University Circle
Artist Nicolette Capuano has spent the past year painstakingly restoring the ornate plaster trim and low relief sculptures in the Tudor Arms building.
Yet she's doing more than simply recreating the past; she has worked closely with building owner Rick Maron and designer Cindy Rae Cohen to create her own masterpieces -- original, hand-painted murals -- that will grace the landmark structure.
"We wanted to highlight the beauty of this historic building while adding a more contemporary touch," says Capuano, who started her company, Beyond the Wall Mural Design, after graduating from Columbus College of Art and Design in 2005.
"Blending the historic and contemporary is definitely a trend in interior design these days," Capuano adds. "We wanted to create something that felt somewhat timeless."
In April, MRN Ltd. will complete a $22 million restoration of the Tudor Arms building, converting it to a new 154-room Double Tree Hotel. The vestibule that Capuano restored will be the hotel's main entrance, while the rejuvenated ballrooms will be used for special events. (See comprehensive Tudor Arms feature in next week's Fresh Water.)
In addition to the mural restoration, Capuano also helped repair the building's one-of-a-kind plaster work where it was damaged or missing pieces. This labor-intensive process required making custom molds, recreating each piece by hand, and patching it in.
When she couldn't find the color she wanted for the trim, Capuano created one from scratch.
"The Tudor umber that we used to glaze the plaster work was hand-mixed," says Capuano. "I went through all of the Sherwin-Williams colors, but I couldn't find exactly what we wanted. I'm a perfectionist, so I kept mixing colors until I got it right."
Source: Nicolette Capuano
Writer: Lee Chilcote
Yet she's doing more than simply recreating the past; she has worked closely with building owner Rick Maron and designer Cindy Rae Cohen to create her own masterpieces -- original, hand-painted murals -- that will grace the landmark structure.
"We wanted to highlight the beauty of this historic building while adding a more contemporary touch," says Capuano, who started her company, Beyond the Wall Mural Design, after graduating from Columbus College of Art and Design in 2005.
"Blending the historic and contemporary is definitely a trend in interior design these days," Capuano adds. "We wanted to create something that felt somewhat timeless."
In April, MRN Ltd. will complete a $22 million restoration of the Tudor Arms building, converting it to a new 154-room Double Tree Hotel. The vestibule that Capuano restored will be the hotel's main entrance, while the rejuvenated ballrooms will be used for special events. (See comprehensive Tudor Arms feature in next week's Fresh Water.)
In addition to the mural restoration, Capuano also helped repair the building's one-of-a-kind plaster work where it was damaged or missing pieces. This labor-intensive process required making custom molds, recreating each piece by hand, and patching it in.
When she couldn't find the color she wanted for the trim, Capuano created one from scratch.
"The Tudor umber that we used to glaze the plaster work was hand-mixed," says Capuano. "I went through all of the Sherwin-Williams colors, but I couldn't find exactly what we wanted. I'm a perfectionist, so I kept mixing colors until I got it right."
Source: Nicolette Capuano
Writer: Lee Chilcote
The Cleveland Museum of Natural History (CMNH) will soon break ground on SmartHome Cleveland, a passively-heated home that does not require a furnace and is designed to challenge the way that people think about the issue of climate change.
The 2,500-square-foot, three-bedroom home will be presented in conjunction with the traveling exhibit, Climate Change, from June to September 2011.
"The SmartHome will show that it's possible to use dramatically less energy in our buildings -- and they can be wonderful places to live," says David Beach, Executive Director of Green City Blue Lake (GCBL), a center for regional sustainability located at the museum.
The SmartHome, which was designed by Doty and Miller Architects and will be the first of its kind in Cleveland, incorporates Passive House Methodology. This approach includes high levels of insulation, featuring wall thicknesses of up to 18 inches, a carefully sealed building envelope that combines minimal air leakage with efficient heat-recovery ventilation, and triple-pane windows.
Heated by a small, supplementary heater, the SmartHome's energy efficient design along with the solar panels on a detached garage will make it a net-zero energy consumer.
