Crain's Cleveland Business

VOL. 38, NO. 37

SEPTEMBER 11 - 17, 2017

Source Lunch

Akron Middlebury neighborhood mixes old and new. Page 20

Kyle Kutuchief, Akron program director of the Knight Foundation Page 23

CLEVELAND BUSINESS

The List Downtown Akron office buildings Page 18

GOVERNMENT

Issue 2 is good for TV cash, tricky for many others

By JAY MILLER jmiller@crain.com @JayMiller

When the dust settles on Nov. 8, the Wednesday after Election Day, the only clear winner of the fight over State Issue 2 likely will be the state’s television stations.

The ballot initiative, to be called the Ohio Drug Price Relief Act if passed, would require state agencies to pay no more than the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for prescription drugs, which generally pays about 24% less than most other public agencies.

Supporters hope passage in Ohio

“It’s not being waged on the basis of evidence or even sound argument. It’s emotional on both sides.”

— J.B. Silvers, professor of health finance at Case Western Reserve

will be a springboard to successful campaigns in other states.

The millions of dollars raised by both sides of the issue — $22.5 million as of their July 31 filings with the Ohio Secretary of State — may end up as the most spent anywhere in the United States on an issue campaign this year. It may end up

topping the $24 million spent last year over legalizing medical marijuana sales.

And most of that money will end up swelling the profit line of the state’s TV stations’ profit and loss statements as they aim at voters’ hearts, if not necessarily their heads.

SEE ISSUE 2, PAGE 6

FINANCE AT THE TABLE

Another hot spot for Flats Dante’s Inferno, the newest venture from restaurateur Dante Boccuzzi, features craft pizza and indoor/outdoor bocce courts. Here, the dining area opens onto the boardwalk patio, with its view of the Main Avenue Bridge in the Flats. Read Joe Crea’s report on Page 7.

(Peggy Turbett for Crain’s)

Walsh’s Citymark is ‘built,’ ‘working’

National network is boosting NEO firm

By JEREMY NOBILE jnobile@crain.com @JeremyNobile

Entire contents © 2017 by Crain Communications Inc.

Industry outlook: Nonprofits Rallying together to fight the opioid crisis. Page 11

Daniel Walsh left his job as a regional executive with Huntington Bank in 2015 to build his own business, a private equity real estate investment fund with a nationwide scope the likes of which are more commonly seen in metros like New York, San Francisco and Chicago, not Cleveland.

But after a couple years laying some groundwork, Citymark Capital is deploying funds and making deals as the former banker leverages a deep U.S. network to fill a pipeline for niche investments in the multifamily apartment space on which it's focused.

“We have this national network we can plug right back into to see very significant deal flow, which enabled us to be very selective in picking these first couple deals,” Walsh said. “This is what we were planning on building. Now, it’s built. And it’s working.”

That national network is part of the secret sauce in the Citymark recipe.

Walsh served more than 15 years of his career in KeyBank’s real estate group and five as the Greater Cleveland president for Huntington. The benefits there are obvious.

But Walsh also built out a small team since Citymark’s inception that includes people such as James Strauss, a senior director at Walsh’s firm who helped run KeyBank’s back-office real estate investment business for nearly 20 years.

Walsh and Strauss were working together as Key built out its own national real estate investment platform.

SEE CITYMARK, PAGE 19

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Local colleges are embracing dreamers Institutions vow to stand up for students impacted by Trump administration’s plan to roll back DACA

By RACHEL ABBEY McCAFFERTY rmccafferty@crain.com @ramccafferty

You’re still welcome on our campuses.

That’s been the resounding message from Northeast Ohio’s four-year colleges and universities to undocumented students following the Trump administration’s announcement that it planned to start rolling back DACA. The Obama administration enacted the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy in 2012, allowing individuals who had come to the United States illegally as children or young teenagers to apply for what’s called deferred action. This didn’t put them on a path to legal citizenship, but gave these young adults assurance that they would not be deported during a two-year-period after approval of their application. It also gave them the ability to be authorized for work. The individuals had to meet certain requirements, like being in or having completed high school or its equivalent, and were not eligible if they had been convicted of a felony.

On Sept. 5, 2017, the Trump administration announced plans to do away with the policy, with a phaseout of the protections DACA offered beginning six months later, on March 5, 2018.

While not every college and university in the region has spoken out, most have. And — whether public or private, of varying sizes and missions — they’ve been united. In Ohio, those responses included a blanket statement to Sen. Rob Portman from the Inter-University Council of Ohio, representing the state’s public universities and calling on Congress to pass legislature to resolve this issue permanently.

Universities and colleges released their own statements, too. For example, Lake Erie College highlighted its commitment to diversity and said “dreamers are welcome here.” Case Western Reserve University said it supports DACA because it is “in the best interests of the individuals involved, Case Western Reserve, and our nation.”

“Dreamers want to contribute to the country they think of as their own, and this program allows them to work, attend college, or serve in our military without fear of deportation,” the CWRU statement continued. “Diversity and inclusion are core values on this campus, and the Dreamer program aligns with both of them.”

Oberlin College president Carmen Twillie Ambar highlighted the school’s “commitment to academic excellence, social justice, equity, and opportunity” in a letter to the community, saying it was time to “continue that legacy” by fighting for the

rights of those who have benefited from DACA. Oberlin plans to offer support services and will appoint a program coordinator to work with undocumented and DACA students.

Cleveland State University went further than most, pledging in a statement from president Ronald M. Berkman to create programs and provide staff to support undocumented students. It also stated that

“Dreamers want to contribute to the country they think of as their own, and this program allows them to work, attend college, or serve in our military without fear of deportation.”

— Case Western Reserve statement

DACA students at the university would remain in the “domestic” financial aid pool for the remainder of their undergraduate program and that graduate students will continue to receive previously awarded university funding for the length of time outlined in their admission letters, assuming their academic performance is up to standards. If students with DACA status lose their federal

work authorization, the university even said it will give fellowship funding instead.

“DACA students on our campus enrich the learning environment and bring extraordinary talent,” Berkman said in the letter. “They have provided leadership in numerous disciplines, from education to science and technology, and are actively serving their local communities and economies.

These students have been raised and educated in the United States and have proven to be an important asset to our society. They need our support.”

Universities interested in protecting their students have a “lot of leeway,” said David Leopold, a partner at Ulmer & Berne LLP with a practice focused on immigration, visa and citizenship issues. Colleges and universities, much like churches and hospitals, are considered so-called sensitive locations and are under no obligation to check students’ immigration status, he said. To take it a step further, they can educate students regardless of their status and can continue to make scholarship or tuition-assistance decisions on a case-by-case basis.

“Those are all still available,” Leopold said.

University administrators concerned about the DACA announcement should discuss whether they want to put a protocol in place in case of an Immigration and Customs

Enforcement raid on campus, Leopold said, though he wasn’t aware of any such mass raids in the past. He declined to name the schools, but said he had already begun working with some Ohio universities on these kinds of issues after the immigration order earlier this year.

“Universities ought to stand up for their students,” Leopold said.

Jonathan Adler, the Johan Verheij Memorial Professor of Law at Case Western Reserve, said he wouldn’t be surprised if some colleges and universities tried to intervene on behalf of students, using the fact that rescinding DACA could prevent students from attending higher education. While he hasn’t seen anyone make that argument yet, it was used in challenges against the immigration order.

Although the phase-out of DACA is set to begin March 5, the next deadline to watch will be Oct. 5, Leopold said. That’s when eligible DACA applicants whose benefits expire between now and March 5 must apply for renewal.

Going forward, Leopold expects to see lawsuits on what will become of the private data DACA recipients had to provide, and how it can be used by the government. Adler also pointed out a potential problem. It’s speculative at the moment, but he expects to see a case where a DACA recipient alleges they were discovered with the information they had provided.

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PA G E 4

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CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

GREEN BRIDGE INVESTMENT REAL ESTATE

Apartment conversion pitched for old motel

By STAN BULLARD

James Wise, left, and John Holton have purchased the former Oak Park Hotel in Cleveland. The property, located at 4755 Pearl Road in the Old Brooklyn neighborhood, will be converted into an apartment building.

(Contributed photo)

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Real estate broker and building owner James Wise doesn’t mince words when he talks about his latest purchase, the Oak Park Hotel in Cleveland. “It’s pretty ragged. It’s pretty rundown,� Wise said of the building at 4755 Pearl Road in the Old Brooklyn neighborhood. He saw a man die of a heroin overdose in the parking lot and knows it was considered a stop for prostitutes.

But when Wise and business partner John Holton in Holton-Wise Property Group last month bought the property through 4755 Pearl Road LLC, they had the prior owner shut down the hotel. That left the new owners with 31 empty hotel suites, five occupied apartments and a project on their hands others had passed on.

Wise said he’d had the property listed for the prior owner, ASD Corp. of Cleveland, for two years and had about five prior transactions fall through. “No one knew what to do with it.

There were too many loose ends.

They’d inspect it and back away,� Wise said in an interview on Friday, Sept. 8.

However, he and Holton decided to buy it after Wise ended an internal struggle about the deal. “I wear two hats. The broker in me said to sell it and get a large commission,� Wise said. “If I buy it, a lot of money goes out. The developer in me said it’s a cool project. In my heart, I wanted to do it because I grew up in Old Brooklyn.�

Cuyahoga County land records show 4755 Pearl Road LLC paid $228,624 on Aug. 28. The seller holds a note against the property for $178,624.

Cuyahoga County assigns the property a market value for tax purposes of

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tel, when Holton-Wise first listed the property more than two years ago.

However, Wise said he has not discussed it with him since.

Kelley did not return two phone calls to his office and an email by deadline on Friday.

Wise said he hopes to push rents in the neighborhood by adding features in the suites such as granite countertops. He knows the market because the company owns a 21-suite apartment across the street with rents in the $600 monthly range and hopes to do better than that with the hotel project.

Have the business partners got a new name for the proposed apartments? “Holton-Wise Gardens,� Wise said immediately. “I’m all about branding.

It’s going to be cool.�

Marketing technology startup raises Series A funding round

By SCOTT SUTTELL

Is your health insurance program the wrong fit?

$492,000. Land records show the hotel was built in 1956, long before highways changed the neighborhood’s and the hotel industry’s landscape.

Wise said the duo plans to convert the motel to perhaps 16 apartments and continue to operate the other five suites as apartments, although their plans are in the early stages.

The first step will be to approach the city about rezoning the property to multifamily from hotel use.

Old Brooklyn Community Development Corp., that area’s neighborhood development group, declined comment on the transaction.

Wise said he had discussed what could be done with the property with Cleveland City Council president Kevin Kelley, whose Ward 13 includes the ho-

Data Genomix, a big data and marketing technology startup in Cleveland, announced it has raised a Series A funding round of an undisclosed amount.

The round was led by Edward Crawford, the chairman and CEO of Park-Ohio Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ: PKOH), and Zanite Ventures, a Cleveland-based early stage venture capital firm.

It’s the first venture capital round for Data Genomix, which in a news release announcing the funding described itself as a firm that “brings leading-edge targeting, analytics and machine learning to industries such as the online recruiting vertical.�

Data Genomix said in the release that its new recruiting software-as-aservice product, called anglr, will launch early in the fourth quarter “with an initial focus on recruiting health care professionals.� The technology targets audiences across social media channels, such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and uses social ad technology, probabilistic algo-

rithmic matching and big data to identify the strongest job candidate.

CEO Nick Martin said in a telephone interview on Thursday afternoon, Sept. 7, Martin that the new funding, combined with existing revenues, gives the company “a good amount of runway� to develop industry verticals that can make use of Data Genomix’s targeting and recruiting technology.

Data Genomix co-founder Geoff Loree said on the phone call that other potential industries that could make use of anglr include accounting, law firms and truck driving.

