If things seem a little brighter in East Cleveland these days, it may be because of the new streetlights gleaming along a block of Noble Road. General Electric bestowed its first local LED lighting installation on East Cleveland, where GE Lighting has had its headquarters for the past 100 years.

The GE Evolve LED Street Lights could reduce East Cleveland's energy use by several million watts a year, according to the lighting manufacturer. And because the LED lights shine bright, uniform light across a long swath of street and sidewalk, they offer enhanced safety along busy Noble Road. The lights have an estimated service life of 10-plus years.

GE Lighting Solutions recently received a best-in-class award for its Evolve LED street lighting from the U.S. Department of Energy's Next Generation Luminaires competition.

GE is pushing to secure a multimillion-dollar lighting contract for the City of Cleveland. Bids for the project were due to the city on December 1. Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson has vowed to tie energy-efficient lighting installation with job creation in Northeast Ohio by requesting that bidding companies agree to build a plant in Cleveland and bring 350 jobs there.

Could the East Cleveland installation serve as a kind of test drive for GE? GE Lighting president and CEO Michael B. Petra Jr. calls the Evolve streetlights "the perfect fit for the needs of urban municipalities."


SOURCE: City of E. Cleveland; GE Lighting
WRITER: Diane DiPiero

The St. Clair Superior neighborhood welcomed two new businesses recently, a café and a coffee shop, both in former factories, and both indicative of the forces that have been driving development in the area in recent years.

The 30th Street Café opened in Asia Plaza at East 30th and Payne, serving selections from Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese and Chinese cuisines. Owned by the Hom family, prominent local entrepreneurs, Asia Plaza is a two-story retail center that was once a manufacturing plant.

Across Superior, in a warren of brick buildings once devoted to elevator manufacturing, the aptly named Pulley's Coffeehouse is serving beverages and food from Artefino Café to the growing number of people working there. Now known as Tyler Village, the 1.2-million-square-foot, 25-building, 10-acre complex is one of the largest downtown redevelopment projects in the city's history, according to developer Graystone Properties. It currently houses a charter school, Digiknow, APG Office Furnishings, Analiza Medical Lab, Solutions at Work and an office of the Cuyahoga County Board of Developmental Disabilities, whose clients staff Pulley's.

"Tyler is definitely the biggest development [in the neighborhood], and it's driving a lot of the investment," says Jamar Doyle, project manager for the St. Clair Superior Development Corporation. But he adds that there's a history of entrepreneurship in the local Asian-American community, and points to the almost 40 Asian restaurants now serving the area.

St. Clair Superior Development also plans streetscape improvements next year, with grant money from the Northeast Ohio Area Coordinating Agency.


Source: St. Clair Superior Development Corporation
Writer: Frank W. Lewis

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

Whether it's an empty nook in their attic or a corner table at the local Starbuck's, home-based businesspeople are constantly searching for the ideal spot to do research, make phone calls or meet with clients. Come June of 2011, East Side entrepreneurs will be able to take advantage of specially designed space at the Shaker Heights Public Library's main branch on Lee Road.

The Community Entrepreneurial Office -- CEO for short -- will be a pilot program featuring workspace and services for home-based business owners. The Shaker Heights Public Library announced this fall that it had received a $37,645 grant from the state to set up the facilities.

An existing computer area on the library's second floor is being redesigned to make way for 10 workstations and a conference area, which will be available free of charge. Entrepreneurs will also have access to business software. Faxing, photocopying and related services will be fee-based.

"We see that people come here to do certain business and then they have to go elsewhere to finish," notes Margaret Simon, who will head up the library's CEO program. "So we said we'll be the finisher." Home-based entrepreneurs can think of the CEO as a one-stop resource for their businesses, Simon adds.

She says she would like to build a staff around the CEO program as it grows. "My hope is that it will become a self-sustaining business that will generate jobs."

The Shaker Heights Library is in proximity to Shaker Launch House, a business incubator also opening in 2011. Simon is set to meet with developers of Launch House to discuss ways each can help local entrepreneurs. "I think we have parallel services and we can make them intersect," she says.


