Crain's Cleveland Business

Law: Breaking down Ohio’s lawsuit against the American Rescue Plan Act. PAGE 7 Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost is challenging a part of the federal bill.

Urban Community School grows its campus through partnerships. PAGE 5

CRAINSCLEVELAND.COM I MARCH 29, 2021

EDUCATION

Colleges introduce new incentives ahead of fall Schools offer tuition deals, more, to combat enrollment drops

BY AMY MORONA

Pedestrians walk past a Warehouse District parking lot at the northwest corner of West Third Street and St. Clair Avenue that’s being eyed as part of the footprint for a substantial development project. | MICHELLE JARBOE/CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

Scott Wolstein, Chicago developer eye Warehouse District high-rise project

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BY MICHELLE JARBOE | A Chicago developer of high-rises is studying a 2.2-acre site in Cleveland’s Warehouse District, through a nascent deal with longtime landowners and local developer Scott Wolstein.

Wolstein confirmed that he and Magellan Development Group are exploring what could be a $300 million, mixed-use project stretching north from St. Clair Avenue between West Third and West Fourth streets. The site spans parking lots and two century-old buildings controlled by Weston Inc., the Asher family’s Warrensville Heights-based real estate company.

Those properties sit only steps away from the sea of surface parking where the Sherwin-Williams Co. plans to build its new headquarters, a development slated to kick off late this year.

Across West Third Street, the fate of the Justice Center complex is up in the air, with the city’s police headquarters headed to the East Side, Cuyahoga County eyeing sites beyond the central business district for a new, low-rise jail and talks underway about the future of the antiquated 25-story tower that houses city and county courtrooms.

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Higher education institutions are making moves to get more new students on campus this fall, eager to avoid a repeat of the pandemic-induced enrollment drops felt over the past year across the country and in Northeast Ohio.

Take Ashland University.

The campus saw a 19% decline in firsttime, full-time students last fall and Campo a 6% dip in traditional full-time undergraduates. All sectors of higher education nationwide saw a combined 2.5% decline in enrollment and a 13% drop in freshmen compared with the previous year.

“It was clear for us that if we did not do something to incentivize students that we were facing a difficult fall,” university president Carlos Campo said of the upcoming semester.

That “something” is Ashland’s Tuition Relief Scholarship. First-time, fulltime students living on campus who pay for the fall will see any remaining tuition for the spring waived after other financial aid awards are applied. Requirements include earning at least a 2.0 grade-point average and completing a minimum of 12 credit hours.

Campo said the university wanted to respond to the economic crunch the pandemic leveled as well as help motivate decision-making. The school also is upping aid for transfer students and introducing a four-year tuition freeze. The rate is listed at about $11,000 per semester for traditional undergrads in 2021-22.

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“All I can tell you is I think it’s a very strategic site,” Wolstein said.

“I think there’s great momentum in the Public Square area, and it’s inevitable that that area will continue to be developed. It should have been developed decades ago.”

Magellan didn’t respond to interview requests. The company, named for the Portuguese explorer, has developed skyline-altering towers in Chicago and more modest buildings — of two- to three-dozen stories — in Austin, Miami, Minneapolis and Nashville.

Outside of its hometown, Magellan routinely partners with other developers, based on project summaries posted online.

See PROJECT on Page 21

FOCUS | SPORTS BUSINESS  Crunch time, again: Indoor soccer club relaunches in North Olmsted with eyes on a downtown venue. PAGE 10 Baseball: Indians’ minor league affiliates will see fewer games and fans amid lingering pandemic. PAGE 14

3/26/2021 3:44:31 PM

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SPORTS BUSINESS

Bally Sports transition will bring dramatic new look for RSNs

The downtown Cleveland studios of Bally Sports Ohio and Bally Sports Great Lakes are being updated to display Sinclair’s new partnership with the Rhode Island-based gaming company. | BALLY SPORTS

TV homes of the Cavs and Indians are getting a complete visual makeover for Opening Day

BY KEVIN KLEPS

The regional television homes of the Cleveland Cavaliers and Indians officially are changing names on March 31.

Viewers likely won’t notice the new Bally Sports Ohio and Bally Sports Great Lakes until the following day, when the Indians open their season with a game at Detroit and the Cavs play host to Philadelphia. But once they tune in, they should see quite a transformation.

“This is a complete do-over from top to bottom: graphics, studios, desks, things that you don’t even think of,” said Tom Farmer, the vice president of programming and production for the regional sports networks (RSNs) formerly known as Fox Sports Ohio and SportsTime Ohio.

The music and graphics will be different. The look will be brighter, bigger and bolder, Farmer said.

The “little things” — such as microphone flags and the backgrounds that the announcers stand in front of — also have to be redesigned.

“It is daunting,” said Farmer, who oversees Cavs and Indians broadcasts as the networks’ executive producer.

The changes have been in the works for more than four months, since Sinclair Broadcast Group sold the naming rights to the 21 regional sports networks it acquired from Disney to Bally’s Corp. The 10-year, $85 million deal also gave Sinclair a 15% stake, one that can increase to 30% if certain financial targets are met, in the Rhode Island-based gaming company.

And while the presentation is being revamped and the Bally’s logo is taking the place of the Fox Sports signage, there are elements that Randy Stephens, the senior VP and general manager of the two Ohio RSNs, is adamant about keeping.

“There’s a lot of things we hope won’t change,” Stephens said. “We’re very proud of the fact that as a group of RSNs, and in Ohio specifically, that we have been counted on to provide a national-quality telecast night in and night out, even though we do it on a regional budget.”

Regional networks, big-league appeal The 19 Bally Sports regional networks have rights deals with 42 of the 90 teams in the NBA, MLB and NHL. The two Ohio networks air broadcasts featuring the Cleveland Cavaliers, Cleveland Indians, Columbus Blue Jackets and Cincinnati Reds, plus the Columbus Crew of Major League Soccer. The 19 networks’ MLB, NBA and NHL reach is as follows: ` MLB (14): Indians, Atlanta Braves, Arizona Diamondbacks, Cincinnati Reds, Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Royals, L.A. Angels, Miami Marlins, Milwaukee Brewers, Minnesota Twins, San Diego Padres, St. Louis Cardinals, Tampa Bay Rays, Texas Rangers ` NBA (16): Cavs, Atlanta Hawks, Charlotte Hornets, Dallas Mavericks, Detroit Pistons, Indiana Pacers, L.A. Clippers, Memphis Grizzlies, Miami Heat, Milwaukee Bucks, Minnesota Timberwolves, New Orleans Pelicans, Oklahoma City Thunder, Orlando Magic, Phoenix Suns, San Antonio Spurs

A Bally Sports stage is being constructed at Progressive Field and will serve as the home of Bally Sports Great Lakes pre- and postgame shows. | BALLY SPORTS

COVID-19 cases continue to fall and vaccines are rapidly distributed, the Indians TV trio of Matt Underwood, Rick Manning and Andre Knott will be on the road at some point in 2021.

“Those guys need to be with the team in order to encompass and describe for you everything that’s happening in front of them,” Farmer said.

“Hats off to them for trying to call games off television monitors, because they’re doing a terrific job.”

The Tribe broadcasts, which have produced MLB-best ratings averages in two of the past four years, will feature a visual element in 2021 that goes beyond the Bally’s partnership: fans.

“You take fans out, you take out a lot of visual emotion,” Farmer said.

Cardboard cutouts, the VP of programming and production added, “don’t clap as loud.”

Streaming spats The deliberate transition from Disney-owned and Fox-operated RSNs to one bearing the Bally’s branding is being done in time for the first pitch of the MLB regular season. It comes with a major caveat: The 19 Bally Sports networks are blacked out on the majority of streaming services because of carriage fights between Sinclair and several providers.

In October, the RSNs were dropped

by Hulu and YouTube TV. The networks also aren’t available on Dish Network, Sling and fuboTV. The fights over carriage fees seem likely to encompass the entire Cavs season, and threaten to black out Indians broadcasts for fans who have cut the cord.

A possible solution — a stand-

‘Visual emotion’ Stephens, a former executive producer for four Fox Sports RSNs in the South, was named to his current role in March 2019.

A year later, the pandemic brought a halt to the Cavs’ season and the Indians played a 60-game schedule without fans in attendance. Announcers stopped traveling, instead calling away games from network studios or home ballparks.

The setup, with the home team’s RSN serving as the universal feed for the broadcast, will be in place at the start of the MLB season, as it has been throughout the 2020-21 NBA and NHL campaigns. The hope is that as

The former Fox Sports Ohio and SportsTime Ohio are being redesigned to display the Bally Sports brand. Sinclair owns the regional sports networks. | BALLY SPORTS RENDERING

` NHL (12): Columbus Blue Jackets, Anaheim Ducks, Arizona Coyotes, Carolina Hurricanes, Dallas Stars, Detroit Red Wings, Florida Panthers, L.A. Kings, Minnesota Wild, Nashville Predators, St. Louis Blues, Tampa Bay Lightning

alone offering that would give customers the chance to pay Sinclair for the RSN offerings — is in the works.

“We have a pretty aggressive plan,” Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley said in November about the chance for customers to purchase access to the RSNs independently.

Such an option, however, is complicated by deals the Maryland-based company has with cable and satellite providers.

A Netflix-type “service that replicated the RSN inventory would be near impossible to pull off” in the near future because of those agreements, Patrick Crakes, a sports media consultant and former Fox Sports executive, told Crain’s.

In a statement provided to Crain’s, Sinclair said, “There are no current plans to launch a direct-to-consumer offering this year.”

The company added that it’s “encouraging fans to switch providers so they can start watching their favorite hometown teams.”

In November, 15 months after its $9.6 billion purchase of the RSNs, Sinclair wrote down the value of the networks by $4.23 billion. Still, Ripley told analysts in a call that month, the company views sports rights as “a growth industry.”