Martin said the company’s employees ranks now are in “double digits� — he wasn’t more specific than that — and that it continues to hire. A page on the company’s website, headlined “We’re growing!,� lists three open positions: new technologies and development director; social media marketing director; and technology sales professional.

Zanite investor Steven Rosen said

in a statement that Data Genomix, which launched in 2016, “is one of the best kept secrets in the marketing technology industry� and is “very well positioned to make an impact in the new, socially-driven targeted marketing and recruiting markets.� He added, “The analysts at Zanite believe Data Genomix in the not so distant future will transform the largely passive recruiting space and to me that is very exciting.�

Loree said Rosen and Crawford were intrigued by the company’s approach to using data and “were interested in not losing a great tech idea to the West Coast.�

Before joining Data Genomics, Martin worked for both the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party and the Ohio Democratic Party, where he was second-in-command for the targeting and analytics department.

Crawford is a well-known Republican. Partisanship aside, Loree said Crawford has been “very supportive� of the company and the notion of using big data in politics to attract better candidates and to engage citizens more directly in the political process.

Martin added, “It’s gratifying in this day and age that we can have acrossthe-aisle conversations with amity.�

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PA G E 5

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Two Darice Parkway structures in Strongsville were sold for $40 million on Aug. 22. (Contributed photo)

Pat Catan’s sells warehouses, books large price spike

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Big buildings are starting to fetch bigger prices as investor interest in Northeast Ohio’s industrial real estate market grows and the market’s health continues to improve.

There’s a recent eye-popping case in point: The two warehouses and office in Strongsville occupied by the Pat Catan’s Arts and Crafts Stores unit of Irving, Texas-based Michaels Cos. were sold on Aug. 22 to Phoenix-based real estate firm Vereit Inc. for $40 million.

That figure represents a 29% increase from the total of $31 million that seller AIC Ventures Income Fund of Dallas paid for them on April 20, 2016, according to Cuyahoga County land records.

The structures, at 12850-13000 Darice Parkway, date from 1999 and 2000 and incorporate 486,000 square feet of commercial space, the same size as when sold last year.

Even though AIC Income Fund, a massive real estate investment fund, did not respond to two phone calls and two emails by noon last Thursday, Sept. 7, the why of the sale is obvious: to capture a run-up in pricing of such properties and increased institutional investor demand for top-tier investments, even if they are in the Midwest.

Terry Coyne, a Newmark Knight Frank vice chairman who represented the seller in the transaction, said the deal shows that institutional-quality industrial properties in Northeast Ohio are fetching better prices as well as greater interest from such buyers who previously concentrated only on prime coastal markets.

“We had 12 bidders,” Coyne said, “including foreign bidders from Europe and Central America, which I have not seen before. During the downturn, no one would buy in a secondary market like Cleveland.

Now they will. They’ve bid up the prices on the coasts, and we’re starting to see similar pricing. It’s one of the impacts of the low-interest-rate environment.”

Other facets of the price run-up were a long-term lease by a high-credit tenant and higher de-

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— Terry Coyne, Newmark Knight Frank vice chairman

mand by investors for such distribution centers than manufacturing-oriented buildings.

A Vereit spokesman declined to comment on the transaction. The real estate investment trust specializes in owning buildings leased back by corporate tenants. Besides warehouses, its holdings range from retail and restaurant structures to corporate headquarters.

Vereit is a big player. Its portfolio is valued at $15 billion and encompasses 4,600 properties, a total of 93 million square feet of commercial space.

The premium price paid on Strongsville’s Darice Parkway reflects broader, though less spectacular, sale price increases in the region’s industrial market as a whole.

CoStar, the online realty data provider, estimates in its second-quarter Cleveland industrial report that sale prices of industrial properties of more than 250,000 square feet increased 7% by May 31 from a year ago, partially due to increased rents in the region.

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The proponents and opponents of State Issue 2 have combined to spend millions on local TV ads. (YouTube)

ISSUE 2

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“It’s not being waged on the basis of evidence or even sound argument.

It’s emotional on both sides,” said J.B. Silvers, professor of health finance at Case Western Reserve University. “I think that’s sad.”

Ohio Taxpayers for Lower Drug Prices (OTLDP), which is supporting the issue, has raised $6.2 million, with 99% of that coming from the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), a Los Angeles-based nonprofit that provides low-cost health care to people with HIV and AIDS in 36 countries around the work. The AIDS Task Force of Greater Cleveland is affiliated with AHF. Ohioans Against the Deceptive Rx Ballot Issue (OADRxBI), as its name suggests, is mounting the campaign against Issue 2. It has raised $16.2 million. All of its money is coming from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, known widely as PhRMA, or its wholly owned subsidiary, Ohioans Against the Deceptive Rx Ballot Issue LLC. PhRMA is the trade association for the nation’s brand-name drug suppliers.

Print media analyses of the issue delve into a variety of issues, from the motives of AHF to arguments over the value of a law that may or may not lower drug costs for Ohio’s Medicaid program and other state programs.

In a widely quoted statement, AHF president Michael Weinstein has said, “Our primary purpose here is to strengthen the hand of government in negotiating prices, and make clear the public ire over the cost of drugs and the lack of transparency, and

that profit is an issue that has to be dealt with.”

As the Associated Press reported earlier this month, some state entities even question how they could administer the law. The Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation, for example, doesn’t purchase prescription drugs directly. The BWC only negotiates its fee to its pharmacy benefits manager. And it is unclear whether the act would apply to Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center. The proposed act also would not affect the cost of drugs for people who don’t get their medications from state programs.

Although the television advertising will carry most of the campaign messaging, both sides have commissioned more academic studies that, not surprisingly, support their positions.

An analysis sponsored by OTLDP and written by Maxwell J. Mehlman, an attorney and professor at the Law-Medicine Center at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, concluded that, “Drug prices in the U.S. are unconscionably high.

The only hope of controlling drug prices is public action like the act.”

OADRxBI’s report, authored by Vory Health Care Advisors, disagrees.

“There would be little to nothing to be gained under the Act,” said VHCA president Maureen Corcoran in a statement. “Instead, the state could see increased costs in administrative functions in an effort to comply, while at the same time losing valuable supplemental rebate arrangements currently in place with drug manufacturers.”

Still, the heavy lifting will be done by the television campaigns.

According to television station fil-

ings on political advertising with the Federal Communications Commission, the two sides have, as of Sept. 5, ordered nearly $2.9 million in advertising from three of the four major commercial television stations in Northeast Ohio. For no apparent reason, neither side had yet bought time on WJW. Fighting passage, OADRxBI has ordered $2.2 million in ads opposing the issue. OTLDP has booked $676,000 in ad time.

In one ad supporting the act, Cleveland City Council President Kevin Kelley argues that, “If you’re an individual who has been subject to erratic drug prices … or have some anxiety, the Ohio Drug Price Relief Act will help you.”

In an ad against, an Ohio mother whose family has private health insurance says, “Families like mine will pay higher drugs costs.”

His own analysis of the issue suggests to Silvers that both sides make valid points.

“From an emotional point of view, I’d love it to work,” Silvers said. “There is no question we’re paying an awful lot for drugs, the drug companies are in a monopoly position and there are no price controls. They charge whatever they want.”

But he also sees it from the point of view of the Ohio mother with private health insurance. “The counter argument is that if you hold (drug prices paid by Ohio agencies) down, (the drug companies) are going to raise prices for everyone else.”

The real issue, Silvers said, is that the problem won’t be resolved by this Ohio-only issue since it doesn’t attack the patent-protected monopoly position of the drug makers or create broad price controls.

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PA G E 7

At the Table

Dante’s Inferno brings casual elegance, pizza and bocce Add handcrafted pizzas and bocce to the temptations that beckon partiers to the adult playground the Flats East Bank has become.

D ow ntow n ’s latest destination, Dante’s Inferno, debuted last week at 1059 Old River Road with a slate of imaginative pies and a trio of Joe courts for gamers Crea to try their hand at the timeless pastime.

Inferno, a spinoff of the popular stand chef-owner Dante Boccuzzi runs at Progressive Field, focuses on rustic Italian cuisine. In addition to pizzas, the East Bank location offers a small selection of pasta dishes in full and half portions, as well as a trio of salads, a half-dozen starters and a few eye-popping desserts.

Boccuzzi joins other popular eateries within walking distance of Inferno, which is situated at the base of the Flats At East Bank apartments.

Neighbors include Punch Bowl Social, The Big Bang Bar, FlipSide, Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville and Zack Bruell’s Alley Cat Oyster Bar. Walk a bit further to Collision Bend Brewing Co., Lago, and Bold restaurants.

Originally, the Inferno concept was developed specifically for Cleveland’s baseball park.

“We put together a whole menu for Progressive, had everybody together and did a tasting,” Boccuzzi recalled.

“And then they came back and said, ‘Can you do pizzas?’

“I hadn’t even presented pizzas as an idea, but we reworked everything.”

Soon, the crew at Progressive Field was turning out 500 to 700 pizzas a game, Boccuzzi said, and the concept proved a lot easier to manage than the more sophisticated menus at his other properties.

When Crop Rocks and Crop Sticks, the former occupants of his Flats spot, closed down late last summer after operating for about a year, Boccuzzi was ready to jump to a second Inferno.

“I’ve wanted to be down here pretty much since the development began, but I didn’t want to do another upscale place,” he said, reflecting on what drew him to add another property to a highly respected portfolio.

Over the course of a career that began at age 14 and has spanned years in restaurants in Europe, Asia and New York City (including a stint as personal chef to actor Robert De Niro), Boccuzzi has built a mini-empire that includes his flagship restaurant, Dante, plus Dante Next Door, Ginko and Coda, all in Tremont; DC Pasta in Strongsville; and Dante Boccuzzi Akron, nicknamed DBA. “One, it was the right opportunity for me, and the concept is something the Flats could use,” he said of the newest venture. “I would never open a Dante dining restaurant in the Flats, because then I’d have to be there every day to make it successful. But this is a concept I want to develop and grow, and this is a great spot for it.”

It fits right into the playground. Inferno brings cool elegance to the neighborhood. Stepping into a small foyer, guests enter an expansive room done in black, red and white. Roughhewn wood tabletops are surrounded by black leather seats, matching the corresponding banquettes flanking the room. Black-and-white, branch-patterned wallpaper and

Dante Boccuzzi brings craft pizza and bocce courts to Dante’s Inferno, his latest culinary venture. (Photographs by Peggy Turbett for Crain’s)

The indoor bocce courts are part of a common space shared by Inferno and the soon-to-open Happy Dog.

Sous chef Kelly Ofandiski and executive chef Adam Thompson create hand-crafted pizzas and family-inspired Italian specialties.

white subway tiles set diagonally cover walls and columns.

Subtle music-themed touches liven the space. One wall portrays Boccuzzi’s signature stylized D logo set into a surface entirely constructed of thousands of guitar picks cut from wood. Across the ceiling are strung cables, representing the neck of a guitar. (He aims to add a guitar pick to cement the concept.)

A massive rectangular bar with upward of 20 seats dominates. Cross the polished concrete walkway past the bar and you’re in the bocce area. A pair of massive green-turfed courts

are set side-by-side, indoors. A third bocce court stands several yards beyond, on the outdoor patio that strings along the walkway that separates Inferno from Alley Cat. It’s a stone’s throw from the Cuyahoga River.

The indoor bocce space is in a common area that Inferno will share with Happy Dog, expected to open in a few months.

“Basically, that’s not my space,” Boccuzzi said. “People assume it’s part of the restaurant, but it’s not mine. The only thing I provide is the pizza for them, and it becomes our waiting area.

We’ll have a menu for that area, but it’s

The Inferno pizza, with kalamata olives, hot peppers, pepperoni, sausage, chili flakes and basil, is a house specialty.

not part of my portfolio.”

