If South Euclid's Green Neighborhoods Initiative were a reality TV show, it would be called "Extreme Bungalow Makeover." The suburb has now completed renovations on two previously bank-owned bungalows. In December, the city hosted an open house to showcase the dwellings to buyers looking for a low-maintenance lifestyle.

"The city realized it has aging housing stock that doesn't make sense in today's marketplace, and wanted to do something," says Joe Del Re, New Business ... Read more >

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 click... Read more >

When it comes to retail, how much is too much? That's the question being raised by residents who live near the former Oakwood Country Club, a 154-acre parcel where First Interstate Properties proposes to build a shopping mall that would rival nearby Legacy Village in size.

"There are moribund, vacant retail areas all over the Heights, so why do we need another mall?" asks Fran Mentch, president of the Severance Neighborhood Organization (SNO), a Cleveland Heights-based ne... Read more >

What soul food restaurants lack in ambiance, they often make up for in good, down-home cuisine -- the modest digs are part of the charm and lend authenticity to the tried-and-true menus of chicken and biscuits, greens, and mac and cheese.

Yet Zanzibar Soul Fusion, a new restaurant now open at Shaker Square, is no ordinary soul food joint. The new hotspot offers soul food with a twist, dishing out traditional southern comforts in the atmosphere of an upscale lounge.
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When it comes to rainfall, we tend to focus on keeping it off of our heads -- not where it goes after hitting the pavement. Yet storm water runoff is a major issue in Northeast Ohio. With every downpour, millions of gallons of rainwater run off parking lots, streets and sidewalks, carrying pollutants into our streams, rivers and Lake Erie.

A new program launched by the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District (NEORSD) in December aims to address Combined Sewer Overflows (C... Read more >

Don't call us Silicon Valley just yet, but Cleveland has a growing list of small and mid-sized technology companies that call downtown home. In late December, Strongsville technology company MCPc announced that the firm will join their ranks, bringing 165 jobs and their corporate headquarters to downtown Cleveland in June.

MCPc, an international provider of tech products and support services with 320 employees, will move to the Plain Dealer building at 1801 Superior Ave.... Read more >

The recent announcement of a $1.1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to create urban farms along Kinsman Avenue is just one example of the growing power of the green movement in Cleveland's urban neighborhoods.

Another example is the 2009 award of a $75,000 grant from the U.S. EPA to help create Neighborhood Leadership for Environmental Health (NLEH), a partnership between three nonprofits to improve the environmental health of four east side neighborh... Read more >

Technically, Ohio Knitting Mills' first retail store in Cleveland is temporary. "But the reception has been tremendous," says owner Steve Tatar, "and it's encouraging for staying the long term."

Tatar's Ohio Knitting Mills sells sweaters and other apparel manufactured long ago -- between 1947 and 1974 -- by a large Cleveland-based company of the same name. "Beginning after World War II, the Mill plucked samples of each style they produced and put them into storage," the w... Read more >

The recession grinds on, but the new store Native Cleveland has found a surprisingly lucrative niche: Local.

"Business is great," says manager Megan Coffman. "Everybody wants holiday gifts that are locally made."

Pushing local products is Native Cleveland's business model and mission. Located on Collinwood's Waterloo Road, in the former home of Shoparooni, Native Cleveland carries mostly products made in Ohio, and most are from the Cleveland region. Coffman says... Read more >

The first attempt to secure the former Oakwood Country Club for park land has failed. The 90-day purchase option held by the Trust for Public Landexpired recently, before the San Francisco-based group could raiseenough to buy the 150-acre privately owned site, which spans ClevelandHeights and South Euclid.

Fran Mentch, of the Severance Neighborhood Organization, is disappointed but continues to hope that mostly undeveloped land can be preserved as a public park. As a Face... Read more >

With their city's centennial coming up in less than 13 months, ShakerHeights officials will spend a lot of time in the new year preparing tocelebrate history. But many are already looking much farther into thefuture, implementing the Economic Development Strategy adopted by Shaker City Council last month.

Crafted over several months with a consulting firm in Maryland, theplan outlines steps Shaker can take now and in the foreseeable futureto ensure a stable and growing ta... Read more >

And now for a small dose of good news from the foreclosure front: TwoSlavic Village homes that sat empty for more than a year will be openedto potential buyers on December 16.

The homes -- on East 69th and East 75th -- were acquired from the banksthat had taken them in foreclosure and fully renovated through the Opportunity Homes program, a joint venture between The City of Cleveland, Neighborhood Progress Inc., the Cleveland Housing Network and six Cleveland community de... Read more >

Amy and Montri Visatsud met in a Thai restaurant, so it's only fitting that they'd open their own. Banana Blossom debuted in November at 2800 Clinton in Ohio City.

The couple considered Brunswick, but the choice wasn't difficult. "I'm a Cleveland native," says Amy, "and I'm really excited to see all the new businesses coming into the neighborhood, and this seemed like a good opportunity to get in there."

The move quickly paid off. Amy says she's pleasantly surpri... Read more >

It may seem like the massive and sometimes controversial InnerbeltBridge project has been in the works since Elliot Ness called Clevelandhome, but design planning is reaching its final stages. Tremontresidents and others with questions or concerns about what thisbehemoth will look like, particularly where it touches down on citystreets, should not miss the Ohio Department of Transportation's nextpublic meeting.

"The lion's share of the design work is already committed," s... Read more >

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

The area once known as the financial district "is really going througha change," says Joseph Marinucci, president and CEO of the non-profitdevelopment group Downtown Cleveland Alliance."Change" is a polite way of ... Read more >

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 ... Read more >