Crain's Cleveland Business, May 6, 2024

THE TAXMAN COMETH

What to expect from this year’s property tax reassessment in Cuyahoga County |

By Kim Palmer

This year, 19 Ohio county auditors, including Cuyahoga's, are sending teams of appraisers out onto the streets to determine the property taxes that residents owe as part of the state's six-year property reappraisal. In Cuyahoga County alone, about 40 state-certi ed appraisers have traversed 59 cities conducting what's called a home mass appraisal to determine the value of each of the county's 568,000 parcels, nearly 353,000 of which are single-family homes. is year's reassessment was scheduled to wrap up by the end of April, explains the man in charge of the tedious process, Cuyahoga County Fiscal O cer Michael Chambers.

Food trucks shift gears to brick-and-mortar

Transition is hard – and it’s not always in the plan

By Alexandra Golden

While some brick-and-mortar restaurants branch o to have food trucks that may be available for catering or special events, some food-makers decide to take the reverse path: food truck rst, then a permanent location.

Deciding to go from a food truck to a brick-and-mortar isn't an easy one with factors including cost, sta , location and availability.

One of the most recent food trucks-turned-brick-and-mortars is Parilya, which o ers Filipino cuisine, located at 8155 Columbia Road in Olmsted Falls. e take-

out restaurant opened its doors in December 2023, several years after owner Roger San Juan launched his food truck.

San Juan has been in the food industry for over two decades and always dreamed of his own restaurant. His career became his passion and in 2019, he purchased a food truck. While it wasn't his original plan, he chose the food truck route due to cheaper costs.

In 2022, San Juan started a search for a new location. He wasn't looking for a brick-andmortar location but, rather, for a

See FOOD TRUCKS on Page 16

EMPLOYMENT

Canton hopes to launch a $100 million workforce development effort focused on minority communities.

See TAX on Page 17

Recreational marijuana sales could begin in June

Cannabis czar talks regulation, avoiding pitfalls

By Jeremy Nobile

Jim Canepa is proud of his role in helping grow state liquor sales from $970 million in 2017 to $1.8 billion in 2023. Similarly, marijuana industry stakeholders are quite fond of Canepa’s business- rst approach as a regulator, which he brings along from leading the Ohio Division of Liquor Control to his latest role as superintendent of the state’s new Division of Cannabis Control (DCC).

as he continues to settle into his latest job as top regulator for the state’s marijuana industry as it prepares for non-medical sales to commence faster than what was originally anticipated when voters approved Issue 2 last fall.

Here are some of his takes on regulation, avoiding the pitfalls seen in other markets, Delta-8 products and what could support or hinder non-medical marijuana sales launching as soon as June.

Crain’s sat down with Canepa

See MARIJUANA on Page 12

NONPROFITS

Organizations grapple with increased demand for services amidst decline in fundraising support. PAGE 8

Canepa

Notre Dame College’s campus goes up for sale

e closing of Notre Dame College in South Euclid is putting a rare property — 14 buildings and three houses on a 50-acre site — on the market in the densely developed eastern suburbs of Cleveland.

e Cleveland o ce of Hanna Commercial Real Estate has a listing to market the long-established college which has grown on the site over the last century.

ere is no stated asking price, but Cuyahoga County assigns the property a market value of $30 million, according to land records.

“ e whole campus is available,” said Bob Biggar, a Hanna Commercial vice president. He said there is a “fair amount” of land on the site

currently used for playing elds and green space. Buildings range in age from almost 100 years old (the administration building) to as young as 15 years.

at includes gyms, a library, an auditorium in the former Regina High School part of the campus, dormitories with a total of 300 rooms, laboratories and, of course, classrooms.

e college, founded in 1922 in Cleveland by e Sisters of St. Joseph, conducted its last commencement on Saturday, May 4. It announced on Feb. 29 that it was closing due to challenges related to declining enrollment, a shrinking pool of college-age students, rising costs and signi cant debt.

O ers will be evaluated by a ma-

trix of factors besides the o ered price, including the buyer’s qualications, the structure of the o er and willingness to work cooperatively with the city on the reuse of the site, according to Julie Sabro , a Hanna Commercial vice president. Biggar and Sabro are part of a team of four that will handle the assignment.

e site is zoned for residential use, predating the suburb’s zoning code.

e college’s preference is to nd a single buyer but suitors may join together for various pieces and parts of the property.

Hanna Commercial will hold a call for o ers on June 21. It has established an online data room online for the o ering, which Biggar said will be advertised on the on-

Winning bid for Midway Mall redevelopment selected

By Stan Bullard

Industrial Commercial Properties (ICP) of May eld Heights had to dig deep and submit a revised bid of $17 million, but it was enough to win approval from the Lorain County Port Authority to redevelop the 58-acre Midway Mall property.

ICP, which has a long track record of converting malls and regional strip centers to multitenant industrial use, proposed a joint venture with the port to snag the 50-acre property.

“We’re going to make a little money,” Amy Richards, port chair, said after the unanimous vote and about two hours of deliberation in executive session by the port.

“ e board was split because the alternative (bid) was attractive. But the feeling is that we are dealing with the public’s money and have to pay back the county.”

e other bid, a proposal called

“ e Garden” by the nonpro t Center for Food Innovation proposed a sprawling project designed to foster a stronger, more sustainable food culture in the region with an innovation center and vertical farming.

Backers of “ e Garden” included Emerick Corsi, an executive with the former Forest City Enterprises Inc., later Forest City Realty Trust, and omas V. Chema, who ran the Gateway Economic Development Corp. when the city of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County built Progressive Field and Rocket Mortgage arena in the 1990s. Corsi is named as the developer and Chema, who operates the Gateway Group consultancy, is the nancing expert.

Others on that team include Tucker Ellis attorney Keith Raker, Tony Panzica, CEO of Panzica Construction of May eld Village, and Howard Lichtig, a seasoned CBRE broker who has been active in the refrigerated storage space.

Britney Nazario, the port’s vice chair, said it was a di cult choice.

“We had to decide between bringing something to the area that would be distinctive or the best price for the property. A lot of people here felt the port was wrong to buy the mall in the rst place so it was best to pay back the county.”

ICP also estimated its industrial park plan would net a $42 million redevelopment, with likely employment in the range of 400 jobs and an $18 million annual payroll, according to Jim Miller, port authority director.

Neither ICP nor backers of “ e Garden” had representatives at the meeting that began at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 1, and concluded more than two hours later.

e port conducted public hearings with both nalists after selecting them from an initial group of four bidders.

Ironically, the decision gives ICP

line CoStar and LoopNet realty portals and local publications.

Mac Biggar, president of Hanna Commercial, said, “While everyone is disappointed that Notre Dame College is closing down, it’s our job to do our best with this.”

A challenge in terms of the next use — as well as an opportunity — is the location. Single-family homes surround most of the site. South Euclid’s zoning code currently allows one house for every 75 feet of frontage.

Michael Love, South Euclid planning and development director, said the City Council has adopted a resolution for continued educational use of the site. If the Council and Planning Commission should rezone the property,

legislation is subject to referendum examination by the voters.

Love said the city’s comprehensive plan did not consider alternative uses of the land because the college’s continued operation was assumed.

Although the opportunity is huge, so is the cost. Large land sites have languished for years in the region before being parceled up among multiple buyers, such as Geauga Lake.

On the other hand, the Cleveland Clinic has had the former TRW corporate headquarters site in Lyndhurst languishing on the market for years and Progressive Corp. has announced its plans to put its original May eld Village headquarters on the market.

a second shot at Midway Mall. It stepped aside in 2022 to allow the port to make a deal with Namadar Realty Group of Great Neck, New York, for the enclosed section of the mall and sold the port one of its holdings there, the former Sears, but retained ownership of a former Best Buy site in the mall.

Miller said the port’s lawyers will now meet with ICP’s lawyers to hammer out the nal deal.

Elyria Mayor Kevin Brubaker attended the meeting and stood with news media outside the board meeting during the executive session.

“I’m excited,” Brubaker said. “I’m thankful the port allowed me to be part of the discussion. I was hopeful for ICP. I ran (last year) with the goal of bringing good-paying jobs to Elyria.” e million-square-foot enclosed mall played a big role in the development of another big real estate empire in Cleveland. It was an early project by the Richard and David Jacobs brothers, who went on to form a national mall empire before the idea was eclipsed by online shopping and changing consumer tastes.

Stan Bullard

The future of the old Midway Mall remains to be determined. | WARREN LEMAY/FLICKR

Hanna Commercial Real Estate of Cleveland has an exclusive listing to market the property for sale, and, if necessary, lease. | CONTRIBUTED

Despite improvements, city’s air quality ‘unacceptable’

By Paige Bennett

Despite a slight improvement from last year, Cleveland received dismal marks for air quality levels, according to a new report.

The Cleveland metropolitan area ranked 31st worst in the nation for ozone pollution in the American Lung Association’s 25th annual “State of the Air” report. It’s based on Cuyahoga County’s average number of unhealthy days (5.8) per year.

This year’s ranking is marginally better than 2023 when the Cleveland area was named the 30th worst, with an average of six days per year.

Either way, the area got an “F” for ozone pollution.

“Cleveland continues to have unacceptable levels of air pollution,” said Ken Fletcher, director of advocacy for Ohio and Michigan at the American Lung Association, in a phone interview.

The State of the Air report, based on air quality data from 2020 through 2022, evaluates exposure to unhealthy levels of ground-level ozone air pollution, annual particle pollution and short-term spikes in particle pollution.

This year’s version reflects the new annual particle pollution

standard the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finalized in February. The agency changed the standard for fine particulate matter from a level of 12 micrograms per cubic meter to 9 micrograms per cubic meter in a move it said would “better protect America’s families, workers, and communities from the dangerous and costly health effects of fine particle pollution.”

The Cleveland metro area per-

formed better in particle pollution, ranking 73rd worst for short-term particle pollution based on Cuyahoga County’s average of 1.5 unhealthy days per year, a “C” grade.

But Cuyahoga County received a failing grade for pollution levels above the federal standard for the year-round average level of particle pollution. The Cleveland metro area ranked 54th worst in the nation for that metric.

Based on the results, the American Lung Association is recommending the EPA set stronger national standards for ozone pollution. Fletcher said it’s important to hold policymakers accountable and that areas should score mostly grades of “A.”

ple of color were 2.3 times as likely as white people to live in a county with three failing grades.

Air pollution can lead to an increased risk of premature birth and can cause or worsen lung and heart disease.

In addition to people of color, children and older adults, those

The Cleveland metropolitan area ranked as the 31st worst in the nation for ozone pollution in the American Lung Association’s 25th annual “State of the Air” report.

Across the country, 131.2 million Americans live in places with failing grades for unhealthy levels of ozone or particle pollution, the report says. That’s 11.7 million more people compared to last year’s findings.