SOURCE: Margaret Simon
WRITER: Diane DiPIero

Health Information Technology (HIT) is a rapidly emerging field that will likely grow much faster than the average jobs, according to the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Midwest Community College HIT Consortium is designed to ready a trained workforce for jobs in the HIT sector.

The consortium is comprised of 17 large community colleges in 10 Midwest states, and is being led by Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C). Last month, the consortium launched a new website to educate potential students and employers about the training offered through these community colleges. The website lists workforce roles within HIT and the training opportunities available at each community college and through virtual learning.

Executive director of the consortium, Norma Morganti, says that the website is another tool to help the consortium reach its goal of training 2,700 people annually for HIT jobs. "Studies indicate that as many as 50,000 additional HIT professionals may be needed over the next five years," she notes. The consortium was created to support national electronic health records implementation, Morganti adds.

Tri-C received the ARRA/HITECH Grant through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to be the lead college for the consortium. As a result, Tri-C created several short-term, non-credit training programs to fill HIT jobs such as implementation support specialists, clinician/practitioner consultants and technical/software support staff.

Applicants for the short-term programs at Tri-C should have IT or IS experience in a business or health care environment or related work with medical billing, health information management or medical records.


SOURCE: Norma Morganti
WRITER: Diane DiPiero

When Cleveland Heights resident Michael Adams first got serious about making the switch from law to opening a restaurant, he looked at lots of forgettable locations -- "kind of cookie-cutter," he recalls. Then someone told him about a space on the second floor of the Rockefeller Building, at the corner of Mayfeild and Lee roads. For Adams, it was love at first sight.

"It's a gorgeous space," Adams says of the former bank, with its original, well-preserved stone floors, fireplace, plaster walls, oak rafters and soaring ceilings. "A space like that needs to be seen." And, thus, Rockefeller's was born.

The building, which now houses a Starbucks, sporting goods store and other retail on the first floor, was built in the 1930s by John D. Rockefeller Jr., as a commercial center for the family's residential development along the Cleveland Heights-East Cleveland border. Later, Ameritrust Bank occupied the second floor. After Ameritrust went out of business, a kitchen was added and for decades the site was rented out for parties and events.

A portion of the large space will be given over to a bar and lounge (with its own menu), while the rest will be reserved for more upscale dining. Adams, a first-time restaurateur, has hired Jill Vedaa as executive chef. Vedaa's resume includes stints at Lola, Flying Fig, Wine Bar in Rocky River, Mise and Saucy Bistro. Adams promises an American menu, with lots of local food and seasonal changes.

Rockefeller's is scheduled to open on January 11, 2011.


Source: Michael Adams
Writer: Frank W. Lewis

Cleveland's Eaton Corporation is accelerating its presence in the electric car market thanks to a new collaboration with Mitsubishi Motors North America and Best Buy. Eaton will be providing the Level 2 home-charging mechanism for Mitsubishi's i MiEV electric vehicle, which goes on sale in the fall of 2011. Eaton also will provide infrastructural support and Level 2 chargers to all of Mitsubishi's North American dealerships.

Level 2 charging stations are installed in a home garage to help reduce the charging time of lithium-ion battery-powered vehicles.

Eaton will design and manufacture the Level 2 charging station equipment, which will be sold and distributed through Best Buy. In addition, Eaton will be the sole supplier and installer of the Level 2 charging stations required at Mitsubishi dealerships that will be selling the MiEV cars. The company has been developing innovative hybrid and electrical power systems, including electric-vehicle charging infrastructure for commercial vehicles, for more than 20 years.

Rich Stinson, president of power distribution operations for Eaton's Electrical Sector, says that this collaboration between Eaton, Mitsubishi and Best Buy will allow residential drivers "to confidently go about their daily business, without being worried about where and when they will charge their vehicles.


SOURCE: Eaton Corp.
WRITER: Diane DiPiero

You'd be forgiven for thinking that "Indians Snow Days" refers to contingency plans in the event of a repeat of 2007, when the home opener was delayed, and finally called, due to snow. In April. Actually, Snow Days is an entirely different first in Major League Baseball: an off-season theme park inside a stadium, with the theme being wintertime fun.

