Crain's Cleveland Business, September 23, 2024

Public safety has a perception problem

Often a perception gap exists between how safe city dwellers feel and their statistical risk of victimization.

Right now, however, it’s exceptionally wide. PAGE 10

51% A majority of survey respondents said they feel less safe now than a few years ago.

Akron Decides Survey, 2023

Increase in storms, tornadoes impact insurance rates

In ation hits harder than downed trees, experts say

By Stan Bullard

Five tornadoes ripping through Northeast Ohio in a single day in August will join the storm that killed five people in 1968 at Edgewater Beach and Lakewood Park and the blizzard of 1978 in the region's collective weather memory.

And tornadoes are becoming more frequent. Besides an outbreak last August similar to this year's across Northeast Ohio, the entire state has seen a record number of tornadoes this year.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Ohio currently ranks 7th in the nation with 78 reported tornadoes this year, ahead of states typically more

prone to twisters, like Oklahoma (74) and Alabama (45).

However, the downed trees and days without power will not be a major factor in the prospect of rising Cleveland- and Akronarea insurance rates, as experts say that's on the way due to in ation and, of course, wild res in the West and hurricanes in the South.

Although insurance costs are still being tallied from recent storms — which would drive insurer requests for rate hikes through the Oho Department of Insurance — experts say the storms were still substantial.

Tim Hrobat, president of Hrobat Insurance in Parma, said, "In my little agency, we had more than $1 million in claims from the storm Aug. 6. I don't believe that we have seen that before here."

See INSURANCE on Page 16

What would Browns tickets cost at Brook Park stadium?

It's complicated — and the team says its too soon to give any numbers

By Joe Scalzo

Last month, two Cleveland City Council members, Kris Harsh and Danny Kelly, brie y made headlines by conducting an admittedly unscienti c poll of Cleveland Browns fans.

Over the course of two home preseason games, they asked more than 3,000 fans a simple question: Should the Browns stay in Cleveland or go to Brook Park?

e result? Just under 60% said they should stay.

Meanwhile, the Cleveland Browns have conducted their own survey, with owner Dee Haslam telling reporters in July:

“A casual survey says they’re real excited about Brook Park, but you know, that’s not very scienti c. So I don’t know.”

e problem, of course, is that “Stay or go?” is too simple a question.

A better one might be: “Would you rather the Browns do a $1 billion renovation of the lakefront stadium that includes $500 million in public nancing, or

build a $2.4 billion dome in Brook Park that includes $1.2 billion in public nancing, plus another $500 million or so in publicly nanced infrastructure upgrades?”

But even that doesn’t go far enough, since there’s another unknown variable: How much more would fans have to pay for things like tickets, parking, concessions and merchandise at the Brook Park dome compared to the lakefront stadium?

A rendering shows the inside of the Browns’ proposed domed stadium in Brook Park. | CLEVELAND BROWNS

Ursuline, Gannon enter ‘strategic partnership’

Schools move to create a university system that would include 6,000 students and campuses in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida

By Joe Scalzo

Ten years ago, Gannon University took what its president called a “calculated risk” and opened a campus in Ruskin, Florida, a move that allowed the Erie, Pennsylvania-based Catholic school to expand into a new market and grow its programs.

“ at was a tree we planted,” Gannon President Walter Iwanenko Jr. said. “Ruskin has been a beacon of success, and we are proud of what we’ve accomplished there.

“Ruskin is also an inspiration. We learned we can grow through new campuses and new partnerships in other locations.”

In other words, Gannon wasn’t done taking risks — or planting trees.

On Monday, Sept. 16, Gannon and Ursuline College announced they had signed a letter of intent (LOI) to enter into a “strategic partnership,” one that will create what the two universities say will be the largest Catholic university system in the region and “differentiate us from our competitors."

e move, which is contingent on the successful completion of due diligence, will create an institution with about 6,000 students, 1,300 employees and campuses in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida. e due diligence phase will last about two months and is expected to lead to a “de nitive agreement” between the institutions that are subject to regulatory and accreditor approvals, the schools said. e entire process is expected to take 12 to 18 months.

“While a LOI is not legally binding, the de nitive agreement is,” new Ursuline President David King said at a town hall on Sept. 16. “To use a simple analogy — we have agreed to begin dating. is is expected to lead to an engagement or the de nitive agreement,

“We believe this is the best way to extend the life of the college and continue Ursuline’s legacy so that it can continue to educate students in the Catholic tradition, as it has done for more than 150 years.”

Sister Laura Bregar, president of the Ursuline Sisters of Cleveland

and nally marriage — a strategic partnership between our two institutions.”

For now, there will be no immediate impact on programs, courses, athletic teams, tuition or scholarships, the schools said. ere will also be no immediate e ect on employment, pay or bene ts at Ursuline.

“We believe this is the best way to extend the life of the college

and continue Ursuline’s legacy so that it can continue to educate students in the Catholic tradition, as it has done for more than 150 years,” said Sister Laura Bregar, who is president of the Ursuline Sisters of Cleveland.

Ursuline, founded in 1871 by the Ursuline Sisters of Cleveland, had 923 students in fall 2023, including 637 undergraduate students. Its enrollment is about

Cleveland Clinic is boosting its primary care presence in Akron

Paige Bennett

Cleveland Clinic Children’s is boosting its Akron presence with the debut of its rst pediatric primary care and speciality services hub in the city.

It will begin o ering primary care services Monday, Sept. 16, at the Cleveland Clinic Akron General’s Medical O ce Building on South Broadway Street. Specialty services, including cardiology, allergy and psychiatry, will be rolled out over the next several weeks.

e o ce, which has 23 physician providers, has 18 exam rooms, two behavioral health rooms and rooms for echocardiograms, allergy testing observation and pulmonary testing.

e new services are meant to complement the obstetric care offered in the same building since 2004, Dr. Rita Pappas, interim chief of Cleveland Clinic Children’s, said in a phone interview.

e location provides a prenatal care model known as CenteringPregnancy, which features group discussions between expectant patients and providers, focusing on topics like labor preparation and early newborn care.

“Being in this building, the thought is that those high-risk moms with social determinants of health could actually transition right over with their babies for primary care in this area,” Pappas said.

e move, which has been sev-

eral years in the making, also brings the Clinic’s primary care services to downtown Akron. e health system already has sites in the suburbs of Fairlawn, Tallmadge, Stow Falls and Hudson, but Pappas said the organization wanted to reach patients in the city.

“ e other areas are further out in the community, out in the suburbs,” she said. “ is is the opportunity to be equitable in our care and providing access for those patients.”

Cleveland Clinic Children’s is bringing more pediatric services to Akron at the same time Akron Children’s is looking to make a bigger splash in the Greater Cleveland market. In July, Akron Chil-

ing $100 million in campus upgrades while expanding its academic o erings as part of its "Inspired Futures" campaign. Because of its geographic location (90 minutes away) and shared religious affiliation, Gannon was an obvious fit, Iwanenko said.

“As my team and I learned about Ursuline over the past several months, I was struck by how aligned our respective missions and values and histories are,” he said. “ at made it easy to make what we’re announcing today seem like an obvious move, maybe even inevitable.

“I believe this strategic partnership will leverage our respective strengths — our health programs, our liberal arts, but mostly our legacies of faith-based experiences. Together, I see us developing a premiere institution of Catholic higher education along Lake Erie.”

91% female.

Gannon’s administrators and board members spent more than a year exploring di erent mergers, acquisitions and partnerships, Iwanenko said, mainly outside Gannon’s market. en, last spring, Gannon learned about Ursuline College, “and something clicked,” Iwanenko said.

Ursuline was looking for a partner to help it navigate the rapidly changing landscape for higher education, one that had already claimed Notre Dame College — a Catholic school located 10 minutes away from Ursuline in South Euclid that closed in May after more than 100 years in operation. Also, John Carroll University — a private Catholic school located 10 minutes away in University Heights — is invest-

Both schools have created web pages that answer frequently asked questions at Ursuline.edu and Gannon.edu/UCFAQ. Ursuline is also planning to hold campus town halls for faculty, sta and students “during the entire process.” e college said it will also have weekly communication with faculty sta through email and video, face-to-face gatherings.

Ultimately, King said, the goal of the partnership will be to grow both the number of students on Ursuline’s campus and the number of opportunities they have.

“We proactively sought a mutually bene cial partnership that preserves our traditions, engages our students, faculty, and sta , and o ers expanded opportunities,” King said. “We believe we’ve found that in Gannon.”

Added Iwanenko, “One (school) will not erase the other. Instead, together, we will begin crafting the next version of ourselves.”

dren’s opened the doors to a new pediatric urgent care center and pediatric outpatient surgery center in Beachwood as part of its overall Cuyahoga County expansion.

Pappas said another advantage

of growing in the Akron market is that services will be available to the Clinic’s employee health plan dependents. She said the health system has roughly 7,000 dependents in the Summit County region.

Ursuline College in Pepper Pike plans to form a partnership with Gannon University. | URSULINE COLLEGE

Expansion and acquisitions fuel growth for Jade Steel

Most recently, the company purchased Precision Kidd Steel in Pennsylvania

By Dan Shingler

A Cleveland suburb quietly got a new steel company last year, one that processes and sells the stu rather than make it as a mill does — and it’s growing at a rapid pace.

Scott Herman, co-owner and CEO of Jade Steel in Bedford Heights, said his company has seen a big jump in its sales in the last three years.

“We’re approximately, with the new acquisition, $150 million to $165 million” in annual sales, Herman said. “And we’ve almost tripled our sales in the last ve years.”

Last year, he moved the company from Twinsburg because he needed more room for the expansions he planned to make, Herman said.

gives him another facility, about 200,000 square feet of total facilities near Pittsburgh, where Jade also purchased Clark Precision Machined Components in 2019.

The Precision Kidd acquisition also doubled his payroll, with Kidd’s approximately 70 employees bringing Jade’s total staff count to about 140.

Herman said it’s ne that payroll increased more than revenue from the deal because Jade bought Precision Kidd largely for its reputation and ability to perform processes that Jade couldn’t perform on its own.

“I probably have seven years left and I want to make this place as big as possible before I retire.”

Scott Herman, co-owner and CEO of Jade Steel

e company purchased a 210,000-square-foot building on Richmond Road in Bedford Heights and has leased another 150,000-square-foot building next door. Herman said Jade renovated them, creating new o ce facilities and a modernized warehouse and distribution facility.

Jade also has been making acquisitions, most recently with the purchase of Precision Kidd Steel, a producer of precision cold-drawn steel in Aliquippa and Clinton, Pennsylvania.

Terms of that August transaction were not disclosed, but Herman said it adds about 20% to his annual sales and also

“We’ll increase our sales but the most exciting part of when we purchased Clark and Precision Kidd is that they do operations we were always paying toll processors to do,” Herman said. at includes cold-drawing steel into shapes that Jade could not previously produce.

Cold-drawing is a process where steel is forced through a die so that it comes out in a different size or shape than when it went in. It’s called cold-drawn steel because the operation is performed at room temperature, requiring great force but producing steel that is smooth and precisely sized, Herman said.

