Students from St. Martin dePorres High School in Cleveland are sprucing up their neighborhood. Thirty three students created 11 murals based on the cultural background and institutions in the St. Clair Superior neighborhood. The murals were installed on Tuesday into vacant storefronts between East 60th and East 64th Streets as a way to liven up that section of St. Clair Avenue near the school, eliminating blight and creating interest in the corridor. "It really came together... Read more >

The renewal of an urban core usually involves, at some point, a grand, sweeping plan that calls for huge development projects costing millions, or billions, of dollars: a new convention center, a mass transit system, a comprehensive waterfront plan. But as cities realize the importance of attracting and retaining talent, it's the smaller development projects and neighborhood investment that are driving real and sustainable change.

Benjamin Parris sees an innovative, cost effective way to get around town. He's promoting and selling electric bicycles through his company, F&E Electric Bikes. The bikes, which hit up to 18.6 miles per hour, are a step away from mopeds, but are classified as bicycles rather than motorized vehicles.

Parris got the idea to produce the bikes after spending some time in China, where the bikes are commonplace.

"They've been very popular in the past five to 10 yea... Read more >

The Community Partnership for Arts and Culture (CPAC) announced Tuesday that it has selected North Collinwood for its Artists in Residence Program, an effort to use artist-based development to help revitalize one urban neighborhood.

The two-year, $500,000 pilot program will provide a small loan program for artists buying or rehabbing homes in the target area, a small grant program to support artists' work in carrying out community-based projects, and artist home ownershi... Read more >

As is the case everywhere else on the planet, Cleveland is graced with more than its fair share of bloggers. From politics and sports to dining and social life, nothing here escapes the scrutiny of at least a handful of online scribes. When the traditional media fails to provide that unique perspective on, say, a teenager's long-held crush on Bernie Kosar, to whom will we turn? These bloggers, for a start.

You think you have a lot of balls in the air. As owner of Cleveland Plays, this city's premier sport and social club, John Teel manages a dizzying assortment of moving parts. The organization maintains an active database of roughly 20,000 members who play a dozen different co-ed sports in 40 separate leagues at eight different locations on any given day or night of the year. In addition to providing some much-needed fun and exercise, Cleveland Plays may be the best unofficial dati... Read more >

Four years ago, Susan Borison and Stephanie Silverman were regular moms who were struggling to make the right choices while raising their children. Though they found plenty of resources addressing issues regarding young children, they found a void as their children reached adolescence. So the Beachwood-based moms started their own magazine, Your Teen. "I have five kids and parenting magazines started to be irrelevant when they hit age eight," explains Borison. "I used to say to ... Read more >

Situated on the edges of Cleveland and Shaker Heights, and home to a diverse, international community of residents, Shaker Square has long been a community gathering place for people of different backgrounds.

So it only makes sense, in a way, that Bruce Altchouler (a Clevelander and electrical contractor with a knack for project management) and Ziv Sarig (an Israeli businessman with a finance background) would meet and discover they shared a passion for historic Shaker S... Read more >

Local entrepreneur and Cleveland State University alumnus, Monte Ahuja, has donated $10 million to his alma mater to fund scholarships and an endowed professorship in business. The announcement was made during a special celebration on June 24 in the university's student center, marking the largest gift in the university's 47-year history.

The founder of Transtar Industries, a $600 million a year global leader in transmission replacement parts, Ahuja got his start at CSU ... Read more >

Mike Perry has a rather strange hobby. In his spare time, the president of Szarka Financial Management uses his skills as a hiring manager to help people spruce up their resumes and find new jobs. "It all started when one of the financial managers literally walked a client into my office and said, "so-and-so got laid off from the Cleveland Clinic. Can you take a look at her resume?'" explains Perry. "So I sat down with her. Soon, I had a parade of clients, family members, and fr... Read more >

Car salespeople often have the reputation of being slick and shady. But Mark Dubis thought, "What if there was a way for those dealerships and salespeople who do a good job to get the recognition they deserve?" So Dubis created Carfolks.com in 2008, an interactive Facebook-style site for the auto sales industry. Based in Lakewood, he's been tweaking the site since then. Now the site is at "full speed." "People who are good don't have the tools to have a virtual brag book," Dubis... Read more >

Sustainable Cleveland 2019 (SC 2019), an effort by the City of Cleveland and local environmental groups to promote sustainability as a means of growing the economy in Northeast Ohio, will soon have a physical home in Tower City Center.

Andrew Watterson, Cleveland's Chief of Sustainability, says the purpose of the new Sustainable Cleveland Center is to promote efforts to green Northeast Ohio, provide central meeting space for environmental groups, and offer affordable s... Read more >

When Zone Recreation Center's 22 acres of green space reopen next year following a $2.5 million "green" facelift, the rainwater that falls there will be reused on site, rather than being funneled into sewers to pollute our lake, rivers and streams. "We're using it to rehydrate the park," explains Ward 15 Councilman Matt Zone, who allocated funding for the park's revitalization.
The redesigned park's water conservation features will include permeable pavers that allow rainwa... Read more >

To some, Michael J. Zone Recreation Center is just another city park where teenagers play pick-up basketball, softball teams face off on scruffy fields, and kids scamper about on a well-worn playground.

Yet for others, this 22-acre green space on Cleveland's near-west side has the potential to become an urban oasis, a premier green space that serves the neighborhood while providing a model for integrating sustainability into city parks.

Recently, the City of Cl... Read more >