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For more than a decade, clean energy supporters have worked to make Cleveland the rst city to harness the wind coming o Lake Erie. With one nal hurdle cleared, that hope is on its way to becoming a reality.Icebreaker

Next month’s Transatlantic Business Conference is a three-day program that brings together all 22 chapters of the British-American Business Network in the United States and the U.K.It includes sessions on law, aerospace, health care and nance. It features a keynote speaker from a senior U.K. government o cial. It helps companies connect and build business on both sides of the Atlantic. And it all starts with a golf tournament.at’s not an accident. “In many ways, this is the most important day of the conference,” said Don Larson, the president of the British American Chamber of Commerce (BACC) and the managing partner of There’s still value to doing business on the golf course BY JOE SCALZO

Lighthouse ArtSpace Cleveland, a creative repurposing of an industrial building on the city’s East Side, is an Opportunity Zone project. The Immersive Van Gogh exhibit opened there in 2021. | MICHELLE JARBOE/CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

Quest

See GOLF on Page 22See WINDS on Page 21 See OPPORTUNITY on Page 20

Opportunity Zone investors are venturing further from downtown Cleveland and other bustling areas — and tiptoeing into long-overlooked stretches of the city’s East Side. at’s one takeaway from data appended to the Ohio Department of Development’s annual report, released earlier this month, and a Crain’s analysis of public records. e federal Opportunity Zone program, and Ohio’s companion tax credits, helped shape the conversion of an industrial building into a venue in the St. Clair-Superior neighborhood. e warehouse, on East 72nd Street, hosts the traveling “Immersive Van Gogh” exhibit and now serves as a regional distribution and assembly hub for similar art experiences. In the Central neighborhood, investors are exploring plans for a business park between Woodland Avenue and Kinsman Road, o East 61st Street. And in nearby Kinsman, workers are moving dirt for construction of a cold-storage facility along the Opportunity Corridor boulevard. Backers of those projects — and, yes, notable deals in the central business district, Ohio City and University Circle — were among the 400-plus applicants who sought state Opportunity Zone tax credits this year. Development o cials approved just over $26 million worth of credits, BY MICHELLE JARBOE Icebreaker Windpower given go-ahead to begin construction following court ruling

OPPORTUNITYINNEWAREAS

BY KIM PALMER

Developers bet on city’s East Side

Windpower, North America’s rst freshwater, o shore wind-powered electric-generation project, was given the go-ahead to begin construction following an Ohio Supreme Court ruling Wednesday, Aug. 10. In a 6-1 decision, the court found state energy regulators appropriately granted a permit to LEEDCo, the company behind the Icebreaker project, despite an objection from residents living near the Lake Erie shore who claimed the company did not provide adequate evidence regarding possible harm to migrating birds and bats in the area. e decision, which came more than eight months after state Supreme Court justices heard oral arguments in the case, was met with both a sense of relief and optimism — plus some resentment for the years of delay that objections to the project caused. to harness Lake Erie winds

VOL. 43, NO. 30 l COPYRIGHT 2022 CRAIN COMMUNICATIONS INC. l ALL RIGHTS RESERVED NEWSPAPER CRAINSCLEVELAND.COM I AUGUST 15, 2022 OFBUSINESSTHEARTS Shows may be back, but music venues are still struggling. PAGE 10 CRAIN’S LIST: There’s a new second-largest law rm in Northeast Ohio. PAGE 18

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Stan Bullard: sbullard@crain.com, (216) 771-5228, @CrainRltywriter

Osborn hops across Superior Avenue for its latest headquarters BULLARD HribarLancashire

2 CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS | AUG US T 15, 2022 REAL ESTATE A land deal 21 years ago in Am herst may soon bear fruit for Ray Fogg Corporate Properties, thanks to the industrial building boom. Ray Fogg Jr., president and CEO, said the Brooklyn Heights company is preparing to seek approval this fall from the city in western Lorain County for a pair of buildings that will put a little under a half-million square feet of industrial space under a roof.e site is the Amherst Commerce Center, an existing 29-acre industri al park that the family-owned com pany bought for $1.3 million in Sep temberAlthough2001.land prices vary widely by location, the site would cost more than double that at today’s prices for industrial land. e site originally was designed as a geographic diversity play in the far west end of the Cleveland industrial market for the company, with prop erties from Cleveland’s West Side to Akron. Now it is typical for develop ers pushing to the edges of the re gion to nd substantial develop ment sites for mammoth properties. “I’ve always had the attitude that you will be amazed how things work out if you have staying power,” Fogg said in a phone interview. “It also paid o not to do something smaller (and safer), because that may pre vent you from doing something big ger on a site later on. What we are proposing to build now is vastly dif ferent than what we might have built then.”While mammoth buildings are the order of the day now, in the early 2000s, the state of the art in the in dustrial market here was buildings of about 100,000 square feet or less designed to accommodate multiple tenants, typically small business or occasional spots for major compa nies to distribute products locally. at was before the drive for e-com merce properties transformed the regional industrial market, in part for concerns such as Amazon and Wayfair to serve the area’s popula tion.Now the site with highway visibil ity on Sandstone Boulevard near state Route 2 will become home to one building of 268,000 square feet and another of 202,000 square feet. If the project garners city approvals this fall, Fogg hopes to have it in place by 2023. e developer had to go before the Amherst Zoning Commission twice this spring to secure a vari ance to allow the properties to sit back 55 feet from the street, com pared with 200 feet in the past. It was rst turned down, in part due to res idents’ opposition. But it passed the second go-round, on June 29, be cause the commission decided the variance was in keeping with other nearby industrial buildings and the Fogg presenters agreed to build land bu ers and work with the project’s neighbors.Amherst Mayor Mark Costilow said in a phone interview that he be lieves the market has grown to the point that Amherst will bene t from current development patterns. He said he is excited by the quickening pulse of development in the town andHowever,nearby. Costilow said he’ll take steps to require the developer to en sure the project has the least possi ble impact for nearby neighbor hoods.George Pofok, a principal at the Cushman & Wake eld Cresco realty brokerage of Independence, said there is just 2.2% vacancy in the west suburban market, which he de scribed as “rock bottom” historical ly. e area has a sizable industrial base — 51 million square feet — but has been user-driven in the past. “However, there are a number of potential vendors for the Ford Motor Co. plant in Avon Lake and other lo gistics operators circling the area, in part because of the proposed expan sion by Ford into electric vehicles there,” Pofok said. Looking ahead, Fogg said the company is getting ready to pursue a 350,000-square-foot industrial building at its Bluestone Industrial Park in Euclid and a 100,000-squarefoot building on Snowville Road in Brecksville.Foggalso is nishing a building at Seasons Business Park in Stow, a project that was announced earlier this year. He said he is encouraged by interest in the latest building. However, throughout the region, he said, “ e market is showing a lot of interest in new properties. All the buildings are planned without ad vance tenant commitments, some thing that Fogg typically does to have space ready sooner when ten ants want it. “ ere’s still a shortage of indus trial property,” he added. e next Euclid building might be a cross-dock facility, which has docks for trucks on both sides to make it easier to transfer deliveries to other vehicles for the next step in delivery. Once the domain of truck operators, such buildings now are sought by e-commerce concerns. Pofok said Fogg is following a sim ple proposition in the development business by pushing to add new buildings.“eyknow that if you have the space available, you can get the deal,” Pofok said.

STAN

The sun sets over Seasons Business Park, a project where a joint venture by Ray Fogg Corporate Properties and the Brennan family have built several industrial buildings the past decade in Stow. Fogg plans to construct two similar structures for the line-up on a site it has owned for two decades in Amherst.

Amherst to join building spree

DAN SHINGLER/CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

“Our focus for now is on organic growth,” Hribar said. Although the bulwark of Osborn’s practice is in civil, structural and mechanical engineering, its scope ranges far beyond its traditional base. Lancashire said the biggest change the past few years is adding signi cantly more commercial work for real estate developers and owners, particularly in the mixed-use category. Long known for its exper tise in designing stadiums, that area of practice contin ues to grow. Hribar said Os born’s speci cally branded “OSports” unit has doubled its construction volume in the past two years. at is no small undertaking for a rm that has a background in pro sports work that includes legacy proj ects such as Tiger Stadium in Detroit, Fenway Park, Yankee Stadium and the former Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Osborn also has emphasized its role in technology-laden building projects, such as broadcasting technologies. Osborn has become even more of a newsmaker in association with ma jor local projects than in the past. It is currently working with Bedrock on master planning for its potential ex pansion on the Cuyahoga River side of Huron Road; potential changes in the Shoreway sought by Cleveland Browns owners the Haslam family to provide more development opportu nities near the football stadium; and the Apex medical o ce building on MetroHealth’s main campus. And those are the high-pro le proj ects, not counting high school sports elds; technical consulting associated with federal changes in the television broadcasting spectrum opened up by the addition of low-power TV stations; and even theme park design. However, Hribar said major clients remain the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer Dis trict, the city of Cleveland and PNC Bank. Its project pages range from cor porate headquarters jobs and primary education to colleges and retail stores. Osborn reported rmwide revenue of $33 million in 2021 from $30 million in 2020, according to the Crain’s Cleve land Business engineering rms list. e cross-street move developed fast, especially in realty terms. Zamir Equities of New York City, the owner of 1111 Superior, account ed for some of the shift. Both Hribar and Lancashire said the other build ing approached Osborn about mov ing across the street as its lease is ex piring at 1100 Superior. e space Osborn will occupy was shed by Asurint, the background check and employment screening concern, which wanted to downsize to the 22nd oor from its prior three after the pan demic and work-from-home move ment hit, according to Myrna Previte, the Kowit & Passov broker who han dles leasing for 1111 Superior. She said that Osborn attracted 1111 Superior’s ownership because it had expanded four times in the years Osborn was at 1100 eSuperior.perksof the move even included Herman Miller o ce furnishings, she noted, as well as concessions for extra parking adjoining 1111 Superior. Spe ci c rent terms were not disclosed. Ironically, both 1111 and 1100 Supe rior are lookalike buildings with dark re ective glass, both designed by the famed Chicago architecture rm SOM, formerly Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Osborn departing the Oswald Cen tre also means that it is exiting an of ce tower that is embroiled in a fore closure proceeding against its owner, American Landmark Properties of Skokie, Illinois, and the representa tive of its mortgage-backed securities loan, LRN Special Servicing of Mi ami, in the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas. Hribar and Lancashire said the court action had no bearing on the move.Ofcourse, Osborn also has its chal lenges as a company. Lancashire said the biggest one is shared by many large employers of professionals — retaining and attracting talent. “ is should help with that,” Lan cashire said.

STAN BULLARD

In downtown Cleveland, there are 50 steps to the 1111 Superior Avenue skyscraper’s front door from Oswald Centre, 1100 Superior. But Osborn, the engineering, sports facilities and advanced technologies rm, will soon make that move. A part of the city’s business com munity since 1892, the rm has leased space on the 20th and part of the 21st oor of 1111 Superior, leav ing behind suites on oors nine and two of Oswald — and the new suite’s contiguous oors are even joined by a connecting stairway in the space. Doug Lancashire, Osborn presi dent, said in an online Zoom inter view, “Our business is very team-ori ented. is will allow us to work even closer as one rm in the new loca tion. And it is on oors 20 and 21 in stead of our current oors. It made a lot of sense for us from a cost per spective and a space perspective.” Space-wise, there is not much dif ference between the two locations, as the company will shift to 35,250 square feet from 30,670. However, Lancashire said the new o ce was recently remodeled, and the design will a ord everyone at Osborn to go to the o ce when they choose. “ ere’s also more collaborative and meeting space,” Lancashire said. And how: seven conference rooms, two huddle rooms, two phone rooms, breakout pods and an open meeting area, compared with four conference rooms and one phone room at Oswald. Moreover, Lancashire said the layout of the oors is more e ective. at means the new o ce can accom modate a larger Osborn than the one that moved into Os wald a decade ago from what is now the AECOM Center, 1300 East Ninth St. e multidisciplinary rm will relocate 140 people across the street, up 30 peo ple in the last three years alone. ere were 70 sta ers when Osborn workers rst set up shop at 1100 Superior. And that is just the head quarters sta . All told, the employee-owned out t has 280 employees nationally. A decade ago, when Gary Hribar, Osborn’s cur rent CEO, joined it as president, the rm was much smaller and consisted of just the Cleveland HQ and an Akron o ce. Today, Osborn has a total of 11 o c es, having added o ces in Columbus, Detroit, Nashville, Philadelphia and ve in Florida alone. ose are in Cape Canaveral, Deer eld Beach, Orlando, St. Petersburg and Tampa. When asked in the same interview if Osborn has set its sights on that other major construction and economic de velopment powerhouse, Texas, Hribar said it has been approached about do ing so but hasn’t explored it.

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EXPERIENCE OUR CLEVELAND SHOWROOM CALL TO SCHEDULE A CONSULTATION TODAY! 216-223-3052 4701 Richmond Rd. famous-supply.com Challenges in the supply chain in recent years have led to opportunity for domestic manufacturers, said Andrew Sherman, president, CEO and founder of the PMT Group in Euclid. e PMT Group is a specialty materials company, with subsidiaries making magnesium alloys, magnets and more for a variety of industries. Powdermet, the rst company in the group, got its start in 1996. Last year, the larger PMT Group brand was introduced.Sherman is seeing growth in the group — and he sees ample chance for that to continue. “What’s really kicking it o is the global supply chains. e pain in that has opened up opportunity for on-shoring and domestic production,” Sherman said. e PMT Group has a relatively young local management team, he said, as well as the space and power for those kinds of advanced manufacturingShermanoperations.brought Powdermet from California to Ohio in the early 2000s. Euclid Mayor Kirsten Holzheimer Gail in an emailed statement said that Sherman and the company “have continued to invest and grow through innovation and the development of new materials and technologies” in the years since. Much of that took place through spino s. Sherman had previously spun out and sold MesoCoat, a metal coatings company that later ran into some nancial trouble. After that came Terves, which makes dissolvable magnesium alloys for the oil and gas industry. e trouble there? e oil and gas industry has seen signi cant ups and downs since Terves’ founding in 2013. It was time to diversify, ShermanShermansaid. said the model of what is now PMT Group had previously been to spinout companies and then raise funds for each individually. But he saw a lack of interest in funding fossil fuel-related companies, such as Terves, and it’s just tough to get funding to start manufacturing or materials companies. ere’s not a lot ofnancing in the lower middle market; Sherman declined to share speci c revenue for the family-owned company, but placed it in that category. Enter the new PMT Group branding, introduced in 2021. During the pandemic, the PMT Group launched four new brands (technically Powdermet subsidiaries): Magnesium USA, Cratus, Hybrid Materials LLC and Magnet Energy, which make up the group alongside Powdermet and Terves. e newer companies are more focused on renewable and sustainable products, in areas like lightweighting and decarbonization. e PMT Group also will soon launch Cermetech, on which Sherman is working with his former partner from MesoCoat. ey’re working to make pre-ceramic polymer resins for coatings for a variety of applications.rough the PMT Group, Sherman and team can raise capital for all of the brands together, rather than trying to raise funds for one at a time. And the group is seeing growth, which means the PMT Group needs more space. is year and next, PMT Group will invest about $8 million and add about 30,000 square feet to its specialty metals plants in Euclid. PMT Group currently has ve buildings, or about 90,000 square feet of space, on approximately 14 acres of an old TRW site in Euclid, Sherman said.First up, with a groundbreaking in August, is a 5,000-square-foot expansion of Terves’ dissolvable magnesium extrusion plant. at will allow for “longer and lighter and lower-cost extrusions,” Sherman said. e company also will break ground on a 24,000-square-foot building for its magnetic materials and sheet and foil production in 2023.e group has been expanding its facilities over time. And this latest expansion will lead to hiring, too. e PMT Group currently employs about 60, and Sherman expects that to grow to approximately 100 after the expansion. Rachel Abbey McCa erty: (216) 771-5379, rmcca erty@crain.com Euclid ABBEY materials company PMT Group is growing its facilities in Euclid. PMT GROUP

BY RACHEL

“WHAT’S REALLY KICKING IT OFF IS THE GLOBAL SUPPLY THE PAIN IN THAT HAS OPENED UP OPPORTUNITY FOR ON-SHORING AND DOMESTIC PRODUCTION.”