Extreme heat, drought and wildfires are contributing to the increase in particle pollution, especially in the western U.S. Also, this year’s report used the EPA’s new tightened standard for yearround levels of fine particle pollution.

Once again, the report found health disparities among populations affected by poor air quality. Despite making up 41.6% of the overall U.S. population, peo-

experiencing poverty and people with certain health conditions — asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, pregnancy, lung cancer and cardiovascular disease — are particularly vulnerable to illness and death from exposure.

Particle pollution is a mixture of solid and liquid droplets in the air that comes from sources such as factories, power plants and automobiles.

Ozone, meanwhile, is a gas found in Earth’s upper atmosphere and at ground level. It’s considered a harmful pollutant at the ground level because of its effects on people and the environment.

Smoke from Canadian wild res lled the skies over Cleveland last summer. | SCOTT SUTTELL

•Bids

Dame College

Cleveland BIPOC households face a bigger rent burden

By Alexandra Golden

Cleveland placed in the top ve of the largest racial and ethnic disparities in rent burdens among the top 50 markets in 2022, with BIPOC renters carrying a nearly 37% burden, according to a recent Zillow report, 8.8 percentage points more than white renters.

“Although Cleveland is a relatively more a ordable market when compared to others across the country, the typical (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) household in Cleveland earns less than the typical white household,” Orphe Divounguy, senior economist at Zillow, said in an email to Crain’s.

“In 2022, the median BIPOC renter earned just under $30,000 compared to almost $43,000 for white households. e combination of higher rents over the past few years and lagging wages disproportionately a ected BIPOC households.”

A household is considered rent-burdened when more than 30% of its income is spent on housing.

New Orleans was at the top with the typical BIPOC household rent burden being 45% and the typical white household rent burden being 32%. Cleveland was not that far behind with BIPOC renters spending 36.6% of their income on housing while white renters spent 27.8%.

e report also found that the median income of white renter households in New Orleans was 61% higher than the BIPOC renter households.

increases remain high at 6.5%, but average hourly earnings have only increased by 2.9% in the Cleveland metropolitan area, Divounguy said.

Frank Ford, senior policy adviser for Fair Housing Center for Rights & Research and chair of the Vacant and Abandoned Property Action Council, wrote in an email to Crain’s that rent has increased faster than incomes in majority Black regions in the past 10 years.

e East Side of Cleveland has the largest grouping of minority population in the county which is about 75% Black. e east inner suburbs are second, about 53% Black, Ford noted.

think ‘This is something that I can maximize my profits by doing.’”

Ford that owners can maximize their pro ts by doing one of two things or both, they can increase the rent and cut back on maintenance and repairs.

There is also a “critical shortage” of housing assistance, according to Zillow's report. Roughly 19 million households in the United States qualified for housing choice vouchers based on their income in 2022, but only 2.4 million vouchers were available.

“The combination of higher rents over the past few years and lagging wages disproportionately affected BIPOC households.”

Orphe Divounguy, senior economist at Zillow

Between New Orleans and Cleveland on the list was Bu alo (39% for BIPOC renters and 28% for white renters), Cincinnati (37% for BIPOC renters and 27% for white renters) and Pittsburgh (36% for BIPOC renters and 26% for white renters).

Cleveland's gap has increased slightly since 2019 when the share of income in BIPOC households was 34% and 25% for white households, Divounguy said.

House choice vouchers, known as Section 8 vouchers, are designed to help low-income families by paying rent subsidies directly to the landlords on behalf of the families. Families then pay the di erence between the actual rent and the amount subsidized by the program, typically 30% of their income, up to a rent ceiling based on fair market rent estimates from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“The gap has increased, but only barely, highlighting the lack of progress in closing income gaps,” Divounguy said.

The typical BIPOC renter household spent 34% of their income on rent nationwide in 2022, while white households spent 29%, according to a press release.

e median white household in Cleveland pays $990 monthly rent compared to the $910 for the typical BIPOC household, Divounguy said. Although the BIPOC rent is lower, because of the income gap, BIPOC renters still put more of their earnings toward rent than white renters do, he said.

According to the Zillow Observed Rent Index, annual rent

In a presentation Ford previously presented to the Ohio Senate Select Committee on Housing, the median home sale price on the East Side of Cleveland was $80,000 in 2005 but dropped to $5,000 during the foreclosure crisis, driven by foreclosure sales. As of 2022, the median price recovered to $51,250. Although prices dropped “significantly” during the foreclosure crisis, rent prices never dropped, according to Ford's data.

Ford noted that there has been a “dramatic increase” of out-ofstate and foreign investors acquiring homes in the past 10-plus years with the greatest increase being in majority Black communities. Majority Black communities have also seen a more prominent increase in renters compared to a decrease in homeowners.

“These investors are frequently out of state, even out of the country, and there’s a higher percentage of this activity in the majority Black regions, the East Side of Cleveland and the east inner suburbs," Ford said.

“The further someone is physically from an investment property, the easier it is for them to

“While rents rose for everyone, higher rents disproportionately affect lower-income households since they end up spending a higher share of their income on housing, leaving very little for everything else,” Divounguy said. “This is why building more affordable housing is crucial. But in the meantime, more funding for housing assistance in the form of housing vouchers can keep people housed and reduce flows into homelessness.”

While anti-discrimination laws exist in certain locations, some landlords don't accept those vouchers, complicating renters' search.

“It concerns me that the greatest income-to-rent disparity is in the East Side of Cleveland, in Cuyahoga County, and yet the city of Cleveland has still not adopted a source of income protection for renters," Ford said. “In terms of solutions, that would be a major step forward.”

Canton hopes to launch $100M workforce development effort

By Dan Shingler

Canton’s a nalist for up to $20 million in federal funding for workforce development programs. If it wins, backers say, they already have lined up an additional $96 million in matching funds to create an even larger e ort.

Canton found out at the end of last year that the Reconnecting Canton plan, spearheaded by the Stark Economic Development Board, was receiving a $500,000 planning grant for the e ort, and that it was among 22 nalists eligible to apply for additional funding from the U.S. Economic Development Agency.

e city wants the money for workforce development programs, transportation services and small business assistance. e work would focus on the city’s southeast side, where economic developers say minority communities have been negatively a ected by redlining and other forms of discriminatory development, and where there are also a lot of working-age people who don’t have jobs and need training and assistance to get them.

Canton seems to have a good chance of winning funding for its efforts. e city was one of 200 initial applicants to be winnowed down to a nal 20 eligible for funding.

“We also feel optimistic because we were the only candidates in Ohio and also Michigan, Indiana, West Virginia and western Pennsylvania to be picked,” said Rebecca Kuzma, chief operating o cer for the Stark Economic Development Board’s Strengthening Stark initiative.

Applications were due April 25, and the Stark Economic Development Board got its application led April 24, said John Rizzo, vice president of the Akron-Canton Advocacy Alliance and one of many in Canton working to win the grant.

“We were actually prudent and got it in a day early,” Rizzo said.'

Large cities are eligible for up to $50 million from the program, which has $200 million in total earmarked for the grants. Smaller cities, including Canton, are eligible for up to $20 million and Kuzma and Rizzo said that’s the amount their group hopes to win.  Winners are to be announced in August or September, but who and how many winners there will be has yet to be determined, Kuzma said.

e Canton grant would address six topics that advocates say need attention to bring more people into the workforce. ey include the following:

Integrated Governance: a structure that would coordinate stakeholders, integrate community feedback into programming and develop new leaders and mentors from within the local community.

Connections to Good Jobs: an e ort to be led by the Stark Tuscarawas Workforce Development Board to expand capacity to engage more than nine hundred prime-age job seekers from southeast Canton, address the social determinants of work, and connect individuals to pathways to desirable jobs and careers.

Entrepreneurial Connections: an initiative, also led by the Stark Tuscarawas Workforce Development Board to recruit, train, and support entrepreneurs, legitimizing informal “gig” and “side” work and fostering more than 20 new businesses in the targeted area.

Infrastructure Support: a construction project to renovate and repurpose a portion of Canton’s Southeast Community Center and create needed additional o ce space to support a physical presence for Reconnecting Canton, with services such as training and small business support, through a 2,500-square-foot addition.

Technology Connections: a program in which the city of Canton will support a transformative technology component project of Reconnecting Canton to address

digital disparities and foster inclusive economic growth. Canton will provide availability through a fully funded, new ber-optic backbone and the program will use it to advance digital literacy and connect job seekers with entrepreneurs.

Transportation Connections: an initiative, also led by the city, to introduce a range of e cient, a ordable, and/or subsidized transportation options to connect job seekers to jobs across the county.

Backers say the transportation component is often overlooked, but it's critical to getting disadvantaged people into the workforce.

“We tell employers that a lot of their employees are literally one at tire away from their world crashing down around them,” Kuzma said.

e local e ort has strong support, the result of intense collaboration across Stark County.

Rizzo said many other nonprofits, governmental entities and others helped to work on the program

and the grant application. About a dozen of them also have committed to providing $96 million to match and leverage the grant money if awarded.

Rizzo and Kuzma both said they believe the collaboration behind the e ort — similar to what Akron has done to back its e orts to fund a polymer industry cluster — has won them support and become a nalist for the pending grant.

Rizzo said the Strengthening Stark initiative, which is behind this e ort and others, has been done “to really get together and address things that would be hard to do individually, but together are obtainable.”

Rizzo said he thinks having a large group of stakeholders and backers has also helped garner bipartisan support, something rare in U.S. politics — and even more of a unicorn in deep-red Ohio.

“ e team feels really well positioned. Sen. Brown and Congresswoman (Emilia) Sykes have been

right there along with us and we’ve seen great support from the state … including about a dozen local legislators,” Rizzo said.  Brown, who has supported Canton’s e orts from the beginning, reiterated his support for Canton’s grant in a letter he sent to U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo on April 25.

“Designed to ll 400 of the region’s open positions in the short term, this project is also structured to help address the underlying issues that have limited economic development in the past, including a lack of community services and supports,” Brown wrote. “By addressing these fundamental needs, the Stark Economic Development Board aims to empower not only the individuals entering the workforce, but also their families and the broader community. is holistic approach proposes to foster a strong social fabric, empowering residents to build resilience and lead their community towards further economic growth and mobility.”

Kuzma said she and other grant writers purposefully took that holistic approach and now hope they will have a better chance of winning funding because their plan could help inform other communities.

“I think this grant is about more than just Southeast Canton,” Kuzma said. “ e (U.S. Economic Development Agency) has positioned this as a pilot program, and they really are looking to address the shortage of the employees that we have not just in Stark County but across the country.”

