CLEVELAND, Ohio — When Cleveland agreed to help Sherwin-Williams build a new downtown headquarters in early 2020, the city was trying to do something familiar: keep jobs, payroll and tax dollars from leaving the city.
In September 2019, Sherwin-Williams had announced a nationwide search for a new global headquarters and consolidated research facility. Cleveland officials offered the company an incentive package worth millions of dollars to make staying attractive. In return, Sherwin-Williams agreed to maintain 3,138 full-time-equivalent jobs in Cleveland and roughly $347.2 million in payroll — an economic base that generated about $8.7 million in city income-tax revenue.
Not long after the agreements were finalized, the COVID-19 pandemic emptied office buildings across the country and ushered in an era in which remote and hybrid work reshaped expectations about the workplace, while promising greater flexibility, work-life balance and, for many employees, productivity…