Last week our staff spent a morning at The Foundry and learned about everything happening in The Flats East, West and South Banks (yes, ‘South’ was new to us too!). Our quarterly EA University is designed to provide continuing ed so that our team has the latest info on everything happening in our region to share with job candidates, new hires and their families. Mike Ferry, Director of Business Affairs and Gina Trebilcock, Co-Founder and Executive Director filled us in all that has happened since we last visited The Foundry in 2017.
The Foundry is a state of the art training facility with professional coaches, rowing tanks and a boat house for storing racing skulls. Middle and high school students crew on scholastic teams and train here. If a school doesn’t offer crew, high schoolers can join the club team known as Cleveland Foundry Juniors which is comprised of students from all over Greater Cleveland.
In addition to rowing, they have also offer how to sail lessons. Their sailboats and programming are housed at Cleveland Metroparks Coast Guard Station. And how cool is it that The Foundry is creatively adding earned income streams to their budget with two AirBnB’s in the historic carriage house on their property with views of the Cuyahoga River and Cleveland’s skyline.
The big picture of what is underway and/or on the books was shared by Jim Haviland, Executive Director of Flats Forward, the non-profit organization responsible for connecting all of the stakeholders in the industrial valley with an eye on progress.
The Flats, the birthplace of Cleveland, is a unique blend of living/working/playing in the city. It bustles night and day and includes popular venues including the Cleveland Aquarium and Jacobs Pavilion. While it is challenging to juggle the interests, needs, and concerns of such diverse constituencies, Flats Forward addresses and acknowledges this fine balance. Their stakeholders include the maritime industry (300+ freighters a year hauling industrial cargo), heavy industry, tourism, entertainment and let’s not forget the roughly 2,000 Clevelanders who live in the Flats and consider it home.
Jim shared info on many once-in-a-generation projects that are underway which will have a dramatic impact on The Flats including:
- Bedrock Development’s Cuyahoga Riverfront Master Plan overseen by Sir David Adjaye It includes an extension off of Tower City’s foodcourt that is being called The Porch and cascades down 1oo feet into a series of steps and terraces to the Cuyahoga River below.
- Irish Town Bend, a 23-acre site that will create a new green space for all to enjoy, replacing a hillside behind the Ohio City Farm and CMHA’s Riverview Towers that has been slowly sliding into the river for decades.
- The Scranton Peninsula – if you are thinking, where the heck is the Scranton Peninsula, you are not alone. In our lifetimes, there has been nothing there…a previous industrial dumping ground that has been cleaned up and remediated. Its location on GoogleMap will help you picture it. If you want an in-person visual park near Major Hooples on the corner of Columbus and Carter Roads, and walk east on Carter until it dead ends into the Cuyahoga River – you will have walked right through the middle of Scranton Peninsula. Two apartment buildings are under construction: Silver Hills at Thunderbird and The Peninsula bringing density and foot traffic to a section of the city that has long been dormant. Guessing this makes nearby BrewDog’s Cleveland Outpost excited about hundreds of potential patrons within walking distance to their restaurant and brewery. Great Lakes Brewery owns eight acres with plans to build another brewpub along the river and handle some of it’s production work.
Back to that new term, ” Flats South” (or The South Bank). Residents of Tremont and the Flats are close to an old staircase that goes from Carter Road up to Ontario Street for events at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse and Progressive Field.
The developers of Flats South have renderings of stairs that look much more beautiful and accessible than the current ones and will be a needed amenity for all they have planned there.
These kinds of amenities will be welcomed by patrons of Cleveland Whiskey with plans to relocate to this space and add a restaurant/bar to it’s new headquarters.
Executive Arrangements keeps its staff up-to-date with our four times a year EA University gatherings. We meet with local experts who share deep dive info on a topic that we then share it with the 100+ candidates and newcomers we work with every year. Your organization’s talent attraction could use a partner like EA! We provide the critical wrap around services that insure your newly-hired and their whole family are educated, connected and excited about their relocation or that your first choice candidate and significant other says YES to your job offer and a relocation – call us 216.231.9311.