For example, the company might buy steel rods that are 11⁄16 inches in diameter and draw them out into very exact 1 inch tolerances, Herman said. Or, a round rod might be forced through a hexagonal die to produce things like blanks for hex wrenches or screwdrivers,

he said.

Sales of such products have been good, Herman said. His end markets range from parts for rearms to parts for power tools, agricultural equipment, and a lot of other tools and equipment. He said he sells into a variety of industries, mostly to other manufacturers, but doesn’t do much in automotive.

Herman said business has picked up dramatically at the business since there was a change among some of the partners about ve years ago (he currently has six partners in the business).

e business used to depend on overrun steel and other leftover stock from the mills, which it could buy on the cheap and sell at a pro t. Herman said he and some of the new partners have instead been focusing on what customers need and then buying what they need to produce it, without worrying about whether it was buying that steel at a steep discount.

That includes stocking inventory so that neither Jade nor its customers will be caught in future supply-chain problems.

“We always have between 30,000 and 40,000 tons of inventory on hand at all times,” Herman said.

Now he plans to buy more companies. The goal will be to further expand Jade’s capabilities, he said. For example, Herman said he’d likely be interested in a similar company that has heat-treating capabilities — something he now pays others to do.

“I probably have seven years left and I want to make this place as big as possible before I retire,” Herman said.

Jade Steel in Bedford Heights | DAN SHINGLER

OUT OF THIS WORLD SERVICE

To close 2024 strong, businesses should focus on critical HR areas

As we prepare to enter the nal quarter of 2024, it’s a critical time for business owners to ask, "How can I nish out the

strong?"

Among the many responsibilities executives juggle, most have one thing in common: a human element.

Human resource functions are crucial areas that, if neglected, can result in costly mistakes and long-term operational setbacks. With just a few months remaining, focusing on these ve key HR priorities can help businesses avoid potential risks while building a strong foundation for growth, compliance, and employee engagement, ensuring a successful close to 2024.

1. Compliance and legal requirements

Krystal Filippo is an HR director consultant with Clevelandheadquartered ConnectedHR.

Navigating the ever-changing landscape of employment law is a challenge for many business owners, but compliance is not something that can be ignored. Ensure your business is up-to-date with ACA compliance, employee classi cation, labor law postings, and reporting requirements (e.g., W-2s, 1094-C, 1095-C) to avoid potential nes or legal issues.

Why it matters: Failure to le required forms (e.g., W-2s, 1094-C, 1095-C) can result in severe nancial consequences and disrupt business operations.

2. Bene ts and competitiveness

In a highly competitive job market, o ering the right bene ts package can be the di erence between attracting top talent and losing it to competitors. Regularly reviewing and adjusting your benets, such as health insurance and paid time o (PTO), ensures your business remains appealing to potential hires. In addition, making cost-of-living adjustments shows your current employees that you value their contributions.

Why it matters: Competitive bene ts and salary o erings are critical to attracting and retaining skilled employees. Regularly reviewing your bene ts package ensures your business stays appealing in the job market and meets the expectations of current employees, contributing to employee satisfaction and reducing turnover.

3. Payroll and tax readiness

One of the most critical and time-sensitive HR functions is payroll. Ensuring payroll schedules are organized and employee wage and withholding in-

formation is correct can prevent costly errors. Preparing for tax lings by ordering necessary forms and reviewing payroll processes reduces the chance of mistakes that could result in tax penalties or delays in employee payments.

Why it matters: Accurate payroll and tax lings are essential to avoid discrepancies that could cause delays in employee payments or issues with tax authorities. Proper organization of payroll schedules and withholding information ensures that employees are paid on time and that the business stays compliant with tax regulations.

4. Staf ng and succession planning e success of your business depends heavily on your ability to manage sta ng e ectively. By evaluating sta ng needs and updating job descriptions regularly, you ensure that your business is prepared for future growth and can quickly address any personnel changes. Having a wellthought-out succession plan ensures that your business remains stable, even when key employees depart unexpectedly.

Why it matters: Regularly evaluating sta ng needs and having a clear succession plan in place helps your business prepare for growth or unexpected sta changes. Updating job descriptions and planning for future hires ensures that key roles are lled quickly, minimizing disruptions to daily operations.

5. Employee engagement and policy updates

Employee engagement is more than a nice-tohave — it is essential for maintaining a motivated and productive workforce. Keeping policies up to date and clearly communicating changes to sta fosters transparency and trust.

Why it matters: Conducting performance reviews, updating the employee handbook, and organizing year-end activities like bonuses and parties are crucial for keeping employees motivated, appreciated, and aligned with company goals. Clear communication and recognition enhance morale and can lead to higher productivity and retention. As executives gear up to close out 2024, don’t let HR responsibilities hinder your business’ success. Proactively addressing compliance, bene ts, payroll, sta ng and employee engagement not only safeguards your business from costly risks, but also sets the stage for a strong start in 2025.

Mayor signals possible closure of Burke Airport

Repurposing hundreds of acres of waterfront is ‘economically advantageous’ for city, Bibb says

By Kim Palmer

In a long-awaited but unsurprising announcement, Cleveland Mayor Justin M. Bibb said two now-public studies on Burke Lakefront Airport reinforced a “long-held belief” that suspending ights there and repurposing the hundreds of acres of waterfront for another use is “economically advantageous" for the city.

“ ese studies are crucial in helping us understand the feasibility and potential bene ts of transforming Burke Lakefront Airport into a space that better serves our community,” Bibb said in a statement on Monday, Sept. 16.

and mixed-use development would generate greater economic impact of an estimated $92 million annually.

Opening up the shoreline on the east end of downtown has been on many wish lists for years. Some urban planners have expressed concern, though, about the impact on the commercial market of opening up hundreds of acres of development.

Other concerns center around the environmental state of the land, much of which is run-o from the Cuyahoga River or lldirt from decades of development south of the Lake Erie shore.

Proponents for repurposing

Redeveloping at least 200 of Burke’s 445 acres as public green space and mixed-use development would generate greater economic impact of an estimated $92 million annually.

e statement out of City Hall and the public release of nearly 100 pages of data “provide valuable insights,” Bibb said, but do not represent a nal decision on whether the mayor will move ocially to close the 77-year-old airport.

e studies commissioned by Bibb’s administration examined both the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requirements and the nancial implications of shuttering the air eld, which is used mainly by small airlines and private jets.

e 43-page economic impact study, called “Valuing Burke Lakefront Airport,” estimated that Burke currently generates “a relatively small” annual direct economic impact of about $76.6 million.

But the study asserted that redeveloping at least 200 of Burke's 445 acres as public green space

United bringing free Wi-Fi to ights

By Mary Schlangenstein, Bloomberg

United Airlines Holdings Inc. announced a deal for SpaceX’s Starlink to power its in ight WiFi, becoming the rst major U.S. carrier to use the satellite system and giving the Elon Musk-run company a marquee customer.

e airline will begin testing the service early next year and roll it out to passenger ights later in 2025, the companies said Friday, Sept. 13, in a statement. Starlink will eventually be available for free across the carrier’s entire eet of more than 1,000 planes on seatback screens and personal electronic devices.

According to the Bureau of Transportation, United is Cleveland Hopkins' leading airline by the percentage of total passengers at just over 2,250,000 between June 2023 and June 2024. Frontier is second with 1,828,000 during that same time frame.

Airlines have pushed over the last several years to provide fast and reliable in ight Wi-Fi instead of the glitchy, not-always-available o ering that has long plagued passengers. Expanded satellite bandwidth has helped to produce internet experiences closer to what consumers expect on the ground, an o ering that vacation travelers as well as road-warrior businesspeople see as essential.

“Everything you can do on the ground, you’ll soon be able to do onboard a United plane at 35,000 feet,” United CEO Scott Kirby said

in the statement.

In the U.S., only Hawaiian Holdings Inc. and public charter carrier JSX currently use Starlink.

Starlink is SpaceX’s ever-growing internet-from-space initiative that consists of more than 6,300 satellites in a relatively low orbit around Earth. Together, the satellites work in tandem to beam broadband internet coverage to the ground below. Unlike other satellite internet systems in much higher orbits, Starlink’s closer proximity to Earth cuts down on latency, as there’s less distance for signals to travel from the ground to the satellites.

e Starlink gate-to-gate service will allow access to personal streaming services and online shopping, connect to multiple devices at once by one user and en-

able downloading, editing and sending of documents in real time, the companies said. United has Wi-Fi through several companies, including Panasonic, which provides connectivity across the globe on some Airbus SE and Boeing Co. jets, including widebody aircraft for international ights. Viasat Inc. coverage includes the US, Canada, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and Europe. ales SA has service in the continental U.S., while Intelsat Inc.’s Gogo covers domestic markets on United regional jets.

Outside of the U.S., Starlink is used by Qatar Airways QCSC and Air Baltic Corp., while Air New Zealand Ltd. and ZIPAIR Tokyo Inc. have announced agreements with the company.

the large waterfront property point to the growing number of redevelopment plans, including the North Coast Master Plan's $440 million project to construct a 120-foot-wide “land bridge” from Mall C to the lake, as examples of better uses for the shore.

Cleveland City Council President Blaine Gri n said he welcomes ideas for any possible reuse of the site following the release of the reports.

He said in a statement that the release of the reports "will allow us to connect quantitative research with the many thoughts and opinions shared over the years.”

Gri n added, “Council will thoroughly review this report, rely on the feedback of our constituents, and work with our partners in the administration and the federal level to determine the appropriate next steps."

“Valuing Burke Lakefront Airport” study

Despite more passengers, Cleveland Hopkins still lags in airport rankings

tentially serve more than 10 million passengers this year.

Ohio’s rst Chopt Salad location to open in Eton Chagrin Boulevard

By Alexandra Golden

Cleveland Hopkins International Airport has long been one of U.S. travelers' least favorite places to y, but it's now at the bottom of one of the most credible rankings of airports its size.

e Cleveland airport is ranked last among the 15 medium-sized North American airports surveyed in this year’s J.D. Power satisfaction report, which was released Wednesday, Sept. 18.

"It's just got a lot of issues with the building and access," said Michael Taylor, managing director of travel, hospitality and retail at J.D. Power. "If it takes you a lot of time to get to the airport and you feel like you're late, you don't enjoy anything about it. You think the bathroom is dirtier, the food doesn't taste as good and TSA takes forever. at's one of the issues at Cleveland, it's getting people on the airport campus and through the airport facility. at's probably their biggest problem."

e rankings are based on a survey of more than 26,000 travelers. It evaluates customer satisfaction levels with, in order of importance, "ease of travel through airport; level of trust with airport; terminal facilities; airport sta ; departure/to airport experience; food, beverage and retail; and arrival/from airport experience."

Food, beverage and retail at Cleveland Hopkins is just about average, Taylor said.

CLE falls within the survey’s “medium” classi cation, meaning it had 4.5 million to 9.9 million passengers during the survey period, which spanned from August 2023 through July 2024.

Indianapolis International Airport led the category for the seventh consecutive year, followed by Jacksonville International Airport and Southwest Florida International Airport.