MANUFACTURING PMT Group expanding advanced materials facilities in

CHAINS.

MCCAFFERTY Specialty

—Andrew Sherman, president, CEO and founder of the PMT Group

Droves of smiling university employees seemed to never be far during the preview day, one of several this summer. ere were T-shirt tosses into the crowd during an information session. People walked around eating cookies in the shape of UA’s kangaroo mascot. “ e university tries to communicate to prospective students an element of ‘we’re all in this together,’” heMcKellipssaid. pushes back when asked whether the enrollment declines have expedited the need — or the urgency — for these types of detailed events or communications. ey’re not doing things explicitly di erent now because of that, he said, but he does believe the pandemic spurred students and families to look for more of a partner in their educational journey. e university as a whole needs to look out for students, take care of them, convey the things they need to know, he said. “So it’s the university that functions in an interpersonal relationship,” he said. “ ose of us who work here, we just all take turns being at the front of the line, interacting with those students in that capacity.”Onthat day in July, for a minute, the director of admissions found themselves at that space. She introduced herself by rst and last name to the small tour groups the university hosted after group informational sessions, wanting to put a face to the name that would be listed on the correspondence hitting their inboxes and

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“ e admissions counselors, the ‘adults,’ if you want to say that word, can only do so much,” said Allison Calderone, a 22-year-old UA tour guide. “ ey’ll say ‘this is what you can do as a student, this is what you can expect.’ But I think a lot of (prospective) students take that with a grain of salt until they hear from us, the current students.”

SELLING A SCHOOL BY AMY MORONA

“THE ADMISSIONS COUNSELORS, THE ‘ADULTS,’ IF YOU WANT TO SAY THAT WORD, CAN ONLY DO SO MUCH.

THEY’LL SAY ‘THIS IS WHAT YOU CAN DO AS A STUDENT, THIS IS WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT.’ BUT I THINK A LOT OF (PROSPECTIVE) STUDENTS TAKE THAT WITH A GRAIN OF SALT UNTIL THEY HEAR FROM US, THE CURRENT STUDENTS.”

—Allison Calderone, a 22-year-old UA tour guide Carmen Rush, left, and her mother learn more about the University of Akron during its preview day. | AMY MORONA/CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

How the University of Akron is talking with potential students

Carmen Rush’s college search boils down to what she’s dubbed the “three D’s”: distance, dorms and diversity. e rising senior at Elyria Catholic High School doesn’t want to go more than four hours away from her home in Lorain County. e on-campus place she’ll live once enrolled matters a lot, too. And a more multicultural student body is important as she nishes up at her predominantly white high school. Lots of colleges fall within her distance parameters, including the roughly 30 higher education institutions in Northeast Ohio. How colleges pitch themselves to Rush and others could make a big di erence in the competition for prospective students. In July, she visited the University of Akron with her mom and a few family friends. She has completed more than half a dozen visits so far. e colleges seem to approach her almost as if they’re her friends, she said, before they tick down their list of selling points. “I kind of see them as car salesmen,” she said. For UA, like many of its peers across the region and nationwide, the outcome matters now more than ever. e COVID-19 pandemic ampli ed enrollment struggles many were facing even before 2020 amid shifting demographics. e university’s full-time total enrollment clocked in at about 23,200 in 2011, but 10 years later fell about 47% toere12,400.havebeen other headlines, too, moments that could potentially impact perceptions. Prior to Gary Miller taking over the top spot in 2019, the university had a merry-goround of presidents. Two people, including a rst-year student, were shot and killed in a neighborhood close to campus last fall. And earlier this summer, city police o cers shot and killed Jayland Walker, igniting protests and national attention. Clare La n, a tour guide at UA, said she hadn’t had any questions about Walker’s death from prospective students and families on the handful of tours she’s done in the weeks since. She thought there would be, though, so she prepared. She’d tell them she lives downtown, too, and would point out she felt the university was relatively removed from the mostly peaceful protests. She’d mention that she personally feels safe on campus, would pepper in some points about the university’s police force. It’s important to talk about this, she said, and would point to the campus organizations amplifying students of color who are advocating and sharing their voices. Working in this role has taught her not to shy away from tough questions. “I try not to sugarcoat it and say something that’s not true,” she said. “But also, it’s not bad here, either. I just try to be as realistic as possible.” e student-to-student connection is a cornerstone of the UA experience. ose currently enrolled can share what they’re studying, where they’re staying, what they’re eating. It can make it more real for others considering the campus to picture themselves there.

Nearlymailboxes.170students registered for that speci c event; 120 actually showed up. Most were high schoolers, meaning the university’s courting of them could stretch over a period of up to 24 months at includes Rush, the Lorain County senior visiting the university. e day marked the longest time she’d spent on a campus in this capacity. It made a di erence. She said she loved meeting a variety of new people and the ow of the event. “I really think UA is, like, pushing it,” she said. “And I really liked that. I really liked that sense of a community.”Akron did move up on her list of power rankings after the preview day, she said. But the summer is long, and so is the list of other prospective colleges she’d like to visit before she applies and makes a decision. e senior year search marches on for Rush and lots of other prospective students in her shoes. And, undoubtedly, o cials at Akron can only cross their ngers and hope the conversations continue with them, too.

Steve McKellips, the university’s vice provost for enrollment management, knows the importance of those connections. He still remembers the name of his orientation leader at Marquette University from more than 30 years ago. Even in the age of social media and video tours and fancy websites, he said from an administrator’s perspective the importance of getting people on campus “probably could not be more important.”

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REAL DEALS: Realife Real Estate Group boosted its property presence in the suburban office market with two more Rockside Road structures that join holdings in the category from Beachwood to Westlake. Through RL OIP Owner LLC, Realife paid $5 million for One Independence Place, at 4807 Rockside. Using RL Liberty Owner LLC, it paid $1.85 million for Liberty Plaza, at 5000 Rockside. Both deals closed Aug. 3, according to Cuyahoga County land records. The sellers in both cases are affiliates of Kamalt Corp., which has offices at the Liberty Plaza building. The distinctive One Independence Place building, which has a mirrored glass exterior, has 100,000 square feet of space and is 19% vacant. The white masonry Liberty Plaza Building has 40,000 square feet and is 23% vacant.

GOOD OPTICS: Nordson Corp. of Westlake plans to buy Minnesota-based 3D optical sensing technology maker CyberOptics Corp. in a deal valued at $54 per share. at adds up to about “$380 million net of cash acquired, re ecting a valuation of 18.5 times CyberOptics trailing 12 months” earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), Nordson said. CyberOptics reports about $100 million in annual revenue and nearly 200 employees. e acquisi-

GET TO THE POINT: The future of Cedar Point — at least as far as 2023 goes — is in a feature that celebrates the past. The Sandusky amusement park, owned by Cedar Fair L.P., on Thursday, Aug. 11, unveiled the new features that guests can look forward to next year. The centerpiece: The Boardwalk, which is on the Lake Erie shoreline and is described as “a modern interpretation of the Cedar Point of yesteryear.” There’s also a new ride on the way, and a two-level Grand Pavilion set for the former Lakeside Midway. A Cedar Point spokesman wrote in an email that the park was not releasing projected costs of the 2023 improvements. However, Cedar Fair said capital investments for 2023 across all its parks “will be the largest ever, at approximately $200 million.” The Boardwalk is set to debut on Cedar Point’s opening day in May 2023.

THE LEAD ROLE: e new president and CEO of Playhouse Square is coming a long way for the job. e performing arts nonpro t on Tuesday, Aug. 9, announced that it has named Craig Hassall to the top job, replacing retiring CEO Gina Vernaci. Hassall, 57, is the current CEO of Royal Albert Hall in London. Playhouse Square said he has “held senior roles in performing arts management at some of the world’s most recognizable venues, events and organizations, including his current role at one of Europe’s leading venues.” He will move to the Cleveland area to join Playhouse Square in early 2023.

THE

SWINGING A DEAL: Canton’s Hall of Fame Resort & Entertainment Co. has brought in a heavy hitter for its mobile sports betting operations. The Village announced it has entered into a 10-year agreement with Betr, a direct-to-consumer sports betting company founded by Cleveland boxer Jake Paul and sports betting veteran Joey Levy. The agreement, which replaces the Village’s previously announced agreement with Genesis Global Ltd., is subject to the Village acquiring the necessary licenses. The Village previously applied for Stark County’s lone Type A (mobile) and Type B (sportsbook) sports betting licenses ahead of the legalization of sports gambling in Ohio on Jan. 1. As part of the agreement, the Village will gain limited equity interest in Betr, as well as revenue sharing. The partnership “incorporates opportunities for cross-marketing, branding and engagement with consumers of both companies,” the Village said. WEEK Realife Real Estate Group of Independence has added two more o ce buildings in the suburb to its portfolio. The largest is One Independence Place, which cost $5 million, according to Cuyahoga County real estate data. | COSTAR

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ON THE MOVE: ViewRay Inc. is moving its headquarters to Denver but will maintain an office in Oakwood Village. The manufacturer of the MRIdian radiation therapy system on Monday, Aug, 8, announced the HQ was heading west. Samantha Pfeil, director of marketing communications for ViewRay, said that despite that move, “Operations in (Oakwood Village) will remain the same. We are not leaving. We continue to invest in the (Oakwood Village) facility, operations and teammate growth. Our focus for this location will continue to be product development, customer and physician training.” Pfeil said the company has “about 30 teammates in Ohio and they will remain there.” ViewRay has a total of about 300 employees, spread across operations here, in Denver and in California.

tion will expand Nordson’s test and inspection platform, growing the precision technology company’s semiconductor and electronics product o erings.

SHINY ADDITION: Akron-based Signet Jewelers Ltd. is strengthening its digital presence with the acquisition of online jewelry platform Blue Nile in a $360 million, all-cash deal. Signet said on Tuesday, Aug. 9, that the deal accelerates its e orts to expand its bridal o erings and grow a portfolio that the company calls Accessible Luxury. Blue Nile also “brings an attractive customer demographic that is younger, more afuent and ethnically diverse which will broaden our customer acquisition funnel,” said Signet, the parent of Zales, Jared and Kay Jewelers, among others. e transaction will be funded with cash on hand and is expected to close in the third quarter of Signet’s 2023 scal year. Blue Nile posted revenue of more than $500 million in calendar year 2021.

Write us: Crain’s welcomes responses from readers. Letters should be as brief as possible and may be edited. Send letters to Crain’s Cleveland Business, 700 West St. Clair Ave., Suite 310, Cleveland, OH 44113, or by emailing ClevEdit@crain.com. Please include your complete name and city from which you are writing, and a telephone number for fact-checking purposes. Sound o : Send a Personal View for the opinion page to emcintyre@crain.com. Please include a telephone number for veri cation purposes.

Eaton Corp. CEO Craig Arnold said variations of “strong” and “strength” more than 45 times during a conference call with analysts on Aug. 2, and that’s not counting references to the dollar. “It feels positive, in some cases, too positive,” said Arnold, whose company makes electrical gear for construction, power, autos and aerospace, among other goods. With a market value of about $60 billion, Eaton isn’t small.

If the U.S. avoids a recession, or at least a deep one, it will most likely be able to thank industrial companies. While demand on the consumer side of the economy is weakening, it remains solid in the manufacturing sector and, more important, appears to be sustainable even if shoppers cut back further. Consider the outlook from a few companies most people pay little attention to.

EDITORIAL Back to basics

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While the strength of the industrial economy isn’t new, its ability to power through a downturn in consumer spending is a change from past cycles. “We strongly believe that the industrial economy will de couple from the consumer economy,’’ Scott Davis, an ana lyst with Melius Research, said in an email. “ ere’s just too much pent-up demand for projects and megaprojects that are based more on secular changes than cyclical.”

8 CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS | AUG US T 15, 2022

THOMAS BLACK/BLOOMBERG OPINION

Illinois Tool Works Inc., which is even larger than Eaton, said its organic sales were up 18% in July from a year earlier, the highest monthly growth rate all year. e company makes all kinds of products for the food service, test and measurement, welding, construction and auto industries, and most of those areas are “o to a really strong start in Q3.”

Companies as diverse as chemical maker DuPont de Ne mours Inc., industrial distributor W.W. Grainger Inc. and a metal-bender like Arconic Corp. are saying the same thing: e manufacturing economy is sizzling. “ e industrial parts of the economy are certainly grow ing faster for us than the non-industrial parts right now,” said DG Macpherson, CEO of Grainger, which sells just about any industrial-related part or gadget you can think of.

See ECONOMY, on Page 9

e reasons for this decoupling are multifold. An obvious one is the recovery of investment in the oil and gas industry. Although some industrial companies pulled back exposure to energy, especially in activity closer to the wellhead, after oil prices sank in mid-2014, the increase in drilling reverber ates broadly through the industrial economy with increased demand for steel, construction, trucks and safety equip ment.Another is that the makers of autos and heavy trucks are still struggling to keep up with demand and have huge holes in their inventories that will take a while to rebuild. There were 95,000 cars in inventory in June, down from a monthly average of 660,000 in 2019, according to the Bu reau of Economic Analysis. The number of Class 8 trucks, as the big rigs are known, in backlog as a ratio of the build rate was about 10 for the first six months this year, which is lower than last year when the computer-chip shortage was at its peak, but still higher than 6.6 in 2019, according to FTR Associates data. It’s the opposite problem from large retailers, which are grappling with too much inven tory.Makers of commercial and private jets also have big back logs to ll as people, restless from the COVID-19 shut-ins, are on the move again. Construction projects are moving forward, and even consumer-facing companies are con tinuing with projects to improve their logistics, an area where costs jumped during the pandemic.