Beach describes bringing the SmartHome to University Circle as "something of a barn raising." While planning the project, GCBL worked with neighboring institutions and community groups to identify how the home could best fit into the community.
Ultimately, they decided that a home this smart couldn't remain a museum showpiece for long. This fall, the home will be transported to a vacant lot on nearby Wade Park Avenue in Glenville, where it will be offered for sale to a buyer. The home, which will cost about $525,000 to build, will be priced between $300,000 and $400,000.
Beach is already honing his sales pitch for winter-weary Northeast Ohioans. Tired of paying high heating bills? "You could heat this house with a hairdryer," he jokes.
Source: David Beach
Writer: Lee Chilcote
The 2,500-square-foot, three-bedroom home will be presented in conjunction with the traveling exhibit, Climate Change, from June to September 2011.
"The SmartHome will show that it's possible to use dramatically less energy in our buildings -- and they can be wonderful places to live," says David Beach, Executive Director of Green City Blue Lake (GCBL), a center for regional sustainability located at the museum.
The SmartHome, which was designed by Doty and Miller Architects and will be the first of its kind in Cleveland, incorporates Passive House Methodology. This approach includes high levels of insulation, featuring wall thicknesses of up to 18 inches, a carefully sealed building envelope that combines minimal air leakage with efficient heat-recovery ventilation, and triple-pane windows.
Heated by a small, supplementary heater, the SmartHome's energy efficient design along with the solar panels on a detached garage will make it a net-zero energy consumer.
Beach describes bringing the SmartHome to University Circle as "something of a barn raising." While planning the project, GCBL worked with neighboring institutions and community groups to identify how the home could best fit into the community.
Ultimately, they decided that a home this smart couldn't remain a museum showpiece for long. This fall, the home will be transported to a vacant lot on nearby Wade Park Avenue in Glenville, where it will be offered for sale to a buyer. The home, which will cost about $525,000 to build, will be priced between $300,000 and $400,000.
Beach is already honing his sales pitch for winter-weary Northeast Ohioans. Tired of paying high heating bills? "You could heat this house with a hairdryer," he jokes.
Source: David Beach
Writer: Lee Chilcote
Valerie Mayen may have left Season 8 of Project Runway prematurely, but she won't be leaving Cleveland anytime soon. In addition to headquartering her burgeoning fashion label Yellowcake here, the Corpus Christie native will soon launch an innovative sewing co-op for budding designers. And that is just the beginning.
In a true zero-waste system there is no garbage, there are no landfills. Entrepreneurs for Sustainability's Zero Waste Network is urging Cleveland organizations to track and reduce their waste stream. Those that do are discovering that the benefits extend well beyond a slimmer carbon footprint, including economic windfalls, community engagement and marketplace recognition.
Steve Arless has nearly four decades of experience in the medical-device industry. As president and CEO of CryoCath, he grew the company to more than 300 employees before arranging its sale for $380 million. Now, he brings his expertise to Cleveland in hopes of doing the same for CardioInsight, which is developing a cardiac arrhythmia ablation therapy.
The Neighborhood Voice is a new hyper-local community newspaper that covers University Circle and the seven neighborhoods that surround it: Hough, Fairfax, Glenville, East Cleveland, Little Italy, Buckeye-Shaker and Central. Created by the Cleveland Foundation as a part of its Greater University Circle Initiative, the newspaper is largely written by volunteers and high school and college student interns.
It's not that they want people to get sick, but University Hospital's Ahuja Medical Center in Beachwood is poised to capture a sizable patient population when it officially opens in January 2011.
Part of the attraction to patients obviously will be the quality care, but the 144-bed hospital also will likely turn heads with its technology. And not just for the comprehensive imaging center or state-of-the-art catheterization labs.
With input from physicians, nurses, employees and patients, Ahuja recognizes that people want high-tech amenities -- whether they're lounging in a hotel room or recuperating in a hospital bed.