Cleveland's "medium" classication could soon change, though, as more and more travelers keep coming through the airport. After seeing some of its busiest months in more than a decade, the port is on track to po-

And progress has been made toward modernization e orts which, when complete, could bring these traveler rankings back up.

Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport and John Glenn Columbus International Airport are also in the "medium" category, ranking No. 8 and No. 9, respectively.

Last year, Cincinnati improved to No. 7, while Columbus maintained its No. 11 spot. Cleveland ranked No. 13 in 2023.

Minneapolis-Saint Paul is the top-ranked performer this year in the "mega airport" category. It took the throne from Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport, now ranked No. 2., as travelers' favorite big airport, de ned as those serving 33 million or more passengers per year.

Among large airports with 10 million to 32.9 million passengers per year, John Wayne Airport in Orange County, Calif., topped the list, followed by Tampa International Airport and Kansas City International Airport.

J.D. Power characterized the past year in air travel as one of record passenger volume and widespread cancellations. e consumer insights company noted in ation did not appear to deter travel, though it may have had a negative e ect on consumer spending at airports.

“Huge air travel demand has not slowed down in North America, despite the steadily rising costs of ights, ground travel, hotel rooms and pretty much anything you can buy in an airport,” wrote Taylor. “Most travelers are still enjoying the experience. However, we are starting to see a breaking point in consumer spending, with average spend per person in the terminal declining signi cantly from a year ago.”

Spending at the largest airports dropped $6.31 per person to about $40, according to this year’s study. Across all airports, that decline was more like $3.50 per person.

Lovers of fast-casual food will have a new option at Eton Chagrin Boulevard next year as Chopt Creative Salad Co. has chosen the retail center as its rst Ohio location.

Known for its salads, wraps and warm grain bowls, the chain's nearest location to the Cleveland area is currently around 300 miles away, in Maryland. e new location is expected to open in the rst half of 2025 at 28699 Chagrin Blvd., Suite 425, in the former Fidelity Investments location.

e spot has been vacant since early spring.

Co-founder Colin McCabe said his goal with the chain is to maintain healthy eating options without sacri cing avor through a focus on the quality of ingredients, creativity of recipes and sourcing.

“My best friend and I, Tony Shure, started Chopt in 2001 in New York City and at a time when we saw a real lack of convenient healthy eating options, and what today is known as fast-casual — which means kind of better, healthier fast food — didn’t exist,” McCabe told Crain’s. “So we saw a real opportunity to take — and this is hard to believe now — what was considered a side dish, the salad, and elevate it to the main course, the star of the show.”

“We already think we have an amazing lineup of eateries, and Chopt just makes the circle complete,” Stacie Schmidt, vice presi-

dent of marketing for property landlord Stark Enterprises, told Crain's via email.

While Chopt may be new to the Ohio market, McCabe said there is some recognition in the state, which he thinks may be due to the chain's longevity (23 years) and positive reputation.

McCabe says Ohio still has a customer base, too, as there are people “who want healthy food, who live healthy active lives, who consider what they put into the body.” And, without a current Ohio location, McCabe notes that no other eatery is giving customers those options "in the way that we do it."

McCabe also hails the "fortunate" circumstances of landing a spot at Eton Chagrin — "a legacy center" — that he says is “absolutely the place we wanted to be."

“We know that Woodmere is a community that has … a healthy,

active community that cares about what they eat,” he added. McCabe said he wants the community “to trust us as a healthy, delicious option that they can eat at multiple times a week, and not just for them but their entire family.”

He adds that his wife's college roommate, who lives in Woodmere, was a good source for insight into the community. ey talked about the need for something like Chopt, the strength of Eton and that people will use it as part of “their daily lives to do something good for themselves without feeling like they've sacriced anything.”

While a date and speci c hours are not yet set, McCabe said stores are usually open from 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., depending on location, and more Eton-speci c details will be released closer to opening.

Jack Grieve

A

CRAIN’S DINING AND ENTERTAINMENT SPOTLIGHT

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GERVASI VINEYARD RESORT & SPA

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Dining at Gervasi Vineyard Resort & Spa offers a luxurious and unforgettable experience. Nestled in a picturesque vineyard, the resort features exquisite Italian-inspired cuisine, paired with award-winning wines. Guests can enjoy elegant indoor dining or picturesque outdoor seating, surrounded by serene landscapes, ensuring a delightful and relaxing culinary journey. Perfect for romantic dinners or celebratory occasions.

LUCA WEST

24600 Detroit Rd., Westlake, OH 44145

216-201-9600

lucawest.com

Welcome to Luca West:

A ne dining restaurant offering an exquisite Northern Italian culinary experience led by awardwinning Chef Luca Sema. Our team is committed to delivering an exceptional dining experience and creating a warm and inviting atmosphere for our guests. Additionally, our rose garden patio and private event spaces offer an ideal setting for any special occasion.

MERWIN’S WHARF

1785 Merwin Avenue Cleveland, OH 44113

216-664-5696

merwinswharf.com

Nestled in the postindustrial site of Cleveland’s Flats neighborhood along the Cuyahoga River, Merwin’s Wharf offers spectacular views and connects guests to urban greenspace. Enjoy fresh, seasonal and locally-sourced menu items year round. The restaurant features a seasonal patio and reservable day-use boat slips on a rst-come, rst-serve basis. Check out the latest special events and specials at merwinswharf.com.

PIER W

12700 Lake Ave., Winton Place, Lakewood, Ohio 44107

216-228-2250

pierw.com

Pier W is truly one of a kind, for the best Cleveland seafood. Always impressing with its unique location, seafood-focused cuisine and welcoming hospitality.

A landmark restaurant since 1965, its architecture was designed to resemble the hull of a cruise ship. Set within a cliff overlooking Lake Erie, guests enjoy elegant dining with a panoramic view of Cleveland.

PUBLIC SAFETY

26% Just over a quarter of Americans rate Detroit as a safe place to visit.

Gallup, August 2023

27% Just over a quarter of Americans rate Chicago as a safe place to visit.

Gallup, August 2023

51% A majority of survey respondents said they feel less safe now than a few years ago.

Akron Decides Survey, 2023

Public safety has a perception problem

For the Great Lakes region’s biggest cities, crime stats don’t fully capture

By Steve Hendershot

Chicagoan Lisa Stringer sees the improving crime stats coming out this year — a decline in car thefts, homicides returning to pre-pandemic levels — and she wants to believe. She wants to relax.

But Stringer can’t square the data’s rosy picture with what she sees outside her window in the city’s North Mayfair neighborhood. In the last couple of years, she’s witnessed a break-in at a neighborhood business, seen the dismantling of a stolen car, and heard shooting in the alley behind her home. Late one night while she drove along Elston Avenue, an SUV pulled alongside her at a stoplight. Two people wearing masks got out and approached her car. She sped forward, narrowly avoiding a collision while making her escape.

So when she hears reports of a stabilizing city, Stringer is skeptical.

“It’s frustrating when people try to dismiss you and pat you on the head and say you’re being dramatic,” Stringer says. “You have a chart, but I am telling you that my personal, lived experience in the last two years is the complete opposite of that. For the rst time in my life, I don’t feel safe.”

Often a perception gap exists between how safe city dwellers feel and their statistical risk of victimization. Right now, however, it’s exceptionally wide.

Polls indicate that many Americans share Stringer’s perspective. In the 2023 edition of Gallup’s annual crime survey — the most recent iteration — respondents voiced more pessimism about local and national crime than at any point in the survey’s roughly 20-year history.

Yet according to law enforcement data, crime is receding across the country. Homicides and auto thefts are declining sharply this year, with the number of murders approaching pre-pandemic levels, according to AH Datalytics’ Real-Time Crime Index. A Council on Criminal Justice analysis that focuses on big-city crime shows similar positive trends across the country’s largest metros. e number of homicides is down in three of the Great Lakes region’s largest cities — Cleveland, Detroit and Chicago.

It adds up to a curious divergence, not to mention a stubborn problem in a region where cities are trying to emerge from the pandemic and also reverse decades of population loss.

It’s not just safety that’s on the line, it’s civic momentum.

Detroiters are “so invested in a comeback and seeing the city come back to a sense of prominence,” says Zoe Kennedy, who works to stem community violence as public health and safety director of nonpro t Force Detroit. e pandemic interrupted that progress.

In Chicago, during the pandemic “there was a crisis of con dence. People were not con dent they were going to have a positive experience” downtown, says Michael Edwards, president and CEO of the Chicago Loop Alliance. But Edwards says the crime data backs up the improved conditions he’s observing. If people are still scared of visiting the Loop, he says, “it’s a mistaken old idea, a remnant of the pandemic.”

at frames the challenge facing regional city leaders: not only to ensure that their cities are safe but also that they feel safe.

at's easier said than done right now, in part because of a string of high-pro le crimes across the region that cut against the crime data’s optimistic narrative. In the early hours of Labor Day, four sleeping passengers on a Chicago Transit Authority train were shot to death.

In July, two were killed and 19 wounded during a shooting at a Detroit block party. On a Saturday night in late June, a gun ght broke

Homicides decline in Chicago, Cleveland and Detroit

out at Cleveland’s most popular beachfront park. All three incidents were horri c and felt even more unsettling because they showed how violence can erupt even in seemingly safe public spaces.

“Nobody has ever tied their personal feelings of public safety purely to crime stats. They go outside their door and look around.”

What’s driving the perception gap?

ey’re the sorts of crimes that grab hold of the imagination, which can be an especially powerful in uence on perceptions.

“ e fear of crime that (high-prole incidents) create cannot be oset by a 20% reduction in homicide,” says Charlie Beck, former chief of the Los Angeles Police Department and former interim police superintendent in Chicago. “Nobody has ever tied their personal feelings of public safety purely to crime stats. ey go outside their door and look around.”

An increasing political dimension drives perceptions of urban crime. For example, Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents were more than three times as likely as their Republican and Republican-leaning counterparts to consider Chicago a safe place to live or visit, according to a di erent 2023 Gallup Poll. In Detroit, the gap was only a bit more narrow, with Republican or Republican-leaning independents about two and a half times less likely to view the city as safe than Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents. e partisan gap has grown sharply this century: e average divergence in perception across the poll is 29 percentage points, compared to just 2 points in 2006.

But politics and outside opinions don’t explain why many residents of solidly blue cities aren’t feeling safe. Crime ranks as the top reason Detroit residents would consider leaving the city, according to a 2023 survey by the Detroit Chamber of Commerce. In a survey of Chicago voters conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy on behalf of several local media outlets prior to the 2023 mayoral election, crime was the runaway leading issue.

Charlie Beck, former chief of the Los Angeles Police Department and former interim police superintendent in Chicago

So what gives? Are city residents seeing things that are missing from crime data? Or are their perceptions especially skewed? Several factors may be contributing to a pronounced safety perception gap.

An environment that feels more chaotic

Kenya Valentine is a longtime rider of Chicago's el trains. Since the pandemic, “there’s been a huge change,” she says. “It’s not safe.”