The Sinclair-owned RSNs have deals with a combined 42 NBA, MLB and NHL teams. Such agreements, even in turbulent times, are valuable because of the lofty ratings the clubs often produce.

Indians broadcasts on the former SportsTime Ohio have ranked in the top five in MLB each year since 2016, and the Cavs were a ratings powerhouse before LeBron James left for the L.A. Lakers.

Betting on Bally’s Another oft-mentioned implication of Sinclair’s takeover of the regional sports networks is Ripley’s desire to incorporate sports betting into the broadcasts.

The Bally’s partnership provided a sizable boost to those efforts. As it was striking a deal with Sinclair, Bally’s announced it was acquiring Bet. Works, a Las Vegas-based wagering platform. Two months later, Bally’s said it planned to buy Monkey Knife Fight, the third-largest daily fantasy sports operator in North America.

“We intend on reinventing the (RSNs) around gamification, around community-based fandom and around direct-to-consumer,” Ripley said in November.

Integrating sports betting into the RSNs’ offerings is more of a long-term play, since the industry is legal in only three of the 15 states that are part of the 19 networks’ NBA, MLB and NHL footprint. Sports betting is “inevitable” in Ohio, Gov. Mike DeWine said on March 1, but it’s unclear if the state will introduce legislation that would legalize the industry later this year.

Stephens, the GM of the two Ohio RSNs, said sports betting is “only a small part” of the Bally-Sinclair deal.

“We have formed a strategic partnership with Bally’s that is really predicated upon fan engagement,” Stephens said. “We have shared interest in attracting more fans to the games, but also encouraging the fans that are already watching the games to lean forward and become interactive with it and more engaged with it.”

A Bally Sports app, which is replacing Fox Sports Go, is expected to be an intriguing addition to the lineup.

The app will carry the game broadcasts, once a customer verifies he or she subscribes to a cable, satellite or streaming provider that carries the RSNs, and eventually will have on-demand content offerings and team coverage that will be “miles ahead” of the former Fox Sports Go, Stephens said.

Regardless of how fans consume all of the offerings, the Bally Sports Ohio and Bally Sports Great Lakes GM knows the local clubs will generate plenty of attention — and eyeballs.

When he was a Fox Sports executive producer based in Atlanta, Stephens said the RSNs in the region “were always very envious” of the ratings and “generational support” that the Ohio teams received.

“It’s great for the teams, and it’s great for our business,” he said.

Kevin Kleps: kkleps@crain.com, (216) 771-5256, @KevinKleps

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In early March, Medical Mutual of Ohio announced its purchase of ESI Employee Assistance Group — MMO’s third acquisition in three years.

Medical Mutual acquired Cleveland-based Bravo, a provider of employee wellness programs, at the start of 2020. In the summer of 2018, it announced the acquisition of Superior Dental Care, a dental benefits carrier headquartered in the Dayton area.

The addition of ESI — a Wellsville, N.Y.-based employee assistance program (EAP) provider — is the next step in MMO’s strategy to build out its services in recent years and take a holistic view of members, said Dr. Tere Koenig, executive vice president and chief medical officer at MMO. She wants to be able to solve problems for employers and offer human resources solutions.

“So we can bring them medical; we can bring them dental; we can bring them life; we can bring them standalone wellness, integrated wellness,” Koenig said. “And now we can bring them support for their HR, so it’s one more aspect where we can bring our culture of partnership and service and outcome delivery to our clients.”

Though MMO has partnered with EAPs in the past to resell or white label a product, it hadn’t really gotten traction, said Tom Dewey, the company's executive vice president of people and strategy. But since announcing the acquisition of ESI, the interest from customers wanting to potentially look into the offering is “off the charts,” he said.

MMO will integrate ESI’s EAP options into its suite of offerings. Additionally, ESI will continue to offer stand-alone EAP products to businesses throughout North America.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but ESI CEO Jim Walter noted that the sellers are “very pleased” with the transaction.

“We went through a process for sure and spoke to a number of inter-

“BECAUSE OF OUR WHOLE CONTINUUM VIEW, ANY OF OUR OHIO EMPLOYERS THAT HAVE EMPLOYEES OUTSIDE OF OHIO, WE HAVE A FULL NETWORK FOR THEM AND FULL CAPABILITIES.” — Dr. Tere Koenig, executive vice president and chief medical officer of Medical Mutual of Ohio

ested employers,” said Diane Dunbar, ESI president and chief operating officer. Medical Mutual’s “culture fits so closely with our culture. ... And it just was a great fit.”

Founded in 1983, ESI promotes employee well-being, fosters personal and professional development, and works to improve productivity.

The company provides employee well-being solutions, including

“WE EXPECT THAT THIS WILL BRING US NEW CUSTOMERS AND NOT ONLY THE CROSS SELL, WHICH WE THINK MAKES SENSE AND WE CAN CONTINUE TO DO, BUT ALSO WILL BRING NEW CUSTOMERS TO THE ORGANIZATION.” — Tom Dewey, MMO’s executive vice president of people and strategy

counseling on relationships and family issues, help with elder and child care, personal coaching on home buying and student debt, and more. ESI also offers industry-tailored EAP options like Educator’s EAP, Healthcare EAP, Public Safety EAP, Union Assistance Program and Higher Education EAP. ESI’s team of nearly 100 employees will remain intact, and some aspects will move to Cleveland, Walter said.

“We think that we’re going to be able to do a lot of good in Ohio working with Medical Mutual clients, but we’re going to continue to continue our growth,” Walter said. “We get new business every month from all corners of North America, so we think the future looks bright ahead.”

ESI currently supports more than 1,800 employer groups, representing about 600,000 employees across North America. MMO plans to leverage ESI’s continued growth nationally.

“We expect that this will bring us new customers and not only the cross sell, which we think makes sense and we can continue to do, but also will bring new customers to the organization,” Dewey said.

ESI helps broaden MMO’s offerings, just as the acquisitions of Bravo and Superior Dental Care did in recent years.

“Because of our whole continuum view, any of our Ohio employers that have employees outside of Ohio, we have a full network for them and full capabilities,” Koenig said. “This is just another aspect of us trying to deliver that full continuum for all of our members.”

MMO continues to look for opportunities and is not bound by the borders of Ohio.

“I would expect that we’ll continue to grow,” she said. “What that looks like? Not exactly sure, but yeah, we’ll definitely continue to grow and grow within Ohio and outside the state.”

Lydia Coutré: lcoutre@crain.com, (216) 771-5479, @LydiaCoutre

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EDUCATION

Urban Community School grows its campus through partnerships The Refugee Response, Facing History and Ourselves bring wraparound services to institution

BY RACHEL ABBEY MCCAFFERTY

Urban Community School in Cleveland takes a holistic approach to education. But a school can only offer so much on its own.

“We saw some really glaring gaps for our kids and families that we wanted to address,” said president Tom Gill.

The school’s leadership saw a need for health care services and childcare, Gill said, as well as for after-school and summer programming. The school couldn’t support all of those needs on its own.

So the Urban Community School looked to grow its partnerships with area institutions, offering its campus as a potential home.

Urban Community School, created by the Ursuline Sisters of Cleveland, has been part of Northeast Ohio since 1968. The pre-K-8 school focuses on the “academic, social, emotional, physical, spiritual” needs of students, Gill said. It enrolled about 570 students this year.

The school moved to its current campus in 2003, with the current school building at West 48th Street and Lorain Avenue in Cleveland opening up two years later. The initial land for the campus came from a donation, but the school has added to it over the years through the city and county land banks, Gill said.

The Urban Community School in Cleveland has been adding to its campus through partnerships. | CONTRIBUTED

Urban Community School isn’t following any specific model for its campus growth, but it has looked to the Harlem Children’s Zone and Educare for inspiration when building these collaborations, Gill said. Both programs offer students and families wraparound services beyond the academic. It was a trip to see an Educare site in 2010, when Gill was development director for the school, that really started the current conver-

sation. And a significant gift in 2012 started the plan on its current path, he said.

“It was a combination of, we were planning. We knew what we wanted.

We did not have the funding. And then we had the funding, and we knew exactly what we wanted to do,” Gill said. “And it really took off from there.”

Today, its campus is home to sites for out-of-school programs Urban

Squash, House of Champions and the Lacrosse Communities Project.

And in 2020, MetroHealth opened a family health center on the campus.

That center brought the health care services Urban Community School sought but also services such as legal aid and a pharmacy, Gill said.

Soon, Urban Community School will welcome to its campus longtime partners The Refugee Response, and Facing History and Ourselves.

Facing History and Ourselves has been located in Cleveland Heights, but moving to the Urban Community School campus — and Cleveland — is a good fit, said Cleveland-area executive director Mark Swaim-Fox. Most of the schools the organization serves locally are in the city, including one named for Facing History in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District.

Facing History helps teachers and schools think about their curriculum in a new way. It’s about using “moments in time” to look at human behavior and to think about what people today can do to “create a better world,” Swaim-Fox said. For example, when teaching about the Holocaust, teachers would be encouraged to examine choices individuals made to perpetrate or stand against those horrific acts.

Locally, Facing History and Ourselves works with about 4,000 teachers in about 500 different schools.

And about five years ago, Facing History formed a network of schools in the Cleveland area that included Urban Community School to further embed the group’s curriculum into their teaching, Swaim-Fox said. This latest move takes that partnership a step further.

Swaim-Fox said the organization is still waiting for permits to be finalized, but he hopes to move into the Urban Community School location this fall.

The Refugee Response and Facing History sites are being designed to look like homes, so they fit in the neighborhood, Gill said. The House of Champions space was built similarly. A lot of the growth is being funded through a $20 million campaign. The Urban Community School surpassed that goal last year, Gill said, but the campaign continues.

