In early January 1995, the executive director and the president of the Board of Trustees met with Mary Rose Oakar. Ms. Oakar had been a U.S. Congresswoman representing the west side of Cleveland and several western and southern suburbs. She was defeated in her bid for re-election in 1992 and was working as a consultant. She had very close ties to Congressman Louis Stokes, whose east side of Cleveland and eastern suburban district included Cleveland Heights and who was the senior Democrat on the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee. The Civic hired Oakar's firm to "take all appropriate steps to conduct a review and analysis of potential federal funding sources to apply toward the adaptive reuse of the Civic."13 The hope was that the Foundation could raise between $1 and $2 million in federal funds using a combination of development grants and tax credits. The contract described three possibly useful programs: the Historical Tax Credit program, the Economic Development Administration (EDA) grant program, and Congressional line item appropriations.

The Historical Tax Credit program proved to be inappropriate for the Civic. The program allowed the purchase, sale, and trading of Historical Tax Credits, but there had to be private investment in the building in order to trigger a credit that could be sold. Since there was no private development and unlikely to be any, there would be no credits to sell. The second program looked at was the EDA program. This program was essentially a job creation program for low- and moderate-income neighborhoods. While the Civic qualified in terms of its neighborhood, its job creation possibilities were minimal. While the City did its best to work with the Civic to make this program fit its project, there was little likelihood that this project would be funded by EDA.

The final possibility was a line item grant through Congress. During the time when the Democrats were in the majority in the House, Congressman Louis Stokes, who represented Cleveland Heights, had considerable influence in funding programs. However, January 1995 saw the takeover of the House by the Republicans for the first time in 40 years. Not only were there bitter disagreements between President Clinton and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, there also were 40 years of Republican pet programs that had not previously been funded that would take priority over Democratic proposals. Thus this route to the federal funds was no longer open to the Civic.