She says this while standing beneath the tracks at the Red Line’s Wilson stop, where a few days earlier a man fled the train after being stabbed during an afternoon altercation. Yet Valentine’s assessment wasn’t based on witnessing violent crime so much as an uptick in other sorts of rule-breaking, like people smoking on the train or selling drugs at el stations.

Public-transit crime is an issue in Chicago. A September Chicago Tribune analysis found that serious crimes occurring on Chicago Transit Authority trains, buses and stations are near their highest levels since 2000. But riders like Valentine are also noticing the small stuff that doesn’t show up in violent-crime data. That’s a crucial development, according to Beck, the former Los Angeles police chief. Since the pandemic, he says, “in the big cities, I think there is a lot of evidence that people see in their day-to-day lives that shows a lack of control, or a society that is shifting towards less cohesiveness about what's normal in public spaces.”

The word “normal” is key to thinking about perceptions of safety, because people can feel comfortable in a broad range of environments as long as their surroundings seem predictable and familiar.

For example, Chico Tillmon, executive director of the Community Violence Intervention Leadership Academy, grew up in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood during a violence-plagued period in the 1990s. Yet he felt safe there.

“It wasn't about Austin being safe. It's that I knew the blocks, I knew how to maneuver, and I was familiar with the people,” Tillmon says.

Tillmon calls it “adaptation and normalization.” It’s the inverse of what Beck is describing and what people like Kenya Valentine and Lisa Stringer are experiencing: a change in environment that’s so striking that it upends people’s sense of what’s normal — and what’s safe.

How can cities guard against that decreasing sense of environmental control? One obvious answer is a greater law enforcement presence, but that’s a challenge both in terms of police department manpower and also the fraught relationship between residents and police in many communities. There also are

The Community Violence Intervention Leadership Academy at the University of Chicago Crime Lab provides a program to educate violence intervention leaders across the country. Those who graduate, including Myesha Watkins (top) from Cleveland and Zoe Kennedy (above) from Detroit, have had ve months of hands-on education that includes classroom instruction and immersive learning labs. They return to their organizations to expand the efforts in their cities to reduce violence, working with police departments and residents to save lives through strategies and data-driven practices that bridge the safety gap. Vice President Kamala Harris honored the program’s rst 31 graduates at a White House ceremony in February to highlight “Community Violence Awareness Week.”

plenty of other options, according to Sandi Price, executive director of the Rogers Park Business Alliance, an economic development group on Chicago’s Far North Side. They range from community gatherings and cleanup events to beautification and infrastructure projects such as murals or the new public plaza unveiled in Rogers Park in early September. They’re projects that “help alleviate the perception that people don’t care,” she says.

Random violence undermines con dence

At a Detroit block party over the July Fourth holiday, gun re killed two and wounded 19. e incident illustrated a troubling trend noted by anti-violence leaders: More dispute-related shootings are occurring in settings where innocent bystanders become victims. e randomness of those events can unnerve people who think of themselves as possessing the street smarts to steer clear of trouble.

tims are verboten even in circles where gun violence often occurs, and that the ethic is taking root in parts of the city.

“In my community, shooting up houses, that's unacceptable,” Kennedy says. “ at's what the community embraced, and that's the standard we set.”

Neighborhood apps and tech shift perception

Security cameras and Neighborhood Watch groups have been around for decades, but their reach — along with the volume of alerts they generate — exploded in recent years thanks to the growing popularity of tech products such as Amazon’s Ring Doorbell. More than 20% of U.S. households have a smart doorbell, according to research rm Parks Associates, and the market is projected to grow by 33.4% each year through 2030, according to Grand View Research. Apps such as Citizen and NextDoor also are helping spread awareness of hyperlocal crimes and suspicious activity; NextDoor had 41.8 million weekly active users in 2023.

Chicagoan Luis Martinez uses Ring and NextDoor to track crimes and suspicious activity in his neighborhood, in addition to watching the news.

“I’d rather know something’s going down in my neighborhood than not know and be caught o guard,” he says.

e issue is that people who use those platforms perceive higher rates of crime than those who don’t, according to a study by University of Houston researcher Adam Fetterman, director of the school’s Personality, Emotion, & Social Cognition Lab.

“ ose push noti cations that keep telling you about crime keep it at the top of your mind,” says Fetterman. “Crime rates could be going down in general, but if you're constantly being told about crime throughout the day, you're going to have this perception that it's happening more often.”

Novel, brazen crimes grab extra attention

“ e biggest feeling of being unsafe is that you could be totally innocent, have nothing to do with nothing, and still be a victim of violence,” says Tillmon. Tillmon is a pioneer in the community violence intervention movement, in which community members intervene to try to head o gun violence before it occurs. FORCE Detroit’s Zoe Kennedy, a graduate of the CVI Leadership Academy that Tillmon leads, says that one of his group’s goals is to ensure that shootings that might claim innocent vic-

Media coverage, including social media, also elevates perceptions of crime. at’s not a new phenomenon, but it may be surging thanks to the camera- and feed-friendly nature of some pandemic- and post-pandemic-era crime. From downtown street racing to smash-and-grab burglaries in high-pro le shopping districts, to a recent incident in Detroit when a large crowd surrounded a city bus and cheered as two women twerked on the hood, these incidents draw eyeballs to familiar scenes where the urban environment appears out of control.

“It’s, ‘I know exactly where this is happening, so it's easy for me to visualize it,’ ” explains David Ewoldsen, a professor at Michigan State University who studies media and psychology. “It just makes it much more salient, much more arousing.”

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Could crime be underreported?

Could the public-safety perception gap be explained by shortcomings in data collection? Is it possible that elevated levels of crime aren’t being reported or recorded?

Not likely, at least for the highest-pro le crimes.

“ ere aren’t a lot of homicides that are going unreported,” says Kim Smith, director of national programs and external engagement at the University of Chicago Crime Lab.

Murders, along with car thefts, are reliably reported across di erent time periods and regions, one reason why they serve as benchmark crime statistics.

However, it’s more plausible that other types of crimes are underreported. For example, Smith cites sexual assault as a chronically underreported type of crime. And some pandemic-era changes such as smaller police forces (Chicago had 12% fewer sworn o cers in July 2024 compared to July 2019, according to city data), along with diminished trust in law enforcement, could plausibly contribute to a decrease in reports of, say, property crime. “ e higher con dence people have in police, the more they report crime,” says Beck.

Still, an analysis from AH Datalytics’ Je Asher found that while current trends could spark reporting vagaries, they’re likely too small to signi cantly skew the gains shown in recent crime data.

Sentiment can be a lagging indicator

Chicagoan Lisa Stringer, describing her escape from a wouldbe carjacking, says, “ is is something that sticks with you on a whole di erent level.”

e psychological impact of experiencing crime or intense danger can be long-lasting and a ect perceptions of safety even amid an increasingly safe environment. In other words, it might take time for perception to catch up with a safer reality, especially given that “safer” is a matter of degrees, particularly in the communities that deal with the brunt of crime and violence.

“Exposure is a big part of this story — the lasting and longer-term impacts of exposure to gun violence,” says the University of Chicago’s Smith.

e challenge facing cities like Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland, then, isn’t as simple as bending people’s understanding of their environment into alignment with a new, safer reality. It’s deeper: It’s about reclaiming part of society that eroded during the pandemic. It’s about healing.

So it seems tting that next to the same Red Line stop in Chicago where two days earlier a stabbing victim ed the train, an artist painted a mural on the side of a brick building. e image depicts a young woman with her eyes closed and face overcome with emotion. She’s surrounded by blooming owers.

It’s titled “Regrowth.”

Community crucial to combating crime

By Kim Palmer

Earlier this year, citing “an increase in crime on and near our branch property," Huntington Bank announced its Buckeye Road location on Cleveland’s east side would close permanently.

e loss of the branch after 20 years was seen as another blow to a neighborhood that struggles to hold on to businesses that o er crucial services.

“So many drugstores, grocery stores and banks are abandoning the inner-city core, which means people don't have access to the amenities that they need,” Cleveland City Council President Blaine Gri n said.

It's a situation that has played out again and again — a co ee shop in Detroit, department stores in select cities, drugstore operations across the county.

But Gri n, who represents and owns a home in the Shaker-Buckeye area, immediately reached out to the Columbus-based bank to discuss a strategy to address the closure in his neighborhood.

“I can't sugarcoat the concerns,” Gri n said. “I know Huntington was worried about their employees, which any good employer would, but they listened to the community and not only promised to reopen the bank, but to come back with more funding for some great programs.”

Gri n credits a combination of activist residents who collected nearly 1,000 signatures protesting the branch closure and the actions of the Cleveland Division of Police for Huntington’s recent decision to reopen the branch in October.

e city’s police department employed a targeted micro surveillance and enforcement initiative in the Buckeye area, which they said brought down crime rates.

“ e department made a plan to go after all criminal activity in the area, even the nuisance crimes,” Gri n said. “ ey cracked down on speeding, loitering, prostitution, along with the other serious gun and more violent o enses.”

e councilman hopes the reprieve gives space for the bank's more long-term investments in the community to take hold.

As part of the branch reopening Huntington agreed to increase a local small business safety grant program for the purchase cameras and other security infrastructure improvements.

e bank will also support the ght against neighborhood blight by sending a total of $200,000 to local nonpro ts for homeownership programs, including down payment assistance, special low credit mortgages and home repair loans.

Gri n, as the rst in his immediate family to own his home, strongly believes that eliminating vacant properties, repairing old housing stock and, most importantly, increasing homeownership lowers crime rates: “I am a strong believer that homeownership is stabilizing a community and that is how you address crime in our community.”

e police department's focus on the Buckeye area as a hot spot, part of Mayor Justin Bibb’s Raising Investment in Safety for Everyone (RISE) Initiative, has signicantly driven down crime rates on Buckeye Road and in other parts of the city.

RISE focuses on targeted, aggressive enforcement and increased use of technology to combat crime that surged during the pandemic.

Cleveland’s downtown and community crime rates have plummeted, according to the FBI’s Quarterly Uniform Crime Report.

Total crime is down 6.7% this year compared with spring 2023. Similarly, homicides are down by 46.2%, burglaries are down by 18.5% and robberies are down by 6% in the rst quarter of 2024 compared with the same period last year.

e dip in crime comes as the department continues to struggle with hiring police o cers. At its peak, it had more than 1,900 o cers on the payroll; today, the ranks are still well below “ideal” levels.

“In a perfect world, we would have an o cer on every corner,” said Sgt. Wilfredo “Freddy” Diaz, police spokesman. “Now technology helps us identify hot spots and determine where to place law enforcement.”

Cameras placed throughout the city, license plate readers, police dash and body-worn cameras, and a gunshot-detection system allow experienced police o cers in the city’s Real Time Crime Center to monitor, respond and investigate crime, Diaz said.

e cameras and the ShotSpotter technology are often more reliable than 911 callers or eyewitnesses who are often frantic. Better information means a responding o cer is more fully informed when heading out to a call.

“ShotSpotter allows us to start responding to a call when there is no call, eyewitness or cameras, and it is more precise and helps o cers spend less time driving around,” Diaz said.

But technology, Diaz adds, is only a tool and cannot replace an experienced police o cer or residents who report illegal or suspicious activity in their communities.