Working with nonprofits allows Urban Community School to expand its services, and it gives nonprofits a place to grow without a large infrastructure commitment, as they have access to the campus.

Going forward, the Urban Community School’s master plan calls for adding another two nonprofit partners to its campus, Gill said. Those partners have not yet been identified.

Rachel Abbey McCafferty: (216) 771-5379, rmccafferty@crain.com

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REAL ESTATE

Sit-down restaurant sites succumb to drive-thrus With demand up during pandemic, operators of quick-service spots are looking to expand

BY STAN BULLARD

For now, a pile of dirt stands where a Denny’s restaurant used to on SOM Center Road in Willoughby.

By the fall it will be another location for an Akron-based Swensons drive-in restaurant. However, for Debbie Maggard, a senior vice president at the NAI Pleasant Valley Corp. real estate brokerage office in Independence who handled the site’s sale to Swensons, calls from prospects keep on coming.

“They are still calling,” Maggard said. “The phone rang off the hook when we listed it. It was unbelievable.”

The situation’s unpredictable part was that despite the pandemic and recession, typically intense competition for good sites in Northeast Ohio ratcheted up as drive-thru restaurants, new quick-service concepts and Swensons, with its classic car hops, kept growing.

Across town in Westlake at the Promenade portion of Crocker Park, Chick-fil-A just received a conditional use permit to demolish the TGI Fridays.

The surprising part in this case is that the national restaurant and bar franchise continues operating. No closing date is announced.

Time remains, however. Plans for the new drive-thru still need to secure approval by the suburb’s planning commission to proceed. It is on the agenda for the April 12 meeting, but the heavy lifting is over thanks to action by Westlake City Council. (The manager of the Westlake TGI Fridays, who would not supply his full name, declined comment on the Chick-fil-A plan.)

Freestanding restaurant sites at good locations are prized for redevel-

The Chick-fil-A restaurant in Rocky River has added temporary kiosks to multiple lanes of its drive-thru. The chain looks to continue expanding in the region and has new sites lined up in Westlake and Medina. | STAN BULLARD/CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

opment in Northeast Ohio because they are relatively land-rich. Parking requirements are such for sit-down restaurants that they provide plenty of room for fast-food concepts.

Sometimes they may even yield two drive-thru establishments.

Such is the case at the closed former Golden Corral Buffet & Grill near Macedonia. The more than 2-acre site is under contract with an affiliate of Panda Express, according to Michael Weiss, a senior director at the Goodman Real Estate Services Group of Lyndhurst, who represents the Rosemont, Calif.-based chain in Ohio.

Panda Express, which has a redevelopment arm, plans to redevelop the site for a drive-thru there. The site also will yield a pad for another freestand-

ing quick-service food or other retail concept. Weiss said he’s now marketing that land for Panda Express.

Some sites shed years ago by their operators are finding new users as the lockdowns and limitations on sitdown dining feed the growth of other quick-service or new concepts.

For instance, the Homestead, Pa.based Eat’n Park Hospitality Group closed its four Cleveland-Akron area locations in early 2019, a year before COVID-19 became a global pandemic.

Its Cuyahoga Falls location this spring is becoming a site for the Raising Cane’s chicken chain’s Columbus-based franchisee RCO Ltd. The Eat’n Park on U.S. Route 42 in Medina is under contract for sale to Chick-fil-A. Reusing retail locations — particu-

larly prime ones that national operators demand — has long been a standard operating procedure in Northeast Ohio, according to Tori Nook, the owner of the Anchor Cleveland brokerage in Beachwood.

However, the growing loss of retail and food concepts the past few years has produced multiple sites for other operators to expand more broadly than otherwise.

And drive-thru demand, she said, has resulted in Chipotle and other restaurant chains rushing to find locations that can accommodate a drive-thru, such as the end of an existing center.

The other facet is that concepts fade out as they age.

Chris Seelig, a Colliers Cleveland

senior vice president, said he expects to see older concepts continue to diminish their footprint in the region and be replaced by new ones, which has been accelerated by operators who managed to expand sales and adapt this past year.

“The pandemic has exacerbated the turnover,” Seelig said in an interview. “It’s no stretch to say the quick-service restaurants are expanding at a faster pace due to the pandemic.”

Contemporary national concepts also have consistent designs for branding and operational reasons. That means existing restaurant buildings are likely razed rather than renovated.

“You reach the point where you have to ask whether you are spending good money after bad,” Weiss said.

He even recalled one restaurant he represented years ago that replaced everything but a single wall of the predecessor’s building.

The Slim Chickens in Streetsboro, the first of the Fayetteville, Ark.based chain’s restaurants in the region, opened last fall in a former Steak ’n-Shake on state Route 14.

“They have a drive-thru but a sitdown component that is important to them, so the location worked,” Weiss said.

All the competition has kept the cost of prime locations intact despite the recession. Some insiders said that frustrated multiple operators originally hoped to find premium parcels at a discount from the shakeout.

And while the pandemic may wane, experts consider the drive-thru wave likely to continue, if just to capitalize on lessons learned from this one.

Stan Bullard: sbullard@crain.com, (216) 771-5228, @CrainRltywriter

REAL ESTATE

Ohio Design Centre is sold to local investor group for $4.1M Warrensville Heights firm is assuming control of 100,000-square-foot structure in Beachwood

BY STAN BULLARD

The building containing the Ohio Design Centre in Beachwood has been sold to a Warrensville Heights-based investor group that apparently plans to continue operating the cluster of highend furniture, fabric, art and appliances that has served the building and design industry since 1981.

Davis Development Group, which created the showroom and expanded it through the years, on March 1 sold the 100,000-square-foot structure, at 23533 Mercantile Road, for $4.1 million, according to Cuyahoga County land records.

The new ownership, which holds the property through 23533 Mercantile LLC, is led by Dimitry Belkin, the CEO of Data Retrieval-1st All File Recovery LLC, which is based at the Warrensville Heights address for future tax bills, county records show.

Jeff Davis, CEO of Davis Development Group of Solon and other ventures, said in an email that he believes the new owner will retain the showroom operation. Davis said his company chose this as a “good time to exit” because no other large build-

“THIS TREND AND A GENERAL SHIFT TOWARD SHOWROOMS LOCATED ON THE ‘STREET’ WHERE CONSUMERS COULD COME IN SHOULD GAIN MOMENTUM.” — Jeff Davis, CEO of Davis Development Group

The brick walls of the Ohio Design Centre in Beachwood have contained showrooms for design treasures ranging from rugs to art and furniture since the 1980s. A new owner has acquired the building and is marketing it for continued multitenant use. | COSTAR

ings are available in Commerce Park.

Belkin did not return texts, an email and a message left with the firm’s online representatives asking about his group’s plans for the property.

Davis said in the email that the rise of direct-selling to the public and in-

dustry by such concerns the past few years, along with consolidations and bankruptcies among them, had undercut showrooms focused on exclusively serving the design and building trade. Many, including Ohio Design Centre, had gravitated from

being available only to professionals to opening their doors to the public, but they still experienced challenges.

“This trend and a general shift toward showrooms located on the ‘street’ where consumers could come in should gain momentum,” he said.

He noted other such regional showrooms have struggled during the past few years.

The building is about 60% vacant, according to CoStar, the online realty data source. Cohen Commercial Group, which last Thursday, March 25, erected a sign indicating it would represent the building in leasing, has a drawing on its website showing that nine of the showrooms in the property are empty.

One of the remaining showrooms in the complex is R.W. Shea Co., a high-end furniture and rug supplier representing multiple lines of such products.

Bob Shea, president and owner of R. W. Shea, said in a phone interview that he had indirectly heard that the new owner intends to continue operating the design center. He said his showroom continues to work for his company, even though he does not sell to walk-in customers as some of the other tenants now do.

“We’re here and we’ll see what the future brings,” Shea said.

A flyer on the Craig brokerage firm’s website said the new owner is willing to add more doors and windows to open up visibility within the property. Ohio Design Centre has spaces ranging in size from 60,000 square feet to as small as 1,348 square feet, according to the listing.

Craig Cohen, the Cohen Group broker, did not reply to a phone message and email by 5 p.m. on March 25.

Stan Bullard: sbullard@crain.com, (216) 771-5228, @CrainRltywriter

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LAW

Yost says piece of federal rescue plan is ‘broad block’ for states Ohio attorney general, backers believe ‘tax mandate’ in legislation infringes on sovereignty

BY JEREMY NOBILE

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost is suing over a piece of the American Rescue Plan Act that he says is “holding Ohio’s stimulus funds hostage,” and according to some observers and legal scholars, the suit is either an important case that could set a meaningful precedent in federalism or an ill-advised suit doomed to fail.

At the heart of the issue for Yost is a so-called “tax mandate” in ARPA that he says handcuffs the state’s ability to make changes to tax structure and economic policy as a condition of receiving funds.

Yost seeks an injunction barring enforcement of that mandate that he describes as a last-minute addition to the $1.8 trillion stimulus package that prohibits states from using the funds directly or indirectly to reduce net tax revenue. The case was filed March 17 in the Southern District of Ohio.

“We want an injunction, a restraining order against that one provision,” Yost said in an interview with Crain’s.

“We just want the court to say that the federal government cannot intrude upon the states this way.”

ARPA carves out $350 billion in economic relief for state and local governments across the country to aid recovery from the economic gut punch of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ohio, which is facing a $1.1 billion loss in revenue, is projected to receive $5.5 billion in ARPA funds, which amounts to more than 7% of the state budget.

Language in the bill prevents states from using ARPA money to offset tax cuts. Yost’s case claims this violates the Tenth Amendment — which holds that any powers not granted to the federal government are reserved to the states — on the grounds that it dictates what states can do regarding their own tax policies.

