The Experience Lakewood app recently launched, linking users to information on businesses, dining, shopping and recreation in the city. The app can be downloaded from iTunes for free on any Apple-compatible device.

While business and shopping apps are becoming more plentiful, Experience Lakewood's focus on one particular city makes it unique, according to Barb Cagley, president of Cleveland's SCK Design, which created the app for Lakewood Alive, in partnership with the Lakewood Chamber of Commerce. "Regional apps are a newer trend," she says.

Another factor setting the Experience Lakewood app apart is that the content is controlled by the individual businesses. "The common platform for apps is to pull data that is generic and available to the public or provided by the user. This twist of control by businesses allows them to update their message, specials and events in real time," Cagley says.

Creating user-, community- and business-friendly apps has become more of a focus for the six-member SCK team, which has also built a reputation in creating websites, custom content management and SEO programs for the likes of Bedford Labs  and Cleveland Clinic Pharmacy. Last fall, SCK unveiled Experience Tremont. A Shop Legacy app for Legacy Village was recently released, and SCK is currently working on an Experience Kamm's Corners app.

No estimate is available on how many people may take advantage of the Experience Lakewood app. "The only data we can draw from is the Experience Tremont app," Cagley says. "After six months, over 5,000 people have downloaded it."


SOURCE: Barb Cagley
WRITER: Diane DiPiero

A temporary gallery that was launched last year by the Cleveland Institute of Art (CIA) has extended its lease for the spring semester. The Visual Arts and Technology Center, dubbed "the Coventry Center" because of its location in a long-empty storefront on Coventry Road in Cleveland Heights, will enhance CIA's connections off-campus, its founder says.

"Many of our students live in the area, and Coventry has a long history of arts involvement," says Saul Ostrow, Chair of the Visual Arts and Technologies Department. "One of our goals is to bring the arts out of their academic environment, and to offer a resource for the community."

The center also shows CIA's commitment to expanding its campus boundaries and giving students opportunities to create art in a real world setting, says Ostrow. "We want to go beyond gallery walls and build ties with the community," he says.

On Friday, February 18th from 7-9 pm, the center, which is located at 1854 Coventry Road, will host a poetry and storytelling slam as part of "Cleveland Stories," a partnership between the Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative and CIA's Reinberger Galleries that seeks to "investigate the real and imagined history of Cleveland."

Future gallery events will include open studios, sidewalk art shows, and an exhibit of Cleveland charter school students' artwork to be curated by CIA students. The center will be open Friday-Sunday beginning in February.

Those who are interested in contributing urban histories -- real or imagined -- to the Cleveland Stories project can visit http://www.cudc.kent.edu for guidelines.


Source: Saul Ostrow
Writer: Lee Chilcote

Alex Tapie has always wanted to open an art gallery, the kind of space that provides young, emerging artists with an opportunity to show their work to an audience.

"I wanted to create a space that was interactive and that would demystify the art experience," says Tapie, a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Art. "A collective gallery, studio and venue space."

She mentioned the idea to fellow artists Brian Straw, Dan Price and Suzanne Cofer. "We all clicked creatively," Tapie says. Survival Kit art gallery was born.

The gallery opened with a bang in December, attracting over 200 people to its first show. Rotating exhibits and events, including music and craft fairs, are planned for 2011. On Friday and Saturday, Jan. 21-22, Survival Kit will host the 4th Coast Pop Up Market, an exhibit by local artists, designers and vendors that features art, vintage clothing and music.

Getting to this point wasn't easy, say the owners. To turn vision into reality, Tapie and her cohorts first had to find a space. They stumbled upon the perfect location, a 4,500-square-foot space in the 78th Street Studios, a hub for arts-related businesses in the Detroit Shoreway neighborhood, which Tapie labels "a great arts community."

The problem was that the space was "trashed." Tapie talked the landlord into letting her fix it up in exchange for cheap -- even free -- rent. The artists spent five months cleaning trash and debris, scraping tile, painting floors and building walls.

As for the name, Tapie says it's fitting because the gallery is a creative lifeline for young artists seeking community here. "We started joking around that this project was our survival kit -- that we could survive collectively," Tapie says. "The name just fit." And stuck.


Source: Alex Tapie
Writer: Lee Chilcote

Prfessor.com officially launched this year, beckoning anybody who knows something about a subject to create an online course for the benefit of others. According to Jim Kukral, one of three owners of the Rocky River-based e-learning curriculum designer, "hundreds of thousands of visitors and students have experienced Prfessor." Topics currently on the site range from marketing to green living.

Now Prfessor is promoting the use of its online resource for businesses that want to educate staff without the expense and time-consuming nature of classroom-style training. Prfessor offers corporations, small businesses and nonprofits a variety of advanced interactive tools designed to encourage self-paced learning.

