Gilbert seems to have seen the trend of midwesterners embracing their central cores well ahead of everyone else. What he's done in Cleveland has been pretty sm

Gilbert seems to have seen the trend of midwesterners embracing their central cores well ahead of everyone else. What he's done in Cleveland has been pretty smart. He started by purchasing the Cavaliers and becoming a relatively vocal owner (at least compared to the previous owner). That won him a lot of favor with public. He opened up a Quicken Loans office in the city, providing jobs. He then was able to put a deal through public election granting him a casino monopoly in the city. He leased (and later bought) a mostly empty old department store building to house the casino that conveniently connected to the Cavs' arena. He later bought the Ritz hotel that also connects to the casino and arena and just recently purchased the shopping mall / train station that is the connecting piece to all of those. There are definitely some negatives to be seen from what he's doing, but I think in the end it will be an impressive improvement for that part of downtown, which was already in the upswing.