Fresh starts T wo ambitious e orts to bring change in Cleveland — one at an iconic old property, the other forward-looking and o shore — have fresh momentum that underscores a key principle of getting things done: Stick to it when the going gets tough. A joint venture of Cleveland Neighborhood Progress sub sidiary New Village Corp. and Burten Bell Carr Development Inc. will chart the future of the Shaker Square retail and o ce center following the recent closing of a complicated, $11 mil lion sale of the property that required $12 million in city loans. e nonpro ts and other interested parties worked for years to get control of Shaker Square, which has oundered in the last couple decades of ownership by private groups. e heavy lifting is hardly over. e nonpro ts are raising $4 million to x up the center, and they’re lining up partners to sup port the project. It deserves that support. Like the West Side Mar ket on the other side of town, the East Side’s Shaker Square is a vital part of the city’s history — and its future, if all works out. Meanwhile, an Ohio Supreme Court decision last week grant ing a permit for developers to build the nation’s rst o shore, freshwater wind farm o the coast of Lake Erie ends a drawn-out application process that started in September 2016. In a 31-page opinion, the court rejected an appeal of two Bratenahl residents who said state regulators had improperly approved the project. e Lake Erie Energy Development Corp., or LEEDCo, said the ruling lends the project enough certainty to market its en ergy to customers. We hope the unnecessary delay doesn’t hamper the viabil ity of this comparatively small-scale project to assess the via bility of larger projects elsewhere in the Great Lakes. We look forward to seeing if it can put Ohio on the map as a leader in renewable energy technologies.

PERSONAL VIEW Industrials’ long coattails can carry the U.S. economy

Members of the Ohio Legislature who are eager to turn the state into a laboratory for hard-right social ex perimentation — even more, that is, than they’ve al ready done — should take a look at the message being sent in neighboring Indiana by two of that state’s largest employers. In the wake of Indiana this month passing one of the most restrictive anti-abortion laws (even more than Ohio’s) in the country, Eli Lilly, a pharmaceutical giant, said it’s concerned about its ability “to attract diverse scienti c, engineering and business talent from around the world. While we have ex panded our employee health plan coverage to include travel for reproductive services unavailable locally, that may not be enough for some current and potential employees.” As a re sult of the law, Lilly concluded, “We will be forced to plan for more employment growth outside our home state.” Cummins, an engine manufacturing company, had a simi lar reaction. It said it’s “deeply concerned about how this law impacts our people and impedes our ability to attract and re tain a diverse workforce in Indiana. As we continue to grow our footprint with a focus on selecting communities that align with our values and business goals, this law will be consid ered in our decision-making process.” It’s fair to ask why, if these companies were so concerned about the law, they didn’t speak out vigorously against it be fore it was passed. (Answer: Corporations are more comfort able issuing statements than acting on these types of issues.) We take them at their word, though, that the law makes them less likely to pick their home state they next time they have a big expansion project. And that makes sense. In a knowledge economy, compa nies are highly reliant on people with creative minds and spe cial talent. Automated and repetitive tasks, with a relatively easy-to-replace workforce, are far less important. e talent ed, tech-driven workers that most companies are chasing have lots of options — and states with hardcore laws on abor tion, or marriage, or contraception, or whatever else a con servative legislature might target, generally are not appealing. Ohio business and political leaders are justi ably excited about the potential economic impact of Intel Corp.’s massive chipmaking operation set for the Columbus area. e state should focus on tax and regulatory matters that help put Intel and other companies in the best position to hire good people. Ohio needs growth-oriented policies. Additional, divisive so cial-issues legislation will only set the state back.

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With chipmaker Intel poised to invest $20 billion in two new Ohio factories, the state’s economic trajectory appears to be headed toward a long-desired tech manufacturing future. New Albany and the surrounding area could become, as some have called it, the Silicon Heartland, the global “heart of it all” in an international network of microchipWhileproduction.therearemany necessary initiatives underway to develop the STEM workforce with the requisite engineering and advanced manufacturing skills for this new economic landscape, there is considerably less attention paid to language skills and cultural competence, particularly for positions that will require collaboration, cooperation and interpersonal communication — basically all of them. To best leverage this unique economic development opportunity for long-term, sustainable growth, it’s imperative that we consider the linguistic and cultural preparation of this globally connected workforce. A 2019 survey of 1,200 employers by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages points to the growing impact that language skills have on the labor market and economy. In elds ranging from construction and manufacturing to professional and technical services, one in four companies reported losing business due to a lack of language skills, and 56% of employers suggested that demand for foreign languages will increase in the next ve years. Notably, these language barriers are not con ned to businesses explicitly engaged in international commerce, since nearly half of these employers needed language skills strictly for the domestic market. Being one of the only people in the workplace with pro ciency in Spanish (or German, or French, or Chinese) when that email needs to be sent to clients or that new market needs to be researched adds value beyond an employee’s technical Consequently,skills.engineers, accountants, lawyers, graphic designers and even advanced manufacturing workers with higher levels of language pro ciency will have more varied career opportunities, higher salaries and more workplace mobility. Beyond those individual career bene ts, a dynamic workforce with linguistic and intercultural skills will attract additional talent, as well as employers to the region. Ironically, only some of the most compelling bene ts of this type of investment derive from using the language skill itself. ere also are numerous indirect bene ts, since language skills often are a stand-in for desirable qualities such as empathy and intercultural competence — the soft skills that help make diverse workplaces successful. Numerous studies by linguists and cognitive scientists also tie language acquisition to the development of problem-solving skills and fostering creative thinking capacity. e bene ts extend across all spectrums of the workforce. Shana Marbury, general counsel and senior vice president of talent at the Greater Cleveland Partnership, was recently quoted in Crain’s Cleveland Business as saying, “Most employers will say, ‘Give me a smart, capable, curious person with those soft skills,’ then those technical skills can be taught.” For low-skill manufacturing jobs, she suggests, employers are willing to overlook a lack of experience if candidates have the team-building and collaboration abilities that are vital on the shop oor.Unfortunately, at the national level, interest in the study of world languages is lagging. From 2013-2019, universities shuttered 651 world-language programs. Today only about 50% of four-year institutions require the study of a second language. Because these trends run contrary to the needs of employers, leaders in higher education and economic development should consider how incentivizing language pro ciency, alongside our investment in STEM skills, will help create the agile workforce that will surely fuel our bright economic future. Feinberg is an professorassociate of Spanish UniversityWallaceBaldwinat in the of Cultures.LiteraturesLanguages,Worldand STEM world? BY MATTHEW FEINBERG e transition to cleaner energy also is also feeding the re of industrial demand, and the climate change bill recently passed by the Senate would keep those ames burning for some time — perhaps even through a consumer recession. Eaton’s Arnold has positioned his company to ride the wave of electrical power demand as economies wean themselves o oil. e company has a long history of selling transformers and circuit breakers for power generation and transmission and recently made a push to become a key supplier to electric vehicle manufacturers. e company boosted its 2002 earnings-per-share guidance by 4 cents to a midpoint of $7.56 and increased its forecast for annual organic sales growth to as much as 13% from 11%. “So despite all the talk about potential slowdown and downturn in the market, and we’ll be ready if we have one, we’re focused on investing to capitalize on what we see as the super growth cycle, driven by favorable trends in the recovery and some of our other end markets,’’ Arnold said on the call. Eaton, DuPont and ITW, which raised its guidance in May, called out international weakness from the China lockdowns and Europe’s di culties with soaring energy prices. Still, there are no signs the international weakness is bleeding over to the U.S. e year-over-year increase in U.S. industrial production in June was more than 4%, a solid pace, and that comes on top of the big rebound of more than 9% in June last year. Ironically, the same supply chain snags that stoked ination because demand wasn’t being met also kept a lid on the overbuilding of vehicles, homes, electronics and other goods that normally would occur and then cause a pullback in output. e trucking industry, for example, is notorious for the boom-and-bust cycles because companies buy too many trucks when freight demand is strong and then have too much capacity when cargo cools. ose truckers were never able to purchase all the trucks they wanted. ere will be no big bust this cycle. Add it all up, and it makes sense that the manufacturing industry can buoy the economy through a downturn in consumer spending.

PERSONAL VIEW OPINION What good are world languages in a

AUGUST 15, 2022 | CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS 9

ECONOMY

Crowds have become increasingly unpre dictable, which makes planning and sta ng a challenge. While some nights for these indie clubs are quite busy, others are unexpectedly dead.“People are still guring out new routines,” Watterson said. “You can have a great show and a blowout crowd one night, and that is great. And then you have another show where you expect the same based on past history, and the room is half-full.” e persistence of COVID tends to keep more concerned concertgoers away from large groups in tight indoor spaces. It also means that having artists or employ ees call o with little notice before a show be cause of a COVID exposure is common. “All of a sudden, 24 hours before a show, you might get a call that someone has COVID and they need to cancel,” Barber said. Nonetheless, concert calendars are over owing. Music festivals have largely returned. For every major act that may hold o on tour ing, there are seemingly two more marching through marquee cities where local and re gional artists are simultaneously jockeying for eyes and Addingears.tothe buzz for the live music indus try was the National Independent Venue Asso ciation’s rst conference, which was hosted in Cleveland in July. e event drew hundreds of visitors and music business profession als from pockets across the country and celebrated NIVA’s e orts to ensure pas sage of the Save Our Stages Act in 2020 that would create the Shut tered Venue Operators Grant program. On the surface, these things create the feel ing of a rebounding market for arts and music. Yet, underneath this veneer of vibrancy is the reality that conditions have not improved much for small concert clubs since they re opened their doors after a COVID shutdown. Even coverage of the NIVA event pointed to excitement about the conference juxtaposed with concerns about the ongoing challenges faced by venue operators.

The struggle is real

For independent concert clubs — linchpins of what helped Cleveland garner its identity as “ e Rock ’n’ Roll Capital of the World” — the spring of 2021 was expected to be a turn ing point after an economy-wracking health crisis.Itwas June 2021 when Ohio began lifting pandemic restrictions. is let indie clubs and music venues struggling to keep a oat — despite pandemic stimulus funds that provid ed a lifeline for many — reopen indoor spaces for shows and events without limits on crowds.COVID-19 was still lingering and mutating. But with vaccines available, artists began gearing up for tours. Talent buyers started lin ing uperegigs.was this sense that after many weird months of musicians streaming shows from their living rooms and empty spaces, or play ing in socially distanced elds and parking lots, that live music and the concert business were coming back and that a bit of social nor malcy would return along with it. Near the end of summer 2022, however, the turning point many indie venue operators were expecting a year ago still feels like a dim light at the end of a dark tunnel. “July was one of our slowest months ever in the last 10 years,” said Cindy Barber, co-owner of the Beachland Ballroom and Tavern in the Waterloo Arts District. “We are trying to have events, but part of the problem is COVID has still not completely gone away.” “We are doing the best we can every day to provide great entertainment and arts and cul ture in downtown Akron,” said Jill Bacon Madden, owner of Jilly’s Music Room. “But it’s a tenuous situation for sure. I feel like I’m walking on a tightrope every day.” “We are still not back to normal,” said Sean Watterson, co-owner of the Happy Dog in Gordon Square. “We are not even back to break-even yet.” All these venues say they are continuously operating at a loss. Stretching out funds from sources like the Shuttered Venue Operators Grants is helping many keep going. But a business losing money can sustain itself for only so long. “Last year, we were thinking, ‘OK, it is July 2021. We should be in a much better place in a year by the end of summer 2022.’ But we’re really not,” said Bacon Madden. “It goes up and down. We have some great nights and some awful nights for no good reason. I think it takes well into 2023 before things start to feel steady or stabilized.” Her club's experience seems par for the course for most club owners today.

10 | CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS | AUG US T 15, 2022 Caleb Kopta performs at the Happy Dog in Gordon Square as part of events held during the rst National Independent Venue Association annual conference, which was held in Cleveland in July. | RUSTIN MCCANN BUSINESS OF THE ARTS INSURING FINE ART Museums and galleries are wise to protect themselves from the more common misfortunes to befall ne art, o cials said. PAGE 13

VENUES STRUGGLINGSTILL

JEREMY NOBILE

“IT GOES UP AND DOWN. WE HAVE SOME GREAT NIGHTS AND SOME AWFUL NIGHTS FOR NO GOOD REASON. I THINK IT TAKES WELL INTO 2023 BEFORE THINGS START TO FEEL STEADY OR STABILIZED.”

Shows may be back, but indie music venues continue to grapple with pandemic

— Jill Bacon Madden, owner of Jilly’s Music Room

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Some ongoing support Spaces including Stella’s Music Club in downtown Cleveland, Nighttown in Cleveland Heights and Buzzbin in Canton have closed at di erent points since the rise of COVID in 2020.Buzzbin held its last show at the end of June. at was a big show for the 100-person venue. But the crowds have been generally up and down, said co-owner Julia Masalko Bentley. Guests also seem to be spending less at the Plansbar.are in motion for reopening the club in Akron next month. But many of the challenges the club has faced will still be there. Even small venues draw visitors to neighborhoods that they might not otherwise frequent, where they also tend to spend money at other shops, as Jeremy Johnson, president and CEO for Cleveland’s nonpro t Assembly for the Arts, points out. “We love our big businesses and Fortune 500s,” Johnson said. “But most jobs in the country come out of small businesses, and independent venues are absolutely a part of that.” Johnson’s organization will oversee allocations of approximately $1.6 million in county American Rescue Plan Act funds to independent artists, arts groups and venues, including for-pro t music venues. Applications for those ARPA funds open Wednesday, Aug. 17. And Johnson expects the money to go quick. Venues in Akron could also get up to $10,000 from the city’s ARPA-funded Small Business Relief Program. ose applications open Monday, Aug. is15. money is important when venues continue to struggle, but it can only go so far. at’s why groups like Johnson’s continue to advocate for additional government relief and general support for the region’s indie concert clubs and artists. “ ese venues are core to neighborhood development, small-business development, our corridors of Main Street America,” Johnson said. “When the pandemic hit, it not only cut them o , it a ected those neighborhoods as well where they are a critical part of the ecosystem. ose losses in jobs and taxes among the arts were far greater than they were for any other industry. ey’ve been hurt and are su ering, and they are not out of the woods yet.”

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Jeremy Nobile: jnobile@crain.com, (216) 771-5362, @JeremyNobile The Happy Dog is a storied indie venue in Cleveland’s Gordon Square. | RUSTIN MCCANN

ese small businesses are competing for patrons who are inundated with things to do and who also have less money to spend amid record levels of in ation. “You went from having no content to having too much product in the market, in a way,” Watterson said. “ at is a di cult adjustment that is happening.”Inationalso is a ecting the venues themselves, which are paying more for food, drink, utilities and labor, all while revenue is down. A common pro t margin in good times at indie venues may be just 1%. But achieving even that amid these challenging business dynamics would be a welcome change for many club owners.