Wireless internet runs through the hospital. Each private room has a flat-screen TV and a daybed so that a loved one can stay with the patient. Green and holistic design also play a vital role. Natural light is used to a maximum, and a healing garden provides a calm, inspirational place for patients and visitors to pause. These features not only look pretty, they are designed to promote healing and a positive outlook.
It isn't just the patients who will be well cared for at the new medical center; staff comfort and well-being also have been given top priority. For example, the seven-floor hospital features a step-sensitive design that will reduce fatigue for nurses and staff.
Details such as these will doubtless help draw in medical professionals, staffers and patients. When it opens, Ahuja Medical Center will employ about 400 people, and within two years, that number could more than double. Current open positions range from pathologists and ICU nurses to CT technologists and a food operations manager.
SOURCE: University Hospitals Ahuja Medical Center
WRITER: Diane DiPiero
Part of the attraction to patients obviously will be the quality care, but the 144-bed hospital also will likely turn heads with its technology. And not just for the comprehensive imaging center or state-of-the-art catheterization labs.
With input from physicians, nurses, employees and patients, Ahuja recognizes that people want high-tech amenities -- whether they're lounging in a hotel room or recuperating in a hospital bed.
Wireless internet runs through the hospital. Each private room has a flat-screen TV and a daybed so that a loved one can stay with the patient. Green and holistic design also play a vital role. Natural light is used to a maximum, and a healing garden provides a calm, inspirational place for patients and visitors to pause. These features not only look pretty, they are designed to promote healing and a positive outlook.
It isn't just the patients who will be well cared for at the new medical center; staff comfort and well-being also have been given top priority. For example, the seven-floor hospital features a step-sensitive design that will reduce fatigue for nurses and staff.
Details such as these will doubtless help draw in medical professionals, staffers and patients. When it opens, Ahuja Medical Center will employ about 400 people, and within two years, that number could more than double. Current open positions range from pathologists and ICU nurses to CT technologists and a food operations manager.
SOURCE: University Hospitals Ahuja Medical Center
WRITER: Diane DiPiero
ny times calls evergreen coop a 'creative economic fix-it'
In an article titled "Some Very Creative Economic Fix-Its," New York Times writer David Segal states at the outset: "We are not going to shop our way out of this mess."
"So the question of our anxious age," he poses, is: "What will return our economy to full-throttled life?" His answer, of course, is the kind of sustained growth that will put back to work the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs in recent years.
But how?
In the story, Gar Alperovitz, a professor at the University of Maryland, singles out Cleveland's Evergreen Cooperatives as one possible solution.
Professor Alperovitz admires local co-operatives that are sprouting up around the country, citing that they tend to be employee owned, and get off the ground with private and foundation funding. "Many of his favorite examples are found in Cleveland," writes Segal, "like the Evergreen Cooperative Laundry, an employee-owned firm that provides laundry services to hospitals, which started in 2009."
Read all the news that's fit to print here.
NBC nightly news highlights evergreen coops
When it rains it pours for Cleveland's Evergreen Cooperatives, which continues to attract local, regional and national attention for its approach to job creation and neighborhood development.
Recently, John Yang of NBC Nightly News visited Evergreen Cooperative Laundry to see how that green operation is giving traditionally "hard-to-hire" folks living wage jobs and a path to company ownership.
Watch the video here.
Recently, John Yang of NBC Nightly News visited Evergreen Cooperative Laundry to see how that green operation is giving traditionally "hard-to-hire" folks living wage jobs and a path to company ownership.
Watch the video here.
shelterforce touts evergreen's green roots
Shelterforce, the nation's oldest continually published housing and community development magazine, recently devoted considerable attention to Cleveland's Evergreen Cooperatives. Written by Miriam Axel-Lute, an associate director at the National Housing Institute, the article tells how cities and governments are taking notice of the paradigm.
Titled "Green Jobs with Roots," the piece begins with powerful lede:
In a couple years, residents of some of the poorest neighborhoods in Cleveland will be the collective owners of the largest collection of solar panels in the state of Ohio. Next door, sixty locations on the Cleveland Clinic's campus will be serving salads made from locally grown lettuce year-round—where local means not "a farm closer than California," but a greenhouse staffed and owned by neighborhood residents on a former brownfield mere miles away.
