CLEVELAND — The vote by a Republican panel to make Cleveland its host for the party’s 2016 national convention could be a big step in the city’s efforts to remake a hard-bitten image forged by decades of misfortune.

The Rust Belt renaissance might not end there: If LeBron James decides to return to the Cavaliers and Browns’ quarterback Johnny Manziel is as good as hoped, Cleveland’s collective head might explode with joy.

The GOP’s site selection committee backed Cleveland’s convention bid on Tuesday and the full Republican National Committee is expected to give its approval when it meets in Chicago next month.

“I’ve heard many people say we’re not used to finishing first,” Terry Egger, executive chairman of Cleveland’s host committee, said at a news conference Tuesday. “Today we finished in a very important competition.”

Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, a Democrat, stressed how Clevelanders as a whole, not just officials, went out of their way to welcome Republicans when they were here for their site visits.

“We showed them we were hungry for this,” Jackson said.

Estimates are that the 30,000 delegates and as many as 15,000 media types would spend more than $400 million during their stays in and around Cleveland. But local officials have been saying for weeks that it’s not just about the money — it’s about a new image Cleveland can project to the world.

Few places in the U.S. have suffered like Cleveland has the last 50 years. The population has nose-dived. It’s once brawny manufacturing base has been decimated. The Cleveland public school system is a mess. Its sports teams have been mired in mediocrity.

But the city’s leaders, both political and civic, have worked hard to burnish Cleveland’s image. The working estimate is that in the last 10 years, more than $4.5 billion has been spent or is about to be spent on downtown development. Its streets are not paved with gold, but they are kept clean and empty storefronts have been turned into restaurants, bars and clubs that draw a considerable number of people downtown again.