Crain's Cleveland Business, July 15, 2024 by Crain's Cleveland Business

Huntington looks to HOAs and property managers for growth

New deposits business is designed to expand commercial offerings to the real estate sector

By Jeremy Nobile

Huntington Bank’s focus on a budding new national deposits business re ects the challenges regional nancial institutions have been facing to grow this low-cost funding source amid sti competition and rising interest rates.

In June, the regional bank announced plans to launch a deposits business designed to expand commercial o erings to the real estate sector. e vertical’s initial focus will be on homeowners associations plus property management, escrow and title companies.

Huntington is starting there because that segment has the longest lead time to get to market, said Alex Tsarnas, the bank’s recently recruited group head of national deposits.

“ ere is a bit of a build to

present that to the market,” Tsarnas said. “We will be working on that behind the scenes for a bit before we launch a little later this year.”

Besides supplementing the broader deposit strategy, this focus complements the bank’s build-out of a specialized commercial banking team focused on cash and treasury management services for real estate businesses — which is one of many e orts to enhance the commercial bank and add specialty verticals within it. at plan was announced this spring.

Tsarnas comes to Huntington from Bridge Bank, a division of Phoenix-based Western Alliance Bancorporation (approximately $77 billion in assets), which is less than half the size of Huntington (approximately $194 billion

See HUNTINGTON on Page 17

Turnover for college presidents SKYROCKETING

In Ohio, more than half of the four-year public university presidents have been on the job for less than two years

By Joe Scalzo

At Ohio’s colleges and universities, there’s a growing segment of the campus population that sticks around for only a few semesters. Presidents.

e average tenure of a college president has plummeted to 5.7 years — the shortest in history, according to the

2023 American College President report issued by the American Council on Education. at’s down from 6.5 years in 2016 and 8.5 years in 2008, with 55% of the 1,000 surveyed presidents saying they planned to step down from their position within ve years.

Ohio Bell’s former HQ opens as

The Bell after residential rehab

By Stan Bullard

In a rare occurrence, it was the lender — rather than the real estate developers — behind the just-opened e Bell apartments in downtown Cleveland that declared the 16-story apartment building ready to welcome tenants.

Marc Hirshman, president and a partner in Twain Financial Partners of St. Louis, Missouri, said he is excited about the way the project putting 367 apartments in the former Ohio

Bell headquarters has come together.

He said he felt it his duty as “part of the team” with developers Ken Wolfe Investments and Bluelofts, both of Dallas, to talk about the realization of the vision even though some scal issues have clouded the picture.

All told, e Bell’s opening consummates a more than $100 million project.

“ ere’s no concern the building has not moved forward,” Hirshman said in a phone interview with Crain’s Cleveland

Business. “We’re ready to lease. And we just got our certi cate of occupancy (June 18) from the city of Cleveland to open.” Hirshman said he is excited about the property because of its views of Lake Erie, an outdoor swimming pool on an upper level of the building, and the way the project has come together.

Ohio Bell’s corporate headquarters at 45 Erieview Plaza, built in 1983, has been converted to

Ohio factory making NFL game balls to expand

By Dan Shingler

e NFL’s 2024 season starts in less than two months, and they’re already making the balls for the games right here in Ohio.

ey’ll be making more of them than ever before, too, thanks to a $15 million investment in a new factory by Wilson Sporting Goods in Ada.

As fans with the clearest bigscreen TVs likely already know, Wilson is the sole provider of footballs for the NFL. In fact, it’s the only ball the NFL has ever used, said Kevin Murphy, Wilson's vice president and general manager for team sports.

“We’ve been making balls for the NFL for 80 years,” Murphy said.

In other words, Wilson's been making balls for professional football in America since before there was anything called a Super Bowl, or even the NFL as we know it today.

ough they were not the sole provider of balls at the time, Wilson was making balls for pro football even before Cleveland won its last championship. at was 60 years ago — not that anyone’s counting, right? — when the Browns beat the Baltimore Colts 27-0 in Cleveland to win the 1964 NFL Championship behind running back Jim Brown. Back then, there were two leagues, the NFL and the American Football

League, but there was no Super Bowl until 1967 after the leagues merged.

Most of those balls were made in Ada, a small town of a little more than 5,000 people in Hardin County, about 100 miles southwest of Cleveland. And the town’s residents have been making every ball the NFL uses for decades.

“Since the ‘50s we’ve been in Ada,” Murphy said. at’s now set to continue for the foreseeable future, thanks to Wilson investing in a new factory, right next to its old one, that began making balls in May.

Murphy said the old plant could no longer keep up with demand for the balls, which Wilson makes for not only the NFL, but also for many NCAA teams, and all NCAA championship games, as well as for high school players and the general public.

“It was cramped quarters, and we clearly outgrew it,” Murphy said. “For the last several years we were literally not able to make enough footballs to meet consumer demand. We were falling behind and that’s not where we want to be.”

e new plant will give the com-

Increased demand for power is keeping Babcock & Wilcox busy

By Dan Shingler

Babcock & Wilcox isn’t giving up its fossil-fuel business.

Far from it. e company’s “thermal” sector has been growing as of late and accounted for half of its revenues in 2023, which were just under $1 billion.

But, like the energy industry generally, B&W has been branching out in recent years and investing in both renewables and ways to use fossil fuels and biomass (wood) to make energy production less carbon intensive. It’s not going to stop that, either.

e company is agnostic with regard to energy sources, its executives say. It’s more concerned about determining where the power industry is headed so it can meet customers where they’re at in the future.

B&W CEO Kenny Young has some ideas of where that’s going to be.

“If you look out 10 years from now, we see, from our technology standpoint, demand switching a lot toward hydrogen," Young said. “Hydrogen, we believe, will be in high demand in both the industrial and utilities sector.”

Young and Chris Riker, B&W's senior vice president of thermal, said the company has developed technology to use biomass and renew-

able energy to create hydrogen without putting signi cant amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.

With biomass, which consists of things such as waste from sugar cane in Louisiana and wood gathered from forest management and lumber productions, the company has found a new way to produce hydrogen, Young said.

Hydrogen is not an energy source that is typically produced by rst generating electricity and then using that power to make hydrogen, such as by breaking water molecules apart. Biomass can be used to make it by burning the fuel to make electricity, and then using that electricity to make hydrogen. at can be a dirty process, but B&W has developed a way to make it much cleaner, Young said.

It doesn’t burn biomass in a traditional sense, using re, but instead uses a form of “chemical combustion” from which it is much easier to capture CO2 that is produced in the burn, Young said.

So, instead of producing carbon and pumping into the air like most forms of fossil fuel production, B&W’s process takes carbon in the form of plants and keeps it from going into the air.

“We’re taking carbon that’s above ground and we’re storing it below ground. So, we’re sequestering that carbon,” Young said.

at same technology, which B&W calls BrightLoop, also can produce hydrogen while capturing carbon using fuels such as natural gas and even coal, the company says.

It also produces far less ash than burning coal in a traditional manner, Young said, which eliminates a major problem for utilities, which now have to store huge amounts of coal ash at or near their coal- red power plants.

Hydrogen makes the energy more portable. It can be shipped in pipelines, or even in pressurized tanks. Young said it’s one way to work around the intermittency of renewable power sources like solar and wind.

And there are already signs that hydrogen is gaining steam with industry, too.

For instance, Cleveland-Cli s Inc., the big iron-ore and steelproduction company, recently began using hydrogen in its blast furnace with what it says have been great results.

“Even though we have plenty of natural gas and we believe we can run on natural gas forever, we really believe that hydrogen is the future,” Cli s CEO Lourenco Goncalves said earlier this year, when discussing the fuel with members of the United Steelworkers union.

e increasing adoption of hydrogen ts right into B&W’s vision

shaped, are not easy to make, and even lacing the balls properly requires great skill, Murphy said. And all that work has to be done by hand.

“Between sewing and lacing the balls, it’s a tough thing to automate,” Murphy said.

But if you think machinists and welders are hard to nd, try to hire some experienced football sewers or lacers. Wilson has to train them, but that was di cult in the cramped quarters of the old factory, Murphy said.

“We now have space where we can train people side by side with veteran workers,” he said. “It does take a while to get to the skill level of doing NFL game balls.”

As you might expect, those who do make the ball take great pride in seeing them on TV.

pany room to grow, Murphy said. At 80,000 square feet, it’s a little more than twice the size of the old plant, he said. It will enable the company to add 10 to 20 new people to its current sta of 120, Murphy said. Wilson needs to expand, but it also needs to ensure that the quality of its football doesn’t lose a stitch, Murphy said. at might sound easy until you take a good look at a high-quality football like Wilson makes. ose completely even seams, binding oddly shaped pieces of leather over a ball that is even more oddly

“ ey’re sewing game balls for the Super Bowl. ey get pretty geeked up about seeing their product on the eld,” Murphy said.

at pride might be a reason they stick around, too. Murphy said some of the ballmakers in Ada have been with the company there for 45 years or more.

