The City of Cleveland has developed a plan to create bike lanes along Detroit Avenue between West 25th and West 75th streets to cater to the growing number of two-wheeled commuters using the thoroughfare.

The idea was developed as a temporary alternative to the stalled West Shoreway project, but has now taken on a life of its own. City officials say that even if more money is found to complete multi-modal paths along the Shoreway, the Detroit bike lanes are here to stay.

"This really is a new day in the City of Cleveland for cycling," Planning Director Bob Brown told the audience at a recent public meeting. "For decades, Cleveland put the priority on cars and cyclists were treated as second class citizens. The big change was the complete and green streets ordinance -- now it's the law of the land that every time we plan a roadway project, bikes have to be a priority."

"If we want to create a mode shift [away from driving and towards cycling], then we need to create the facilities to do it," added Jacob Van Sickle, Executive Director of Bike Cleveland. "Bike Cleveland will continue to push the city."

The complex project, which will span 1.7 miles and cost $76,000, includes a mixture of bike lanes and sharrows (painted arrows in the roadway indicating that cars must share the road with bikes). The five foot lanes allow for on-street parking while providing enough room for cyclists to avoid the "door zone" (the area where they could be hit if the driver of a parked car opens the door).

The long-term goal, Brown said during the meeting, is to create a network of bike lanes on major streets throughout the city. Planners are working on eventually extending the bike lanes along the Detroit-Superior bridge and Superior.


Source: Bob Brown, Jacob Van Sickle
Writer: Lee Chilcote

In recent years, Cleveland Municipal School District has opened 14 new high-performing public schools rated Excellent or Effective by the State. The Cleveland Plan, approved this summer by state legislators, will pave the way for even more improvements to the district's schools, making it more likely that urban parents will choose to remain in the city.

Experienced Cleveland developer Mike DeCesare recently started construction on the Waverly Station Townhomes in Detroit Shoreway -- a 22-unit project that is the only new, for-sale housing development to break ground in the City of Cleveland this year.

"Getting the project up and running was no small task, as it proved to be impossible to find conventional bank financing for the project," he says. "We ended up doing private financing. We had investors willing to put money into it."

The project is located on a one-block stretch of land along Bridge Avenue between West 57th and 58th streets. DeCesare acquired a parcel of vacant land from Detroit Shoreway Community Development Organization and purchased several distressed multifamily properties that he tore down. These additional parcels expanded the project and will add to the sense of community, he says.

"There's a feeling of safety in numbers," he says of the $4.5 million project. "The scope of something like Waverly instills confidence in prospective buyers."

Waverly Station features high-end finishes and rooftop decks with city views. One- and two-car garage units are available, and all units include two bedrooms and two and a half baths. Energy-efficient features and 15-year, 100-percent tax abatement also are part of the community. Sales prices range from $179,900 to $209,900.

DeCesare already has several units sold and is hoping to break ground on the second building in the project later this year. Buyers have been drawn to the location within walking distance of the Gordon Square Arts District, he says.


Source: Mike DeCesare
Writer: Lee Chilcote

An innovative software program developed by the Center for Urban Poverty at Case Western Reserve University is helping Cleveland neighborhood development practitioners reinvent their urban communities in strategic, data-driven ways.

NEO CANDO, a publicly accessible database, provides one-stop-shopping for anyone looking to research property information in their neighborhood. The site allows users to go beyond researching individual properties and look at snapshots of neighborhoods -- including which properties are at risk of foreclosure and which have been condemned. The site also contains social, economic and census data.

"In the past, information was collected from multiple websites, and by the time it was assembled, it was out of date," says Mike Schramm, a Research Associate in the Center on Urban Poverty in the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences at CWRU. "We bring data together across domains. Our mission is to democratize data and to create data-driven decisions by both nonprofits and government."

In practice, NEO CANDO is used by foreclosure prevention agencies to research which properties are in danger of going into foreclosure. Armed with this info, grassroots groups can knock on the owner's door and attempt to intervene, thus hopefully preventing another vacant, bank-owned home in the neighborhood.

