The 22-unit Sylvia apartment building has been an eyesore ever since it became vacant two years ago. When its owner died unexpectedly, leaving nobody to care for the property, Detroit Shoreway neighbors watched as the vacant building, which is nestled mid-block on Franklin Boulevard, fell into disrepair.

Beginning this fall, however, nearby homeowners should have something to celebrate: The Sylvia is slated to receive a $3 million makeover that will preserve this historic structure while adding new neighbors to this well-kept block.

The Sylvia, which features a brick facade, hardwood floors, built-in kitchen display cases, and Tudor archways and doorways, will be reduced to an 18-unit, mixed income building following a complete renovation by the Detroit Shoreway Community Development Organization (DSCDO).

Jenny Spencer, Project Manager with DSCDO, says the Sylvia is part of a neighborhood-wide revitalization trend spurred by the nonprofit's work to preserve its mixed-income character while adding new development. In the past several decades, DSCDO has purchased and renovated 13 historic properties.

"By acquiring, stabilizing and rehabbing multi-family buildings, we've been able to eliminate a lot of our slum and absentee landlord problem," says Spencer. "We've also provided safe, decent, affordable housing and preserved our housing stock."

DSCDO plans to hold a groundbreaking ceremony on Thursday, October 6th. The renovation is being funded with Neighborhood Stabilization Fund dollars through the Cuyahoga County Land Reutilization Corporation and the City of Cleveland, historic tax credits from Huntington National Bank and a bridge loan from the Ohio Capital Corporation for Housing. Enterprise Community Partners and Village Capital Corporation provided predevelopment financing.


Source: Jenny Spencer
Writer: Lee Chilcote

In Cleveland, some wide-eyed literary activists are launching a new form of creative writing workshops. Not only will these programs measurably improve the writing and verbal skills of the students who enroll, they are inspiring youth to discover worlds beyond their own. In turn, these programs very well might be providing the keys to future success.

Theravasc, a Cleveland based research and development company that focuses on repurposing existing drugs for other uses, has just completed a phase I clinical trial on reversing the effects of peripheral artery disease (PAD) in diabetic patients.
 
Patients with PAD have in the past had little hope for treatment, let alone a cure – until Theravasc started researching the effect of a drug used to treat cyanide poisoning. The drug, called TV1001, showed promise in the trial, which included 12 diabetic patients.
 
“People with PAD can’t walk and are in pain, and there’s nothing doctors can do,” explains Tony Giordano, Theravasc president and CEO. “This drug causes new blood vessels to grow in that leg, and only that leg. In animal studies it was doing exactly what we wanted it to do.”
 
The next step is a IIA trial followed by a third trial, to test the effects of giving the drug chronically. Giordano says if all goes well, TV1001 would hit the market in 2015. He thinks about his father-in-law and a 84-year old Shreveport, LA woman who was ranked seven on the tennis circuit – both affected by PAD – when he thinks about the positive possibilities of the drug.
 
“I think there’s a high likelihood that we’re going to see success in humans,” Giordano says. “I think this is going to work, and I know this is not going to hurt them. It will give them an opportunity to lead a better life and start walking again. I’m excited about that.”
 
Source: Tony Giordano
Writer: Karin Connelly

Quality Electrodynamics (QED) was one of the local recipients of Ohio Third Frontier funding for the development of an imaging system that will improve the way doctors evaluate whether a kidney is viable for donation.
 
The Cleveland-based company, working with the Cleveland Clinic’s Glickman Urological Institute, CWRU, Toshiba Medical Systems and Canon, received $1 million for the development of specialty MRI coils for imaging donor kidneys before transplant to determine viability.
 
Currently, potentially viable kidneys are sometimes rejected for transplant, or there are complications after transplant. This technology will improve the chances of success as well as reduce the number of kidneys that are thrown away.
 
“The program will result in a turnkey system of equipment, analysis software and clinical protocols which will be marketed to transplant centers on a worldwide basis,” says John L. Patrick, chief technical marketing officer for QED.

