An immigration proposal with local ties has connected groups statewide in the battle for brainpower.

Financial cuts and aging infrastructure require creativity for a transit authority seeking to connect riders to new and improved rapid transit stations.

Cleveland has played a starring role in several blockbuster films in recent years, creating an economic boom in the local film industry. Can local filmmakers build on that success?

Companies in Cleveland are saving wood and other materials that were once factory floors and school chalkboards from dumpsters and transforming them into beautiful, high-quality furniture and flooring.

"The rust belt city offers some old-fashioned, even old-world, charms. Readers ranked it at No. 5 for its rich food halls, like West Side Market—with spices, baked goods and delis—which dates back to 1912, when it catered primarily to the city’s immigrants."

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Shannon Morris has always been an artist. “Ever since I was little I was very creative and resourceful with materials,” she says. Morris first entered a darkroom at age 13, went to NYU for photography and today works in a variety of media and writes her blog, Electric Belle, from her Cleveland Heights home.
 
But like most creative types, Morris craved inspiration and collaboration from other artists. So in February, she started Artful, a movement to create an affordable space for local artists to come together and create, collaborate and sell their works.
 
“I’ve been thinking about this for years, to create a creative environment,” she says. “Ideally it will be studio space, a gallery space, retail and flex space. Art is supposed to be an outlet. Artists would feed off each other and share.”
 
Artful would be open to all artists. Rent will depend on the space Morris finds, but she plans to keep it affordable. She has been looking at spaces around the east side, but would like to locate in Cleveland Heights. “It just feels like Cleveland Heights is what the place is about,” she says. “We need this in Cleveland Heights because we have many artists and there is no affordable studio space. We have lots of empty buildings and a population that is deeply connected to the arts.”
 
Eventually Morris would like to add an educational element to Artful. “We would ramp up to a place to host events and education,” she explains. “Especially as the arts are dwindling in our schools, this could be a place where kids can go.”
 
Within two weeks of creating a group Facebook page, 140 people had joined Artful. Today, there are close to 160 members. Morris has been touring different vacant spaces, and has solicited advice from Artful followers for their ideas and advice about creating a business plan.
 
Last Sunday she hosted a meeting to discuss ideas for a space and ideas on how Artful can become a thriving part of the Cleveland Heights community. “The energy of the meeting was electric,” says Morris. Artists in all mediums attended, as well as local business owners, residents of all ages and business people willing to help out with the cause. Cleveland Heights city planners and Future Heights have also gotten involved.

With the click of an app, a car from Lyft or Uber can be at your door in minutes. Despite controversy, ridesharing services are making it easier to get around Cleveland without worrying about parking and driving.  

News stories about the once prosperous inner-ring suburb and home of Rockefeller have focused on the city’s financial struggles. As it continues to grapple with a reduced revenue stream and funding shortfalls, people and organizations are filling a void. 

A partnership between product design innovation firm  Nottingham Spirk and CWRU’s think[box] is designed to both inspire new inventions and bring existing ideas to fruition. CWRU announced late last month that Nottingham Spirk, known for creations like the Dirt Devil vacuum and the SpinBrush toothbrush, will work with Case faculty and students on the first floor of the new think[box] facility, scheduled to open in the fall.

The partnership was announced by John Nottingham and John Spirk, both Cleveland Institute of Art graduates, at Case’s Engineering Week banquet on February 26, during which they were the keynote speakers.
 
The idea is to build on Nottingham Spirk’s reputation for creating innovative products in the consumer and medical device fields by helping faculty members, and eventually students, fully develop their own ideas.
 
“We’re creating a partnership in innovation that they can see what the faculty are doing and what might be applicable to their work,” explains Jeff Duerk, dean of the engineering school. “They’ll be brainstorming how to take them to the next level. Nottingham Spirk is the premier design and innovation company in the United States. They’re like Reese’s Cups – they bring things together in such an obvious way. This is about how to take high-quality concepts and bring them to market faster.”
 
Bill Nottingham calls think[box] the “nexus” between Case’s seven schools and the CIA. “The greatest thing that can happen is we work together to promote more successes,” he says. “Hearing about think[box] and what they are doing to promote innovation, and hearing about the startups going on right down the hill from us, it’s really exciting.”
 
Nottingham sees the potential between the two organizations as unlimited. “There are going to be disruptive innovations that come out of think[box] based on the CWRU and Nottingham Spirk collaboration,” he says. “Our success is only as good as our relationships.”
 
The details of programs with students under the partnership have yet to be worked out, says Duerk, but should be soon.
 
  

An alliance of local groups are creating one-stop meeting points for refugees and immigrants new to the city.

Social dancing is a great way to meet new people, get exercise and explore Cleveland. From Brazilian capoeira to contra dancing, here are four local places to get your groove on.

Marrion Demore has always loved improving on commercial bottled barbeque sauce. “I used to have really big family cookouts and I’d just doctor up some Open Pit to make it taste better,” Demore recalls. “People always said, ‘you should market this.’ I never gave it much thought until the economy went down hill. Then I knew I had to make it from scratch.”
 
Today, Demore calls himself the Rock and Roll Star of Sauce. In 2009 he began experimenting with homemade sauce, trying his various versions out on friends and family. Two years later, he had perfected his flavors and launched Demore’s Fusion Sauce in 2011 “There were a lot of taste tests and a lot of money being blown on bad batches, he says of his two-year journey. “It was important to me that my sauce was all natural, with no preservatives.”
 
Demore makes and bottles four versions of his sauce – mild, medium, flaming and hickory smoke. He uses ghost peppers, ground into a powder, to add the heat to his flaming sauce and buys his bottles from Cleveland Bottle and Supply. In addition to being all-natural, all varieties are also low in sugar and sodium. “It’s more sauce with less calories,” he says.
 
Demore describes his company as a grass-roots effort. He recently launched an online store on through his Facebook site. Last November he began handing out free samples and selling his sauce on Saturdays at Zagara’s Marketplace in Cleveland Heights, where he sells 15 to 20 bottles a week.
 
“A tell-tale sign to me us when you have a taste-testing and people buy it,” Demore says. “I let people try it and tell them about it. It keeps me motivated and keeps me going when people walk away with a bottle. Ninety-five percent of people are going to enjoy one of my sauces when they try it.”

While Demore still makes his sauce in his home kitchen, he has gone to the Cleveland Culinary Launch and Kitchen (CCLK) for advice and guidance. “Cleveland is very supportive once you plug yourself in,” he says. “Even though this is not high-tech, the platform is here. It gives you more confidence with the product to know there are people you can call for mentoring and that kind of thing.”
 
Demore is always thinking of new flavors and ideas. He is currently testing coconut and pineapple sugars in sauces and he is working on dry rubs.