Murphy said the new balls coming out of the plant match the quality of what came out of the old plant. After all, it’s the same people making them, by hand, he said.

“You won’t see a bit of di erence,” he said. “Just more of them and, hopefully, faster.”

of the future, and its strategic planning, Young and Riker said.

Meanwhile, the company has been working for years now to convert coal- red power plants to cheaper and cleaner-burning natural gas. ose projects can be massive, too, such as the $246 million contract B&W got in April to convert a big AES generation plant in Indiana into a 1,000-megawatt plant fueled by natural gas.

“We do see that there’s going to be a lot more of those in the future,” Riker said. “ e EPA sent out some new rules in April that are just going to further highlight gas conversions as a possible solution to reduce emissions.”

But B&W has hedged its bets. It has major revenue streams coming not only from fossil-fuel and hydrogen technology, but also in solar energy, as well as with carbon-capture and other technologies that can be applied to other energy sources.

Riker said that's because the nation and the world are going to need more and more power from a diversi ed basket of fuels. Demand for energy is only going to grow, he said — a prediction backed up by projections made by U.S. and international energy agencies.

“ e advent of AI is a hot topic right now, and that’s massive data centers ... that require electricity,” Riker said.

On top of that, crypto mining has become a big user of energy and manufacturing continues to use a lot of power, and it's growing in the U.S., Riker said. “And you have climate change, so you’re seeing higher demand” for cooling, he added. All of that should drive further demand for B&W’s technologies and services.

"Being in the environment we’re in now is good all-around for B&W, because we’re seeing power demand increase everywhere,” Riker said.

Workers make footballs at the old Wilson Sporting Goods facility in Ada. The company opened a new factory next to it in May. | BLOOMBERG

The conversion of big power plants to natural gas, like this one in Indiana, will continue to provide Babcock & Wilcox with signi cant revenues, the company says. | CONTRIBUTED

GENESIS

BE COOL WITH A LOAN FROM CBS

Willoughby Union High School is next apartment conversion project

By Alexandra Golden

After sitting vacant for over a decade, the former Willoughby Union High School in downtown Willoughby will be converted into 40 apartments with completion expected about a year from now.

Spanning the three floors of 25 Public Square will be four studio units (about 440 square feet); a unit with two bedrooms and two bathrooms (about 840 square feet); and 35 units that each have one bedroom and one bathroom in around 700 square feet. The square footage of each unit depends on the size of the classroom being converted.

Willoughby Union Realty LLC owns the building and is developing the apartments. e members of Willoughby Union Realty are Jim Loveman, Stephen Marshall, David G. Marshall, Justin Gantz and Matt Sutter.

Their partner developers, Liberty Development, will build 19 for-sale townhomes on the same property as the former high school. Liberty Development was the group that responded to the city of Willoughby’s request for proposal in 2022. It then brought on Willoughby Union Realty as a team, and the groups were awarded the project together, Gantz said.

The total project cost with the townhomes and apartments is $21,387,000, according to a news release from the Ohio Historic Preservation Tax Credit Program. The project received a $2 million tax credit from the state. It also has about $1.8 million in federal tax credits.

The apartments alone, excluding the townhomes, carry a budget of about $9.5 million, Loveman said.

The building, constructed in 1915, came close to being demolished when the Willoughby Eastlake School District decided it wanted to release the building, Willoughby Mayor

Robert Fiala told Crain’s. Eight years ago, the city purchased the property for $1, which prevented it from going up for auction, Fiala said.

en-Mayor Dave Anderson told the school district that the proceeds from the sale of the property, minus the expenses, would go back to the school district.

Willoughby Union Realty in May bought the building from the city for $99,000.

“It’s a modest density project, which is what our public likes, and it’s going to save an important historic building,” Fiala said.

Because the building is old and has been vacant for some time, there are some structural issues that need to be addressed, including the installation of a new roof, which will be done shortly and will prevent further water damage.

Asbestos is being removed from all the oors and was expected to be completed earlier this month, Gantz said. e windows also will be replaced. ey’ll look historically accurate but will be energy e cient, he said.

Great Lakes Realty Inc. is the property manager for the apartments, but since their o ce is 0.2 miles away from the property, there will be no leasing o ce in the building.

e studio apartments will be where the current stage is in the auditorium, two sets of two, stacked on one another, a move that works with the building’s high ceilings, Gantz said. All apartments, not just the studios, will have high ceilings, he said.

“New builds today aren’t building 13-foot ceilings with eightfoot windows,” Gantz said. “I mean, that’s just what’s amazing that we inherit that with this building.”

ere will also be storage units on every oor as well as bicycle storage and a dog wash area on the rst oor. Each unit will have its own heat pump and condensing unit to control temperature

along with a washer and dryer.

While no expected price was given, Gantz said the range will be in the market of what’s currently available in Willoughby.

“We’re de nitely aiming to be a premium product in the Willoughby market,” Loveman said.

To be ADA compliant, the parking lot will be leveled and an elevator will be installed at the current location of the old auditorium balcony.

“ at’s what kind of the beauty of this,” Gantz said. “It’s all the modern amenities but with a historic charm of the building.”

Because the property is a historic preservation project, there are some limitations on what can be changed and removed — developers have to follow the standards for rehabilitation from the National Park Service.

A lot of the original walls, doorframes, lockers and chalkboards have to stay where they are, as they are deemed historic, Loveman said. Most chalkboards, then, will become a part of the living room and a “cool design feature,” Gantz said.

Some chalkboards, though, were added at a later date and are not deemed historic, meaning they can be removed.

“You can’t just clear out the building edge to edge and then build all new inside,” Loveman said.

A one-story addition that was added recently enough that it’s not considered historic will be torn down to make space for the townhomes, Gantz said. e front lawn of the apartment building, which leads out the main entrance, is Wes Point Park, home to city events such as the annual Christmas tree lighting, car shows and festivals. Fiala said the park will be redesigned to help it become more active. e current main entrance has been lled in with cinder blocks since the 1970s but will be reopened so tenants can walk out the doors to the park and into lively downtown Willoughby.

One of the classrooms which will be turned into a one bedroom and one bathroom apartment. | ALEXANDRA GOLDEN

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An appraisal of Cuyahoga County’s reappraisals

If you’re no longer paying much, or any, attention to the physical mail that arrives at home, you might want to get back in the habit. e Postal Service is about to deliver — or maybe already has delivered — a pretty important document if you live in Cuyahoga County.

County residents this month are receiving notices with the 2024 proposed reappraisal value of their property, and the numbers are striking. As in, the increases are big, and they’re likely to cause a lot of concern about what they mean for future tax bills.

“I realize there are some big swings,” said Michael Chambers, the county’s scal ocer, at a Tuesday, July 9, news conference to discuss the reappraisals.

e state-mandated reappraisals, conducted every six years, with updates every three years, are up 32% on average. e actual increases vary widely by community. Some of the lowest percentage increases are in well-o communities of the county such as Hunting Valley (an average 15% increase), Brecksville (22%) and Pepper Pike (23%).

e valuation increases are highest in Cleveland’s inner-ring (and less well-o ) suburbs: 66% for Newburgh Heights, for instance, and 67% for East Cleveland. e average increase in the city of Cleveland is about 49%.

e pattern of the increases might seem counterintuitive, but it’s largely a re ection of the steep drop in property values in some communities after the 2008 nancial crash/ Great Recession/foreclosure crisis. As the county points out, property values are updated based on three factors: market estimate; neighborhood sales and new con-

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struction; and proposed values per square foot.

Reappraisals are frustrating and scary for a lot of property owners, mostly because of the tax implications, but there are a couple of things to keep in mind.

First, while reappraisals (which can be contested) in individual cases might well be o base, reappraisals in general keep the property tax system fair by eliminating inequities that are created over time by changes in the real estate market. And the

market, if you haven’t been paying close attention, remains quite hot, despite the rise in interest rates of the last few years. If a property’s fair market value does not change over time, some people could pay too much in property taxes, while others could pay too little.

Second, as county o cials stressed repeatedly at the July 9 news conference, the percentage increase in a property valuation does not correspond directly to the increase in taxes. at 32% hike in valuation for the

average county property owner doesn’t mean the tax bill on the property will be 32% higher. A key here is the decades-old Ohio House Bill 920, which includes a reduction factor that’s designed to keep tax revenues stable when property values increase or decrease.