Yost said filing an injunction is necessary even though Ohio has no pending tax cuts that could trigger a clawback by the federal government, because the vague language potentially applies to tax credits, such as abatements the state uses for economic de-

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, pictured during a global technology conference in 2019, is suing over a piece of the American Rescue Plan Act that he says is “holding Ohio’s stimulus funds hostage.” | CATE DINGLEY/BLOOMBERG

“IT’S THE TAX ELEMENT OF IT. THE STATE HAS THE RIGHT TO LEVY THE TAXES FOR THEIR RESIDENTS, AND THIS IS INTERFERENCE — IT IS REALLY A BROAD BLOCK.” — Ohiio Attorney General Dave Yost

velopment for projects like the new Sherwin-Williams Co. headquarters.

“Let’s say that the legislature decided that they wanted to create a larger tax credit to encourage and support families during the economic crisis,” Yost said. “I do not know if they could do that without having the federal government claw back money. This mandate is taking away an entire field of policymaking, whether you are talking about job creation, economic development, supporting families or other economic stimulus.”

Although more Republicans so far seem to back Yost’s efforts than Demo-

crats at this time, federalism is a bipartisan issue, said Mike Wise, a former Republican state representative, a lawyer with McDonald Hopkins and one

of dozens of special counsels to Yost.

Agreeing with Yost, Wise called ARPA a “violation of the Tenth Amendment” and an “egregious disregard of federalism,” especially when considering the amount of money Ohio stands to collect. “(ARPA) was either sloppily drafted or carefully crafted, in which case it was a power grab,” he said. “I have no idea which it was.”

“The federal government, in this statute, says states cannot, if they receive these funds, directly or indirectly cut taxes,” said Robert Alt, president and CEO of conservative think tank The Buckeye Institute, which applauds Yost’s lawsuit. “The ironic thing is the Constitution, as it’s been interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court, says Congress cannot directly or indirectly infringe on sovereignty of states. And that is precisely what they’ve done here.”

Yost concedes that the U.S. Supreme Court does allow the federal government to apply some funding guidelines in order to “nudge” policy in one direction.

For instance, the Donald Trump administration included provisions restricting how CARES Act funds could be used. This drew the ire of Democratic lawmakers who argued that state and local governments need flexibility to help with steep revenue losses caused by the pandemic.

When pressed on why his office didn’t take issue with those restrictions, he repeated the importance of the argument of states’ rights.

The ARPA tax mandate, Yost said, represents coercion.

“It’s the tax element of it. The state has the right to levy the taxes for their residents, and this is interference — it is really a broad block,” Yost said. “If they had been more limited, it would be a tougher case, but they said no legislative or executive action that directly or indirectly reduces the net tax revenue.”

See YOST on Page 21

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3/26/2021 3:13:21 PM

PERSONAL VIEW

Lessons learned on how to close Cleveland’s divides

RICH WILLIAMS FOR CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

BY DOROTHY BAUNACH

EDITORIAL

The need for speed W

e didn’t really need another reason to pull for a swift-as-possible end to the pandemic, but now we have one.

Ohio’s Republican-controlled Legislature last week voted to override Gov. Mike DeWine’s veto of Senate Bill 22, which will give lawmakers the option to end state health orders and states of emergencies. The bill takes effect in 90 days, so by late June, the tools at the governor’s disposal to address a public health crisis will be curtailed.

Will we be out of the woods by then? We hope so, obviously, and the stepped-up pace of administering vaccines will help. But COVID variants are spreading, and for the week ending Thursday, March 25, there had been an average of 58,579 cases nationwide per day, up 3% from the average two weeks earlier. Ohio has made progress but remains well short of the DeWine-set benchmark — 50 new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 over two weeks — to lift all health orders, including the state’s mask mandate.

In opposing SB 22, DeWSENATE BILL 22 TAKES ine said, “My passion EFFECT IN 90 DAYS, SO comes from a deep ... belief

BY LATE JUNE, THE TOOLS that this is not the only crisis we will face,” and his conAT THE GOVERNOR’S cerns about the bill are not about how it might afDISPOSAL TO ADDRESS A just fect his administration, but PUBLIC HEALTH CRISIS that of a future governor. We hope he’s wrong. But we WILL BE CURTAILED. fear he’s right. The governor hedged on whether there might be a legal challenge to the bill, saying, “My opinion about the constitutionality of the bill has not changed. Whether we file something ... I don’t know.”

A better response would be for DeWine to work with legislative leaders to see if there’s a way to make some fixes to the law. The Columbus Dispatch reported that the DeWine administration offered a list of legislative oversights he would accept, including “three appointees to the new health committee, the ability to extend states of emergency past 90 days in the absence of action by the Legislature, a 30-day waiting period on reintroducing rescinded orders and, most controversially, a two-thirds vote by

state lawmakers on any resolution to override state health orders.”

Reasonable points, and they might provide areas to make SB 22 better. But it’s still a heavy lift, given that the rationale for SB 22 supporters was to restore what they see as necessary checks and balances to executive power. With the victory in hand, Republicans don’t have much incentive to make concessions.

An open question, in the wake of the override, is whether it signals a fracturing of the administration’s relationship with the GOP-led General Assembly that might threaten other important state business. DeWine has vetoed four bills since his term began in 2019, but SB 22 marked the first successful override. One encouraging sign was that as of Friday, March 26, the state Senate approved the two-year, $8 billion transportation budget, ahead of the March 31 deadline, and the House, which previously passed a bill, was expected to approve the Senate changes.

Public health, unfortunately, is more of a hot button. DeWine’s focus, now more than ever, should be to rally Ohioans to the common cause of ending the pandemic and getting a vaccine to all who want it. Effective Monday, March 29, Ohio will open vaccine eligibility to everyone 16 and older. The state’s about to open 15 mass vaccination clinics across Ohio. Let’s keep working fast.

Last hurrah F

or the final time, we can say at the start of a baseball season that it’s our fervent hope that the “Cleveland Indians” win the World Series.

It’s not, of course, the last time we’ll be rooting for our team to take home the title. We do that every year. (Cleveland fans are entitled, give the city’s sports history.) But 2021 likely is the last season in which the team uses the “Indians” name, before taking on a new, still-to-be-determined identity in 2022.

No need to rehash the name debate. In a front page editorial back in 2013, we called on the team to do away with its name and the Chief Wahoo logo, noting that a change could help “write a new and exciting chapter in the franchise’s history.”

Cleveland has an emotional connection to its team, whatever the name. Let’s hope the final chapter of the Indians’ story, starting with Opening Day on Thursday, April 1, in Detroit, is a riveting one.

Executive Editor: Elizabeth McIntyre (emcintyre@crain.com) Managing Editor: Scott Suttell (ssuttell@crain.com) Contact Crain’s: 216-522-1383 Read Crain’s online: crainscleveland.com

We at DigitalC have been following our mission to close Cleveland’s digital divide since our founding in 2015. By 2019, we launched a wireless internet service provider (WISP), EmpowerCLE, in the Fairfax neighborhood and have since expanded service to residents in Central, Hough, Glenville, Woodhill and Clark-Fulton neighborhoods. We had 80 customers when COVID-19 shut down Baunach is CEO Cuyahoga County. Today more than half of DigitalC and of the nearly 1,000 households we serve its mission to have families with K-12 students, the connect majority from our partnership with the Cleveland’s Cleveland Metropolitan School District. unconnected.

Nearly each of our customers has taught us something about digital equity.

We’ve learned that bridging this chasm requires more than connecting a home to broadband, as Cleveland’s adoption gap — or the acquisition of digital skills and devices — is likely to be three times or more severe. If all we do is provide a high-speed connection, we don’t address the fundamental problems that THE CAUSES FOR are preventing many Cleveland residents from participating in THESE DIVIDES, today’s fast-growing digital ESPECIALLY IN economy and standing in the way of equitable access to CLEVELAND’S health, education and economHISTORICALLY ic opportunity.

The causes for these divides, UNDERSERVED especially in Cleveland’s historically underserved neighbor- NEIGHBORHOODS, hoods, are a function of a lack of ARE A FUNCTION OF A digital infrastructure, outdated devices, underdeveloped digital LACK OF DIGITAL literacy and, worse yet, resident INFRASTRUCTURE, distrust. Community leaders who for decades these residents OUTDATED DEVICES, believed, at best, have ignored UNDERDEVELOPED them and, at worst, have exploited their circumstances. DIGITAL LITERACY, The greatest lesson we’ve AND, WORSE YET, learned is no one organization alone can bridge these divides.

RESIDENT DISTRUST.

Accessibility or affordability? It’s both History and data have proven that Cleveland’s digital divide cannot be closed without someone disrupting the market for high-speed internet. It is simply untenable to ask legacy carriers and providers of residential broadband services to invest into infrastructure and capacity to serve Cleveland’s digitally starved neighborhoods, knowing their stockholders demand returns on investments.

The customer acquisition costs alone in Cleveland’s historically underserved communities, such as old-style canvassing of neighborhoods and marketing services at church lecterns, create a sizable barrier to making a profit.

These barriers are then compounded by the need for relatively low-cost subscription rates, no contracts, no credit checks and the transient practices of many of these residents. Two decades of data support that private markets alone simply cannot bridge the digital divide.

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.

See BAUNACH, on Page 17

Sound off: Send a Personal View for the opinion page to emcintyre@crain.com. Please include a telephone number for verification purposes.

8 | CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS | March 29, 2021

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OPINION

PERSONAL VIEW

Dave Yost’s American Rescue Plan challenge should fail

BY JONATHAN ENTIN

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost has filed suit challenging part of the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, the $1.9 trillion economic assistance measure that includes $350 billion in federal aid to state and local governments. Yost objects to a provision that prevents states from using those funds to offset tax cuts. His lawsuit should fail for both legal and policy reasons.

