Ohio City Inc. was named the inaugural winner of the Enterprise Community Innovation Awards, held on Tuesday, March 6 at CSU’s Levin College of Urban Affairs. The event, hosted by Enterprise Community Partners, which helps find affordable housing options, was sponsored through KeyBank. It was designed to recognize organizations creating new and lasting community development solutions in Greater Cleveland.

Ohio City received a $25,000 grant to support its Market District Initiative, which promotes the growth of smaller businesses throughout the West Side Market neighborhood. The initiative targets investment in local artisan businesses and leverages the local food movement through the re-development of vacant land.

Four finalists were chosen by a panel of judges from 11 submissions. The other three finalists were the city of South Euclid for its green neighborhoods initiative, CWRU’s Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development’s neighborhood stabilization web application developed to help with the foreclosure crisis, and Western Reserve Revitalization Management Corporation’s Kinsman neighborhood revitalization plan.

"There was pretty clear agreement that these were the four best programs based on criteria for innovation, leadership and impact on the community," says Mark McDermott, Ohio director of Enterprise. "We were excited to see that there was a diversity of organizations around the issues."

The four finalists are good examples of work that can be duplicated in similar neighborhoods. “We were glad to find projects we could hold up to the community at large and say, ‘here are solutions to some of the most challenging problems and they can be replicated in the community,” says McDermott.

Source: Mark McDermott
Writer: Karin Connelly