How much higher will that tax bill be? In most cases, county o cials say, the increase will be a single-digit percentage. ( e county has a tax estimator that can give you a ballpark gure.) For some property owners, any increase will be nancially di cult, so we’re encouraged that Cuyahoga County Treasurer Brad Cromes said the county is working on a taxpayer assistance program to help seniors and people who are delinquent on taxes. It also includes a component of nancial counseling. You can’t fully evaluate the accuracy of a reappraisal unless you’re able to sell your property for the assessed value or higher. But if it feels o to you, by all means, take advantage of an informal review complaint process that lasts until Aug. 30. ere are four informational meetings about the reappraisal process scheduled for July 29Aug. 1. Residents who lodge an informal complaint will receive noti cation of any valuation adjustment in November before tax bills are formalized in January. For those who still aren’t satis ed with the valuation, there’s a formal tax complaint process that runs from Jan. 1-March 31, 2025. Reappraisals aren’t perfect, and they can create tax stress in some parts of the community. On balance, though, it’s a sign of a healthy region to see these numbers rising. e alternative is a spiral of value destruction that makes the community less appealing in the long run.

People with disabilities are a forgotten workforce

he June 10 Forum section of Crain’s Cleveland Business had a number of good articles about how to help the local economy with suggestions to adapt to workforce needs, to provide training, to address talent challenges by building a more robust, talented worker population.

Articles discussed populations that can o er workforce solutions: youth, college grads, those involved in the criminal justice system, immigrants, residents of low-income neighborhoods and women. ere was not, however, an article about the nation’s largest minority group, according to the Department of Labor: people with disabilities.

According to the Center for American Progress, people with disabilities in the workforce still experience an unemployment rate that is twice as high as that of workers without a disability, and they remain considerably less likely to be employed. e average annual employment rate for

people without disabilities was 65.8%, while the rate for people with disabilities was 22.5%. In Cuyahoga County, 16% of the population had a disability, many of whom want to work.

Crain’s story on labor market losses quoted a Lightcast publication explaining the cause of the talent shortages.

A similar publication by Lightcast, in 2022, highlights people with disabilities as the “missing workers.” Lightcast says that in order for employers to widen the funnel of potential job candidates, they need to identify individuals who want a job but haven’t been searching for one, understand their concerns and priorities, and adopt recruitment e orts and work arrangements that ease their barriers to employment.

Fortunately for our local employers, there are agencies such as Linking Employment, Abilities and Potential (LEAP) that can help.

We are a nonpro t owned and operated by people with disabilities that helps individuals with employment and helps employers with the disability recruiting, hiring, training and

retaining aspects of their workforce.

Here are some tips from the Department of Labor that agencies like LEAP can help with:

◗ Implement inclusive recruitment and hiring practices

◗ Seek out quali ed candidates with disabilities for job openings

◗ Provide workplace accommodations (most are low cost and bene t all employees)

Establish a system for educating all workers about the value people with disabilities bring to an organization

◗ Incorporate a disability focus into any diversity training program

◗ Ensure that internal professional development programs are available to people with disabilities

Provide employees with disabilities with candid and prompt feedback on their performance in the same manner as provided for individuals without disabilities

Make certain that training and other osite activities are accessible to employees with disabilities

Incorporate people with disabilities into the business’s marketing strategy

Take advantage of tax credits and education resources to provide accommodations for both new employees with disabilities and employees returning to work following an illness or injury

Hiring people with disabilities is good for business. Not only does the inclusion of employees with disabilities elevate the collaborative culture of the entire organization, which helps to improve productivity, it also builds a reputation for inclusiveness which will enhance the businesses value proposition with customers, suppliers and competitors.

Said a knowing CEO: ere is nothing wrong with wanting to do good in the world, but there is also nothing wrong with wanting to do well, and the latter is enough reason to employ people with disabilities.

Melanie Hogan is director of public policy and external a airs at Linking Employment, Abilities and Potential (LEAP)

Melanie Hogan

A home for sale in Cleveland’s Collinwood neighborhood | CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS FILE PHOTO

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Drees Homes moves to capitalize on build-on-your-lot market

By Stan Bullard

Drees Homes, the big family-owned Cincinnati-based builder with a large Northeast Ohio presence, is targeting the buildon-your-lot business for growth in Northeast Ohio.

e move is a step outside the typical volume builder’s approach of buying sites in large residential developments for its buyers. And it plays to the pluses of a big homebuilder to pursue a segment where Drees estimates 40% of the homes are produced by small local builders and 60% are large local builders — as well as a handful of wellknown rms such as Wayne Homes and Schumacher Homes.

Drees is taking typical big company moves for this endeavor.

e builder created a new identity and name — “Elevate by Drees Homes” — for its on-your-lot efforts that it rolled out in May. It’s also getting a big push in both local and national advertising, though it would not disclose the ad spend.

e name comes from what Drees said is its ability to “elevate” the experience for buyers who want to build on their own 5-acre lot, either in a city where vacant land is scarce or tearing down houses to produce building sites in heavily developed suburbs.

Drees said it can trim costs to compete with custom builders and maintains it can produce homes in as little as nine months, from contract to closing.

Chris Bunge, general manager of Drees Elevate in the Cleveland area, told Crain’s that the tactic is “not necessarily” just a response to the often-bemoaned lack of new-home sites closer to cities such as Cleveland and Akron.

“It’s a way to expand our market with a new land strategy,” Bunge said. “We’ve had clients come to us for a new home after learning it costs $100,000 now to have a kitchen remodeled. We’re also planning to do as many as three speculative homes on lots on the east side to boost visibility there.”

e increasing push to raze older homes to get into established cities with good school districts also plays a part.

“ ere are a lot of opportunities, particularly in Cleveland Heights and University Heights, to buy an existing house on a good-sized lot for $250,000 to $300,000,” Bunge said, and tear it down for a new home. ose prices compare favorably to vacant lot prices, which can cost $400,000 for a half-acre lot in a Westlake or Solon subdivision or $350,000 in Brecksville.

Drees o ers on-your lot homes for $380,000 to $700,000, not counting the lot.

Historically, the land price is about 25% of the cost of a new home. If the buyer already has his or her lot, that may open the way to signi cant savings depending on their site.

“We’ll build on a quarter-acre lot or whatever size you want,” Bunge said.

Drees says another advantage is that prospective buyers can visit the same design center in Brecksville it uses for buyers in its typical subdivisions and see their models in 18 communities throughout Northeast Ohio. It also o ers one-stop shopping, from getting local permits if customers want them to do so, tonancing.

For example, it o ers a single loan for a scattered-site customer rather than the traditional construction loan that buyers must convert to a mortgage after completion.

Insiders and competitors see it as a viable strategy but, as with all homebuilding strategies, it has its risks.

“A lot of their high-end customers in their subdivisions might also be interested in this,” said Bill Sanderson, the operator of Team WS, a Lakewood consultant and services provider for builders. “Never underestimate the value of a one-stop shop. But the downside is that in building, every city or political subdivision is a di erent market. And there’s

a di erent learning curve for each one.”

Tony DiBenedetto, who operates the DiBenedetto Real Estate Group of Avon Lake and sells land sites to consumers as well as homes for such buyers, said in a phone interview that Drees is moving into an area that other large-volume builders are eschewing, in part to control their costs.

“It’s a huge opportunity for them,” DiBenedetto said. “ ey have a signi cant buying advantage for materials they can pass on to their customers in terms of doors and windows compared to the builder who does ve homes a year. But it goes beyond that to digging holes for foundations to framing houses. Larger customers get better prices, as in all business.”

Pat Perrino, who has operated as an on-your-lot builder for more than 30 years at Perrino Builders & Remodeling in Chesterland, is not perturbed by the Drees scattered-site plan.

“We know our niche,” Perrino said. “It’s the customer who will pay a little more and will wait for what they want, the customer who wants quality without speeding things up.”

Perrino, who is building on customers’ lots from Vermilion to Kirkland, says he has three onyour-lot managers working in the Cleveland area: one focused on the east side, another on the west side and a third on the south side. “ ere’s a lot of windshield time lost in the on-your-site business,” Perrino said. “Moreover, we nd most of our customers by word of mouth.”

Even though he is committed to the on-your-lot business, Perrino said it is about 25% of his sales volume today compared to 30% in years past. at is because of the e ciency of having one sta er overseeing a multi-home subdivision, he said, and the attraction of building more for the active adult market than in the past because it is a growing demographic in the region.

Many customers of Drees Homes who own their lots opt for what it calls “The Hollister” design. GREG GRUPENHOF FOR DREES HOMES

Kirtland Hills property built for entertaining

By Alexandra Golden

Just a few miles northwest of the Holden Arboretum sits a traditional three-story house, just outside of Kirtland Hills, engulfed by trees — and the feeling of peaceful seclusion. And it’s now on the market with an asking price of $2,395,000.

e home at 8700 Sanctuary Drive is owned by Andre Temnorod and his wife, Brianna. Andre is CEO of WireBee Inc., a real-time fraud prevention with caller veri cation and carrier screening for freight brokers and third-party logistic companies.

e listing agent is Adam Kaufman of Howard Hanna Real Estate Services.

e home was built in 2005 by Pat Perrino, president of Perrino Builders & Remodeling of Chesterland, for him and his wife, Colleen.