According to Rob Campbell of the Indians' communications department, Snow Days was inspired by the National Hockey League's surprisingly successful Winter Classic, an outdoor hockey game played each New Year's Day. In its first year, 2008, the game filled Ralph Wilson Stadium in Buffalo, where the Bills play. The 2009 game, played at Chicago's Wrigley Field, set TV ratings records for pro hockey. Last year's match, at Fenway in Boston, was the finale of a Super Bowl-like week of events.

Lacking an NHL franchise, Cleveland would seem to have no chance of attracting the Winter Classic. Still, says Campbell, Dennis Lehman, the Indians' executive vice president for business, and Jim Folk, v.p. for park operations, were intrigued by the notion of opening the gates of Progressive Field in months when it's typically dark and quiet.

Campbell says that a great deal of market research went into determining what would lure folks downtown during the day in winter, a tradition that had gone the way of Higbee's and ice skating on Public Square. Some Metroparks offer snow tubing, and there's an outdoor skating rink at Wade Oval. But Snow Days brings these activities, and others, together in one place -- a place that's surrounded by restaurants and shops. And ultimately, says Campbell, making downtown a wintertime destination again is what it's is all about. Opening weekend attracted more than 6,000 visitors, and the team hopes for more than 50,000 before the whole thing wraps up on January 2.

"They're taking a huge step in [promoting downtown]," says Joe Marinucci, president and CEO of the Downtown Cleveland Alliance. "I'd love to see them expand it beyond the holiday season." That's definitely a possibility next year, Campbell says.

Snow Days was a hot topic at MLB's November meetings, Campbell adds. Once again, Cleveland is a national leader in creative reuse of vacant land.


Source: Cleveland Indians
Writer: Frank W. Lewis

There is no downtown "plan," per se, but there is a hell of a lot going on. The newest piece to the revitalization puzzle is the NineTwelve District, a new identity for the declining business corridor between East 9th and East 12th streets, and Euclid and Lakeside.

The area once known as the financial district "is really going through a change," says Joseph Marinucci, president and CEO of the non-profit development group Downtown Cleveland Alliance. "Change" is a polite way of noting the slow but steady erosion of businesses there, exacerbated by the recession. More than a quarter of the office space is currently vacant, and more major employers -- including Key, Eaton and some law firms -- are expected to leave in the next few years.

Marinucci says the committee of stakeholders that is pushing the NineTwelve plan forward sees a mixed-use community, with more residential options, street-level retail, public spaces, perhaps even trolley service. He likens this thinking to public broadcasting entity ideastream's move to Playhouse Square, which has been beneficial for both.

"Young people especially are looking to be in a more vibrant district," he explains. "They pay attention to the environment they're living and working in."

The project is still in the "visioning" phase, Marinucci notes, and DCA is looking for funding for preliminary elements like branding and the development of public spaces. He warns that patience will be needed: "This is a multi-year strategy. We can't just wave a wand and in 12 months have a new district."


Source: Downtown Cleveland Alliance
Writer: Frank W. Lewis

Wendy Park on Whiskey Island might be Northeast Ohio's greatest greenspace success story. Less than 10 years ago, precious few Clevelanders had ever visited the site, which sits right where the Cuyahoga River meets Lake Erie. Nigh on impossible to get to, and offering little more than volleyball courts, there just wasn't much point. Steady improvements under county ownership have pushed annual visits from about 7,000 in 2006 to more than 200,000 today, and the work is not nearly over.

Last week, ParkWorks, county officials and landscape architects from San Francisco-based Conger Moss Guillard presented three versions of a Wendy Park master plan at a public forum. "I think they'll pull elements from all three that people like," says Justin Glanville of ParkWorks, "and sort of make a Frankenstein version."

The common traits among the plans are beach improvements, restored marsh area and use of solar panels wherever possible. Easier access will be achieved through a pedestrian and bicycle bridge, from the west side of the river and over the railroad tracks. On December 2, the county commissioners are expected to approve a contract with architect Miguel Rosales of Boston.

"This is an incredibly important space," says Paul Alsenas, director of the county planning commission. "There is no other place like it along our shoreline in Cuyahoga County.

Carol Thaler, the planning commission's program officer, adds that public input has shaped this project from the start. "It's a very important statement for the county," she says.

