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 On the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving, a small corner bar on the west side of Cleveland was filled with the sounds of rock, blues and jam band music. It was jam night at Spotlight Cleveland, and the tiny, wood-paneled bar – what the owner calls a “micro venue” – was full of people. As the night went on and the cozy space filled up, people spilled out onto the patio, where they huddled together in the cold, drizzling rain and carried on talking and laughing.
In the past year, two music lovers on Cleveland’s west side, Corrine Henahan and John Dewey, have transformed what used to be a smoke-filled, run-down corner bar at Madison Ave. and W. 87th St. into a loving tribute to the local music scene. The project is a direct result of their own grit and determination. After falling in love with the building and buying it at the height of the pandemic, they put in two years of sweat equity before reopening it as Spotlight Cleveland. Read more. 20 new homes in Glenville, delayed since Jackson administration, set to be built in Glenville12/5/2024  When some people drive through Glenville, sometimes all they see is blight. But when Anthony Burton takes a ride through the neighborhood, which is located just north of University Circle, he sees nothing but possibilities.
Burton, the African-American contractor behind Bequest Builders, is set to build 20 new homes here thanks to a deal with the city to purchase vacant lots from its land bank. The homes will be located on lots that are scattered between Ashbury Ave. to the south and Superior Ave. to the north, and E. 105th St. to the west and E. 118th Street to the east. The project was started several years ago by the Orlean Company and will now continue under Burton’s company. Read more. $800,000 grant means more improvements for Shaker Square, but EDWINS reportedly mulling a move12/4/2024  Shaker Square is an iconic Cleveland property – it first opened in 1929 as the nation’s second planned shopping center. Yet in recent years, it’s been a bit down-at-the-heels, having gone through a foreclosure sale, fleeing merchants and, more recently, a rash of business break-ins.
That story is beginning to change thanks to an infusion of more than $5 million in property repairs by the new owners, Burten Bell Carr Inc. and Cleveland Neighborhood Progress, in the past two years. Now, thanks to an $800,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, more improvements are slated to come. According to Joy Johnson, director of BBC, the funds will go to renovating Dave’s Market, adding an elevator to the CVS building, and assorted other repairs. She said the project will create 29 new jobs, at least 75 percent of which will be for low-income individuals. Read more.  A pair of new businesses, Edgewater Sub Shop and Dahlia Coffee Company, recently opened in Cleveland’s Cudell and Edgewater neighborhoods, bringing new energy and life to what were previously culinary dead zones.
Read more.  When Candy Mashoor bought the building at 1030 E. 62nd St. in the St. Clair Superior neighborhood, at first she wondered if she’d made a huge mistake.
“The day I signed, I got the keys and I was like, ‘What have I done?’” said the Brazilian-born entrepreneur and founder of YaYa & Co., a textiles company that sells handmade, sustainably-sourced pillows, bedding, rugs and other items. “I couldn’t go in. It was moldy, wet and full of junk. It was horrible. I thought, ‘I didn’t buy a building, I bought a dump.’” Yet now, with the help of loans and grants from the city of Cleveland, Mashmoor is renovating the historic, long-vacant building into a new home base for YaYa & Co., a coworking space, and office space for Humongous Fan, an HVAC company that makes large industrial fans. The project is expected to create 50 new jobs. Read the full story |
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