“ e architecture … is the denition of luxury,” Kaufman said. “It was built by a builder for his own home.”

e current owners purchased the property from the Perrinos in 2010. ey are selling the home as their last child is headed to college and are going to “do something di erent.”

e overall style of the home has remained the same but the Temnorods renovated speci c parts of the house.

e main oor and upstairs account for the 8,818 square feet listed for the property, but including the basement, the home

is over 10,000 square feet. It sits on 5.15 acres and has six bedrooms, six full bathrooms and two half bathrooms.

When you rst walk in, you are greeted with the living room, overlooked by the second- oor hallway, theater room and kitchen. To the left when you enter is a built-in sh tank, which the new

owner will inherit the current sh in the tank. To the right, there is the formal dining room.

rough the kitchen is what Kaufman described as a “kitchen eating area,” a less formal dining space that overlooks the outdoor pool, surrounded by windows on three sides.

ere is an “entertainment wing”

on the right side of the rst oor of the home which currently includes a pool table, a bar with seating, a wine cellar and a pizza oven.

e asking price comes with the house being unfurnished, but the owners will consider selling some of the furniture as the “furniture was designed for the house,” Kaufman said.

“If you can’t tell, the house is designed for entertaining,” he said.

e left side wing of the rst oor is the owner’s suite which includes an o ce, primary bedroom and bathroom.

e laundry room is also situated on the main oor along with 1.5 bathrooms. ere is a six-car attached garage which is accessible through the hallway o the kitchen.

e upstairs has most of the bedrooms and partially overlooks the living room. Upstairs there are three bedrooms; the fourth is being turned into a gym.

e bedroom on the left wing of the home has a balcony that overlooks the backyard. ere are 3.5 bathrooms, with each bedroom having its own attached full bath and the half being attached to the converted gym.

e walkout basement includes two bedrooms, a full bathroom, playroom, lounge and storage space.

e playroom has a kitchen including a mini fridge, sink and microwave and has stairs that lead out into the backyard.

e backyard is built for entertaining, with a covered veranda with a replace, hot tub, pool and a decorative gazebo. ere is also a basketball hoop in the front driveway.

is home is perfect for someone who likes to entertain and would be ideal for a CEO or a higher-level executive, Kaufman said.

“ e quality in this home is sensational,” Kaufman said. “... e setting is spectacular. It’s just a really cool house.”

The property at 8700 Sanctuary Drive in Kirtland Hills is listed for $2,395,000. SHANER SHOTS PHOTOS

Part of the second oor overlooks the living room.

The entertainment wing of the home includes a pool table, bar and wine cellar.

Midwives at MetroHealth: More options, improved outcomes

There’s a moment in A ershock, the 2022 documentary that highlights the United States’ poor maternal and infant mortality rates, which underscores the di erence between speaking out and being heard.

“My daughter’s story is loud,” begins Shawnee Gibson, testifying before Congress about her daughter Shamony’s postpartum death. “She was awake, aware and active. And yet, she still died.”

Upon release from the hospital, Shamony complained about chest pain and shortness of breath as she recovered from the Caesarean section delivery of her child.

“We called the hospital,” recounts partner Omari Maynard in an ABC News interview. “Every time we did call, it was just ‘have her rest, if anything gets worse, give us a call back.’”

Two weeks later, Shamony died of a pulmonary embolism, a sudden blockage in the pulmonary arteries, which is a treatable condition.

Shamony spoke out. She was not heard.

RN Vice President of Women and Children’s Services MetroHealth

During the 2023 Cleveland screening of A ershock hosted by e MetroHealth System, her voice was loud and clear.

Maternal mortality: A public health crisis

According to the Centers for Disease Control, more than 1,200 women in the U.S. died in 2021 due to complications in pregnancy, childbirth or postpartum recovery — that’s 32.9 deaths for every 100,000 live births. In 2020, the rate was 23.8. e next most-developed country, France, had just under nine deaths per 100,000 live births in 2020.

e statistics are worse among Black women, who face three to four times the mortality risk compared to their white counterparts.

In 2020, Bloomberg named Cleveland as the worst city in America for Black women in terms of livability — and that extends to health care. It’s been a constant focus for Airica Steed, Ed.D., MBA, RN, CSSMBB, FACHE, IASSC, president and CEO of e MetroHealth System, and the rst woman and Black person to lead the nation’s sixth-largest public safety net hospital. For Steed, it’s a charge

Lowell, CNM, APRN Director of the Midwifery Program at MetroHealth

midwives — clinical providers with years of experience as registered nurses plus a master’s degree and clinical experience.

It’s a program that Wiper asked for when he joined MetroHealth two years ago.

“Midwives are welcoming and high touch, something they’ve spent centuries developing a reputation for,” Wiper says. “Our goal is to help patients who wouldn’t otherwise embrace the health care system.”

Wiper considers certi ed nurse midwives “masters of low-risk delivery” and notes that the surgical intervention rate among midwifedelivered births is low.

A lifetime of care

Lowell, who has 29 years of experience as a certi ed nurse midwife, says the work is not just about the birth. Certi ed nurse midwives — the highest level of certi cation a midwife can earn and the only type of midwife in the MetroHealth practice — don’t just deliver prenatal and pregnancy care. Lowell and the midwife program will be working with e MetroHealth System to extend postpartum care to what they refer to as the “fourth trimester,” or the year a er a baby’s birth when the mother is most likely to experience health complications. Midwives also provide well-woman care for teens and women past their reproductive years.

borne out of personal pain. Steed experienced preeclampsia during two pregnancies, a condition that nearly caused her to die in childbirth and one that disproportionately impacts Black women.

“I have been impacted,” Steed says. “We have to reverse centuries of inequity, centuries of poor outcomes, centuries of senseless death.”

e issue in Cleveland isn’t about facilities, notes Donald Wiper, M.D., chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at MetroHealth. “It’s about people, access and engendering greater trust and engagement in the healthcare system.”

Introducing midwives at MetroHealth aims to bolster that access, comprehensive support and trust in maternal and family health care.

Midwives: An important part of the solution

Late this summer, MetroHealth is reintroducing a Certi ed Nurse Midwife program to provide all women with more provider options for prenatal, delivery, post-partum and well-woman care. e program initially will have ve certi ed nurse

Donald Wiper, M.D. Chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology MetroHealth

Amy Lowell, CNM, APRN, says spending time with patients and their families, understanding their healthcare goals and encouraging them to participate in shared decision-making is at the heart of midwifery. e time spent together creates an environment where women and families feel seen and heard.

“Midwives have a well-earned reputation as being very approachable,” says Lowell, the new director of the midwifery program at MetroHealth. “We get to know patients and families and give information to empower them to make the best choices for them. Building trust with families allows for open conversations — both for the midwife and the families we take care of. ese are the small building blocks to make sure outcomes improve.”

Local

impact

Kimberly Green, MSN, RN, vice president of Women and Children’s Services at MetroHealth, sees the potential of a midwifery program to serve all women — including those uninsured, underinsured or on Medicaid.

“Midwives, because of the close relationship they form with patients, can address systemic reasons why people feel like they can’t speak up,” Green says. “ at helps them connect patients to transportation, food, child care and breastfeeding support — all things that increase and sustain well-being before, during and a er a pregnancy.”

By locating the midwife o ces in Cleveland Heights and Old Brooklyn — two areas where maternal and infant outcomes are among the worst — MetroHealth is “living out our mission to take care of people,” Green says.

“We strategically placed our o ces on a heatmap of poor health care outcomes,” Wiper adds. “ ese are patients we could take care of that we’re not right now — and we want to.”

“I have a true passion for taking care of teens,” Lowell says. “Because women should visit their provider every year for well-woman care, I focus on helping teens not be afraid to go to their provider and address the misinformation around sexual health that is rampant on social media.”

An option backed by specialty care

MetroHealth estimates that 85% to 90% of women have low enough risk factors for complications before, during and a er pregnancy, which makes engaging midwives in the care approach an attractive option. Still, pregnancy can bring unexpected complications, and midwives excel at monitoring women and collaborating with specialists if needed.

At the new MetroHealth Birthing Center in e Glick Center, patients have access to a team of 25 skilled obstetricians as well as MetroHealth’s world-renowned Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine if issues require greater intervention. If babies are born with a condition that requires additional support, help is just down the hallway with MetroHealth’s certi ed Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

Lowell is excited about making an impact on maternal and infant mortality in Cleveland. It’s part of an overall e ort to create a health care system at MetroHealth that invites patients to participate in their own health care. To fully participate, patients need access to providers who help them be seen and heard.

“At the core, maternal and infant mortality starts with access to care,” Lowell says. “When we o er people options and help them understand how to navigate their health, it’s empowering.”

