Decision to stay a boost for Cleveland

A heartfelt thank you to the folks at Sherwin-Williams for choosing to keep Cleveland as your home and us as your neighbors. We are well aware that other cities, some in milder climates, would love to have landed your Fortune 500 company. They no doubt dangled tempting incentives worth many millions of dollars to lure you away. So, we are grateful that you gave us a fair chance to compete.

We also must thank our leaders in Cleveland, Cuyahoga County and Columbus for working together and assembling a package of incentives that evidently was competitive enough to win the day.

The nation’s biggest paint manufacturer confirmed recently that it plans to build a 1-million-square-foot headquarters on what are now parking lots just west of Public Square and a research and development center in Brecksville.

This will mean hundreds of new jobs and a corporate investment of at least $600 million to Cuyahoga County, a much-needed shot in the arm for our challenging economy and another boost for our downtown renaissance.

Taxpayers will eventually learn what incentives were offered in their name to make this deal happen. When they do, we ask them to take a deep breath after seeing the big dollar signs, and think about what this deal also does for our community pride.

The Browns and the Indians failed to make the playoffs in their last seasons. The Cavaliers could end up with the worst record in the NBA this year. But on this recent Thursday, Cleveland came out on top in a nationwide competition with bigger, wealthier and sunnier cities.

It’s hard to put a value on that kind of pride. Remember the hundreds of thousands of people who lined downtown sidewalks as the NBA champion Cavaliers paraded by in 2016? If you were among them, you know what we’re talking about.

It’s also hard to put a value on what keeping Sherwin Williams means to the story of Cleveland. Henry Sherwin founded the company here in 1866, just 70 years after Moses Cleaveland arrived with surveyors at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River.

Today, 154 years later, Sherwin-Williams is tightly woven into the fabric of our community. The Plain Dealer reported that nearly 100 employees serve on more than 100 of our local nonprofit boards. All told, 4,400 employees work here in Northeast Ohio.

They are our neighbors, our friends, fellow taxpayers. And we are confident they already know what Dorothy came to realize during her travels along the yellow brick road, that there is no place like home.

It’s also hard to put a value on what keeping Sherwin Williams means to the story of Cleveland.