Yost claims that the measure prohibits states from cutting taxes. That, he says, violates the Tenth Amendment by dictating to state legislatures. It would be a constitutional problem if ARPA actually forbids the states from enacting tax cuts. The Supreme Court struck down a federal law that banned states from authorizing sports betting and invalidated another federal law that told states how to legislate about nuclear wastes.

But ARPA works differently. Rather than ordering states not to cut taxes, the law offers states a deal: “If you want federal money under ARPA, you can’t use that money to subsidize tax cuts.” The states get to decide

whether tax cuts matter more to them than federal aid.

Perhaps anticipating this difficulty, Yost contends that ARPA effectively forces the states not to cut taxes. But this claim is also problematic. It relies on the Supreme Court’s decision overturning a provision of the Affordable Care Act that withheld all federal Entin is the David Medicaid funding from states that refused to expand that program. This L. Brennan was a real penalty: The feds were alProfessor ready providing more than half of all Emeritus of Law Medicaid money and would pay virat Case Western tually all of the additional costs of exReserve panding the program. States that reUniversity. fused to expand Medicaid would get no federal Medicaid money at all, leaving them much worse off than they were before.

See ENTIN on Page 17

PERSONAL VIEW

Providing a private travel experience that exceeds expectations

Miles to go before we sleep

BY COLLEEN COTTER AND AUGIE NAPOLI

involuntary move. Additionally, thanks to tenants having legal help, nearly $4 million of rent relief has been As we exit this long pandemic winter, many of us had distributed within Cleveland, preserving income of the benefit of some warm nights at home, protected landlords.

In this COVID-19 era, the right to counsel, together from the snow and cold. A relevant winter reflection for with rental assistance and various this year could be Robert Frost’s new tenant protections, have “flat“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy tened the curve” on a mounting Evening,” penned in 1922, not long eviction crisis. after the 1918 flu pandemic. The Despite the positive current outpoem creates images of a beautiful look: a successful launch, proving snowfall, with a warm, cozy homeour hypothesis that lawyers make stead not far away. The narrator the difference, keeping people pauses in his travel to watch the housed — there is much work to still snow falling in the woods. He takes a be done. We face a looming crisis. moment to reflect.

Pre-COVID-19, there were about At Legal Aid and United Way, we Cotter is executive director of The 9,000 evictions filed annually in are pausing only a moment to reflect Legal Aid Society of Cleveland.

Cleveland Housing Court. The ma— at the end of a harsh winter — on Napoli is president and CEO of jority of these evictions involved our incredible success at keeping United Way of Greater Cleveland.

Black female-headed households people in safe, stable homes during The two organizations launched with minor children. During this the pandemic. Just a month ago, we Right to Counsel in Cleveland COVID-19 era, the households facpresented to city of Cleveland lead- Housing Court in July 2020. ing eviction have similar demoers our first report on the initial six graphics, although the raw numbers months of right to counsel (RTC) in of evictions filings are down. As some tenant protecCleveland Housing Court.

Highlights of that report include our success in en- tions end and the job loss from the pandemic continues, suring tenants were not displaced and in accessing we anticipate a significant increase in eviction filings. rent relief. In 93% of cases that concluded in 2020, the Legal Aid attorney was able to prevent eviction or an See COTTER/NAPOLI on Page 17

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Restore country’s steel and aluminum supply In response to the March 16 Bloomberg article “Seven senators, including Ohio’s Rob Portman, plan bipartisan revamp of national-security tariffs,” the data that Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo says show effectiveness against foreign imports devastating our steel and aluminum industries doesn’t show the whole or overriding issue from this small manufacturer’s viewpoint.

We can’t get necessary steel. Even 30% more expensive steel is only coming off of stockpiles that aren’t being replenished and will run out within weeks. This leaves thousands of small and medium steel and aluminum product producers scrambling or out of business soon. Mostly just major customers such as auto and military buyers are getting deliveries out of new production, and this is projected to last at least as long as year-

end. There will be a lot of failures by that point if steel and aluminum supply hasn’t been restored. And we can’t export finished goods without it.

Guaranteeing security for U.S. steel, Cleveland-Cliffs and the United Steelworkers union is a lofty goal, but needs to be quickly reexamined in light of fast-changing facts on the ground. There is a glut of steel outside this country. We still can encourage limited imports of metals from our friends to tide us over during this critical period. If we want to re-establish relations with Brazil, encouraging them to import our products, that might be a good place to start.

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SPORTS BUSINESS

REBOOT New Crunch owners are hoping for successful return of revered franchise

Cleveland Crunch player Sami Mutemwa is defended by Colorado Inferno’s Josue Jimenez during the first half of their March 21 game at the Soccer Sportsplex in North Olmsted. | PHOTOGRAPHS BY KEN BLAZE FOR CRAIN’S

Indoor soccer club relaunches in North Olmsted with eye on downtown venue BY KEVIN KLEPS | Eric Davis and Luciano Ruscitto were

several months into their plan to reboot the Cleveland Crunch.

They had applied for trademark rights, held a youth camp and had discussions with leaders of the Major Arena Soccer League about joining the professional indoor circuit. What they didn’t have, after unsuccessful attempts to secure an investor, were the funds to cover a franchise fee and the operating costs necessary to run a quality organization.

That’s when they asked Joe Muscatello, who had been advising them on starting a business, to join their ownership team.

“It was a pretty unique scenario,” Davis said of his and Ruscitto’s “backward” method of forming a professional soccer franchise.

D olds cade toge Pain eno Nati seas last six-s ratio dee “W as t nam nati of o Th have pee less talk play and pan lowe

Opening act The Crunch played 13 seasons in three indoor soccer leagues from 1989-2002.

A brief look at their successful run:  Championships: 1994, ’96 and ’99  Appearances in league championship series: 7  Venues: Richfield Coliseum, 1989-94; Cleveland State Convocation Center, 1994-2002  Best attendance average: 8,265, 1997-98  Worst attendance norm: 4,640, 1990-91  Return of the Force: In 2002, the Crunch were rebranded as the Force, who played three seasons before folding for a second time. The Force also folded in 1988, setting the stage for the Crunch.

Cleveland Crunch president of operations Eric Davis, left, and VP of operations Luciano Ruscitto at the Soccer Sportsplex in North Olmsted

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SPORTS-MINDED

NOT SO EASY

CSU president Harlan Sands: Athletics are the front door to the university.

The Indians’ limit on capacity makes for a complex ticketing process.

PAGE 14

PAGE 12

those efforts, said Ruscitto, a Mentor Public Schools intervention specialist and assistant soccer coach.

Applying for trademark rights, which had been dormant since the former Crunch transitioned to the Force in 2002, was one of the easiest tasks in the past year.

“It’s crazy how we just walked into this situation,” said Ruscitto, the Crunch’s vice president of operations. “I feel like the amount of work that comes with it was the major deterrent. But in all honestly, anybody could have done what we did.”

Downtown dreams

Davis and Ruscitto are 27-yearolds who have been friends for a decade and played one season of soccer together at Lake Erie College in Painesville. They were barely old enough to remember the 1998-99 National Professional Soccer League season, when the Crunch won the last of their three championships in a six-season span. But the pair’s admiration for the franchise’s history runs deep.

“We don’t want to be remembered as those two people that put this name at risk,” said Davis, a Mentor native who is the Crunch’s president of operations.

The pair acknowledge they don’t have the experience of many of their peers in the space. They spent countless hours researching the business, talking to as many former Crunch players and staffers as they could, and devising a business plan. The pandemic-forced shutdowns allowed them to devote more time to

The work has been considerable — “more than we even imagined at the beginning,” Ruscitto said.

Davis is the lone member of the group who has made the Crunch his full-time job. Ruscitto helps when he’s not working as a teacher, Muscatello takes care of the contracts and other financial matters, and a few other friends and family members are volunteering their time.

A major hurdle was overcome when it was recently announced that the Crunch officially had joined M2, the MASL’s second division. M2 had nine clubs before the pandemic brought a halt to the 2019-20 season, and the league plans to have at least 11 or 12 teams lined up when the 2021-22 season begins in December, commissioner Chris Economides said when the Crunch announcement was made on March 11.

In the interim, the Crunch are among six M2 teams taking part in an abbreviated spring season that will culminate in July with the final four clubs competing for the league championship at Hartman Arena in Park City, Kan. The Crunch have played three matches — a Feb. 27 exhibition, followed by regular-season games on March 20 and 21 — at the Soccer Sportsplex in North Olmsted. The attendance capacity at their temporary home is 200. After tickets are distributed to sponsors, plus the players’ friends and family, that leaves only about 150 seats for fans.

Still, the results have been encouraging.

Tickets for the March 20-21 weekend series against Colorado Inferno FC sold out within a day. Seats for the exhibition match last month didn’t last long, either.

“It’s been remarkable,” Davis said.

The owners are hopeful the Crunch will have an agreement in place in the next few months that will result in the franchise kicking off the 2021-22 season at a downtown venue.

The Wolstein Center, where the former Crunch drew 11,162 fans for a double-overtime win that clinched the franchise's first title in 1994, and Cleveland Public Auditorium are the most viable possibilities, the owners said. The spacious Public Auditorium is the “most promising” option, Ruscitto said, due to talks that have been ongoing since August.

“It definitely needs to go downtown,” said Hector Marinaro, one of the stars of the Crunch’s 13-season run from 1989 to 2002. “If you’re go-

Fans watch the game between the Cleveland Crunch and the Colorado Inferno March 21 at the Soccer Sportsplex in North Olmsted.

Below: One of the official game balls before the start of the contest.

ing to brand it as an entertainment sort for people, there’s nothing like on a Friday or Saturday night going down and catching a Cleveland Crunch game from 7 to 9 o’clock, and then going into the Flats or West Sixth or the casino and just continuing your Friday or Saturday night.”

Glory days Marinaro, the all-time leading scorer in the history of professional indoor soccer, knows the allure of the former Crunch as well as anyone.