To request an appointment for lowrisk pregnancy or well-woman care with a MetroHealth Certi ed Nurse Midwife, call 216-778-4444 or visit metrohealth.org/obgyn.

Midwives at MetroHealth aims to bolster access, comprehensive support and trust in maternal and family health care. Photo: MetroHealth.

Kimberly Green, MSN,

Amy

New Bridge Cleveland to open workforce training center at former school

By Paige Bennett

New Bridge Cleveland wants to breathe new life into a former city school building by transforming it into a health care workforce training center.

e nonpro t has acquired the former Case Elementary School on Superior Avenue. It plans to renovate the 66,000-square-foot facility into a workforce training center and day care. New Bridge Cleveland enrolls students training as phlebotomists, sterile processors, medical assistants and licensed practical nurses.

e organization on July 3 published a public bid notice for architecture and engineering rms, said Bethany Friedlander, president and CEO of New Bridge Cleveland, in a phone interview with Crain’s.

Friedlander said the organization anticipates that the buildout of both the training center and day care will cost roughly $7 million, but it will have a better sense of costs once it receives responses from architecture and engineering rms. New Bridge Cleveland plans to apply for EDA funds to help fund the project.

e organization is connected to Northeast Ohio hospitals and offers training and certi cation for in-demand allied health careers at no cost to students.

“Many of our students have had post-secondary experiences before,” Friedlander said. “About 28% of them have been to a post-secondary experience. at means oftentimes they’ve already accumulated some debt. Having this at no cost to them is another way of helping them think about a pathway into the acute care setting.”

Friedlander said New Bridge Cleveland trains approximately 160 individuals per year, but it receives more than 1,000 applications annually for those slots. With the new location, the organization hopes to serve 300 to 400 individuals each year.

e new facility also will allow for an onsite day care using the school’s existing playground.

Friedlander said many of the organization’s students are mothers and that a lack of quality day care access near workforce programs is a key reason why they don’t nish their programs. New Bridge Cleveland is searching for a neighborhood-based partner to

“In every way (we’re) thinking about ‘How do we create resources in St. Clair-Superior that are all related to the health of the individual and health of the community.’”

Bethany Friedlander, president and CEO of New Bridge Cleveland

e Cleveland Metropolitan School District shuttered Case Elementary School, at 4050 Superior Ave., in 2019. Friedlander said the nonpro t acquired the building from the district earlier this year. New Bridge Cleveland paid nothing to acquire the former school but committed to investing a minimum of $800,000 in building rehabilitation. It also made a 10-year commitment to provide community bene ts for CMSD students, which will be in the form of a career exploration program for middle schoolers in allied health careers.

Friedlander said the building is critical to the organization’s growth as it is “absolutely full” in its current space on Euclid Avenue. New Bridge Cleveland, which opened in 2010, is an a liate of a Pittsburgh-based nonpro t called Manchester Bidwell Corp.

Cleveland Clinic looks to improve remote care with new collaboration

By Paige Bennett

Cleveland Clinic is looking to make remote hospital care more e cient through a new collaboration.

e Clinic is joining forces with Masimo, a California-based health tech company, for a partnership designed to improve remote patient monitoring.

rough the partnership, the Clinic’s critical care and non-critical care central patient monitoring platforms will be integrated with Masimo’s Hospital Automation platform. e collaboration will entail joint initiatives on predictive analytics and arti cial intelligence-based algorithms.

e organizations say they want to develop tools that enhance situational awareness and clinical decision-support for hospitalized patients.

Masimo is a global medical tech company that produces monitoring technologies, such as measurement sensors and patient monitors.

Dr. Chiedozie Udeh, medical director of ICU operations at Cleveland Clinic, said in a phone interview with Crain’s that the health system has been meeting with potential partners for a couple of years. He said the Clinic has a lot of experience with delivering high-quality patient care and wanted to work with a partner that had experience on the technical side of remote patient monitoring.

e Clinic’s existing monitoring platform o ers continuous monitoring of various vital signs for ICU and non-ICU patients. e hospital-based remote patient monitoring platform is used at 11 of its hospitals. e health system says its platform has reduced both patient mortality and the length of ICU stays.

Meanwhile, the Masimo Hospital Automation platform features monitoring and wearable technologies and AI capabilities that help clinicians recognize changes in patients’ conditions more eciently. e platform also has a tool called Halo ION, which automates the process in which clinicians assess patient status by creating a continuous patient score based on hospital protocol.

Along with integrating their platforms, the Clinic and Masimo

plan to develop a decision-support tool that will assist clinicians with earlier detection of adverse events. eir ultimate goal is to help manage and improve patient outcomes for low-, mid- and high-acuity patients.

In particular, Udeh said the partnership presents opportunities to enhance remote care for individuals who are critically ill. It will allow clinicians to intervene promptly with patients who are experiencing problems, he said, helping them achieve the best outcome possible.

Udeh said the partnership will also make it easier to get patients in and out of the hospital quicker. Demand for services is increasing at hospitals across the country, he said, so the move will make it possible to be e cient and care for more patients.

run the day care, she said.

Friedlander said she hopes to be in the construction phase next summer. She said New Bridge Cleveland wants to turn the facility into a hub for health resources in the St. Clair-Superior neighborhood. For example, the organization wants the building to be a food distribution center, she said.

“In every way (we’re) thinking about ‘How do we create resources in St. Clair-Superior that are all related to the health of the individual and health of the community,’” Friedlander said.

Additionally, she said the nonpro t may expand its programs in the allied health space. ere have been conversations about o ering opportunities for dialysis and X-ray technicians. In 2025, New Bridge Cleveland is making its rst stride in the behavioral health arena with a peer support certi cation.

A rendering of New Bridge Cleveland’s workforce training center, which the organization plans to put in the former Case Elementary School on Superior Avenue. CONTRIBUTED

Traf c study: Cleveland commuters fare pretty well

By Crain’s Staff

It may not feel like it when I-480 turns into the worst version of the “Fast & Furious” franchise or Dead Man’s Curve is at a crawl so slow it feels like it’s going backward, but Cleveland’s traffic congestion isn’t so bad compared to other major U.S. cities.

Overall, commuters in Cleveland lost around 15 hours stuck in traffic in 2023, which ranks 118th in the U.S. and 596th in the world. And that comes with a fuel price impact of $255 per driver.

at’s according to the 2023 Global Tra c Scoreboard from tra c analytic rm INRIX which measures the average time lost over a year by the average commuter due to congestion — and its economic cost.

For comparison’s sake, Cincinnati ranks 32nd in the U.S. and 199th globally with 31 hours lost in congestion per year at a fuel price impact of $538 per driver.

And Columbus actually comes in pretty close to Cleveland (103rd in the U.S., 571st in the world) with 15 hours lost per driver due to congestion in 2023 at a fuel impact cost of $268. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that New York City leads the nation with 101 hours lost followed

by Chicago (96 hours) and Los Angeles (89 hours).

e data also is somewhat useful in showing how commutes have changed since the pandemic. For Cleveland, those 15 hours lost per commuter per year is up 19% from last year as more people are returning to the o ce — but it’s still down 11% from the preCOVID 2019 data.

is dovetails with the most re-

cent data from the Cleveland Downtown Alliance that puts the post-COVID return to o ce numbers for Downtown Cleveland at 65% as of May 2024 and total downtown foot tra c continuing to rise.

Overall, the national averages for 2023, according to INRIX, were 42 hours of lost time at a fuel impact price of $733. In total, congestion cost the country $70 billion.

Midwest gains ground as trading hub between U.S. and Taiwan

45th anniversary of Taiwan Relations Act a harbinger for further economic and educational investment in Ohio and beyond

By Vince Guerrieri, Crain’s Content Studio

On April 10, 1979, President Jimmy Carter signed the Taiwan Relations Act into law.

It was a fraught time in the Cold War, and indeed, world history. e Soviet Union that year invaded Afghanistan. e United States was normalizing diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China, another large Communist nation, which had been at odds with Taiwan for decades and launched a border war with Vietnam, straining relations with the USSR, much as Chinese incursions today create tensions with India, the Philippines, and others.

Dennis Yen-Feng Lei Director General TECO in Chicago

e Soviet Union collapsed, and China’s fortunes rose and fell, but the Taiwan Relations Act remains “the cornerstone of the rocksolid relations between Taiwan and the United States, and reassures peace, prosperity and democracy in the Indo-Paci c region,” says Dennis Yen-Feng Lei, director general of the Taipei Economic and Cultural O ce in Chicago, whose jurisdiction includes seven Midwest states including Ohio.

ose relations endure today, with Taiwan serving as a key democratic ally in Asia “on the frontline against authoritarian expansion,” according to Lei. In this year’s State of the Union address, President Joe Biden reiterated the U.S. commitment to “peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”

e Taiwan Relations Act ensured U.S. de-facto o cial relations with Taiwan and promised defense against China’s hostilities toward the island nation and the Indo-Paci c region. It has also led to a strengthening of trade between the two nations, establishing a mutually bene cial relationship between Taiwan and the United States that has translated into business success stories and further opportunities in the U.S. Midwest.

