Mallory in Vegas

If what happened in Vegas this week stays in Vegas, Mayor Mark Mallory won’t be happy.

He’s hoping the retailers, developers and restaurant representatives he met with this week at a convention of the International Council on Shopping Centers convention will visit here soon in a second step toward getting them to invest here. Mallory went to the annual meeting of 50,000 people with a team of brokers, new economic development director Holly Childs and others to try to show Cincinnati is all about attracting new development.

“We’ve sort of been on people’s radar screens for the wrong reason,” he said Tuesday. “We’re making a pitch to change that.”

By “pitch,” he’s referring to his tossing out 200 baseballs to people at the convention, as a takeoff on the Opening Day pitch for which he gained national attention. Some people got the joke, he said, some didn’t.

He had 15 meetings set up with businesses he hopes to attract here, but said it was too soon to say what businesses those were. His staff already has started following up with the people he met, however, and will be scheduling visits here for the representatives. A couple of them, he said, are close to making final decisions about locating here, so he hopes his personal appeal might help them choose Cincinnati.

He also ended up giving an impromptu talk during a panel discussion about underserved retail markets.