“Recipients of kidneys from deceased donors would benefit in several ways: Higher confidence level that the transplanted kidney can be viable and better knowledge of its condition; increase of transplanted kidneys by reducing the number of viable kidneys discarded will increase the number of patients able to benefit from transplantation.”
 
Patrick says the technology should be on the market in less than two years, depending on how clinical trials go. QED expects to begin hiring additional people for development of the technology in the next few months.

“In the proposal we stated that 38 jobs would be created at QED within 3 years,” says Patrick. “In fact, we believe that number to be quite conservative.”
 
 
Source: John L. Patrick
Writer: Karin Connelly

Four Northeast Ohio organizations are one group of just 20 national winners of the Obama administration's $37 million Jobs and Innovation Accelerator Challenge, a multi-agency competition to support the advancement of high-growth industry clusters across the country.
 
NorTech, JumpStart, MAGNET and Lorain County Community College came together to cooperatively apply for the $2 million grant that will help create jobs in the region. The program, the Northeast Ohio Speed-To-Market Accelerator (STMA), is designed to accelerate the speed-to-market for near-production or pilot-production prototypes in the advanced energy and flexible electronics industry clusters in Northeast Ohio.
 
The fact that the groups collaborated on the project is no surprise.

“There’s a history of organization in this region -- we work together collaboratively all the time,” says Cathy Belk, chief relationship officer with JumpStart. “The fact that we already knew each other made it easy to identify the needs and work together on the proposal.”
 
Each organization will assist in its area of expertise, from company advising to workforce development. The STMA consists of three components, explains Byron Clayton, vice president of NorTech. “The first step is holding outreach workshops to let companies know the service areas we are targeting. The second step is one-on-one counseling and a path-to-market analysis. The third step is to deliver the services.”
 
Aside from offering expertise and guidance, the four groups plan to speed up the jobs creation process within new companies. “We are asking what can we do to help you to speed this process up,” says Clayton. “We’re working together as a region, as a network of nationally-recognized organizations.”

 
Sources: Cathy Belk, Byron Clayton
Writer: Karin Connelly

Thanks to the volunteers at this year's Cleveland GiveCamp, there is now a downloadable app for local foods information in Northeast Ohio. The free app brings together information on community gardens, orchards, farms, community-supported agriculture (CSA) programs, U-pick locations, and farmers markets and stands into a single, easy-to-browse format.

Nicole Wright of the Ohio State University Extension Urban Agriculture Program says the Harvest NEO app is available on iTunes and will soon be available to Android users, too.

"It's a simple tool that brings together information on different types of local food locations," she says. "It generates a map based on your current location when it opens, and you can search either using the map or by an alphabetical listing."

The OSU Extension submitted an application for the Harvest NEO app to Cleveland GiveCamp earlier this year. The annual weekend event, whose tag line is "geeks in the home of rock and roll coding for charity," is part of a national effort to connect technology professionals with the needs of local nonprofits.

This year, Cleveland GiveCamp was held on July 29th at the offices of LeanDog and Arras, technology and marketing companies that are investing over $500,000 to renovate the former Hornblower's floating barge into state-of-the-art offices.

Wright says that OSU Extension will soon export a local foods map to its website so that the information is available in one place for web users, too. The nonprofit is also committed to improving the Harvest NEO app's functionality over time. Ideas for improvement include adding the ability to search by category.

"Hopefully, it is a tool that can help people become more involved and engaged with local foods, either by growing it or purchasing it," says Wright.


Source: Nicole Wright
Writer: Lee Chilcote

Ben Faller and Jesse Honsky's aim was to restore their home on E. 128th Street between Larchmere and Shaker boulevards to its original character based upon photographs they'd uncovered. Vinyl siding, noxious and non-recyclable, was an unfortunate side effect. Painstakingly removing the siding from their home, they knew, regrettably, that the chemical-laden strips likely would end up in a landfill.

Was there another option?