“ e Midwest is the heart of America and the heart of the world and gives us a great opportunity here for Taiwan,” Lei says.

It’s an opportunity also seen by Ohio o cials.

“In the 45 years since Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act, the state of Ohio has continued to foster its positive relationship with Taiwan in the areas of economic trade, academics and culture,” Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said in a statement.

DeWine notes that Taiwan was Ohio’s 12thlargest export market in 2023, with Ohio companies exporting $904.23 million worth of products to Taiwan.

Lei had talks with DeWine in early April and hopes the Ohio governor will visit Taiwan soon. e governors of Indiana and Michigan have already visited, he says, and Michigan and Minnesota even have dedicated state o ces in Taiwan.

Taiwan’s largest investments in Ohio are Foxconn and Kenda Tire. Foxconn, which Lei says has a presence in ve Midwestern states, bought the former General Motors plant in Lordstown in 2022 for $230 million. Foxconn is continuing to search for tenants for the 6.2 million-square-foot plant; for now, a portion of it is used by Monarch Tractor, a company that manufactures electric farm tractors.

Kenda, on the other hand, has had a longtime presence in Ohio, starting with the establishment of its U.S. headquarters in the Columbus area in 1982.

“More than 90 percent of the golf carts in the United States use Kenda tires,” Lei says.

In 2015, Kenda opened a research and development center in Green, drawn to the Akron area’s long history with the rubber and tire industry.

e potential for research and development is one of the factors enticing Taiwan to the Midwest. e region is home to many land-grant colleges — federally-supported institutions that grew into major research and innovation hubs, including Ohio State

University, which o ers a study abroad program in Taiwan.

Taiwan also has working relationships with the University of Cincinnati and Oberlin College. Lei said Midwestern universities are encouraged to o er Mandarin language classes and are valued for their research on arti cial intelligence and semiconductors.

“Taiwan used to be regarded as an economic miracle,” Lei says. “Now it’s the economic heart, especially in terms of the semiconductor industry. You are good at innovation. We are good at manufacturing.”

Lei previously worked in a similar, but more national-defense focused, role for the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative O ce in Washington, D.C. His role in Chicago, where he’s been since July 2023, is more business, technology and culture oriented, from maintaining relations with state governments and universities to increasing tourism to Taiwan. (One of his goals, he says, is to see more direct ights to Taipei from Chicago.)

“We hope the Midwest can become the economic and educational hub between Taiwan and the United States,” he says.

IT SERVICES FIRMS CRAIN’S LIST

1 DELOITTE LLP AND SUBSIDIARIES

127 Public Square, 2600 Key Center, Suite 3300, Cleveland 216-589-1300/deloitte.com

5910 Landerbrook Drive, May eld Heights 800-931-3366/parkplacetechnologies.com

21500 Aerospace Parkway, Cleveland 800-777-7178/mcpc.com

4933 NEO Parkway, Gar eld Heights 216-478-0810/uscande.com

1375 Euclid Ave., Suite 500, Cleveland 216-583-5000/ ttechnologies.com

6150 Oak Tree Blvd., Suite 490, Independence 216-447-1909/akkodis.com

One Cascade Plaza, Suite 1230, Akron 330-597-4114/genesis10.com

1001 Lakeside Ave. E, Suite 200, Cleveland 216-523-1900/rsmus.com

3732 Fishcreek Road, Suite 291, Stow 330-676-0022/razorleaf.com

145 River St., Kent 833-566-9748/qualityip.com

P.O. Box 2133, Akron 330-752-7163/arkdna.com

Rockside Woods Blvd. N, Suite 210, Independence

1375 E. Ninth St., Suite 2600, Cleveland 216-696-9100/kpmg.com/us/en.html

Oak Tree Blvd., Suite 150, Independence 216-369-0140/bennettadelson.com

Sweet Valley Drive, Valley View 216-606-9400/agileblue.com

Main St., Wadsworth

Southwestern Blvd., Fairlawn 877-550-4728/trustedsec.com

YBI propels IT startup through explosive growth

Engineered Products of Ohio taps Youngstown Business Incubator’s resources to increase revenue tenfold

By Brooke Bilyj Crain’s Content Studio

During her 30 years of experience in manufacturing automation, Justine Blank saw companies struggling to e ciently manage inventory across the supply ain — leading to lost or counterfeit parts and other logistical nightmares. Leveraging her expertise, whi began decades ago with barcodes and progressed into radio frequency identi cation (RFID) te nology, she saw an opportunity to streamline inventory management. Rather than simply a xing RFID labels, Blank recognized the potential of embedded RFID tags, whi are integrated directly into objects for more reliable tra ing and identi cation in tough industrial environments.

“We found, through my years of experience in manufacturing, there were few companies providing embedded RFID,” Blank says. Recognizing this gap, she and her husband, Brian, leveraged their engineering ba grounds to laun Engineered Products of Ohio LLC (EPI) in 2016 to specialize in this te nology.

Bringing solutions to market

Starting out in a 2,500-square-foot fabrication shop behind their home, the couple began developing embedded RFID solutions to solve speci c supply ain problems. For example, they knew that scanning, counting and reordering parts manually was a tedious and error-prone process. So, they developed an RFID solution that automatically reorders parts simply by moving an empty bin to the top of a “smart” shelf. Instead of counting nuts and bolts in a warehouse, or rubber gloves and bandages in a hospital supply room, this automation instantly simpli es vendor-managed inventory.

Another prominent market is big-box retail suppliers, especially since Walmart mandated that all 26,900 of its suppliers must use RFID tags on every product to streamline inventory management. EPI’s RFID te nology can also be used for asset tra ing to help rental companies keep sto of their equipment eets.

As manufacturing automation experts, the Blanks knew how to engineer solutions for these complex problems — generating seven patents for their innovations along the way. However, they realized they needed help in building and scaling a company to bring these solutions to market.

“Even though you have years of experience and you think you know how to run a business, it’s amazing what you don’t know,” says Blank, who serves as vice president, while Brian holds the role of president. Soon a er establishing EPI, they turned to Youngstown Business Incubator (YBI) for guidance in turning their patents into pro ts. ey moved into one of YBI’s ve buildings in Youngstown and joined its EVOLVE Te nology program, whi works with entrepreneurs of te -based startups to provide business consulting, product commercialization support, training, and other resources designed to build market traction.

From Blank’s perspective, one of the most valuable resources at YBI is the guidance of EVOLVE’s entrepreneurs-in-residence (EIRs). ese EIRs share their industry experience to help startups navigate obstacles and growth opportunities.

When EPI embarked on its rst project for the Department of Defense, for example, Blank says she “had to learn a new language.” e incubator mat ed EPI with an ex-military mentor to guide market entry. Since then, EPI has received $1.7 million in Air Force development grants.

Defense contractors like Lo heed Martin Space have already expressed interest in EPI’s solution to “enable tra ing with precise location of high-value commodities,” according to Joseph Epstein, who leads engineering and te nology strategy at LM Space. “We envision the so ware infrastructure will improve manufacturing, maintenance and inspection work ow, accuracy, quality, and speed on numerous DoD, civil and commercial programs.”

From zero to a hundred

As EPI’s hurdles have transformed over the years, the Blanks partnered with di erent EIRs, including Jeremy Spaulding, a seasoned industrial engineer and managing partner of Evolve Impact, LLC, with two decades of experience and more than a dozen patents.

“I’ve always heard that it takes seven years for startups to become an overnight success,” Spaulding says, “and in this case, that’s very true. Justine and Brian have essentially been a resear and development shop for the last seven years, building and testing engineering solutions. ey’ve discovered that the demand is incredibly high, but now, it’s not just about nding customers — it’s also about execution.

Going from zero to a hundred really qui ly requires a team, a coordinated e ort, and a bigger infrastructure.”

To that end, Spaulding helped the Blanks develop commercialization models and strategies. Blank says Spaulding was “instrumental in taking us from patents and concepts to revenue and sales,” so pivotal that EPI recently hired him to join their team to lead business growth.

Beyond the be tting mat with Spaulding, other networking opportunities through YBI have accelerated EPI’s growth. Blank says that introductions to industry contacts, engineers and other local manufacturers have enabled EPI to “scale responsibly” by tapping into the incubator’s network.

YBI has helped EPI double the size of its team and multiply its revenue by tenfold since 2016 — transforming it from two engineers in a garage into a pro table company on the brink of “very explosive growth,” Spaulding says.

Spaulding expects that the sta will grow three to vefold over the next six to 12 months just to keep pace with demand.