Councilman and public safety committee chair Mike Polensek is pushing for the

city to hire more police sta , including ofcers for foot patrols.

He believes that it is his job to create safer situations — making sure there is adult programing, for example, at local recreation centers so older residents are there to watch over younger residents.

Polensek also wants his residents to "say something if they see something."

“Council used to have a liaison with the police department who would give us timely arrest reports, and I would get the report and send out letters to the ‘characters’ who got arrested in my ward,” Polensek said.

“What I worry about now — and is something I experienced myself with my neighbor — the number of people who are not even calling the police when something happens." Polensek worries that the city’s reported crime rate is not re ective of the number of crimes committed because residents have stopped calling the police.

“My neighbors say they don’t want to make a police report, but I push them because unless you call the police, it is like the crime never happened,” he said.

Robert Triozzi, professor of law and co-director of the Cleveland State University College of Law Criminal Justice Center, said there are a lot of bene ts when police departments use technology to deal with crime, but he is concerned it is not likely to improve relations with the community.

“When people don’t see or meet ocers it becomes ever more challenging for a department to  establish those bounds,” Triozzi said.

“We all have to recognize that putting everything on the backs of the criminal justice system doesn't appear to be working and it will take some reinvention to solve."

Diaz agree the issues are bigger than just crime, and that solutions require a multipronged e ort among city leaders and residents.

“We are not going to be able to arrest our way out of these problems,” he said.

Mayor Justin Bibb’s Raising Investment in Safety for Everyone (RISE) Initiative has signi cantly driven down crime rates on Buckeye Road and in other parts of the city. | KEN BLAZE

Communities could make more use of crime-solving tools

Our communities face a gun violence crisis, in part, because we face a clearance rate crisis. Knowing that less than half of all gun homicides in America are solved by police, you would expect law enforcement o cials to use every tool available to solve these cases. But new research from the Joyce Foundation found that, in Illinois at least, that’s not true.

Tim Daly is director of the Gun Violence Prevention and Justice Reform program at the Joyce Foundation. Joyce is a sponsor of Crain’s Forum.

In Chicago, the clearance rate is even more dire: Less than onethird of homicides are cleared by arrest. Chicagoans also experience stark racial disparities in homicide clearance rates. is lack of accountability erodes police-community trust, making it harder for police to investigate shootings — creating a vicious cycle that perpetuates violence.

Gun homicides are especially di cult to solve. Using a gun allows for greater distance between the shooter and victim, reducing the likelihood that DNA evidence is left behind or that the crime is clearly witnessed.

New research from Joyce uncovered another reason we aren’t solving more gun homicides in Illinois: Roughly a third of law enforcement agencies statewide are not signed up for the primary federal tools that help solve gun crimes. And many of the rest are not maximizing their use.

ese crime gun intelligence tools are housed at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and include eTrace, Collective Data Sharing (CDS), the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN) and the NIBIN Enforcement Support System (NESS) — and they are incredibly e ective.

Together, they allow law enforcement to analyze crime guns, shell casings and police records. ey empower law enforcement to quickly identify shooters, like the suspected Highland Park parade shooter in 2022. ey also allow police to prosecute straw purchasers, like the individual who illegally bought the gun that murdered Chicago police o cer Ella French. Most importantly, these crime gun intelligence tools have been shown to increase clearance rates for gun crimes.

To maximize the impact of these tools in Illinois, Attorney General Kwame Raoul recently launched Crime Gun Connect,

an innovative platform that brings together statewide data and captures key patterns on the sources of crime guns. e U.S. Department of Justice also established a new Crime Gun Intelligence Center (CGIC) in Chicago, enhancing law enforcement’s abilities here. Milwaukee’s CGIC, on which Chicago’s is modeled, improved the clearance rate there for non-fatal shootings. Still, Illinois police are not consistently using some of the most effective tools to solve gun crime. Only 579 of approximately 900 agencies statewide are signed up for eTrace. Of those agencies, only 287 share their trace data with other agencies in the state via collective data sharing. is lack of participation hampers investigations and undermines safety. It also limits the effectiveness of e orts like Crime Gun Connect and the Chicago CGIC. Policymakers and law enforcement leaders must nd ways to prioritize the use of these tools and eliminate barriers to doing so.

First, every law enforcement agency in the state should sign up for these tools. If they don’t, the state should mandate it. Not surprisingly, states that require such participation — New Jersey, North Carolina and Virginia — have some of the highest law enforcement participation rates in the country.

Second, we need to make sure police are e ectively using them. Among those agencies signed up, not all recovered crime guns are traced. Model policies and protocols should be developed to ensure all recovered crime guns are traced via eTrace, all recovered ballistic evidence be submitted into NIBIN, and that agencies are fully participating in e orts like Crime Gun Connect and the Chicago CGIC.

Finally, the state must invest in these tools. It can do so through increased training for local law enforcement on how best to use them. e state should also fund outreach and awareness campaigns to increase use.

Gun violence is hard enough to solve in this country as it is. If there are tools available to law enforcement to do something about it, we need to do everything we can to ensure they’re being used, completely and effectively.

Data-driven solutions are key to bridging safety gap

The transition from summer to fall marks the end of a lot of things, including another season of surging gun violence. Shooting incidents peak in summer months, and this grim pattern proved true again this year: Over the Fourth of July weekend alone, 109 people were shot in Chicago, 19 fatally.

In our city, much of that gun violence is concentrated in speci c locations at speci c times. e neighborhoods with the highest homicide rates experience approximately 30 times more homicides than the neighborhoods with the lowest rates. is “safety gap” between areas with the highest amount of gun violence and those with the lowest has an especially devastating toll on communities of color. Although Black residents make up just one-third of Chicago’s population, they account for more than three-quarters of the city’s homicide victims. e safety gap not only impacts the actual levels of violence in Chicago, but the way we perceive safety in the city.

e University of Chicago Crime Lab has seen that improving public safety management may be a viable way for cities to rapidly reduce gun violence without exacerbating the harms of policing, leading to both improved actual and perceived safety in Chicago. In 2016, homicides spiked by 60%, which prompted police commanders to try di erent tools to better manage their districts, including a partnership between the Chicago Police Department and the UChicago Crime Lab to open Strategic Decision Support Centers (SDSCs) in districts with the highest rates of violent crime. By providing district commanders with real-time data and analytics, the CPD could make better decisions about when and where to send ocers. e SDSCs introduced a new way of thinking to the department: using real-time data to guide daily decisions on resource allocation.

And the insights from this partnership yielded additional collaborative projects.

E ectively tackling Chicago’s gun violence epidemic and, in turn, improving perceptions of public safety in the city falls to two sectors: police and community violence intervention (CVI) leaders. Yet, for too many communities, we’re failing to deliver transformative public safety.

In the same way that using crime data helped police be in the right place at the right time, the Crime Lab and CPD also used data-driven tactics to empower local violence prevention organizations with critical insights to guide their response to shootings and homicides to better serve those most a ected by gun violence.

This has evolved into today’s Violence Reduction Dashboard, a powerful online tool that makes gun violence data publicly accessible, helping city agencies, service providers, nonprofit organizations, street outreach workers, business leaders, the civic community and the media be aware of where gun violence might take place during the summer months when shootings typically peak, enabling them to craft effective violence reduction strategies and prioritize resource allocation.

e promising fact about this strategy is not just that it can prevent the most socially harmful type of crime (gun violence) without exacerbating arrests and other harms from enforcement itself, but also that this is feasible: It doesn’t require coming up with millions or billions of new dollars to hire huge numbers of additional police o cers or to implement expensive new technologies. In fact, nding the modest dollars required here is actually the easy lift. e hardest part of change is sustaining it. Teaching and scaling change management practices to capitalize on innovative data-driven capacities for both policing and CVI leaders is something that both sectors are developing. We at the University of Chicago Crime Lab are doing our part with our Policing Leadership Academy and Community Violence Intervention Leadership Academy. We are at a turning point in Chicago, and with the right support and investments, we can ensure that everyone, from government leaders to the general public, is aware of the challenges and opportunities being created, tested, and improved upon to reduce violence in and beyond our city.

Meredith Stricker is executive director of the Policing Leadership Academy at the University of Chicago Crime Lab.

Kim Smith is director of national programs and external a airs for the University of Chicago’s Crime Lab and Education Lab.

An of cer works at the scene where two men were shot July 7 in the East Gar eld Park neighborhood of Chicago. | ARMANDO L. SANCHEZ/GETTY IMAGES

Sunny Street Cafe in Columbus hopes to build on success

Plans call for adding up to 10 new locations in Northeast Ohio over the next ve years

By Alexandra Golden

Northeast Ohio doesn't lack cafe options, but the city could have even more to choose from soon.

Inspired by good results at its Lake County location in Concord Township, Columbus-based Sunny Street Cafe is looking to expand in the Cleveland area to as many as 10 new locations in the next three to ve years.

“We’ve been about controlled growth, so we’re not looking to open 10 restaurants in two years,”

or get over our toes, so to speak.”

e hope is to have another Cleveland-area location open this time next year, Stasko said, though he had no speci cs as nothing is “100% locked in.”

e concept of the breakfast and lunch spot started in 2007 as Rise & Dine Restaurants. Stasko’s family got involved early on in the chain's development in Ohio and eventually purchased the entire concept, rebranding the company to Sunny Street Cafe.

e cafe chain serves breakfast and lunch items all day, with opening hours of 6:30 a.m. or 7 a.m., and closing time at 2:30 p.m. or 3 p.m., depending on location.

“This is more of a three- to ve-year outlook because we’re family owned. We’re not looking to grow too fast or get over our toes, so to speak.”

Mike Stasko Jr., Sunny Street Cafe president

Sunny Street Cafe President Mike Stasko Jr. told Crain’s. “ is is more of a three- to ve-year outlook because we’re family owned. We’re not looking to grow too fast

Staskco said Sunny Street Cafe is known for u y, “huge stack pancakes” that come in traditional avors as well as more exotic o erings, including bananas foster, strawberry shortcake and cinnamon roll. e restaurants also have staple breakfast items, sandwiches, salads, burgers and Tex-Mex o erings.

“We just really liked breakfast and lunch in terms of … that concept you could have family involved, you could have quality of life,” Stasko said. “You could get out on a bad day at 3 o’clock and pick up your kids or be home to do whatever you wanted to do. at really appealed to us. We knew that work-life balance was a challenge, even back then, and even more so now.”

He said the culture of a family owned and operated chain creates a di erent experience for users. “(It’s) not just a transaction where you come in and ‘what do you want,’ get your food and you're on your way,” Stasko said. “But somewhere you can come in and you can be comfortable, enjoy some fellowship with friends or family and enjoy and take your time. So that's what our experi-

ence has been about since we've been around and it's served us really well, and we think that can translate well into Cleveland.”

ere are 22 Sunny Street Cafe locations spread across Ohio, Texas, Missouri, Alabama and Illinois, though the Concord Township cafe, which opened in 2010, is the only one in Northeast Ohio. Of the 22 locations, 10 are owned and operated by the company, and 12 are franchised.

e Concord location is franchised, and Stasko said the chain wants to have a mix of franchise and company ownership with the new locations.

