The Ohio Black Expo is coming to Cleveland June 29 thru July 3, 2011 at the Wolstein Center and other downtown venues. I am sure this will provide a great boost to the economy for the City of Cleveland.
Cleveland is making a comeback
The Ohio Black Expo is coming to Cleveland June 29 thru July 3, 2011 at the Wolstein Center and other downtown venues. I am sure this will provide a great boost to the economy for the City of Cleveland.
The Ohio Black Expo in Cleveland will include a three day business expo with the following events and programs: economic development forum, business luncheon, networking mixer, concerts, a comedy shows with top national acts, wealth and wellness programs and educational programs including a new mentoring initiative 1 Kid At A Time (1KAAT).
This region’s first Athena Awards Banquet will celebrate the accomplishments of African American and minority women in the state of Ohio.
The mission of the Black Expo is to create opportunities for minority owned businesses while showcasing their products, services, and raising educational awareness through the develop of the unique mentoring program 1KAAT, in addition to initiating networking between minority and majority owned companies, building political alliances throughout the state of Ohio, advocating wellness for adults, children, educating small businesses on available programs (grants, financing etc.), building new partnerships and collaborations, organizing high profile entertainment events and creating a positive signature event that will bring together Ohioans throughout the state.
Cleveland has been working on various projects to provide jobs and money to the city. Two billion worth of new development projects are in the works within 5 minutes of the East and West banks of the Cuyahoga River. We must harness this momentum by pooling our collective resources to transform the Flats.
The much talked about Medical Mart and Convention Center is designed to bring buyers and sellers together, Cleveland Medical Mart & Convention Center (Cleveland MMCC) is the world’s only facility targeted specifically to the medical and healthcare industries.
This facility will be a marketplace to combine permanent showrooms, a Class-A exhibition hall and state-of-the-art conference facilities tailored to the needs of the medical marketplace.
The 235,000 square foot Medical Mart will house permanent showrooms for major medical manufacturers and service providers. Showrooms focused on cardiology, surgery, OBGYN, imaging, orthopedics, sterilization, healthcare furnishings, patient care, healthcare IT and medical devices will fill the Medical Mart, paving the way for the newest generation of innovation and distribution in the healthcare sector.
The complete facility is expected to open in 2013.
Downtown Cleveland may be on the horizon to look like the old downtown. A lot will be available around the Public Square once again. The growth of more stores and restaurants will look at the center city, where projects including a casino are reviving retailer interest in Tower City and renewing talk about a high-end outlet district along Euclid Avenue.
I think it would be great to have young kids get to relive what great memories we had of downtown Cleveland, looking in the windows of Higbee’s, Halle’s, Sterling Linder, and May Co.
In case you have not driven up Carnegie Avenue, there is a new hotel going up. Work is under way to transform a landmark building at the edge of University Circle into a 154-room hotel, with a vintage swimming pool, a wood-paneled lobby and a floor of restored ballrooms and event spaces.
Overcoming a lending crunch, the Maron family aims to return the former Tudor Arms Hotel to its forgotten glory as a Doubletree hotel that could open in fall 2011. The developers, best known for remaking East Fourth Street, bought the building in 2007 from Case Western Reserve University and are tackling a $22 million project.
Looming over Carnegie Avenue and East 107th Street, Tudor Arms was built for the Cleveland Club in 1931. It later became a hotel, then a house for university students. The 11-story brick building has been empty since 2007 when the Cleveland Job Corps Center moved out.
Now, workers are turning it into a hotel that will draw traffic from the medical, educational and cultural institutions in University Circle. The developers recently finished putting together a complex web of loans and tax credits to support the project.
The second floor of the Tudor Arms Hotel will host restored ballrooms and event space. The third and fourth floors will become about 25,000 square feet of offices, aimed at tenants including medical businesses. Hotel rooms will stretch from the fifth through the 11th floors.
The hotel and restaurant will employ about 75 people, most of whom they expect to hire from the surrounding area. I know the people they hire will enjoy walking to work. It’s good to know that even with so many places laying people off, projects are coming that will employ.
Based on the historic status of Tudor Arms, the project received $3.3 million in federal tax credits aimed at preserving historic buildings credits the developers sold to U.S. Bank. Ohio awarded $4.4 million in state historic preservation tax credits to the project.
Cleveland is on the move, once titled the “Come Back City” we are far from the former deadbeat title “The Mistake by the Lake.” The Tudor Arms Hotel is just one of the two Hotels going up in the area.
The other, planned for land at Cornell Road and Euclid Avenue, is a joint effort by University Hospitals and community development group University Circle Inc.
Not only does Northeast Ohio allow you to take advantage of superb cultural, recreational, and entertainment amenities, but it does so at a cost-of-living well below that of other major metropolitan areas across the country! Residents in Northeast Ohio enjoy affordable housing, easily accessible roads and transportation services, and an unparalleled quality of life.
Save the date for Saturday, April 14, 2012. That’s when the 27th annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony will be held at Cleveland’s Public Auditorium. This event is sure not only to bring the celebrities to Cleveland but also the pocketbooks and wallets.
When the ceremony was last held here in 2009, it was preceded by a weeklong celebration. Just imagine a future where a new neighborhood in the Flats bustles with residential activity, a new casino brims with visitors choosing our location over Michigan, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, a new Medical Mart bursts with commerce in a unique space dedicated to the health care industry, and a rebuilt Convention Center buzzes with events and people from around the globe.