“We’re very good at what we do, but we don’t know everything,” Blank says. “We just have to surround ourselves with people who do, and that’s why we’re still — and maybe always will be — part of the YBI family.”

From left, Brian Blank, president of EPI; Justine Blank, vice president of EPI; and Jan Dyer, president of REM Electronics. Last April, EPI moved into REM’s facility in Warren, occupying the entire second oor.

At The Bell apartments, it’s all about the lakefront views

By Stan Bullard

A tour of suites at e Bell, the new apartment building inside the former Ohio Bell and Cleveland Ameritech headquarters building at East Ninth Street and Lakeside Avenue, is all about the windows.

e 16-story building looks out on the city’s lakefront, the Free Stamp and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, so the wall of windows in each suite’s kitchen and great room is a show-stopper. at’s in keeping with the design of the 1985-vintage building, which has a semicircular wall of windows as its most noticeable design feature.

e new one- and two-bedroom suites have an uncanny similarity to much older o ce and warehouse buildings downtown that have been converted to apartments.

Like them, each suite has a notable beam in it somewhere, a structural feature that can’t be covered up.

Kristen Pazdra, who handles e Bell’s leasing for real estate consultant Cross Street, which specializes in opening and stabilizing new structures, said the rst day of tours on July 2 netted the structure its rst tenant. She also had a full day of tours Wednesday, July 3. However, there is a lot of space to ll. e 16-story building, after a $100 million adaptive reuse project, has 354 more to lease.

e property’s average-priced one bedroom is just above $1,500, and its two-bedroom units are averaging around $2,150, according to Oren Pollack, Cross Street’s vice president of sales.

e shape of the building means room footprints vary widely. Pazdra said there are more than 60 di erent designs for suites. Rents vary by the oor and the suite’s size.

A striking feature at e Bell is its 15th- oor outdoor deck, which has a pool with a lake view. Permanent seating is in place along small stretches of vegetation, with views that look out on a swath of downtown that stretches from Key Tower (the city view) to sprawling Burke Lakefront Airport. Soft seating will come in soon, Pazdra said. However, even the dog park has quite a view on another upperoor patio. And, of course, there is a pet wash in the building.

As a federal and state historic preservation project, the building retains key original elements.

Most notable are wood panels on the 16th- oor executive o ce section, which, thanks to its many conference rooms, will also provide tenants with co-working options as well as several private suites.

On the ground oor, a marbletopped security station will continue to have the same use, only now it will have around-the-clock sta ng.

A bright-paneled electronic roster also remains in the building. Pazdra hopes the screen may be

repurposed to show videos about the building and its amenities. e large lobby also will feature soft seating and potted plants will break up the space. e ground oor is granite, like the bulk of the building’s exterior.

When Ohio Bell completed the building, it had more than 2,500 people working there as it consolidated into one location from several di erent downtown buildings. Newspaper articles from the period noted that by the late 1980s, workers were protesting layo s due to changing conditions in the phone business and the breakup of AT&T.

From Page 1

Hirshman’s comments came after an announcement of a Sept. 10 UCC auction by Maltz Auctions of Central Islip, New York, for a stake in the structure to satisfy $10 million in indebtedness secured by the Wolfe and Bluelofts interests in the building through 45 Erieview LLC, which owns the ground under the building.

Hirshman’s rm, through Twain GL XX LLC, leases the ground and controls the structure itself. Twain uses the ground lease structure to help developers swing nancing to make projects with community improvement aspects.

at means Twain arranged millions in nancing for the project, including providing equity for the $5 million Ohio Historic Preservation Tax Credit the project received.

“ at has nothing to do with us,” Hirshman said of the auctioned interest and declined to discuss it in detail.

e $10 million indebtedness the auction is scheduled to cure is, according to the auction site, from several investments by Kenneth Wolfe. ose are identied in the auction site as “307 STAR GP, LLC, (ii) 307 STAR HIGHRISE, LLC, (iii) 309 OIL GAS GP, LLC, (iv) 309 OIL GAS LP, LLC, (iv) 45 ERIEVIEW GP, LLC, and (vi) 45 ERIEVIEW LP.”

e LLCs refer to Wolfe and BlueLofts joint ventures to convert to apartments the Oil & Gas Building and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram Building from ofces in downtown Fort Worth, Texas.

e Real Deal, a national news site and magazine covering the commercial property business, reported New York-based TBG Funding sued to collect on a $7.5 million loan for the Star building. And Legacy Bank & Trust sued to foreclose on the Oil & Gas building, also according to Real Deal.

Wolfe is an apartment syndicator who joined with BlueLofts to plunge into the redevelopment of o ce buildings to apartments in a big way as the nation began embracing conversions to apartments as a cure for the ailing o ce market. e Bell is among those properties.

Neither Wolfe nor BlueLofts replied to phone calls and emails from Crain’s Cleveland Business

over the last month by the end of the day Tuesday, July 2.

A Northeast Ohio sign of trouble for Wolfe surfaced in the spring when he and Akron apartment investor Agostino Pintus, as partners in Lakeland Commons apartments in Euclid, were sued for foreclosure by Saluda Grade Mortgage Funding of Darien, Conn., in Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas.

Salude argues the duo defaulted on a $7.5 million loan to buy Lakeland Commons, two Class C buildings with a total of 300 apartments. e case is pending.

Wolfe and Pintus also had bagged the famed Rockefeller Building in downtown Cleveland to convert the Gilded Age o ce tower to apartments, but have put it up for sale since they did not close on nancing before interest rates soared.

Hirshman declined to discuss the legal woes of Twain’s partners, instead saying he sought to celebrate the conversion’s completion.

e outcome of the auction will not change Twain’s role and e Bell’s operations, Hirshman insisted.

Leasing sta started tours of the building for prospective tenants on Tuesday, July 2, and move-ins can begin in a few weeks, according to Oren Pollack, vice president of sales for Cross Street, a company that specializes in opening and leasing new multifamily projects. A sister company, Peak Management, provides property management services for the building.

Pollack said e Bell’s onebedrooms rent for around $1,500 monthly and two-bedrooms for around $2,150.

“ e tness center is better than in my building in Chicago,” Pollack said.

e Wolfe and BlueLofts joint venture bought e Bell for $21.25 million in 2021, according to Cuyahoga County land records. An a liate of Somera Road, a New York developer that sold the building to them, had tried to re-tenant the structure as o ces without proceeding since 2016.

e project secured nancing and went forward as construction costs spiraled during the pandemic. Hirshman con rmed rising costs posed a challenge for Bell but declined to say how much they escalated after the conversion project began two years ago.

e “Guide to Cleveland Architecture” noted that construction of the building lled one of the last remaining gaps in the Erieview District, which destroyed brownstones and old warehouses to create a fertile eld for building skyscrapers in 1960s Cleveland.

Now that history of urban renewal is part of what created the Erieview Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places. e former phone building secured credits and nancing as a contributing building in the district, even though it has only now attained the age of 39.

This one-bedroom has a row of appliances serving as its kitchen, with a refrigerator, cooktop, sink, oven and microwave installed in a single unit. PHOTOS BY STAN BULLARD

A bedroom on the 12th oor is somewhat pie-shaped with the circular side at right.

The 15th- oor outdoor deck has a pool with a lake view.

A relic of the Ohio Bell building’s origins is on display in the apartments. The sculpture by David E. Davis called ‘This Wave of Sound’ evokes sound waves and data transmission.

deposits in that segment ticked down by another 0.6% to about $60.2 million.

in assets). Tsarnas was a senior managing director at Bridge for four years before being recruited to Huntington to lead this strategy.

“Deposit gathering is a core competency of the bank and we’re really proud to say we’ve grown deposits since the beginning of nancial di culties early last year,” said Scott Kleinman, president of Huntington Commercial Bank, referencing the industry tumult that followed the high-pro le failure of Silicon Valley Bank in 2023.

But Tsarnas brings with him expertise in liquid business areas, including these real estate industry service providers, which Huntington wants to pursue.

While Kleinman highlights Huntington’s deposit growth, that comes with a bit of an asterisk.

In 2023, Huntington grew total core deposits over 2022 by 2.3%. In the rst quarter, the bank’s total deposits increased in the period by another 1.2% to approximately $147 billion.

“Our core group of traditional banking clients have been deploying liquidity as a result of the higher rate environment,” Kleinman said. “So, we are seeing a little decline. But core deposits are very stable.”

at said, about 60% of Huntington’s deposit base comes from consumers. is is not alarming but points to its strength as a consumer bank while highlighting the need to jolt the commercial end, particularly when considering other trends.

And this is where the new deposit strategy comes into play.

the bank as well. We are going to have to teach our colleagues a little bit about how these companies operate to be e ective at cross-selling.”

But in terms of the core purpose of boosting the deposit pool, Huntington disclosed at a recent Morgan Stanley investor conference that the medium-term goal is to grow commercial deposits through this latest strategy under Tsarnas’ guidance by about $5 billion. at medium-term time frame refers to a “period of years,” Kleinman said, though he declined to be more speci c than that.