Elyria mixed-use project includes 422 townhouses

Tech company to pilot gaming software at Cincinnati Children’s

Paige Bennett

rough a research pilot with Cincinnati Children’s, digital health tech company Augment erapy will explore how its gamied exercise and wellness products in uence patient outcomes.

e Chagrin Falls-based company is launching a program at an inpatient cardiac rehab unit at the Cincinnati health system. e pilot, supported by CareSource, will focus on approximately 30 patients and involve physical therapists using Augment erapy’s ARWell PRO gami ed software in therapy sessions.

It will measure the e ects of the technology on patient outcomes in intensive inpatient care, as well as their long-term home exercise usage upon discharge.

“We are really building our evidence story that (shows) using immersive technologies in inpatient, outpatient and at home is a

valuable way to augment, literally and guratively, providers and their patients in just a better care experience,” said Lindsay Watson, CEO and co-founder of Augment erapy, in an interview with Crain’s.

Watson, a physical therapist, founded Augment erapy in 2017. e Cleveland native calls herself a “reluctant entrepreneur.”

She developed the concept behind the company after having trouble engaging her patients in activity and exercise. Noticing a lack of solutions geared toward children and individuals with physical or cognitive disabilities in the marketplace, she decided to develop her own.

Inspired by virtual reality headsets, Watson created technology that uses augmented reality-based games and exercises to motivate patients to participate in therapeutic exercises. According to the company, the tech has demon-

In what promises to be a more than $200 million project when completed, Ryan Homes (NYSE: NVR) of Reston, Virginia, announced plans with DBRL Realty to develop a 55-acre site with townhouses and retail in Elyria.

Emilie Katcher, vice president and Ryan Cleveland West division manager, said the proposed Reaser Pointe Crossing development "will open a lot of people's eyes to Elyria" and its attributes. She said Ryan is building similar townhouses in Painesville and Barberton but this would be the rst time it o ers them west of Cleveland.

e townhouses will cost an estimated $250,000 to $300,000 each, said Dan Reaser, president and CEO of family-owned DBRL Realty, which is based in Elyria, at

Reaser, who operates DBRL Realty with his son, Danny, said he and Ryan had approached the mayor about the plan three weeks ago. He said units may be available by late this year.

Previously, the site was considered for industrial development before the Ryan option cropped up. " ank heaven for unanswered prayers," Reaser said of the current plan some ve years after prior plans were shelved.

Brubaker said, " is plan will meet the need employers have for housing near where their employees work."

David Moore, a Lorain County commissioner who attended the meeting, said the lack of available housing has kept the county from landing large industrial projects the past few years.

“This plan will meet the need employers have for housing near where their employees work.”

a news conference on Monday, April 29, at Elyria City Hall.

For Ryan's part, Katcher declined to put a price on individual units.

e site is west of State Route 57 between East Broad Street and Chestnut Ridge Road.

Elyria Mayor Ken Brubaker said after the announcement that the site has access to utility infrastructure such as sewer and waterlines and that Ryan has not asked for an incentive so far. Housing may go in on the property because Elyria City Council already has installed an overlay zoning plan for the site.

"We've been told the housing market would be saturated if some of these projects were to come here," Moore said, though he declined to be more speci c. About 10 acres would be reserved for retail development, primarily restaurants, Dan Reaser said. A parcel will also be donated to Elyria to use for a new re station, he added.

"We want to o er options so people from Elyria can eat where when they want to dine out," Reaser said. "We don't want them to have to go to Avon or Crocker Park (in Westlake.)”

Elyria and Lorain County are familiar turf for Ryan. Kather said Ryan has about 400 homes going into projects in Lorain County. e national builder has about 1,500 homes underway this year in Northeast Ohio.

strated e ectiveness across various pediatric diagnoses, including cancer treatments, orthopedic injuries and cerebral palsy.

Watson said Augment erapy has ve full-time employees and ve independent contractors/ part-time employees. In November, the company announced it had closed on a $2.7 million seed plus funding round to support continued growth and development.

rough the pilot, the company said it hopes to demonstrate that the software encourages participants to engage in increased exercise opportunities.

“We wanted to see how motivated we could get patients to participate in their therapy and general exercise, as opposed to traditional therapy, which really is dependent on the therapist providing all the engagement and really has no means to kind of monitor that patient’s adherence to exercise at

home,” Watson said. Augment erapy expects to recruit subjects and collect data within six months to a year.

In a provided statement, CareSource Ohio Market President Steve Ringel said the organization was honored to be involved with the program and that Augment erapy’s “innovative” use of aug-

mented reality “has the potential to transform the landscape of physical therapy.”

Along with the work at Cincinnati Children’s, Watson said Augment erapy is looking to continue growing in both the pediatric and adult segments, as well as transform health care for patients and providers.

Stan Bullard

Digital health tech company Augment Therapy will explore how its gami ed exercise in uences patient outcomes in a new pilot program at Cincinatti Children’s. | CONTRIBUTED

Ryan Homes plans to install townhouses similar to these in a huge residential development in Elyria. The units will go into buildings with between three and seven suites. Plans also call for parks and shopping in the development. | CONTRIBUTED

Danny Reaser (left) and Dan Reaser of DBRL Realty of Elyria announced a joint venture with Ryan Homes for a mixed-use retail and housing development on a 55-acre site they own in Elyria. | STAN BULLARD

Elyria Mayor Ken Brubaker

As

Jeneen Marziani President, Bank of America

Nonpro ts grapple with increased demand

Meanwhile, fundraising support has fallen off

Paige Bennett

e Greater Cleveland Food Bank is busier than ever.

Since 2019, the agency has doubled the number of pounds of food it purchases every year. And it has set new records for the number of people served every month since November 2022.

Yet, as demand has intensi ed, fundraising support has fallen o .  “ e community was so generous during the pandemic,” Greater Cleveland Food Bank President and CEO Kristin Warzocha said. “Our fundraising increased as did demand. But one of the things we’re seeing now is while the demand is still very high, actually higher in many cases, fundraising is normalizing.”

It’s a challenging time for nonpro ts, particularly those in health and human services. Workforce shortages, in ation and other effects of the pandemic are still lingering. ose problems aren’t unique to the nonpro t sector but they result in more people seeking out nonpro t services. As demand increases and support declines, these organizations have to gure out how to do more with less.

“I’m concerned that maybe there’s the sense that last year was kind of, like, we wrapped up the pandemic, and 2024 it’s long gone, and we’re on to other things,” said Dan Flowers, president and CEO of the Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank.

Support for the organization’s annual Harvest for Hunger campaign is behind where it was at this time last year, Flowers said. Yet the food bank — which services an eightcounty region across a network of roughly 600 emergency food providers and other charitable organi-

zations — served more people than ever in 2023. Both the AkronCanton and Greater Cleveland food banks are members of the Feeding American network of U.S. food banks.

Flowers said demand skyrocketed last year shortly after pandemicera Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program bene ts expired. e food bank expected to see a spike at that time, but the numbers were staggering. irty percent of families that visited the food bank last year had never been to a food pantry before, Flowers said.

“What we heard from everybody that came in was the bene ts they lost combined with the in ation forced a ton of them into food pantries for the rst time,” he said. e supply-chain issues that wreaked havoc in 2021 and 2022 have improved, Flowers said, and the food bank has seen an uptick

in food manufacturer donations. Still, costs have increased, and the organization has to supplement its inventory with food purchases, he said.

e Greater Cleveland Food Bank has seen food costs jump 64% since pre-pandemic, Warzocha said. e organization used to pay 64 cents per pound. Now, it pays $1.05 per pound. Like the Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank, it has also seen an increase in newcomers. Twenty- ve percent of the 400,000 people served by the Greater Cleveland Food Bank last year had never used emergency food services, Warzocha said.

“I think what we’re seeing is sort of the reality of the economic situation continuing to set in, and organizations really bucking down,” said Julie Clark, managing director of leadership development at Business Volunteers Unlimited, a Cleveland-based organization that

Museum of Natural History names wing after benefactors for $10M contribution

Paige Bennett

e Cleveland Museum of Natural History plans to name a new wing in its reimagined museum after benefactors Larry Sears and Sally Zlotnick Sears.

e Larry Sears and Sally Zlotnick Sears Dynamic Earth Wing is one of two new wings opening as part of CMNH’s $150 million transformation project, which is slated for completion in December.

e couple, who have been museum members since the 1980s, challenged CMNH’s board of directors collectively to donate $5 million for the transformation project and committed to matching those funds with an additional $5 million.

e successful challenge helped the museum achieve 100% board participation in campaign giving, according to CMNH.

In 2016, the Searses funded the construction of the Larry Sears and Sally Zlotnick Sears Garden at the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and East Boulevard. ey also supported the development of Current Science, an exhibit space where museum researchers and educators share their work with the public.

Sally Zlotnick Sears became chair of the museum’s board in 2021 and is co-chair of the Transforming the World of Discovery campaign. She was involved in the design, development and beta testing of the museum’s new galleries. In 2023, she was named one of Crain’s Cleveland Business’s Notable Nonpro t Board Leaders.

“In addition to the substantial impact of their giving, the Searses’ dedicated advocacy and philanthropic leadership have inspired many to follow their lead,” CMNH President and CEO Sonia Winner

said in a provided statement. “ anks in no small part to the Searses’ commitment and generosity, Cleveland will soon have a stateof-the-art natural history museum unlike any other in the world.”

e Sears Dynamic Earth Wing will educate visitors on Earth’s 4.6 billion-year history and the processes that make life possible, CMNH says. It will be an interactive experience that brings visitors through the cycles that shape the Earth, according to the museum.

CMNH’s ongoing transformation will increase the museum to more than 375,000 square feet, including more than two acres of outdoor visitor areas. It opened its reimagined Visitors Hall, which is free to the public, in October 2023.

In a conversation with Crain’s Cleveland in March, Winner described the project as “a reimagination of natural history.” e mu-

law, the nonpro t must have one sta member per every ve children. at means if Providence House is one sta member short, ve beds cannot open.

Leek said the organization has its increased pay and bene ts mix and worked to create a culture of belonging to retain its workforce. It has seen a bit of improvement over the last six months, she said, though sta ng continues to be an issue across health and human services. Bigger organizations are also struggling, which results in competitive recruiting and larger organizations attracting sta from smaller ones.

At the same time, Providence House is seeing growing demand. e agency has had a waitlist of more than 400 children for the last six years. Seventy percent of those waitlisted children live in or around East Side neighborhoods. e nonpro t hopes to address the need with its recently completed East Campus in the Buckeye-Shaker Neighborhood.

provides consulting and training services for nonpro ts.

Clark, who works with nonpro ts of varying sizes and missions, said the increasing demand, combined with higher costs to deliver services, has resulted in many organizations trying to work with limited resources. e e ects are present across the sector, she said, but organizations that address basic needs tend to feel the biggest pinch during di cult economic times.

Labor shortages have also been a struggle in today’s competitive environment, Clark said.