The 1997-98 club averaged a franchise-record 8,265 fans per game at Cleveland State. The Force, the Crunch’s indoor soccer predecessors, regularly outdrew the Cavaliers at Richfield Coliseum in the 1980s.

The ’80s and ’90s were a much different time for indoor soccer. Players were paid so well that some of the top performers from Europe came to the U.S. to compete in the high-flying indoor leagues. Major League Soccer, the nation’s top outdoor league, didn’t play its first season until 1996.

“It’s never going to be what it was,” Marinaro said. “The ’80s and ’90s were special for indoor soccer.”

But, the 56-year-old John Carroll

University men’s soccer coach said, “there’s still a place” for the MASL, especially in Cleveland.

Marinaro helped Davis and Ruscitto evaluate the talent at the Crunch’s player tryouts, and he remains in constant contact with the new owners, whom he describes as “young, sharp individuals” who “seem to care about the brand and history.”

Without the Crunch name, the 27-year-olds’ venture might not have gotten off the ground.

“I don’t think anybody would have given us the time of day if we didn’t have the Crunch brand,” Ruscitto said. “It was hard enough for them to even give us the time of day with the Crunch brand.”

Nothing has been easy, though there have been some significant wins along the way.

MetroHealth has signed on to be the Crunch’s official medical provider for 2021-22, and Friedman, Domiano & Smith, the prominent Cleveland law firm, is a top sponsor. Deals with UN1TUS Athletic Wear and Foote Printing have been made on trade, helping the Crunch produce apparel, uniforms, game-day programs and more.

The Crunch are looking for a title

sponsor, which would be featured on the front of the team’s jerseys, and revenue is significantly limited by the combination of the pandemic and a venue that caps out at a couple hundred guests on game day. A national TV deal, which the MASL is attempting to secure, also would help.

Muscatello, a longtime family friend of Ruscitto’s with a history of founding and investing in companies, has been stressing the need to properly manage the finances, with the hope that a post-pandemic normal and a move to a downtown venue will bring big revenue gains.

“Every business dies from lack of cash, so we’re trying to make sure that we stay within budget, especially this year because of the COVID restrictions,” the former manufacturing industry executive and current Kent State University associate professor said.

The owners think a jump to the MASL’s top division is feasible in the next few years, but such a move would necessitate an operating budget that exceeds seven figures. At that level, the Crunch, as they’re currently set up, “wouldn’t last past a season,” Davis said.

Instead, Davis said the owners are using this spring and summer as a “marketing campaign” — one they think will prove that there is still plenty of demand for a fun indoor soccer club in Cleveland.

And turning huge profits isn’t high on their priority list.

“Obviously, we’d like to make money from this, but if we did this for however many years and never really made money from this, I don’t think I would be upset, just because I think what we’ve done so far in being able to bring the Crunch back and do this for the city of Cleveland, I don’t think you can put a price tag on that,” Ruscitto said.

Kevin Kleps: kkleps@crain.com, (216) 771-5256, @KevinKleps

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FOCUS | SPORTS BUSINESS | Q&A

Harlan Sands

President, Cleveland State University The Cleveland State men’s basketball team’s first appearance in the NCAA tournament in 12 years was brief. The Vikings, heavy underdogs as a No. 15 seed, were eliminated by second-seeded Houston in the first round on Friday, March 19.

Still, the Vikings’ progress under second-year coach Dennis Gates has been rapid. CSU, after losing at least 21 games in five consecutive seasons, was 19-8 in 2020-21. Gates, the Horizon League Coach of the Year in each of his two seasons at CSU, has been mentioned as a candidate for openings at major Division I universities, and keeping the 41-year-old is a priority, director of athletics Scott Garrett has told Crain’s.

Garrett’s boss, CSU president Harlan Sands, has called athletics “the front door” of the university, because of how sports can help to raise the institution’s profile. On March 17, when Sands spoke with Crain’s, the mass vaccination center at the Wolstein Center had just opened. The next day, Sands agreed to a three-year extension, putting the university president under contract through 2026.

Crain’s spoke with Sands about the university’s chances of retaining Gates, the impact of the Vikings’ NCAA tourney run on the school and much more. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity. — Kevin Kleps  Two years ago, before you hired Scott (Garrett), you told me how critical men’s basketball was to the success of the athletic department. You have be thrilled about the job Dennis Gates has done with the program.

He’s the real deal. … In athletics, it’s not that

different from a lot of the other folks we hire at the VP level. You have to hire talent, you have to lay out a vision for where we want to be, and then you just empower people. … Athletics is the front door to our university, and it’s really, really important.

The last couple weeks have been crazy. I

got an email today from someone I don’t know, and the title was “My grandson picked CSU to win everything.” He just said, “I don’t know you, but I thought you’d enjoy this good news story. My 3-year-old grandson picked all the teams and picked Cleveland State to win.”

 And you’re already seeing results in terms of enrollment and other elements?

We’re up double digits in admissions, applications and enrollment for the fall.

And we had a good year last year, in the middle of the pandemic. We were down about 2%, which in this environment was really solid. But we’re up for the fall (Cleveland State said its admissions for fall 2021 have increased 19%), and we haven’t even announced our full campus footprint for what it’s going to look like.

It’s going to look a lot closer to normal than it did last fall.  In a short period of time, Dennis has really seemed to get everyone to buy in. What gains have you seen in the program?

He’s a great ambassador. He cares about these kids’ lives and how they develop as young men. That’s where it starts.

He’s got them believing in each other.

We’re not the most talented team, even in the Horizon League. I think he would tell you that. ... What he inherited, he had three players, nine guys in the transfer portal, big academic issues and not much time to get this thing together. Really amazing.  Now you and Scott have to work to keep him long term, right? He’s under contract for three more years, but you know how it works. There are schools

Crain’s honors 15 of Cleveland’s most remarkable women leaders

NOMINATIONS NOW OPEN! Every year, Crain’s Cleveland Business salutes a group of inspiring women whose dedication and achievements enrich Northeast Ohio, its institutions and its people.

Do you know a female business leader who is enriching our region?

NOMINATE TODAY:

CrainsCleveland.com/Nominate

12 | CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS | MARCH 29, 2021

P012_013_CL_20210329.indd 12

Nancy Mendez

that can come after him now. What’s the priority there?

It’s a high priority. But I am going to tell you that Dennis has said he wants to leave Cleveland State as the winningest coach in Cleveland State history. I want to make that work for him. He’s got a long future

Vice president of community impact, United Way of Greater Cleveland

Renee Singleton President and CEO, Singleton & Partners

Each year, Crain’s Cleveland Business honors a group of women who have demonstrated exceptional commitment to Northeast Ohio. This year, amid the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic turmoil, that commitment has been more critical than ever. The members of this year’s class have risen to the occasion, displaying resilience, tenacity, compassion and grace. They have helped guide nonprofits as executives or board members, worked to keep local businesses afloat and jobs intact, fed the hungry and searched for new medical treatments.

These leaders, and others like them or mentored by them or inspired by them, are who will shepherd the region to tu emerge from the current tumult on track toward stability and a resumption of growth, leaving no Ohioan behind.

Men scho

ahea can, you mod mark

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Co-founde Nexus Eng

“Engineers t & PartWhen Renee Singleton decided to move her Singleton the South when it com bought a Nancy Mendez spent the first several years of her life in ners marketing agency out of rented space in 2018, she team of peop east of Bronx area of New York City before her family moved to Cleveland.

7,000-square-foot building in the Superior Arts District bebe Corrao, co-fo Her father, a union carpenter, found himself blacklisted State University.

Cleveland near Cleveland downtown unable to neering Grou cause of his skin color and Puerto Rican accent and move was to create a coworking the behind strategy the of Part partner and l a space ork, she said. Her mother became the main wage earner find work, space, S&P Work Lab. She has invested $2 million into work is com for the working-class home. her staff of eight, the kind of video and and creatives, offers that reached neering work cre The youngest of seven, Mendez said that when she couldn’t afford themselves to help them crethey gear electronic This apart.”

The firm, h middle school, the school system was “really falling videos, podcasts and other content. Singleton said she music, ate MenMen encouraged signers with was the backdrop of her life when a counselor coworkelieves S&P Work Lab is the first cowork believes try. “Our clie program The Singleton file dez to apply for a scholarship ing space of its kind in the Midwest. file Mendez The engineering, process. and walked her through the “We have a 3,000-square-foot produc- ` First job: explained C “I always had people that were in the ` Secret skills: tion studio in the back where you can do At the age of 16, sales associate at a store nical horsep that kind of gave me She was a very good athlete in high school right place in my life Na toya J. Walker playing field hockey, lacrosse anything: You can shoot video, you can in Randal Park Mall in its heyday: The Hoop ness problem that leg up,” Mendez said. and college, Minor Chief of shoot photography, (one night) we had a tunities.” The attend and ice hockey. book: to pub her avorite Favorite ` Natoya J. lic The scholarship allowed affa irs,streamed Walker Minor live,” she said. “I just city of Clev concert which began which has worked in city elan governmen Bible Boston, The d boarding school outside I t, in one One. form or anoth signed a deal with Spectrum News PAGES 10-11 ` Favorite er, forbook: today empl expectations.

14 years. andjoine d the Jackson opened up her accessShe received: journalists she’s vice eight advice ` Best think they have about admi Morrison

by Toni Eye”tion 2007 Bluest nistra as a speci concentratin to “The College in to Williams al assist ` Nancy Mendez to on After that, she went then be holding will — easy that is and Money ant Ohio The “Making to Frank Jacks Walker Minor file that cover Northeast became depu chemical an on, history.

