University Circle

'gardens that teach' contest imparts to local students the importance of healthy eating
A school garden is a real, living world, a type of lab that offers teachers a way to embed creativity, collaboration and love for nature into their curriculum, believes Carlton Jackson, a farmer, self-described "food evangelist" and proprietor of Tunnel Vision Hoops, a provider of hoop houses that allow for year-round food production.
 
The Cleveland-based company is offering Cuyahoga County public school students grades K-8 a chance to win a hoop house for their school. The Gardens that Teach contest, which runs through February, asks students a series of questions about the preparation, construction and maintenance of a theoretical school garden. Answers will be reviewed by a panel of experts from the realms of food policy, botany and community gardening.
 
The winning school will receive the greenhouse-like hoop house, while the other participants will learn about the benefits of plants, year-round gardening and healthy eating, says Jackson. "We wanted kids to use their math skills," he adds. For example, "how many pounds of tomatoes can they get? What will the do with the food once it's grown?"
 
Hoop houses provide a high-temperature environment that protects crops from strong winds, cold and frost, allowing fruits and vegetables to grow during gardening's so-called "off-season," Jackson says.
 
The concept also is in line with the city's Sustainable Cleveland 2019 project, a movement that in part aims to increase the percentage of locally produced food. Mayor Frank Jackson also proclaimed October 24 to be Food Day, a national venture with the overriding objective of "eating real" and promoting healthy diets among the population.
 
The Gardens That Teach contest is certainly a nourishing exercise for Northeast Ohio's young students, says Jackson.
 
"There's a wonderment in watching something grow," he says. "If we can kids back to that, it would be a beautiful thing."
 

SOURCE: Carlton Jackson
WRITER: Douglas J. Guth
cle clinic announces top 10 medical innovations for 2013
Writing for Huffington Post, Debra Sherman covers the recent announcement by the Cleveland Clinic of the "Top 10 Medical Innovations that will have a major impact on improving patient care within the next year."

"The best medical innovations for next year include an almond-size device that's implanted in the mouth to relieve severe headaches and a hand-held scanner resembling a blow dryer that detects skin cancer, the Cleveland Clinic said on Wednesday," the story says.

"But leading the 2013 list for innovations is an old procedure that has a new use due to findings in a recent study. Physicians and researchers at the clinic voted weight-loss surgery as the top medical innovation, not for its effectiveness in reducing obesity, but for its ability to control Type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease."

Also on the list: A hand-held device used to detect melanoma, a new type of mammography, new drugs to treat advanced prostate cancer, and a new technique to repair and regenerate damaged lungs.

Read the rest here.
fast co. praises design work of cia prof that repurposes material
"It’s a shame. Amidst the financiapocalypse, Cleveland, Ohio, has 13,000 homes and other structures in such disrepair that they need to be torn down. It’s a $4 billion job. And at least one designer is trying to find the bright side," writes Mark Wilson for Fast Co.

"Daniel Cuffaro, department chair at the Cleveland Institute of Art and founder of Abeo Design, has created a modular workspace called the Hive Workstation. It’s similar to the premium corporate furnishings offered by companies like Steelcase, but there’s a key difference: Hive is built from the failed housing projects of Cleveland itself."

“The fabricators make it look easy," Cuffaro is quoted in the article. "But I know it is not. The primary benefit is the quality of the material--this is old-growth quarter-sawn pine and fir . . . that has qualities of hard wood.”

Read (and see) the rest here.
chef doug katz unveils provenance at cleveland museum of art
Doug Katz, chef-owner of Fire Food and Drink at Shaker Square, has partnered with Bon Appetit Management Company to open Provenance, a new restaurant and cafe at the Cleveland Museum of Art that blends locally sourced food with world cuisine.

"The name is so perfect for what I'm trying to create here," says Katz. The word provenance refers to the history of the ownership of an object. "We want to know where our food comes from just as the museum knows the lineage of its art, where it comes from and its authenticity."

Katz, whom museum head David Franklin calls CMA's "curator of food," says that Provenance actually is two venues in one. The 200-seat cafe offers quick service, while the 76-seat restaurant next door is a fine-dining establishment. Yet both offer made-to-order items carefully orchestrated by the celebrated chef.

The restaurant offers a limited menu of seven items emphasizing world cuisine. For instance, in tandem with CMA's exhibition "Wari: Lord of the Ancient Andes," Katz has designed a three-course prix fixe menu of Peruvian dishes. The cafe features world cuisine as well, but with a decidedly local flair. Right now, for example, visitors can order a Moroccan skewer platter with autumn vegetables. The chef makes a concerted effort to source much of his produce from area farmers.