“We’re a people-driven sector,” she said. “It is di cult for organizations to deliver on their programs and services if they don’t have the people power to do so.”

Natalie Leek, president and CEO of crisis nursery Providence House, said meeting sta ng needs has been a di cult task. By

In light of today’s challenges, some organizations are turning to technology to help them improve e ciencies, fundraise or deliver services, Clark said. Providence House, for example, has found some success with telehealth and virtual case management services, Leek said.

“(Technology) is an area of exploration for organizations certainly now and moving forward,” Clark said.

Having a strong board, she said, is also crucial.

“One of the biggest things is building an engaging and strong board to have di erent minds, di erent perspectives in the boardroom to think through some of these challenges,” Clark said. “Having a strong board is not something you can rest on your laurels about. You have to keep working at it.”

seum will put humans at the center of the story, she said, exploring how human impact has changed the environment and how people can devise solutions to address environmental issues.   e Searses’ interest in supporting the museum’s transformation e orts rose from “a passion for enhancing the cultural and academic vitality of Cleveland,” according to a news release issued Friday,

April 26, by CMNH. rough the project, the couple hopes the museum will be “a beacon for science literacy” and a place where visitors can explore the in uence of science in their daily lives.  “ e Cleveland Museum of Natural History has always been a beloved institution,” Sally Zlotnick Sears said in a news release. “Now it will be an essential destination in Northeast Ohio and beyond.”

Sally Zlotnick Sears and Larry Sears | CONTRIBUTED

The Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank served more people in 2023 than ever before, President and CEO Dan Flowers said. CONTRIBUTED

SMALL BUSINESS

Understand your options for business exit and plan ahead

Identify buyers, improve the company and maximize your return

KIM ZAGAR, CPA

Principal & Director of Private Business Advisory

kim.zagar@hwco.cpa 440-290-3906

Kim leads HW&Co.’s Private Business Advisory department, serving clients of various sizes and stages with business, tax and accounting matters.

Investing a lifetime in building a business, then facing the possibility of selling it and retiring, can be a di cult and emotional time for a business owner.

It’s even more challenging if the exit plan resides entirely in the owner’s head and no steps have been taken. It’s a mistake to wait until the business exit is upon you to think about how you want to leave, who should succeed you as owner and what the value of the business may be.

Preparing for business exit and structuring the company to ensure it brings maximum value typically takes three to ve years, with some planning starting long before that. Selling a company quickly with no plan or preparation can o en bring a lower price, and no owner wants to leave money on the table a er a lifetime of work.

If business exit is on the horizon within the next ve years, the following key considerations should be on your agenda for discussions with trusted advisors.

Understand your options

What are your personal goals for selling the business? Funding retirement, continuing a legacy and securing the company workforce are all important factors that can drive decisions.

• Who are the likely buyers? Are there family members who want to take over the business, and if so, do they have the funds to buy it? If no family members are interested, perhaps you have key managers who have given many years to the business and are capable of running it. You may be able to structure a multi-year buyout deal for a management group, or you could consider an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP), which would give all your workers ownership interest. If there are no potential family buyers or internal buyers, consider the types of buyers on the open market who would be most interested in your company.

• What is your business worth? Obtain an independent business valuation. Besides giving you a range of market value for your company, a valuation

can help identify critical areas a ecting the value and need attention to boost the potential sale price.

Strategize

• Understand your company’s cash ow and its role in valuation. Also, understand the tax consequences of a deal structure. Will your transaction be a stock sale or an asset sale? A structure that bene ts you may not be attractive to a potential buyer, so talk to advisors about di erent transaction scenarios.

• Clean up your books, make sure the balance sheet and cash ow are strong and ensure your obligations are current.

• Is your company structured as an S corporation? Selling it as a limited liability company (LLC) has potential tax bene ts, and a restructuring can be accomplished in a few months if warranted.

• Talk to advisors to understand the tax and legal rami cations of selling your business. Many owners nd that once they’ve sold the business,

paid the taxes and paid o their debts, there is less money le than anticipated. Planning ahead can help set realistic expectations.

Summary

Create a plan that can be executed over the next three to ve years as you prepare for exit. It should identify likely buyers, plans for improving the company to help maximize value, ideas about deal structure and tax rami cations and a timeline.

Too many business owners don’t know their exit options, and they rob themselves of the opportunity to plan for them e ectively and maximize the return on their years of hard work.

Bathroom remodels fueling company’s ‘astonishing’ growth

Dan Shingler

Northeast Ohio appears to have another fast-growing home services company. Premier Home Pros began business at the end of 2022 as a two-man shop on Mayeld Road in North Canton that aimed to sell bathroom remodels.  Today, the company has more than 160 employees with o ces in Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, Atlanta and, as of last month, Tampa, Fla.  e company markets bathroom remodeling services in and around the cities where it has ofces and uses local contractors for installation.

Last year, it had just more than $15 million in sales, said founder and CEO Augustine Wadian, who started the company with partner, head of operations and Chief Growth O cer Noah Jackson, both of whom had previous experience in home-improvement sales.

“Looking

work than they can nd on their own, so they stick around and do a good job.”

Wadian was previously a regional manager and sales consultant for LeafFilter, part of Hudson-based Leaf Home, he said. He was joined by another former Leaf Home executive, Vince Venditti, who invested and became a co-owner and President of Premier Home Pros in late 2023, Wadian said.

e company also has its own proprietary material, made by Trumbull Industries, a plumbingsupply company in Warren. at was mostly luck, Wadian concedes. A Trumbull salesperson showed him the product, he saw it as a better alternative to the acrylic products he’d been using and Premier Home Pro entered an agreement to use the product exclusively.

Trumbull’s product is made from crushed resin that is then compressed under high pressure

at where we’re tracking, the numbers are pretty astonishing. We’re on pace to do $120 million this year.”

Augustine Wadian, Premier Home Pros founder and CEO

“Looking at where we’re tracking, the numbers are pretty astonishing. We’re on pace to do $120 million this year,” Wadian said.  Using independent contractors that it certi es and trains to use its methods and materials, along with commissioned salespeople, the two were able to start the company with less than $100,000 and fund its growth with its revenues, Wadian said. Being able to install bathrooms quickly — typically in seven days — meant that the company started generating revenue quickly, he said.

“We bring in a lot of crews that have bathroom experience and their own businesses,” Wadian said. “We can give them more

and molded, he said.

“It’s equivalent to a piece of Corian or quartz,” said Wadian.

Now the company plans to continue to plow its revenues into expansion and open more o ces.

“In the next 30 days we’re going to open in West Palm Beach (Fla.),” Wadian said. “We’ll organically open eight o ces this year.”

e company only does bathrooms and, for the moment, has no plans to expand into kitchen remodeling or other work.

“At some point, we could diversify, but right now we’re working to be the biggest bathroom company ever created,” said Wadian.

From a single machine to national powerhouse

ALL Crane cements its place in the powerlifter industry

By Dan Shingler

Every day’s a heavy lift for some, but for one Cleveland-area company, it’s the core of its business.

ALL Crane has a 38-acre headquarters complex — about the size of a small village — on Rockside Road on the east side of Independence. It seems to announce monthly that it has purchased a new crane or, more likely, multiple cranes, further cementing its place in an industry in which it has become a nationally renowned powerlifter.

“It’s safe to say we tend to add around 100 new pieces of equipment each year,” said marketing manager Shane Davis. “ is number includes cranes, aerials and material handlers. We spread these machines across our footprint based on the upcoming projects that are expected to need speci c types of cranes.”

at footprint extends beyond the big complex here, too, though it is one of the larger ones. ALL Crane has 29 facilities across the country now, Davis said.

“We go as far east as into Pennsylvania,” he said, “and as far south as Florida.”

ere’s also one in Baton Rouge, said CEO Michael Liptak, whose father, also Michael, was an industry legend who founded the company with a single crane in 1964.

e company’s come a long way.

“We’re ranked no. 3 now,” Liptak said, though he’s not known to boast — and it’s actually a little di cult to get him to brag.

“Part of their secret weapon is humility,” said Don Taylor, CEO of Welty Building Co. and a longtime and loyal ALL Crane customer. Davis, of course, tracks such things. It depends on how you

look at the rankings. But American Cranes and Transport, a publication for the industry, puts them at No. 3 based on ALL Crane’s nearly 1,600 cranes.

“Technically we are the largest privately owned crane-rental company in North America,” Davis nally notes.

e company got big under the younger Liptak’s late father, “Big Mike,” decades ago through growth and acquisitions, he said. It’s gotten bigger with a constant stream of investment into new equipment as Davis outlined.

e private company doesn’t disclose its nancials, but, in recent years, its investments have paid o . It’s seen a pretty good stream of demand for its cranes for construction and infrastructure projects driven by relatively lowinterest rates and higher levels of infrastructure investment.

“Part

of their secret weapon is humility.”

Don Taylor, CEO of Welty Building Co.

All those locations are needed because cranes are big — or at least some of them are. e company has tower cranes — the ones where you sometimes see the operator in a cab up high — that can lift more than 30 tons with booms more than 200 feet long. Its biggest crawler cranes can lift 880 tons with 663 feet of hoist height.

“It’s just because cranes are so big and it takes a while to move them. You need them close to the work,” Liptak said. “I always want to be able to service where the spot is.”

Welty’s Taylor, who uses ALL Crane for all kinds of big construc-

tion projects he manages — including Sherwin-Williams’ new headquarters in downtown Cleveland — said ALL Crane is his rst call as soon as he knows he’ll need a crane.

e company both rents cranes and provides them with operators. Taylor said he opts for the latter. After all, he needs large things lifted to great heights above windy downtown environments.

“As soon as you start going 50ton, 100-ton, or a tower crane? at’s really specialized and you have to go to someone like ALL Crane,” Taylor said. “We get an operator. We’re not in the business of operating cranes and they are.”

Liptak, who’s not a crane operator himself, says, “ ere was a reason they put me in the o ce.”

Running a crane is an art form and that’s especially true for tower cranes, where the operator himself is way up in the air, possibly attached to a tall building.

“When you’re sitting in there and you see all that boom out, and then you start seeing the clouds? It’s really disorienting,” he said, “because you’re watching the clouds move, but it can make you think you’re moving!”

So, what’s next? Liptak goes into understated mode again. He’ll keep buying more cranes, thinking how he can best deploy them where they’re needed, he said.

While Liptak says the company’s growth was achieved largely before he took the reins in 2006, the numbers show it’s grown considerably with him running the boom.

When he took it over, ALL Crane employed about 500.

Today?

“About 1,600,” Liptak said.

