Crain's Cleveland Business, March 11, 2024

MAKING IT WORK

Teamwork

and collaboration can be dif cult but are essential to helping the region achieve its priorities

GOVERNMENT

NASA Glenn joins program inviting private partners to lease underutilized space on its campuses.

PAGE 2

Closed hotels offer sweet opportunity in sour situation

Shuttered by COVID, some properties could bring redevelopment

types of projects for the best locations.

Using data from STR, the main data source for hotel operators, and CoStar online realty data, Sangree sees a sweet opportunity in the sour situation.

An oft-repeated joke among Northeast Ohio hotel owners and managers is that it's not an overbuilt market, it's an underdemolished one. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, though, that may no longer be true.

A study of the ClevelandAkron hospitality business by David Sangree, president of Hotel & Leisure Advisors of Lakewood, shows that 15 area hotels, with about 2,105 rooms, have closed or been demolished since the pandemic began.

Some may reopen if a new owner buys the site. However, nancing is hard to swing, and there is competition from other

“ is shows there may be room to develop more hotels and add new product to the market,” Sangree said.

e list ranges from tiny properties on the edges of the market to some big ones near the center of town. A landmark property that has been closed since the pandemic hit is Quail Hollow Resort in Concord Township. e 176room hotel and its event center are the subject of a consulting study that the Concord/Painesville Joint Economic Development District (JEDD) is in the process of commissioning to plumb the 13-acre property’s next use.

See

Notre Dame College student-athletes face tough choices

School is set to close at the end of the semester

By Stan Bullard By Joe Scalzo

Last week, when Lake Erie College (LEC) football coach David Price heard that Notre Dame College (NDC) would close at the end of the semester, his rst reaction was, “ at whole situation stinks.”

“ e (football) coaching sta over there, those guys are friends,” said Price. “ ey’ve had a heck of a program there for so long.

“For it to be ending, the biggest thought in our mind was, ‘How can we help?’”

HEALTH CARE

The buzz around weight loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy is ‘just the beginning’ for health care, experts say.

PAGE 4

at’s a question facing a lot of Northeast Ohio schools, many of which have promised guaranteed admission to many NDC students to pursue their degrees, with comparable net tuition and transfer of all credits as part of the Teach-Out program.

But for athletes, the transfer decision can be trickier.

Student-athletes make up about 70% of NDC’s enrollment, and many of them will have to decide between a school that is a great academic and/or cultural t, and one that o ers the best chance for playing time or team success.

NASA Glenn invites private partners to work at facilities

Program seeks to ll gaps in shrinking government funding and employment

By Kim Palmer

About 20 years ago, two National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Centers — Ames Research Center and Kennedy Space Center — piloted an enhanced use leasing (EUL) program, permitting those centers to rent out some underutilized properties.

is year, Cleveland’s NASA Glenn Lewis Field and Sandusky’s Armstrong Test Facility are joining the EUL program, o ering the chance for a private, academic or government partner to lease space on their campuses.

Borne out of the necessity of funding almost $2 billion worth of deferred maintenance and a way to deal with the percentage of underutilized facilities — a consequence of shrinking federal employment along with the rise of private contractors — the EUL brought in more than $10.8 million in revenue from the lease of 65 properties by NASA in 2019.

“ is authority essentially allows NASA to take underutilized assets and lease them to the public. And we are able to keep a portion of the proceeds for speci c purposes such as maintaining the building or the grounds,” explained James Jackson, NASA’s Glenn Research Center deputy chief counsel.

e alphabet soup that is NASA’s EUL program was created in 2003 not only to help ll some of the

agency’s nancial holes but to also attract academic and private-sector entities — in particular tech and aerospace sector companies — to work “behind the gates” in hopes that their work might support the agency’s overall mission.

When NASA rolled out that demonstration EUL program at its Ames and Kennedy locations, the goal was to nd a use for underutilized real property after a study showed the agency — which owns more than 100,000 acres of real estate, and more than 6,000 buildings

Beyond the Ordinary

and structures — was looking at $1.8 billion of deferred maintenance and more than 10% of the agency’s facilities were either underutilized or not utilized at all.

e program has also been a boon for larger NASA centers in helping launch the start of privatecommercial space partnerships.

“If you look back at Kennedy Space Center by employing the leasing authority it created a multi-user spaceport for Space X and other commercial partners,” said Carlos Flores, NASA Glenn’s

Strategic Planning Branch chief. “At Ames, they built a research park and partnered with Cal Berkeley to put housing on federal land and help with congestion and roadways out in Silicon Valley.”

Flores and Jackson want to see that sort of synergy at the aforementioned NASA locations in Cleveland and Sandusky.

After an audit of the expansive and aging facilities, Jackson said three buildings were identi ed for the EUL program.

“We identified the Cryogenics Components Laboratory at Armstrong Test Facility out in Sandusky as one asset, and the Altitude Combustion Stand at Lewis Field and also our iconic hangar — the Flight Research Building — which a lot of people are familiar with because it is kind of a hallmark feature of the [Glenn Research] Center,” Jackson said. e Cryogenics Components Laboratory and Altitude Combustion Stand allow for highly technical testing facilities that simulate extreme temperatures and conditions. is also narrows down lease applicants to a small group, Flores points out.

The application for the cryogenics lab is expected to be out later this month and the altitude combustion stand in April, whereas the hangar proposal is still in the works because it falls under the federal National Historic Preservation program.

e objective, Flores said, is that any potential EUL partners are part of NASA’s goal to increase commercial space work and to support the aerospace-related operations at the Research Center.

“We’re looking to create a bustling ecosystem both at Armstrong Test Facility and here at Lewis Field for a long period of time,” Flores said. “If we can bring the right companies to partner with us, we can also help them develop and

then we all contribute to the same mission.”

at ecosystem is part of NASA Glenn’s master plan that aims to create a downtown-like feel at Lewis Field by repurposing some facilities and replacing some of the 1940s-era buildings.

Leasing a lab or space from a NASA facility doesn’t come without expectations, though. e most important one is taking over the responsibility of operating and maintaining the building and all the equipment.

Any prospective leasers or tenants also have to deal with NASA as a government agency, so there are many rules and regulations, and the organizations will have to be owned or managed by a U.S. citizen.

But, red tape aside, the program also comes with access to some of the best minds in the country.

“If, for example, you’re in there testing and you want to bring in NASA’s subject matter experts you can absolutely do that,” Jackson said. “ at is part of that ecosystem we’re trying to build — to bring your hard problems here and try to work them but to the extent you want our assistance and help and our workforce. We can absolutely accommodate that.”

Being behind the gates has other bene ts. In addition to the expert eco-system, there is federal-level security, a cafeteria, a credit union and, as Jackson points out, even a NASA gift shop. And those are all built into the leasing arrangement.

“ ere is this water cooler bene t where you got great minds just mixing and having great conversations and idea sharing. You really can’t put a price tag on, but it’s de nitely real,” Jackson said.

It will be interesting to see how NASA Glenn takes advantage of the EUL program as a center that does not have Mission Command control, said John Sankovic, president of the Ohio Aerospace Institute, a nonpro t aerospace advocacy group.

“I think it is positive. Other centers have bene ted from this for a long time,” Sankovic said “I will be curious to see what the demand is and to see who is interested and who it will t in with the overall mission.”

e EUL program also comes at the same time that Cleveland Hopkins International Airport is nalizing a $3 billion master plan, Sankovic points out.

Flores hopes the EUL moves along as quickly as possible and has worked on streamlining it to “move at a pace that business can accept.” On average, an EUL process takes about 18 to 24 months but Flores worked to reduce the NASA Glenn time to six months.

“We don’t want to get bogged down and make it cumbersome or too challenging to work with us,” he said. “We want to be a really good partner so we’re trying to move fairly quickly.”

NASA Glenn’s Lewis Field and Armstrong test facility in Sandusky are leasing properties including the Flight Research Building. | BRIDGET CASWEL

Lakefront development nonpro t picks its rst executive director

By Marcus Gilmer

A key gure in the city of Cleveland’s plan to reshape its lakefront has been selected as the North Coast Waterfront Development Corporation (NCWDC) announced its rst executive director on March 5.

Scott Skinner, vice president of development at e NRP Group, will step into the role, according to the announcement made by the NCWDC.

Formed in October 2023, the 10-member NCWDC board is charged with shepherding the massive lakefront redevelopment project. And Skinner, as its executive director, will be “responsible for organizational leadership, advocacy, funding strategies and maintaining alignment with public and private sector stakeholders” in the lakefront development process, according to the board’s press release.

and recreation We are pleased to have such an outstanding leader in this role.”

Destination Cleveland President and CEO and NCWDC board chair David Gilbert concurred, saying, “Scott is an experienced leader who brings strong development credentials and understanding of our community to this new role. e Board is eager to advance the work of NCWDC to help develop and connect our downtown lakefront. It is one of the most important projects in our community for the next generation of Clevelanders.”