A pair of 30-year-old chefs will head up the kitchen. Adam Thompson has worked for Boccuzzi on and off over the years, including stints at Dante Boccuzzi Akron. Kelly Ofandiski, a Johnson & Wales University graduate who grew up in Lorain, will share responsibilities as well as produce pastries at Inferno.

“Half of my career has been with Dante,” Ofandiski said. “I value him as a person, a mentor and a chef.”

“The menu is mainly Dante’s,” Thompson said. “A lot of the pizzas come from the Progressive Field menu, but there are pizzas from Coda (Boccuzzi’s music bar, downstairs from his Dante Next Door restaurant in Tremont) and others from different phases of his career — kind of a culmination of favorites.”

Instead of the wood-fired ovens Boccuzzi employs at Dante Next Door (“in this building, a high-rise … you couldn’t put those kinds of ovens”), Inferno’s kitchen will rely on the same TurboChef ovens used at Progressive Field. The automated bakers take the process, from prep time to finished pies, down to about five minutes. Food destined for Happy Dog tables will come from the same vast kitchen.

You’ll find familiar combinations such as sausage, roasted peppers and ricotta (but with the addition of rigatoni); a vegetarian pie (it includes eggplant and portobellos); the truffle crema-sauced Paradise (made with mushrooms, potatoes and pancetta); and the signature Inferno (topped with hot peppers, pepperoni, sausage, Kalamata olives and chili pepper flakes).

Want to stray a bit further? Try the Hot Dogs & French Fries pizza, made with Hebrew National dogs and rose-

mary-seasoned fries, or the Seaside, lavished with clams, calamari, shrimp, anchovies and arugula.

Many of the pies are made with the same Dante Boccuzzi brand sauces sold in area Heinen’s supermarkets.

The 10-inch pies are $12 to $16 each. They are available both in the dining room and at a walk-up, takeout window. Pizzas will be available until the bar closes, daily until 1 a.m. and until 2 a.m. on Friday and Saturday.

It’s a concept made for expansion.

Indeed, Boccuzzi and his partners already are working on the next locations.

“We’re trying to work out a deal with Pinecrest (a mixed-use residential and retail shopping complex) on Harvard (Road) and I-271,” Boccuzzi said. “It’s a perfect concept, and we’re a perfect price point and approachable for that kind of place. Meanwhile, I’m talking different possible agreements with Cleveland State, other college campuses and the airport, but I’m waiting on responses. Every place has a different process.”

Boccuzzi said he’s re-energized by the new direction his enterprise is taking. A husband, father of four and a cancer survivor, he feels compelled to grow his company without exhausting himself.

“I’m gradually moving my expertise in this direction. I’ll always have Dante as my centerpiece, with other concepts off in the suburbs. Every place has different partners, and there’s always somebody on hand who has a vested interest in maintaining the success of each place.

“My goal is to grow this. I like the product, and we’re still adjusting and fine-tuning, but I’m just really excited. It’s the beginning of a new chapter in my life.”

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CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

Opinion From the Editor

Let’s spell it out: It’s always best to get it right

Editorial

Prime position One of the most disruptive forces in American business — and we’re not saying that in a bad way — is ramping up its profile significantly in Northeast Ohio.

E-commerce giant Amazon, with the help of a $7.8 million job creation tax credit from the state of Ohio, plans to build an 855,000-square-foot fulfillment center in North Randall on the site of the former Randall Park Mall. The $177 million facility could employ 2,000 people. (The company also is the new owner of Whole Foods, if you couldn’t tell from the Echo devices that now greet you at the front of the store.)

It took no small amount of time or effort to make the fulfillment center project a reality. The Greater Cleveland Partnership all the way back in 2010 began working with North Randall to get the site set for redevelopment. The Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority, JobsOhio and Team Northeast Ohio all played key roles enabling the Amazon project, which is expected to generate $55.4 million in annual payroll and returns to productive use land that once housed the world’s largest shopping mall.

There’s an irony, of course, in the user of that land turning out to be Amazon, which, regardless of what you think of the company’s business practices or how much you value its Prime service, has been one of the primary sources of the diminished state of traditional retailers. Indeed, many retail jobs simply won’t exist for much longer. Stores won’t disappear, but a lot of the work that had been done in stores is moving online and being automated by Amazon. With many fewer workers than retailers had employed.

Amazon last year posted revenue of $136 billion, but it nonetheless has been quite good at winning support from state and local governments.

The Wall Street Journal last week pointed out that Good Jobs First, a group that is critical of corporate tax credits, said Amazon “has received more than $1 billion in incentives since 2000 from state and local governments to help the company build its warehouses.” In addition to the North Randall operation, Amazon just secured $18 million in tax incentives for a giant fulfillment center in Staten Island in New York.

Amazon is about to ask governments once again to pitch for its business, with the promise of boosting a local economy. The company last Thursday, Sept. 7, announced it plans to open “Amazon HQ2,” a second company headquarters in North America. Amazon said it “expects to invest over $5 billion in construction and grow this second headquarters to include as many as 50,000 high-paying jobs.”

Could Ohio be a player again? Only if it plays big in the incentives game.

Good hands

Come Jan. 1, the nearly 33,000 employees of the Cleveland Clinic will get a new boss when Dr. Tomislav Mihaljevic takes over for Dr. Toby Cosgrove as the health system’s president and CEO. Mihaljevic, a heart surgeon who heads the Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, has an international background befitting a worldwide leader in health care. The native of Croatia earned his medical degree from the University of Zagreb before moving to the United States in 1995, and he’s now a naturalized citizen.

Since 2015, Mihaljevic has led the 364-bed Abu Dhabi operation, a key part of the Clinic’s growing global profile that by 2020 is expected to include a facility in London. The Clinic in July signed a management consulting agreement with an unnamed organization planning to open a hospital in Shanghai.

Robert E. Rich Jr., the Clinic’s board chair, said that following in Cosgrove’s footsteps “would be challenging for anybody,” but that Mihaljevic “has the background, skills and vision to move Cleveland Clinic forward to even greater heights.”

Cosgrove will serve in an advisory role still to be determined by the board. We hope it’s a significant one that draws on Cosgrove’s 13 years as CEO, and his experience on an array of health care issues, to ensure a smooth transition to Mihaljevic in the most powerful executive position in Cleveland.

Publisher and Editor: Elizabeth McIntyre (emcintyre@crain.com)

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CLEVELAND BUSINESS

Managing Editor:

Scott Suttell (ssuttell@crain.com)

Sections Editor:

Timothy Magaw (tmagaw@crain.com)

Contact Crain’s:

216-522-1383

How important is spelling in the social media age, where one’s musings flow in bursts of 140 characters (or fewer)? Abbreviations and shorthand — ICYMI, SMH, RT, etc. — are the norm to get your thoughts out ASAP, and fast-texting thumbs often challenge correctness.

Recently, New York Times columnist Farhad Manjoo mused about whether spelling matters. His column was written after a torrent of criticism was unleashed on President Donald Trump for misspelling “heal” in a tweet.

Manjoo’s opinion? It’s time for the Grammar Police to lighten up. He wrote: “In a digital age of autocorrect and electronic publications that can be edited from afar, not to mention social media platforms that prize authenticity and immediacy over Elizabeth polish, misspelling has become a mostly McIntyre forgivable mistake. You simply do not need to be able to spell as well as people once had to, because we now have tools that can catch and correct our errors — so it’s just not a big deal if, on your first draft, you write ‘heel’ instead of ‘heal.’ ” As someone who has spent her career immersed in the English language, I beg to differ. The written and spoken word says a lot about who we are, personally and professionally. It also reflects on the companies and organizations we represent.

Effective communication helps convey our thoughts so that others can understand them. A misspelled word is like a giant stop sign that distracts from your intended message. Reading and rereading your writing shows respect for your audience and pride in your work.

That lack of attention to detail is a red flag for any hiring manager, and it’s something I’ve long stressed to young professionals. For me, a misspelling in a job candidate’s cover letter or résumé guarantees a one-way trip to the trash can.

Here at Crain’s, the written word is central to what we do, so we have standards that ensure we stop as many errors as possible.

We don’t post a story on our website or publish in print unless two editors have read the piece, checking for clarity, grammar, sentence structure, syntax and, of course, spelling. Do mistakes still end up in print and online? Yes, of course, because we are human. And we flog ourselves when those mistakes happen. It’s our goal, though, to eliminate as many as we can.

Spell check, autocorrect and the like can become crutches. The English language is complex, confounding and, yes, downright illogical at times. There is only so much spell check can find. Ultimately, nothing beats carefully reading, then rereading your work before hitting send. Better yet, have someone else read it after you’ve done so. Everyone — and I do mean everyone — needs an editor.

Last week, the Literacy Cooperative of Greater Cleveland held its annual corporate spelling bee in celebration of International Literacy Day. More than two dozen corporate teams participated. Besides highlighting the importance of literacy to our community, the event allowed local professionals to show off their spelling skills.

In a world where some believe that “heal” instead of “heel” is no big deal, the Spelling Bee gives me hope.

I’d love to hear what you think. Does spelling matter in the Twitter age? Share your comments on CrainsCleveland.com, or send me an email at emcintyre@crain.com. And if you are not in the practice of rereading your emails to check for spelling errors, this would be a great place to start.

Spell check doesn’t catch everything, and it’s the write way to right.

(If that last sentence caused you to massage your temples, you definitely understand my message.)

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

Sound off: Send a Personal View for the opinion page to emcintyre@crain.com.

Please include a telephone number for verification purposes.

CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

Web Talk Re: Law firm Fisher Phillips moving downtown Good article about Cleveland’s resurgence until the end, when Steve Nobil, the firm’s regional managing partner, had to get the last word in how only lawyers appreciate complex employment situations. How about all business owners, managers, HR people and anyone who works hourly for a meager paycheck? — Derek Parne

Re: Black workers’ wage gap Crain’s ran a Bloomberg story that said black workers’ wage gap has widened “for hard-to-explain reasons.” But it’s not hard to understand. City schools have chronically underperformed, but Democrats are owned by teachers unions and fight vouchers, charters and any reform. They’re selling black families down the river. — David Wildermuth

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Letter to the Editor

President has a point; Crain’s is the bully Regarding the Crain’s Aug. 21 editorial “Who unites us?,” I do not understand how people can see violence by anyone as a good thing. I heard President Donald Trump condemn violence on all sides, which is truly the admirable thing to do. Otherwise, according to the media, we are at war with “white nationalists,” as defined by who exactly?

This is a scary time in this country when groups of people (the heart of identity politics) are either praised for their bad behavior or threatened with expulsion, physical harm or death.

We should not be at war with each other, and your editorial only spreads hate against fellow Americans. If we want this country to succeed, you have to stop the nonsense and understand that the Civil War is over.

I can fully understand why CEOs feel threatened by the media and are forced to take actions that they know are harmful to the country.

You praise the Clinic and then harass Timken Steel. Finding voice is standing up to a bully, and it is you who are the bully. It is the easy path to appease the bully instead of taking a stand against you, and I appreciate that the president has the guts to confront your hypocrisy.

I don’t know when common sense will be restored in this country, but your editorial proves that we have a long way to go.

Robert Glass Cleveland

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ERC survey projects 3.1% increase in wages, salaries

By DAVID PRIZINSKY clbfreelancer@crain.com

There were no surprises or shocks in the Employers Resource Council’s wage and salary outlook.

The recently completed annual survey showed the companies and nonprofit groups contacted expect average pay hikes of 3.1% during the next year. This compares with an average actual increase this year of 3%.

The survey indicated that 99% of the participating companies and nonprofits were planning to raise wages and salaries for at least one or more of their job descriptions. Last year, the number was 97%. The low point in recent years occurred in 2009 — a recession year — when the number dropped to 55%.