ALL Crane CEO Michael Liptak, whose father, also Michael, founded the company with a single crane in 1964. DAN SHINGLER

Premier Home Pros owners (from left) Augustine Wadian, CEO; Vince Venditti, president; and Noah Jackson, chief growth of cer. | PREMIER HOME PROS

Saucy Brew Works acquires Urban Meyer’s Pint House in Dublin

By Jeremy Nobile

Saucy Brew Works is once again adding to its ever-growing Ohio footprint, this time in Dublin.

Saucy CEO Brent Zimmerman said the craft brewery has acquired Urban Meyer’s Pint House in Dublin’s Bridge Park.

e bar/restaurant opened in September 2019 through a partnership between its eponymous former Ohio State Buckeyes college football coach and Columbus’ One Hospitality Group, which also runs the Short North Pint House in downtown Columbus, among other businesses.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

While Saucy is taking over operations of the space, Zimmerman notes that the acquisition includes a partnership with One Hospitality, which will be working with Saucy in a consulting capacity.

As far as how the deal came to be, Zimmerman emphasized the role Columbus plays in his company’s growth strategy. Saucy already has one brewpub in the market on West ird Avenue.

“We want to have exposure to the city as well as the suburbs of Columbus, where we hope to open more locations,” Zimmerman told Crain’s, adding that he’s looking to do more beer collaborations with local breweries in the area.

At some point in the future, the Pint House name will be tweaked to Urban Meyer’s Pint House by Saucy Brew Works, Zimmerman said. e menu will eventually evolve as well.

“We’re excited to kick-o this incredible partnership between One Hospitality and Saucy Brew Works at Urban Meyer’s Pint House,” said Meyer in a statement. “Together, we’ve not only enhanced our capacity to provide an unparalleled game day experience but also expanded our philanthropic initiatives, fostering positive change in our community and beyond for years to come.”

Naturally, Saucy’s beers will have a stronger presence in the taproom — a new small-batch brewing system is being installed to supply the bar — but there are no plans to completely nix macro brews served there or really alter the food menu, at least not immediately.

e restaurant is not currently on delivery apps like Uber Eats or DoorDash, but that should be changing around June.

Beyond that, Zimmerman said there will also be a focus on adding more events and the like to bring in customers, such as live music and trivia nights. He’s also looking at expanding the patio.

Meanwhile, Zimmerman said that Meyer and his wife, Shelley, are on tap to guest bartend at the Pint House on June 8, which coincides that weekend with a golf event.

“We spent the better part of a year on what it could be, and we came to the conclusion that we think it could be better in a partnership.”

Brent Zimmerman, Saucy Brew Works CEO

He also noted that he has long had connections with One Hospitality owner Chris Corso, which includes their families doing business together in years past.

“A friend of ours (Passov Group’s Alec Miller) mentioned that Chris might be doing something with the Pint House, and I said let’s talk,” Zimmerman said. “We spent the better part of a year on what it could be, and we came to the conclusion that we think it could be better in a partnership.”

Crain’s has reached out to One Hospitality o cials for comment.

Zimmerman said that while there are some changes in store for the business, Saucy is ultimately retaining most of the identity that patrons would be familiar with — in this sense, the acquisition is similar to Saucy’s purchase of Cartridge Brewing in the Cincinnati market in late 2022, which continues to operate under its original moniker.

Southwest mulling assigned seats to entice young travelers

By Mary Schlangenstein, Bloomberg

Southwest Airlines Co. may ditch open seating, a classic hallmark of its business model, to offer assigned spots and premium seats in a bid to appeal to a younger generation of travelers. e move arguably would be the largest change undertaken by the carrier since it began ying in 1971.

“We are seriously studying customer preference around our seating and our cabin,” Chief Executive O cer Bob Jordan said in an interview April 25. “We’ve been doing that for awhile — you have to be committed to understanding and meeting customer expectations.”

Jordan’s comments were a step up from last year, when the carrier acknowledged it was monitoring

growing industrywide preference among travelers for premium products. But Chief Commercial O cer Ryan Green noted then that such things are often cyclical and the carrier would wait to see if the trend persisted.

Now Southwest is expected to announce a decision on seating changes and introduce “a whole series of initiatives” — including overnight red-eye ights — at an investor day Sept. 26. While the carrier was known early on as being rmly against tweaking its nofrills model, it did give up plastic boarding cards, changed its boarding process, expanded ticket sales beyond its own website, began actively seeking business travelers and added Wi-Fi and power to its planes over the years.

But its aircraft are crowded now, with passengers often lling

more than 90% of the seats compared with 60% to 70% in past years, and “customer expectations change over time,” Jordan said. e carrier is also considering how such a change would affect its ight operations. “ ere’s no decision,” he said. “ e early results for both customers and for Southwest look really interesting. If data says this is what customers want, this is good for demand, for Southwest, for shareholders, then I think you have your answer.” Southwest has studied seat assignments more than once in the past without making changes. e carrier also executed an in-depth review of diverting from its allBoeing Co. aircraft model before deciding it would be too costly and add too much complexity to purchase planes from Airbus SE.

e Pint House marks the eighth taproom in the Saucy footprint, all of which are currently in Ohio.

Besides the Dublin Pint House, and Saucy taproom in Columbus and Cartridge Brewing in Maineville, Saucy’s other locations include its agship taproom in Ohio City, which opened in 2017, plus locations in Orange Village via Pinecrest, the Fairfax Market, Sandusky and Put-In-Bay via the Bayshore Resort, which is adding Saucy smashburgers to its o erings this summer.

As far as other expansion plans, Zimmerman said he was previously looking at something in Nashville, but that has fallen through. Still in the works, though, is a Saucy location and small hotel in Asheville, North Carolina.

Saucy is also a few days away from the deadline on its StartEngine crowdfunding campaign, which has generated $222,452 for the company so far. e maximum it could raise through a crowdfunding e ort is $15 million, though Zimmerman said that was never the target goal.

MARIJUANA

is interview has been edited lightly for length and clarity.

You were asked to join DCC, right? Why make the move?

My epitaph will probably read, “liked the challenges.” Being pigeonholed as the liquor guy, or before that the EPA guy, or before that the inspector general guy, or before that the attorney general guy, or before that the criminal trial prosecutor guy — it’s less about the title, more about the substance of what I do, which is solve problems.

I like the challenges that go with standing up new programs, xing broken things. It’s almost like the same reason I like re nishing furniture or doing landscaping or cooking. I get to use my determination and creativity in problem solving and to me, this is just another series of challenges and problems to resolve and solve in a way that makes sense. And anybody who knows me knows, as soon as I get it xed and running well, I start looking to the next thing.

So what do you think is next after DCC? Perhaps you go from liquor control to cannabis control to gaming regulation?

After this, I’ll be an old man. I did liquor for seven years. I’m 61 now. So what’s next after this? Maybe a professional hunting/ shing guy. I don’t know.

Whether it’s a management approach, lessons learned, or other things along these lines, what’s something from your time in liquor control that you’re applying to your work now at DCC?

I’m going from 80 permit types in liquor to ve permit types in DCC. And I’m going from 10,000 permit holders to somewhere right now under 300. So it’s a much narrower permit-type eld, but it’s the same principles that I bring over, which are: these are businesses that employ people, that pay people, that make, test and sell a product.

eir viability as a business is time-sensitive. And time is money. So when they’re seeing changes to products, or new products, or expansion of facilities, you have to be sensitive on the liquor side — and now here — that you are supporting businesses that employ people and their livelihoods. And their success and failure can’t be conditioned upon a bureaucratic government taking its good old time and not being sensitive to those challenges.

I was very business-focused over in liquor. And I set it up so we had great visibility on the challenges to the businesses in the process so that we could either remove those impediments if they were unnecessary vestiges from the past no longer needed in the present, or through process improvement to make it more e cient for the applicant/permit holder.

For better or worse, my own approach is sort of very indicative of my approach to my own personal a airs. Like I don’t have junk drawers. I don’t like extra junk in places where it doesn’t need to be. e stu that needs to be there should be there and the stu that is there should work. at’s my approach in liquor, and that’s my approach here.

How about on the enforcement side?

Liquor is a $1.8 billion business with 490 outlets. at’s a lot of logistics. And like cannabis, liquor is a controlled and regulated substance. So it is really, really important that the purveyors at those retail locations, their sta and the ownership, follow the rules.

While I’m very businessfriendly and will bend over backward to nd a way forward so that these businesses are successful, I really give no quarter for not following the rules. at expectation or that ethos, if you will, becomes very apparent to the group that I regulate. So I’m bringing that with me here so that those who have the permit privileges to do something that those without the permit are prohibited from doing, means they have to do it right or I take a di erent approach, which is less business-friendly.

So while they all understand that I’m trying to help them be successful, violating the rules, relative to selling to people under 21, or advertising to people under 21, or not keeping careful inventory control, for example, all those carry a very, very heavy penalty, likely to mean removal of those permit privileges.

and Maine and Nevada, how they kind of plot out their eld operations and compliance based on number and types of facilities. Like the number of inspectors per facility, I’ve looked at that to help me sta .

Frankly, those who have learned the most on what works and doesn’t work are industry people. I’ve made it my business to front-load my e orts here with meeting them all about what are the challenges? What can we change or improve? So that is what I’ve done to a painful degree on the front end. And that has really paid o . We’re trying to

“While I’m very business-friendly and will bend over backward to nd a way forward so that these businesses are successful, I really give no quarter for not following the rules.”

Are there any particular states or markets that you’re looking to for cues in terms of standing up the non-medical marijuana program?

We have really done a deep dive in all the states. And that really goes to what you said, where do we see best practices, or good intentions but failed e orts? For example, Michigan, there are things there I would not like to re-create, including the business failure rate. ere are a lot of vacant storefronts that used to sell cannabis. As we build the rules here, we do it through that lens, to not re-create that. Sometimes, if you’re not careful when you look at access and placement, the businesses load up on each other’s bumpers, which causes failure rate. So as we move forward, we look at bu ers around the dispensaries to kind of keep them from causing failure because of oversaturation. I’ve also gotten a lot of strong comments and opinions about the eye pollution with the billboards there. So we do not want to re-create that issue. I also look to states like Missouri

help these businesses but make it so things are safe, secure, healthy and legal.

So as far as you’re concerned, we should not expect marijuana ads on billboards or any cannabis business strips in Ohio, yeah?

Well, I would say more of the same consistent with what you’ve seen or not seen thus far. e current rule under the medical rules is there is no advertising on billboards. You’re not going to see me speak up to change that.

Now in terms of when rec marijuana sales could actually begin, I know that Issue 2 requires that the state begin accepting applications for adult-use retailers around early June and that licenses are to be allocated no later than early September, which has led to the expectation that adult-use sales could begin in September. But there’s recently been talk that adult-use sales could launch as soon as June. Can you walk me through how that would work?

e initiated statute said applications no later than June 7 and issuing permits no later than Sept. 7. To meet those deadlines, we had to sort of reverse engineer the timeframes to create rules for applications and permit privileges in the non-medical space. e rst rule package that we proposed was dual-use privileges. In other words, those medical facilities that have been permitted and have been selling medical cannabis for the last ve years — under a paradigm that is far more limited and conservative than what was passed under the initiated statute for non-medical — could sell non-medical with a dual-use permit. at was the rst rule that we put through so that it could get through that rulemaking process in advance of the June 7 timeframe.