Skinner steps into a lead role in the city’s ever-evolving “shore-tocore-to-shore” plans that includes the redevelopment of the lakefront (one shore), the city’s riverfront (the other shore) and part of the downtown (the core) area.

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“Scott is an experienced leader who brings strong development credentials and understanding of our community to this new role.”

David Gilbert, Destination Cleveland president and CEO

e lakefront district is the approximately 70-acre area that runs from Lakeside Avenue to the waterfront and includes Cleveland Browns Stadium, the Great Lakes Science Center and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Mayor Justin M. Bibb praised Skinner’s appointment, saying in the announcement, “Scott’s experience in development, community outreach and advocacy will be essential as he builds this organization from the ground up and begins the work to transform Cleveland’s Downtown Lakefront into a vibrant and accessible destination for residents, business

Speaking to Crain’s last fall, Bibb said of the project,  “We believe that executing our vision for the lakefront, executing our vision for the riverfront will make Cleveland one of the only two-waterfront cities in America. at is going to be our competitive advantage for the next generation.”

More recently, there’s been a bit of a tussle over how to pay for much of the development. Floated back in September 2023, the city began exploring the use of a tax-increment nancing (TIF) district to generate billions of dollars for the project while also sending funds to other neighbors across the city.

Concerns about how much TIF money would be given to neighborhoods outside downtown prompted Council President Blaine Gri n to brie y halt movement on the plans. But Grifn and Bibb came to an agreement even as other council members remain skeptical of TIF bill.

Whether the valuation relates to large industrial buildings, apartments, shopping centers, office buildings, health care facilities, hotels or any other type of commercial property, the attorneys at Sleggs, Danzinger & Gill will ensure that you receive the best counsel, legal advice and litigation expertise.

An updated rendering shows the North Coast Lakefront Master Plan. | CITY OF CLEVELAND

Ozempic, Wegovy buzz is ‘just the beginning’

By Paige Bennett

Demand for drugs that induce rapid weight loss has quickly turned medications Ozempic and Wegovy into household names. And experts don’t expect the hype around them to dwindle any time soon.

“Even though it’s already a tsunami, we do believe it’s just the beginning, because of all these other applications that are being looked at for this drug class,” said Kelly Chillingworth, managing partner and co-founder of Integrity Rx Partners, a pharmacy bene t consulting rm. “ ere’s new information coming out constantly about uses and side e ects.”

With the weight loss drug craze remaining in e ect, providers, payers and patients are navigating high costs and sporadic shortages, and emerging research suggests there is potential for these medications in other areas of health.   How do these medications work?

prescriptions for Ozempic, Wegovy and similar obesity drugs, according to a report by Trilliant Health. e market value of Novo Nordisk, the manufacturer of Ozempic and Wegovy, is more than $500 billion, Axios reported in January 2024.

Health insurance companies started to feel the e ects of the Ozempic boom over the last couple of years.

“It hit the claims le late 2022 and throughout 2023,” Chillingworth said. “When we look back and do analysis on last year’s claims, it’s pervasive.”

e cost of Ozempic ranges anywhere from $900 to $1,300 per month. Most insurance companies cover the drug for diabetes, but it’s generally not covered for weight loss. And many insurers have halted coverage of Ozempic as a result of rising costs.

“ is is becoming so wildly popular that it’s actually becoming a little bit of a component of attraction and retention for employees,” said Doug Ramsthel, executive vice president and partner at Burnham Bene ts Insurance Services. “ ey’re asking the employer ‘Do you cover this?’ I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RAs) are a class of medications used in the treatment of Type 2 diabetes and obesity. ey work by mimicking a hormone called glucagon-like peptide-1. e hormone is involved in several important functions in the body, including triggering the release of insulin, increasing the feelings of fullness after eating and suppressing the hormone glucagon, which can raise blood sugar.

In addition to soaring costs, the surge in prescriptions resulted in widespread shortages of the drugs.

“This is the beginning of the obesity medicine gold rush. And (there are) medications coming down the pipeline. That means there’s going to be competition, and things are going to get cheaper.”

Doug Ramsthel, executive vice president and partner at Burnham Bene ts Insurance Services

o medications available at medical spas or standalone clinics present safety risks.

Berger

“ e big reason (Ozempic) was started was because one of its effects is to work on the pancreas so your pancreas secretes a little bit more insulin that it would normally,” said Dr. Nathan Berger, the Hanna-Payne Professor of Experimental Medicine at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.

In 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Ozempic, also known by the generic term semaglutide, for treatment of adults with Type 2 diabetes. Although Ozempic is not FDA-approved for weight management, the drug, taken in the form of a weekly injection, has been found to be e ective for weight loss. It slows down the processing of food in your stomach, helping you stay full for longer stretches of time, and works on your brain stem to decrease appetite, Berger said.

“ ey couldn’t keep up with the demand with all this inux in prescriptions for Wegovy,” said Dr. Amy Lee, chief medical o cer at Southern California-based Lindora, a medical weight loss company. “ ere was a lot of o -label prescribing at that time, which then caused the over-usage of Ozempic versus Wegovy.”

Shortages have continued on and o since Wegovy and Ozempic started gaining popularity, said Dr. Megan Moini, a certi ed obesity medicine physician who owns Emerald Direct Primary Care in Beachwood.

While these medications are effective for weight loss, they aren’t the short-term solution many expect them to be, Moini said.

Moini said there is no real safety data on these versions and that sometimes they are used in patients who don’t qualify for treatment. She has seen patients be hospitalized as a result of taking these medications, she said.

Novo Nordisk has taken legal action against compounding pharmacies selling knocko versions of semaglutide.

Several lawsuits have been led against Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly claiming that Ozempic and Mounjaro can cause gastroparesis, a paralysis of the stomach. Berger said the side e ects observed so far have been minor.

Could Ozempic curb alcohol cravings?

As interest in GLP-1 RAs continues to grow, researchers are investigating other potential uses for them.

e FDA gave approval to Ozempic’s sister medication, Wegovy, in 2021 for chronic weight management in adults with obesity or overweight. About a year after Wegovy got regulatory approval, demand for the drug skyrocketed.

In the last three months of 2022, U.S. health care providers wrote more than nine million

“When you think about antibiotics, you have an infection, and you take it for a couple of weeks and then maybe never again,” Berger said. “ e thing with (GLP1 RAs) is … the people who need to take this really need to take it forever. You take it and then you lose weight and then you stop taking it and you gain the weight back. It’s a di erent kind of drug than antibiotics. It’s used chronically.”

When a drug appears on the FDA’s shortages list, some restrictions may be loosened to allow compounding pharmacies to make their own versions, which are copies of the approved drugs. But there are concerns among medical professionals that knock-

Berger was part of a research team that found in a 2023 study that GLP-1 RAs may reduce the risk of colorectal cancer. He also was involved in a study that showed no association between the use of Ozempic and Wegovy and an increased risk of suicidal thoughts. Researchers are looking at whether using these drugs simultaneously with other cancer therapies can reduce the side effects of therapies and increase survival rates, Berger said.

Research has also suggested that semaglutide may be e ective

in preventing heart attack and stroke and improving symptoms of heart failure.

Another area with promising potential is addiction treatment. One of the reasons the drug helps with weight loss is by reducing food cravings, Moini said. Some patients taking Ozempic have reported less interest in alcohol as well. A number of clinical trials are underway to see how the drug a ects drinking and smoking habits.

“I’m personally most excited about the addiction aspect,” Lee said. “But we have to get the specialists on board and keeping up with the data. For example, (if) a cardiologist is able to understand the mechanism of action and how powerful this medication could be, they could be the primary prescriber of GLP-1s.”

Having di erent specialists be the primary prescribers of these medications would allow them to manage their patients from start to nish, Lee said, rather than require an obesity management doctor to get involved. It opens up the opportunity for consolidating services and getting better data on the end stage of conditions or outcomes, she said.

e continued rise of these drugs will also result in more competition among drugmakers. e FDA approved Eli Lilly’s weight loss drug Zepbound last November, and Mounjaro, the company’s rival to Ozempic, was found in a 2023 study to help overweight or obese adults lose more weight faster than Ozempic.

“ is is the beginning of the obesity medicine gold rush,” Ramsthel said. “And (there are) medications coming down the pipeline. at means there’s going to be competition, and things are going to get cheaper.”

Chillingworth said it will be an area that continues to be discussed in the coming years.

“From a consulting standpoint, this issue is not going away clinically,” she said. “We all have to work together to gure it out. e employees who have bene t coverage are going to have to come to an understanding that everyone wants good outcomes. We’ve just got to gure out a way to get there.”

Six Northeast Ohio employers make list of ethical companies

Scott Suttell

ere are six Northeast Ohiobased employers — including two rst-timers — on the 2024 list of the world’s most ethical companies compiled by Phoenix-based Ethisphere.

