LIVING THE LIFESTYLE

Achieving Work-Life Balance

The city is waking up again and as residents explore what live-work means today, an evolving approach to mixed-use development is taking shape.

ELECTRIC GARDENS // Tremont

More balance, more flexibility, more connectivity — the call for mixed-use living is especially strong in the city as people return to live, work and enjoy all of the entertainment and amenities that Cleveland offers.

“At the end of the day, people come downtown because they want opportunities to connect with other people,” says Ivy Greaner, COO at Bedrock, developer of Tower City Center and The May.

Proximity to experiences is paramount.

“Whether it’s in your residential building, walking out on the street, grabbing a cup of coffee or running down the block to get dinner, keeping everything tight eliminates commute times,” Greaner says, adding that the convenience of walking a few doors down from your home to an office is a real draw for downtown neighborhoods.

Many people are ready to return to a better social-work balance where there’s a water cooler and conference room, in-person gatherings and lunch out. Sure, the flexibility many gained with hybrid or work-from-home arrangements has benefits. “Great, you’re home working — but you’re on Zoom 24/7 and you never get to leave your work space, so there are definitely people who are coming back into the office. They are ready to socialize again,” Greaner quips.

Overall, employers are in a position where they must re-evaluate how their teams work — and this plays into how downtowns, including Cleveland, will develop, evolve and deliver.

“Companies are taking different approaches to figure out the right balance,” acknowledges Aaron Pechota, executive vice president, NRP Group, a national real estate developer and contractor with its headquarters in Cleveland and local projects in Gordon Square, Slavic Village and Scranton Peninsula.

Similarly, developers are also examining what drives city life — and ultimately, it’s activation and connection, Pechota says. He adds that developers should keep the residential component top of mind as more people seek the amenities city life has to offer, especially in a post-COVID world.

Those amenities might include open workspaces, outdoor living environments and access to service-based retail. And as we enter summer, “You can see all the signs of life,” Greaner says of the city.

A NEW MIXED-USE

Residential developments like Electric Gardens in Tremont include the coworking company Limelight — a modern, airy, 8,000-squarefoot work area. Residents can join at a discount. In MidTown, the Tech Hive by DigitalC offers an in-house cafe, parking passes, desks and meeting spaces and even phone booths and private offices. Ohio City’s Church + State also provides open space for plugging in.

Meanwhile, integrating work and life in the city doesn’t have to look vertical, Pechota says. “Mixed-use can be having an office build-

ing next to a residential building — different spaces with different uses,” he says. “And where we are seeing success in downtowns across the country is where there is a lot of residential next to entertainment venues.”

Again, it’s about activation. That’s what some residential properties are accomplishing by including amenities such as lounges, fire pits, courtyards programmed with entertainment, and conveniences like retail and dining.

At Tower City, Bedrock is focused on long-term plans to reinvent the site from a mall with national chain stores to a marketplace featuring local, small businesses. Fifteen new tenants moved in during the last six months, Greaner says. The pandemic created opportunity and space for entrepreneurs wanting to take a leap. “There was interest from local, small businesses to open up and people continued to lease, which is pretty amazing,” she says. Tower City’s service-oriented tenants provide for those who live close by.

“We are reimagining Tower City and how it can serve the community, customers and residents so it can have its next long life,” Greaner says.

Across town in Glenville, the GlenVillage retail incubator gives aspiring entrepreneurs space to test ideas and build skills through mentorships. The project is part of Cleveland’s Neighborhood Transformation Initiative.

Importantly, today’s mixed-use also means integrating indoor and outdoor experiences. This will be a focus on the Scranton Peninsula, Pechota says. “We are integrating three-season and outdoor amenities, and this is sought after because people are almost always yearning to get outside,” he says.

So, connectivity goes beyond socializing and extends to physically linking neighborhoods, retail, services, amenities and outdoor assets. This is where Cleveland is a step ahead, especially with trails, Pechota says. An example is the Red Line Greenway linking the Cleveland Foundation Centennial Lake Trail to two RTA Red Line Rapid Transit stations. This paves the way for people to walk, bike, scoot and commute from W. 65th Street to downtown and beyond. “That connectivity is incredibly important and will help connect residents and other people to downtown and Cleveland’s other neighborhoods,” he relates.

INVITING A RETURN

The city continues to take a creative approach to offering a true live-work-play environment. “We are working on all kinds of activations so people have a reason to partake whether you live downtown or in another incredible Cleveland neighborhood,” Greaner says.

Tower City held a series of Battle of the Land events to invite local performers to compete to be the opening act for Bone ThugsN-Harmony. Real Black Friday during the NBA All-Star weekend attracted 200 pop-up tenants. During the winter holiday season, there were choral singers and facepainting for kids. “We are just making sure we have really interesting activities for people of all ages,” Greaner says.

Pechota agrees, “We need to animate and activate with destination events, concerts and other reasons to get out.” Downtown is populated with venues and public spaces for this purpose. “Even our peer cities do not have the same concentration of different types of entertainment venues as Cleveland does in such a tight area,” he says.

Today, restaurants are filling up and game days are drawing crowds. And developers are evolving properties to accommodate the New Normal. “People are coming back, and we are headed in the right direction,” Greaner says of a gradual and palpable return. “People never gave up on Cleveland.”

Real Black Friday