So as a factual matter, if that dual-use rule proposal pops out at the end of the process sometime on or prior to June 7, our application will be ready and approved through the rulemaking process. And those who have been selling already would apply by the deadline as proposed in the initiated statute.

We would then be required to take those applications and turn them around for issuing a permit. Conceptually speaking, that application would not be very complicated because they’ve already gone through all the traps to receive their permit to sell medical cannabis. So the question really comes down to a business decision on the industry side. A lot of them are multi-state operators who have to go through their corporate approval and legal channels, so that will take time.

So what you’re saying is, we should expect some retailers to be ready to go as soon as possible, but there’s no guarantee that every business will be ready to — or interested in — doing non-medical sales immediately, yes?

Savvy retailers are going to have

to decide what kind of customer experience they want right out the gate. at is why you see a lot of bars or restaurants that have liquor permits really focus on a rst customer interaction, because those rst impressions are going to matter for those customers.

If you think of a demographic like me, a 61-year-old suburban guy who has never been to a dispensary, it’s going to matter, that experience. So for scaling from medical customer tra c to a larger, higher-volume, nonmedical-customer tra c is going to matter to many of them. And in order to accommodate that, they are going to have to change their oor plan, which is a major modi cation that requires some processing time that they’re willing to accept to make that rst customer interaction a positive one. ere will be others who throw caution to the wind and say damn the torpedoes, we’re going to be open as soon as we can. So there will be people who want to sell as soon as possible.

When you hear that June timeframe, it is because the application process will have begun and the processing of someone who just wants to turn around and sell non-medical the same way and under the same medical rules but to non-medical customers, that process will not be lengthy or complicated.

In other words, what you’re saying is there is a legitimate pathway for adult sales to begin in June.

ere is a factual pathway because of the way the initiated statute is written and because these players are not new players, they’re existing permit holders selling in the last ve years in the medical realm, which is far more complicated, strict and secure than what the initiated statute proposed for non-medical sales.

If you’re looking at the bell curve, on the left there will be that skinny entrance into the market, which will represent like

June and July. As that curve goes up to August, September, October, that will be that sort of meaty part of the bell. And people who are really thoughtful about the retail experience will on the right side, which gets into November, December and maybe even the new year.

One might assume that these dual-use license holders could require another site visit as a condition of securing that license. Is that true? And would that slow things down?

All these sites are visited all the time now as part of their permit enforcement. ey were inspected when permitted under the medical rules. And then there’s an annual renewal inspection. And then there are spot inspections. And then there are compliance or complaintdriven inspections. So they are visited a lot. And remember, there are less than 300. e only real change is going to be at the point of sale. So that software that rings out a customer, in order for them to get the green light from us to start sales, that has to be correctly identifying between medical and non-medical customers, and it has to be getting the taxes correct because the excise tax won’t apply to medical patients. And not to mention the THC delta that the initiated statute included between medical and nonmedical. So all that has to be correct in the software at the point of sale. If they change nothing—including footprint or ownership—they have to have that correct, which will require a nal certi cation.

To drive the point home on this, what we are trending toward initially is a dynamic where adult-use sales rst commence subject to medical marijuana rules and regulations. Is that accurate?

Exactly. So dual-use under the exact same medical rules. en, as the new non-medical operational rules come out and are approved, they can start following those. As advertising rule packages come out, they can start following those. All those will be after June. at is why I’m saying that as dual-use comes out, they’ll be following the exact same medical rules they’ve been following for ve years. at’s an umbrella under which are all the requirements for security, retail, point of sales, testing, packaging. ose do not change. And operators know what those are because they’ve either been following them or dinged for non-compliance on them.

I think that is why the governor was proposing that the legislature act sooner than later under the principle that they would sell non-medical under the medical rules out of the existing medical dispensaries. So that is the rule that we moved rst based on what he was pushing the legislature to do

sooner than later because of the Delta-8 problem and the black market. is is why we pushed for the dual-use rules rst.

So what could prevent us from seeing non-medical sales in June? Is it primarily actions by the legislature or individual business decisions?

Check and check. Really, any intervening causes outside of DCC, which could also include (the Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review) or a lawsuit. ose are things outside my control. Setting aside any third-party interventions, I’m going to meet the deadlines.

To that point, there have been murmurings for some time now about lawmakers fussing with the adult-use law approved by voters, though all those efforts have so far failed to gain any traction. Do you have any feelings or concerns about the legislature altering the adult-use cannabis law voters approved?

I have a very pragmatic lens that I look through. A lot of what you’re referring to falls under the categories of public consumption and children walking through clouds of marijuana smoke, THC content caps, Delta-8. With those sorts of things, I say right on. You have my full support.

To the extent that there are industry-related murmurings, that is the reason for all the stakeholder outreach to get their input on the rules and to get their buy-in on the front end. I will never get 100% enthusiasm for everything. But there’s this 80/20 principle. I aim for the 80% and let them self-police the 20%. And I kind of feel that is where I’m at.

What about the risks of lawsuits from industry interests potentially suing to stop the rollout of adult-use? Are you at all worried about such things?

No, I’m not.

I’m painfully direct and I’ve said this to them. I’m like, hey, it’s your own discretion to throw a Scud missile into the process here. All that does is delay you from starting dual-use. So that doesn’t bother me. It’s just selfin icted injury. And there are some who are like, 'Geez, I can’t believe he just said that, but he’s right.' So more power to them if they really want the rest of the 80% in that 80/20 to jump on them with all fours because it is a symbiotic industry, and that concept requires relationships. And if those who are suing don’t care about those relationships, it’s a big business risk. And that doesn’t bother me, but it should bother them.

I will also say as a side note, I’m a lawyer. If, in 35 years, I had $5 for every time someone said, well, somebody is thinking about suing, and it never came into fruition, I’d have enough to go to a ne-dining restaurant with my entire family.

Thinking about what you referenced earlier in terms of kids being exposed to marijuana smoke, what are your thoughts on consumption lounges? Should we have those? at is an e ort in speculation in how a market matures. We haven’t even begun the recreational market yet. We’ve been in a medical market where the idea of a lounge is obtuse.

“Savvy retailers are going to have to decide what kind of customer experience they want right out the gate.”

I look back to liquor and my role there, and it took since 1937 to evolve and mature where it is now, to be accepted by those in the community where it has matured. Westerville was dry when I moved to Columbus in 1985. (Designated outdoor refreshment areas) were sort of the Voldemort in the liquor world and took years to become acceptable. It comes down to a local, community attitude, just like the DORAs. So I don’t know how that is going to mature. It depends on whether or not these businesses are good community members.

That said, this is where we’d point out that Ohio doesn’t actually have any laws in place today that permit marijuana consumption lounges to exist. We would have to write new state laws on this before local municipalities could decide if such a business were appropriate for them, right?

Yes, it would require statutory changes. Something open to the public would require input from health and safety, local zoning, local health departments. And statutory changes are usually bottom up. Like, because of a maturing market, that might feel like something that is needed. So a legislator would have to decide if that’s something that they’re being asked to do. But certainly, and more directly, you can’t have a consumption lounge in a bar, because there is already a liquor permit in a bar that speci cally prohibits, in their privileges, that permit holder from allowing, facilitating, accommodating or possessing a controlled substance, which marijuana still is.

Do you have any thoughts at this time on how many dispensaries Ohio ultimately needs?

Needs? I don’t know. How many will be populated on a map? Well, we have 132 now, including 12 that still have only provisional licenses. Under the initiated statute, certain classes get one or three. And based on those, roughly, you’re talking about adding another 200 dispensaries on top of those 132.

But in terms of net new ownership dispensaries — so not dual-use licenses or existing permit classes that get additional 10(B) dispensaries under the initiated statute — there is a timeline for Sept. 7, 2026, for us to start accepting applications for net new entrants for the dispensary business. ere’s a lot of almost anxiety

about licensing amongst a small group who are going to be operating until 2026, and I’m like, you guys have a captured market until 2026.

You’ve referenced Delta-8 a couple times. To what extent is that really a concern of yours with respect to the legal cannabis industry?

From a business standpoint or a risk and health and safety standpoint, I think people are just whistling past the graveyard on this.

Delta-8 is an intoxicating substance that is unregulated and untested and not age-gated. We’ve been talking about all the safeguards, guardrails and concerns about the cannabis industry, but people are just whistling past the graveyard on these intoxicating substances being sold at gas stations. It is outrageous nothing is being done about it.

From a business impact analysis, that is all siphoning away from the legitimate, tested, permitted industry. ese take great, huge investments. Meanwhile, you have this sketchy interloper causing poisoning to children without any packaging requirements — they look exactly like candy — and without any testing requirements, so you don’t know if you’re getting rat poison or a placebo. I think so much appropriate attention is being paid to the cannabis industry, which has been in place for ve years and regulated and tested, but none at all to an intoxicating substance that is being cooked up in kitchens around the country. And I think that needs to be addressed.

Brand built on ‘resort to sport’ philosophy

Kirtland Hills native nds success with golf lifestyle clothing line

Ali Putnam found success in golf when her father urged her to take a big swing.

e genesis of her golf and lifestyle clothing brand, A. Putnam, dates to October 2021, when the world was ready to break free from the pandemic and Putnam — a casual golfer in her mid-30s with a working husband and ve young boys — was ready to break free from a series of well-paying-but-uninspiring jobs in inventory management and supply chain consulting.

Enter her father, Dett Hunter, a “serial entrepreneur” who spent nearly three decades at Arthur Andersen and the chairman of Burdette Asset Management in Mentor. Hunter was the type of dad who spent every New Year’s asking Putnam questions like, “What are your goals this year?” and “What are you going to do over the next ve years?”

“He sat me down (that October) and was like, ‘What’s next for you? I can tell you’re not thrilled with work, but you’re comfortable,’” said

interning at a Sears distribution center during college and later helping manage DSW’s third-party ful llment when it launched its website in 2008.

“I just make sure that any piece of clothing can be worn outside of golf.

Putnam, a Kirtland Hills native who graduated from Hawken High School. “He gave me this whole process of self-re ection of, ‘Where do I want to focus my time?’ So he was like, ‘Next time we meet, don’t overthink it and just write down what makes you happy. What energizes you. If you had all the time in the world, where would you spend it?’”