To view and comment on CMG's plans for Wendy Park, visit ParkWorks' web site.



Source: ParkWorks
Writer: Frank W. Lewis

Experts estimate that the global flexible electronics market will grow to $250 billion by 2025. Northeast Ohio wants to ride that wave of innovation and market growth, and a recently unveiled plan for the region to become a global epicenter for the flexible electronics industry will play a part in realizing that goal.

Developed by NorTech, a technology-based economic development organization, The Northeast Ohio Flexible Electronics Road Map outlines strategies and initiatives to develop low-cost manufacturing of electronic devices printed on flexible materials with multiple global market applications. According to the plan, five key initiatives must be met in order for this mission to be successful:

* Identifying and pursuing market opportunities
* Increasing public funding and private investment
* Strengthening cluster alignment, communication and partnering
* Improving visibility and recognition
* Monitoring and reporting cluster growth and outcomes

By establishing a global epicenter for the flexible electronics industry in Northeast Ohio, the region could gain 1,500 jobs, $75 million in payroll and $100 million in capital by 2017.

"Further developing this industry will help us diversify our regional economy and ultimately create jobs, attract capital and have a positive economic impact in Northeast Ohio," says Rebecca O. Bagley, NorTech president and CEO. NorTech partnered with 23 technology and industry experts in the region to develop the Northeast Ohio Flexible Electronics Road Map. In September, NorTech was awarded a $500,000 federal grant to help small businesses that want to be involved in the expansion of the flexible electronics industry in Northeast Ohio.

Read the entire pdf Road Map here.


SOURCE: NorTech
WRITER: Diane DiPiero

Each year, the Golden 30 awards recognizes 15 established and 15 emerging top-performing companies in Erie, Huron and Lorain counties. This year's winners represent a panoply of Northeast Ohio businesses serving consumers, healthcare professionals, military and manufacturing.

Among the 15 emerging companies who received 2010 Golden 30 awards on November 16 were Synapse Biomedical, Inc., maker of the NeuRx Diaphragm Pacing System, which is used in the treatment of chronic respiratory ailments; Military Products Group, manufacturer of lifting and towing components for the military and aerospace industries; and K.M.U. Trucking & Excavating, Inc., which is licensed in 24 cities throughout Ohio and last year had $5 million in sales.

The Golden 30 defines emerging companies as those that have been in business between five and 14 years. Established companies are those in business for 15 or more years.

Established companies recognized by the Golden 30 include Exochem, a 40-year-old company specializing in foundry services and high-quality steel-related products; Jenne Distributors, which distributes business telephony, data, A/V conferencing and security technology products; and North Coast Cancer Care, which was named a Golden 30 winner for the second year in a row.

The Golden 30 Awards are sponsored by Lorain County Community College (LCCC) in cooperation with The Morning Journal and a number of economic development organizations in the region.

You can read about all of the recipients by vising the LCCC website.

SOURCE: LCCC
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 JumpStart Entrepreneurial Network has added a new funding resource as part of its group of entrepreneurial support organizations. The Wooster Opportunities Fund, developed by the City of Wooster and Wooster Growth Corporation, in collaboration with the JumpStart Entrepreneurial Network, will offer loans up to $35,000 for early-stage, high-growth technology companies.

The new loan source is part of an ongoing effort to expand the entrepreneurial community in Wooster, according to Richard Benson, law director for the city and legal counsel for Wooster Growth Corporation. "There are so many new ideas and young companies birthed here, and the fund provides yet another reason for those ideas to turn into big companies right in the City of Wooster."

Entrepreneurs who apply for a loan from the Wooster Opportunities Fund will have at their fingertips additional resources available from the JumpStart Entrepreneurial Network, says John Dearborn, president of JumpStart. The JumpStart Entrepreneurial Network is composed of several Ohio Third Frontier entrepreneurial support organizations that together provide specific resources for young companies looking to grow.

An official launch event for the Wooster Opportunities Fund will take place on Thursday, December 2, from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Olde Jaol Restaurant, 215 N. Walnut St., in Wooster.


SOURCE: JumpStart Entrepreneurial Network
WRITER: Diane DiPiero