CLEVELAND, Ohio - A court has ruled that the location of the proposed Amazon headquarters site in Cleveland's failed bid for the project is not secret and should be released to cleveland.com.

The information is contained in reports generated by the publicly funded Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency for Cleveland's bid to win Amazon's second headquarters, known as HQ2. The Ohio Court of Claims' special master recommended Friday that the court order NOACA to publicly release all the information it created for the bid. NOACA has seven business days to appeal the ruling.

The court rejected NOACA's claim that the bulk of the information it contributed to the bid contains trade secrets and, therefore, is exempt from Ohio' open records laws.

"I find [NOACA] has failed to show that any information in the HQ2 document constitutes trade secret," the court's Special Master Jeffery Clark wrote in an 18-page decision.

The court, which handles mediation in public records disputes, also recommended NOACA pay cleveland.com's court costs.

Cleveland.com columnist Mark Naymik filed a complaint in November, after NOACA declined to provide reports, maps and other data that it gave to Team NEO, the private, nonprofit economic-development group that spearheaded the region's secret bid for the Amazon headquarters.

NOACA Executive Director Grace Gallucci could not be reached for comment.

Chris Quinn, president and editor of cleveland.com, issued the following statement.

"We thought from the beginning that public officials in Cleveland were wrong to operate in secrecy in the Amazon deal, and I'm glad this independent ruling fully supports our belief that the records created in the failed pursuit of the Amazon headquarters are public. I wish officials had released the records from the start rather than leaving us to represent the public's interest by hiring a law firm to pursue this action."

Initially, NOACA declined to publicly detail what type of information it contributed to the Amazon bid, but later said it created 18 reports, including transportation data and maps, some of it related to the proposed site locations.

In its response to the court, NOACA argued that that its documents provide it with "competitive advantage" and that disclosing details of the bid, including the proposed site, would allow competing cities to "respond very specifically and proactively to the attributes NOACA has chosen to illustrate."

Clark, who reviewed all of the records as part of his review of the case, rejected that argument, noting that much of the information in the documents "consists of descriptive, conclusory statements and promotional rhetoric."

Clark added that concealing the region's relevant attributes is "not only contrary to NOACA's mission, but is belied by its exhaustive publication of the same information online. There is no evidence that a competitor who wishes to distinguish its attributes from those of Cleveland cannot obtain a wealth of specific data and declared attributes from NOACA's published material and elsewhere online."

The court also said NOACA provided no factual evidence that the data and illustrations it generated for the Amazon bid are unique or so valuable that future competitors would gain an economic benefit from its disclosure.

On this point, Clark noted that NOACA's claim that it contributed "similar" information to Cleveland's bid for the 2016 Republican National Convention contradicts its argument that there is unique value to its work.

He wrote: "NOACA's reference to using 'similar' information in its bid for the 2016 Republican National Convention, a dramatically different engagement in time span, relevant transportation and logistics, etc., only emphasizes that the factors for future bids will be different, and that keeping the data, statistics, maps and promotional rhetoric from the HQ2 bid a secret will not benefit NOACA's future transactions."

Amazon found Cleveland's bid so unappealing that the company did not rank it among the top 20.

The region's civic leaders - with the blessing of Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson and Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish - also have refused to release any details of the bid, even after Amazon rejected Cleveland's bid in January. They have argued that the proposal's details should be kept secret to preserve the region's bargaining position in future detail.

In his ruling, Clark dismissed such an argument.

"Most of the information tailored for this specific bid will change over time, including statistics and available site locations," Clark said. "Both NOACA and future competitors will rely on different, updated information for future bids. Emphasis on relevant attributes, and incentives offered, will vary with the preferences of each business courted."

Cleveland.com was represented by

Melissa Bertke, a partner of

BakerHostetler.