Putnam had always dreamed of starting a clothing line and had (sort of) worked in the fashion industry,

But designing clothes was a di erent animal, especially since Putnam wasn’t sure where she’d nd her niche. Inspiration struck at Kirtland Country Club, where she and her husband, Brandon, were members. She loved the sport but was frustrated by its fashion, with women’s clothing that emphasized the sporty over the sophisticated. Putnam wanted timeless pieces that could be worn on and o the course — or, as she later put it, “from resort to sport.”

“I don’t mind a sporty look,” Putnam said, “but I felt like golf was one of those sports where you’re not sprinting up and down the course, and you’re capable of having a little bit more style. Any time I was getting dressed for golf, I’d literally be

putting my own pieces together from my ready-to-wear normal clothing.”

Putnam went back to her father and said, “I think I want to start my own golf clothing line.” His response? “Great. Go gure out how to do it.”

So, in March 2022, Putnam started a sixmonth online course on how to start a sustainable clothing line, with eyes toward building a business that could launch in time for that January’s PGA Show, an annual golf trade show held in Orlando.

that it’s that disruptive but we had something so di erent in this niche little golf industry, it stands out.”

“I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, I have to sprint to the nish line here’ because apparel is really, really competitive,” she said. “Me having studied entrepreneurship, you learn a lot about that ‘disruptive idea.’ Not

A. Putnam is hyper-focused on what’s known in the golf world as “green grass” locations: private country clubs and resorts. Putnam’s designs work within golf’s more traditional dress code, meaning that every sleeveless top has to have a collar or that every skirt or dress has to be ngertip length.

No racerbacks.  No cargos.

Putnam uses performance fabrics, but the emphasis is on lifestyle clothing. ink Brooke Shields playing golf in a sleeveless top and trousers, as Putnam described it recently to the Wall Street Journal. “It came out of need, where I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, I can’t nd anything cute that works with this conservative golf look,’” she said. “I just make sure that any piece of clothing can be worn outside of golf. I have ve boys and we’re constantly running around. So, sel shly, I don’t want to design anything I can’t wear every day.”

Although Putnam still considers A. Putnam a scrappy startup — “If you really dig deep, it’s just me and Alexa (Dvorak, the VP of operations) running this business,” she said — it’s already gotten an outsized amount of attention, from a 1,200word article in Forbes in January to a shoutout in a February Golf Digest story on “9 golf fashion news items we can’t stop thinking about” to a couple paragraphs in the aforementioned Wall Street Journal article.

Putnam also picked up some major accounts at clubs like Pebble Beach, Congressional, and Kiawah Island and Escalante. (Locally, her clothing is available at Kirtland Country Club.) A. Putnam already has more than 100 wholesale accounts and continues to grow. One of her sales reps is even lining up an order for St. Andrews in Scotland, which is like getting your brand of Bibles into St. Peter’s Basilica.  “I think it’s just the right timing and the right product and assortment that just wasn’t out there before,” she said. “Very minimal in terms of color. Very limited patterns. It’s very opposite of what golf typically is. It’s funny, but it really resonated with our target market, which is me in a nutshell. Just a busy mom who needs clothing for a work setting, someone who is bringing golf from a networking standpoint into their professional career and feeling comfortable in those clothes, even on the course.”

Woodside Health sells trio of of ce parks for $25 million

In a transaction that will give ofce building owners hope and validation during a time of pressure, Woodside Health of Independence has sold three o ce campuses to a Jupiter, Texas, investment rm for a total of $25.5 million.

e portfolio comprises lookalike single- oor buildings with hipped roofs for an almost residential look that sold for about $150 per square foot. ese aren’t typical o ce buildings, though, because medical groups make up about 70% of the tenancy and were an arms-length portfolio transaction as opposed to recent distressed transactions or sales.

All three o ce campuses share the Je erson Park phrase and their

suburban location as their names and were developed between 1985 and 1989, according to CoStar, the online data source.

Ben Barr, a principal at seller Woodside Health, said in a phone interview that Woodside had updated the properties with new lobbies and nishes and boosted tenancy of the complexes over the past ve years. Woodside had JLL conduct a quiet marketing campaign for the properties because it wanted to test the market regarding pricing.

“We didn’t broadcast it because we didn’t have to sell,” Barr said. e properties are 91% occupied and traditional o ce tenants make up about 20% of the portfolio. Woodside principals Ted Barr and Joseph Greulich had represented the properties for several

years before buying the properties and hiked medical occupancy from an initial 40%.

Jupiter already had investments in Northeast Ohio, which aided

the sale, Barr said. Jupiter describes itself as a “selective buyer” on its website, which shows it owns more than 30 properties in six states (Georgia,

Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan and Texas), not counting realty development projects. Although Woodside is based here, most of Woodwide’s portfolio of 40 properties are in population growth areas in the South and Southwest. Woodside moved into the medical o ce building space more than a decade ago before the category became a favored property type among realty owners.

e properties are not part of a joint venture Woodside has with the Chicago-based Heitman private equity real estate rm, Barr said.

e sale was announced by Woodside on April 25, although the transactions closed on April 3. e sale price was developed with public records and data from CoStar.

Joe Scalzo

Stan Bullard

Ali Putnam, founder and CEO of A. Putnam

Ali Putnam, right, has found success with her golf lifestyle clothing brand, which offers clothing that can be worn on and off the course. | CONTRIBUTED

Woodside Health of Independence sold the Jefferson Of ce Park in Middleburg Heights along with two other of ce campuses to a Texas investor group. | COSTAR

CHARTING PROGRESS: The Business Case for DEI

Join us May 29 for a Power Breakfast event exploring the economic and strategic imperatives driving DEI efforts within corporations and institutions. Discover the case for prioritizing DEI initiatives, the role of diverse and inclusive workplaces in fostering innovation and organizational success, methods for assessing initiative effectiveness and strategies for navigating backlash. Enjoy a hot breakfast buffet, exclusive networking opportunities and a fireside chat moderated by our newsroom, offering candid discussions on key DEI issues.

FOOD TRUCKS

small kitchen to be the truck’s commissary. e food truck felt like it was getting smaller and smaller due to the food preparation, he told Crain’s, since storage space on the truck is limited.

In December 2023, he settled on a location in Olmsted Falls. Since the facility was bigger than what was needed for food preparation, he decided to make it a permanent restaurant, allowing him to add more items and have a rotating menu.

“Our business opening expectation did not happen because our opening happened in the oseason,” San Juan said. “So, little by little, our sales improve because summer is coming.”

Adjusting to the size of the workspace has been a challenge, going from 8 feet by 16 feet in the food truck to the 2,480 square feet of the permanent location, he said. e biggest challenge San Juan is facing, though, is the lack of manpower and di culty nding kitchen workers, especially cooks.

“That’s just how we try to run our business — we try to take negatives and turn it into a positive whenever we can.”

Shane Vidovic, co-owner of The Proper Pig

e take-out restaurant is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, due to the understa ng, but San Juan is still there doing preparation.

Prep work for both the food truck and restaurant isn't easy, he said. If the food truck is out of something and they need support, it’s hard to nd someone to go to the truck and bring what is needed, due to the lack of sta .

“Running both food truck and restaurant is a lot of work,” San Juan said. "Planning (and) exibility is a must.”

While Parilya is a newer example, Lakewood's e Proper Pig is one of the area's more established examples of the food truck-to-permanent location journey. What started as a Texas-style barbecue food truck in 2014 turned into the brick-and-mortar e Proper Pig Smokehouse by April 2016. e restaurant, at 17100 Detroit Ave., and food trucks are co-owned by Shane Vidovic and Ted Dupaski.

e duo were inspired to open a food truck on the weekends — or, every once in a while, for extra money — over a decade ago. Vidovic told Crain’s. Neither had any food experience besides working at Taco Bell in high school for a year.

“It was just kind of a hit from day one,” Vidovic said.

After their rst season, Dupaski quit his full-time job to work on the truck and that's when they realized they needed a space to store everything. Vidovic said that Dupaski was running to the store

everyday to replenish what they needed in the truck, a routine that proved “exhausting.”

When the duo rst opened the Lakewood location, it was only

complement the truck, so I would say one kind of couldn’t exist without the other,” he said.

“I love it. I love the hustle. I love making food. I love the customers. I really enjoy the business, but I also don’t want to see myself get burnt out either.”

Sonya Davis, owner of Kiko’s Kitchen

counter service. But, Vidovic said, it's now a full restaurant with a bar.

“We needed that (space) to

e brick-and-mortar location is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays due to the small sta and the owners “don’t believe in working people to death,” Vidovic said. He said that although they could make more money, it probably isn't worth it to never see family, never have a day o and to always be stressed out.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic,

and because the brick-and-mortar o ers a “controlled restaurant environment,” Vidovic said.

While Proper Pig has seen success and Prilya is giving it a go, not all brick-and-mortar spino s from food trucks have the same outcome. For Sonya Davis, owner of Kiko’s Kitchen in Mentor, which serves homestyle Japenese-American fusion foods, it isn't due to lack of business, though.

A self-described hands-on owner, Davis said it's been a struggle to maintain a balance between family life — a 3-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son — and her business. After operating Kiko's standalone location at 9179 Mentor Ave. for three years, which grew out of her existing food truck by the same name, she recently decided not to renew her lease.

“So, this year with it being our three-year anniversary and our lease is up for our space, I’ve decided not to continue with the commitment of our brick and mortar, so I can pretty much be with my family more,” Davis told Crain's.

ere is no concrete last day of operations as of now, but Davis is hoping to be open until some time in August to get one last summer in the space. But the nal decision is “up in the air” with the landlord of the property at this point, she said.

“It was a very di cult decision to make because I really enjoy it,” Davis said. “I love it. I love the hustle. I love making food. I love the customers. I really enjoy the business, but I also don’t want to see myself get burnt out either. And I de nitely want to spend more time with my family and that’s really the biggest part of not continuing it.”

Davis, who is 34, said she grew up in a “hustle culture” where people are constantly working hard but she's also seen that culture burn people out. She wants to “slow down” and have the opportunity to focus on her family and enjoy her children while they are still young.

Although Davis is closing the doors on the brick-and-mortar, she will continue to operate Kiko's food truck, which she started in 2018, with events at least once a week.

“It allows me to have some exibility in my life to do other things that I'm passionate (about) and enjoy without having the commitment of the brick and mortar,” Davis said.

they've had to make some changes to the permanent location, including ditching community tables.

Another challenge: food prices that have “gone through the roof,” Vidovic said. Since their focus is barbecue, they can't simply reduce the amount of meat and throw in extra fries to substitute for the increase in price. Instead, the owners looked to see what they could do better.

“ at’s just how we try to run our business — we try to take negatives and turn it into a positive whenever we can,” he said.  ey can be “more creative” at the restaurant than in the truck because of how small the truck is

e food truck serves private events such as wedding and business lunches while also serving public events, mainly in the Lake County community, she said. Before opening the Mentor location, Kiko's Kitchen made more frequent trips to Cleveland, including participating in the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo Asian Lantern Festival from 2018 to 2020. But Davis is now more focused on Lake County since the commute and commitment was "a little too much" with a newborn, she said.