That's when one of their neighbors came up with the idea of turning it into a work of art. Katharyne Starinsky, founder and co-chair of the Neighborhoods of Shaker Square Home Tour, contacted a local artist and got the ball rolling.

"We wanted to find a way to celebrate what they were doing while also promoting green living," says Starinsky.

She contacted Tremont artist Ian Petroni, who was immediately intrigued by the proposal. "I told her that I loved the opportunity but that I hated vinyl siding, and she said, 'That's exactly the point,'" recalls Petroni.

The artist's provocative sculpture, entitled 'Invasive Species,' refashions the strips of yellow siding into a bountiful and oddly beautiful vinyl jungle that shoots up from Faller's and Honsky's front lawn like a rapacious, fast-growing plant.

"I decided to call it 'invasive species' because it doesn't fit into the historic environment and because it chokes out other species," explains Petroni. "I wanted to get people to start thinking about the drawbacks of vinyl siding."

Petroni was not only concerned with the impact of vinyl siding on the character of historic neighborhoods, but also with its toxic effect on the environment. "The production of vinyl is dangerous to people and ecosystems," he says.

Since its installation, the sculpture has been a conversation starter as well as a popular draw during the home tour. "It's like a Christmas lighting display, the way the cars slow down as they drive along 128th," says Starinsky with a laugh.

Neighbors on the street have begun to approach the homeowners about buying portions of the sculpture to install in their yards. Starinsky says she hopes to eventually sell the sculpture as a fundraiser for the home tour.

Within the next 7 to 10 days, Petroni plans to move the sculpture to the side yard of Felice, a popular restaurant in the neighborhood. There, spectators will be able to gawk at it throughout fall. (Hopefully it won't cause accidents.)


Source: Ian Petroni, Katharyne Starinsky
Writer: Lee Chilcote

JumpStart will celebrate the region’s entrepreneurs at the Northeast Ohio Entrepreneur Expo and JumpStart Community Meeting on Tuesday, October 25 at the John S. Knight Center in Akron. The event will feature high-growth entrepreneurs, student entrepreneurs and investors. 

Organizers have signed up 20 entrepreneurs to exhibit their companies, and expect almost 80 by the time of the event. Three hundred people have already signed up to attend the event.
 
Entrepreneurs attracted $237 million in angel and investor capital to the area in 2010 and created or retained more than 8,500 jobs since 2005. Officials at JumpStart think those numbers are reason to celebrate and continue to encourage people to follow their ideas and dreams.
 
“We believe entrepreneurship is the key to creating jobs in the community,” says JumpStart director of communications Samantha Fryberger. “By having people involved in one place at one time creates a sort of synergistic celebration of what’s been done and what’s coming ahead.”
 
New this year is an educational component to the expo, focused on three main areas: capital, talent and public relations. Community leaders will speak on these three areas of entrepreneurship to help advise participants in how to raise capital in both traditional and non-traditional ways, how to attract good talent on a budget, and the importance of good PR to promote a business on a budget.
 
Student entrepreneurs will also get a chance to showcase their ideas, network and get feedback on things like elevator speeches and developing their ideas.
 
The expo is free to the public. Exhibitor booths are $85.
 

Source: Samantha Fryberger
Writer: Karin Connelly

Ryan Clark and Nathan Lambert know how to sell advertising. They also figured out a way to help libraries offset printing costs. The co-founders of Knowta, a Shaker LaunchHouse portfolio company, have created a unique print ad system that runs ads at the bottom of a page that users print out at the library.
 
The concept is brilliantly simple: Users elect to receive the advertising in exchange for free or discounted printing. Instead of receiving documents on typical 8.5" x 11" paper, they are printed on 8.5" x 14" paper, with the bottom three inches featuring a perforated section of full-color ads. Advertisers are able to tailor or change their ads at will to fit the time of day, content or location of the user’s document.
 
“Libraries are really challenged by economic models,” says Lambert. “Knowta meets those challenges with sustainable printing.” A portion of the revenue collected from the ads goes back to the library to offset printing costs and other expenses. Lambert and Clark have already secured contracts with local merchants around the Case campus.
 