The pastries are made from scratch by Luna Bakery, and Rising Star provides the coffee. "We're able to do all these things fresh, yet also support local businesses."

When asked about the source of his inspiration, Katz says, "We want it to be the quality of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, or of some European cafe somewhere. Yet I don't think there's a concept like this anywhere, to be honest."

The cafe's sleekly designed interior is attractive, but likely the best seats are at the tables near the museum's vast new atrium. "It's like a town center in University Circle. To see it come alive, it's such a great community spot."


Source: Doug Katz
Writer: Lee Chilcote
info not ads: how content marketing is connecting with healthcare consumers
Content marketing -- creating and distributing content (not ads) to drive customer action -- is big business. And in the healthcare field, it's even bigger, with nearly 90 percent of all healthcare businesses leveraging content marketing. In preparation for the upcoming Content Marketing World Health Summit (November 7-8, 2012 in Cleveland), event organizer Chris Seper explores the trend with Joe Pulizzi, founder of the Content Marketing Institute.
erie hospital inks affiliation deal with cleveland clinic
“St. Vincent Health Center in Erie said Tuesday [October 23] that it reached a clinical affiliation agreement with Cleveland Clinic’s Heart and Vascular Institute,” writes Alex Nixon of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
 
The agreement will allow physicians at the Erie hospital to have access to Cleveland Clinic’s advanced research, technology, and techniques in an effort to provide better care for their patients.
 
“The clinical affiliation 'means that patients in the Erie region who are diagnosed with heart disease will be given the highest level of quality heart care, incorporating the resources, research and practices of the nation’s leading heart program,' the hospital said in a statement,” writes Nixon.
 
The deal is not an acquisition for the Cleveland Clinic but rather the rights for St. Vincent Health Center to use its name and access to clinical services.
 
Read the full story here.
cleveland named among top rust belt travel destinations for canadians
“With a flourishing theatre scene, beautifully restored Art Deco buildings and a burgeoning farm-to-table culinary movement, it’s hard to believe that this town ever served as a punch line,” writes Tim Johnson of the Toronto Star.
 
Fellow Rust Belt cities of Detroit and Pittsburgh also are highlighted in this travel piece that boasts how these three cities have emerged from industrial oblivion to become havens for artists, designers, and others that are fighting to bring these tired cities back to life.
 
“Their factories are now a haven for artists and designers, or hosts for living history tours," he notes. "Their rivers, one of which caught on fire in 1969 (the Cuyahoga), have been cleaned up. All three are home to several worthwhile attractions — if you know where to look.”
 
His piece details must-see attractions such as The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, the Terminal Tower, the West Side Market and Ohio City, the Cleveland Metroparks, and mentions The Greenhouse Tavern and Cowell and Hubbard as prime eateries.
 
Read the tale of three cities here.
cleveland's biomed cluster highlighted in bloomberg
Writing for Bloomberg Businessweek, Harold Sirkin states that "Industry clusters have been around for a very long time, serving as a catalyst for economic growth. Think: Detroit in the U.S. auto industry’s heyday, Pittsburgh when steelmaking was king, Silicon Valley for tech, Research Triangle Park, Wall Street, and even Hollywood. They are all examples -- past or present -- of the phenomenon."

He adds that "What makes clusters unique is not just that companies with similar or complementary interests, competencies, and needs congregate around each other. It’s that an entire value chain exists within a cluster: suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, academic institutions, researchers, and workforce training, as well as those who provide relevant support services."

Regarding Cleveland he notes "The Cleveland area is becoming a hub for the biomedical industry."

Read it all here.
video interview with chris coburn of cleveland clinic innovations
In this video, Chris Coburn, Executive Director of Cleveland Clinic Innovations, explains how the organization takes the intellectual assets of the Cleveland Clinic -- be they medical devices, diagnostics, or drugs -- and turns them into commercial products. With names like Cleveland Heart, Explorys, and Juventas Therapeutics, its track record is impressive.
bioenterprise, austen bioinnovation work as one to propel healthcare tech in region
Let's imagine that the Northeast Ohio healthcare innovation community is a football team. That would make business recruiter BioEnterprise the quarterback, "handing off" startup companies to Austen BioInnovation Institute in Akron, with an aim of scoring funding and resources a company needs to succeed. 
 
Strained metaphors aside, BioEnterprise and Austen are two local groups working as a team to push a regional economic transition from staid manufacturing to the more vibrant realm of healthcare and innovation technology. What exactly do these groups do and how do they do it? How do they work together to achieve their goals? Key members from each organization share their connected strategies.
 
Providing a guiding hand
 
BioEnterprise is a Cleveland nonprofit tasked with growing healthcare companies and commercializing bioscience technologies. The early-stage firms BioEnterprise assists are seeking to produce medical devices and biotechnology, or developing drugs for commercial use.
 