“ ere’s a saying where it’s like ‘sometimes you run the business and sometimes the business runs you’ and I just don’t want the business to run me necessarily,” Davis said.

Sonya Davis is owner of Kiko’s Kitchen in Mentor, which serves homestyle Japenese American fusion foods. | CONTRIBUTED

The Proper Pig Smokehouse food truck. CONTRIBUTED

Appraisers hit the streets

“ ese appraisers have decades of experience, and they walk up and down the sidewalk or sit in the passenger seat of a car visually assessing houses from the street,” Chambers says.

Every property — both residential and commercial — is assigned an appraisal condition rating from new construction to severe deferred maintenance and that information is sent back to the county. Property taxes then are calculated using the assessed home value and the local tax rate.

From there, Chamber’s team takes about a month — employing a statistical or regression model that takes recent and comparable sales, permit and property records and board of revision data — to assign a value to each property.

In June, those values head down to the state auditor's o ce and the fun really begins. “When we are done with our value calculations, we will send them down to the state, and then we go back and forth ghting for our numbers,” Chambers said.

ere often is a lot of “back-andforth” between his o ce and the state, he said, as the county pushes back when they believe a property is overvalued by the state which could lead to a higher tax bill.

“We do it because we want to be fair when the state valuations come in higher than ours. It is always our goal to prove why we are right,” Chambers said.

How appraisals work

Lakewood's Civic Auditorium was the second stop of nearly a dozen sexennial tax presentations — running through June — designed to educate county residents and answer questions about how properties are valued and taxes are calculated.

During Chambers' presentation, homeowners learn if the house recently ipped down the street will trigger a tax bill to increase or whether their 20-year-old roof that needs to be xed will factor in the appraiser’s valuation.

“With a mass appraisal, we don't go inside your house. We don't go in your backyard, we just look at your house from the street,” said Chambers, adding that conducting full appraisals would cost the county about $425 million and take a couple of years.

POSITION AVAILABLE

Where do tax dollars go?

Chambers.

“Cuyahoga County home values right now, including some of the suburbs, are seeing 31% or higher increases since the last update,” he warned.

e valuation jumps do not translate dollar-for-dollar and a 31% value increase doesn't mean taxes will go up 31%. at's thanks to legislation passed in the 1970s to combat high in ation.

“I predict the average tax increase could be about 10% or less, depending where you live, and for some taxpayers, there's a good chance the bill won't go up at all,” he said.

“ ere are certain hotspots in the city. And those hot neighborhoods are going to go up a little bit more than the average,” Chambers added.

Contesting new property values

Cuyahoga residents soon will know for themselves what they will owe when they receive their updated property values, and can calculate the tax implication, the rst week of July 1.

Owners who want to informally contest their new property value are urged to send back the county form mailed to them with an explanation of why they disagree with the ndings (with an endof-August deadline). But it comes with limitations.

“You cannot use 'the taxes are too high' because it not so much a reason as it's a side e ect of valuation,” Chambers said.

Property owners with homes damaged during the year — such as with ooding or a fallen tree —

2023 reappraisal results

can apply for a special one-year value deduction for tax purposes.

A Destroyed or Damaged Real Property waiver, which only a handful of homeowners ever applied for, Chambers warns, will like all county property documents be accessible to the public and any future home buyer.

“We go o of the information we have when assessing, but if you have a basement that's ooded, or a living room ceiling that has fallen down, or a lot of damage that we don't know, we want to know,” he said.

Residents who still disagree with the county valuation after the informal challenge can then go through a more formal process with the county board of revision. If that fails the last opportunity to counter that new home value is with the state’s board of tax appeals which will take complaints in 2025 from January to March, Chambers said.

What's next

Whatever happens with this year’s property taxes, the whole process could be overhauled soon as a variety of bills have been introduced in the statehouse.

As in ationary property taxes continue to put pressure on low income, veteran and elderly homeowners, legislators on Ohio's Joint Committee on Property Taxation Review and Reform are looking at ways to mitigate rising home prices.

“We all recognize that there's a problem with our tax system especially when it comes to the elderly and the homestead exemptions,” Chambers said.

ly built homes,” Chambers says.

or any less than they owe.”

“We shoot for the median, the middle. e low ones get thrown out and high ones get thrown out because we want to compare apples with apples oranges with oranges.”

Taxes trending up

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ere are a lot of factors that do go into the nal appraisal, Chambers explains. One way taxpayers can argue their property is under or over valued is to nd a similarstyle home built in the same year and compare that valuation using the MyPlace tool on the county website.

Director, Ansifield-Wolf Book Awards (AW)

Taxpayers across the country have seen massive spikes in tax bills as a result of recent property evaluations as the national housing market experienced on average about a 40% increase in sale prices between 2019-2022.

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ose comparisons can be more di cult in areas with new build construction and ips, where there are high and low sales on the same street. In those cases, the county will disregard the outlier properties before valuation.

Cuyahoga County relies on those property tax dollars, with an average of 58% of the collection going to schools, 9.8% to health and human services, 4% to library operations and 3.5% for the Metroparks. But Chambers doesn't want the county’s taxpayers to pay more than they should.

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Even though Ohio’s average e ective tax rate actually ranks lower than a number of peer or competitor states — including Indiana, Michigan and Pennsylvania — median property taxes in Ohio rose about 23% from 2019 to 2023, just a tick above the national average of 21.6%.

“On a street where most of the houses were built 1900, we are not going to compare them to the new-

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“We want to make sure that we're being fair,” Chamber told attendees at the Lakewood meeting. “We don't want anyone to be paying any more

In 2023, eight of the state’s 88 counties were stunned by average valuation increases as high as 29.5% in Geauga County and 41% in Ashland County, according to

PEOPLE ON THE MOVE

FINANCIAL SERVICES

Ancora

Ancora is happy to announce that Michael Santelli, CFA has been promoted to Managing Director, Portfolio Manager.

Michael joined the rm in 2014 and has been a portfolio manager for Ancora’s micro cap strategy and mutual fund since 2016, in addition to managing individual client portfolios. Michael earned a Bachelor of Accountancy degree from The George Washington University and a Master of Business Administration degree in Finance from the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business.

HEALTH CARE

Crystal Clinic

Orthopaedic Center

FINANCIAL SERVICES

Ancora

FINANCIAL SERVICES

Ancora

FINANCIAL SERVICES

Ancora

FINANCIAL SERVICES

Ancora

Ancora is happy to announce that Tom Kennedy has been promoted to Managing Director, Portfolio Manager. Tom manages customized portfolios for Family Wealth and institutional clients and is a member of Ancora’s Investment Committee and Model Portfolio Committee. He joined the rm in 2007 as a senior portfolio manager. Tom received a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration with a focus on Finance and a Master of Business Administration degree in Finance from John Carroll University.

LAW

Amundsen Davis, LLC

Mollie Manley, M.D., M.S., a Crystal Clinic Orthopaedic Center surgeon specializing in surgery of the hand, wrist, shoulder and elbow, has joined the Northeast Ohio Board of Directors of the Arthritis Foundation. She attended medical school at Case Western Reserve University, where she completed a dual degree with a master’s in anatomy and medical doctorate. Dr. Manley, who is boardcerti ed in surgery of the hand and upper extremity, joined Crystal Clinic Orthopaedic Center in 2015.

Attorney Chris Congeni joins Amundsen Davis’s Business Litigation Service Group. Chris has spent the past decade developing a national healthcare, employment, and business litigation practice. While he represents clients nationally, Chris maintains the rm’s Cleveland presence. Chris assists many multi-district litigation clients with complex litigation across the country. He represents and assists health systems, physician groups and individual providers in their ongoing employment issues.

Ancora is happy to announce that Jeremy Scacco has been promoted to Senior Vice President and Fixed Income Portfolio Manager. Jeremy has been with the rm since 2005 and his responsibilities include xed income security selection and monitoring portfolio cash positions for both individual and corporate xed income accounts. Prior to joining Ancora, he served as a portfolio manager at Fifth Third Asset Management.

Jeremy earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Hiram College.

LEGAL

Fisher Phillips

Ancora is happy to announce that Vanessa Mavec King, CFP® has been promoted to a Director of Financial Planning. Vanessa joined Ancora in 2019 and leads the rm’s team of wealth planners. She works with clients to help identify goals and build robust nancial plans. Vanessa earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology and Anthropology with a minor in Human Rights from Southern Methodist University, as well as a Master of Business Administration degree from Case Western Reserve University.

MANUFACTURING

Oatey Co.

Fisher Phillips, an international labor and employment law rm, is pleased to announce that Bonnie Kristan has joined the rm as a partner in its Cleveland of ce. With over 25 years of employment litigation, counseling, workers’ compensation and workplace safety experience, Bonnie represents employers in federal and state courts and administrative proceedings throughout the country. She joins an expanding bench of partners in Cleveland as the rm continues its strategic growth in the region.

Oatey Co. appoints Wyatt Kilmartin Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Of cer, overseeing U.S. Marketing and Sales. He joins from Scott Fetzer Consumer Brands, bringing over 20 years of experience, including signi cant roles at Emerson with the RIDGID and Greenlee brands. At Oatey, Kilmartin will aim to expand sales, customer relationships, and marketing strategies within the retail, wholesale, commercial, and e-commerce channels. “Wyatt has an exceptional track record of driving business results and achieving growth within the manufacturing and plumbing industries,” says Neal Restivo, Oatey’s Chief Executive Of cer. “I am pleased to welcome him to Oatey, and I look forward to the positive impact he will make on our business and customers.”

Ancora is happy to announce that Greg Hopkins has been promoted to a Director and Family Wealth Advisor. Greg joined the rm in 2020 and provides personalized wealth management service to Ancora’s Family Wealth clients as an investment advisor. Prior to joining Ancora, Greg served as a nancial advisor with Merrill Lynch where he assisted clients with nancial planning and wealth management. Greg earned a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from Miami University’s Farmer School of Business.

MANUFACTURING

Oatey Co.

Oatey Co. announced Scott Voisinet’s promotion to Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Of cer. Voisinet, with Oatey for 13 years, has advanced through several roles, most recently as Senior VP, Supply Chain. His prior experience includes positions at Matco Tools, Dealer Tire, and General Motors. As EVP and COO, Voisinet will oversee Oatey’s domestic operations, focusing on manufacturing, distribution, supply chain, and engineering, aiming to boost ef ciencies and customer service. “Scott’s leadership and vision have made a signi cant impact at Oatey, including enhancing our supply chain capabilities and building an excellent team,” said Neal Restivo, Oatey’s Chief Executive Of cer.