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Hope for the future Despite the challenges and so many instances of small club owners running up debt or depleting savings to pull through, most venue operators — who tend to have other day jobs — remain upbeat about the future. e industry collectively hopes that in ation dies down, COVID wanes and predictable crowds return. But surviving until some more stability comes means continuing to be creative and thoughtful about how to manage a venue. Barber is leaning more into the hospitality side, noting there are plans to install a 20-tap draft beer system at the bar.Watterson, an Ohio precinct captain with NIVA, has helped launch D Tour, a collective venture featuring indie venues and promoters across nine states that aims to help streamline the booking and touring process for indie artists. Happy Dog is one of D Tour’s founding entities, and the group already has a liates in 40 cities. is dynamic is expected to bene t clubs and artists alike and streamline booking.Venues talking to each other and collaborating like this is a new dynamic that bloomed out of the pandemic, and it’s something Masalko Bentley thinks is necessary to help venues thrive. Beyond e orts like D Tour, simply talking about what artists are being paid and coordinating times of big shows in order to try to avoid some overlap with others in the area could help, she said. Buzzbin closed in Canton after its landlord called on the venue to pay some back rent the owners couldn’t a ord that was requested because of mounting costs associated with needed building improvements demanded by the city. Masalko Bentley had only just taken over the venue in 2019 with her husband, Chris, so facing the impact of the pandemic the next year was a gut punch for their dream business.e couple also run Frankenstein Records and the Wreckroom Recording Studio, which are under a separate lease but adjacent to the former Buzzbin space in Canton. ose are expected to stay there. But the couple plans to reopen the music club in Akron's artsy Kenmore neighborhood next month at what was previously home to Live Music Now! e occasion will be marked with a bene t show on Sept. 24. e rent will be lower in Akron. And there’s a nearby butter y garden where there are plans for outdoor events as Masalkowell.Bentley said she’s optimistic that Buzzbin will land on its feet. e couple behind the club have now faced more business years under the pandemic than not. But they are committed to their relatively new role in the region’s fabric for arts and culture. “ ese kinds of places foster growth and creativity in their neighborhoods,” she said. “Cultural diversity is something that would be very, very missed if places like this don’t exist. It’s important to support your community and its culture, or it could get wiped away, and I feel like that is what’sAlthoughhappening.”2022 was supposed to bring the rebound these venues have been longing for, the hope is that may be in the cards next year. Everyone has to just keep surviving until then. “ e light is there,” Bacon Madden said. “ e tunnel is a little longer than I thought it was. And the light is a little farther o and a bit smaller than we had hoped. But it is still there.”

Barber noted how she had a show recently with a $6,500 guarantee for the band, even though there were less than $2,000 in tickets sold. “It’s a very di cult situation. It’s always been a di cult situation. But with COVID really not being nished yet, people are real nicky, and you just don’t know whether you are going to make it or not each night,” Barber said. “It’s stressful every day wondering, are you going to make money or lose money or be OK? You just don’t know.”

AUGUST 15, 2022 | CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS | 11 FOCUS | BUSINESS OF THE ARTS

The lasting impact Just as hand sanitizer stations are now proli c in businesses, airports and museums, some of the other changes the Rock Hall implemented are here to stay. Online o erings will stay, for one, so teachers can continue to access archives, tours and lesson plans. And the changes to the new cash less system and digital ticketing have been successful. Plus, they’ve taken more advantage of their outdoor the ater for concerts and events. And changes in sta ng have been a good move, Harris said. “We’ve learned to operate a little more lean,” he said. During the shut down, they o ered sta ers early re tirement and shifted full-time work ers to part-time roles, leaning more into seasonal and hourly sta . Another change has been in how the Rock Hall operates some of its other locations, which were previ ously run by vendors. “We consolidated our business units, and we have fewer vendors. Our stores used to be operated by third parties. Our airport store and our e-commerce store, we took them all in-house, so we operate all of them now. And we like that model going forward. We think it gives us better control of the inventory and theMoreproducts.”broadly, museums of all genres from art to history have learned similar lessons when it comes to reaching their audiences, whether or not a pandemic is taking place.“Alot of museums did not want to have a lot in the way of o erings on line, because the old way of looking at this was it was going to deprive us of admissions,” said Mark Souther, a professor of history and director of the Center for Public History + Digi tal Humanities at Cleveland State University.“eythought people would sit at home and do this for free and we’re going to lose revenue. And there was always a countervailing argument that you need to reach people and give them a reason to know about you and want to come and give them a taste for what they’ll see if they go, though.”Being forced to boost online o er ings proved the latter, Souther said. “You can diversify your audience and make it more crisis-proof,” he said “ is is a way of connecting to a broaderAcrossaudience.”theglobe, museums imple mented changes they’ve kept in place. A study by the American Alli ance for Museums that surveyed more than 700 institutions showed that 32% of respondents planned to reduce their max capacity for visitors long term, and 24% planned to con tinue timed ticketing, something the Rock Hall has also done. And 39% planned to keep online learning of ferings in place post-pandemic. During the shutdowns, 56% of mu seums furloughed sta , 22% laid o full-time sta , and 28% laid o parttime sta . And to weather the nancial im pact, museums got relief from the Paycheck Protection Program, grants, state grants, private founda tions and individual donors. On average, museums were closed 28 weeks. e Rock Hall closed from March 13 to June 15, just 13 weeks and three days. And 60% of respon dents reported an average loss of $791,000.Going forward, respondents said they were expecting a slow recovery from travel and tourism as well as some nancial market instability, among other potential disruptions. Yet like all museums, the Rock Hall will likely be among the last to recov er Alocally.McKinsey study showed that arts and entertainment will likely see the longest recovery compared with oth er industries. Paulsen of CAC points out that as tourism rebounds, the Rock Hall is likely one of the only lo cal organizations drawing local, na tional and international visitors, and so that rebound will likely take lon ger.Paulsen said that as it happens, she believes it will shed light on the importance of funding for the arts. “Fifteen years ago, we were one of the only communities that didn’t have local funding for the arts, and people came together, had cam paigns and advocated, and now we have this funding through CAC, but it has to be continually supported,” she said.“So it has been vital, but it’s not a given. Our levy is every 10 years, but we’re here because voters chose to have us here. It’s always helpful when people realize this is public funding. is is my museum, this is my mon ey.”

12 | CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS | AUG US T 15, 2022 FOCUS | BUSINESS OF THE ARTS e pandemic shook, rattled and rolled the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. As with any other museum across the country, COVID forced shut downs that led to furloughs, layo s and loss in revenue. It also fostered ingenuity, which is why CEO and president Greg Harris believes the nonpro t is on track to rebound stronger than ever, with plans in the works for a $150 million expansion now backed by all the les sons of the past two years. “For us, it was a transformative year,” he said. “We had such a hit to our business, but we’ve kind of come out of Here’sit.” how the area’s most wellknown international tourist spot weathered the storm.

KRISTINE GILL

The future Going forward, attendance and revenue are projected to recover, though a lag in tourism could drag things out, Harris said. According to the Rock Hall, about 6% of its atten dance in 2019 came from interna tional visitors, and a majority of visi tors came from outside Ohio (66%). And while major events such as the museum’s induction ceremonies are a boon for local hotels, this year the event will be held in Los Angeles. For as many attendees that come, the museum often loses money to stage the event, which is in November this year.According to Destination Cleve land, a nonpro t mostly funded by the county’s lodging tax, tourism will rebound, if slowly. “While we don’t have visitation g ures for 2021 or any of 2022, we’re optimistic — based on key indicators — that Cleveland’s travel and tour ism industry is headed in the right direction and is regaining some of the losses we sustained in 2020,” said Emily Lauer, vice president of PR and communications at Destination Cleveland.“While the return to sustained growth for the industry is facing headwinds such as in ation, through continued creativity in operating and marketing their businesses, we be lieve the hospitality and entertain ment sectors can recover from the attendance and revenue setbacks they experienced due to the pan demic,” she said. Harris is con dent those tourism numbers are the nal piece of the puzzle for a full recovery. Plans are still on track for the ex pansion. Fundraising was brie y stalled during COVID but has hit $93 million recently. e project will add 50,000 square feet of additional space for more indoor events, traveling ex hibits and educational activities. Harris expects to release full plans to the public soon, with the aim of breaking ground later this year.

The Rock Hall’s rocky road back from the pandemic

Contact Kristine clbfreelancer@crain.comGill: TO WORK’

“ e Rock Hall and Playhouse Square are impressive entities, but they don’t lead with their endowments, and they didn’t have access to that fund ing and cushion. Of course, many don’t have endowments at all.”

According to the Rock Hall, about 6% of its attendance in 2019 came from international visitors, and a majority of visitors came from outside Ohio (66%).

‘WE WENT

The shutdown March 13, 2020, marked the last day for the Rock Hall before what would be a 100-day shutdown. At the time, no one knew what to expect, but Harris said his sta quickly gen erated goals for the break. “Once we realized it was going to be for a signi cant amount of time, we really challenged our team to take a closer look at projects that we’ve al ways wanted to do and really test some strategic priorities that related to tech,” Harris said. “So rst and foremost, let’s go heavy on digital.” at meant retooling online lesson plans for teachers, digging into the archives to showcase those artifacts online, and turning to a cashless sys tem with digital ticketing — some thing the Rock Hall had planned to do for years, which suddenly became pressing from a safety standpoint. And in the meantime, they made the necessary sta ng cuts, halted fundraising for the planned $100 mil lion expansion (now estimated to cost around $150 million) and took a hard look at what it would take to re open and keep visitors safe when the time was right. “ en we went to work for those 100 days,” Harris said. It paid o . e Rock Hall’s online lessons went from reaching 50 teach ers daily to 1,000, with an estimated 1 million students reached. ey be gan o ering paid trivia and archival tours for companies looking for ways their sta could bond virtually while working from home. And Rock Hall YouTube views doubled from 7.5 mil lion to 15 million a month, Harris said.One of the biggest supports in the process was a new weekly meeting with local arts leaders. Cleveland Museum of Art director William Griswold said the group con sisted of eight or nine CEOs of North east Ohio’s largest arts, cultural, his torical and scienti c institutions. eir aim was to provide a good visi tor experience virtually in the mean time, and physically once reopening was possible. And together with the likes of the Rock Hall, they agreed on procedures for opening/closing and mask wearing, among other consid erations.“ecamaraderie and substantive conversation proved so helpful that it has become almost a tradition; the group still meets for an hour every Wednesday,” Griswold said. But putting the work in couldn’t prevent the fallout. Attendance for the year 2020 dropped about 80% from the year prior, even after the Rock Hall was able to reopen in June of that year. Operating revenue dropped by about 60% as a result, as well as full-time sta ng. To get by, the Rock Hall applied for funding. e museum received a Paycheck Protection Program loan on April 12, 2020, for $2,124,600, all of which was later forgiven. e loan went toward paychecks for a report ed 191 employees. e museum re ceived a second loan on Feb. 20, 2021, for $1,999,999 for the same number of jobs. at full amount was also forgiven.emuseum also received its reg ular grants from Cuyahoga Arts and Culture. Since CAC’s inception in 2008, the Rock Hall has received more than $13.5 million in grants. In 2020 and 2021, it received $748,681 each year, plus an additional $175,000 through the CARES Act dis tributed by CAC from the county in 2020.“Some big entities don’t have sub stantial endowments,” said Jill Paulsen, executive director of CAC.

When the Rock Hall reopened, at tendance remained low, but visitors did return almost immediately, Har ris“Insaid.2020, when we reopened, we were below 50% of our normal atten dance, maybe around 40%,” he said. “But we were one of those places that people felt comfortable coming to. Museums are inherently careful places that preserve and protect their collections in an environment that’s a little di erent than being in a crowded club or something like that.” Once the worst of it was over and vaccine rollouts began, things picked up.“In 2021, we had a really powerful year,” Harris said. “We stayed lean on the operating (side), but we we start ed to bounce back with our revenue and our attendance. And this year so far, we are tracking to be about a little over 80%, close to 90%, of our preCOVID levels.”

ANGELA LEDYARD

An installation of work by Andrea Carlson in the Cleveland Public Library’s Main Branch is part of Front International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art, running through Oct. 2. In the foreground is Carlson’s “Never-Ending Monument” (2022); in the background is “Cast a Shadow” (2021) | FIELD STUDIO Indian and southeast Asian art on view at the Cleveland Museum of Art. HOWARD AGRIESTI/CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART

Paintings and sculptures are not the only items protected by insur ance. Most companies o er coverage around “ ne art and specie,” which applies to library and archive materi al, precious stones, antique furniture andValuationsmore. are done by internal sta , usually beginning with the cu ratorial department or a contracted ne art appraiser. Insurance around collections is determined by current art market sales or auction values, as well as their overall cultural impor tance.Even as most institutions need not worry about objects being ruined by ying pastry, having every possibility covered is nonetheless key. “Know how to mitigate risks and make sure you have those standards in place,” Morasco said. “Like getting a shipping company with a great rep utation — there is going to be little risk in that case.”

Risk management pro grams encompass property and casualty insurance, as well as consulting around natural disasters and other potential exposures. Rates are dependent on the stur diness of the collection, in stitutional security, envi ronmental conditions and a host of other factors. Ellen Ross, managing director of ne arts and jewelry at Gallagher, said the biggest hurdle a museum faces is relaying the most precise col lection information possible to an underwriter. at goes for estab lished institutions and or ganizations just entering the art world. “ ere’s lots of capacity in the marketplace, so there’s no real challenges outside of that underwrit ing information,” Ross said. “For institutions, it’s a mat ter of tweaking their alarm system, or making sure they have redundancy in environmental controls. Just looking at risk and say ing we can get you the insurance, but we can get you a more competitive program if you tweak these things.” Art insurance is evolving around the changing needs of the industry, Bidwell said. Contemporary art gal leries with digital les or videos on hand are covered if damage is done to the equipment the art is presented with.Artist intention can play a role in coverage, as some artists are com fortable with their pieces morphing or transitioning over time. “Some artists are OK with their art fading, or bits and pieces that may not be rmly applied (to a piece) and fall o ,” Bidwell said. Art industry standards are natural ly designed to protect objects with the greatest care possible, CMA’s Mo rasco said. Museums will partner with professional shipping compa nies that employ handlers and driv ers trained in art packing, installation and movement. Companies also pro vide transportation, usually cli mate-controlled trucks with vibra tion-dampening suspension. To minimize risk and the atten dant potential for a claim, a single person should never move artwork. Rather, it should be moved in pairs on viable and thoroughly inspected equipment, Morasco said. “When moving art internally with in the museum, it’s about having a plan in advance,” she said. “You’ll be traveling in groups, and making sure the crate and cart is secure as you’re moving it through the building.”