In this paragraph, Axel-Lute gets to the heart of the Evergreen model of buying local on an institutional level:
The local procurement angle means that the coop's customers are likely to stay put as well. Rather than launching businesses based on workforce skill sets or entrepreneurial ideas, the Evergreen working group started by looking at the $3 billion per year that the 40 some University Circle anchor institutions already spend on goods and services and asking what parts of that spending they could redirect locally.
And finally, Axel-Lute writes that other cities and national officials are taking notice.
Even though it's just getting off the ground, queries about the Evergreen model have been pouring in, with cities from Pittsburgh to Atlanta meeting with Howard or filling up busloads of community leaders to visit Cleveland. Evergreen has been the subject of numerous high-level briefings at the federal level and visits by top HUD officials.
Read the entire analysis here.
Remember when your youthful imagination turned a large cardboard box into a race car or a castle? Mike Welsh does, and now he has started a company that gives kids the stuff they need to create the playhouses of their dreams.
Build a Dream Playhouses is a newly launched producer of corrugated cardboard boxes that can be painted, colored and decorated to make one-of-a-kind playhouses. Welsh, a father and an established entrepreneur, thought of the idea and recruited two recent college grads, Andy Carcioppolo and Sam Cahill, to bring his vision to life. With a degree in business and industrial design, respectively, Carcioppolo and Cahill found they could make use of their talents and stay in Cleveland.
Build a Dream Playhouses was created through a collaboration with Nottingham-Spirk Design Associates, an industrial design firm based in Cleveland, and Smurfit Stone, a paperboard manufacturer in Ravenna.
"We believe that creating jobs in Cleveland, in the State of Ohio and ultimately across the globe is an important part of Build a Dream Playhouses," says Carcioppolo, who serves as COO. "We're thrilled to have an opportunity to do that in our hometown and to be a part of helping our region grow and thrive."
Build a Dream's products, which range from the "Cosmic Cruiser" to the "Pop 'n Play Kitchen," are made from 80 percent recycled materials, and are 100 percent recyclable.
As part of its launch efforts, the Build a Dream Playhouses team will be at the Children's Museum of Cleveland on Saturday, November 20, where kids can color their own cardboard creations.
SOURCE: Cleveland Children's Museum, Build a Dream Playhouse
WRITER: Diane DiPiero
Build a Dream Playhouses is a newly launched producer of corrugated cardboard boxes that can be painted, colored and decorated to make one-of-a-kind playhouses. Welsh, a father and an established entrepreneur, thought of the idea and recruited two recent college grads, Andy Carcioppolo and Sam Cahill, to bring his vision to life. With a degree in business and industrial design, respectively, Carcioppolo and Cahill found they could make use of their talents and stay in Cleveland.
Build a Dream Playhouses was created through a collaboration with Nottingham-Spirk Design Associates, an industrial design firm based in Cleveland, and Smurfit Stone, a paperboard manufacturer in Ravenna.
"We believe that creating jobs in Cleveland, in the State of Ohio and ultimately across the globe is an important part of Build a Dream Playhouses," says Carcioppolo, who serves as COO. "We're thrilled to have an opportunity to do that in our hometown and to be a part of helping our region grow and thrive."
Build a Dream's products, which range from the "Cosmic Cruiser" to the "Pop 'n Play Kitchen," are made from 80 percent recycled materials, and are 100 percent recyclable.
As part of its launch efforts, the Build a Dream Playhouses team will be at the Children's Museum of Cleveland on Saturday, November 20, where kids can color their own cardboard creations.
SOURCE: Cleveland Children's Museum, Build a Dream Playhouse
WRITER: Diane DiPiero
University Circle's Uptown project took a major step forward last week when the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Cleveland board approved plans
for a new home, a dramatic, six-faceted, $27 million structure of
highly reflective stainless steel and glass to be built at Euclid
Avenue and Mayfield Road.