This style of training benefits both employer and employee, according to Kukral. " "Prfessor.com helps you control your costs as you improve the quality of your staff and they, in turn, improve profits by doing their jobs better selling more products, providing better customer service and leading their teams effectively," he says. "Prfessor allows anyone, without tech skills, to go out and teach what they know."

Businesses and organizations can take advantage of Prfessor by signing up online to create unlimited courses, develop quizzes to gauge students' understanding of topics and make use of A/V, PowerPoint and graphics to stimulate the learning process.

Kukral foresees strong growth in Prfessor's future, thanks to ever-expanding use of the Internet for educational purposes. "The market for education online is growing by leaps and bounds," Kukral says. Prfessor is designed to encourage users to "empty your head onto the Web," he adds.


SOURCE: Jim Kukral, Prfessor.com
WRITER: Diane DiPiero

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

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

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

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

Hundreds of Northeast Ohioans bike to work downtown. Many more surely would, but for the challenges that present themselves upon arrival -- like parking and, well, sweating. But next year the city will have an answer to those deterrents: The Bike Rack, set to open next spring in the ground level of the parking garage at East 4th and High streets, between Harry Buffalo restaurant and Quicken Loans Arena. Ground was broken there in late October.

Modeled on bike stations in Europe and a growing number of American cities, The Bike Rack will offer bike commuters secure parking, lockers and facilities for showering and changing. The site will also rent bicycles, and the staff will include a technician who can help with repairs.

Kevin Cronin of Cleveland Bikes, which worked with the Jackson administration to develop the project, says that long-term goals include establishing relationships with hotels and promoting bike tours, to tap into the expanding bicycle tourism market.

"These are the things that open up when you have these sorts of facilities," he says. He also hopes that the project will raise awareness of biking among residents, and galvanize the bike community to rally for more bike-friendly infrastructure. A similar station in Chicago has been so popular, Cronin says, that plans for a second are under way.

The Downtown Cleveland Alliance will administer the site, and recently posted the job of operations manager. Cleveland Public Art is overseeing the design of the façade.




Source: Cleveland Bikes
Writer: Frank W. Lewis

Last summer, planners in the Cleveland, Akron and Youngstown areas spent two intense months assembling a consortium of 21 public- and private-sector entities and applying for a new type of grant available from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Now the real work begins.

Last week HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan visited the Cleveland-based offices of the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency (NOACA) to announce that the consortium had been awarded $4.25 million dollars available through the Sustainable Communities Initiative. The initiative is part of the Obama administration's Partnership for Sustainable Communities, which seeks to coordinate the efforts of HUD, the EPA and the U.S. Department of Transportation in helping cities rebuild. The Northeast Ohio Consortium for a Regional Plan for Sustainable Development, as the 21-member group is called, was one of 45 chosen for a grant.

The money will allow the consortium to set up and oversee a private nonprofit that will explore ways in which the 12 counties — and nearly 500 municipalities — of the Cleveland, Akron and Youngstown regions can work together, according to Sara Maier, senior planner for NOACA. The three-year study "will give us a tool box of what we can do as a region moving forward," Maier explains. Issues like housing, sustainability, transportation and economic competitiveness, she adds, "don't stop at county lines."

As for the longterm goal, the application stated it thusly: "We envision a "Green City on a Blue Lake.' Over the last decade many factors have converged to make now the optimal time for the 12 counties, four [metropolitan planning organizations] and more than 480 governments in Northeast Ohio to unite for the purpose of planning for sustainable development. It is over the last decade that we have come to accept the reality that our economy is truly regional."

Participants hailing from Cleveland include officials from NOACA, Cuyahoga County, the City of Cleveland, Cleveland State University's Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs, the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority and the Fund for Our Economic Future (which organized the application effort).

Consortium members have also pledged more than $2 million in matching grants, exceeding the HUD requirement.




Source: NOACA
Writer: Frank W. Lewis

Domokur Architects, based in Akron since 1979, has expanded into Cleveland via a merger with Tremont-based Michael Augoustidis.

"We like the neighborhood," says Linsey Domokur, who handles business development, "and we like having a Cleveland presence." The new office, at Starkweather and Professor, will house three new hires, including a specialist in the healthcare industry.

The firm's healthcare portfolio includes the Geneva Medical Center addition at University Hospitals, Akron City Hospital's Palliative Care Pavillion and Chardon Surgery Center. The firm has also designed several buildings for the J.M. Smucker Company in Orrville , the Cleveland Metroparks' Canal Way Visitors' Center and the Conneaut Public Library.

Domokur also opened a Chicago office in September.




Source: Domokur
Writer: Frank W. Lewis