The economic development group was founded in 2002 by the Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals and Case Western Reserve University as a way to harness area strengths in medical devices and healthcare technology. The nonprofit's foray into a potentially lucrative "innovation economy" is built by guiding new companies, not funding them, says interim president Aram Nerpouni.
 
Read the rest here...
five cle plus healthcare companies poised for greatness
Thanks to Northeast Ohio's collaborative medical startup community, one fueled by forward-looking economic organizations and angel investors, entrepreneurs with viable ideas are making waves. Here are five Cleveland and Akron healthcare companies poised to be the Next Big Thing.
mag for meeting planners points travelers to cleveland
Writing for Meetings Focus, a publication geared to professional meeting planners, Kelsey Farabee writes that "Northeast Ohio is booming. New venues and hotels are sprouting up throughout the region and visitors are pouring in, so planners seeking an energetic, bustling host city should look no further than the seat of Cuyahoga County."

The article, titled "Cure for the Common City," describes at length all the recent development that has taken place over the past few years. Mentioned within are the Medical Mart and convention center, "Cleveland’s burgeoning food scene," and Horseshoe Casino Cleveland.

Also described is the new Museum of Contemporary Art, about which Farabee writes, "Adding to the city’s cultural panache is the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Cleveland, which unveiled an enormous $350 million expansion this month. The new 34,000-square-foot structure has a distinctive mirrored exterior and is 44 percent larger than the museum’s previous location. The four-story building has a startling geometric footprint, rising from a hexagonal base to a square top, with exhibitions and space for public programs on all four floors."

Read the rest right here.
cle-based startups are attracting venture capital in record amounts
Whether it is health care, information technology, clean tech or business and consumer products, our region’s increased level of startup activity is attracting funding from venture capital firms both here in Northeast Ohio and beyond. But experts say there's a ways to go before the Silicon Valley comparisons stick.
thinking outside the box is easy at multi-million dollar invention center think[box]
When Case's think[box] is completed, it will be one of largest university-based invention centers in the world, bigger even than Stanford's d. school, MIT's Fab Lab, or Rice's Design Kitchen. It’s a venture that has the potential to play a major role in spurring innovation in the region, say local educators and entrepreneurs.
w magazine devotes serious ink to moca and its architect
In the article "Build It and They Will Come," Alice Rawsthorn writing for W Magazine proffers a lengthy piece on Cleveland's brand new Museum of Contemporary Art and its world-famous architect, Farshid Moussavi.

"There’s a new kind of theater in Cleveland," Rawsthorn begins. "If you stand outside the city’s just built Museum of Contemporary Art, you can watch its walls change color with the light. When the sun shines directly onto their black mirrored steel, the six walls will look blue -- the brighter the sun, the more vivid the hue -- but if the sky clouds over, they will darken to black, just as they will when the sun moves around the building. And as each of them stands at a different angle, each reflects a different image of what is happening around it."

“It’s as if the building is performing for you,” Farshid Moussavi is quoted as saying. “There are some amazing moments, when the distorted reflections produce a kind of new reality.”

Moving to the interior of the stunning structure, Rawsthorn writes, "While the tone is set by the building’s constantly changing facade, there are playful touches inside, where visitors are invited to ­observe the daily life of the museum and its staff in a series of impromptu performances: They can peek through glass walls into the art-handling area, delivery bay, and other behind-the-scenes spaces usually hidden from the public. If they walk to the top of the spectacular steel staircase, they can look down into the main gallery to catch an aerial view of the artworks or watch the installation of new shows. But the grand finale is the ceiling of those galleries, which is painted in the same deep blue as those of ancient Egyptian tombs. It resembles the night sky, with the gallery lights shining like stars."

Read the rest of art-y-facts here.
columbus food writer full of love for cleveland culinary scene
Following a recent trip to Cleveland, where apparently he visited half the restaurants in town, notable Columbus food blogger Jim Ellison of CMH Gourmand filed a glowing dispatch.
 
"I am at the halfway point in my Palette to Palate Tour of Cleveland with Positively Cleveland. I am touring with writers from LA, Detroit, Baltimore, Toronto and Columbus. Our collective opinion so far, we love Cleveland. Not a big surprise for most of us. What might be a surprise is that in spite of all I am doing, there is so much more to do and see and especially eat, that I am not even scratching the surface of this city."
 
Later he adds, "In the back of my mind, I can’t avoid the inclination to compare and contrast Columbus with Cleveland. My track record shows that I am a champion of my city of birth but on this trip, even though not completed, I will say that the culinary community of Cleveland kicks that of Columbus in the ass. Cleveland may have a little more in the quantity, I would say a head to head tie for quality, but where the win occurs in the spirit of collaboration and cheerleading among chefs here for each other and a desire to keep raising the bar."
 