The new building should make quite an impact on visitors to the busy intersection: "Viewed from the exterior, the building will appear as an inventive massing of six geometric facets, some flat, others sloping at various angles, all coming together to create a powerful abstract form," MOCA promises on its web site. "Clad primarily in mirror-finish black Rimex stainless steel, the façade of the new MOCA will reflect its urban surroundings, changing in appearance with differences in light and weather."
The four-story, 34,000-square-foot building will provide MOCA about 40 percent more space than its current home, in the Cleveland Playhouse complex at 8501 Carnegie. The main gallery will be on the 6,000-square-foot top floor, which will be equipped with movable interior walls.
"Flexibility is key to a program that, like ours, embraces aesthetic, conceptual, and cultural diversity, and displays works in a great variety of mediums and genres," says MOCA Director Jill Snyder.
The building was designed by Foreign Office Architects of London, whose team includes Cleveland-based Westlake Reed Leskosky. The MOCA building is FOA's first museum and first American commission. Groundbreaking will occur in December.
Uptown, a $150 million residential and retail development, is a collaboration between private developer MRN Ltd., and University Circle Inc. and area institutions. MRN is the company behind the East Fourth Street restaurant and entertainment district in downtown Cleveland.
Source: MOCA Cleveland
Writer: Frank W. Lewis
The new building should make quite an impact on visitors to the busy intersection: "Viewed from the exterior, the building will appear as an inventive massing of six geometric facets, some flat, others sloping at various angles, all coming together to create a powerful abstract form," MOCA promises on its web site. "Clad primarily in mirror-finish black Rimex stainless steel, the façade of the new MOCA will reflect its urban surroundings, changing in appearance with differences in light and weather."
The four-story, 34,000-square-foot building will provide MOCA about 40 percent more space than its current home, in the Cleveland Playhouse complex at 8501 Carnegie. The main gallery will be on the 6,000-square-foot top floor, which will be equipped with movable interior walls.
"Flexibility is key to a program that, like ours, embraces aesthetic, conceptual, and cultural diversity, and displays works in a great variety of mediums and genres," says MOCA Director Jill Snyder.
The building was designed by Foreign Office Architects of London, whose team includes Cleveland-based Westlake Reed Leskosky. The MOCA building is FOA's first museum and first American commission. Groundbreaking will occur in December.
Uptown, a $150 million residential and retail development, is a collaboration between private developer MRN Ltd., and University Circle Inc. and area institutions. MRN is the company behind the East Fourth Street restaurant and entertainment district in downtown Cleveland.
Source: MOCA Cleveland
Writer: Frank W. Lewis
Essentially a buy-local campaign on steroids, Evergreen Cooperatives is launching multiple for-profit businesses that leverage the enormous procurement power of Cleveland's largest medical, educational and cultural institutions. And what's now being called "the Cleveland Model" is attracting attention nationwide.
cle orchestra invades south korea
In anticipation of the Cleveland Orchestra's long-awaited return to Korea, the Korea Times published a gleeful article by Lee Hyo-won.
"It would be an understatement to say that much has changed since the last time the Cleveland Orchestra played in Korea, 32 years ago under the baton of Lorin Maazel," writes Hyo-won. "Back in 1978, it was a rare occasion for local classical music aficionados to hear a world-class foreign orchestra live."
Of the performance and performers, the article states:
The top American ensemble, known for its distinct European sound, will present fans a full orchestral program of works by the European masters. It is expected to deliver a powerful, roof-raising experience with Debussy's Prelude "A l'apres d'un faune," Mozart's Divertimento in D major, K. 136 and Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 "Eroica."
Interesting note gleaned from piece: The Severance Hospital in downtown Seoul was established in 1900 by Louis Severance, father of John Long Severance, the namesake of Cleveland Orchestra's residential Severance Hall.
Interested parties can purchase tickets from 60,000 to 150,000 won, the equivalent of $53 to $132 in US dollars.
Read the entire article (in English) here.