Stasko said it felt like the concept was ready to grow again, as their last two years have been “record years,” with double-digit revenue growth. He said the chain hopes to grow more in its home

market of Columbus, though it already has eight cafes there that “cover quite a bit of ground.” Cleveland is an appealing market for expansion, he said, because it's similar in demographics to Columbus, and the Concord Township location has long been a top performer.

“So just given the proximity from our home base to Cleveland, we think it’s a really good opportunity for us to get into that market and add some units,” Stasko said.

In addition to Cleveland, Sunny Street Cafe is looking at another "C" city in Ohio for expansion: Cincinnati. e chain has no stores there yet, but, as with Cleveland, Stasko sees enough similarities with the Columbus market to give him con dence the concept will work in Cincinnati.

Larder Delicatessen & Bakery owners prep Hingetown retail venture

By Stan Bullard

Taking a minute and a seat recently at the Larder Delicatessen & Bakery in Cleveland’s Hingetown area, Jeremy Umansky discussed why he and fellow chef (and his wife) Allie LaValle-Umansky are not opening another restaurant.

“We were getting ready for another restaurant and decided to step back,” Jeremy Umansky said, because they did not want to replicate the formula for the traditional Jewish delicatessen elsewhere in Ohio City or create a new concept. However, their answer is what many consider a similarly risky business: a retail concept for a culinary equipment store called Larder Supply Co.

“Everyone says retail is dead,” Umansky said. “However, what is not dead is customer service.”

So the plan is to combine the advice the duo may provide with that of other chefs who might want to work in the shop to deal with the challenge of aging in the kitchen, long hours and lots of standing.

“People ask what’s the best knife to use to de-bone, and we can help them nd the right item,” Umansky said. e place will be stocked with pots, pans, even dorm refrigeratorsize dry-aging cabinets for meats. Some will come from contempo-

rary manufacturers, but, since this is the team behind Larder, it will have some things extra.

A mainstay will be Larderbranded used kitchen equipment, from knives that are acid-cleaned, sharpened and perhaps tted with a new handle as well as refurbished pots, pans and similar kitchen tools.

“We have Japanese knives that have lasted 150 years,” Umansky said. “Why not repair them and use them for another 150? ey were built to last. Grandma’s recipe is not the only thing to hold onto for posterity.”

Some services the shop will offer after it gets going will include

knife sharpening — “We have a generation of cooks who don’t know how to sharpen a knife,” he says — and even restoring customer’s copper pots and pans, including putting a fresh round of seasoning on an iron pot that may need it.

e store will be in the landmark Hingetown retail strip on the 1400 block of West 29th Street, diagonally from the Ohio City Firehouse where Larder occupies a rst- oor spot. Both are owned by Hingetown pioneers Graham Vesey and Marika Shiori-Clark, who let Larder’s operators know when an opening came up as e Beet Store relocated nearby.

Proximity to Larder is important, Umansky said, as he or his wife will need to spend time there as well as at Larder. And they have brought in another chef to free some of their time for the new endeavor.

e Redhouse studio architecture rm, another tenant in the Ohio City rehouse, is readying the design for the 500-square-foot retail space. e shop will have a similar vibe to Larder’s delicatessen.

“We’ll have Larder’s o -green and robin egg blue color and exposed wood,” Umansky said, and will incorporate aspects of the century-old building that will be its home.

“I think of it as a hardware store of the early 20th century,” he said, “but stocked with virtually anything someone would need to cook.”

Building permits were led the week of Sept. 9. Demolition of the existing interior is underway.

e hope is to open the store by Halloween.

In Ohio City, anticipation about the new venture is evident.

Molly Cheraso, who operates the Verbena nonalcoholic bar next to Larder Supply’s new home, said she is excited to see how the Umanskys execute their retail vision.

“It’s the biggest thing going on,” she said.

Ben Trimble, chief real estate

o cer for the Ohio City Inc. community development corporation, said, “We’re excited to bring new retail to the neighborhood and look forward to what people so talented would do there.”

Although Umansky has been cooking for others since he was 12, he also has had an eclectic background that includes farming, and in New York City before the Solon native came home, corporate sales for Whole Foods and others. He shows that retail background by pointing out plans call for most Larder Supply Co. items to cost less than $100 so they are a ordable to “young professional” chefs and others to as little as $15.

Although Larder’s owners have accomplished much, with James Beard Award notices and Jeremy Umansky’s celebrity from the “Koji Alchemy” cookbook (with coauthor Rich Shih) on mold-based fermentation that has been translated into 11 languages, there is no slowing down by this duo. Umansky dreams of someday having a campus of buildings or shops related to the couple’s interest in things culinary.

Asked what is next after Larder Supply Co., he pauses himself the way someone who talks readily and quickly sometimes does, and after a long breath said, “Who knows at this point?”

Sunny Street Cafe is looking to open 10 Cleveland locations within three to ve years. | SUNNY STREET CAFE

Jeremy Umansky in front of displays in the Larder Delicatessen & Bakery | STAN BULLARD

Crime shouldn’t be a fact of life — it's a disruption

Detroit, like other major cities, is still experiencing the transition from preCOVID norms.

e past few years have given rise to a sense of fear, helplessness and restlessness within society that ultimately resulted in an increased awareness of mental health issues. is created an environment that led to skyrocketing crime and a new norm of tolerance and insensitivity to violence. Coupled with the murder of George Floyd, a new distrust for law enforcement emerged, challenging every police chief around the country to rebuild their pillars of con dence within their own communities.

better terms than others. But more and more we are seeing people turning to (oftentimes fatal) acts of violence rather than simply moving on with their lives.

e Detroit Police Department is doing its part to keep the con dence of its community while deterring crime and vindicating the rights of individuals who have been victimized by crime. With respect to community, the department hosts numerous community events ranging from procedural justice seminars to organized walks in the community. e goal is to provide a forum for all aspects of Detroit’s unique and diverse population.

Today, we talk about shootings and stabbings like they are normal, everyday events. People have grown numb to senseless violence, and some even nd violence to be an acceptable form of problem-solving. In the past, when two people in a dating relationship simply broke up when things weren’t working out, the relationship ended, some on

On the issue of crime, Detroit has seen historical reductions in violent crime. In the 2023, we recorded the lowest number of homicides since 1966 as well as double-digit decreases in non-fatal shootings and carjackings. We are on track for even further reductions, as evidenced by the fact that, as of Sept. 10, we are down in all categories of Part 1

crimes, including a 21% reduction in criminal homicides, a 16% reduction in sex crimes, a 25% reduction in non-fatal shootings, a 36% reduction in carjackings, and a 14% reduction in motor vehicle thefts. is speaks volumes of the hardworking members of the Detroit Police Department as well as the work of the department’s senior managers and crime strategists.

As promising as these statistics are, we cannot a ord to celebrate. One senseless act of violence is one too many, and we can never a ord as a society to become tolerant of crime or establish it as a norm. Crime is not a part of life; it is a disruption thereof. Residents must embrace their security and their safety, and everyone should be indignant toward any individual that nds it appropriate to harm another person.

ere was a time when society shamed people for even minor misconduct. But our e orts to explain the underpinnings of crime seem to have given rise to senseless reasons and baseless excuses. Society’s tolerance only grew from there. is is not to say that all crime is

to be treated equally. ere are complex social issues that give rise to crime. As a certi ed mental health counselor, I see crime through a very unique lens and understand that mental health issues can lead to erratic and unpredictable behavior that results in criminal acts.

Although often the rst to be called to the scene, police departments in general are ill-suited to address people in mental health crisis. e department has established mental health co-response teams and has partnered with reputed organizations and agencies in its e ort to create e ective strategies addressing mental health. While they have been highly successful, more family and government support is needed.

Addressing the former, residents must make their mental health as well as the mental health of their families a high priority. If a family member is struggling with mental health issues, please seek the appropriate help and take an active role in their treatment. Many people a icted with mental health issues can (and do) succeed with the proper family support.

My hope is that everyone will assume personal responsibility for the safety of their loved ones, especially when they cannot support themselves.

Turning now to the latter, I rmly believe more nancial support is needed to address mental health in the community. Although the recent opening of the 707 Crisis Care Center is promising, more and similar facilities are needed throughout the region. As previously stated, not all crime is created equal. Where mental health gives rise to a criminal act, our response should address, at least in part, the underlying condition.

Counseling and other forms of treatment should be required terms of probation or release. If people and their families are willing to commit to ensuring their own mental health, they should be a orded the opportunity. My hope is that the residents will embrace the foregoing concepts: intolerance toward senseless violence, owning the mental health and well-being of our loved ones, and greater support of the mentally ill.

Let's end child poverty, and violence will diminish, too

Children su er while adults remain polarized. People live in fear. ere is no community that is exempt. Americans purchased 16.7 million guns in 2023, and are on pace for purchasing a similar amount, averaging 1.4 million per month in 2024.

One of the driving factors in gun purchases is fear. Fear can be driven by personal safety, animals in certain parts of the country, political divisions and ethnic hatred.

Dr. C. Jay Matthews is senior pastor of Mt. SinaiFriendship United. He also is a former chaplain at the Cuyahoga County Youth Development Center.

During the beginning of the pandemic, I, along with several of my colleagues at the invitation of Dr. Otis Moss Jr., had the privilege of a conversation with Dr. David Satcher, former surgeon general of the United States. e conversation centered around the vaccine. Dr. Satcher

was real and people were dying convinced me to do what was necessary for my life. Two main risk factors for violence are poverty and access to guns. Any discussion centered around the reduction or the eradication of gun violence can never be serious if we cannot rst talk about access to guns, reasonable gun control policies and poverty. For many years I sat on boards and committees, attempting to develop initiatives to deal with substance abuse, creating safer, stronger schools, child welfare, housing initiatives, workforce development and re-entry initiatives.

During these discussions, poverty would always come up as the root cause of most of the problems we were trying to address. en the inevitable statement would be made: “ at’s too large of an issue for us to try to solve.”

Two main risk factors for violence are poverty and access to guns. In Cleveland, an estimated 31.8% of residents live in poverty.

stated that with all of his knowledge and research skills with regard to vaccines, the one thing that was certain, people were dying. I agreed to take the vaccine that day. e fact that the disease

A state of learned hopelessness existed when it came to trying to solve the issue of poverty. Today it is one of the critical risk factors in crimes of violence. Anyone who is serious about reducing and solving gun violence agrees that poverty is a key risk factor. Like the days of old, when poverty was identi ed as one of the root causes for so many things, we would move on

to treating the symptoms and not the root cause. Today we have created the same learned hopelessness with regard to access to guns.   In Cleveland, an estimated 31.8% of residents live in poverty. In 2019 we were designated the poorest big city in the nation. A 2022 report showed we were no longer the poorest, but our child poverty rate is still at the bottom. is does not suggest that the massive amount of goodwill from so many organizations like hous-

es of worship, government agencies, charitable organizations, philanthropists, etc., should be minimized. I know Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, and the state of Ohio. I am convinced that we can end child poverty in Cleveland by 2034.   It will take all of us.

