However momentous they might be, groundbreaking ceremonies typically are not very interactive affairs. Project leaders and public officials give speeches and take advantage of photo opportunities before they pose gripping the symbolic, all-too-clean shovels.

The groundbreaking ceremony for the first publicly funded leg of the Towpath Trail to be built in Cleveland promises to be different. Community members have been clamoring for this project to be completed for years, a... Read more >

Are the dark days of mass demolition behind for the city of Cleveland? Thanks to progressive thinkers -- and historic tax credits and support from local and county government -- more and more architectural gems are being sustainably renovated to accommodate modern businesses.

Market Square Park, which recently received a $1.5 million makeover from the City of Cleveland, was always intended to serve as a community hub where Ohio City residents and visitors could gather. Now, thanks to the Cleveland Public Library, there is another reason to do so.

In recent years, Cleveland Public Library has expanded its community outreach efforts. One example is the library's new Tech Central at its main branch, which offers card holders the ability to us... Read more >

The Tremont Farmers Market, which takes place on Tuesdays from 4 to 7 p.m. in Lincoln Park, has quietly grown into one of the largest in Cleveland, attracting more than 1,500 people on a recent Tuesday.

"People come from all over," says Jim Votava of the Tremont West Development Corporation, who organizes the weekly market. "We've tried to create a weekly destination event that embraces good food."

This season, the market's lineup has ... Read more >

Louis Alloro isn't the first non native to touch down in Northeast Ohio and notice that Cleveland could use a collective mood lift, but he is pioneering a new effort to bring the science of happiness to Northeast Ohio.

The New York City native, who holds a Master's degree in Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania (he is one of the first 100 people in the world to hold this degree), discovered Cleveland's mild mood disorder when he visi... Read more >

What if we viewed Cleveland as a startup? "The ingredients for a successful startup and a successful city are remarkably similar," argues tech blogger Jon Bischke. You need to build stuff that people want. You need to attract talent. And you need capital to get your fledgling ideas to a point of sustainability.

Backers call it a win-win-win: through an innovative development arrangement with Midtown Cleveland Inc., the City of Cleveland is moving forward on a new Third District police station. Leaders say it will make the neighborhood safer, catalyze development and free up two prominent properties in University Circle and Midtown for potential future redevelopment.

The new $17.5 million facility is slated to be built on the former Ward Bakery site at Chester Ave. and East 45th ... Read more >

Dogs in public parks have a positive impact on safety, says Kerri Whitehouse, a Cleveland Heights resident who wants to see a citywide ban on dogs in parks overturned. Dog walkers are active park users who enhance the safety of public spaces, she argues.

The Cleveland Heights Dog Project sprung from the efforts of the Cain Park Neighborhood Association, a grassroots group of neighborhood residents. Whitehouse says the association formed last year to address crime in the n... Read more >

Since its launch in February, eFuneral has steadily grown as a resource for families searching for the right funeral provider. Now founders Mike Belsito and Bryan Chaikin are taking the company, which came out of the Ohio State University Fisher College of Business' 10-Xelerator last summer, to another level.
 
eFuneral recently announced a partnership with Hospice of Dayton. "Ever since we launched, some of our biggest supporters have come from the hospice c... Read more >

Lake Erie is a whole lot cleaner than it was decades ago, yet in the past 10 years, toxic algae has sprouted up en masse here, forcing state officials to post warning signs at popular area beaches.

The Healthy Lake Erie Fund, which was recently passed by the Ohio State Legislature and signed into law by Governor John Kasich, aims to address this problem by directing three state agencies -- the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, the Ohio Department of Agriculture and th... Read more >

The National Park Service is proposing over $6 million of improvements to the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, including up to 10 miles of mountain bike trails, the addition of boat launch sites, and several new bike-in and paddle-in campsites.

The ambitious plan "aims to develop a blueprint that will guide the expansion, restoration, management, operations and use of the trail system and its associated amenities over the next 15 years, while keeping with the purpose, ... Read more >

Anne Hartnett has a love for cycling. She’s been involved in group cycling and has taught spinning classes for many years. But she thinks there should be something more to it. While she burns energy on the bicycle, she wants to harness that energy to create electric power.
 
Hartnett came up with idea for Harness Fitness, a fitness studio where the cyclists pedal their way to green energy. “I had this idea to harness all this energy created from spinning,&... Read more >

Believe to Achieve, a program that teaches young people kindness, caring and respect as a means of achieving lifelong success, this year helped dozens of at-risk girls graduate from Collinwood High School.

Now the leaders of Project Love, the nonprofit that is spearheading the program, are planning to expand Believe to Achieve to 12 schools across the Cleveland Municipal School District (CMSD). They are currently seeking funding for that initiative.

"l ascri... Read more >

A partnership between Cleveland State University and the Northeast Ohio Medical University hopes to reach students as early as middle school and inspire them to consider a career in medicine.

Now, a recently awarded $500,000 grant from the Mt. Sinai Foundation will help to support a crucial piece of this program -- a mentoring program to ensure the success of students being trained as primary care physicians.

The three-year grant will focus on linking students wi... Read more >

An Olympic-style cycling track is being assembled by a group of dedicated volunteers on a patch of scruffy, vacant land in Slavic Village where St. Michael's Hospital stood until it was demolished years ago.

The Cleveland Velodrome met its initial $300,000 fundraising goal for the 166-meter, wood and steel banked track thanks in part to a $50,000 grant from the Cleveland Foundation and generous lead donors.

Later this month, cyclists should be able to go for ... Read more >

Before a packed house at Severance Hall, Cleveland Foundation President Ronn Richard touted the city's accomplishments in becoming a hub of innovation and taking bold steps to address big problems at the foundation's annual meeting this Tuesday.

Waxing poetic on the gilded stage for a moment, Richard harkened back to the foundation's early days in the 1910's as a time of tremendous innovation in Cleveland. "I still wonder if the past might be prologue... Read more >

Chloe Hopson knows firsthand the disparity between urban and suburban arts education programs. Having grown up on South Moreland on the edge of Shaker Heights and Cleveland, she flourished in the arts-rich Shaker Heights school system while many of her Cleveland friends lacked similar opportunities.

That's why Hopson founded the Passport Project 14 years ago. She wanted to provide arts programs to youth living in the Buckeye, Larchmere and Shaker Square neighborhoods,... Read more >