The Medical Mart project is the $465 million joint venture

Joint venture

A joint venture is a business agreement in which parties agree to develop, for a finite time, a new entity and new assets by contributing equity. They exercise control over the enterprise and consequently share revenues, expenses and assets...

 by Cuyahoga County and MMPI to construct a permanent showroom of medical, surgical and hospital goods along with a new convention center

Convention center

A convention center is a large building that is designed to hold a convention, where individuals and groups gather to promote and share common interests. Convention centers typically offer sufficient floor area to accommodate several thousand attendees...

 in Cleveland, Ohio

Cleveland, Ohio

Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...

. Construction of the project, which is largely being funded by a 0.25% sales tax increase passed by Cuyahoga County commissioners in 2007, began in May of 2011. As of July 2011, construction of the joint Medical Mart-Cleveland Convention Center is well underway on on the historic Mall

The Mall (Cleveland)

The Cleveland Mall is a long public park in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. It was conceived as part of the 1903 Group Plan by Daniel Burnham, John Carrère, and Arnold Brunner as a vast public space flanked by the city's major civic and governmental buildings, all built in the neoclassical style...

.. It is the goal of the project to capitalize on Cleveland's reputation as a world class medical center by bringing medical shows and conventions to the city. The Medical Mart concept is modeled after that of the Merchandise Mart

Merchandise Mart

When opened in 1930, the Merchandise Mart or the Merch Mart, located in the Near North Side, Chicago, Illinois, was the largest building in the world with of floor space. Previously owned by the Marshall Field family, the Mart centralized Chicago's wholesale goods business by consolidating vendors...

 in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, and will be managed by MMPI, the same company that operates the Merchandise Mart.