AUGUST 15, 2022 | CRAIN’ S CLEVELAND B USINESS | 13 FOCUS | BUSINESS OF THE ARTS

Galleries, museums protect collections with insurance

Many things can go wrong when art is being moved, or even installed in a gallery. Damage during transit is most common, although unstable temperatures, humidity and over head lighting can degrade an object hanging in a museum. Nor should we forget unfortunate visitor interactions, including touch ing gallery pieces or outright vandal ism. Earlier this year, a visitor to the Louvre in Paris threw a pastry at the “Mona Lisa” herself, smearing frost ing across the glass but doing no damage otherwise. While such outré acts are rare, mu seums and galleries are still wise to protect themselves from the more common misfortunes to befall ne art, said insurers and museum o cials interviewed by Crain’s. “All ne art objects have the poten tial to be insured,” said Alyssa Moras co, director of collections manage ment at the Cleveland Museum of Art. “It’s up to the individual insti tution to deter mine their risks and to what level the collection will beTypically,insured.” ne art insurance covers collection pieces in storage, on display, in transit or on loan. In the case of a loan, topackedthefromtoobjectscoverinstitutionsborrowingwillthelender’sfrom“nailnail,”meaningthemomentpieceisfortransitthedayitre turns to the lender. Fred Bidwell, co-founder of the Transformer Station contemporary art space on Cleveland’s West Side, said working with an experienced broker along with a smart team of art handlers, conservators and registrars makes the process relatively straight forward. A registrar, for example, documents an object’s condition be fore and after it is moved from one location to another. “It all comes down to valuation,” said Bidwell, also executive director of Front International: Cleveland Tri ennial for Contemporary Art, a multi-venue exhibition currently on view at 30 Northeast Ohio locations. “In other words, are you borrowing (the art) from someone else? Is there transport involved? Are you keeping it for a while, and are you then re sponsible for return transport? Mul tiple locations means informing your insurance company that they must insure the object at XYZ location. But getting the insurance is not compli cated.” Evolving with the industry Gallagher, a Chicago-based insur ance brokerage with an o ce in Cleveland, covers all facets of the ne arts industry, from traveling exhibi tions to insuring a painting’s value during restoration. Preservation of collections is available for art galler ies along with corporations, universi ties and nonpro t organizations.

Contact Douglas J. clbfreelancer@crain.comGuth:

DOUGLAS J. GUTH

Morasco Ross Bidwell

made

John john.kappes@crain.comKappes:

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Tremont’s Convergence-Continuum theater raises the curtain on a new era

Cory Molner

14 | CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS | AUGUST 15, 2022  Clyde (Simon) had been trying to sell the Liminis for some time before the pandemic. Can you tell me how that was resolved and talk a little about your transition into the executive artistic director role? The capital campaign to buy the Liminis from Clyde actually began in 2015, 2016, because Clyde didn’t want to own a building and thought the most responsible thing to do was to sell it to the theater company itself. So, along with that capital campaign, I had been working with them for many years, and they decided to name me to be the executive director at that time, to assist Clyde with a lot of the work on the campaign as well as operations of the building and organization. In about 2018, we successfully completed that capital campaign and purchased the building, ConvergenceContinuum purchased the building from Clyde and changed the ownership. So before the pandemic, we resolved that issue. It happened very quickly and very quietly. (Laughs) We did announce it, but it kind of happened, and then we moved on. It really did not change any of the operations, except that Clyde was no longer living there.

 A lot of arts organizations faced a real uphill struggle in the pandemic, especially one with as small an audience capacity as Con-Con. What was your plan to get through the pandemic and get through to what, hopefully, is the other side? So, during the pandemic, we planned to attempt to do some virtual things later in 2020, but for the most part, what we did was basically reduce operations to as little as possible. Due to the capital campaign to buy the building, we had a pretty sizable amount of capital reserves for an emergency such as this. So we turned o the lights to weather the storm. However, in May of 2020, the front parapet of the main theater building partially collapsed. And when the parapet in the center fell down, the Cleveland Fire Department came and made the rest of the parapet disappear as well. It’s a slightly di erent color now, but the company basically rebuilt it as it was, because that’s what the Architectural Review Board insisted on doing.  That must have cut into that reserve fund even more. Actually, that was covered by our insurance. But, because of the pandemic, it took almost eight months to get it repaired, because the city was being di cult with issuing permits. It was literally all about the permits.

 Did he formally step down at some point? At the end of 2019, Clyde gave his one-year notice that he was going to be retiring as artistic director, because when I signed on as executive director, I knew at some point he was going to be moving on and I asked them to kindly give me one year’s notice so we could nd someone (to succeed him). We had a full season planned for 2020, and he was going to be directing one of the last shows in 2020 — kind of go out with a bang. But obviously, the pandemic stalled those plans.

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 In terms of programming, Clyde tilted fairly heavily toward LGBT-related content. Looking at your season, I’m detecting some movement there. Can you describe your philosophy? We still do feature LGBT content — actually, four of the six shows for 2022 do have some sort of LGBT theme in them. So that philosophy of including LGBT and marginalized individuals has not really gone away. We’ve opened it a little more by saying we’re focusing on marginalized individuals, whether it be on gender, race or other categories. We’ve never wanted to explicitly say we’re the “gay theater.” We also don’t want to limit ourselves to doing that. But it is, and our audience members know, a theme that does reoccur. If you look at our programs, you do have a little tagline under ConvergenceContinuum that says, “Cleveland’s up-close and OUT there theatre.” (Laughs)  But you are looking to broaden the o erings and audience somewhat, correct? A little bit, yeah. We’re still de nitely sticking with only living playwrights, newer works and works that won’t be often produced in this area, so something that people will not see anywhere else. I try to stay steadfast on that — if someone’s done it even in Akron, it’s, “Oops, no, too close.”

 What do you think the future holds for a company like ConCon? Is this model of a really small audience economically sustainable going forward? The model of a really small audience, yes, it is sustainable. It does limit what we can do in terms of show size, because you’re limited to selling a maximum of 440 seats in a run. It does limit what kind of income you can make in the theater. We have taken a more aggressive approach toward grant organizations of late to help subsidize that and allow us to continue producing some of those works, especially if we want to have a larger Butcast.it is possible, and people really do enjoy it, especially actors. Some of them really enjoy being literally inches from an audience member.

 What was the planning like around deciding to have an in-person season? We were looking to have a mini-season at the end of 2021, starting in August. We went into planning for that in November-December of 2020, guring that by that time, there would have been enough shots in arms so that we should be able to do this. So we picked three smaller plays, with between two and four people in each cast, so we could do this at a reduced level. We went in with the COVID requirements that were across the board what other theaters decided to do, which at the time was masks and vaccination cards. We have tried to stick with, going forward, the same COVID restrictions as most of the other small professional theaters in the area, so there’s parity among all of us.

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 Speaking of actors, how would you evaluate the talent in Cleveland for this kind of work? We do have really good talent in Cleveland. It’s making sure people are available at the right time. Especially with our company, we seem to be going through an evolution of getting newer talent and di erent talent than graced our stage for many years. But that’s a generational change; individuals are moving on with their lives. Theater is very much a thing you can’t do if you have a lot of kids at home or want to travel a lot. But the talent is there, and there are some hidden gems you do nd. One of the things we made a conscious choice about, now that I stepped into this role, is we’re really looking at our production quality, what we’re putting into it. For many years, it was kind of like you see the same love seat on the stage, you have one little table that always makes a reappearance, maybe you painted the back wall. We’re really trying to create fully realized worlds for our productions now. We’re really trying to up our game.

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FOCUS | BUSINESS OF THE ARTS Scrappy professional theater company Convergence-Continuum has staged a range of challenging fare over two decades, including Mart Crowley’s “ e Boys in the Band” and Robert O’Hara’s “Bootycandy.” Its most recent o ering, Topher Payne’s “Angry F—s,” was a surprisingly nuanced and well-acted look at the temptations and costs of extremism (despite its Grand Guignol ending). Executive artistic director Cory Molner spoke with Crain’s about the fundraising campaign that led to the sale of the company’s Tremont home, the Liminis; the transition from founding artistic director Clyde Simon’s long tenure; and surviving economically through a pandemic. Go to convergence-continuum.org to nd out more about the company, fondly known to all as Con-Con.

— John Kappes is conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

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• Chief information security of cer (CISO) • Cybersecurity analyst, architect, consultant, engineer and project manager

• Security analyst, architect, awareness trainer and engineer

Technology: As IT security in technology companies remains pressing too, states like California and Florida are expected to be key focal points for cybersecurity employees.

Teaching cybersecurity is like drinking from a firehose. There is so much content to cover, everything is “important” and you must teach A and B before C can even be discussed. Successful instructors must confine the flow of information to the essential.

Meanwhile, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), information security analysts’ annual mean wage was $107,580 in 2020, nearly twice the mean of all U.S. occupations combined. Additionally, between 2020 and 2030, the employment of information security analysts has been predicted to increase by 33%, which is faster than the average for every occupation, according to the BLS. And, on a global basis, the total aggregate of un lled cybersecurity jobs rose by 350% from 2013 to 2021, as 3.5 million positions were available last year, according to Cybersecurity Ventures.

KENNETH ATCHINSON PE, associate professor, Baldwin Wallace CybersecurityWallaceanalystcoordinatorassociateKenneth440-826-3457katchins@bw.eduUniversityAtchinson,PE,isanprofessorandofthecybersecurityprogramatBaldwinUniversity.Heteacheswhiledabblingin IoT and Robotics. He holds a Master in Computer Science from Kent State University and a Bachelor in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology. He has a laundry list of certi cations from CompTIA: Cloud+, CySA+, Linux+, Network+, Security+.

To meet the continuously increasing demand for cybersecurity professionals—for instance, the International Information System Security Certi cation Consortium projects the worldwide cybersecurity workforce must grow by 89%—a wide array of industries will likely be hiring in the near future, such as the following: Banking and nance: Banks, along with the nance industry as a whole, are major targets for identity theft, leading to the necessity for a surging cybersecurity workforce.

INDUSTRIES HIRING CYBERSECURITY PROFESSIONALS

As these gures are expected to only increase in the coming years, Grand View Research has projected that the cybersecurity market will be worth more than $190 billion by 2028. And, according to a survey conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers, roughly 25% of surveyed organizations will increase their cybersecurity budgets by at least 11% this year, while more than 50% will expand them by 6% or more.

THE MOST POPULAR JOBS FOR CYBERSECURITY PROFESSIONALS

Responding to record cyber attacks

Retail: Much like the banking and nance industries, the retail industry remains a popular target for identity theft as well.

• Information security manager

t seems that not a week goes by that a story about the shortage of skilled cybersecurity professionals makes the headlines. As one of many professors in cybersecurity programs across the nation, I have the opportunity, privilege and challenge of training future professionals to meet this need. But it is not an easy task.

BW has had teams competing in cybersecurity competitions since 2009. We have had some very successful years, as evident by the many trophies and awards in our display cabinet. However, it is not the trophies in the cabinet that prove our greatness, rather it is the feedback from employers that we are producing great cybersecurity employees. Another distinctive feature of the BW program is our internships. Experiential learning is a requirement at BW, and the cybersecurity program requires students to obtain a corporate internship. Our students tend to have very successful internships, applying what they have learned in the classroom, with a high percentage transforming their internship into a full-time position after graduation.

THOUGHT LEADER FORUM Cybersecurity and technology trends

CYBERSECURITY DEMAND AND EARNING POTENTIAL RISES

• Students work to solve problems in a constantly changing space, one that is “hard to develop, manage, and grade” for instructors.

• Students learn how to work together as a team, which is better than group work, since they apply themselves to an active problem.

As professionals prepare for the next chapter of their cybersecurity careers, or enter the eld for the rst time after earning their degrees, they have a wide array of jobs to consider applying for, according to St. Thomas University and TechRepublic:

• Incident response coordinator

Federal government: Federal cybersecurity workers are earning up to $255,800 each year, as cyber attacks on con dential information remain a signi cant issue for the federal government.

I

This advertising-supported section/feature is produced by Crain’s Content Studio-Cleveland, the marketing storytelling arm of Crain’s Cleveland Business. The Crain’s Cleveland Business newsroom is not involved in creating Crain’s Content Studio content.

• Students apply what they learned in the classroom to a problem/task.

In 2021, cyber attack attempts reached an all-time high, according to Check Point Research. In fact, an IBM survey revealed that data breaches cost companies an average of $4.24 million for each incident last year, a 10% increase, when compared to 2020’s data breach-related expenses.

• Network architect • Penetration tester

Cultivating the next generation of cybersecurity professionals

• Vulnerability management specialist

• Systems administrator

• Students learn additional technology skills in the guise of having “weapons” to beat other teams.

• Ethical hacker

In addition, the field is an everchanging landscape. Instructors are constantly learning new technologies to keep their content fresh and up to date. Meanwhile, they must also manage expectations of students who believe that they can become an awesome cyber hacker by taking a single Baldwincourse.Wallace is fortunate to have great professors and instructors in our program. We employ professionals and industry experts to bring a real-world aspect to our classrooms. Our curriculum is continually updated with input from an advisory board comprised of members from local Oneindustry.ofthe distinctive features of the BW cybersecurity program is our focus on participation in national cybersecurity competitions. Getting cybersecurity students involved in competitions ful lls many of our goals for successful students. As they compete:

Currently, more than 1 million professionals are members of the cybersecurity workforce in the U.S. Yet, there is also a considerably high number of job openings within the eld—over 714,500, a sign of the ever-rising demand for cybersecurity professionals. States like California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois and Texas are considered “hot spots” for cybersecurity jobs, as they have roughly 25,000 to 83,000 job openings. As the demand for cybersecurity professionals continues to increase, so is the money they’ll be earning. For example, federal cybersecurity workers can earn as much as $255,800 annually.

SOURCES: Bloomberg, Bureau of Labor Statistics, CyberSeek, Fortune, St. Thomas University, TechRepublic, The University of Tulsa Compiled by Chris Lewis, Crain’s Content Studio-Cleveland

THOUGHT LEADER FORUM

Critical Security Controls, CISO Executive Network, CompTIA, Gartner Compiled by Kathy Ames Carr, Crain’s Content Studio-Cleveland This advertising-supported section/feature is produced by Crain’s Content Studio-Cleveland, the marketing storytelling arm of Crain’s Cleveland Business. The Crain’s Cleveland Business newsroom is not involved in creating Crain’s Content Studio content.

Holistic cybersecurity is best for business

AI AS PART OF THE TEAM Organizations are ramping up investments in cybersecurity technology and automated systems due to a shortage of quali ed cybersecurity staff and an increased volume of attacks. Certain solutions incorporate AI systems that analyze different systems, threat intelligence, and status of data and networks. AI scrutinizes the threats, makes predictions and identi es security priorities, whether they are to be handled by human or AI.

