В Беахвуде опровергли слухи о влиянии мэра на покупку отеля его братом

A property that has sat vacant for over six years in Beachwood has thrust the city, the school superintendent and the law director into the spotlight over concerns that the mayor’s brother is potentially interested in purchasing the site. Developer Jonathan Berns, brother of Beachwood Mayor Justin Berns, said he wants to set the record straight after questions surfaced about his involvement in the possible purchase and redevelopment of the former DoubleTree hotel property at 3663 Park East Drive in Beachwood. “I did not collude with my brother,” Jonathan Berns told the Cleveland Jewish News on Aug. 18. The mayor released a statement to city residents and businesses on Aug. 17 denying speculation that he was involved with and was assisting his brother, a longtime developer and co-founder of Beachwood-based real estate company ORG Portfolio Management, in the sale of the former hotel property that has sat vacant since its closure during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The 9.9-acre property was purchased for $12,384,000 and transferred in 2021 to My Place Group, founded by Chad Kertesz. My Place Group, founded in 2010, entered into a development agreement with the city in fall 2022 to raze the hotel and build a $200 million mixed-use project, the CJN previously reported. Kertesz could not be reached for comment prior to publication. About two years later, in 2024, the property was listed for sale by My Place Group. And, in April 2025, Classic Lexus of Willoughby Hills proposed a plan to move its dealership to the site. However, in June 2025, it decided not to pursue the move, but cited no reason for the decision, the CJN reported. In March 2026, a prospective buyer of the property sought economic development incentives from the city because of the large costs that come with redeveloping the site, including demolition and remediation, a proposal that Jonathan Berns was not a part of, according to his brother, Mayor Justin Berns. “At approximately the same time, the city and the Beachwood School District were separately working on revisions to the existing Community Reinvestment Area compensation agreement,” Mayor Berns said in the statement to residents and businesses, which was distributed by email. “Because the proposed DoubleTree hotel redevelopment also involved a potential tax-increment-financing arrangement, the city asked the Board of Education to consider the matter promptly. The Board did so, and I appreciate its willingness to respond quickly.” That buyer, unbeknownst to the city, “subsequently stopped pursuing the property” and in mid-July, city staff “learned that a different prospective purchaser was considering acquiring the former DoubleTree hotel property.” “One of the people involved in that prospective purchase is my brother,” Berns said in the statement. “I did not bring this prospective purchaser to the city. I was not involved in negotiating or arranging the potential acquisition. I learned of my brother’s involvement only after city staff had been informed. When I learned that my brother was involved in the second prospective purchase, I immediately informed our Law Director and removed myself from any city involvement concerning the property.” Berns said the proposal that his brother is involved in “has not requested a TIF, CRA tax abatement, city financial assistance, or any other economic development incentive. Because no such incentive has been requested, the School District has not been asked to approve anything related to this prospective purchase.” Tax increment financing is an economic development mechanism available to local governments in Ohio to finance public infrastructure improvements by freezing the baseline property tax revenue amount coming from the area. CRA tax abatement is an economic development tool used by local Ohio governments to provide property tax exemptions on the increased value of real property resulting from new construction or significant remodeling. On July 29, Beachwood schools Superintendent Robert P. Hardis wrote an email to Mayor Berns expressing concern over the March meeting, where the city asked the board of education to meet promptly and consider potential tax-increment-financing arrangement, after the district learned about Jonathan Berns’ potential purchase of the property. “It was being discussed, fairly publicly and in certain settings, that Jonathan Berns and ORG was a potential buyer for the property,” Hardis told the CJN on Aug. 18. “My email to the mayor was an attempt to get updated information because that had the potential to impact board decisions if they were asked to approve anything regarding tax abatement.” In the email sent to Mayor Berns, Hardis said that in April, the mayor “invited representatives from the school district to attend a meeting with City representatives, including counsel, about Beachwood’s Community Reinvestment Area (CRA), as well as a possible TIF arrangement for the former DoubleTree Hotel property.” “At that meeting, we were asked to promptly convene the Board of Education in executive session for consideration of a special TIF arrangement for the potential buyer of the former DoubleTree property,” Hardis said in the email. “We were told there was a non-disclosure agreement that prevented us from knowing who the potential buyer was, and this information was not shared with us. We were asked to act quickly to prevent the City from losing the potential buyer.” Hardis said Russ Balthis, the city’s tax attorney, tied the discussion of the terms of the revised CRA compensation agreement to the terms for this TIF. The board of education convened a special meeting and considered these property tax arrangements in an executive session and afterward, school attorney David Seed communicated to Balthis that the board was willing to support Beachwood’s economic development efforts for the former DoubleTree Hotel property. “Since then, we have received no further information from any city representative despite being asked to expedite the executive session with the Board,” Hardis said in the July 29 email. Beachwood Law Director Todd Hunt sent a response to Hardis on Aug. 8 on behalf of the city and Mayor Berns, where he called it “very disturbing that a fellow public official would send an email that is a public record which includes content that is false and misleading and, in essence, accuses Mayor Berns of illegal activity. Nothing could be further from the truth.” Hunt said the city was approached in March by “by a company that