“We have consistently seen the local markets average around a 3% wage adjustment from year to year over the past several years,” said ERC president Pat Perry. “Although pay increases have become the norm, there is still very little (if any) growth in terms of the actual percentages being distributed,” the survey authors added.

As far as actual pay practices are concerned, the compensation usually takes the form of merit pay, which accounts for the vast majority of the hikes in all job categories except unionized production, maintenance and service workers. The other forms of compensation are across-theboard increases divorced from performance, lump sum payouts and cost-of-living increases.

The 3.1% average appears to reflect a fair number. A typical breakdown, using production, maintenance and service workers, showed 13% would

get more than the average, 55% would get the 3% and 29% less than 3%.

Pay raises have been under pressure for a number of years. In 2001, the hike averaged 4.4%, a level not matched since. In the past 10 years, actual increases have ranged from 3.4% in 2008 to a low of 2.7% in 2010.

Next year’s average increases for all organizations lumped together range from 3% for production, maintenance, clerical and technical workers to 3.1% for supervisory, management and professional employees to a high of 3.3% for executives.

However, the average hikes for the three different employer groups tell a slightly different story. Employees at service firms stand to gain the most.

The average raise for service firm employees was projected to be 3.7%, compared with 2.9% for manufacturing workers and 2.4% for employees at nonprofits.

Perry said these differences are consistent with what his organization has seen nationally. He said some caution should be used when interpreting these numbers. “There are many other components of total reward programs that need to be factored in for each of these groups,” he said.

The actual increases that companies wind up paying usually exceed projections by small amounts. In recent years, the exception was 2009, when projections were not matched by actual hikes the following year.

The national economy had peaked at the end of 2007 and did not bottom out until the second quarter of 2009.

A spring workplace practices survey published by ERC indicated that the minimum hourly rate reported by all participants averaged $11.51. The minimum was $11.51 at manufactur-

ers, $11.85 at service companies and $10.55 at nonprofits. The Ohio minimum wage is $8.15 per hour.

In the same spring survey, companies projected an average hourly base wage hike this year of 2.79%. The average base pay increase for salaried workers was projected to be 2.91%.

Steve Peplin, CEO of Talan Products Inc., a Cleveland metalworking company, said the 3% projection seems reasonable given today’s economic conditions.

“I’m (cautiously) optimistic, but you always have to be fearful of complacency, which is the enemy,” Peplin said.

Although Talan is doing well and growing, the 70-employee company must always keep an eye on the future. “The economy has been expanding for a while now, and I fear an end to that expansion.” He added that “my job is to worry about the future.”

Peplin said he looks at the results of the ERC survey as well as other sources of pay information in developing a compensation plan.

The ERC is a membership organization in Highland Heights that provides members with a wide range of human resource services. The wage and salary survey enables companies to gauge where they stand when it comes to compensation trends. The wage and salary adjustment information was compiled in July and August. The survey gathered data from 171 companies and nonprofit organizations.

Those surveyed were located in eight area counties. Half of the companies were manufacturers. Nearly two-thirds of the participants were located in Cuyahoga County. Half of the organizations employed between 51 and 200 people.

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Focus INDUSTRY OUTLOOK: NONPROFITS

‘Truly, it takes a village’ Local nonprofits rally to tackle the opioid epidemic

By LYDIA COUTRÉ lcoutre@crain.com @LydiaCoutre

Seeing more and more of its clients struggling with addiction, The Centers for Families and Children has stepped into the treatment space for the first time.

The Cleveland-based nonprofit, which traditionally focuses on integrated behavioral health care, early learning and workforce services, began offering alcohol and other drug services just seven months ago in an effort to help combat the opioid crisis.

“Clients in all of our services lines are needing (these) services,” said Laura Chalker, chief program officer for the Centers. “We’re identifying it — whether that’s the reason they first presented themselves to the Centers or discovered that through our different intake processes and assessments.”

As the opioid epidemic continues to ravage Northeast

Ohio, local nonprofits have found themselves on the frontlines. Those who for years have operated in the addiction treatment field say they’re trying to bring more awareness to the crisis and find the resources to bring on more staff to fight it. Other organizations not working in the traditional clinical space are looking at how they too can help curb the epidemic.

“Truly, it takes a village,” said Dr. Doug Smith , chief clinical officer at the Summit County ADM board.

Nonprofits join the fight Last year, unintentional drug overdoses caused the deaths of 4,050 Ohio residents, a 32.8% increase over the prior year, driven largely by fentanyl and related drugs like carfentanil, as well as cocaine, according to the Ohio Department of Health.

“I think that there were nonprofits who didn’t think addiction was really part of their services that understand now that addiction services are definitely a part of

Photo illustration by Dima Sobko via iStock

the conversation,” said Nancy Mendez, associate vice president of community impact for the United Way of Greater Cleveland, which acts as a convener of sorts for local nonprofits.

For example, she said, a foodbank that a decade ago just focused on providing food, could now include in their intake process questions about other services that individual might need, and “unfortunately, addiction services might be one of those needs.”

Lifebanc, a nonprofit organ and tissue recovery organization serving Northeast Ohio, has seen a growing percentage of its organ donations coming from an overdose case. Last year, 24% of its donations were from overdose donors, up from 16% the year before. So far this year, one-third of its donations have been from an overdose.

The nonprofit is exploring the possibility of offering prevention programming in an effort to “save lives any way we can,” said Lifebanc spokesman Nick VanDemark.

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INDUSTRY OUTLOOK: NONPROFITS

MOCA deepens its ties with the community

By SCOTT SUTTELL ssuttell@crain.com @ssuttell

The Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland received international attention and acclaim five years ago when it opened a striking, 34,000-square-foot building designed by Iranian-born architect Farshid Moussavi of London.

The building also put the institution on a path to forming deeper ties locally and, as executive director Jill Snyder put it, “created a whole new business model for us.”

Since the August 2012 opening of the glass building at Euclid Avenue and Mayfield Road near University Circle, MOCA Cleveland has seen annual attendance more than double, to around 35,000 people per year, compared with crowds it attracted at its much-smaller former home in the Cleveland Play House complex at 8501 Carnegie Ave. In turn, MOCA Cleveland’s annual budget has grown to about $3 million from $1.6 million.

Snyder said MOCA Cleveland has operated in the black for the past three years after two years of planned deficits as the institution figured out “what the building could do, how it would impact our staffing and pro-

gramming, and what it would mean for us over the long term.”

That longer-term vision was set in a strategic plan formalized in summer 2015 that Snyder — who calls herself “a strategic planning wonk” — said was shaped in part by the “key ideas” of what makes, or could make, MOCA Cleveland distinct in the community as the institution approaches its 50th anniversary. (That anniversary technically is next year, since MOCA Cleveland started operations in December 1968, but Snyder said the institution will mark the milestone in 2019.)

They were high-concept ideas.

Among them: “discovery,” which could set visitors on a continuous path of learning; “cosmopolitan,” in advancing new ideas and embracing notions of diversity; and “rootedness,” with the new building giving MOCA Cleveland “a strong filter to think about connections to the community,” Snyder said.

MOCA Cleveland also made extensive use of surveys to assess guests’ reactions to visits to the museum. The results “were sobering sometimes,” Snyder said, particularly when visitors would raise a common question: Where’s the collection?

The answer is there is no collection, since MOCA Cleveland is a non-collecting museum that focuses on what

Snyder calls “immersive experiences” of exhibitions that often have a multimedia component and encourage “slow looking.” But the feedback was valuable, she said, in helping MOCA Cleveland sharpen its marketing message about the type of experience guests will have in the building.

MOCA Cleveland also made changes to its welcome-desk message, how docents interact with visitors and how the museum describes the technology encountered in the exhibitions, all with the intent of helping to give guests “an open-ended experience” of engaging with art and ideas.

Last year, she said, the organization “began putting more flesh to the bone” in partnering with local institutions on programs at the museum that further “help get people engaged with content and ideas.”

For instance, MOCA Cleveland is partnering with For Freedoms, an artist-run Super PAC founded by artists Hank Willis Thomas and Eric Gottesman, in a two-year residency focused on a series of free, quarterly Town Hall discussions that are co-produced with The City Club of Cleveland.

The first of those events took place Nov. 5, 2016, just days before the presidential election, and focused “on political agency and activism, the role of art and artists in American

MOCA’s attendance surged since its new building opened. (Scott Suttell)

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INDUSTRY OUTLOOK: NONPROFITS politics, and what freedom means today in the context of the four essential human rights that President Roosevelt cited during his 1941 State of the Union Address: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.”

It was a hit, Snyder said, drawing a large crowd and fostering “a lot of questions and dialogue, all done respectfully.”

With the help of $20,000 in financial support from the Ohio Arts Council, the partnership has been turned into the For Freedoms Town Hall discussion series, a two-year residency marked by quarterly, free events billed as investigating how “art and activism can shape America.”

The next event in the series takes place on Sunday, Sept. 17, at MOCA Cleveland, and it features panelists born outside the United States who now live in this country, many of them in Cleveland. Panelists and audience members who self-identify as immigrants will ask and respond to each other’s questions. The discussion “will address both personal experiences transcending boundaries and finding community and also broader perspectives on how the movement of people influences society and culture over time,” City Club CEO Dan Moulthrop, who will give an introduction at the event, said in a statement that “We are at our best when we are embracing freedom of expression and engaging in the tough conversations.”

He said MOCA Cleveland “pushes boundaries” and that the For Freedoms program offers a unique op-

ell)

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Crain’s seeks nominations for women in finance section

MOCA Cleveland executive director Jill Snyder (Dean Kaufman)

portunity “to explore arts-driven civic dialogue.”

Among other community initiatives, Snyder said MOCA Cleveland, with funding from the Cleveland Foundation, has named local poet Daniel Gray-Kontar as a writer-in-residence who will do a series of “listening circles” and develop other programming “to engage the community with MOCA,” particularly among youth. To that end, she said MOCA Cleveland also plans to revive a year-long academic program aimed at teens.

Snyder sees the community program as a way to underscore MOCA Cleveland’s strengths.

“We’re not small, but we’re still boutique-sized, and we can go deep (in engaging with audiences) better than we can go broad,” she said.

They are more than just number crunchers. They’re strategic thinkers and trusted advisers. Most importantly, they are trailblazers in our community. They have a passion for their work, their clients and the Northeast Ohio community.

This year, Crain’s Cleveland Business will honor a group of influential women in finance. The finance industry, of course, is wide-reaching — bankers, financial advisers, portfolio analysts, private equity principals, etc.

There are no hard and fast requirements for this section other than the individual must be an asset to her employer and the community at large. The group will be selected by a panel of Crain’s editors.

Do you know an influential woman in finance?

If so, please submit a nomination

by Sept. 18. Those chosen will be profiled in a special section that publishes Oct. 23. If you have questions, please contact sections editor Timothy Magaw at tmagaw@ crain.com

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INDUSTRY OUTLOOK: NONPROFITS

Q&A: Ann Kowal Smith Executive director, Books@Work

The lack of educational opportunities for working adults who didn’t have the time or resources to return to the educational system always bothered Ann Kowal Smith. So, she turned to one of the oldest forms of technology — books — and tossed them into the workplace. It turns out the idea worked. Today, Books@Work, a local nonprofit that offers professor-led literature seminars for the workplace, has delivered programs in 17 states and five foreign countries. The program was also recognized as an innovator by the National Book Foundation — a particularly special honor given that Books@Work was the only program recognized that focuses on adults in the workplace and in the community rather than children.

Also, the nonprofit recently received another $150,000 grant from the Teagle Foundation to continue to expand its reach. Crain’s recently chatted with Smith — an avid reader herself — about the growth of Books@Work and why books still matter in a 21st century economy. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. — Timothy Magaw You’ve done a lot of work with various education initiatives in Cleveland. How did that lead to the founding of Books@Work?