"It would be an understatement to say that much has changed since the last time the Cleveland Orchestra played in Korea, 32 years ago under the baton of Lorin Maazel," writes Hyo-won. "Back in 1978, it was a rare occasion for local classical music aficionados to hear a world-class foreign orchestra live."
Of the performance and performers, the article states:
The top American ensemble, known for its distinct European sound, will present fans a full orchestral program of works by the European masters. It is expected to deliver a powerful, roof-raising experience with Debussy's Prelude "A l'apres d'un faune," Mozart's Divertimento in D major, K. 136 and Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 "Eroica."
Interesting note gleaned from piece: The Severance Hospital in downtown Seoul was established in 1900 by Louis Severance, father of John Long Severance, the namesake of Cleveland Orchestra's residential Severance Hall.
Interested parties can purchase tickets from 60,000 to 150,000 won, the equivalent of $53 to $132 in US dollars.
Read the entire article (in English) here.
PBS special makes a stop in cleveland
In a one-hour PBS special that airs tonight (November 18th), NOW host David Brancaccio visits communities across America that are using innovative approaches to create jobs and build prosperity in our new economy.
The special, which is called "Fixing the Future," includes a visit to Cleveland, where Brancaccio highlights the successes of Evergreen Cooperatives. During the segment, he speaks to Mendrick Addison, a worker-owner of Evergreen Cooperative Laundry, and Ted Howard, one of the model's architects.
For more information click here.
Check local listings for time and channel.
The special, which is called "Fixing the Future," includes a visit to Cleveland, where Brancaccio highlights the successes of Evergreen Cooperatives. During the segment, he speaks to Mendrick Addison, a worker-owner of Evergreen Cooperative Laundry, and Ted Howard, one of the model's architects.
For more information click here.
Check local listings for time and channel.
Brandon Chrostowski, GM at L'Albatros restaurant in University Circle, made his way from Detroit to Cleveland -- via Chicago, Paris and New York. Now, you couldn't pry the guy out of here with a crowbar. As usual, you can blame -- or credit -- the move on a girl.
In a spirit reminiscent of progressive outposts like Seattle, Cleveland is becoming a national leader in deconstruction, a movement that treats vacant homes across the region not as an eyesore but a post-natural resource.
baltimore sun salutes symphony's new initiative
Last week we helped spread the word about the Cleveland Orchestra's new Center for Future Audiences, launched with a gift of $20 million from the Maltz Family Foundation. This week, it seems, word is spreading across the national classical music landscape.
Writing in the Baltimore Sun, classical music critic Tim Smith reports, "There's enough bad news in the classical music business that any good news seems extra good. So it is with word from the Cleveland Orchestra, which has launched something called the Center for Future Audiences, an initiative that aims to put into real action what so many people just talk about -- getting new and younger audiences into the concert hall."
The Center for Future Audiences, he explains to his readers, will attack the problem of skyrocketing admission prices with heavily subsidized tickets: deep discounts for the 18-34 set, free tickets to lots of events for children under 18. The orchestra will also arrange for free bus service from some suburbs to the concert hall, a terrific gesture, Smith adds.
"Every step that any orchestra makes to connect to the disconnected is obviously valuable, potentially invaluable," Smith explains. "Orchestras that don't try new things, bold new things, are likely to find themselves not just out of touch, but out of business, in the years ahead."
Read the rest of the sheet music here.
Writing in the Baltimore Sun, classical music critic Tim Smith reports, "There's enough bad news in the classical music business that any good news seems extra good. So it is with word from the Cleveland Orchestra, which has launched something called the Center for Future Audiences, an initiative that aims to put into real action what so many people just talk about -- getting new and younger audiences into the concert hall."
The Center for Future Audiences, he explains to his readers, will attack the problem of skyrocketing admission prices with heavily subsidized tickets: deep discounts for the 18-34 set, free tickets to lots of events for children under 18. The orchestra will also arrange for free bus service from some suburbs to the concert hall, a terrific gesture, Smith adds.
"Every step that any orchestra makes to connect to the disconnected is obviously valuable, potentially invaluable," Smith explains. "Orchestras that don't try new things, bold new things, are likely to find themselves not just out of touch, but out of business, in the years ahead."