Northern Ohio auto sales tumbled in June because of CDK hack

By Crain’s Staff

e CDK Global hack whacked Northern Ohio auto sales in June. New-vehicle dealers in 21 counties of the region reported 16,348 sales in June, down 15.7% from sales of 19,406 in June 2023, according to data released Tuesday, July 2, by the Greater Cleveland Automobile Dealers’ Association.

Monthly sales have been up big — approaching or exceeding double-digit percentages — all year. But as a result of the June downturn, sales for the rst half of 2024 now are up just 1.6% (106,924 vs. 105,220) compared with the rst six months of 2023.

e reason for the June swoon is obvious, according to Louis A. Vitantonio, president of the association.

He said disruptions to the dealership management system (DMS) for those on the CDK Global platform “de nitely had an e ect on new and used vehicle sales at the end of June.”

e sales disruption is not unique to this region. Bloomberg reported that a consensus of ve market researchers “called for annualized rate of vehicles sold in June of around 15.8 million vehicles, down from 16.1 million a year ago. Some analysts see the pace of sales holding relatively steady as shoppers return to showrooms with ample inventory.”

CDK Global said most of its customers are back online with the company’s DMS as of July 2, nearly two weeks after cyberattacks led to a massive shutdown. e June 19 cyberattack — the company characterized it as a ransomware event — a ected more than 15,000 CDK Global customers in North America. e crisis disrupted dealership sales and forced workarounds including pen-and-paper and temporary xes with third-party vendors.

Next month could be much better. Vitantonio said that as dealers’ systems get back online, it will push the recording of many sales into July.

“Although the outage has been di cult, our market is still positive through the second quarter of 2024 versus 2023,” he said.

Northern Ohio’s top-selling brands in June were Chevrolet (with 2,272 new vehicles sold) and Ford, at 1,849 sales. The rest of the top five: Honda (1,553 sales), Kia (1,373) and Toyota (1,189).

Retail sales gures are based on vehicle registration reports from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles. e association’s sales data includes all dealers in the following 21 counties: Ashland, Ashtabula, Carroll, Columbiana, Coshocton, Cuyahoga, Erie, Geauga, Holmes, Huron, Lake, Lorain, Mahoning, Medina, Portage, Richland, Stark, Summit, Trumbull, Tuscarawas and Wayne.

Tsarnas said he is hiring about a dozen bankers through the end of this year as he builds out the budding vertical.

EXECUTIVE RECRUITER

at growth, however, is being driven by consumers and o setting losses in the commercial segment.

Compared with 2022, Huntington’s commercial deposits decreased last year by 5.6%. In Q1,

“A platform like this works well in a stable, well-capitalized institution that can a ord to and wants to make these investments,” Kleinman said. He declined to comment on what the bank is investing in this particular e ort between people and technology.

e HOA sector and related entities are considered an attractive segment because of their cashrich nature. And being a new area of specialized focus also means intrinsic opportunities for crossselling other bank products.

“HOAs have payables and receivables, and we want to facilitate that,” Tsarnas said. “And I think there is opportunity to introduce them to other parts of

Nothing is being brought to market immediately as there is no desire to come out with a halfbaked business. But expect the bank to roll out something in this segment in the coming months and then build on it and expand to other business segments from there.

“We are going to be very strategic about what we build in order to be appealing to these clients and be of use to them across the country,” Tsarnas said.

Huntington is the secondlargest bank in Northeast Ohio as ranked by in-market deposits, according to Crain’s research.

Huntington Bank’s headquarters in Columbus

PRESIDENTS

From Page 1

In the Buckeye state, more than half of the four-year public university presidents have been on the job for less than two years, including two in Northeast Ohio who started in 2024: Youngstown State University President Bill Johnson (January) and University of Akron President R.J. Nemer (May). By that standard, Cleveland State University President Laura Bloomberg — who started in April 2022 — is closing in on grizzled veteran status

and she’s already had a high-pro le irtation with her alma mater.

“I was talking about this to President Bloomberg and I said, ‘Do you realize you have been president for more than half of the public university presidents in Ohio?’ ” Kent State President Todd Diacon said during a recent panel discussion with Bloomberg and Walsh University President Tim Collins. “And my big observation is that, in the next ve years, you’re going to see a lot more turnover.”

Some of the reasons are obvious. e job has always been hard, with presidents having to juggle the

needs of the education, research and athletics departments and all the myriad issues that go along with that, from tuition and housing costs to facility upgrades, to sta ng to educational programming to student safety and satisfaction.

But the job has gotten harder since the COVID-19 pandemic, as many potential students question the value of a four-year education during a time of troublesome demographic trends, especially in states like Ohio. Add in the growing cost of athletics (especially at the major Division I level), campus unrest, the growth of online classes

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and the threat of A.I. and it’s easy to see how presidents can get burned out quickly.

“It’s a challenging job for sure,” said retiring Baldwin Wallace President Bob Helmer, who has been a college president for more than two decades, including 12 years at BW. “Here in Northeast Ohio, there’s a fair amount of turnover at every university. Presidents don’t stay at one place for very long and it gets shorter every year.

“ e job has become a little more complex over the years and people move on quicker.”

Northeast Ohio’s college and university presidents, along with the date they were hired:

Four-year public universities

Akron: R.J. Nemer, May 2024

Cleveland State: Laura Bloomberg, April 2022

Kent State: Todd Diacon, July 2019

Youngstown State: Bill Johnson, January 2024

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at’s just as true at private schools as it is at public ones. Of Northeast Ohio’s 14 private colleges and universities, just three presidents predate the COVID19 pandemic: Collins (August 2019), Cleveland Institute of Music’s Paul Hogle (July 2016) and Oberlin’s Carmen Twillie Ambar (May 2017). at doesn’t include Helmer and Ursuline’s Sister Christine De Vinne (who was hired in July 2015), who are both retiring on June 30. De Vinne is being replaced by David King, who served as the president of Malone University in Canton for 10 years. e increased turnover is bad for the schools, Helmer said.

Four-year private colleges and universities

Ashland:

Jon Parrish Peede, June 2024

Baldwin Wallace: Robert Helmer, July 2012 (retired on June 30, replacement search ongoing)

Case Western Reserve: Eric Kaler, July 2021

Cleveland Institute of Art: Kathryn Heidemann, July 2022

Cleveland Institute of Music: Paul Hogle, July 2016

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“I think stability is important for the institutions,” he said. “If you’re only in one place for ve years, which is the national average right now, it’s a challenge to build those relationships,” he said. “Over the last 12 years, we’ve raised over $400 million. at would be hard to do if you didn’t have relationships.”

So what is the right amount of time for a president to stay? ere’s no magic number, but ve years seems to be a good minimum, according to Jessica Kozlo , president of Academic Search and president emerita of Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania.

Change management research “overwhelmingly” shows that in any organization, ve years is the minimum amount of time required for anyone in an executive leadership position to make a positive impact on the organization they’re leading, she told the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.

Diacon agreed, saying presidents should at least see their rst freshman class graduate.

Hiram: Robert Bohrer, March 2024

John Carroll: Alan Miciak, June 2021

Lake Erie College: Jennifer Schuler, June 2023

Malone: Gregory Miller, July 2022

Mount Union: Gregory King, May 2023

Oberlin: Carmen Twillie Ambar, May 2017

Ursuline:

Sister Christine De Vinne, July 2015 (retired on June 30, being replaced by former Malone University President David King)

Walsh: Tim Collins, August 2019

Wooster: Anne McCall, October 2023

Community colleges

Tri-C:

Michael Baston, July 2022

Lorain County Community College: Marcia Ballinger, April 2016

Lakeland Community College: Sunil Ahuja, April 2024

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“Ideally, you ought to be president for two freshman classes making their way through graduation, right?” he said. “I mean, if you’re leaving before even the freshmen that you came in with graduate, how do you get anything done? How do you engage in any long-term planning? How do you come up with an AI strategy? How do you do any of that with that kind of turnover?”

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Yes, the current academic climate isn’t perfect, but each era brings its own challenges, Diacon said. For instance, while Case Western Reserve’s leadership had to navigate the thorny issue of a student encampment protesting the Israel-Hamas war this spring, it was nothing compared to what Kent State went through during Vietnam.

“I’m a historian by training,

but you don’t have to be a historian to know that Kent State has some experience with issues of protest and violence,” Diacon said. “I worked for a president once who, during the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, said to me, “Boy, this is like the worst time in American history.’ And I was like, ‘Really? I mean, you know, we had a Civil War in the United States.’

“Are there challenges? ere are challenges. But we have a lot of smart people and a lot of good people and, more importantly, a lot of dedicated people. So I think we’re going to do ne.”

Franklin Crowley

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