water and sanitation systems.

More importantly, the report shows how Jacob’s proposed 946,000 sq ft. shopping center catalyzes sprawl development. By the year 2030, Jacob’s project will attract 1.4 million sq. ft. of new office space on top of what he wants to build—sucking 886,200 sq. ft. of that office space from Cuyahoga County. The Avon boomberg will suck another 437,000 sq. ft. of industrial business that otherwise would locate in Cuyahoga County and plop it on 85 acres of Avon open space.

What’s the cost of this inter-regional shell game in Cuyahoga County’s lost tax base and empty, debt-carrying infrastructure? We don't know, because the report looks only at new economic generation. The fiscal windfall for Avon is estimated at $5.7 million in property taxes and $62.4 million in payroll taxes by 2030.

Why, then, does the report conclude that the new Avon development doesn’t impact negatively on the region? For example, the report states that the interchange will not have any impact on residential growth in that area of Avon. That seems dubious. If recent history is any indication, the interchange will make housing much more attractive in the open spaces around Nagle Road. The report notes that medical, i.e. the rumored move of a Cleveland Clinic office to Avon, won’t happen without the residential to support it (ipso facto, you’ll see plenty of new houses on Avon’s large-lot zoning. Unless the city’s willing to try its hand at a compact zoning overlay so that a Crocker Park-style lifestyle center or other “New Urbanist” clap trap can be constructed. It can look to its exurban cousin North Royalton on planning to develop high-density, mixed-use town center).

NOACA should take more care in the assessment of costs for the Avon open space. Otherwise, its goals to mitigate congestion through multi-modal means adds up to less than the worth of the paper they’re written on.