Ohio: Northeast United Way of Greater Cleveland bling in spot study socioeconomic Levert) Favorite Gerald late publi (the years.” hard.” two what’s is it next the title of interi ty chief of `opera the c for servant. She unde tions, added their home ` Favorite accomplishm director of the youngr so manymyoung lessness and hope “Mariann seesrtuni ent: Metroparks Mendez said sheOppo Cleveland care The Office health of director ` Renee Singleton Geer, of lessness Nex Jeanette “The ` ty and haswith African to visit: engaged place affe avorite Americalocal Favorite helping held the position Equal n Culture Garden: We youth and sters like herself inof Cleveland, public affairskids advertisthe of Reach, had chief Singleton & Partners thedirecto Spectrum for the strategy undere land, for the to 12`years sunset Ida Ford, Cleve bill, but we sunrise Park Best. advice she’s received: Edgewater onlyathad a flagand there.

“When he ranaccess last land/Cuya great potential but insufficient When communiSpectrum Jackson the of hoga arm for sales ing came mayo because force in, he wanted to have being a disruptor, r, I got ` Marianne Corrao “Don’t at N Development erations said, onfear expectations. board a lack “notof list: herwebucket ofand ,” she becau op Top administra good education and forsometh`ing Singleton se built I nominated want business, by cations and ed exam LLC did identity Group very to my it. feel I work for city govple and takes Nexus Engineering sometimes c werespecifically 2019, ent, but our society in when able toTraveling a point gov world, theWe timethe around get the cultura “I think we’re aternm to m he talked abou events wher l garden this recognition. According to Geer, alup in time me a disruptor.” wanted done makehe t the work revenue for the spending to come rs arean centennial of andto terms background Amalfi Coast them as valuee job seeke theion time pr that we’re finally starting the on federat PAGE 12 was exactly what the role he had for me — it most two decades ago, Singleton + Partof d citizens.” of $20 cultural gardens.” ethnicethnic I want ZIP code, your ed to do.”

It’s no small feat stone with that, that your Most ners was the first marketing firm in Northto conve she’s out in it hire year, ne a who ` Jacqueline Gillon partners acros determine notdays, the community ` Favorite celebrity ity, your race should ing with s the private, publi Clevelanders at work Ohio to develop strategies that adapt east quote that.” : for e 23 stand throp moted shouldn’t Western Reserve Land Conservancy every “We ic sectors when she said.

“First Lady womlevel, from grass to wom roots to corpo services orHillary you’re going to become,” the needits Clinton came rate leaders. arketing of an organization’s products the marketing s an to the city those groups inters corded 5 injustice continues to drive when I was working deeply A recognition of “My job ingrained ect. is a strange job for the Michael White en and growing multicultural audiences.

“My role, the way dents.”

PAGES 14-15 Way becau for United administration and impact se when hear theof community president I describe it, is a multiculmulticul peopeo said, ‘Who title knew what her work as vice ple they think I do knew diary,” Walker hen we started 18 years ago, nobody “When Cleveland had that?’ the medi tions,” Walk the aintersection Engineer Minor expla to study wanted relaMendez er Mino ` Duriya Dhinojwala The phrase diversity ined. “Th around of Greater Cleveland. r said. “I became a me so that they workover tural was, they just (thought) it was something running joke becaus policy side. My they on the don’t have society H in time publi Cuyahoga out play e c she how to and ‘actuall job repor BMD (Brennan, Manna & Diamond) agency policies an was is “It y of economic ships betw t said. navigating the The city’s lead enjoyed lusion — but it wasn’t,” Singleton and inclusion ’ Cleveland.” relationlegisland een on ationthough Way. at United intern work is a pri in her al and — something highlighted put together strategic of how she is able to bring external partn ships on some ` Amy Backus that works with companies to help them erer have to of the programs, togetherS ` Running for mayor but we also Cleveland city’s ferent players to funding about “We are talkingAfter in 2021?

Case Western Reserve University create a cohesive 14 years, she has projects.” plans that reach multicultural communities.”

“No. When this is done, process involved “And we have to riculum ans longsaid. change,”ashe list of signifi systemic accom helping on focused talk deeper about I want plishment particularly has multi firm a cant policy ple Over the years, Singleton’s s relaxing environment. along with nong r her ented Shecity systemic those of belt. some had a hand in the Mino thatunde This job is overnment r Walkeror PAGES 16-17 reach underserved have honest conversations systems folkspos creation and succe were work public health agencies and major healthstressf wh ul.” unintendunintend ing of a co-op ssful pass we have now that lead issues these opi- their ing on the lead issue opi passlegislation decisions created but were brought the priva and has worked hard-to-reach communities, including people affected by the ` Dr. Grace McComsey voices heard. on the they’re they te secto or the met her fut tirele just exactly city’s cit working sslywaymuni together on the infan ed, and sometimes t mortality ty benefits agree roid single mothers, Blacks and Hispanics.

“One of the most as seniors, ers comas well University Hospitals Rainbow initiative. She ment to crisis, important Engineer and firms prioritize the use work of local labor, in Depart- do with the posit thing Ohio Depart , andwith the were intended to work.” closely helpe working is Singleton d partic devel urrently, Currently, rican Babies & Children’s Hospital ion I women ular minority and op the Af- es American Cultu reinvestin t is to eleva in that are not being have fema At United Way, Mendez supervises grantmaking and reinvest Garden. messaging coordinate toral le other“Nato agencies state and Health of ment heard ya is a masterful That is ` Dr. Sandra Hong special projects. For the last couple “Cul- here for. I have the ear see.handfu stratecompleted ment into community KristinandWa gist and humofCleveland esponse to the COVID-19 pandemic. S+P recently response the mayor,S reimagined how the Cleveland Clinic that Pres a team cha Dis- — Kim Palmer the Dis years, though, she’s helped leadrzo iden shifting turally Speaking — Insights into COVID-19: Understanding CEO, Greater Clev nitely male funds. United Way tisand The Grea distributes andCleve inter organization brings and Hispanic American Communities in Ohio.” land Food Bank elanindBlack parities PAGES 18-19 Food across Ohio’aspass-through resources Over her , North Bankhas developed marketing and communi funder spreading largest hunger-rel east communiaway from being Partners & ief organizatio ingleton Singleton ports that leader at more (BP) network Oil n, a as supsup thanredefining ` Natoya J. Walker Minor Natu1,000 partnitself of Natu agencies and hundreds of gram er agencies and cation plans for clients such as the Cleveland Museum s acros pro s six coun land and P systems. prodelivery thanties City of Cleveland rather Lakein need First Federal Lake serves people to serve College; dents Warzoch hungry resi. It has also built ral History; Cuyahoga CommunityThe resi ConsulConsul a file to start Ne of Civic president partn While growing ershipCollaboration Chris Thompson, agency, TourismOhio; to address root s with groups ` Kristin Warzocha up outside Colum to ` Recent read: wood; the state’s destination marketing cause s cha’s neering of process. this bus hung during paren with ploym ts instil tants, worked ent,Mendez Greater Cleveland Food Bank housing and healt er, including em“$2.00 a Day: Living em and University Hospitals. two daud passion for volun led in theirCorrao on Almost Nothing care. Nancy is I think her I admirehabout Itsthings strategic missionthat in “One of the consulting, teering at churc including has never been ,” by Kathryn S&P offers a variety of services, America community. Kristi ` Rebecca McMahon J. Edin and H. Luke an being ah me cynical In plenty to bemore criticand skeptical, and reasons her nomi of natio visual n studied Shaefer public relations, work gives her communt n of GCFB presi al. and English at planning, media planning and buying, Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association CEOone,” hopeful and optimistic, John Carrollence dent KristiThompson and n Warzocha, said. “She’s she’s neither University picturing a caree ` Best advice she’s Alice Armstrong communications and event planning. gional growth r in the nonp receiv mentor a rofit Y ` Deb Yandala ed: long term.” , re rethefor forger mana dodo committed Co., all May The at and most of “Hire began secto She great people and listen serves on the execu Thompson Hinehomophobia LLP, said she migh The journey to her current business to them.” eager racism, tivewas Conservancy for Cuyahoga Valley National Park experienced board t highl ership saidentthat having of store. ight Warzocha’ Mendezmitm th department Cleve land Center and ` Most inspired by: ing special events for the downtown com to diversity, and separate herself Group on the Hunger Comm thaty to divide sorcomuseequit she doesn’t in Westlake, met and classism, her engag Group Capital ittee colleagues ing community and inclusion, or ee Zapis, president of Zapis “My Lee and our partner PAGES 20-21 America tional association for FeedingCorrao leaders to guide to act as a bridge. triesaign capitbut from others, al camp radio station hiss.”family then of a Singleton in the 1980s when a, for the organizatio s. In additi ` Favori sits on the Execu food bankCleveland again the te Cleveland hango experiences ton’sremind on those ` Rebecca Spooner Korwin drawever tive future. me “I try to “How Co. ut: Comm May The at ... our world event an held ittee WZAK, “I love Saturday mornin with Women owned, of Inwa is avoice C she said. different table,” at that and the Cuya She of my trong at the West Side place importance State Industrial Products recently. and the noted. Amid ,” hegsrecalled purpose Arms hoga Comm Market with my husban College Board “I connected with Renee immediately,” COVID-19 demic and everyem of Visitor Work Nexus d and kids.” is space for every therepanensure tothe pan economic wants Before table, Mendez At thathelp force. shutd As chair of the ` Romona Davis own, calls to GCFB “She was smart and creative and a pleasure to work with.” center rose Ohio Association and also continues works to mentor ’s so she from contribute, board, Warzocha of Food one to meaningfully Huntington Bank In normal times 100 a day to 2,000 a week. long, Singleton was the station’s special-events person, eventually played a key role 2020inwill , 21,000 volunteers boosting drive-throu DeWine’s dispa Gov. learn from fromothers. manager. sales tchin school or corpo general its — gh becoming many g picku Ohio be ps is great Natio a budgets party; you want to and launching the sonnel to assist nal invited be group to justrate wantions s —to “She don’t PAGE 22 wrote.