Bold goals with strategic engagement of the right partners can make a signi cant di erence.  It is estimated that 37,700 children in Cleveland live in poverty. Let’s change that.

If we paint the faces of these children with an ethnic face, a political face (left/right), a class face or a gender face, we will lose people along the way. But if we see their faces as faces of hope, opportunity, as Americans, Ohioans and Clevelanders, we have a ghting chance.

Let’s see them as our children and grandchildren. en we might bring forth the best in who they can become. We fought Covid-19 together — let’s end child poverty in Cleveland by 2034.

James E. White is a Detroit native and has been chief of the police department since 2021.

STADIUM

Oh, and will season ticket holders need to buy personal seat licenses (PSLs) — and, if so, how much will those cost?

e Browns say it’s too soon to give any educated numbers, both because they haven’t made a decision about their future stadium plan (even though they strongly prefer the dome) and because the current stadium’s lease doesn’t end until after the 2028 season. But they concede that it’s fair to look at what other teams have done when moving into new stadiums — and that includes selling PSLs, which the Browns haven’t done since 2013. (NFL teams are only allowed to start PSL programs when they enter new or renovated stadiums.)

“I would certainly imagine they would run a PSL program,” said Steve Salaga, an associate professor of sport management and policy at the University of Georgia. “ e PSL program is actually really important from the Browns perspective because it allows teams to basically shield all PSL revenue from the NFL’s revenue-sharing system. Anything they generate from PSL sales, they get to keep all that revenue. at’s a really big bene t.”

INSURANCE

From Page 1

Across town, Barry R. Brooks, owner of the Brooks Insurance Agency in Bedford, said he will never forget watching a sheet of rain move his way on Broadway Avenue the way it did as he took shelter from the Aug. 6 storms.

"We had a lot of claims because of it," Brooks said. " ere are roof claims, wind claims, and a lot of people with claims from water coming in through their windows. We've seen more claims activity than usual from that storm."

As the practice leader for personal lines of insurance at Cleveland's Owald Cos. insurance and risks advisors rm, Scott Keller works with clients from across the country so he regularly sees a different level of damage calls from di erent clients.

"Knock on wood," Keller said, "We got out of (recent Ohio storms) with a couple of claims. It's nowhere near as bad as it might have been."

What's changed in insurance assessments

In terms of rate hikes, clients with hurricane damage in Florida or Texas face much greater losses. And with that will come higher insurance costs, now or in the future.

e biggest shift, Keller said, is that insurers are paying out much more than in the past in the Midwest for what are considered "medium catastrophes" primarily from sudden, pop-up windstorms that have been steadily increasing in terms of volume and claims. Studies by some carriers, Keller said, identi ed 25 storms with $1

How big? A good comparison would be the Bu alo Bills, who recently started selling PSLs for their new outdoor stadium, which is scheduled to open in 2026. e Bills’ PSLs were o ered at ve price points — $8,000, $10,000, $15,000, $20,000 and $50,000 — and the team had sold just over 3,600 by the end of July, and nearly $20 million had already been paid, according to Spectrum News 1. e Bills are expecting to sell another 54,700 PSLs, which will help cover the $690 million pledged by Bills owner Terry Pegula.

Besides the millions in pro t, the PSLs have another bene t — they allow teams to keep other costs lower, Salaga said.

“If a team tries to charge more on the PSL side, maybe they’ll have less of an increase in face value ticket prices,” said Salaga, who co-wrote a 2015 paper published in the Journal of Sports Economics that analyzed NFL PSL sales on the secondary market. “Teams have the ability to slide on both of those, based on the best t for them.”

While the Browns’ tickets will undoubtedly go up regardless of their stadium plan — they’re already rising every year — Salaga said NFL teams typically raise ticket prices between 14% and 32% when they open a new ven-

ue, a price that uctuates depending on the team and market.  e Browns are a tricky test case since no NFL team has moved from an outdoor stadium to an indoor one without changing markets since Dallas opened the retractable roof AT&T Stadium in 2009. (And even old Texas Stadium had a partial roof.) Incredibly, no cold-weather team has made that move since the Minnesota Vikings went from Metropolitan Stadium to the Metrodome in 1981. ( e Bears are  also looking to do that very thing.)

“I don’t have any inside information, but if I were to guess, it would be somewhere in the 15% to 20% range,” Salaga said of the Browns’ projected ticket price increase. “But when you look at it, it’s not the same product. e Browns’ current venue is not the newest venue in the league. When you go into a new venue, it’s going to be a nicer quality experience. Better amenities. Better food. Better drink options. Better entertainment. And that’s how the team is going to spin it when it comes time to sell the fan base.”

Oh, and then there’s this: About two-thirds of the seats in Huntington Bank Field are in the upper deck, whereas the Browns say the Brook Park dome would have about 70% of its seats in the lower deck. Lower-deck tickets obvious-

billion in claims from the Midwest in 2023. e same year, California had one and Texas had six.

However, things proved better for customers in the commercial market who saw record rate hikes in 2023 due to serious storms nationally in 2022. at means insurers fared better in 2023 and made a little money, which softened the property insurance market in 2024 from a tough 2023.

Jonida Stuewe, Oswald’s property practice leader, told Crain's that the nation “is seeing the traditional Tornado Alley segment growing in size and, with it, claims.”

And that is speci cally thanks to what insurers call “convective

ly cost more, but Browns spokesperson Peter John-Baptiste said the team has “always tried to o er varying options and price points to accommodate as many of our fans as possible regardless of their discretionary income level.”

ere haven’t been many recent studies about rising ticket prices for new stadiums, but a 2006 study published in Public Finance and Management found that average ticket prices in new stadiums increased by one-third, from $43 to $57. And in 2012, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that the New York Jets, New York Giants, Dallas Cowboys and Indianapolis Colts increased tickets by 26% when they moved into new stadiums, well above the league average.

e Cincinnati Bengals increased their ticket price by $18.44 when they moved into Paycor Stadium in 2000 and the Pittsburgh Steelers’ average ticket price increased by $21.27 when they moved into Acrisure Stadium in 2001, according to Cleveland.com.

What’s interesting, Salaga said, is that NFL teams actually price tickets below their market value, an approach designed to optimize how many people attend games so teams can sell things like parking, concessions, merchandise and premium o erings.

“And one thing we’re seeing

nd replacement insurance (the cost of replacing a damaged property), so consumers must look at other options.

“An older home in Shaker Heights may cost $800,000 to buy, but it would cost $1.5 million to replace it today,” Keller said.

Rates are also not the only factor pushing up insurance costs for home or commercial property owners. Besides those new deductibles for wind or hail damage, insurers are sometimes now depreciating roofs based on the age when customers renew policies or change insurers.

Some policies now allow insurers to repair damaged parts of a roof rather than replace the entire roof, Keller said. Modern technology is also being used by insurers when underwriting clients, which may aid the insurer more than the customer.

“With drones, they can assess the condition of the roof, and with satellite imagery, they can tell if trees are close enough to threaten a property,” Keller said.

with concessions is that some teams have dropped their prices over time,” Salaga said. “ e Falcons dropped their prices and college programs like Clemson and Mississippi State did so as well.

"Consumers are pretty smart. ey look at the total cost of attendance, and teams want to keep customers long term. Gouging them at every point is sometimes not the best long-run play.”

Of course, there’s another factor to consider: most NFL fans live near the stadium’s host city, meaning they’re already subsidizing the cost to build and maintain the facility.

“Fans end up paying two di erent ways — at’s their tax money going toward constructing the stadium, plus they pay higher prices to go see the game," Salaga said. "Obviously, the Browns’ owners are going to try and get as much public funding as they can from the city, the county, the state and whoever else they can get it from. But think about it — you have a billionaire owner who is basically trying to extract more revenue so he can make a bigger pro t o the community that supports them.

“It’s amazing, but there’s denitely a precedent for it, so he’s going to try and do it and get the best deal he can from a nancial perspective.”

come down on a roof,” Hrobat said. “Replacing a roof now costs $25,000 to $40,000, while it was half that just six years ago.” And those rising costs need to be kept in perspective as Ohio homeowner insurance rates are on the low side.

Robert Denhard, public information o cer for the Ohio Department of Insurance, noted that the latest data from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners determined that Ohioans paid an average of $920 for homeowners insurance, ranking seventh lowest. e national average for homeowners insurance is $1,411.

As disputes about coverage increase, so do complaints to the Department, Denhard said, and noted that health and homeowners insurance are the most common sources of consumer complaints.

storms” such as tornadoes, windstorms and hail damage.

In the past, insurers had wind and hail damage included in national rates. But as the peril changes, Stuewe said, they are altering insurance practices.

“We’re seeing wind and hail deductibles increased,” she added, by insurers to cope with such claims.

Appearances also do not necessarily re ect area damage, she said.

“A long stint of cold weather can cause more claims due to broken pipes than the most recent (warm weather) storms,” Stuewe said. e cost of insuring some homes is also making it harder to

More than just the weather

Rate hikes in Ohio are nothing like those in wild re-ravaged parts of California the last few years, but the expectation is that rates will climb at least 10% — and perhaps as much as 30% — in coming years. And it may be worse if you've had bad luck like a tree on the place or water in your basement. But the weather is only part of the mix.  e biggest factor is that rising housing and commercial property values and building material price hikes exceeding general in ation have pushed up the cost of paying claims for insurers.

“It’s not unusual for a tree to

With his 30 years in the business, Brooks said he expects to see some impact on regional insurance rates from the recent storm but that impact will be muted by those other factors. He also elds more complaints about rates and policies than in the past.

Homeowners, especially after a big or disputed claim, are increasingly nding it di cult to renew their policy or nd a new one. Hrobat said about 1 out of every 4 callers cannot land new policies, which is dramatically di erent than in the past.

While general trends in insurance are climbing upward generally, Brooks said he occasionally sees a client’s rate go down. Sometimes it is hard to see why.

“It’s sometimes a case of that is what the computer said,” Brooks said, “and I just say, ‘ ank the Lord for that.’ ”

DoubleTree Downtown Cleveland Hotel goes up for sale after languishing in foreclosure

Stan Bullard

“Property will trade at a steep discount to the total loan exposure,” is the telling part of a listing for a 17-story building on the market in downtown Cleveland.

And for a change, it's not an office building that’s up for sale.

Instead, that's from the recently launched marketing of the 379-room DoubleTree by Hilton Cleveland Downtown hotel by sales agents in the Chicago headquarters of Paramount Lodging Advisors, a hotel brokerage concern with a national scope.

The sale, by receiver Paul Conkle of Fairfax, Virginia, was authorized on July 22 by Judge Kevin Kelley of Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas. He is the latest judge on the foreclosure proceeding launched in 2022 when the hotel’s owner, Cami Hotel Investments II of Everett, Washington, defaulted on indebtedness now totaling $35 million. Cami agreed to give the keys to the receiver and lender in 2020, according to court records.

Although the hotel investment and operations market are vastly better than during the COVID-19 pandemic, counsel for the receiver, Cleveland attorney Michael S. Tucker, reported in a court filing that the inn is not covering costs.