Data protection is critical as companies push more of their applications and data to both employees and customers. Identity and Access Management controls are essential for organizations so they can control user access to critical information within their operations, according to the CISO Executive Network, a professional organization serving information security, IT risk management, privacy, and compliance executives. User and device veri cation is becoming increasingly SOURCES:common.CIS

Think of it like a football team. All players – offensive line, receivers and quarterback – need to be running the same play and execute their roles. Otherwise, the play won’t be successful. In the same way, if various technology areas are not communicating or working together, a cybersecurity strategy is going to have major weaknesses. The more cybersecurity components on the same team, the better. It’s well established that any organization can be a target for cybercrimes. According to the MSP Threat Report from ConnectWise, nearly two in three midsize organizations have suffered a ransomware attack in the past 18 months, and 20% of them spent at least $250,000 in recovery. And that’s without even considering the other damage left behind by an attack, such as lost productivity and a reduction in employee and client con dence. Cyber insurance is a necessary nal line of defense, but assurance is better than insurance. With a holistic cybersecurity approach, an organization can be con dent that its protection is as strong as it can be. While no strategy is perfect, a holistic view of cybersecurity is the winning approach.

FRED FRANKS Chief strategy of cer, FIT 216-583-5000info@FITtechnologies.comTechnologies

Cybersecurity and data loss prevention are the No. 1 priority for tech executives in local government, according to the 2022 CompTIA Public Technology Institute State of City and County IT National Survey. Modernizing antiquated IT systems ranks as the No. 2 priority, up from No. 4 in 2021. New federal funding and state collaborations are helping local governments ramp up cybersecurity resiliency. Additionally, about 85% of surveyed CIOs of city and county governments expect to increase their IT budgets in the next scal year.

F or a cybersecurity strategy to be as effective as possible, several moving pieces need to be working in concert. If a variety of vendors and providers are handling an organization’s cybersecurity services, this can create opportunities for security issues to fall through the Cybersecuritycracks. can be categorized into four primary areas: data, identity, infrastructure and endpoints. Data involves backing up and encrypting data and keeping it safe from unauthorized access. Identity includes features like single sign-on and impossible travel. Infrastructure ranges from hardware such as a firewall or security appliance to cloud infrastructure and software. Lastly, endpoints like cell phones and computers need multi-factor authentication, device encryption and malware protection.

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360-degree overview of cybersecurity Cybersecurity is a business imperative that is as essential to an organization’s shortand long-term viability as its nancial and legal well-being. The volume and sophistication of cybersecurity threats continue to grow. Malware and viruses are still a concern, as are new types of attacks, from hackers inserting malicious code into software or supply chain in ltrations to compromising critical IT infrastructure and phishing campaigns targeting employees. According to Gartner research published in early 2022, 88% of boards view cybersecurity as a business risk rather than solely a technical IT problem. About 13% of boards have instituted cybersecurity-speci c board committees that a dedicated director oversees. Below are some other trends in the modern cybersecurity landscape.

Having a fully integrated, holistic cybersecurity approach provides better analytics and weaves arti cial intelligence and human intervention together to more quickly identify, halt, and remediate cybersecurity incidents.

A KEY PRIORITY AMONG LOCAL GOVERNMENTS

Cybersecurity and technology trends

The Center for Internet Security, an international community of volunteer individuals and institutions, has identi ed several cybersecurity priorities for organizations in its latest CIS Controls report. These priorities include inventory and control of enterprise assets and software assets, data protection, secure con guration of enterprise software and assets and access control management. The CIS Controls report aims to include knowledge from experts in every part of the ecosystem (companies, governments and individuals), with every role (threat responders and analysts, technologists, IT, users, policymakers, etc.).

IDENTITY AND ACCESS MANAGEMENT

According to Gartner research published in early 2022, 88% of boards view cybersecurity as a business risk rather than solely a technical IT problem. About 13% of boards have instituted cybersecurity-speci c board committees that a dedicated director oversees.

Many security providers can build expertise in one of these areas, but an organization’s cybersecurity posture is only as strong as its weakest link. Focusing too intently on one can leave an organization at greater risk for a cybersecurity breach in one of the other areas. Additionally, all the tools, people, and policies need to be fully integrated and communicate effectively with each other to provide the best possible security. Too often, different technologies only partially integrate. This can work well enough for definite known issues, but struggles with shades of gray. At FIT Technologies, we encourage our clients to embrace an integrated approach, utilizing a best-in-class platform that includes all facets of cybersecurity. Having a fully integrated, holistic cybersecurity approach provides better analytics and weaves arti cial intelligence and human intervention together to more quickly identify, halt, and remediate cybersecurity incidents. Being able to pull information together with AI from data, identity, infrastructure and endpoints allows decisions and protection to kick off in nanoseconds. An integrated model is much more effective than a patchwork of dozens of different services, tools, and vendors.

CYBERSECURITY AS A PERFORMANCE METRIC By 2026, at least 50% of C-suite leaders will build performance requirements related to cybersecurity risk into their employment contracts, according to Gartner. CIS CRITICAL SECURITY CONTROLS

Regardless of the size of a business, it’s vital for it to fully understand the wide array of potential opportunities that 5G can offer.

DAVID MUSTIN, MBA Vice President, Strategic IT Consulting, Marcum 440-459-5755David.Mustin@MarcumTechnology.comTechnology

Step 3: Seek to create a fully integrated, technologically driven supply chain that ows from raw material through a fully connected product in your client’s hands. Supply chains are just that; interconnected links that through technology and seamless integration allow raw materials to ow into works in progress (WIP) into nished goods and services that address client issues.

So how do you realize this new technologically enabled business model? Step 1: Focus on the core of your business. Address the three core areas of the business: sales and marketing, operations, nance and HR. Laying the foundation with modern systems that are cloud based, have high integration capabilities, strong data analytics and dashboards, automated work ow and are highly con gurable, will create almost a future-proof model that will grow and expand your business, while empowering staff, managers and executives.

5G NETWORK SECURITY: PROTECT YOUR BUSINESS

SOURCES: Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency, Forbes, PricewaterhouseCoopers Compiled by Chris Lewis, Crain’s Content Studio-Cleveland This advertising-supported section/feature is produced by Crain’s Content Studio-Cleveland, the marketing storytelling arm of Crain’s Cleveland Business. The Crain’s Cleveland Business newsroom is not involved in creating Crain’s Content Studio content.

Finally, the technology can achieve exceedingly high speeds as well — roughly 100 times faster than 4G, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers, resulting in a further rise in productivity. To reap the rewards of each of these bene ts, businesses must stay ahead of the curve, particularly by adopting 5G’s latest offerings, keeping up to date on news and expanding their coverage as the technology evolves. In doing so, they’ll handle considerably more connections faster than they ever have before.

In order to fully reap 5G’s bene ts long term, businesses must understand its risks too, especially regarding cyberattacks. With such risks in mind, the White House has created the National Strategy to Secure 5G, an expansion of the National Cyber Strategy, which features the various ways in which the federal government is striving to ensure 5G infrastructure is protected within the U.S., as well as globally. Last year, an Implementation Plan was also developed, leading to further security, as the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) continues to implement initiatives that will enhance 5G’s deployment and management. In addition to the federal government’s efforts to ensure 5G is as safe and reliable as possible, businesses must focus on their own four walls too, as they develop 5G security plans that are tailored to their particular employee headcounts, industries, objectives and specialties.

The new business model includes adopting technology that transforms the way you conduct business with your customers, your suppliers and your employees. It is about being easy to do business with. It is about removing the four walls of your organization and creating a seamless flow of data, information and insight with all of these stakeholders. Data used to be siloed in departments, but now it flows freely across enterprises and continents.

a new business model has arisen over the last decade: clients expect products in hours or days, not weeks and months. Clients expect to be able to transact business through their phone or tablet. Executives want to anticipate issues and changes, not review reports from last month, last quarter or last year. Employees want to work remotely from anywhere in the country at any time. This new business model is totally unlike those of 20, 10 or even five years ago and is impossible to achieve without modern technology. Technology is the new business model.

To help reduce the cyberattack threats associated with 5G, businesses should consider deploying private 5G cellular networks. Such networks will not only protect employees’ identities and locations, but their devices and overall data as well, according to Forbes. And, of equal importance, by implementing private networks, businesses can ensure their security measures, along with their integration with several other types of operational systems, are completely customized for their unique Thisneeds.customization will be especially important as cybersecurity threats—particularly ones that are common this year, like credential stuf ng, ransomware, security miscon gurations and social engineering, according to Forbes—remain high for 5G Byusers.staying ahead of the curve, as they evolve their 5G implementations, networks and security offerings, businesses will be able to reap the full bene ts of the technology in a secure, safe manner well into the future.

Step 2: Talk to your best customers and focus on their needs. Where are they going, what do they see over the next ve to 10 years and what drives their business? Businesses that are successful position themselves to anticipate the future needs of their customers and prepare for that now. Great businesses implement technology that increases customer connectedness and engagement, while simplifying transactions and deals.

THOUGHT LEADER FORUM SPONSORED CONTENT | S3

Four steps toward informed digital modernization

Cybersecurity and technology trends

5G: Stay ahead of the curve

First, the technology’s ability to enhance employee productivity must not be overlooked. After all, it enables businesses’ devices to acquire low-latency (the time they receive responses to requests), along with powerful connections to the cloud, leading to less connectivity issues and, in turn, higher ef ciency.

Second, employees will have higher bandwidth connections, enabling them to improve their sales capabilities, while also training their new colleagues more effectively. Alongside these high connections, 5G offers high frame rates and highde nition content too, each of which is provided without any delays — in a completely wireless fashion, according to Forbes.

THE BENEFITS OF PRIVATE NETWORKS

www.marcumtechnology.com

T he first mistake many organizations make is assuming IT is really about the technology. They assume it’s about nding a better enterprise resource planning (ERP) system or a better finance system. Quite often, the thought is “if I just adopt the latest and greatest technology and processes, my organization will run better, clients will be happier and the business will However,grow.”

Step 4: Create smart products that meet the immediate challenges and adapt to the changing needs of your clients. These smart products and technology tools also provide feedback to the manufacturer/distributor on how the client uses the product. This allows the manufacturer/distributor to improve the product and tailor it more closely to the evolving needs of its Whileclients.this journey can appear daunting, the alternative is more challenging. The risk of being left out of your customers connected journey or the integrated supply chain threatens to leave organizations outside the modern world of interconnected commerce.

Businesses that are successful position themselves to anticipate the future needs of their customers and prepare for that now. Businesses must stay ahead of the curve, particularly by adopting 5G’s latest offerings, keeping up to date on news and expanding their coverage as the technology evolves. In doing so, they’ll handle considerably more connections faster than they ever have before.

1 JONESDAY, 216-586-3939/jonesday.comCleveland 5962,500Full range of litigation and corporate practice areas JohnSaadaJr., Cleveland partner-in-charge

85166 218

11 ROETZEL & ANDRESSLPA, Cleveland 216-623-0150/ralaw.com 214 166157Banking/ nance, corporate, employment, energy/environmental, estates, health care, transportation, franchise, government, education, real estate

3348 16 12572Health care, litigation, business, labor and employment, real estate, M&A, tax, estate planning MatthewHeinle, president; JackDiamond, CEO; AnthonyManna, chairman

Get

RalphCascarilla, managing partner

24 MCCARTHY, LEBIT, CRYSTAL & LIFFMAN CO.LPA, 216-696-1422/mccarthylebit.comCleveland

ChristopherKeim, managing partner

2342 16 7342Corporate, mergers/acquisitions, real estate, tax, cybersecurity, blockchain, labor/employment, a rmative action, litigation, family law SethBriskin, managing partner

DanielGlessner, managing partner

5 TUCKER ELLISLLP, 216-592-5000/tuckerellis.comCleveland 263214All types of litigation, transactional and intellectual property matters JoeMorford, rm managing partner

63129 614

15

26 ZASHIN & RICH CO.LPA, Cleveland 216-696-4441/zrlaw.com

5484 010

10 MCDONALD HOPKINSLLC, 216-348-5400/mcdonaldhopkins.comCleveland 28 152150Corporate, litigation, cyber security, IP, restructuring, estate planning, real estate, M&A, health, banking, bene ts, public nance

executives and more contact info in Excel. Become a Data

4468

number of local attorneys

18 VORYS, SATER, SEYMOUR AND PEASELLP, 216-479-6100/vorys.comCleveland

2437 04 6939Transactional, estate planning, tax, litigation, domestic relations, banking, elder law, special needs law, personal injury, employment RobertGlickman, managing principal

3952 19 11052Corporate/business, commercial litigation, labor/employment, workers' compensation, oil and gas, real estate, health care, environmental JohnTucker, president, chairman

5068

4976

4779

6 CALFEE, HALTER & GRISWOLDLLP, Cleveland 216-622-8200/calfee.com 198154Corporate, M&A, securities, litigation, IP, government relations, labor, bene ts, commercial, real estate, tax, estate planning BrentBallard, managing partner; ArthurHallIII, immigration, bene ts/ERISA, employment PatriciaShlonsky, partner-in-charge, Cleveland o ce

14 HAHN LOESER & PARKSLLP, Cleveland 216-621-0150/hahnlaw.com 49 156123Commercial litigation, business, IP, estate planning, labor and employment, construction, creditors' rights, reorganization, bankruptcy StanleyGoromIII, managing partner, CEO; CraigOwenWhite, partner-in-charge, Cleveland FRANTZ WARDLLP, 216-515-1660/frantzward.comCleveland 10265Construction, labor/employment, corporate, litigation, real estate, insurance, health care, bankruptcy/creditor's rights, estate planning and education

21 KJK, 216-696-8700/kjk.comCleveland

22 GALLAGHER SHARPLLP, 216-241-5310/gallaghersharp.comCleveland

ShawnRiley, president

235 00 4535Labor and employment, family law, international family law, workers' compensation, business law, sports law

Research by Chuck Soder (csoder@crain.com) as of June 30, 2022. with equal numbers of Northeast Ohio attorneys are ranked by worldwide attorneys. Information is from the companies.NOTES: 1. Company estimate. 67 rms, +270 Member: CrainsCleveland.com/data mcdonaldhopkins.com

2 BENESCH, 216-363-4500/beneschlaw.comCleveland 318327Corporate and securities, litigation, real estate, IP, health care, labor and employment GreggEisenberg, managing partner

12 BROUSE MCDOWELLLPA, Akron 330-535-5711/brouse.com 116 12483Business restructuring/bankruptcy, corporate, cybersecurity, environmental, estates, health care, insurance recovery, labor/ employment, litigation, real estate

2635 14 5752Business, litigation, insurance, estate/probate, tax, construction, employment, white collar, professional liability, real estate, domestic relations DanielRichards, managing partner

9 WALTER HAVERFIELDLLP, 216-781-1212/walterhav.comCleveland 16694Business services, education, IP, labor/employment, hospitality and liquor control, litigation, public law, real estate, tax and wealth management