It’s a strong showing for the region, as there are only 136 companies on the list.

e organization, which denes its mission as “advancing the standards of ethical business practices,” on March 4 announced that 136 companies and institutions, representing 20 countries and 44 industries, made this year’s list.

ere are 15 rst-time honorees, including two from Northeast Ohio: food giant e J.M. Smucker Co. of Orrville and e Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. of Akron.

Four other companies from the region are more seasoned on the list.

ey are power management company Eaton, here for the 13th time; welding equipment maker Lincoln Electric Holdings (6th time); Timken Co., the maker of bearings and power transmission products (13th time); and University Hospitals (12th time).

is is the 18th year Ethisphere

has compiled the list. e organization says honorees “demonstrated a commitment to ethical business practices through robust programs that positively impact employees, communities, and broader stakeholders, as well as contributing to sustainable, longterm business growth.”

Ethisphere notes that six companies — A ac, Ecolab, International Paper, Kao Corp., Milliken & Co. and PepsiCo — have made the list all 18 times.

e organization says it bases its selections on results of a questionnaire that requires companies to provide more than 240 “proof points on their culture of

ethics” in areas such as environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices; ethics and compliance program; diversity, equity, & inclusion e orts; and initiatives that “support a strong value chain.”

Ethisphere claims that companies on this year’s list have a “ ve-year ethics premium” of 12.3%. It describes that premium as “the margin by which publicly traded companies recognized in this year’s World’s Most Ethical Companies outperformed a comparable index of global companies over a ve-year period from January 2019 to January 2024.”

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Brown leads the charge as Akron vies for $70M in polymer funding

Dan Shingler

Crain’s he thinks Akron’s chances this time around are good.

“I’m optimistic because we’ve gone this far and we’re the only one in Ohio,” he said.

eral lawmakers, including Brown, Sykes and also Reps. Max Miller, Shontel Brown, Mike Carey, Joyce Beatty and David Joyce.

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, U.S. Rep. Emilia Sykes of Akron and other local members of Congress are pushing for the federal government to fund the regional polymer hub being proposed by the Greater Akron Chamber and other players in the important regional industry.

At stake are tens of millions of dollars that local economic developers say could improve the region’s already strong polymer industry and cement its importance nationally.

e industry includes big rubber companies such as Goodyear Tire & Rubber, along with hundreds of other local businesses involved in plastics, paints and coatings, and a plethora of products and materials based on polymer science and engineering. It also would support schools that are prominent in those disciplines, such as the University of Akron and Case Western Reserve University.

e region is teasingly close to winning some signi cant funding.

“Akron is one of 31 hubs designated from a pool of nearly 500 applicants being considered for an implementation award, thenal round of funding,” Sykes said in a news release she issued in support of the e ort. “Around 5-10 hubs will be selected with awards of $20-$70 million each to carry out their missions.”

It’s also still in the running for up to $35 million in state funding, designated for innovation hubs around Ohio. e state is expected to make those allocation decisions this year.

Brown was an architect of the federal hub program, which comes from the CHIPS Act that Brown sponsored and helped pass in 2022. e act authorizes approximately $280 billion in new funding for domestic research and manufacturing related to semiconductors, which rely on polymers for development and manufacturing.

In a call on Feb. 29, Brown told

e senator said he also thinks the project will be favored by U.S. Commerce Deputy Secretary Don Graves, a Cleveland area native whom Brown said is targeting Ohio for support.

“Someone said to me ‘Can you tell Don there are 49 states in addition to Ohio?’ and I said, ‘Why would I tell him that?’” Brown quipped.

Akron previously was awarded a $400,000 strategy development grant for the consortium to aid local coordination and planning e orts to pursue the grant and now local backers are hopping for the big prize. e Greater Akron Chamber, which has been applauded for corralling local backers of the e ort into collaboration, con rmed it had sent its grant application to the feds by the deadline, Feb. 29.

e chamber said via email, “ e proposal requests a total of $70 million for this work, matched by over $11 million in public and private investment” from local agencies and corporations.

at money would be used to implement eight “Sustainable Polymers Tech Hub” projects that will be designed to reinvigorate the ecosystem for polymer startups in the region, add workforce capacity, invest in new technologies and further build partnerships and innovation in the sector.

Brown and others contend Akron is the natural site for such a hub to be based.

“Akron, famously known as the ‘Rubber Capital of the World,’ has been a leader in the polymer industry since the early 1900s. e city’s history, paired with the state’s rich manufacturing history, makes northeast Ohio the obvious location to invest in a Tech Hub focused on polymers and advanced materials manufacturing and research & development,” wrote the region’s bipartisan fed-

e group’s letter was sent Feb. 29 to U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and the U.S. Economic Development Administration.

Now comes what might be the toughest part of the process: the waiting.

at might be especially true in this case as Akron and the local polymer industry have come close to winning federal funding before, only to lose out in the end.

e group was one of 60 nalists, out of 529 applicants, for up to $17 million in funding in 2022, but ultimately did not win.

But there is more up for grabs this time, and local backers are hopeful that the close nish in 2022 will improve their chances this year.

ere’s plenty of other local support, and input, into the effort, the chamber stated in a release.

“Each of the eight projects are being led by a Polymer Industry Cluster partner, each making a direct funding request to EDA under the Sustainable Polymers Tech Hub umbrella,” the chamber stated. “Partners leading component projects include Bioverde Tech LLC, Bounce Innovation Hub, Flexsys, Full Circle Technologies/Tyromer (coleads), Huntsman Corporation, e Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., e Greater Akron Chamber and e University of Akron. Legislators pledge their continued support.”

Sykes in a statement added, “Polymers touch every industrial sector, and this Tech Hub will help ensure that Northeast Ohio remains a global leader in innovation, while also boosting our local economy and creating good-paying jobs right here at home. As a member of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, I’ll keep advocating to bring this Tech Hub to Akron and Northeast Ohio.”

The Goodyear Polymer Center at the University of Akron | UNIVERSITY OF AKRON

MAKING IT WORK

Teamwork and collaboration can be dif cult but are essential to helping the region achieve its priorities

By Jay Miller

Some nearby regions have grown around a single community — the areas around Chicago, Columbus and Indianapolis, for example — but Northeast Ohio grew out of several communities.

And each of those economies supports a collection of local governments.

And, of course, the region has hundreds of businesses, philanthropies, neighborhood and community groups and other civic actors, all of whom have different self-interests and priorities. Gathering leaders of these groups together to agree on shared challenges and potential solutions — and then to follow through with successful action — requires significant time and resources.

For Northeast Ohio to achieve its priorities — helping workers nd jobs, supporting business expansion, creating new and a ordable housing, keeping the air and water clean, remaking a lakefront for recreation and tourism, and ensuring that everyone shares in the success — collaboration is critical to making each of those communities work together.

Continued on next page

Grace Gallucci

Jack Schron

David Gilbert

Baiju Shah

Ethan Karp

“I guess it’s in my nature, but I also really believe that any of our community’s biggest problems can’t be solved by any one organization, any one person, and have to be solved through collaborations.”

David Gilbert, president and CEO of Destination Cleveland and of the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission

From previous page

Chris ompson, president of Civic Collaboration Consultants, a Cleveland-area consultancy that supports e orts to collaborate, said it is di cult for government, businesses and civic groups to nd collective solutions to problems even when they see the need to come together to solve a community problem.

“Yet,” he said, “we must do it to have thriving communities.”

ompson, who created a handbook, “Collaboration,” when he worked for the Fund for Our Economic Future, itself a Northeast Ohio civic collaboration, described the subject as “a process through which independent stakeholders assume shared responsibility for achieving a mutually bene cial, common goal.”

Columbus and Central Ohio have developed an economy that has surpassed Northeast Ohio’s. One reason for that success was how well business and civic organizations came together to fuel growth and development. And while Northeast Ohio businesses, governments and civic groups haven’t gotten the same recognition, they have been working, often successfully, collaboratively for decades.

Cuyahoga County, with a population of 1.25 million people, has 37 cities (not counting villages and townships) around Cleveland, its largest city. By comparison, Franklin County, with a population of 1.32 million, has 15 suburbs around Columbus.

Most civic collaborations cross multiple jurisdictions, whether it’s municipal boundaries or institutional ones. For example, plans to reduce car-

bon emissions can’t stop at municipal boundaries. ey must re ect the location of pollution generators like industrial centers, government road building and workers’ commuting patterns as well as weather conditions across a broad area. Similarly, an area can’t attract new industrial development if its school districts and other educational institutions aren’t educating its workforce of the future.

And, of course, the region has hundreds of businesses, philanthropies, neighborhood and community groups and other civic actors, all of whom have different self-interests and priorities.

David Gilbert is president and CEO of Destination Cleveland, the area’s convention and visitor’s bureau and also president and CEO of the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission, which attracts sporting events to the region. He believes collaboration is key to regional growth.

“I’m a huge believer in it,” he said. “I guess it’s in my nature, but I also really believe that any of our community’s biggest problems can’t be solved by any one organization, any one person, and have to be solved through collaborations.”