Read the rest of the sheet music here.
It's not a sports championship, but in some ways it's just as big. Last
week a consortium of some of the wealthiest banks and foundations in
the world announced that Cleveland would receive major support for
innovative developments that will create hundreds of new jobs where
they're needed most.
The Integration Initiative, by the New York-based Living Cities philanthropic collaborative, will pump almost $15 million in grants, loans and targeted investments into Cleveland. One of five cities chosen, Cleveland impressed the evaluators with plans to leverage the buying power of institutions in and around University Circle -- which spend some $3 billion annually on goods and services -- into new businesses and jobs. And not just any businesses, but innovative, green operations that provide their workers with more than just paychecks.
Some of the funding will be used to start or relocate businesses in the growing Heath-Tech Corridor between University Circle and Cleveland State. Other funds will expand the Evergreen Cooperatives network of employee-owned businesses, all of which meet the institutions' procurement needs in new ways, and satisfy Living Cities' demand for "game-changing" new strategies.
Evergreen Cooperative Laundry, for example, uses far less water than competitors, allowing the institutions to reduce their carbon footprints. The laundry currently employs 28, and will expand to 50. Ohio Solar Cooperative employs 25 -- already exceeding expectations -- and will hire another 50 over the next three years. The Green City Growers hydroponic greenhouse will employ 45 when it opens on East 55th Street later this year.
All Evergreen businesses allow workers to build equity in the company and share in profits. "An 8-, 9- 10-dollar-an-hour job is not really enough to change someone's life," says Lillian Kuri of the Cleveland Foundation, which coordinated the applications to Living Cities. "The ability for wealth creation is absolutely essential to changing neighborhoods."
Five more co-ops are in the pipeline, Kuri says. Two will launch "soon," the other three over the next one to two years.
Many of the foundations that make up Living Cities will be familiar to NPR listeners: the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, The Annie E. Casey Foundation, to name a few. Member banks include Bank of America, Deutche Bank and J.P. Morgan Chase. Cleveland Foundation is an affiliate member.
Source: Cleveland Foundation
Writer: Frank W. Lewis
The Integration Initiative, by the New York-based Living Cities philanthropic collaborative, will pump almost $15 million in grants, loans and targeted investments into Cleveland. One of five cities chosen, Cleveland impressed the evaluators with plans to leverage the buying power of institutions in and around University Circle -- which spend some $3 billion annually on goods and services -- into new businesses and jobs. And not just any businesses, but innovative, green operations that provide their workers with more than just paychecks.
Some of the funding will be used to start or relocate businesses in the growing Heath-Tech Corridor between University Circle and Cleveland State. Other funds will expand the Evergreen Cooperatives network of employee-owned businesses, all of which meet the institutions' procurement needs in new ways, and satisfy Living Cities' demand for "game-changing" new strategies.
Evergreen Cooperative Laundry, for example, uses far less water than competitors, allowing the institutions to reduce their carbon footprints. The laundry currently employs 28, and will expand to 50. Ohio Solar Cooperative employs 25 -- already exceeding expectations -- and will hire another 50 over the next three years. The Green City Growers hydroponic greenhouse will employ 45 when it opens on East 55th Street later this year.
All Evergreen businesses allow workers to build equity in the company and share in profits. "An 8-, 9- 10-dollar-an-hour job is not really enough to change someone's life," says Lillian Kuri of the Cleveland Foundation, which coordinated the applications to Living Cities. "The ability for wealth creation is absolutely essential to changing neighborhoods."
Five more co-ops are in the pipeline, Kuri says. Two will launch "soon," the other three over the next one to two years.
Many of the foundations that make up Living Cities will be familiar to NPR listeners: the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, The Annie E. Casey Foundation, to name a few. Member banks include Bank of America, Deutche Bank and J.P. Morgan Chase. Cleveland Foundation is an affiliate member.
Source: Cleveland Foundation
Writer: Frank W. Lewis