20 BRENNAN, MANNA & DIAMOND, Akron 330-253-5060/bmdllc.com

StephenZashin; AndrewZashin, co-managing partners by

RobertBlackham, chairman, shareholder; DouglasSpiker, partner-in-charge, Cleveland

LAW FIRMSCRAIN'S LIST | Ranked

85167 216

18 | CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS | AUG US T 15, 2022 RANKFIRM PARTNERSATTORNEYS/LOCAL MINORITYFEMALE/PARTNERSLOCAL STAFFLOCAL ATTORNEYSPRACTICEFIRMWIDE AREAS TOP LOCAL EXECUTIVE

2746 27 7346Corporate, litigation, employment, real estate, nance, private equity, ecommerce, IP, incentives, startups, estates, domestic relations JonPinney, managing partner

13 REMINGER CO.LPA, 216-687-1311/reminger.comCleveland 412 202152Medical malpractice, workers' compensation, estate planning, D&O and employment practices, professional liability, oil, natural gas, utilities StephenWalters, president, managing partner

23 MEYERS, ROMAN, FRIEDBERG AND LEWIS, 216-831-0042/meyersroman.comWoodmere

19 KRUGLIAK, WILKINS, GRIFFITHS & DOUGHERTY CO.LPA, 330-497-0700/kwgd.comCanton

2253 25 72350Corporate, litigation, bankruptcy/restructuring, health care, real estate, nancing, IP, labor/employment, nancial institutions BrianFalk, managing partner, Cleveland; J.BretTreier, managing partner, Akron

3 BAKERHOSTETLER, 216-621-0200/bakerlaw.comCleveland 3741,001Six core practice groups: business, digital assets and data management, IP, labor and employment, litigation, tax MatthewTenerowicz, Cleveland o ce managing partner

2544 05 7953Litigation, insurance, legal malpractice, professional liability, railroad, trucking, aviation, maritime, product/employer liability, mass/toxic torts, appellate MonicaSansalone, managing partner

66171 316

70131 314

|Data

63124 411

25 WESTON HURDLLP, 216-241-6602/westonhurd.comCleveland

3660 39 104670Venture capital, real estate, M&A, litigation, employment, workers' compensation, IP, domestic relations, tax, public law JillHelfman, co-partner-in-charge, Cleveland; AdrianThompson, co-partner-in-charge, Cleveland; chief diversity o cer

Firms

4465 18

3959 04 11859Business, litigation, employment and labor, real estate and construction, health and medicine, trusts and estates StevenDimengo, managing partner; JohnSwansinger, Cleveland o ce partner-in-charge

WHERE BIG LAW MEETS THE MIDDLE MARKET Learn more at

16 TAFT STETTINIUS & HOLLISTERLLP, Cleveland 216-241-2838/taftlaw.com

4875

rm administrative partner, Cleveland partner-in-charge 7 SQUIRE PATTON BOGGS, 216-479-8500/squirepb.comCleveland 40102 212 200 1 1,500Corporate, disputes, regulatory, public policy MicheleConnell, FrederickNance, co-global managing partners; SteveAuvil, managing partner, Cleveland o ce 8 ULMER & BERNELLP, 216-583-7000/ulmer.comCleveland 4585 314 175175Litigation, nancial services, product liability, business law, health care, real estate, IP,

4 THOMPSON HINELLP, 216-566-5500/thompsonhine.comCleveland 310380Litigation, corporate, real estate, construction, product liability, nance, environmental, cybersecurity, immigration, bankruptcy/restructuring, bene ts, IP DeborahRead, managing partner; KipBollin Cleveland o ce partner-in-charge

17 BUCKINGHAM, DOOLITTLE & BURROUGHSLLC, 216-621-5300/bdblaw.comCleveland

Our creative and business-focused legal solutions allow you to stay ahead of the curve. Stay in the forefront with a law rm as focused on innovation as you are. A Smarter Way to Work –predictable, ef cient and aligned with client ThompsonHine.comgoals.

AUGUST 15, 2022 | CRAIN’ S CLEVELAND B USINESS | 19

Staying Ahead of the Curve

LIST ANALYSIS There’s a new No. 2 law rm in Northeast

GETTY

SM Benesch has leapfrogged Baker Hostetler to become the second-larg est law rm in Northeast Ohio, ac cording to data collected for the Crain’s 2022 Law Firms list. And it’s not far from the No. 1 spot, which has been held for decades by the same rm. e largest legal services business in the region — based on number of in-market lawyers — continues to be Cleveland-founded BigLaw rm Jones Day. It is followed by Benesch, Baker Hostetler, ompson Hine and Tuck er Ellis to round out the market’s topve ererms.are always sporadic ups and downs in attorney headcounts among the largest rms. Among these top ve, however, Benesch, at 167 lawyers, has expand ed its local attorney bench the most on net over the last several years. It has been continuously adding law yers and even recently opened a digi tal o ce space in the Metaverse — though it didn’t need to add any more people to its ranks for that en deavor.e rm has grown its Cleveland headquarters nearly 69% since 2012. A di erence of just four attorneys separates it from the largest rm in the market today. Over the last decade, Jones Day’s Cleveland o ce peaked at 220 attor neys in 2014. Its local o ce has shrunk by 22% since then and 16% since 2012. As far as the other largest players and their Cleveland o ces since 2012, BakerHostetler has shrunk by 14%, ompsonHine has grown by 2% and Tucker Ellis has grown by 18%.Overall, the 67 law rms included in the full digital list account for 2,875 attorneys in the Northeast Ohio mar ket. ose rms represented 2,881 attorneys in 2021, marking a margin al annual headcount reduction on net of just 0.5%. at same group represents 1,587 partners in 2022 versus 1,610 in 2021, a decrease of 1.7% over last year. Partners make up 55% of all the lawyers accounted for in the list. On the diversity front, numbers improved some over last year. ere are 861 female attorneys (an annual increase of 2.1%) among the rms surveyed and 348 female part ners (no change) in 2022. is means women compose 30% of all lawyers in the market today — for the group analyzed by Crain’s. Fe male partners make up 12% of all at torneys accounted for and 22% of the partnerMeanwhile,group. there are 199 attor neys in the group surveyed who identify as racial or ethnic minorities compared with 182 last year, for an annual increase of 9.3%. Of those di verse attorneys, 75 are partners, compared with 74 last year. is means racial or ethnic mi norities compose 7% of all lawyers in the market — again, for the group an alyzed by Crain’s. Minority partners make up 2.6% of all attorneys ac counted for and 4.7% of the partner group.Racial and gender diversity has long been an issue in law rm ranks. Making improvements there is some thing the legal industry continues to workWhileon. diversity among Northeast Ohio’s law rms has improved some what, the diverse demographics re main poorer than the industry at large. According to a January report by e National Association for Law Placement, among all attorneys working at U.S. law rms in 2021, about 38% were women, nearly 19% were racially diverse and almost 10% were diverse women. Among all partners accounted for by NALP, 26% were women, 11% were diverse and 4% were diverse women. Jeremy Nobile: jnobile@crain.com, (216) 771-5362, @JeremyNobile Ohio

JEREMY NOBILE

The Cuyahoga County Courthouse in Cleveland. IMAGES/ISTOCK

20 | CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS | AUG US T 15, 2022

Northeast Ohio Opportunity Zone deals

—Steve Rubin, Cleveland-based Midwest Development Partners

interest in ear ly-stage activity on the East Side of Cleveland now,” said Mike Sikora, a Cleveland attorney who works with clients across the state. “And it is, in part at least, spurred or … bene ting from whether a particular property is in an Opportunity Zone.” Ohio’s program, created in 2019, is a sweetener. e state o ers an in come-tax credit equal to 10% of an investor’s contribution to a project, capped at $1 million. at invest ment does not have to involve gains from the sale of real estate, stocks or othereassets.General Assembly recently doubled the size of the tax-credit pool for the 2023 and 2024 scal years and made other tweaks to broaden access to the program. O cials can award up to $49 million in credits over the next year and $50 million between July 1, 2023, and June 30, Without2024.that change, the program likely would have been tapped out, Sikora said. Investors who sat on the sidelines in 2020, in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic and ac companying economic upheaval, shook o their anxiety last year and are staying busy. “We are living it,” Sikora said. “We’re having discussions with cli ents every week.” Sikora Law, his rm, submitted 80 state tax-credit requests for clients this year and expects to handle more applications in early 2023. He and other professionals are watching closely to see what happens in Con gress, where bipartisan bills to ex tend and modify the Opportunity Zone program are pending in both chambers.Ohioranks 11th in the nation for planned investments in quali ed opportunity funds, the vehicles that investors use to place their money, according to a midyear report from Novogradac, an accounting and consulting business. Cleveland ranks 19th among cities, ahead of Chicago, Columbus and Detroit. Novogradac is tracking an esti mated quarter to a third of the in dustry through regulatory lings, other public documents and infor mation volunteered by a subset of investment funds. “We’re still seeing a tremendous amount of interest,” said Angel Rice, a tax director at accounting rm Co hen & Co.’s Cleveland o ce. “We’re nding that the Ohio Opportunity Zone credit, it’s still a critical asset that’s making Ohio more competi tive than other states.” is year, investors received tax credits for putting money into Circle Square, a mixed-use project at the edge of University Circle. An apart ment tower called the Artisan is set to open in late February at Chester Avenue and Stokes Boulevard. And construction is ramping up on a sec ond building, where the Library Lofts apartments will sit atop a new Cleveland Public Library branch. e balance of the block, the rst phase of a massive development, will include parking, ground- oor retail and, possibly, a hotel. e project involves a mix of local and far- ung investors, said Steve Rubin of Cleveland-based Midwest Devel opment Partners. “It takes a project that is sort of on the edge, if you will, and makes it attractive. Which I think is what the law’s inten tion was,” Rubin said of the ability for investors to shelter gains and o set liabilities. e City Club Apartments, a 23-story project downtown, also is taking advantage of its Opportunity Zone address. State data show that quali ed opportunity funds invest ed $16.3 million in the building, which is rising from a Euclid Avenue parking lot near East Ninth Street. e other apartment deals range from Bridgeworks, an Ohio City tow er that will include a hotel, to a 139unit revamp of part of the former BFGoodrich complex in Akron, to renovations at the midcentury Ken wood Crossing property in Euclid. Michael Panzica, a member of the Bridgeworks team, said the Oppor tunity Zone designation is a key fac tor when he’s picking project sites. e federal tax bene ts and state credits are even more important during a period of rising interest rates and escalating construction costs.He’s also one of the developers behind the Monroe, a Little Italy project that appears on the state’s Opportunity Zone tax-credit list. e 80-unit building, on the old Woodhill Supply site that backs up to Lake View Cemetery, is scheduled to be complete in late autumn or early winter. In some cases, state tax credits are going to investors in deals that are well under way. at’s true of Inno vation Landing, a 50-unit apartment conversion near Cleveland State University, and of o ce renovations for Omni Title LLC’s new headquar ters on Bolivar Road, in downtown’s Gateway District. Other developments are still on the drawing board. In the Flats, investors in an apart ment project called the Pine also re ceived state tax credits. But Realife 1 “IT TAKES A PROJECT THAT IS SORT OF ON THE EDGE, IF YOU WILL, AND MAKES IT ATTRACTIVE. WHICH I THINK IS WHAT THE LAW’S INTENTION WAS.”

OPPORTUNITY From Page

EuclidBarberton

SOURCE: OHIO DEPARTMENT OF DEVELOPMENT; CRAIN’S ANALYSIS

Investors in the Artisan apartment tower, top, scheduled to open in University Circle in 2023, and the nearby Library Lofts apartments, which will sit atop a new Cleveland Public Library branch, are taking advantage of the federal Opportunity Zone program and a related state tax-credit program. The former Woodhill Supply site, above, in Cleveland’s Little Italy neighborhood, next to Lake View Cemetery, sits in a federally designated Opportunity Zone. Investors in a redevelopment project received related state tax credits this year.

Alliance Elyria Lorain Akron Cleveland 71 77 480 CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS/DATAWRAPPER

PHOTOSBUSINESSCLEVELANDJARBOE/CRAIN’SMICHELLE

Investors received state tax credits this year for putting money into 29 Northeast Ohio projects, according to data from the Ohio Department of Development. based on $289.9 million worth of in vestments by individuals, trusts and companies.Acrossthe state, investors largely fo cused on real estate — not business es, though a new manufacturer of disposable gloves in suburban Co lumbus attracted a substantial amount of equity. Investors ocked to apartments and mixed-use proj ects. And they gravitated to sites in or near urban centers, with occasional forays into smaller cities including Alliance, Elyria and Sandusky. State records don’t paint a com plete picture of Opportunity Zone activity. But they o er a glimpse of how money is moving through an otherwise opaque federal incentive program.Opportunity Zones, established in 2018, o er tax advantages to inves tors who redeploy capital gains in distressed communities. e pro gram was meant to give impover ished areas a lift, but critics say it hasn’t lived up to that lofty goal yet. A few years in, though, developers have completed the rst wave of projects, including long-gestating deals that just happened to bene t from new federal and state incen tives. And in Northeast Ohio, at least, there are subtle shifts in the invest ment“We’relandscape.seeingmore