Northeast Ohio has a long history of collaboration, a history that goes back to at least 1848, when 36 business leaders came together at the Weddell House, a hotel in Cleveland where the Rockefeller Building now stands at Superior Avenue and West Sixth Street, to form the Board of Trade of the City of Cleveland.

at became the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, which is now today’s Greater Cleveland Partnership.

en, in a major step in 1913, the Federation for Charity & Philanthropy was created by civic and business leaders to more e ciently direct charitable giving to improve the community’s health, living conditions and educational opportunities. at organization survives today as the United Way of Greater Cleveland.

Let’s take a closer look at how speci c collaborations are helping Northeast Ohio take advantage of opportunities in three important areas — the environment and its future health; manufacturing, a key economic sector; and the Lake Erie waterfront, an important attraction for residents of the region and tourists from beyond.

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION RECENT

THE GOALS

NOACA, the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency, is leading an e ort to create a regional climate action plan, a principal goal of which is to clean the air by reducing greenhouse gas pollution from electricity generation, industry, transportation, buildings, agricultural land and waste management. NOACA is a federally created metropolitan planning organization. It brings together a 48-member board of directors including public o cials from the counties, cities, villages and townships in Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, Lorain and Medina counties.

NOACA collaborated with the city of Cleveland to win a $1 million federal Environmental Protection Agency grant to get the plan started. More than 50 companies and organizations — including Bendix, the Cleveland Foundation, Dominion Ohio Gas, the Gund Foundation and University Hospitals — have signed on as partners or technical advisers.

ACTIONS

“We have been collaborating very well together,” said Grace Gallucci, NOACA’S executive director and CEO. “We’re nishing up the rst part of our climate action planning process and developing a PCAP, a priority climate action plan.”

Among the priorities NOACA has set are encouraging municipal utilities to embrace clean energy, encouraging cleaner forms of steel production such as electric arc furnaces, keeping organic waste such as food and paper out of land lls, and encouraging land use that promotes transit-oriented development and shorter commutes.

e Greater Cleveland Partnership has also jumped into environmental planning with its focus on sustainability, looking at the e ects business has on both the environment and the broader society. e regional chamber of commerce has created a Sustainability Leaders Group of more than 35 companies and organizations to build relationships, exchange ideas and plan broader community initiatives. It has also, for the last two years, sponsored a Sustainability Summit as part of an e ort to build Northeast Ohio into a sustainable business center.

POTENTIAL ROADBLOCKS

Getting businesses to embrace their role in the e ort, and to take advantage of those opportunities that will arise, may take some encouragement.

At the most recent summit on Jan. 23, Baiju Shah, GCP’s president and CEO, called sustainability “a massive market opportunity” and said that sustainability is crucial for businesses that want to be competitive in a global marketplace.

Topics included developing a regional climate plan, decarbonization, solar power, talent attraction and much more. Shah explained the theme of the day in his opening remarks: “Sustainability is a business imperative that is right for your purpose, right for your people, and right for our planet.”

Grace Gallucci is NOACA’S executive director and CEO. The agency is leading an effort to create a regional climate action plan. GUS CHAN

Collaboration is helping clean and green Northeast Ohio

It’s been over a decade since Cleveland Metroparks established management of Cleveland’s lakefront parks, transforming the city’s north coast. With tremendous support from public partners and the civic community, we cleaned, greened and activated critical lakefront parks along our greatest asset, Lake Erie.

Together we completed the Towpath Trail and the 4+ mile Re-Connecting Cleveland project to break down transportation barriers. e results have been transformational for our region, including an estimated 35 million lakefront recreational visitors over the past decade to Euclid Beach, Villa Angela, Wildwood, Gordon Park and Edgewater. Cleveland’s lakefront has become a regional destination, a point of pride and a prime example of what can be accomplished when we come together to bene t the broader region.

Whenever I look back at what’s been accomplished, one word stands out: collaboration. e transformation did not come indi-

vidually but from collective vision, patience, strategic planning and — above all — close and continuous collaboration across all levels of government, nonpro ts and community partners. Cleveland Metroparks is in a unique position as a catalyst and collaborator for an improved quality of life in our region, with more than 25,000 acres across Northeast Ohio and land in 49 communities and six counties. If combined, our 18 park reservations would make Cleveland Metroparks the seventh largest city in Ohio. e strategic growth of Cleveland Metroparks continues as we seek to protect forests and waterways, connect to new and underserved communities, and strengthen opportunities for regional connections. Because of our ability to o er shared benets, over the last several years, 70% of new park land acquisitions for conservation have been funded through external partnerships including the county, municipalities, conservation organizations, donations, grants and more.

In addition to land protection, every year we implement dozens of unique capital projects – from new nature play areas and community spaces to regional, multiuse trail projects that connect underserved communities to our 325-mile trail network. And while most projects are dependent upon our tax-supported levy, they are primarily funded through partnerships that bring symbiotic bene ts to the organizations involved and a greater impact on the communities we serve.

at collaborative e ort to bring parks and greenspace to the region is continuing as we undertake the transformation of Gordon Park South and the construction of the Cleveland Lakefront Bikeway from

E. 9th Street to E. 55th Street with the City of Cleveland, Cleveland City Council, Cuyahoga County and neighborhood partners. Made possible thanks to a $13 million gift from the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation and complemented by funds from the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency and local match funds, we’re focused on bringing wide-ranging positive impacts that wouldn’t be possible alone.

We’re also hard at work with partners on trail connections to improve park equity and access both within Cleveland and throughout Northeast Ohio including the Euclid Creek Greenway, the Slavic Village Downtown Connector, the Morgana Run/

Booth Avenue Extension, Opportunity Corridor Connector, Irishtown Bend, Solon to Chagrin Falls Trail and more.

Over the next decade we have tremendous opportunities ahead, including the Cleveland Harbor Eastern Embayment Resilience Strategy (CHEERS) project on Cleveland’s east side and the state-of-the-art Primate Forest at Cleveland Metroparks Zoo that was kicked o thanks to a partnership with CrossCountry Mortgage. We’re also undertaking an overhaul of Barge 225 to create a oating education center right on Lake Erie in partnership with KeyBank and Jones Day Foundation. And much, much more.

ere is power in partnerships, but it takes work. It requires relationship building, patience, close coordination, compromise, trust and accountability. But — when you have shared goals — you can accomplish more for our entire region.

Our work isn’t done, I encourage you learn more and join me so we can take steps forward. Together we can create a more equitable, healthy and resilient Northeast Ohio.

Brian M. Zimmerman is CEO of Cleveland Metroparks.

The Towpath Trail was a collaborative effort by multiple partners. GETTY IMAGES

FORGING PARTNERSHIPS

THE GOALS

A collaboration created by the Greater Akron Chamber, called the Polymer Industry Cluster, is seeking federal funding of as much as $70 million to bring one of eight “Tech Hubs” planned by the federal Economic Development Administration to Akron. e EDA sees these centers becoming places to build the businesses and workforces emerging technologies would need. e Akron hub would invest in new polymer technologies and work with polymer startups since the region has built a strong polymer industry base, starting with Akron’s rubber companies. Northeast Ohio has 1,200 companies and 42,000 workers in the polymer sector, the Greater Akron Chamber said in a press release at the end of February.

Two other collaborations, based in Cleveland, are tackling, in di erent ways, the region’s broader manufacturing sector. ey are MAGNET: e Manufacturing Advocacy and Growth Network, and Manufacturing Works.

MAGNET, founded in 1984 as the Cleveland Advanced Manufacturing Program, has been able to bring together executives of manufacturing companies with educators and industry consultants to help small- and mid-sized rms increase sales, create jobs and generate cost savings through technological innovation, workforce training and improved management practices.

At Manufacturing Works, the 35-year-old nonpro t, formerly known as WIRE-Net, the focus is on fostering workforce development, supply chain development and governmental assistance programs. It also has created a distinctive program to help manufacturers with ownership transition. It set up its transition program in 2020 and helps prepare its business owners for succession or sale of the business.

MANUFACTURING

RECENT ACTIONS

Baiju Shah, president and CEO of the Greater Cleveland Partnership, the regional chamber of commerce, has added support for the Polymer Industry Cluster. “We’re going to make sure that everyone in the federal government recognizes that this is a priority,” he said in a February interview.

In 2021, with the help of 120 industry collaborators, MAGNET produced a report, “Make It Better: A Blueprint for Manufacturing in Northeast Ohio. Believing the region is falling behind on technology and innovation, the report focused on how to build the future of manufacturing in Northeast Ohio in ve areas: talent, technology, innovation, leadership and “the industry’s path for the future.”

Ethan Karp, president and CEO of MAGNET, believes realizing the goals outlined in the Blueprint will require continued collaboration by manufacturing leaders with government and other civic institutions in, for example, the area of workforce development, where Karp believes manufacturers are seeing some success.