Knowta will launch its product in CWRU’s Kelvin Smith Library in October, followed by a launch in the Cuyahoga County Public Library system later this fall. While Lambert and Clark plan to expand in Northeast Ohio, they also have plans to sell their product outside of the region.
 
“As we grow we’ll be growing within the region with additional locations within the Cuyahoga County Library system and the higher education market within Northeast Ohio, with a few target markets outside Northeast Ohio,” says Clark.
 
The company has one full-time employee, with plans to hire regional sales reps as they continue to expand.
 

Source: Ryan Clark and Nathan Lambert
Writer: Karin Connelly

There's no quibbling that Dan Moulthrop is one of the "smartest guys in the room." What many of us don't know is that he was also a high school English teacher. Unfortunately for his students, he couldn't afford to continue teaching them. His experiences led him to pen a book titled "Teachers Have It Easy: The Big Sacrifices and Small Salaries of America's Teachers." That book was the impetus for the documentary "American Teacher," which follows the careers of four young teachers.

With its youth-friendly atmosphere, vibrant arts and culture scene, and main drags lined with restaurants, bars and funky shops, Lakewood has long felt like a college town without possessing a single university.

That's about to change. This week, Lakewood city officials are celebrating the opening of a new University of Akron satellite branch in the heart of that city. It will occupy an 11,000-square-foot space in the newly renovated Bailey Building at Warren and Detroit. Although it will open with only a handful of students, it eventually will offer classes to a few hundred pupils at a time.

"This is going to bring more people into downtown Lakewood, which will add to the urban vibrancy that's already here," says Ian Andrews, Executive Director of Lakewood Alive, a nonprofit economic development organization that will help to the market the branch. "More people on the sidewalk checking out the great amenities Lakewood has to offer will further drive up demand for goods and services."

The University of Akron has said that it plans to concentrate a few specific programs within the space, including health care and education degrees. The branch will also likely offer continuing education and distance learning programs.

This Thursday, the University of Akron and Lakewood city officials are celebrating the opening of the new branch with a ribbon cutting ceremony at 5 pm and a public open house from 5-8 pm. Planned activities include guided tours, performances by groups from Lakewood High School and a distance learning technology demonstration. Members of the public are invited to attend.


Source: Ian Andrews
Writer: Lee Chilcote

CEOs for Cities, a global nonprofit network of urban leaders focused on making American cities more successful, has opened an office in Cleveland. Lee Fisher, former Ohio Lt. Governor, Ohio Attorney General, and director of the Ohio Department of Development, was named president and CEO of the organization earlier this year and insisted his offices be in Cleveland.
 
“I told them I was a lifelong Ohioan and did not want to move out of Ohio,” Fisher says. The Cleveland office is the first new office CEOs for Cities has opened in 10 years. The organization has offices in Chicago and Washington, D.C., with partners in 15 cities.
 
CEOs for Cities brings civic leaders from around the country together to come up with solutions to struggling economies and helps cities like Cleveland thrive.
 
“We’re a national network of urban leaders from the public, private and non-profit sectors to develop best practices,” explains Fisher. “We want to bring university and college presidents, business leaders, mayors and city councils together to discuss how to make cities more vibrant, sustainable and attractive.”
 
Based in Cleveland State University’s Levin College of Urban Affairs, Fisher felt it was the best location to keep his finger on the pulse of what’s going on in the city. “I wanted to be somewhere where I can be around smart, urban thinkers like [Levin dean] Ned Hill. I wanted to be in an exciting atmosphere.”
 
One of Fisher’s goals is to create a cluster partnership between Cleveland, Akron, Canton and Youngstown in which city leaders will come together to share innovative best practices. The cluster group will share their thoughts with other city leaders in the CEOs for Cities partnership and, in turn, will gather information from other regional leaders.
 