The information is also used to focus on areas with strategic assets in an effort to better protect them. "You need to know that the house across street from that recently rehabbed home is in foreclosure -- and then do something about it."

Projects like NEO CANDO are helping to facilitate a shift within the community development field towards creating more strategic, placemaking investments.


Source: Mike Schramm
Writer: Lee Chilcote

When musician educators with Roots of American Music hold workshops in Cleveland public schools, it almost goes without saying that they are entering a place that doesn't have a full-time music teacher. Most cannot afford to hire full-time music staff, so they rely on part-time faculty and visiting artists.

The 14-year-old nonprofit organization educates more than 15,000 students throughout Northeast Ohio each year, teaching social studies, financial literacy and health education through music.

"We do a lot of songwriting about topics that are important to kids," says Kevin Richards, ROAM's Director. "They work with authentic artist-educators who not only can teach but are also bluesmen, Cajun zydeco artists or rappers."

Richards likens ROAM's educational approach to parents who disguise healthy foods to get their kids to eat them. In general, the artists have little trouble convincing kids to participate. "Kids don't realize they're getting an academic message at the same time as they're fooling around with traditional music."

ROAM's curriculum has changed as educational goals have evolved. When Richards created the organization, the focus was on teaching social studies. Today, such staple courses are supplemented with programs about financial literacy and health education (the latter is in partnership with the Cleveland Clinic).

One popular program called "On the Move" teaches students in the Central neighborhood of Cleveland about migration patterns throughout history. Students learn the song "Kansas City" and change the lyrics to fit their family's story.

Roots of American Music will host its 13th annual Benefit for Education on Saturday, October 6th at the Beachland Ballroom. Multi-award-winning Austin singer-songwriter Guy Forsythe is the headliner. The tickets are $125 for VIP access including dinner and preferred seating, or $15 for the concert only.


Source: Kevin Richards
Writer: Lee Chilcote

Thrive Cleveland, a new grassroots "happiness incubator," wants to amaze you. The goal is to provide experiences that are "surprising," "boundary expanding" and "beyond your comfort zone," according to cofounder Scott Simon.

"What we’re doing is creating what you could call a happiness gym," says Simon. "It will be a series of ongoing, curated experiences for Clevelanders. We want to get them to meet other people, be creative and hear from the best and brightest in Cleveland."

The group is composed of 13 Clevelanders who are volunteering their time to create happiness-inducing events aimed at engaging the city's residents.

The first experience, entitled "WTF? (What's That Food?) -- A Local Farm-to-Table Exploration," will take place on Saturday, August 25th from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Participants will meet at Cafe Benice and then travel as a group to the Cuyahoga Valley Countryside Farmers Market, where they'll meet with farmers, taste just-picked produce, and learn how fresh food contributes to happiness and well-being. Afterwards, the group will return to Cafe Benice to participate in a hands-on cooking experience utilyzing the farm-fresh foods. 

According to Simon, the event is part of a national movement towards fostering greater happiness in cities across the country. He cites the Happiness Institute in San Francisco and Life Labs NYC in Brooklyn as two comparable organizations.


Source: Scott Simon
Writer: Lee Chilcote

When Earl Pike of the Cleveland Leadership Center helped design the new Civic Engagement Boot Camp, he tapped the popular national trend of half marathon benefits as a wellspring of inspiration.

"People want to be challenged," he says. "We didn't want to do the typical thing of getting a bunch of young people in a room to listen to an old person pontificate. We wanted to ask people to do something really hard and put their hearts and souls into it."

The result? A one-day civic engagement half marathon, if you will. The Boot Camp starts at 6:30 a.m. and runs until 9 p.m.

"At the end, you'll be exhausted and probably smell bad and be a little frayed," says Pike. "But you'll see every major sector of Cleveland and you'll be engaged in a way that changes you, challenges you."

In June, participants held a behind-the-scenes meeting with the editorial board of the Plain Dealer, worked out with an 82-year-old woman, dug in the dirt at Ohio City Farm, went on a bike tour of Cleveland, and honed their improv skills at Cleveland Public Theatre. And that was just part of the day. It concluded with a meeting of area foundation leaders at the Terminal Tower Observation Deck.