represented that it was negotiating with the owner of the 3663 Park East property to acquire the property to bring a business with a very large payroll. It was seeking tax incentives to be able to consummate the deal with the owner. ... It requested the City to enter into a non-disclosure agreement (‘NDA’) based on a history of failed efforts by others to acquire the property from the owner. That NDA was entered into by the City and is still in effect. There was never any mention of either Jonathan Berns or any affiliated entity of Mr. Berns being involved in any redevelopment of the site.” Hunt said the city first learned of Jonathan Berns’ company’s proposed purchase of the property in mid-July when the developer called economic development director Cathy Bieterman in what was an “informational call” that didn’t contain any request for “economic development assistance of any kind, or otherwise, and there has not been any such requests.” Mayor Berns said he then learned of the proposed purchase through his brother after that call, and there “has been no information to the City or to Mayor Berns what any plan for redevelopment and use of the subject property may be.” “Mayor Berns is very aware of his ethical obligations and would not be involved with any development if his brother is involved,” Hunt said in the response to Hardis. “Also, Jonathan Berns has also said he is aware of any ethical issues. However, Jonathan Berns’ company is a long time commercial property owner in Beachwood which pays considerable property taxes for the benefit of the School District and has the right to own and develop property in Beachwood, just as anyone else would have that right.” Hunt asked Hardis in the future to have a dialogue with city officials before “making false assumptions and putting them in a public record.” Hardis told the CJN the matter was pressing because “a very large percentage of our funding comes from property taxes,” And in Beachwood, almost half of those are paid by commercial taxpayers. “Economic development and maintaining a strong commercial tax base is of huge importance to our district,” he said. “The laws in the state of Ohio allow for some tax abatement, under certain circumstances, to be approved without a school board’s vote. Sometimes our school board is not involved, sometimes they are. The concern would have been that there might be legal, ethical and surely perception issues around any sort of tax abatement that the school board is asked to approve on behalf of Jonathan Berns which, to stress what I wrote in my letter, has nothing to do with him as a person or a professional but is solely about his family relationship to the mayor.” Hardis said a tax abatement has not been asked for since March for the site. He has had a few conversations with Mayor Berns since the letter was sent and “what you see in the timeline that he laid out in that public statement is exactly what he shared with me.” “I was fulfilling my responsibility to protect the school district and the Board of Education from even the appearance of impropriety,” Hardis said. Hardis said his relationship with the mayor is “really strong, very honest and direct working” and he is “not concerned about that at all. We continue to discuss any potential economic development matters well beyond just the DoubleTree property.” Mayor Berns told the CJN that transparency is one of his core values since being elected Mayor of Beachwood. He said he chose to notify the community after the district’s and city’s correspondence on the issue and after “taking the time to put it together, so everybody knows where I stand on this and that there’s nothing to hide.” “I learned about this after city staff was notified of a new purchase agreement,” Berns told the CJN. “Our economic development director made me aware, and I later had a conversation with my brother where, in passing, he confirmed this to me. I told him, ‘Because of my position as Mayor, I cannot be involved in whatever you’re doing with this deal.’” Mayor Berns said he and his brother don’t typically talk about projects and deals that he is working on. Jonathan Berns said he and ORG became involved in the property “fairly recently” and, while he couldn’t recall an exact date, said it had been “after the month of May.” “My brother doesn’t tell me what the city is doing, and I don’t tell him what I’m doing,” Jonathan Berns said. “I’ve been owning properties on Park East Drive for more than 20 years, I own ones across the street and next to this property. We supported My Place because we’re neighbors, and we want to make sure that a vacant building doesn’t remain vacant. That’s not good for anyone. After failed and failed proposal – nothing moving forward – we started talking to them. We don’t have any specific plan for it, but we don’t want a closed hotel to be on the street, and we think we’re capable of finding the right tenant for the property.” Jonathan Berns said he hasn’t received any incentives from the city of Beachwood during or before his brother’s tenure and that, because they have not finalized plans on what they would do with the property, have not asked nor are planning to ask for any. Mayor Berns said, from his understanding, there’s been nothing put forth to city council involving his brother’s proposal. “The proposed purchaser has not come forward with a proposal, as far as I know,” Berns said. “The only reason for council involvement would be for proposed rezoning or economic incentives. That said, discussions may be taking place that I’m not aware of. The law director and economic development director are going to be extremely cautious about bringing me into anything that has to do with this property - so long as my brother has an ownership interest.” Danielle Shoykhet, Beachwood City Council president, said in an Aug. 18 statement to the CJN that council “supports Mayor Berns and appreciates his transparency regarding the proposed purchase and redevelopment of the former DoubleTree hotel property.” “Should any legislation related to this project come before City Council, we will review it with the same integrity, diligence and oversight we apply to every matter affecting our community,” she said. “Our responsibility is to evaluate the facts, protect the public interest and ensure an open and accountable process for Beachwood residents.” The CJN has filed public records requests with the Beachwood City School District and the city of Beachwood for materials related to this matter. Those requests were still pending as of publication on Aug. 19. This is a developing story.