One of the things that struck me was we have so many interesting initiatives to get kids in school in a healthy way, keep them in school, get them to graduate and hopefully get them to college. But once adults have left the education system, it’s difficult to get them back. Over 60% of the adult population still doesn’t have a college degree. I would argue that many of them are undereducated. I got to thinking about bringing a meaningful and respectful college-like learning experience to the workplace targeted at folks who

didn’t get that opportunity. This can increasingly level the playing field and get people to talk across different levels of education.

Tell me about the magic that happens with this program when it brings people from different jobs or educational levels to the same level. Why is that important?

Education is only one aspect of who we are as people. Our credentials, which are so prized in society, don’t tell the whole story. For many people, life experience is a form of wisdom that they don’t have the outlet to share. This allows them to do that. We use books that are

human stories. It’s not about how much you know about X topic or Y topic. It’s about how you relate to a character or what a story means to you. It allows people to engage at a much more personal level. When people engage at a personal level in the workplace, a lot of interesting things happen. We see all kinds of studies that talk about the impact of social interaction on wellness and wellbeing, which is a huge and growing industry because it’s a concern for companies. We see a lot of interesting research on the impact of social interactions on productivity.

Is there a type of industry or workplace where the Books@ Work platform seems to work best?

We’ve been in manufacturing, distribution, a law firm, hospitals, tech companies, an aerospace company. There’s really not a lot of industries where it doesn’t have the potential to work. It can be difficult at a place with a heavy shift environment where finding the right time and place for people to get together can be tricky. Having said that, we just did a program at a soul food restaurant in Washington, D.C. The back of the house spoke Spanish and the front of the house spoke English. We brought in a bilingual professor and they did the program on the day the restaurant was closed. So, it’s doable, but it can take a little more work. The types of companies that are attracted to this are the ones interested in the social interactions of their workforce and see the connection between that and things like wellbeing, team effectiveness and the ability to have

Not-for-Profit

more inclusive workplaces.

So, all of these programs are taught by college professors.

What value does that add?

At one end of the spectrum there’s the book club and the other end is a true, college-level literature seminar.

We’re somewhere in between. From the book club, we take the informal nature of the conversation. From the literature seminar, we take the concept of returning to the text and the depth of the conversation. At the end of the day, we’re more focused on bringing out their ideas and getting them to think about them in a different way. At my book club, we talk about the book for five minutes and then have a glass of wine. That doesn’t happen at Books@Work. I just talked about this with one of our frequent professors. In a college literature seminar, the text is on the table. Everyone is sitting around, and that is the topic of the conversation.

At Books@Work, I like to think of the text as a participant. It provides a point of view, but the participants provide a point of view. We bandy back and forth about what the people have to say and the text has to say.

How has the program evolved since you started it?

When we started, we thought it would just be for people who didn’t have the opportunity to go to college. What we learned is that it was far more respectful, meaningful and fundamentally more sustainable for the organization if we got a cross-section of people together to talk about these stories regardless of whether they had a college

degree. We also learned that a lot of people have college degrees that are very specific to their job — finance, nursing, engineering. You get some really educated people who have never been around a seminar table.

It’s a new experience for an awful lot of people.

It’s a shame not everyone has had those sort of meaningful discussions using books.

There’s even a movement I’ve been reading about — with a little horror — that instead of freshman English courses with composition and literature, some are advocating ones focused on how to read a manual because you’ll have to do that in the workplace. I hope we don’t lose the ability as a culture to read narratives and think about them.

I imagine this helps in some small way to show literature has value in a workplace-focused society.

Absolutely. When you take apart things that are important to a workplace, communication and interaction are always at the core.

Take safety, for example. If you work at the factory and want the environment to be safe, part of that is the ability of people to speak up even if your boss is doing something dangerous. If you don’t have the ability to have that conversation across hierarchies, it’s much tougher to create that type of safe environment. In January, we did a factory-wide event in Wisconsin for 350 people where we read a story out loud, they broke into groups and started to talk about that story across functions and hierarchies as part of a safety training.

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INDUSTRY OUTLOOK: NONPROFITS

OPIOIDS

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 11 What sort of books are people reading?

It depends on the group and their interests. We can tailor programs to what people like to read. We do read classic fiction, but nothing too long — not the big Russian novels, for example. We’ve done Ernest Hemingway, William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Edith Wharton. We do a lot of short stories. Increasingly, as we look for national teams, we’ve found that with short stories they can embed an hour of Books@Work programming into an existing team meeting. We’ve even done graphic novels.

How do you sell it?

We will start with a leadership team and say, ‘Give us a try.’ We’ll have them do a couple short stories.

Once they see the value, they begin to see how it might be deployed within an organization. We’ve done that in a number of situations, and many have trickled down to the organization in a powerful way. Even though our goal is to bridge different educational levels, it’s been effective for the leadership teams for a number of reasons.

They might get together on a regular basis, but those meetings tend to be all business. To be able to step back for, say, the first hour with Books@Work can change the way they might have a conversation.

What have you learned while building this?

It’s really changed the aperture on the types of things I read. I was never a big short story reader, but now I read them voraciously, in part, to see what would work for Books@Work, but I’ve also become a student of the short story. I’ve also learned a lot about how to start something. We’re a nonprofit, but we’re also a startup. When you’re new to the world, every day holds some sort of ambiguity. I’ve learned to listen to people’s experiences. We’ve done interviews with hundreds of participants.

Nelson Burns, president and CEO of Coleman Professional Services, a nonprofit offering programs for individuals diagnosed with mental and physical disabilities, said he welcomes all efforts of nonprofits to help educate people about the dangers of opiates. “When you have an epidemic like this, it’s natural, I think, for all organizations to say, ‘Hey, not one group has the answer,’ and become a little bit more modest in your approach,�

Burns said.

Partnerships are key The Centers for Families and Children began working to bring on addiction services about a year ago, upon realizing just how much its services were affected by the opioid epidemic.

In its early learning programming, the nonprofit knew that children of those struggling with addiction could need support because of added challenges, such as an unstable home life or the trauma of experiencing a parent with addiction. And in the Centers’ workforce programming, they saw clients who were addicted and unemployed, as well as employers looking for staff that could pass a drug screening.

So the Centers gradually added new staff to support the growth, Chalker said. In total thus far, it has added seven staff to help offer non-intensive outpatient and aftercare services, group support, drug screenings and talk therapy. Next, the organization wants to expand services to offer intensive outpatient therapy and eventually, partial hospitalization.

That’s not to say that everyone should try to provide those services, Chalker said. Rather, it’s critical to know what services are available, partner with other organizations and refer people as necessary. “You can’t address these things without looking at housing or other barriers that our clients face every day,� Chalker said.

Many nonprofits providing addiction treatment have been in the field for decades, but the opioid epidemic is different, leaders say, both in its intensity and deadliness.

In 2003, just 5% of the people who

came into the detox unit at the Salvation Army of Greater Cleveland had a primary diagnosis of an opioid or heroin addiction. By last year, that was nearly 80%, said Beau Hill, executive director at The Salvation Army Harbor Light Complex. “It’s meant that we’ve had to retool how we think about addiction, and it’s also had to retool kind of how we operate,� Hill said.

For instance, over the past 40 or 50 years, blue collar alcoholics who would get clean and find a job were a huge part of the work, he said. Now, many of those who struggle with addiction are younger and haven’t developed some of the skills to secure a blue collar job, which are harder to come by these days anyway.

The nuances and broad effects of addiction make partnership with different agencies “absolutely critical,�

Hill said, “because the problem is so prevalent that there’s no one single agency that can be the entire answer.�

As nonprofits improve in the work of trying to tackle poverty and its symptoms, they’re better understanding the links of various issues — education and opportunities, substance abuse, mental health, housing, lack of employment, and more. “We can’t work in silos anymore,�

United Way’s Mendez said. “We’re going to need to leverage and collab-

orate our resources, and the opioid crisis is one great example of that.�

Resources needed Nonprofits say that the state Medicaid expansion came at the right time, as the opioid epidemic was really starting to ramp up. “Without Medicaid expansion, we would see more people dying,� said Sally Longstreth Fluck, director of clinical operations at chemical dependency treatment nonprofit Oriana House, where the expansion helped alleviate the toll of providing treatment free of charge to clients who couldn’t pay.

Medicaid too helps support the Centers’ added services, although the nonprofit self-funded the initial costs to start the program and hire staff.

The Summit County ADM board, which increased its beds from 18 to 28 within the past year, reallocated dollars that once funded care now covered in the expansion, and used those dollars for prevention and other programming to help combat the crisis.

What, of the ADM board, sees as a bigger strain right now on the agencies he works with is the need for trained staff. “It’s not like there was a surplus of addiction specialists who are sitting around doing nothing before the opi-

oid epidemic came along,� he said.

High turnover of staff overwhelmed by the tragedy of the work makes keeping counselors difficult, said Longstreth Fluck of Oriana House, which has worked to increase its treatment staff by about 30% in the last five years.

Many also noted the need for more sober or residential support systems, as well as longer-term care for patients to follow up and maintain their sobriety.

And overall, nonprofit leaders would like to see more awareness of the problem and a better understanding of the disease of addiction.

Government and social services can have all the programming they want, but work still needs to be done in families, homes, churches, soccer practices, PTA meetings and everywhere else that people gather to talk about the problem, reduce the stigma and make sure fewer people start abusing opiates, Hill said.

The role of nonprofits, as Chalker sees it, is both providing services and raising that message. “It’s a very significant issue that’s (been) added on for many folks that are already dealing with so many complex challenges,� she said. “This is a community-wide problem, and I think everyone needs to step up and help, whether it’s for-profit, nonprofit, government sectors.�

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INDUSTRY OUTLOOK: NONPROFITS

Nonprofits also struggle with diversity

By LYDIA COUTRĂ&#x2030; lcoutre@crain.com @LydiaCoutre

Promoting a diverse workforce is a challenge in many industries, and the nonprofit realm certainly isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t an exception.

For example, though women make up the majority of the workforce in grantmaking organizations across the country, they do not have proportionate representation in leadership positions, according to a new analysis from the Council on Foundations.

In a similar vein, racial and ethnic minorities havenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t made gains in representation in the philanthropic workforce in several years, according to the report from the Arlington, Va.based nonprofit leadership association of grantmaking foundations.

The report, titled â&#x20AC;&#x153;The State of Change: An Analysis of Women and People of Color in the Philanthropic Sector,â&#x20AC;? takes a look at the racial/ethnic minority and gender diversity among philanthropic organizations.

A diverse workforce brings new perspectives and a diversity of thought to every sector, said Floyd Mills, the councilâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion and author of the report. In foundations, it becomes even more important, he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;If youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re looking for competency with regard to the culture youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re serving and interacting with and building trust with, the diversity of the talent pool within the foundation makes a difference,â&#x20AC;? Mills said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;because itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s going to have a different impact and way of working with the community, and I think it also brings some diversity of thought to the grantmaking process.â&#x20AC;?

â&#x20AC;&#x153;If youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re looking for competency with regard to the culture youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re serving and interacting with and building trust with, the diversity of the talent pool within the foundation makes a difference.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Floyd Mills, the Council on Foundationsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion

The report points to organizational factors that may be helping to maintain the status quo. Employees, especially at the executive level, stay in their jobs for quite some time, with eight years being the median tenure for CEOs for all grantmaker types. This low turnover rate, coupled with the small staff that many foundations have, limits the opportunities for adding new, diverse staff.

The Cleveland Foundation has an average of eight years of service, with many employees having been with the organization for decades, said Monica Brown, vice president of human resources for the foundation.

Outreach is the easy part, she said.