The next installment of Boot Camp, titled "Cleveland from dawn to dusk -- like you've never seen it before," will take place Thursday, October 4th. The cost is $500.

"It doesn't really matter what people do: We love seeing people inspired and getting active in whatever domain they choose," says Pike, who says the long-term goal is combining civic engagement with personal growth. "Now we're beginning to look at the coaching that might come after the experience."


Source: Earl Pike
Writer: Lee Chilcote

Jeff Griffiths launched Hands On Northeast Ohio in 2007 to "train and equip volunteers to be at the center of change in their communities." In 2011, the startup nonprofit organization helped connect nearly 5,000 volunteers with hundreds of worthy projects throughout the Cleveland area.

Last weekend, volunteers prepped bikes at the Ohio City Bike Co-op, served meals to the homeless, delivered meals to seniors, cleaned cat cages, and lended a hand at the Cleveland Botanical Garden.

Hands On Northeast Ohio offers accessible, well-managed opportunities to serve throughout the community. Volunteers attend an orientation session and sign up for opportunities on the group's website. With a point and a click, they can read descriptions of opportunities, find out which ones are available, and sign up.

"People wanted to help, but oftentimes accessing volunteer opportunities was filled with barriers -- the commitment was unrealistic, the training was too cumbersome, or the agency didn't have a way to recruit or train volunteers at all," says Griffiths. "By us managing projects, we make both parties happy."

In addition to 35-plus managed projects per month, Hands On also manages one-day national events such as the 9/11 National Day of Service and Remembrance.

Griffiths says the organization is part of a national network of similar groups. "We saw a need, took a proven model and adapted it locally to our needs here," he says.


Source: Jeff Griffiths
Writer: Lee Chilcote

In the best of cases, getting a book published can take one to three years from start to finish. Or, you can do it the way Richey Piiparinen and Anne Trubek did with Rust Belt Chic: The Cleveland Anthology. The pair of Cleveland writers managed to compress the entire Sisyphean process into an implausible three-month timeframe.

With mounting evidence that a shortage in primary health care access is one key contributor to health disparities in the U.S., a Cleveland-based health center is plugging a local gap by opening a new primary care clinic on the city's west side.

"To us, health care is having a regular source of care, a place where you can get in to see the doctor or nurse practitioner the day you need service, the first place you turn," says Jean Polster, Executive Director of Neighborhood Family Practice, which is based on Ridge Road in the Stockyards neighborhood. The new clinic will be located in the Detroit Shoreway neighborhood. "When we looked at the city's west side, we felt that there was more need for primary care than existed."

Neighborhood Family Practice is a federally-qualified health center, which means that it receives federal funding, is governed by a board consisting of at least 51 percent patient users, and is a community-based nonprofit group. It also offers comprehensive services and treats all patients regardless of their ability to pay.

As the Affordable Care Act is implemented, federally-qualified health centers like NFP will play an even larger role in the community as sources of primary care. Recent studies have shown that there is a shortage in primary care physicians and nurse practitioners nationwide. Polster says that while NFP is expanding with an eye on health care reform, it will continue to serve patients if the law changes.

"Access to high-quality primary care really important to keeping communities healthy," she says. "But we're doing it because we saw a big community need. Ultimately, our ability to sustain growth may be tied to health care reform."

The new facility is the result of a partnership between Lutheran Hospital, which holds the lease on the site, and area foundations. The Mount Sinai Foundation, George Gund Foundation and Saint Luke's Foundation all provided grants.

NFP's new clinic, located at West 65th Street and Franklin, opens on August 14th.


Source: Jean Polster
Writer: Lee Chilcote

The City of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County have invested millions of dollars in public money to help make urban development projects happen over the years. But do they provide the maximum benefit to the taxpayers paying for them?

Amanda Woodrum, a researcher at the liberal think tank Policy Matters, says that Northeast Ohio leaders have not always maximized the public benefits of development projects. Yet cities like Cleveland have a tool at their disposal called Community Benefit Agreements to help ensure the public gets the biggest bang for its buck when it comes to public subsidies.

