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6/18/2010
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$1.50/JUNE 21 - 27, 2010
Vol. 31, No. 25
BE THERE OR BE SQUARE Restaurants warm to newest social media tool as one more ingredient in effort to further develop customer loyalty By KATHY AMES CARR kcarr@crain.com
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or children, Four Square is a simple game in which four players stand in four squares carved by chalk on concrete and bounce to each other a ball that must stay in bounds. For restaurant owners, Foursquare is a social media game that has the poten-
tial to earn them a bounce in business by giving incentives to users who frequent their establishment. Local restaurant owners say they are thinking outside the box — or square — by using Foursquare as a customer loyalty program that rewards visitors with discounts based on the number of times they visit. See FOURSQUARE Page 12
MMPI turns up marketing for Cleveland mart Chicago developer pitches product dealers on project, while letters of intent pile up INSIDE: How companies at a Chicago trade show view the planned project here. Page 20
By JAY MILLER jmiller@crain.com
CHICAGO — The intensity of the marketing for the new $425 million convention center and medical merchandise mart was kicked up a notch last week. During the first days of last week, MMPI Inc., the complex’s developer, rolled out the concept to health care products dealers who came to Chicago for NeoCon 2010, a leading trade show for the contract furniture business. The show is held annually at the Merchandise Mart, MMPI’s crown jewel trade center. Then on Wednesday, Samantha Fryberger, director of communications for Positively Cleveland, said her organization, which markets the
city as a tourism destination and for nonmedical trade shows, had commitments for at least 10 shows. With a groundbreaking for the Cleveland complex set for October, MMPI pitched the Cleveland center to a group of about 40 furniture dealers with major product lines targeting hospitals, doctors’ offices and other medical facilities on Tuesday, the middle day of the three-day show. The 40 dealers, who MMPI has not named, were offered a significant amount of free rent to take permanent showroom space at the medical See MART Page 20
INSIDE Leaving on a (new) jet plane
KR IST EN WIL SO N
Nextant Aerospace LLC, a 3-year-old company based at the Cuyahoga County Airport in Richmond Heights and led by James Miller (right), is finding buyers for its 400NEXT aircraft. The plane is a remake of the Beechcraft 400, and now seats eight and can fly farther on less fuel than its predecessor. Read Jay Miller’s story on Page 3.
ILL US TR AT ION
JESSE KRAMER
By improving energy efficiency, local firms dodge FirstEnergy fee Customers face higher bills as utility takes on demand to cut usage
A few of FirstEnergy Corp.’s Ohio customers won’t have to pay a new fee intended to finance the utility’s energy efficiency programs. So how’d they get out of it? By putting their own energy efficiency programs in place. Five companies with operations in Northeast Ohio already have received state approval that will allow them to
forgo paying the fee for a given period of time, and a few dozen other businesses and organizations in FirstEnergy’s Ohio territories have applied for the same exemption. The fee — a result of a 2008 state law that requires FirstEnergy and other investor-owned utilities to cut total energy usage by 22% over the next 15 years — could end up being
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By CHUCK SODER csoder@crain.com
large, according to energy consultants in Ohio. It would start out at .12 cents per kilowatt hour for the smallest commercial customers in FirstEnergy’s Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co. territory, which covers much of Northeast Ohio, according to a FirstEnergy proposal that has yet to be approved by the Public Utilities
Commission of Ohio. Customers buying in bulk would pay less than .07 cents per kilowatt hour, and rates in the Ohio Edison territory would be even lower. The rates FirstEnergy’s commercial customers pay for electricity vary but are generally lower than the rates it charges homeowners, which range between 12 cents and 13
cents per kilowatt hour. Over the years, however, the efficiency fee will go up, said Ellen Raines, director of external communications for FirstEnergy. FirstEnergy will attempt to find the least expensive ways to help its customers cut how much electricity they use, but eventually the utility will have to take more expensive measures if it is to cut usage by 22%. “The expectation is that we would See FEE Page 21
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EDUCATION Prep and parochial schools adapt curricula to meet students’ interest in sustainability ■ Page 15 PLUS: COMPETITION FOR STUDENTS ■ NEW LANGUAGES ■ & MORE
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