Source: Lee Fisher
Writer: Karin Connelly

St. Paul's Lutheran Church couldn't save itself, yet the developer of a new CVS in Lakewood is at least saving it from the wrecking ball. Zaremba Group, a Lakewood-based developer, has recycled 80 to 90 percent of St. Paul's Lutheran Church at 15501 Detroit Avenue, where a new drug store is slated to be built this fall.

Some of the church's finer elements have been rescued from the landfill and soon will gain new life as locally-made furniture or raised garden beds. The bulk of the steel, brick and concrete will be crushed and recycled as fill.

Sean McDermott, Senior Development Manager with Zaremba Group, says that while it's unusual for retail developers to recycle old buildings, the historic character of the church cried out for some kind of creative reuse.

"We found huge timbers in the roof trusses -- eight-inch-square yellow pine that was over 100 years old," he says. "Because of the age of this stuff and the fact that you can't find it anymore, we knew reusing it was the right thing to do."

Zaremba Group partnered with Reclaimed Cleveland, a Lakewood-based company run by Aaron Gogolin, to harvest the church's floorboards, woodwork and oak doors. These materials will be made into furniture. 

The developer also donated truckloads of bricks to Lakewood Earth and Food for use in the city's community gardens.

While several large trees on the property are being cut down, that wood will also be used to make furniture. Additionally, Zaremba plans to plant several large trees that will ultimately grow to a height of 35 feet.

The most costly aspect of the recycling project, according to McDermott, was the time delay it caused. He adds that while this the biggest recycling project Zaremba has undertaken, the company would definitely consider doing it again.

The new CVS will also have some green features, including three bioswales that will catch and release storm water into the ground rather than into storm sewers. This will help to reduce stormwater fees, which are rising with the Northeast Ohio Sewer District's new regulations, while also helping the environment.


Source: Sean McDermott
Writer: Lee Chilcote

With the recent decision by the Supreme Court of Ohio that South Euclid voters should be allowed to vote on a rezoning referendum this fall, the controversial Oakwood Commons big box retail project has taken yet another interesting turn.

Citizens for Oakwood, a group that opposes the redevelopment of the former Oakwood Country Club into retail, collected over 600 petition signatures earlier this year to place a referendum on the ballot. Yet the group was dealt a blow this summer when their petition was disqualified due to a legal technicality.

According to a protest filed by developer First Interstate Properties, a set of pre-petition documents were not filed with the correct City of South Euclid department. The city agreed with the developer, and decided that the referendum was invalid and could not be placed on the ballot. Citizens for Oakwood filed a lawsuit, and the matter ended up before the Supreme Court of Ohio.

In a 6-1 decision, the Supreme Court sided with Citizens for Oakwood and directed South Euclid to repeal the rezoning decision or put it on the November ballot.

“The Court granted a writ of mandamus to compel council to either repeal a zoning amendment ordinance or submit it to a vote of the city’s electors on Nov. 8,” according to the announcement on the Ohio Supreme Court website.

"We're very grateful that the Supreme Court of Ohio has upheld a basic tenet of our government -- people's right to vote," says Fran Mentch of Citizens for Oakwood. "Clearly, First Interstate is fighting this because they realize they've met their match in the will of the people of South Euclid."

South Euclid City Council unanimously approved the rezoning in June. That allows First Interstate, which bought 62 acres of the Oakwood land that lies in South Euclid in December, to build a mix of retail and residential properties there. First Interstate has also offered to set aside a portion of the property for parkland.

First Interstate has argued that the development will benefit the City of South Euclid with needed tax revenues and will provide additional retail to an underserved inner suburban area. Citizens for Oakwood has said there is too much retail in the area already and the property should be turned into a park.

On Monday, First Interstate filed a request for reconsideration of the Oakwood ruling with the Supreme Court, leaving open the possibility that it could be reversed.

If the ruling stands, then South Euclid voters will have the opportunity to vote 'yes' or 'no' on Nov. 8th regarding their support for the rezoning of Oakwood for a mixed-use retail development.


Source: Fran Mentch
Writer: Lee Chilcote