Finding open positions and opportunities becomes a challenge. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This is true of the nonprofit sector period, but when youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re working in a grantmaking organization, mission-driven, seeing the impact â&#x20AC;&#x201D; itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s very rewarding work,â&#x20AC;? Brown said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;People donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t necessarily want to leave. And so when you have such low turnover, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s very difficult to continue to bring in new talent.â&#x20AC;?

But the Cleveland Foundation and other organizations are working to ensure they have both a diverse talent pool and opportunities for advancement.

Making the case The argument for diversity in philanthropy was, initially, a moral one, focused on social justice and mission, said Julianne Gozar, vice president of human resources at the United Way of Greater Cleveland. â&#x20AC;&#x153;But I think today, as many studies have outlined especially in the corporate arena, that greater inclusiveness also may have an improved impact on organizational processes and outcomes,â&#x20AC;? she said.

The initial moral push for diversity may have helped to give people outside the philanthropy sector the impression that it was inherently a diverse workforce, Mills said. But that work needs to be intentional.

In 1980, when the council first began collecting information on race/ ethnicity and gender of CEOs, 77% of respondents with a CEO had a man in that role and 21% had a woman (gender was not indicated for some).

By 2015, women represented 57% of CEOs. In that 35-year span, minorities in CEO roles rose from 1% to 8%. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Clearly,â&#x20AC;? the report states, the sector has seen a shift in the last 35 years.

But the proportions have changed â&#x20AC;&#x153;very littleâ&#x20AC;? in the past five to 10 years.

The racial/ethnic makeup of em-

U PCOMI NG ENTERTAI NMENT

ployees are more in line with the U.S. labor force, and women are overrepresented in philanthropy, when compared to the overall population, college graduates and the labor force. The discrepancy, however, is that the women and racial/ethnic minorities arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t equally represented within different levels of participating organizations.

In 2015, women represented 77% of professional positions in philanthropy, but make up only 60% of executive leadership.

Although women are â&#x20AC;&#x153;inarguably the backbone of the professional foundation workforce,â&#x20AC;? the report notes, they face potential obstacles to leadership.

Moving from the administrative to professional to executive levels of staff, representation for both women and racial/ethnic minorities decreases in the report. â&#x20AC;&#x153;And although this reality may also be consistent with what is found in other sectors and industries, it raises questions about the access that racial/ethnic minorities and women â&#x20AC;&#x201D; who comprise such a large proportion of foundation professional staffs â&#x20AC;&#x201D; have to executive level job opportunities and decision making in the field,â&#x20AC;? Mills writes in the report.

A diverse pool At the Cleveland Foundation, staff referrals, national and local outreach, fellowship alumni databases, social media outreach, specialized job boards and more are all part of the effort to bring in a diverse talent pool.

The leadership team at the foundation recently went through a diversity inclusion training that the rest of the staff is expected to go through next year, Brown said.

Diversity efforts in the philanthropic sector have to be creative and collaborative, Brown said, especially given the limited resources they may have compared to the for-profit sector, which can have entire teams dedicated to diversity initiatives.

The United Way is working to identify obstacles to minority applicants, hires and leadership; targeting learning efforts for diversity and inclusion; offering professional development to ensure a pipeline for future opportunities and more, Gozar said.

The organizationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s recently approved strategic plan incorporates an even greater effort to make it more diverse, equitable and inclusive, she said.

Up next: Widening the scope of recruitment to tap into potential applicants who arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t necessarily in the philanthropy sector, but have skills and perspective that make them an asset to the United Way. Mills said this is key. A population of people is already looking at philanthropy as a career choice, but â&#x20AC;&#x153;I wonder how diverse that pool is,â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;And what we can do to really create awareness around communities and bring more people to the field who might have an interest in this space, but may not know thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an opportunity today.â&#x20AC;?

The report, Mills notes, is limited to racial/ethnic minorities and gender, but the council and others look at diversity through a much broader scope: age, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, class, economic circumstances and more. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The case for diversity in philanthropy is no longer about the moral, emotional argument,â&#x20AC;? Gozar said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It is a logical and operational case in a pursuit of diversity, equity and inclusion in all aspects of the organization.â&#x20AC;?

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INDUSTRY OUTLOOK: NONPROFITS

Sight Center calls on new revenue stream

By JAY MILLER

Nearly all of the Sight Centerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s call center employees â&#x20AC;&#x201D; about 98% â&#x20AC;&#x201D; have a vision deficiency. Most work in a 70,000-squarefoot space at the Sight Centerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s office on Clevelandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s East Side (Contributed photos)

jmiller@crain.com @JayMiller

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted came to Cleveland in August to talk about how his office has improved the services it provides the stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s businesses and that the number of business filings has increased. He also touted that the cost of running the Secretary of Stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s office is down.

Husted, maybe not coincidentally, is considering a run for the governorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s office next year. However, he made a point of mentioning how one key to that success has been outsourcing his phone answering operation to the Cleveland Sight Center (CSC). The call center there answers the phone for the Secretary of Stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s office from people looking to find out how to file the paperwork needed to start a business or how to check on the status of an existing business.

Husted said that even though call volume has risen from 8,000 a month to 11,000 a month, wait time has been reduced 96%, to an average of about 15 seconds, while saving the office about $100,000 a month. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Finding Larry Benders (the CSCâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s president and executive director) and what they do at the Sight Center was just a tremendous win, both in terms of the customer service improvement and also the mission that they have,â&#x20AC;? Husted said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;And weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re putting people to work. As much as people can talk about technology eliminating jobs, here itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s creating jobs for people who otherwise wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have access to work.â&#x20AC;?

CSC employs 45 people at its call center and Benders hopes to grow that significantly in the next several years.

The call center employs 45 people â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a number that is expected to grow in the coming years.

Nearly all, 98%, of the call center employees have a vision deficiency, said Jassen Tawil, CSCâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s director of business development. Some are completely blind, others have contrast issues.

Some of those with limited vision use high-contrast screens or screens with large print. For those who are totally blind, the centerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s call-handling system has a speech synthesiz-

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er that can convert words on the screen to voice, said Tawil. So some operators have headsets with one earphone listening to a caller while the other translates information on the computer screen to voice.

Many work in a 70,000-square-foot space in the Sight Centerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s office at East 101st Street and Chester Avenue in Cleveland. Others, about 20, are able to work from home. The center handled 427,317 calls and emails in 2016 and that number is growing.

Founded in 1906 as the Cleveland Society for the Blind, the CSC provides rehabilitation services, training, recreation and independent living services to people who are blind or visually impaired. Benders said the call center revenue is helping the agency fulfill its mission â&#x20AC;&#x201D; help people who are blind or who have limited vision to realize their full potential â&#x20AC;&#x201D; as government funding sources decline.

The Sight Centerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s winning bid for the business of Hustedâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s office is one of a handful itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s won from state agencies under a state procurement program designed to assist nonprofits. The CSC has seven major contracts with state agencies â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the Secretary of Stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s of-

fice, the Department of Education, the Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities, three with the Department of Health and one with TourismOhio, the stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s travel agency.

TourismOhio began contracting with the Sight Center in 2012. CSCâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s call center now handles between 1,000 and 1,400 calls a month to the organizationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 1-800-BUCKEYE number. Additionally, CSC employees also review the descriptions for attractions and upcoming events for the Ohio.org website. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re pleased with the work of Cleveland Sight Center,â&#x20AC;? a spokesman said in an emailed statement. â&#x20AC;&#x153;They are a good partner working with TourismOhio.â&#x20AC;?

Most recently it won a four-year, $2.8 million contract to answer calls for Help Me Grow, a health department program for pregnant women and new parents. Beginning in August, CSC employees began handling intake and referral processing, child finding, public awareness and outreach calls.

People with disabilities have a high unemployment rate (more than 70%), said Tawil, despite the fact they have capabilities that are extremely valuable in the workplace.

The contracts were won under the Community Rehabilitation Program of the Ohio Office of Procurement.

The state has identified a handful of products and services that state agencies can acquire from qualified nonprofit agencies.

Besides call center services â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the CSC is the only nonprofit in Ohio with a qualifying call center â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the state has identified 96 qualified agencies that currently hold 76 state contracts. Among the other products and services purchased under the program are data entry, lawn care and silk screen printing.

For the state, the programs are a win-win, said Benders. Putting disabled people to work reduces government entitlement payments and increases state income tax revenue.

In fiscal year 2013, that meant a savings per employed disabled worker of $2,182, according to an Office of Procurement calculation.

What started out in 2007 as a training center for people who are blind or have limited vision became a revenue-generating call center for the CSC. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It turned out to be a great business opportunity for us,â&#x20AC;? Benders said.

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CRAINâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

THE LIST

Downtown Akron Office Buildings Ranked by Rentable Building Area

THIS YEAR BUILDING

RENTABLE BUILDING AREA/ SQUARE FEET AVAILABLE

RENT PER SQUARE % LEASED FOOT

BUILDING CLASS

TENANTS

YEAR BUILT/ RENOVATED

LEASING COMPANY

OWNER

1

AES Business Campus 388 S. Main St. Akron, 44311

457,362 101,523

80.0

$20.5

A

Brouse McDowell, Homesite, Roadrunner Transportation Systems

1925 1995

Tell Companies Ltd.

JLL (216) 861-7171

2

FirstEnergy Building 76 S. Main St. Akron, 44308

400,000 0

100.0

NA

A

FirstEnergy

1976 2007

McKinley Inc.

JLL (216) 861-7171

3

Polsky Building 225-227 S. Main St. Akron, 44308

267,400 0

NA

NA

B

College of Applied Science and Technology

1930

University of Akron

NA

4

Sen. Oliver R. Ocasek Government Office Building 161 S. High St. Akron, 44308

243,975 NA

NA

NA

B

State of Ohio

1984

State of Ohio

NA

5

William H. Considine Professional Building (1) 215 W. Bowery St. Akron, 44308

239,015 0

NA

NA

B

Akron Children's Hospital

2003 2018

Akron Children's Hospital

NA

6

PNC Center 1 Cascade Plaza Akron, 44308

233,889 74,927

66.0

$16

B

PNC Bank, Greater Akron Chamber of Commerce, MS Consultants

1969

Arthur Goldner & Associates Inc.

CBRE (216) 687-1800

7

Harold K. Stubbs Justice Center 217 S. High St. Akron, 44308

232,822 (2) 0

NA

NA

C

City of Akron Police Department; Akron Municipal Court

1917

City of Akron

NA

8

O'Neil's Building 222 S. Main St. Akron, 44308

230,000 (3) 46,000

80.0

$20

A

Roetzel & Andress, Arcadis, Full Spectrum

1928 1998

R&A Properties

JLL (216) 861-7171

9

Building 17, Canal Place 530 S. Main St. Akron, 44311

213,000 64,805

74.9

$17.5

B

Spectrum, Hattie Larlham Community Services, Radiant Research

1910 2006

Canal Place A LLC

CBRE (216) 687-1801

10

The Law Building 153-165 S. Main St. Akron, 44308

212,520 191,000

70.0

$14.29

B

Amer Cunningham Co.; Kelly, Honeck & Baker; Richard Kutuchief

1911 1988

159 Development LLC (Gershon Matiteeb)

Colliers International (330) 607-7273

11

GOJO Plaza 1 GOJO Plaza Akron, 44311

212,179 20,322

90.0

NA

A

Meaden & Moore LLP, Robert Half International

1970 1998

The Kanfer Company LLC

The Kanfer Company LLC (330) 678-3900

12

The Ohio Building 175 S. Main St. Akron, 44308

203,680 0

NA

NA

B

Summit County

1928

Summit County

NA

13

Akron Centre Plaza 50 S. Main St. Akron, 44308

195,623 22,560

89.0

$18

A

Chase, Roderick Linton Belfance LLP, Laird Technologies

1982

McKinley Inc.