"Community Benefit Agreements involve an economic development approach that balances the three E’s of sustainability: environment, equity and economy," says Woodrum. "One of the biggest things is ensuring that the workforce involved is hired locally. The second thing is that it is diverse and reflective of the population as a whole. There are other questions, too. Are we behaving responsibly towards the environment? Is there access to the development site for public transit?"

Woodrum adds, "The whole process is done in a very open discussion in which key stakeholders come together. There is a movement nationally to do development this way. In many cases, anchor institutions are voluntarilyy creating such agreements because they recognize that they have stake in community."

Woodrum stated that the City of Cleveland does not have a comprehensive policy towards creating Community Benefit Agreements with developers, and that the absence of such a policy can lead to inconsistent results. She cited the Horseshoe Casino as a potential model project due to its local hiring practices; on the other hand, a new housing development at Cleveland State University has drawn ire from the local building trades union for its failure to hire local workers.

To generate a discussion about Community Benefit Agreements in Cleveland, Policy Matters has helped to organize a daylong symposium with local and national experts at Cuyahoga Community College on Friday, August 3rd. The event is cosponsored by the City of Cleveland and Cleveland City Council.

"If the stakeholders coming to the table decide it makes sense, we’d like to move forward with building a policy that ensures whenever city subsidizes development in any meaninging way, we’re maximizing value to community," says Woodrum.


Source: Amanda Woodrum
Writer: Lee Chilcote

Incoming ninth graders at Max Hayes High School took it to the parking lot last week, Thursday, July 26, to race the cars they had crafted as part of the Take it to the Max program. Part summer camp, part school orientation, nearly 60 students participated in two WIRE-Net program sessions to see if a career in manufacturing is the right path. Max Hayes students concentrate on manufacturing in their studies.
 
"The goal of the program is to introduce the students to careers in manufacturing and the careers taught at Max Hayes,” explains Jose Estrenera, director of youth programs for WIRE-Net. “If they get a leg up on what Max Hayes is about, they’ll be more productive.”
 
Two three-week sessions this summer focused on building a car. Students were given a block of wood, four wheels and four nails. “At first they look at it and say, ‘how am I going to make a car out of this,’” says Estrenera. But they figure it out as they take computer classes with a CAD type program to develop a plan, hear lectures from volunteers on aerodynamics and the rudimentary skills needed, and take a 3D model into the lab to shape, sand, paint and decorate their cars.
 
“The camp has four parts: the technical lab, the computer lab, physical exercise and social skills,” says Estrenera. “There are a lot of good jobs around in manufacturing. This camp gets them actively thinking about what they are doing in courses at Max Hayes.”
 
Not to mention the fun that was involved. “The reaction was great,” says Estrenera. “The kids were really proud of their cars and really expressed themselves.”

 
Source: Jose Estrenera
Writer: Karin Connelly

Cleveland's near west side will gain another signature community park when the redeveloped outdoor space at Zone Recreation Center, which is comprised of 22 acres of land south of Lorain Avenue between W. 53rd and W. 65th streets, reopens this Saturday.

A public ribbon cutting ceremony will take place on Saturday at 11 a.m. The celebration will include a farmers market, food trucks, kickball, skateboarding, three-on-three basketball tournament and dog park dedication. Residents and visitors are encouraged to bring their dogs.

The multifaceted park is one of the largest in Cleveland. Features include new tennis courts, resurfaced basketball courts, new water-spray park and playground, new ballfields and a new dog park. The new Zone Rec also includes water-saving features and sustainable landscaping that reaffirm the City's commitment to weaving sustainable design into its community parks.

"The City administration really wants to move forward on low impact development that respects the tag line, 'Green city on a blue lake,'" says Ward 15 Councilman Matt Zone, whose father fought the State of Ohio's proposal to build a highway here 50 years ago, ultimately leading to the development of the recreation center that bears his name. "We want to build it and design it from not only a functionality standpoint, but also lessening our carbon footprint."