“The Project, in its present condition, does not generate sufficient income to pay for (i) maintenance and repair; (ii) property taxes; (iii) insurance; and (iv) Receiver’s fees and expenses. Plaintiff has consistently been required to make additional protective advances to fund

the operations of the Project,” Tucker wrote in a report that is part of Judge Kelley’s order to approve the sale drive.

Some $2.5 million annually is being paid by the lender to manage overhead and other costs of operating the property, which has 72 employees, according to another filing by the receiver.

In this case, the lender is a collateralized mortgage-backed security named MORGAN STANLEY BANK OF AMERICA MERRILL LYNCH TRUST 2016-C28, COMMERCIAL MORTGAGE PASS-THROUGH CERTIFICATES, SERIES 2016-C28 BY AND THROUGH C-III ASSET MANAGEMENT LLC

The upshot is that prospective buyers and their brokers were scheduled to tour the hotel at 1111 Lakeside Ave. on Wednesday, Sept. 18, and Thursday, Sept. 19, according to online and emailed listings for the property from Paramount, which did not return three phone requests to discuss the offering.

Although the hotel market has improved markedly this year, particularly due to a plethora of big events in downtown Cleveland, the hotel’s performance is below par.

e most recent nancials in the court record show occupancy of property had improved to 55% in September 2023 from an “all-time low” during the pandemic. But that percentage is still below what it takes to make a go of a hotel. While current nancial information is not disclosed in the public record, especially with a hoped-for sale underway — the city’s hotel market has clearly improved since last year.

CAMI Hotels II paid $20 million for the 1973-vintage hotel in 2016 and completed a massive overhaul of the place and the lender provided a $28 million loan for the purchase and renovation of the property. The $35 million figure reflects compounding interest and other factors during the long foreclosure proceeding.

Cuyahoga County assigns the full-service hotel a market value of $13 million for tax purposes, according to online county property records.

David Sangree, president of Hotel & Leisure Advisors of Lakewood, said in a phone interview that, on a general basis, the driving factor in the DoubleTree’s sale price will be the extent and cost of capital improvements and room renovations that are needed at the property.

Sangree said the hotel’s proximity to the Huntington Convention Center will benefit efforts to turn around the hotel’s performance as the convention market continues to improve after the pandemic. The decision by the Fed to lower interest rates half a percentage point, Sangree said, is likely to attract more potential buyers than might have been the case the last few years while the central bank pushed up rates to tame inflation.

Paramount’s listing materials point out that the hotel and its attached garage may benefit from substantial public/private infrastructure projects downtown and the proposed renovation of Cleveland Hopkins International Airport.

Although the hotel benefits

Canon Medical Academy USA opens in May eld Village

Paige Bennett

Canon Medical is growing its Northeast Ohio roots with the launch of a high-tech health care training facility in May eld Village.

e facility, Canon Medical Academy USA, o ers hands-on training for customers using the company’s latest medical imaging technologies, including computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners.

e company — a subsidiary of Japanese corporate giant Canon Inc. — hosted a ribbon-cutting and traditional Japanese sake ceremony on ursday, Sept. 18, to celebrate the opening of the facility on Beta Drive. e event featured remarks from state and local o cials, who lauded the facility and said it demonstrates the depth of health care talent in the region.

“ e opening of the Canon Medical Academy here in May eld Village is really just the latest example of how Northeast Ohio is building a reputation for medical innovation,” Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said during the event.

e governor praised the expertise of Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals and MetroHealth and academic institutions Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland State for transforming the region into “a hub of health care excellence.”

He noted that health care excellence is at the center of the Cleveland Innovation District, a $500 million public-private partnership between the state of Ohio, JobsOhio and Cleveland’s health care and higher education institutions designed to expand research and create jobs.

O cials want Cuyahoga County to be a migration point for those studying the best practices in patient care, county executive Chris Ronayne said. Not only will the facility serve as a resource for local medical professionals and students, he said, but it also creates an opportunity to attract newcomers to the area.

In a video message, Canon Medical Systems Corp. President and CEO Toshio Takiguchi said the new facility will play a vital role in help-

from a location overlooking the lakefront, its location east of East Ninth Street was originally a detriment, but that has waned over the years due to the construction of other buildings nearby. Tucker, the receiver’s counsel, declined to comment. Receiver Paul Conkle did not respond to an email about the case.

ing medical professionals deliver quality care through “exceptional educational experiences.”

Canon sells and distributes a variety of medical products, including CT, MR, molecular imaging, ultrasound, X-ray and interventional X-ray equipment.

e grand opening of Canon Medical Academy USA comes less than one year after Canon and Cleveland Clinic announced a strategic partnership aimed at developing innovative imaging and health care IT technologies to transform patient care and outcomes.

“We are pleased that Canon has made this signi cant investment in Northeast Ohio,” William Peacock, chief of operations at Cleveland Clinic, said in a statement to Crain’s. “ e Canon Medical Academy demonstrates their commitment to medical education and fostering innovation in our region. We look forward to continuing our research partnership with them focused on developing innovative imaging technologies designed to enhance patient care.”

The DoubleTree Downtown Cleveland Hotel (with tree symbol at center) is listed with Paramount Lodging Advisors for receivership sale. STAN BULLARD

PEOPLE ON THE MOVE

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

Clearstead

Hospice of the Western Reserve planning new $25M lakefront facility

By Paige Bennett

Hospice of the Western Reserve, a nonpro t provider of palliative and end-of-life care, is breaking ground on a $25 million Hospice Care & Community Center on its lakefront property.   e new facility, on Lakeshore Boulevard in Cleveland’s North Collinwood neighborhood, will boast 32 private patient rooms with views of Lake Erie. e community center housed within the building will o er bereavement support services and activities for patients and their loved ones.

It will replace the existing Hospice House on East 185th Street, which was built in 1995 and is the oldest of Hospice of the Western Reserve’s four inpatient units. e facility is slated to open in the rst or second quarter of 2026, and construction will not interrupt services, organization leaders told Crain’s.

Hickman Lowder Lidrbauch & Welch Co., L.P.A.

Clearstead is pleased to announce that Don Hess has joined the rm as Managing Director, Investment Operations. In this role, Don will lead the Investment Operations team and manage day to day Operations processes, deliverables, and reporting. Don brings over 25 years of experience in Reporting and Operations and most recently served as the Director of Operations at Boyd Watterson Asset Management.

HEALTH CARE

Crystal Clinic

Orthopaedic Center

Assem Sultan, M.D., a fellowship-trained, board-eligible spine surgeon, has joined Crystal Clinic Orthopaedic Center. He is now seeing patients in Cuyahoga Falls, Independence and Solon. Dr. Sultan specializes in the comprehensive evaluation and management of both adult and adolescent disorders of the cervical, thoracic, and lumbosacral spine. His areas of expertise include degenerative diseases, spinal deformities, traumatic injuries, tumors and infections.

Hickman Lowder Lidrbauch & Welch Co., L.P.A. is thrilled to welcome back attorney Amanda M. Buzo, who rejoined our team on August 19, 2024, at our Shef eld Village of ce. Her extensive expertise in special needs estate planning, guardianships, estate administration, and other probate matters, including the settlement of personal injury and wrongful death claims, will signi cantly enhance our commitment to serving clients with special needs and their families.

MANUFACTURING

Combi Packaging Systems, LLC

Combi Packaging Systems, LLC is pleased to announce the hiring of Mike Cargill as Director of Technical Services and Aftermarket Support. In this role, Mike’s primary focus will be on customer success by implementing programs to improve ef ciency and reduce costs, particularly as automation and packaging technology evolve. He brings broad experience from the automotive industry, including precision and high-volume manufacturing, making him a valuable addition to the Combi team.

Greg Hipp has been promoted to Chief Operating Of cer of Industrial Realty Group, LLC (IRG).  Formerly the President of IRG Realty Advisors (IRGRA), Hipp will spearhead national operations across the IRG group of companies, ushering in the next phase of strategic growth. Since joining the company in 2005, Hipp’s efforts have expanded IRG’s portfolio to over 100 million square feet of space and its workforce to over 300 associates across the country.

William Finn, president and CEO of Hospice of the Western Reserve, said the state-of-the-art facility will support patients who require acute management and their families in a warm, homelike setting that “creates hopefulness around the loss of a loved one.”

Hospice of the Western Reserve quietly kicked o the Quality of Life capital campaign in support of the project last year. So far, the campaign has raised more than $15 million of its $18 million fundraising goal.

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Laura Rayburn, president of Hospice of the Western Reserve Foundation, said the response to the campaign has been overwhelming, and the board is “cautiously optimistic” about reaching its goal. e organization has gotten approval to tap into boarddesignated reserves to cover expenses not funded through philanthropy, she said.

e agency also received $500,000 in state funding through Ohio's one-time Strategic Community Investment Fund during the state's most recent budget process. It was one of six shovel-ready projects the Greater Cleveland Funders Collaborative asked the state to prioritize earlier this year in the capital budget.

Clinician input helped in uence the building’s architecture, Finn said. e organization partnered with E4H, an architecture rm that specializes in health care and health sciences, on the design.

e renderings of the new facility show bright, modern spaces with sandy brown furnishings and large windows overlooking the lake. Rayburn said the facility will feature private spaces and an outdoor pavilion for sta .

A new facility is needed as the current Hospice House is facing costly infrastructure improvements, Finn said. Additionally, the

existing building was designed with a residential focus, while care largely has shifted to the acute level in recent years. In today’s environment, patients’ needs are much more room-centric, Finn said, with therapies being brought directly to their rooms.

Hospice of the Western Reserve is evaluating options for the future of the Hospice House building once the new facility is complete. e organization says it’s focused on nding a use for the property that bene ts the community.

Hospice of the Western Reserve’s inpatient units provide respite care, end-of-life care and care for symptoms that are dicult to manage at home. Nearly one-third of the nonpro t’s patients have an experience in an inpatient unit, Rayburn said. e agency has hospice inpatient units in Cleveland, Westlake, Medina and Sandusky and serves an 18-county region.

“Having worked with Hospice from the very beginning on the creation of the original Hospice House at 300 East 185th Street, it has been my privilege to work with Hospice over the years,” Cleveland City Councilman Mike Polensek said in a statement.

“I am elated that Hospice of the Western Reserve has decided to make such a signi cant $25 million investment in Cleveland’s 8th Ward. I wish to thank the board, Bill Finn, support sta and volunteers for believing in our community and providing the best loving care for our friends, neighbors and loved ones on their end-of-life journey.”

Finn said the project supports the organization’s overarching mission of providing nonpro t hospice care in Northern Ohio. Hospice of Western Reserve, which is one of Cleveland’s largest nonpro ts, has acquired several nonpro t hospices in recent years, the latest being Hospice of North Central Ohio. ese moves have occurred as the hospice care industry overall has seen an in ux of private equity ownership.

A rendering shows the exterior of the Hospice of the Western Reserve’s planned new inpatient hospice facility. | E4H ARCHITECTURE

A rendering of a patient room with wood ooring and large windows | E4H ARCHITECTURE

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