“On the local level, workforce is a great example where we’re doing this really well,” he said in a recent interview. “Big companies, small companies working together to say, with government, ‘How can we make pipelines (to bring in new employees)? We’ve gone from 200 new people to 500 new people and we’re on track for a thousand new people entering and manufacturing after decades of just oundering.  A concerted systematic e ort on the local level made sense.”

Jack Schron, the president of Jergens Inc., a Cleveland maker of specialty fasteners and workholding products such as vices and clamps, is

POTENTIAL ROADBLOCKS

A similar e ort to land federal polymer funding in 2022 was unsuccessful. But the partners believe they have a winning combination this time around. Part of that was putting together the polymer partnership, which has 77 members including Bioverde Tech LLC, Bounce Innovation Hub, Flexsys, Full Circle Technologies/Tyromer, Huntsman Corporation, the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., the Greater Akron Chamber and the University of Akron, the chamber said in a press release.

While Cleveland has always been the largest community in the re-

“On the local level, workforce is a great example where we’re doing this really well.”

Ethan Karp, president and CEO of MAGNET

on the MAGNET board and he agrees.

“ ey brought some really good people into putting that together,” said Schron, who is also a member of the Cuyahoga County Council. “And you want to know about success? is is just beyond everybody’s expectation.”

Ken Patsey, Manufacturing Works president and executive director, said the organization’s members a few years ago began to realize that its business owners didn’t know anything about transitioning their businesses and needed help creating exit strategies.

“If there wasn’t a family member to take over, the success rate of a transition was only about 18%,” Patsey said. “We said, ‘Let’s educate our members to be good sellers.’”

Manufacturing Works found organizations that worked with transitioning business owners, typically from father to son. “And as we were doing that, we said, ‘Well, you know, they’re going to need help being sold too,’” he said. “And so we started something we called the Leadership Institute where we accept in people and try to educate them up to see if they really want to be business owners.”

gion with a strong, broad manufacturing base, Akron was the “Rubber City,” home to the largest tire makers, who attracted a workforce in the early 1900s from Appalachia, giving the city the second nickname as the capital of West Virginia. And Lorain and Youngstown built their own economies around steel mills. Lake County built an economy on agriculture — its nurseries and vineyards remain strong despite the encroachment of housing developments and manufacturers spreading out from Cleveland. And Mentor was, in the early 20th century, nicknamed “ e Rose Capital of the World.”

Jack Schron is president of Jergens Inc., a Cleveland maker of specialty fasteners and workholding products such as vices and clamps, and is on the MAGNET board. | KEN BLAZE

Partnerships empower more to join the conversation

As the founder and president of the Women in Manufacturing Association (WiM), headquartered right here in Northeast Ohio, I've had the privilege of witnessing rsthand the transformative power of collaboration within our local manufacturing community.

ous industry organizations.

Our Ohio chapter, established in 2012, stands as a testament to the vibrant spirit of cooperation that permeates throughout our region. With 1,625 current members representing 231 unique companies, WiM Ohio has become a hub of connectivity, innovation and empowerment.

e importance of our presence here cannot be overstated. ere exists a remarkable spirit of collaboration between educational institutions, direct manufacturing companies, service providers and industry partners in Northeast Ohio. is collaborative environment has been instrumental in our growth over the past decade-plus, enabling us to establish fruitful partnerships with numer-

At WiM, our mission is clear: to support, promote and inspire women in industry. We work closely with manufacturing companies to advance female talent and foster a culture of inclusivity and empowerment. is commitment is reected in our extensive network of 448 corporate members across the globe, with 43 situated right here in Northeast Ohio.

Companies like Sherwin-Williams, Nordson and Diebold Nixdorf have been steadfast partners since the beginning, embodying the cooperative ethos that characterizes our region. ese partnerships not only bolster our local presence but also serve as exemplars of industry leadership and commitment to diversity and inclusion.

While women currently represent 30% of the manufacturing workforce — a modest increase from a decade ago — there's still much work to be done.

Our 2024 Career Advancement in Manufacturing Report, conducted with Xometry, reveals a surge in optimism among women in manufacturing, with a remarkable 81% recommending a career in the industry. However, addressing the skills gap and workforce shortages remains paramount.

We must actively engage in promoting the modern face of manufacturing to the next generation of talent. is necessitates strategic partnerships with community agencies, organizations, and chapters across all regions. By showcasing the diverse array of

roles and opportunities within the industry, we're not only breaking down barriers but also laying the foundation for a more inclusive and thriving sector.

Visibility lies at the heart of our e orts. We understand that representation matters and that we can't aspire to be what we can't see. rough platforms like our Hear Her Story podcast and social media channels, we're amplifying the voices and experiences of women in manufacturing. By highlighting their achievements and sharing their stories, we're challenging stereotypes and re-

shaping perceptions of what a career in manufacturing looks like.

As we look to the future, I urge companies and partners in manufacturing to join us in our mission:

◗ Promote your female workforce, celebrate their accomplishments and invest in their professional development.

◗ Identify future leaders within your organization and provide them with the support and opportunities they need to succeed.

◗ Benchmark with other companies to learn best practices and strategies for attracting, retaining, and advancing female talent.

◗ Above all, seek out partnerships —whether with WiM or other organizations in the region — that can amplify your e orts and drive meaningful change.

Together, through collaboration and collective action, we can build a manufacturing industry that is not only competitive and pro table but also diverse, equitable and inclusive. Let's embrace the power of partnerships and work toward a future where women are not only represented but empowered to lead, innovate, and inspire. e time for action is now, and change is ours to make.

Working to advance racial equity and economic mobility for the next generation in the Great Lakes region.

Allison Grealis is president and founder of the Women in Manufacturing Association.

The Women in Manufacturing Association works to advance female talent. GETTY IMAGES

LAKEFRONT DEVELOPMENT

THE GOALS

Today, there are at least a half dozen planning e orts underway in Cuyahoga County alone to develop an attractive, user-friendly lakefront for recreation and tourism.

“I would say, overall, we’ve actually done a pretty poor job as a community, at least in Cuyahoga County, of accessing the lake,” said David Gilbert, president and CEO of Destination Cleveland, which markets the region to business and recreational visitors. “And from the travel and tourism perspective, I don’t think there’s anything more important that we could do to long-term solidify our place as a top Midwest travel destination. It will take a lot of vision, a lot of concentrated e ort, but if we do it the right way, it could be one of the absolute di erentiators that our community needs for its future.”

Gilbert said past visitors “cite the area’s natural beauty and outdoors as one of our key assets; our research clearly shows that outdoors and recreation are critical to attracting visitors to the region.”

RECENT ACTIONS

Current plans for the lakefront in Cuyahoga County stretch from one end of the waterfront — Bay Village on the west end — to the other — Euclid on the east end.

But several major plans highlight the collaborative nature of lakefront planning.

In October 2023, Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb announced the creation of the nonpro t North Coast Waterfront Development Corp. to lead the redevelopment of the downtown Cleveland waterfront. at group is charged with following through on the mayor’s plan, still underway, to remake the North Coast harbor. e most recently discussed plan includes a land bridge connecting Mall C to the lakefront, which would have a central community plaza with an amphitheater and what’s been called a “front porch,” a beach and wetlands area. e mayor named Gilbert chair of a 10-person board of directors that includes leaders of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Great Lakes Science Center, the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority and the Haslam Sports Group, whose football team plays at the lakefront Cleveland Browns Stadium.

POTENTIAL ROADBLOCKS

Planning for the lakefront began in the middle of the 19th century and new plans have cropped up regularly since. Few worked well enough to build an attractive and accessible waterfront, despite often long-term collaborative e orts. Stadiums and Burke Lakefront Airport, along with parking lots, a freeway and railroad tracks that date to the 19th century remain stumbling blocks to a recreational waterfront.

ough the timeline is long and it’s hard to keep partnerships going over long periods, Metroparks CEO Brian Zimmerman believes collaboration will be key to CHEERS development. “ e port has its goal of dredged material being moved out of the Cuyahoga River and put into a con ned disposal facility (in this case the new island); Metroparks and the Black Environment Leaders want to see more access to the lakefront,” Zimmerman said. “So my point is that as long as you have clearly de ned objectives and you’re aligned with your partner groups you can really, e ectively, move forward. You have to be adaptable because a partnership is a living thing.”

Gilbert said an earlier, similarly collaborative organization, also called the North Coast Development Corp. created in the late 1980s, may have been the most recent lakefront e ort to get results.

“That’s when the (North Coast) Harbor got built; that’s when the Rock Hall got built, the science center got built; that’s when Voinovich Park got done,” he said. “And when that entity went away and you had that collaborative approach go away, you had nothing.”

Also on Cleveland’s East Side, the CHEERS project — or Cleveland Harbor Eastern Embayment Resilience Study — seeks to create a new island and enhance 76 acres of parkland between the East 55th Street Marina and Gordon Park. It’s a partnership led by Cleveland Metroparks and includes the Black Environmental Leaders Association, the City of Cleveland, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and Transportation and the Port of Cleveland.