His dizzying schedule included stops at Greenhouse Tavern, Spaces Gallery, Sweet Moses, Muse in the Ritz Carlton, Ohio City Urban Farm, West Side Market, Sokolowski’s, Crop Bistro, Cleveland Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, and many more.
 
Read his missive here.
msn travel writer calls cleveland 'america's big comeback story'
Writing for MSN Travel, Ken Hegan, a screenwriter and journalist, calls Cleveland "America's big comeback story."

"Never thought I'd ever say this but I just fell in love with Cleveland, Ohio. Now I kinda want to move there," he writes.

Following a brief and painful history lesson, Hegan gets to the good stuff:

"The city's entering a period of 'unprecedented growth. The river's cleaned up, there's a thriving medical industry, houses are cheap, artists can rent old brick warehouse spaces for the price of a Manhattan coffee, the city's enjoying a culinary boom, plus there's a museum devoted to polka music and a festival celebrating duct tape."

"The city's rebuilding and expanding with billions of dollars in new tourism infrastructure that includes a $26-million Museum of Art, new boutique hotels, a new medical convention center... The city is also looking forward to hosting the Summer National Senior Games (July 2013), and The International Gay Games (2014)."

Hegan closes with a bold assertion:

"If I was an artist in America right now (or anyone who wants to live cheaply in The Next Great American City), I wouldn't pay a fortune to starve in Brooklyn. Instead, I'd live like a king, rent an inexpensive brick Cleveland studio, and turn that into a factory of art."

Read the rest here.
rta breaks ground on redevelopment of cedar-university rapid station
The Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (RTA) has broken ground on an $18.5 million redevelopment of its Cedar-University rapid station that will make it safer, easier to navigate, more efficient and more inviting. RTA officials hope it will become a stronger hub for the growing University Circle area and its surrounding neighborhoods.

"It will look a heck of a lot better," says Mary Shaffer, Media Relations Manager with RTA, of the project's impact. "It is safe and functioning now, but there will be a greater sense of security. We want to help people in the community to be able to recommend RTA."

The current Cedar-University rapid station was built nearly 50 years ago. The facility's layout requires a long walk to transfer between bus and rail, and greater efficiency and easier connections will offer a huge improvement, Shaffer says.

"We'll have bus and rail on the same side of the street, and that will make it a lot easier for transfers," says Shaffer. "Behind Tower City and Windermere/Stokes, this is the largest bus-rail transfer station that we have in the RTA network."

The glassy new station will also be more attractive and welcoming. "When you have things like MOCA coming into the area, having a state-of-the-art rail/bus station in the heart of the University Circle area is really a positive thing."

RTA won a $10.5 million competitive TIGER II grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation to be able to complete the project. The agency also contributed $4 million from its own capital budget and raised money from other local sources.

The station is actually the first of two newly revamped stations in the University Circle area. The University Circle-Little Italy station is next to be redeveloped, and that project was recently funded by a federal transportation grant, as well.

The Cedar-University station will incorporate additional green space and public art. RTA will also increase the frequency of its train service to serve local riders.

Shaffer says that RTA is now seeing the 17th straight month of growth in overall ridership. The Red Line leads the pack. She says this is attributable to higher gas prices and new development in Cleveland that is making it harder to find parking.

"This is most likely attributable to people who are making the decision to ride," says Shaffer. "They want to avoid the Innerbelt or see a lack of parking in University Circle or by the Clinic. We're glad to be a solution for them."


Source: Mary Shaffer
Writer: Lee Chilcote
atlantic cities likes new museum -- but loves university circle
In an article titled, "In Cleveland, a Flashy New Museum But an Even Better Neighborhood," the Atlantic Cities inspects the eds, meds, and cultural facilitiesthat are making University Cicle thrive.

In addition the new Museum of Contemporary Art, about which the writer says, "the sophisticated, gem-shaped museum reminds visitors that Cleveland can still build the kinds of flashy cultural toys associated with bigger, wealthier cities," the real praise is reserved for its neighborhood.

"MOCA Cleveland may make the loudest design statement, but it's far from the only symbol of bold, 21st century urbanism in the University Circle neighborhood."

"The neighborhood has seen a diverse set of investments, including high density residential projects, new medical facilities and academic buildings, even multiple public transit initiatives. University Circle now stands out as a diverse hub of activity in a city clamoring for such things."

Citing university, medical, cultural, and transit facilities as fuel for the recent economic development, the writer calls University Circle, "a Rust Belt planner’s dream of a modern-day economic hub."

Read the rest here.