“I feel good about the decision,” said Mike Foley, director of Cuyahoga County’s department of sustainability. “It just should not have taken this long. e ght around this project has been really frustrating.”Initialstudies into the possibility of using the wind o the lake for power dates back to 2007, when what was then the Cuyahoga Coun ty Commissioners’ o ce and the county prosecutor’s o ce created the Great Lakes Energy Develop ment Taskforce to explore develop ing and implementing new energy technologies.Overtime, even as Cuyahoga County’s government transitioned to an elected County Council/ County Executive model, the re gional government continued to provide signi cant support for the Icebreaker project. “We have dedicated close to $500,000 over just the last two years in attorney fees and other help, and we have committed to buy 8.6% of the power generation when the tur bines are up and running,” Foley said.Wind power, as a sustainable source of energy, ts into Cuyahoga County’s recent move toward sus tainability and the creation of a se ries of micro-grids in cities includ ing Euclid and Brooklyn, where local manufacturing companies are interested in more reliable, redun dant and cleaner power. “We’re a manufacturing region, and when those businesses experi ence a brownout or blackout or in consistency of power, including spikes, it can ruin products or ma chinery and creates big loses in productivity,” Foley said. Icebreaker supporters have dealt with a series of setbacks as the wind farm project worked its way through the exhaustive process to obtain a power-generation permit. State regulators in 2020 ruled in favor of construction of the project but included a stipulation that the turbines be turned o from dusk to dawn until additional research was completed on the potential impact to local wildlife. at decision eventually was overturned after LEEDCo deemed the move a “poison pill” that would doom the project’s economic via bility and asked the board to recon sider. e company was ordered to incorporate available technologies to monitor the e ect on birds and bats in the area. Justice Jennifer Brunner, in her majority opinion for the state Su preme Court, rejected the argu ment from two Bratenahl residents, Susan Dempsey and Robert Malo ney, who claimed that LEEDCo had still not submitted su cient evi dence assessing the environmental risk that the turbine poses to birds and bats under Ohio law. e court ruled there was enough wildlife data presented for the company to begin construction of the wind farm, but added that more would be required before the turbines be comeWilloperational.Friedman,a LEEDCo board member and president and CEO of the Port of Cleveland, was blunt in his assessment that the Icebreaker project since its inception has faced unprecedented regulatory review — along with obstacles placed in the project’s path by fossil fuel in terests.Friedman also said in a state ment that court records proved the challenge brought by Dempsey and Maloney was bankrolled by Murray Energy, which prior to bankruptcy billed itself as the biggest coal com pany in the country. “Many eyes have looked at this project, and all that thorough vet ting is a testament that ... this (project) can be built as a best practice for other freshwater o shore wind,” said Trish Demeter, interim execu tive director of the Ohio Environ mental Council. e proposed wind farm’s esti mated electric-generation capacity is 20.7 megawatts. Backers project it will have a $253 million impact on the regional economy and will cre ate more than 500 jobs, Demeter said.Steve Dever, who represents Cuyahoga County on the LEEDCo board, said after 15 years of obsta cles, the Icebreaker project will soon be underway. A more progressive national pol icy toward clean and renewable en ergy could mean that the long wait to get the Icebreaker project — which is considered a small-scale demonstration project to test the environmental viability of a largescale wind facility on Lake Erie — underway might expand into a big ger collaboration, Dever said. “With big development plans in Columbus (with Intel) and the overall national movement toward clean and wind energy, things are moving in the right direction for the future of wind on the Great Lakes,”

—Bob Biggar, a sales associate at the Hanna Commercial Real Estate brokerage

WINDS From Page 1 heLEEDCosaid. secured about one-third of the project’s generated power from contracts with Cuyahoga County and the city of Cleveland, which has com mitted to purchasing 25% (5.175 MW capacity) of the total output from the project, according to Sarah O’Kee e, the city’s director of Sustainability and Climate Justice. Friedman said LEEDCo is still de ciding on the next steps and will need some time to regroup and work to se cure more power contracts. “We could not advance the proj ect in any way while the Supreme Court case was pending,” he said. “Even though we prevailed (on Aug. 10), it’s been a detrimental delay for over a year. With certainty received from the court, we can now focus on marketing the remaining two-thirds of the electricity it will produce.”

AUGUST 15, 2022 | CRAIN’ S CLEVELAND B USINESS | 21 CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS | SEPTEMBER 3 - 9, 2018 | PAGE 29 CLASSIFIEDS Advertising Section To place your listing in Crain’s Cleveland Classi eds, contact Suzanne Janik at 313-446-0455 ADVERTISE TODAY ENVIRONMENTAL CONSULTINGBUSINESS OPPORTUNITY CLASSIFIED SERVICES

Kim Palmer: kpalmer@crain.com, (216) 771-5384, @kimfouro ve Icebreaker windfarm simulation o of Edgewater Park. | LEEDCO Real Estate Group, which purchased a strip of buildings along Columbus Road last year, hasn’t started con struction. e company took the project through the public-approval process and is marketing the shov el-ready deal for sale to other Op portunity Zone investors. And some proposals are nascent. e business park in Central, for ex ample, is a concept being oated by Bob Biggar, a sales associate at the Hanna Commercial Real Estate bro kerage in Cleveland; his father, a longtime real estate broker; and an unidenti ed partner. “We’ve invested some money, and the end goal would be to invest a lot more money and create a lot of jobs,” said Biggar, who wants to bring employment closer to neigh borhoods where many residents don’t have cars. State records show the park, which Biggar is calling “Project Jobs Hub,” could span 20 to 30 acres. “Ohio’s Opportunity Zone pro gram is a nice bene t and helps us to invest those early dollars before we’re sure we have a project,” he said. “But, certainly, the project will require a lot more collaboration, and probably some sort of pub lic-private partnership.” Several investors and developers said the incentives aren’t making or breaking their deals. But the tax bene ts are allowing them to do more, and to take a longer-term ap proach.“Without those dollars, there’s no chance that we would have gone as far as we’ve gone — and will keep going,” said attorney and investor Jon Pinney, who is working with CrossCountry Mortgage CEO Ron Leonhardt Jr. on a procession of deals in Cleveland’s Superior Arts District.Leonhardt received state tax cred its this year for multiple projects in the district, where CrossCountry Mortgage’s new headquarters is the centerpiece of a plan that includes apartments, parking and dining. On East 72nd Street, real estate broker Rico Pietro and business partner Erik Loomis were able to put more money into Lighthouse ArtSpace Cleveland, where the Van Gogh show opened last year. ey redid the roof, instead of making ba sic repairs. ey repaved the parking lot, rather than patching. A deal that began as a short-term lease became a long-term relation ship with Lighthouse Immersive, an international tenant. To take full ad vantage of the Opportunity Zone tax savings, Pietro and Loomis expect to hang onto the formerly vacant prop erty for at least a decade. “I don’t think the Opportunity Zone was the genesis of the develop ment,” said Pietro, a principal at In dependence-based Cushman & Wake eld-Cresco Real Estate. “But it was absolutely the motivation for making a more sincere economic in vestment.”

Michelle Jarboe: michelle.jarboe@ crain.com, (216) 771-5437, @mjarboe “OHIO’S OPPORTUNITY ZONE PROGRAM IS A NICE BENEFIT AND HELPS US TO INVEST THOSE EARLY DOLLARS BEFORE WE’RE SURE WE HAVE A PROJECT.”

We are excited to announce promotiontheof Jeff Kowell to Director of Field Operations for our HousingMulti-FamilyGroup. Jeff has been with Marous Brothers Construction for 22 years, starting as a carpenter apprentice and working his way up to Journeyman, Foreman, Superintendent and now Director of Field Operations. Jeff is responsible for the effective execution of all eld activities to ensure our jobs are completed on schedule and within budget. Congratulations, Jeff!

To place your listing, visit www.crainscleveland.com/people-on-the-move or, for more information, contact Debora Stein at 917.226.5470 / dstein@crain.com

LAWHahn Loeser & Parks Greg Watkins has joined the Cleveland of ce as a partner in its Business Practice Area. He has been practicing at Ohio law rms since 2011. Greg focuses on mergers & acquisitions, restructurings, divestments, debt and equity issuances and governance matters. Ohio Super Lawyers has recognized him as a Rising Star in four straight years. A member of the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association, Greg earned his J.D. from Case Western Reserve University and a bachelor’s degree from Ohio University.

CONSTRUCTIONMarousBrothers Construction We are happy to announce promotiontheof Rick Neuberger to Director of Pre-Construction in our HousingMulti-FamilyGroup. In this role, Rick is responsible for directing and coordinating all preconstruction activities of the Multi-Family Housing Group as they relate to construction resourcedevelopment,documentconstructionscheduling,project cost control and procurement. Rick brings 40 years of construction experience to the team. Congratulations, Rick!

LAWGallagher Sharp LLP Gallagher Sharp is pleased to announce the addition of Associate Alyssa J. Wheeler-Keene. She is a member of the rm’s General Litigation and Transportation Practice Groups, and has a wide range of experience in personal injury, property damage, and wrongful death litigation. She also defends commercial trucking companies in litigation arising from truck accidents, and has experience in municipal liability and insurance law. Alyssa received her law degree from Cleveland-Marshall College of Law.

—Don Larson, the president of the British American Chamber of Commerce

NONPROFITSUCPofGreater Cleveland After three years as Director of Finance & Administration, Celeste Isom has been promoted to the position of Chief Financial Of cer at UCP of Greater Cleveland. Celeste spearheaded UCP’s efforts to secure close to six million dollars in relief funding while overseeing all scal matters, budgeting and forecasting. She works very closely with the Board of Directors as well as the entire management team to evaluate nancial ef ciencies in programming administration.and MCF Global Services. “When you think about all the meetings you go to, what’s really the most valu able? Where are people hearing about new opportunities?” That doesn’t happen when qui etly listening to a panel, Larson said. It happens in more informal settings, where people build per sonal relationships before they build business ones. Like, say, a golf course. “The thing that’s going to be wealth-generating, the thing that’s going to move your career ahead happens when you’ve just cracked open a beer on hole No. 7 and you say, ‘God, that tastes good. I just broke one of these open three weeks ago when I landed a new client called XYZ,’” Larson said. “And your partner says, ‘Oh, I really wanted to talk to them.’”It’scliché

The welcomeAuthorityMetropolitanCuyahogaHousingisproudto Terry M. Billups as Chief General Counsel. With an extensive legal background, Billups serves as a visionary member of the Executive Leadership Team and provides strategic counsel and leadership on legal, business and operational matters to advance CMHA’s mission and strategy for both internal and external stakeholders. He is passionate about providing housing opportunities and improving the quality of life for the families of CMHA.

CONSTRUCTIONMarousBrothers Construction We are pleased to announce Sean Mee as our Director of Human Resources. Sean comes to Marous Brothers Construction with 25+ years of experience in Human Resources. Sean works directly with the CEO/President to support the growth of the business through leading the talent acquisition and retention strategy, as well as enhancing the training and developmentleadershipprogram through Marous University for new and current employees. Welcome to the team, Sean! Marous Brothers Construction

The European team celebrates a victory in the BACC Ryder Cup in 2018. Holding the trophy is team captain and BACC Ohio chairman Bruce Lowe, a partner at Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP. | SUBMITTED

MANUFACTURINGTalanProducts,Inc.

22 | CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS | AUG US T 15, 2022

PEOPLE ON THE MOVE Advertising Section

Joe Scalzo: joe.scalzo@crain.com, (216) 771-5256, @JoeScalzo01

BANKINGAndover Bank Andover welcomesBankPaul Skerlong, Vice President, Mortgage Leader, to our new loan production of ce at 3924 ClockPointe Trail, Stow, Ohio 44224. The Stow of ce will be offering mortgage and commercial loan products to residential and commercial customers in the Akron, Canton, and Cleveland markets. “Paul has been in the banking industry for more than 20 years. We are fortunate to add an experienced Mortgage Leader,” stated Sean Dockery, Senior Vice President.

GOLF From Page 1

GOVERNMENTCuyahogaMetropolitanHousingAuthority

Talan Products’ growth necessitated the addition of its rst COO, Adam Snyder Overseeing both sales and operations will allow Snyder to build a strong bench of talent that will enable Talan to keep up with existing and new customer demand especially in the disruptive industries such as solar and EV. “There are lots of great things happening at Talan, and there are numerous opportunities for us to become exceptional as an organization. I look forward to being part of Talan’s success story.”

CONSTRUCTION

“THE THING THAT’S GOING TO BE WEALTHGENERATING, THE THING THAT’S GOING TO MOVE YOUR CAREER AHEAD HAPPENS WHEN YOU’VE JUST CRACKED OPEN A BEER ON HOLE NO. 7 AND YOU SAY, ‘GOD, THAT TASTES GOOD. I JUST BROKE ONE OF THESE OPEN THREE WEEKS AGO WHEN I LANDED A NEW CLIENT CALLED XYZ.’ AND YOUR PARTNER SAYS, ‘OH, I REALLY WANTED TO TALK TO THEM.’”

— and, to some, may be a little passé — to say that busi ness gets done on the golf course. But in an age where people com municate via Zoom, Teams, Slack and countless other messaging platforms, many believe there is still value to talking to clients and colleagues on a course, instead of from a couch or a cubicle. “I think people are more re laxed; they’re not thinking you’re trying to sell something to them,” said Michael Urse, a longtime partner in PricewaterhouseCoo pers’ International Tax Practice division who still works at the company as a consultant. “Friend ships are built and people on the other team become clients of ours. When people get to know you, they realize you’re just a nor mal person who’s going to be able to help them with their business.” e BACC Ryder Cup will be held Sept. 7 at Tanglewood Golf Course in Chagrin Falls, followed by two days of sessions, speeches and net working opportunities at the down town Intercontinental Hotel. While the conference rotates sites — next year’s event is expect ed to be in London, followed by Chicago in 2024 — the BACC Ry der Cup is an annual event held each year in Ohio, either at Tan glewood or Red Tail Golf Club in Avon.Itshifted to a Ryder Cup format on Sept. 13, 2001, when the coun try was still reeling from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Nearly 80 golf ers showed up for a BACC golf outing — about 80% of the num ber originally registered — and BACC Ohio chairman Bruce Lowe gave a “rousing speech” about the special relationship between the two countries. Urse suggested moving to a Ryder Cup format modeled on the biennial golf event between teams from the U.S. and Europe. The format allows for close competition, with the U.S. team holding an 11-9 lead. “It’s been a very sportsmanlike event,” said Urse, who serves as the U.S. team captain, while Lowe handles those duties for the Euro pean team. “The Euros are very gracious, even when they win. The Americans tend to be a little raucous.”Helaughed, then added, “We’re not as good of winners.” When they’re not giving each other the business, the golfers of ten make time to talk business — whether it’s on the course or af terward, Lowe said. “Very often somebody after ward calls me up and says, ‘I real ly enjoyed playing with that bloke — or against them — and can you get me their contact information? I wanted to get back in touch with them for some business purpose or another,’” said Lowe, a partner at Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP. “It really is a good way of making introductions and facilitating the opening of relationships.”

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Volume 43, Number 30 Crain’s Cleveland Business (ISSN 0197-2375) is published weekly, except no issue on 1/3/22, combined issues on 5/23/22, 6/27/22, 8/29/22, 11/21/22, at 700 West St. Clair Ave., Suite 310, Cleveland, OH Copyright44113-1230.©2022 by Crain Communications Inc. Periodicals postage paid at Cleveland, OH, and at additional mailing o ces. Price per copy: $2.00. Postmaster: Send address changes to Crain’s Cleveland Business, Circulation Department, 1155 Gratiot Avenue, Detroit, MI 48207-2912. 1 (877) Subscriptions:824-9373.InOhio: 1 year - $79, 2 year - $110. Outside Ohio: 1 year - $110, 2 year - $195. Single copy, $2.00. Allow 4 weeks for change of address. For subscription information and delivery concerns send correspondence to Audience Development Department, Crain’s Cleveland Business, 1155 Gratiot Avenue, Detroit, MI, 48207-9911, or email to customerservice@crainscleveland.com, or call (877) 824-9373 (in the U.S. and Canada) or (313) 446-0450 (all other locations), or fax (313) 446-6777.

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2022 Recognizing Northeast Ohio’s top executives in NOMINATEtechnologyNOW! Deadline is Monday, August 22 Nominate at CrainsCleveland.com/NotableTech Honorees of this Notables program will have the exclusive opportunity to network with their peers at a private event hosted by

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