In part because of the need to build the new island with material dredged from the Cuyahoga River by the port authority, CHEERS is a 20-year project and could cost $300 million to complete.

ough Zimmerman is con dent CHEERS can succeed over the long term, if history is any guide, signi cant parts of many of these plans will not be completed. It may be the plans are just too ambitious and require too many players to stay engaged for long periods to stay together and be completed.

And that’s OK to at least one lakefront activist — Dick Clough, founder and president of the Green Ribbon Coalition, a nonpro t lakefront advocate that in 2019 proposed a land bridge to span from Cleveland’s Mall to the waterfront. Clough believes that the plans may be too grandiose to be fully achieved.

“We have a proclivity in Cleveland to constantly swing for the fences when contemplating civic investments,” he said in an email. “ is tendency is certainly true of our lakefront plans over the years, but also other projects. We should be rolling out small improvements every year or two that improve residents’ lakefront and riverfront experience.”

The pier (left) and Cleveland script sign (right) at Euclid Beach Park in Cleveland. Planning for the lakefront began in the middle of the 19th century and new plans have cropped up regularly since. CLEVELAND METROPARKS

The CHEERS project seeks to create a new island and enhance 76 acres of parkland between the East 55th Street Marina and Gordon Park. | KEN BLAZE

Some regional priorities can’t be solved by collaboration

For 100 years, well-intentioned studies have warned about urban sprawl in Northeast Ohio.

ey’ve documented how new suburbs draw population and wealth from the region’s urban core and then use exclusionary zoning to enforce social and economic segregation. Other studies have shown that sprawling, automobile-dependent land uses are the region’s biggest environmental problem, causing increased air and water pollution, energy use, and habitat loss harming wildlife.

David Beach was executive director of EcoCity Cleveland from 1992-2007 and director of the Green City Blue Lake Institute of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History from 2008-17.

A recent regional planning project, Vibrant NEO 2040, found the continual sprawl of development and infrastructure at low density — in a region that’s not growing overall — is so costly that every county in Northeast Ohio will go bankrupt eventually.

Despite all the warnings, sprawl continues apace. Just look at Avon and the other communities at the region’s developing periphery.

Indeed, it’s naïve to hope that planning studies or some form of enlightened collaboration will change regional land use patterns. e forces of sprawl are much too strong.

First, there are massive public subsidies for suburbanization, including funding for a transportation system that prioritizes long-distance commuting by car,

subsidies for the oil industry that keep gas prices arti cially low, and the home mortgage interest deduction that helps people buy big new homes out in the new subdivisions.

en there are the political facts of home rule and local government fragmentation that give new communities incentive to build their tax bases at the expense of older communities. We also have a school funding system based on local property taxes and a state government hostile to sensible land use planning. Add all that up, and the “free market” produces sprawl.

To make matters worse, for decades Cleveland allowed the destruction of the walkable urbanism that is the antidote to sprawl. Cleveland’s urban renewal projects cleared out more neighborhoods — an estimated 6,000 acres, or more than 10% of the city’s land area — than any other city in the country. Interstate highways bulldozed through additional neighborhoods. Densely developed places were replaced with suburban-style homes and strip shopping centers. More and more of the city became a car-dominated landscape cluttered with parking lots.

ere are signs, however, that the city has learned it can’t compete with the suburbs on suburban terms. e only way for the

city to save itself is to become a better city — more urban, dense and walkable.

So Cleveland is experimenting with form-based zoning, which should make it easier to develop dense, mixed-use buildings that promote vibrant streets and allow more people to live close to public transit service. It’s reducing parking requirements for new development. It’s promoting bike lanes, tra c calming and pedestrian safety.

In sum, it’s adopting policies to make Cleveland a 15-minute city in which people’s basic needs can be met within a short walk, bike ride or transit trip.

ere’s a market for this. A lot of people are hungry for walkable places — human-scale streets with an interesting mix of stores and activities. at’s why they ock to the arti cial, commercialized urbanism of places like Crocker Park.

Cleveland, along with the region’s other core cities and some inner-ring suburbs, can o er real urbanism. By doing so, these places can provide more housing choices, since building lots of housing at high density is the best way to make housing more a ordable overall. And they can give more people the option of living where it’s convenient to drive less and use less energy, which is critical as we face the challenges of climate change.

In the long run, the redevelopment of great cities is our best hope for curbing the ruinous impacts of sprawl and making our entire region more sustainable.

e three essentials of successful collaborations

As someone who makes a living supporting community-based collaborations, my rst piece of advice on how to collaborate is always the same: Don’t.

If you can achieve your goal on your own, please do so, as you will save much time, talent and treasure. Collaboration is a means, not a goal. What if you need others to get where you want to go? Well, a partnership — where roles and responsibilities are de ned in advance — requires less of those scarce resources than does collaboration.

But what if the goal is to address an adaptive community challenge (not a technical problem), such as assuring our lakefront is accessible to and creates value for all residents or the talent development system works for residents and employers? No single entity or partnership can address such complex priorities. Collaboration is required. What then?

First, agree on what the term means. Assuming people understand what collaboration is and how it’s done is one way to guarantee failure.

Successful collaborations are made up by people with a shared purpose who share power and responsibility to achieve it. ose are the three essential “shareds” of collaboration:

◗ Purpose

Power

◗ Responsibility

We shouldn’t confuse a common complaint with a shared purpose. For example, the “talent shortage” has been the top complaint in communities for more than a decade. But rarely do I see employers changing their employment practices to address it, let alone sharing power and responsibility.

A shared purpose must be powerful enough to unite diverse parties with distinct priorities over the long haul. Such a purpose is much less common than frequent whining.

When it comes to power, the dominant trait in our culture is to aggregate, not share. Yet successful collaboratives create structures and practices that help pri-

mary actors (individuals directly a ected by the issue) and supporting actors (funders, policymakers and service providers working on the issue) learn, decide and act together. Too often e orts labeled as “collaborations” are merely attempts by a few powerful people to tell others what they should do together. at’s called “coblaboration.” It’s a made-up word, which I learned from Eric Gordon, that doesn’t need explanation because we’ve all experienced this unhealthy power dynamic.

One inspiring example of shared power in Cuyahoga County is A Place 4 Me, a collective e ort to end youth and young adult homelessness. A Place 4 Me is designed so youth and young adults, funders, government o cials and nonpro t leaders make decisions together, as peers. e process is messy, di cult and worth it.

Many years ago, I learned a valuable lesson from a business executive participating in a successful manufacturing collaborative in the Mahoning Valley. She said the e ort gained traction because members stuck with it long enough to stop pointing ngers at others and start looking in the mirror. As each member re ected on their own responsibility for the intolerable status quo, the work ahead became clearer. And they’ve shared responsibility for that work for more than 20 years.

Persistence is a common trait of successful collaboratives. In an age where instant grati cation isn’t nearly fast enough, persistence is as rare as true collaboration.

In short, civic collaboration is rarely possible and when possible, nearly impossible to achieve. But, as a mentor is fond of reminding me, just because it’s impossible doesn’t mean it’s not somebody’s job.

If we want our community to thrive, we will set aside our egos, logos and line items. We will forge a powerful, shared purpose. We will share power and responsibility. And together we will achieve enduring, positive community change.

Chris Thompson is president of Civic Collaboration Consultants LLC.

The continual sprawl of development and infrastructure at low density is costly for Northeast Ohio, David Beach writes. | GETTY IMAGES

AG, consumer counsel call for halt to PUCO HB6 hearings

By Kim Palmer

A Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) investigation into a purported “side agreement” involving other utilities as part of the FirstEnergy and House Bill 6 scandal should remain on hold as state criminal proceedings get underway, the O ce of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel (OCC) announced.

e OCC, the statewide legal representative for utility consumers, issued a statement that it would heed a warning from the Ohio Attorney General’s o ce that a recently renewed PUCO case be stayed, again, until after newly brought federal and state criminal indictments are resolved.

“We cannot in good conscience push forward on our investigations of FirstEnergy’s HB 6 activities, given recent events,” said Ohio Consumers’ Counsel Maureen Willis in a Friday, March 1, statement. ose investigations involve the Ohio Edison Company, the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company and the Toledo Edison Company.

Willis referenced a letter from the state Attorney General Dave Yost’s o ce to curtail discovery due to a potential issue that could interfere with ongoing criminal proceedings.

e AG’s o ce pointed out that language in the Ohio Revised Code, “appears to grant transactional immunity to anyone who testi es or produces documents in any hearing before the PUCO.”

Yost explained in a ursday, Feb. 29, letter that, “(I)f the PUCO were to enforce subpoenas requiring Samuel Randazzo, Charles Jones or Michael Dowling to produce documents or testify regarding any of the transactions at issue in ongoing criminal proceedings, these individuals would claim transactional immunity … (and) such a claim could then result in the dismissal of criminal charges.”