JLL (216) 861-7171

14

John F. Seiberling Federal Building & U.S. Courthouse 2 S. Main St. Akron, 44308

185,000 0

NA

NA

B

United States of America

1974

United States of America

NA

15

Huntington National Bank Tower 106 S. Main St. Akron, 44308

176,000 25,458

91.7

$14.53

B

Huntington National Bank, Vorys, Sater, Seymour & Pease, Renner Kenner Greive Bobak Taylor & Weber

1932

Huntington National Bank

CBRE (330) 670-4444

16

Building 10, Canal Place 530 S. Main St. Akron, 44311

165,000 89,100

66.7

$15.31

B

Old Republic National Title

1920

Canal Place A LLC

CBRE (216) 687-1800

17

Akron Beacon Journal Building 44 E. Exchange St. Akron, 44328

160,000 29,890

87.0

$9.90

B

Beacon Journal Publishing Co.

1929

Beacon Journal Publishing Co.

Pickard Commercial Group (330) 794-7986

18

Building 24, Canal Place 520 S. Main St. Akron, 44311

156,000 11,105

90.0

$13.4

B

PerkinElmer Health Sciences, Bureau Veritas Group

1917

Canal Place A LLC

CBRE (216) 687-1802

19

AT&T 50 W. Bowery St. Akron, 44308

145,727 0

NA

NA

C

AT&T

1930

AT&T

NA

20

Locust Professional Center 300 Locust St. Akron, 44302

120,994 0

NA

NA

B

Akron Children's Hospital

1989

Akron Children's Hospital

NA

21

Main Place 121 S. Main St. Akron, 44308

110,000 11,000

90.0

$10

A

GSA, Fifth Third Bank, Smithers Group

1992

Akron Main Place Development LLC

Bowery Management Inc. (330) 762-1074

22

3 Cascade Plaza 3 Cascade Plaza Akron, 44308

108,230 0

NA

NA

C

Huntington National Bank

1969 2014-2016

Huntington National Bank

NA

23

CitiCenter Building 146 S. High St. Akron, 44308

100,314 (2) NA

NA

NA

C

CitiCenter Athletic Club; city of Akron offices; Akron Municipal Employees Credit Union

1933

City of Akron

NA

24

80 W. Bowery St. 80 W. Bowery St. Akron, 44308

100,000 (2) NA

0.0

NA

B

Vacant

1956

City of Akron

City of Akron (330) 375-2133

25

10 N. Main St. 10 N. Main St. Akron, 44308

95,000 95,000

NA

NA

A

SummaCare (4)

2001

Signet LLC SPE

Colliers International (216) 239-5060

26

Austen BioInnovation Institute of Akron 47 N. Main St. Akron, 44308

87,624 46,724

47.0

$14

B

Austen BioInnovation Institute of Akron

1918 2012

Summit County Port Authority

Pickard Commercial Group 330.794.7986

RESEARCHED BY CHUCK SODER

Source: CoStar (www.costar.com), Akron Chamber of Commerce, property owners, leasing companies and government websites. There is no guarantee these listings are complete or accurate. Send questions, corrections and suggestions to Chuck Soder: csoder@crain.com.

(1) In November 2018, Akron Children's plans to open a 210,000-square-foot addition to this building. (2) Rough estimate from the Akron Chamber of Commerce (3) Includes 12,000 square feet of first floor retail space owned by the city of Akron (4) SummaCare is in the process of moving its headquarters to Akron's new East End development.

CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

CITYMARK CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

“We basically took the best practices of a Fortune 500 company and plopped them down at Citymark,” Walsh said.

Strauss joined back in 2015 as Walsh’s first team member. Throughout 2016, Walsh and company built out the Citymark platform and honed its investment focus, which centers on large, multifamily apartments in the country’s 50 largest metros. Its sweet spot is in the range of $40 million to $50 million in total project cost for an acquisition, Walsh said.

Last year also is when Walsh began raising Citymark’s first fund, with a target of $100 million and a cap of $150 million, according to filings. (The current amount raised was not disclosed.)

Its investors are a mix of institutional clients and family offices. Their turnaround is a bit shorter than the usual timeline in private equity, with Citymark expecting to hold its investments for about three to four years.

Now, a few months shy of the three-year anniversary of Walsh disclosing his plans for Citymark, capital is being deployed.

In June, Citymark closed a deal for River Edge, a 100-unit Class A multifamily community in Garfield, N.J. That property was built earlier this year, has oversized floor plans, a swimming pool and two gyms.

And in July, the firm closed on a deal with the Villas of Vista Ridge, a 323-unit Class A complex in Lewisville, Texas, built in 2002 with amenities including resort-style swimming pools, fitness and business centers, a pet park and playground.

“We basically took the best practices of a Fortune 500 company and plopped them down at Citymark.”

— Daniel Walsh, Citymark Capital founder

And a third deal in Phoenix is expected to close in the coming weeks.

Combined, those deals will put to work about $35 million in Citymark’s debut fund.

That deal flow has been better than Walsh had even hoped for. And while these deals are coming one after the other right now, they’ve all been a long time coming. Walsh said the firm has vetted nearly 140 opportunities before settling on these few.

“I was hopeful old clients would return my calls, and they did — luckily. It’s blown me away how responsive they’ve been. We had good success doing (joint-venture) equity deals in the past,” said Walsh, referencing his team’s past roles in the banking world, “and we’re really just

picking up where we left off.”

Regardless, it’s a prime time for Citymark’s investment focus in the real estate market, Walsh said, citing a couple major trends.

Millennials are largely staving off homebuying because of the large burden of student-loan debt. That’s the prime rental cohort.

Meanwhile, Walsh said older individuals and empty-nesters are at an “unprecedented” level, increasingly opting to sell their suburban homes to move into city apartments.

Those trends combined are hyping up demand.

Meanwhile, in the wind-up to the economic downturn in the late 2000s, as a hot subprime market led to a surge in sales for single-family homes, supply for apartments was muted. That trend is flipping back the other way.

“So you have all this demand coming and not a ton of supply,” Walsh said. “So, nationally, we feel good about where the apartment market is.”

And with the $2.2 billion Citymark pipeline loaded with potential investments, Walsh is feeling good about where his new firm stands.

As far as whether a deal could come to fruition in the Ohio market or elsewhere nearby, it’s probably just a matter of time until the right opportunity presents itself.

“We’d really like to do something in Cleveland or the Midwest,” said Walsh, a native Clevelander. “But we’re just excited about the national platform being off and running, and we’re delighted to be doing it here in Cleveland. This is an incredibly sophisticated market, and we just feel great being additive to that continued growth for the city.”

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CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

AKRON

Neighborhood Watch

Middlebury is a microcosm of Akron itself Area mixes the new development, old character and blight typical of former industrial towns

By DAN SHINGLER

About this series

dshingler@crain.com @DanShingler

We thought we knew a fair amount about Akron, which is the hometown of some of us at Crain’s. That is, until we started driving around with Akron planning director Jason Segedy, who agreed to take part in an ongoing series to show us his knowledge and passion for the city — one neighborhood at a time. This month, we look at Middlebury, where the East End development is revitalizing urban living, but where challenges remain.

Put the entire Rust Belt into a snow globe, and you might get something like Middlebury.

“There’s definitely a little bit of everything here,” said Jason Segedy, Akron’s director of planning and urban development, on a recent tour he gave of the Akron neighborhood, which he says was a town even before the Rubber City itself was founded in 1825.

That’s why Segedy chose to show Middlebury as a neighborhood that helps to tell Akron’s present story.

It’s got all the good, the bad, the hip and the blight that is the fabric of most old industrial towns, including Akron, he said, but all in one neighborhood.

The hip, and some of the good, is best exemplified in the East End, a huge, mixed-use development by Stuart Lichter and his company, Industrial Realty Group, which repurposed Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.’s former headquarters. Lichter built Goodyear’s new headquarters — a shining, 639,000-square-foot complex — just to the south of the neighborhood but decided the old headquarters in Middlebury had promise.

“We basically start with the facility. What really happened there was we had heard rumors about the possibility of Goodyear leaving town, and we proactively did a development plan where we used their land — they had probably 400 or 500 acres,” Lichter recalled about how the work got started about 10 years ago.

Then he asked himself: “Why not put the new headquarters on the same site, redo the old buildings and rebuild a neighborhood?”

Lichter’s a guy who often answers his own questions, and in this case the answer was to redo the old Goodyear Hall and headquarters, which now house upscale apartments, a theater and make up the hipster heart of the East End development.

Since they came on the market in late 2015, the apartments have been snapped up quickly, Lichter said.

The units are now 100% rented.

In the process, Lichter said he found an appetite for urban living near downtown that was stronger than he expected, especially among young singles and others looking for small, upscale units.

“The one-bedroom units rented very, very quickly. There was a waiting list. The two- and three-bedroom units rented more slowly. That was a surprise to us,” he said.

The experience changed his plans for the former Goodyear buildings across Market Street from Goodyear Hall. The project now will include residential units instead of being all office space as originally planned, he said.

That project, which Lichter is working on now, will result in another 100 or so apartments, along

Stuart Lichter and his Industrial Realty Group transformed Goodyear's former headquarters in Middlebury into a mixed-use development that includes upscale apartments and a theater. (Shane Wynn for Crain’s)

with offices, in about 1.5 million square feet of repurposed space, he said. The project’s cost will be about $167 million, Lichter estimated.

He’s not putting this money into an already trendy neighborhood, either. Goodyear’s corporate presence is self-supporting for its headquarters to the south and bolsters the Hilton Garden Inn Lichter developed nearby. But he knows the Middlebury neighborhood adjacent to the East End development that includes the old Goodyear buildings has its challenges.

Setting the trend

The East End development encompasses several buildings at Goodyear’s former headquarters site. More buildings, across Market Street from this one, will be transformed into offices and apartments.

A former church is home to the Well, which houses a community development corporation, several other nonprofits, a theater and a coffee shop.

So does Segedy, who doesn’t shy away from urban blight on streets such as Annadale Avenue, or try to deny that the neighborhood has a problem with housing.

“I think the neighborhood has more than 100 vacant lots right now,” Segedy said, referring to lots that once held houses during better times.

Lichter is undeterred but realistic.

“Around the edges of this neighborhood, there are some areas of pretty substantial blight,” Lichter said.

But rather than worry about how it might impact his new development, he’s thinking about how his work might impact the neighborhood. After all, his trend is the more recent one — and it’s got size.

“This site is so big, it’s its own neighborhood. And it will probably have a positive impact on the area around it. … That was exactly the philosophy. We’re almost certain we’ll set the neighborhood trend,” Lichter said.

Quite a few other people hope he is right, including Segedy, other city officials, investors and urban pioneers who are also betting heavily on Middlebury.

Segedy said he sees acute challenges but also the chance for great achievements in Middlebury.

“It’s probably one of the best locations in the city in terms of access to major employers,” he said.

Plus, the neighborhood has a lot of things that tie its current and some former residents to it emotionally, Segedy said — and there’s probably no two better ways to do that than through religion and food.

Middlebury is still dotted with old churches, as well as the schools attached to them, that instill continued support from former area residents.

As for food, well Middlebury might be home to the most historic remaining Akron restaurant of them all. New Era, known for its famous chicken paprikash, is on the southeast edge of the neighborhood and still draws former residents back for its food, its waitresses attest.

True, Middlebury has lost more population in recent years than almost any other part of Akron, but that also creates opportunities by opening up land for redevelopment by active organizations, Segedy said.

One of those organizations is the East Akron Neighborhood Development Corp., which Segedy said is working to, among other things, bring housing and light industrial work back to the neighborhood.

“This neighborhood has some great champions,” Segedy said.

“Like Zach Kohl,” he quickly added.

in t coll its w The prov fee f K ic sa borh A reha bur cess in th five in th thre K hom not by t said “I Koh whe But, A I’ve

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The Well Zachary Kohl is a former Fairlawn resident who moved to Middlebury five years ago. He quickly began efforts to fix up the neighborhood, which he knew from his youth when he lived nearby and attended Middlebury’s First Presbyterian Church.