Last year, the City of Cleveland opened the new Collinwood Recreation Center in a former Big Lots store along Lakeshore Boulevard. The building is a creative reuse of an existing space that includes many energy-efficient and sustainable features. The new Zone Recreation Center demonstrates similar outside-the-box thinking.

Zone Recreation Center is located in the Cleveland EcoVillage, an area dedicated to sustainable living within the Detroit Shoreway neighborhood. The EcoVillage features a green-built rapid station, large community garden, many eco-friendly homes, a new garden store and a slew of gardens and green spaces. Residents here have long struggled with blight along Lorain Avenue, and many hope that the new Zone Rec will help catalyze other, similar improvements to the faded corridor.

The multipurpose pathway that weaves its way through the new Zone Rec green space will eventually connect with the Towpath Trail via Walworth Run, and to Edgewater Park and Lake Erie via bike lanes planned for W. 65th Street.


Source: Matt Zone
Writer: Lee Chilcote

When late summer rolls around, my kids and I are desperate for adventure. From our house in the Heights, that usually means we’re heading down the hill to Cleveland, where over the years we’ve discovered countless family-friendly things to see and do. The options are many and growing, but here is our pick for Top 10.

One year ago, six interns from Dallas, Atlanta, Indianapolis, Boston, Baltimore and Jewett, Ohio came to Cleveland to participate in the inaugural year of Trinity Urban Service Corps, a project of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in downtown Cleveland.

The goal of the program is to engage young people in nonprofit service work that improves the City of Cleveland. It also seeks to build community among members, stimulate faith development and help young people discern their career paths.

Adam Spencer, who organized the program for Trinity Cathedral, says it has been successful and is expanding to eight interns in its second year. A new crop of service corps members are scheduled to arrive in town next month.

"This program is all about working to make the city a better place," says Spencer, a Northeast Ohio native who loves playing the role of tour guide in his hometown. "The service corps members help to do the work we desperately need done in Cleveland. The program also gets young people interested in the city and its issues, and it shows them all the wonderful stuff that's going on here."

Trinity's service corps members live communally in a house in Detroit Shoreway. The program pays for their housing, transportation and health care and provides a modest stipend and shared allowance for groceries and utilities. Interns are encouraged to use public transportation as a way to navigate the city.

Some of the work sites included Detroit Shoreway Community Development Organization, West Creek Preservation Committee and Leadership Cleveland. Service corps members performed tasks ranging from community organizing to working with homeless men to organizing the Cleveland Mow Goats project.

The Trinity Urban Service Corps is part of a network of similar urban service corps that are organized by Episcopal congregations across the country.


Source: Adam Spencer
Writer: Lee Chilcote

More than 300 volunteers rolled up their shirtsleeves and got their hands dirty during the recent "Summer of Service" event hosted by Business Volunteers Unlimited on Thursday, July 18th. The event engaged young professionals in maintaining urban farms and gardens to support the regional food economy.

Some of the projects included constructing hoop houses and helping to maintain a .4 acre forest garden at Community Greenhouse Partners; working as an "urban farm hand for a day" in Detroit Shoreway by building garden beds and fencing; harvesting blueberries for the Cuyahoga Valley Farmers Market; and building a community garden at the Free Clinic. 

“Forty five of our interns volunteered at Schady Road Farm in Olmsted Township for the Cuyahoga County Board of Developmental Disabilities,” said Lisa Johnson, Corporate Responsibility Manager with Hyland Software, in a news release. “BVU’s ‘Done in a Day’ program is a great example of how our employees get out there and flex their muscles to help our community. They love it.”

“BVU works with employers year-round to engage their employees in meaningful volunteer service,” added Brian Broadbent, BVU’s president and CEO. “Our annual Summer of Service event is specifically targeted as an opportunity for employers to connect their interns and young professionals to community service.”

The tally at the end of a long day of volunteering was quite impressive: A collective 1,200 hours of service valued at more than $26,000, says BVU.


Source: Business Volunteers Unlimited
Writer: Lee Chilcote