Randazzo, former PUCO chair; “Chuck” Jones, former FirstEnergy

CEO; and Dowling, former First Energy senior vice president were all charged with a slate of felonies by the Ohio Organized Crime Investigations Commission (OOCIC) in February.

Yost’s letter went on to clarify that the state o ce was not requesting PUCO should stay all investigations but did ask for “an abundance of caution” and that PUCO refrain from enforcing any subpoena requiring Randazzo, Jones or Dowling to produce documents or testify in any PUCO hearing while criminal proceedings are pending.

“While OCC will not give up on its ght for answers for consumers, for now, it’s time to pull back

nounced Feb. 26 it would proceed with the investigations in an effort “to protect the interests of all of the customers of all of the public utilities we regulate, and especially FirstEnergy’s ratepayers.”

e investigations to review vendor transactions involving former chairman Randazzo and an apparent nondisclosure of a “side agreement” with the utilities were put on hold pending a federal criminal investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s o ce.

to avoid interfering with the active criminal cases,” Willis said in her statement.

PUCO in a ling Friday, March 1, agreed with Yost and OCC, withdrawing subpoena request from the three men so as not to interfere with ongoing criminal proceedings. e ling stated that, “the limited request of the Attorney General is reasonable and should be granted. us, no subpoenas requiring Samuel Randazzo, Charles Jones, or Michael Dowling to produce documents or testify in any Commission proceeding will be enforced during the pendency of the ongoing criminal proceedings.”

The utilities commission an-

An ensuing federal criminal trial resulted in racketeering conspiracy convictions for former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and former Ohio Republican Party chair Mathew Borges in 2023. e two men were charged with a $61 million bribery scheme involving the passage of a billion-dollar nuclear plant bailout bill.

Last August, the U.S. Attorney requested an extension to the PUCO stay for six months and that stay expired in late February. e commission lifted the stay and, as of Feb. 26, had promptly scheduled a pre-hearing conference for May 21 and an evidentiary hearing for June 3.

e utility commission conrmed the hearing schedule in the March 1 ling that withdrew the subpoena requests.

be seen + be heard be well

We’re building a new kind of hospital system—one intentionally structured to serve every person.

And to serve every person, we make sure you’re seen: for who you are, for what you’re feeling, and for your unique needs. We don’t just listen. We make sure you’re heard by taking action both within our hospital walls and in our community to help every person be well. Be seen. Be heard. Be well.

FirstEnergy’s

HOTELS

From Page 1

Rita McMahon, JEDD administrator, said in a phone interview that the local governments believe it is important to work with the hotel’s New Zealand-based owners and its Arizona-based manager, Pandey Corp., because it is such a large property overlooking I-90 next to commercial and residential developments in the township.

“We’ll try to determine what kind of uses are appropriate for the site,” McMahon said. “ e property isn’t listed but the owners say it is available for sale. Could it be apartments? We’ve heard the idea of senior assisted living discussed for it. We want to have a sense of that in case any type of zoning changes need to be made.”

e property also has signicance beyond its size in Lake County.

“For anyone who grew up in Lake County,” McMahon said, “they know it as the place where banquets and major events were held.” e property is surrounded by townhouses and the Quail Hollow Golf Course. e study has been awarded to Silverlode Consulting Corp. of Cleveland, but the contract is awaiting nal signatures.

ATHLETES

From Page 1

at’s particularly true in sports such as basketball or volleyball, which feature smaller rosters than sports such as football or track and eld. In some cases, transferring will mean the end of their athletic careers altogether.

(NDC athletic director Duncan Williams declined to comment for this article, saying the school’s student-athletes “have been notied of their options and the rules at the collegiate level.”)

NDC has arranged Teach-Out partnerships with nine Northeast Ohio schools, but two of them — Cleveland State or Kent State — compete at the Division I level, meaning students who transfer from NDC to those schools may have to give up their athletic careers.

(NDC competes in Division II.)

In short, it’s a puzzle — one that will take many student-athletes months to solve.

Finding a home

“We hope to be a home for some of these student-athletes and we’re prepared to engage anybody who’s interested,” John Carroll University (JCU) athletic director Brian Polian said. “I can’t imagine it’s going to be a t for everyone, but we do believe it will be a t for some, if not a bunch. at’s exciting for us.”

JCU is one of the nine schools with Teach-Out partnerships and one of three that compete at the Division III level, along with Baldwin Wallace and Hiram. e other four compete in Division II: LEC, Ursuline College, Walsh University in Canton and Mercyhurst University in Erie, Pennsylvania.

JCU will be attractive to many NDC students because of its

“We’ll have a meeting for public comment after the study is complete,” she said, likely in May.

Two hotels in Beachwood have been in transition. A new dealership for Beachwood Porsche is taking shape on the site of the former Fair eld Inn on Orange Place. e 158-room limitedservice hotel has gone through several ownerships over the years before it was bought by an a liate of Penske Automotive Group to replace its current Chagrin Boulevard location.

Nearby, the 404-room Doubletree by Hilton sits idle on Park East Drive. It was shut in April 2020 in the lockdown phase of the COVID-19 crisis. e property is owned by an a liate of real estate developer Chad Kertesz’s MyPlace realty development and management rm of Cleveland.

Kertesz has not started work on the property. He leads an investor group that acquired the inn for $12.4 million in 2021 from a lender. Neither Chad nor Svetlana Kertesz returned three phone calls and an email from Crain’s Cleveland Business about the project or whether it might be put back to use as a hotel.

Meanwhile, the closed University Hotel & Suites, at 3614 Euclid Ave. in Cleveland, was put on the

market  Feb. 23 by New York-based Crimson Capital, which owns it through an a liate.

e 10-story hotel is scheduled for an online auction beginning April 8 on the Marketplace website, with Paramount Lodging Advisors of Chicago serving as the broker. e property dates from 1964 and occupies a hard-to- nd, 2-acre site in MidTown Cleveland’s major artery.

Also awaiting a demolition crew is the 243-room Sheraton Cleveland hotel. Cleveland Hopkins International Airport purchased the eight-story hotel in 2022 in order

to add more parking to the eternally parking-shy airport. An auction of its contents was completed in early February as the airport looks to demolish the property later in 2024.

e 130-room Super 8 Hotel in Brook Park was demolished in 2022 by the city of Brook Park, which bought it to put an end to police calls and complaints about the property. e city wants to see it redeveloped. Another ve hotels, ranging from as few as 12 rooms to 98, are listed as closed. However, they may be put back into use should a

location ( ve minutes away) and its religious a liation (Catholic). But because it competes in Division III, it can’t o er athletic aid. Division II schools can o er scholarships, albeit fewer than the Division I level.

“Institutionally, we’re going to do everything we can to make this nancially feasible,” Polian said.

“And I’ve heard a few people say, ‘Well, we’re D-II and you guys are D-III. Is that a lesser competitive environment?’ I would take the stance that we’re not that far apart. We have so many really competitive sports across campus, so I think anybody who is interested in a competitive atmosphere will be happy here.”

Ursuline College also o ers a great location (10 minutes away) and a Catholic a liation, with the added bonus of competing in Division II.

“We have small class sizes, we’re right down the road, we have similar missions and similar values,” Ursuline athletic director Cindy McKnight said.

Problem is, the Arrows only offer women’s sports, “so if you want

to keep playing football, we’re not the right place,” McKnight said.

It’s also not the right place if you’re a female athlete who competes in sports like swimming, diving or rugby, because Ursuline doesn’t o er those sports.

“ at’s why we couldn’t just make a blanket statement that we would honor all athletic scholarships — because we might not have that team,” said McKnight, whose school’s enrollment is more than 90% female. “But we’re open to talking to everyone who has some interest. Obviously, it needs to be the right t for both academics and athletics.”

Easiest transition

NDC’s football players may have the easiest transition since Division II and III programs typically carry rosters with between 100150 players. (Division III powerhouse Mount Union in Alliance has even more, listing 160 players on its current roster.)

“Our door’s open right now,” Price said of LEC’s football program, which has a 36-scholarship

would-be hotelier manage to acquire them.

With locations on or near major highways or in well-established, densely populated suburbs, real estate developers often mine old hotels for their sites.

Such was the case at the La Siesta Hotel in Strongsville. The 38-room property was demolished in 2020 by WXZ Development of Fairview Park to make way for a Starbucks and other future retail.

Bhavin Patel, a principal at the Solon-based Spark GHC Hotels group, said existing owners of hotels face big problems if they do not have nancial resources to update them to meet franchise requirements.

New brand names by hotel companies also create development pressure for old hotel sites as operators seek to capture the next generation of travelers.

While a burst of hotel development seems an outlandish idea as the run-up in interest rates sapped much real estate momentum, Patel, whose group has been aggressively buying hotels in need of updates, sees the same opportunities Sangree does.

“When we get the next two rate cuts, we’ll see more lenders willing to lend,” Patel said.

senior years, which is why those schools often have large numbers of incoming freshmen each year.