Kohl not only bought a house in the neighborhood, he bought his old church, the congregation of which had since moved and left behind 30,000 square feet of space on six floors.

Today, the church houses the Well, a community development corporation that Kohl established to improve housing in the neighborhood. The Well also is home to six other nonprofit organizations engaged in ministry work, victims advocacy and counseling, theater, refugee resettlement and teaching financial literacy to neighborhood residents.

Kohl also opened Compass Coffee

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CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

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S E P T E M B E R 11 - 17, 2 017

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PA G E 21

AKRON

in the old church to function as a collaborative space for the nonprofits working on neighborhood issues.

The business also raises money and provides the occasional cup of coffee for the homeless.

Kohl is the kind of young, energetic savior Segedy wishes every neighborhood had more of.

At 31, Kohl not only bought and rehabbed his own house in Middlebury, but the Well already has successfully rehabilitated eight homes in the neighborhood. The Well sold five houses to residents who still live in them and rents out the remaining three, Kohl said.

Keep in mind, though, buying homes in and around Middlebury is not usually a high-dollar enterprise by the standards of some folks, he said.

“I bought my house for $4,500,” Kohl said. “Now, it wasn’t livable when I bought it. We had to rehab it.

But, yeah, we bought it for $4,500.”

And, as a bonus, he added: “And I’ve become very handy.”

Though new development like the East End is going in, Middlebury is still filled with areas of blight. (Shane Wynn for Crain’s)

Local businesses dot Middlebury, including the Bomb Shelter, which carries kitschy, retro items.

from expansion of the business that the university might drive.

Again, the cheap price was a factor. Nemer said he purchased 2 acres of industrial space in the neighborhood for $145,000. Now he’s renting a portion of it to small businesses, including a mattress manufacturer, and brings in more than enough to make his loan payment while he decides what to do with the space over the long term.

Nemer said he wanted property near the university and with frontage on Exchange Street, and he could not pass up the chance to buy so much property for so little money.

“I thought to myself when I saw them up for sale: ‘I should jump on it. It’s a great location,’ ” Nemer said.

“Would I sell them today for the same amount that I paid for them?

No way!”

Opportune time to buy Others also see potential in Middlebury. Manny Nemer is a longtime savvy real estate investor in some of Akron’s urban areas, including near the University of Akron, where he’s perhaps best known as the owner of Manny’s Pub. Nemer purchased some old industrial property on East Exchange Street, just around the corner from some blight on Annadale but in a spot that he thinks has promise. It’s less than a half-mile from the university and can benefit from any rebound Middlebury might have and PAGE 20

μ

SEPTEMBER 11, 2017

μ

The New Era Restaurant is still a mainstay for Middlebury residents.

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ThenDesign Architecture (TDA)

Capital Advisors, Ltd

O’Toole, McLaughlin, Dooley & Pecora Co., LPA

Ken Monsman, RA, NCARB, CCM, LEED AP BD+C recently joined ThenDesign Architecture as a Construction Administrator. A member of the NCARB and a Registered Architect with licenses in Ohio, Maryland and California, Ken brings over thirty years of experience in successfully guiding projects from design through construction. He is a proud father to four daughters, including a pair of twins.

With more than thirty years of experience, Brian Broadus brings an extensive background in historic rehabilitation and adaptive reuse projects to ThenDesign Architecture. Brian is a Registered Architect with a Masters in Architecture and Architectural History, both from the University of Virginia.

In his spare time, Brian enjoys travel, literature, and soccer.

ACCOUNTING

LAW

Capital Advisors, Ltd. has named Adam Nickels to its team as Junior Portfolio Analyst. Adam will focus on comprehensive case management for clients consisting of monitoring and facilitating money flows, trades, and communications, as well as supporting senior staff through financial research and analysis.

Nickels comes to Capital Advisors from JPMorgan Chase & Co., where he worked as a financial analyst in the firm’s asset management division.

LAW

O’Toole, McLaughlin, Dooley & Pecora is pleased to announce that Patrick M. Ward has joined the firm as a Senior Litigation Associate. Pat is a seasoned trial lawyer who has successfully represented corporate, individual, and governmental clients in commercial/ business, municipal, professional liability, construction, civil rights, and personal injury litigation matters for nearly thirteen years. Pat brings a wealth of experience to the firm’s litigation and municipal practice areas.

REAL ESTATE

REAL ESTATE

Eric D. German

Thomas G. Haren

Cole D. Pesses

Associate

Susannah Bender

Peter Richards

Partner

Property Manager

Bober Markey Fedorovich

Frantz Ward LLP

Litigation Associate

Carnegie Companies, Inc.

Acquisitions & Business Development

Eric D. German, CPA, has been promoted to Partner in the firm’s Assurance and Advisory Group. Eric focuses his practices on leading assessments and projects that support C-suite decisions and has been involved in numerous projects with complex needs that include large multi-national manufacturers, venture capital start-up enterprises, and high growth businesses. Previously, Eric served as assistant controller at a $10+ billion private equity investment manager, and an assurance manager at E&Y.

Frantz Ward welcomes Thomas G. Haren as Associate to its Litigation Practice Group. Tom represents clients during government investigations, prosecutions, and high-stakes civil litigation matters. He is also one of the go-to attorneys for Ohio’s burgeoning medical marijuana industry. Tom received his J.D., cum laude, from Cleveland-Marshall College of Law in 2011 and his B.A. from John Carroll University in 2008. He is the author of OhioMarijuanaLaw.com.

Winter Trimacco Co., LPA Susannah Bender joins Winter Trimacco Co., LPA as a Litigation Associate in their Cleveland office. She previously served as Assistant General Counsel for an international labor union. In her new role, Ms. Bender will provide litigation services to institutional and individual clients throughout the Eastern United States.

Pete Richards recently joined Carnegie Companies, Inc. as Property Manager. Pete will be responsible for all site-related issues, details, and communication for several properties, both local and national.

Pete has over 5 years of prior property management experience, with other regional real estate operators. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from University of Toledo..

Carnegie Companies, Inc. Cole Pesses has joined Carnegie Companies, Inc. at its Corp.

Headquarters in Solon, OH, after working for the company in Denver. He will be focusing on the varied aspects of the business with an emphasis on leasing, acquisitions and dispositions.

Prior to joining Carnegie, Cole served as Regl. Mgr. for Provident Funding, overseeing a team of over 25 employees. He holds a Bachelor’s in Economics from U. of Colorado and a Master’s in Real Estate & Construction Management from U. of Denver.

KNOW SOMEONE ON THE MOVE?

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PA G E 2 3

Kyle Kutuchief

Akron program director, Knight Foundation He’s one of Akron’s newest dads, and he might just be the city’s most influential philanthropist. ¶ For the past two years, Kyle Kutuchief has been the Akron program director for the Knight Foundation, one of the city’s oldest and most important foundations – and, as of Aug. 15, he’s also a father.

Kyle and his wife, Getta, just welcomed their first child, Alec, into the world, and to Akron. ¶ It may be a few years before Alec realizes his dad is sometimes referred to as “Mr. Akron,” but there’s little doubt he’ll have instilled in him a strong spirit of community involvement and caring – just like Kutuchief says his parents, both high school guidance counselors, provided him growing up. ¶ Kutuchief, a native of Bath Township, went to Columbus for his bachelor’s degree in political science – a lifelong passion of his – and then returned to get his master’s degree in public administration from the University of Akron. – Dan Shingler

Five Things Favorite music Favorite bands are Oasis and the Clash.

Best concert “Joe Strummer at the Odeon in Cleveland … He was with his band, The Mescaleros.”

What would you do with a free weekend on your own?

“I’d probably take a road trip to visit friends in another Ohio city like Columbus.”

Favorite Midwest city that isn’t Akron?

“I’d say Detroit right now, because the challenges are so significant and the innovation is so impressive.”

Most exciting sporting event attended?

“I’m working the All-Star game in Cleveland. … I sold lemonade and cotton candy in ’97 and ’98 … and there’s like a celebrity section. There were all these people standing around Scott Baio on the one side and James Carville was on the other end, and no one was talking to him at all. I got a baseball and made a beeline for Carville and he signed it. … I’ve still got it.

Lunch Spot Sanabel Middle East Bakery 308 East South Street, Akron

The meal One had the house salad; the other had chicken and rice with a yogurt side salad. Each had a soft drink.

The vibe The place is beyond casual, and the décor is spartan at best. Being there is a cross between being in an ethnic convenience story and someone’s home kitchen — fast, friendly and totally without pretense. But the place is known for great, authentic food and is a favorite of Middle Eastern food fans in Akron.

The bill $16.47, plus tip

You have degrees in political science and public administration.

Safe to say you’ve always wanted to be in public policy work?

Out of college I wanted to be a political professional — I wanted to be a campaign manager. I wanted to be the guy behind the man or woman running for office. That was my goal.

But that’s not what you ended up doing. Why? I worked on three (political) races, in Columbus and New Jersey. ... But I eventually realized that people matter more to me (than politics), and where I am is important, so I opted to come back to Akron.

What do you think you’d do if you didn’t work at the Knight Foundation?

I don’t know. Sometimes I can’t believe I’m doing this. There’s not really a path into philanthropy work, per se. You can’t really get a degree in it. … I think I was just in the right place at the right time.

How did you come to know the Knight Foundation?

About four years ago, I was president of Torchbearers, which is a young professionals organization in Akron. The Knight Foundation has always valued young talent. … We developed a relationship with Jennifer Thomas, who was a previous Akron program director.

She gave us the first grant we’d ever received, and we formed a relationship with the foundation.

Knight is a big organization, especially here and in Miami, but you’re focused exclusively on Akron, correct?

Yes. To be more specific, Knight funds arts and Knight funds journalism. Those are handled by colleagues of mine out of Miami and, for anything Akron-related, I play a supporting role — happily. But it’s their call. I’m fortunate to be able to spend my time on the city component, which is: “How do we attract and retain talent? How do we expand economic opportunity and how do we increase civic engagement?”

You’re in a position to help nonprofits get grant funding.

Do you see yourself as a philanthropist?

I hope that the field I’m in is community improvement and that however long my tenure with Knight Foundation, we can look back and

say that we moved the community forward — not me, but the team.

You probably are in contact with more nonprofits and community leaders than almost anyone. What do you see as Akron’s greatest challenge?

Our population loss continues to be our most fundamental challenge.

How do we stabilize our population and start to grow again? That’s really the North Star for Knight in Akron.

What can Akron do to combat the loss of population?

We believe that the quality of public spaces downtown, small business districts in neighborhoods — that public life and the rhythm of the city can be a competitive advantage and that there’s a generation of people who want to walk to work, maybe own one car instead of two as a family, and they want density.

What’s the most positive thing you see happening in Akron?

There seems to be real momentum downtown and in neighborhoods. I think historically there was a false choice, that it either has to be downtown or the neighborhoods, but it can’t be both. We think it can be both. … The (Mayor Dan) Horrigan administration has stated very publicly that they believe neighborhoods should kind of choose their own paths and determine their own destiny. … We have a lot of local folks who aren’t wired into “it’s about me and my credit.” It’s more about us and our outcomes — “How do we take this hill together? Let’s do it.”

What would you like to see more of?

I’m envious of Cleveland and the network of community development organizations, where you had teams of people waking up every day thinking about the quality of Ohio City, Lakewood, Tremont — I could go on and on. We’re working on that in Akron.

You also travel a fair amount and have colleagues in other cities.

What do you tell them is the best thing about Akron?

I generally default to the people answer. The quality of people here is exceptional, and I lead with the people part because a lot of the conversations I have are about an idea that’s been done someplace and they’re considering where they should try it next to scale it up.

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