Five years ago, Malone University in Canton dropped its Division II football program, notifying its coaching sta at 5:45 a.m. on Feb. 1, 2019.

Former coach Fred omas is still mi ed about the way it was handled — ”We were totally blindsided,” he said — but he immediately went to work trying to nd new homes for his 125 players, not to mention the coaches on his sta . “ e minute we found out, we started calling our friends who were coaches,” said omas, who said only two of his sta members are still coaching. “Word of mouth gets around fast.”

limit but can divide that money however it sees t. “We do have the ability to take in essentially anybody who wants to become a member of our football team.”

LEC has an added advantage in that the Storm recently hired former NDC Falcon assistant CJ Robertson as their co-o ensive coordinator, meaning he’s already familiar with the players on the Falcons’ roster, as well as many of the 17 players who signed letters-ofintent to join NDC in February.

And because Price wasn’t hired until late December, LEC had a relatively small recruiting class, meaning the Storm will be looking to add more talent to a team that went 1-10 in 2023 and hasn’t posted a winning record since 2009.

“We’re really hopeful that we’ll have a shot at a lot of their guys,” Price said. “ ere’s a massive opportunity for playing time.”

Of course, many NDC athletes — in all sports — won’t continue playing, either because they can’t nd a new home or because they’re simply ready to stop. Division II and III football players, in particular, rarely make it to their

Ultimately, though, only about 20-25 Malone players continued their football careers. Because Malone stayed open — and because it promised to honor allnancial aid packages through graduation — it made more sense for most players to nish their degrees, especially since many of their credits wouldn’t transfer.

“ ey had to mentally handle the fact of, ‘I’m done playing. My career is over,’” omas said. “ at’s hard on anybody, but at least the Malone kids had an option to stay. e kids at Notre Dame and Urbana didn’t have that option.”

Urbana (Ohio) University closed at the end of the spring term in 2020, one of 49 public and nonpro t colleges that have closed nationwide since March 2020, according to Best Colleges.

And if there’s one thing everyone in higher education agrees on, it’s this: that number will grow. “ is isn’t the end of it,” omas said. “Enrollments are down and schools are getting more and more expensive. It’s going to happen more and more.”

Cleveland Hopkins International Airport bought the Sheraton hotel that has been on its grounds since the 1950s. It will be replaced by more parking. | STAN BULLARD

Athletes, who make up about 70% of Notre Dame College’s enrollment, face a tough choice about where to transfer. | NOTRE DAME COLLEGE ATHLETICS

Sherwin-Williams softens vocabulary after DEI backlash

By Jeff Green and Simone Foxman, Bloomberg

e corporate-speak about diversity is getting an update.

On the way out: phrases like “anti-racist,” “unconscious bias” and “mandatory allyship.”

On the way in: softer, vaguer terms designed to avoid controversy — or, as often as not, no terms at all.

Take Uber Technologies Inc. Not long ago, the ride-share giant said it wasn’t enough for the company to be not racist. In the wake of George Floyd’s murder in 2020, Uber promised to be antiracist — a squishy term encompassing e orts to counter systemic racial prejudice.

Now, “anti-racist” has been struck from its latest corporate lings. Similar edits are getting penciled in at a wide range of companies as businesses big and small grapple with the conservative backlash against diversity initiatives.

Cleveland-based paintmaker Sherwin-Williams, in its 10-K annual report led Feb. 20, used the phrase "Belonging and Culture" to replace the more hot-button diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI.

at portion of the SherwinWilliams annual report begins this way:

"We strive to foster a culture of belonging to drive employee engagement and performance while attracting, retaining, developing and progressing a diverse pipeline of talent that re ects the communities in which we operate. As reected in our Code of Conduct and reinforced through our actions, training and attitudes, fostering an inclusive culture is a moral and business imperative.

e building blocks of our culture include:

•Communicating impact: Sharing the Company story, goals and priorities at all levels, and educating our workforce on allyship and belonging.

•Leading with inclusion: Creating a culture where we are open and leverage the unique contributions of each employee to positively impact our people and business results.

•Empowering everyone: Investing in our people by providing collaboration, development and learning opportunities to drive retention, progression and engagement.

•Committing to action: Empowering and engaging leaders to use tools and resources to take meaningful action to foster a culture of belonging for all employees.

Sherwin-Williams notes its culture "starts at the top, with a Board of Directors with diverse skills, backgrounds and experiences, creating a supportive, welcoming environment across our global footprint is the shared responsibility of all of our employees, including our senior leaders. We strive to ensure our senior leaders have the resources they need to foster inclusion and belonging and ultimately leverage

the diversity of our workforce to deliver customer-focused di erentiated products, services and solutions."

Some of the language changes in corporate America might seem cosmetic. But taken together, they point to the new reality around DEI.

Companies are under increased scrutiny after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a rmative action in university admissions in June, raising concerns that future rulings might curb corporate diversity e orts. At the same time, the decision has emboldened conservative groups to le lawsuits and target dozens of companies — from BlackRock Inc. to Macy’s Inc. — over initiatives to hire underrepresented workers. Billionaires including Bill Ackman and Elon Musk have seized on the debate, launching their own public campaigns against DEI.

“Companies are being responsive and sensitive to changing political environments on DEI initiatives because the pushback has led to lawsuits,” said Tom C.W. Lin, a professor at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law. “ ey are aware of the litigation surrounding these issues.”

Uber and Citigroup Inc., which had previously touted “anti-racist practices” in its lending business, both dropped the phrase from regulatory lings in February.

A spokesperson for Uber said that its ling talks about how the company strives to “ ght racism,” and declined to comment further. Citigroup’s 10-K “does not re ect any change in our commitment to nancial inclusion or to diversity, equity and inclusion,” a spokesperson said in a statement.

e revisions were among

more than a dozen diversityrelated edits in annual lings at large US companies this year as opponents of corporate DEI programs ramp up their search for evidence of bias in corporate hiring policies.

10-K changes

e changes are showing up in the companies’ annual regulatory lings, also known as 10Ks, where they give detailed information about performance, goals and risks. e modi cations were found using the Bloomberg Redline function which compares similar documents for alterations in wording. Of the 82 lings reviewed by Bloomberg News, about one in ve either removed diversity language or substituted words that could be deemed less controversial. All those companies had used the original wording in at least two previous lings.

Many, including JPMorgan Chase & Co. and United Parcel Service Inc., dropped references to speci c groups like women and LGBTQ workers that their diversity initiatives were meant to help. Coca-Cola Co. dropped references to a program focused on promoting women into more senior roles after three years of mentions.

Caterpillar Inc. and Amgen Inc. removed references to their membership in the OneTen Coalition, which was formed in 2020 with a goal of helping to recruit or promote one million Black workers into middle class jobs that don’t require a four-year degree.

Colgate Palmolive Inc. removed mentions of mandatory allyship training.

Other rms focused on tweaking language around hiring prac-

culture.

Representatives for UPS, CocaCola and Amgen didn’t respond to requests for comment.

“Companies, in this environment where there is certainly more attention to DEI-like programs, are being that much more careful to make sure that things are worded really precisely and really accurately,” said Ishan Bhabha, a partner at Jenner & Block in Washington who advises companies on mitigating legal risks from their DEI policies.

He said that in some cases companies are minimizing details of their initiatives “because just a few lines on a 10-K can be rife for misimpression about a program that might be quite complex.” Bhabha declined to comment on the speci c examples in the Bloomberg News analysis.

Too risky for some

tices and pay.

For example, CVS Health Corp. no longer mentions the incorporation of a “diversity metric” to a cash incentive program for its senior-most leaders that was introduced in 2021. Citizens Financial Group Inc. no longer refers to a goal of having women and people of color make up at least 50% of the candidates for mid- and senior-level roles.

A spokesperson for Citizens said this recruitment goal remains an aspiration. A spokesperson for JPMorgan said the bank remains committed to diversity, and a spokesperson for Caterpillar said the company continues to support initiatives that were removed from the ling. A spokesperson for CVS said the company is focused on “incentivizing” senior leaders to create an inclusive

To be sure, even though the language is changing, only 1% of companies reported a “signi cant decrease” in their DEI e orts, according to a survey by global employment law rm Littler in January. However, the poll of more than 300 U.S.-based C-Suite executives found that most chief diversity ocers said there had been some change to their companies’ DEI approach as a result of the Supreme Court decision. Only 11% of diversity leaders said their companies were increasing e orts around social justice initiatives.

For some American businesses, promoting their DEI credentials or taking a public stance on a social issue is no longer worth the risk, said Jill Fisch, a business law professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

“Calling yourself an ‘anti-racist’ company is a great example of political posturing,” Fisch said. “It’s a label. It’s not some commitment, it’s not some speci c action. Companies might be seeing a downside in playing into this hyper polarization.”

Crain's sta contributed to this story.

The new Sherwin-Williams headquarters building rises in Cleveland. The company has pivoted to using vague DEI terms. DAN SHINGLER

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