“You to give ” Geer sort donat home at the state’s food Guard their time delive “Renee is a consummate professional, ries the coron or workwell, for quarantine banks 20 so that’s my goal. quarter said. ” she kitche d as in the first weekthe music delivers.” avirus crisis. n. In“And - d client always able to choose &RoPartners just the of the Singleton s. pandemic, 1,400 to work with and her team at ha ` Susanna Krey mate ly,deit helped more Ulti- new partners, the food Now, aided 10 s ma so that the next thebyfourth do my celed I’m going tovolun . Schoo teersbest music, choose t can If I can’t bank is doubling br ls closed back 25,00sta than packs for ndou and corporation ” can— Jay Miller Sisters of Charity Foundation of Cleveland; its B to give Kids a 0 addit shiftecomes ional d to workup s shut—orLydia Coutré that music. choose can from Latina that m- families. “In mer. “We knowprogram and continuing it all s A desire vis not onlyour 40-ye home . At the same time, io co Sisters of Charity Health System ar nami of layoffs histo Oh that Da ry, st summ a I tsutsu don’t kids and and furloughs abrup er ing help to feed rtheathink we’ve lls mona dean families,” Warzocha is a hungry tim of thousands of iateselves ever seen demand oductstly added tens no of the No nalike e now ca and their famili assocthem Ohioa l Pr said, especially 10 | CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS | JUNE 29, 2020 After ns to the rolls of amid record unem s- said. w the20% go tiv this,”am es. member With stria baocha Warz of Scpartn ienceers,agenc n icafood those Ca ployment. need rgar, food bank the Chthe turaltoits ies closed,mu brand Mc needate Indu She nity previo at since 2000, Warz the of Nahad ablebank shift to more verit uting ocha was team deflects any praise from herse vice presid School . of direct distributio tion at St but ausly ent . “I’m inspired lf to me, sumin extern for the tics and Compknew Korton Bank hon, sias-al affairs, as- hope6/25/2020 herng rwin file d innova thu AM them daily,” she prese 11:36:45 by enNove Hugnti nt role Ko an ma t in he r e recog for ye d the t ne Re nition or d, sai mber nc Ma tbe tha of me is recognition said cte sad ce, rke 2014. scie .indd 10 e Spoo cca McMahon BaExe — Michael von of t of the in Walla successful after Th and colle ssion was ma in ol en ldw Glahn Co id P010_P011_CL_20200629 cuti t pa bedirector, Clev llege uldve l: before Rebe Long e vice pres elan s Metrop tic, Davis’ firs graduating co win wo rgraduate class. wad ` TTravel goa do with olitan a career of helpi cca Ruppert McMahon made that she Executiv Barupon ocia what to ng and advocating first unde tell early on ing. But Ass U.S. suretion Italy koned professionally: for otherco ’80s, un k a job with oto be rec s, uld Country f cougrse andRosphila the late ntnthro pically, she “Iwas be somebody confr te golontin she too ey wanted pe k bers ofs inemo ` Favoriing theMal ing to Cree d schoo r skills, The membullie Th go lard n an lyard a. he McM bee one re for at rni d. aho s haras recalls, had of wa her the link ily lifo s” he sai sgs, who was born with, lic litigator. But The famwatch , Davis n file nt of sci nk in Ca rsona n hittingsiblin art, self-a all qualility ide Ba bee ed, in her first postsm deaf. es ` ’ve Somet from is pr “I they hing the e us pe — time people may not know in law, with the university jo Club, but Korwin was ignor ed. or mock I was 10, how my sister r added utive vic she Ohio attorney State Ind ts, l. her: Cleve about ple with the bil land former closed general’s offic she was effectively ed, or how she As exec innovation at McCarga n her to where ch fit in tinely since the Heigh was dri made the butt She’s jobsoftball a tax collector. d rourouven, tte and she late her miserable. of other tim player thewho The work le Mayfield rwritingan avid e. ence an have go rce: s it yed in tou once McM ankerin on sou said. “ItTalk her free people’s jokes An unde topitched ducts in a no-hitt tie,”s that in in make o have sta d, but Mcpiratiahon KeyB wass inwitho in high on tw Insbecam So e school. ` she isi ut TED r move hesita g Th trial Pro Spooner Korw the . div he t sse d tion that chin to w one gre of her biggest cham I ay re tha is tod lovesewat s a gne Benesch in its trial Cleveland, taking a job with brought ` Readin need a loans wa r has pro n KorwinThat ’t pions.” right at ree Rebecca nsibility to ensu using the tio now: esn helped shape pract wh ca tra r ice group. nis in “do years of comm McMahon’s approu as he mi “TheAd ’90s, in beEdge of Malice: The work and comm uld ess d Korw ercial litigation, But after fou yo ach Marie her respo customers are ssible. wo sai sin e, t to Grossm r unity ac g.”

Bu an tha she found prisp r that has- Carga vate practice was Story” a ccaree ect Miraldi y’s

by David ntorin m Baldwin Small her from priva a puinbli exp also not a perfe taken pplies po variety of compan lot of me did she expert fro ise. intote practYo ct fit. ep onalho iceu to A yearning for slegener aning su a jobs waa lk — little are`aIf of coun u at schooch e selwholeer graduating ended Kent not in the legal field.. yo she setoicae.regionalve safest cle ustrial makes l cleaningr various posts afternew challenges took her to a choicmulti a l and att Aft ple n’t er jobs, .one of have come he She’ Benesch, inclu n’t ha bank and roles. Now, a journal graduate State Ind d institutiona do board erad lbeoth You - llace, Korwin ist or nk, riter/ counsel roles she ding general serves ing d you do Metropolita the .Cleve hospitalat KeyB for her lAfter sevdirector ton Bascreenw al an eets nan Bar Assoc y’reasus ofland Wa telash iation iversity sertation on so Hunting lenders in the its first female depu ank (where she became es direc industri ducts, including stewaternt the Un execu at tor, typ ge tive great te in ter at A fit ty d ng s Sta dis de for gener wa wh pro SB wishe tly ser ve Cuyahoga Comm her diver tle ati al counsel) and at ` show e she youring doing a related infectant and choicese skills, forwh her challengeve shyearn s she wrote for: st acAtiv er gradu she unity College. andapassi presen to wa studies, The oppo the mo “Theich ., shuseMrs. lop ty to run inghelpi ries. Aft Marvelo usfor don’tderha ng n’t “Gen has.ve Maisel” grade dis emicals. other y’rdeon keep , wh te batte r’s and her Ph.D the ess deve h- her drive the CMBA came in 2015, and rtunibias the to try do sta existe ls sin is u un idch bu when ica us Yo co in t. has fed for leadership schoo ran I cameien chlem outtsofare 27 years treating mary goal for r maste rch scientist ior SBA law many hig agotau sinesses and itofexists in a res ars with he as a sen r. One of the was being that longed to run a businand a part of her soul McM hessaid. to this mp ahon e ingred “The pri rs and our bu dis day,”as a resea a number of ye typvast ce told to so far ess.

“For at the been y’reofpu me d. majo e wh r worked I have calm ment offi oiced t therity down, toYe ar by “(McMahon) has an work people ld for a ch technolo with es tha our custo an,” Korwin sai in overher caree take ncand for, gend of the not innonprofit organization incredible ability to lead a gra lymer fie s perso been an the ector of cle cate nally lights ofthoseAthing vo with a for-profit . But these al, Korw es.”s exist.”er has in issuefra sci- po fore taking a dir chemical indus Office — a skill that will safe and innot issue A. When approach SB Ad experience Industri rch and Bias is some blic spac ict sSBhapp medthey serve the assoc be erested she str the na , thing in pu int en, Di r in 13 she d At State ng from resea perty en comm ing iation he quash 20 typically invol ion unity very well and the r fat catches a whiff in had be es the mom velan Heent l pro ve men she for many years gy posit , in February erythi curthe Cle who are strug young.

Korwof it. That said Jill Snitch, to come with the was mean sees ev in her her for other wome intellectua e may glingenwith speak teacher ges their . Then n ce ustrial in sh ment to s. That means ck or for the McMahon’s counterpart executive,” sin the field l science ing upna- “Itry 2004.own insec know chall ence when voice anyuritie Paychedirect develop ialColumbus Bar forheherse s and Sta’steit’sInd like to be ignor r onlf tionajoi dwhat s are talkinh schooor just the their spitefear Association.

Deown tory affair lop, commerc ing lly,ne ed inten McMahon said with how work the belittled in the that as some - positional other e tak the was a hig g over each . te ve vis is room the key to copin to regula e. board such joys or their autho 18 | CRAIN’S CLEVE ent free tim remember —will — Da e enroom ducts Sta toldan rks to de rent rol beProvers my place SBArity tod ram d,” sh hadowed.”ivity. She bullies or other detractors g with boardog al, like. in With a histo sai and spLAND BUSINE tri McM SS | team wo ke all of the pro the JUNE ldw in us ahon on d 29, ry Ba sit rw 2020 ofcti groun facing bullies, Ko at es an “I’ve te Ind said.yea ma rs to prising McMahon Prote tive d. “I hear my father’s voice is holding your n ofit’spo not surture hik she enrolled big ize and sells. the es at Sta in my head,” she envisicatioa caree dergrad ing recepsaid.

“His classic line she do help it grow in e, are a lal personif ionedstr was, ‘Don’t get mad, oueven as a pubess, rbe enjoys as an un When Get Industri tants, of cours te Indusile sh off Rebecca. rk, she iversity d to be a busis to by succeeding.’ rries wh and rebrushes ” — Jeremy Nobil llace Un P018_P019_CL de a hope . Outside of wo her husband, Disinfec ment. Sta during _202006Wa e e wers’ wo 29.indd 18 rwin inten me er taking th d at the mo ever to borro mense pressur PPP, Dauate, Ko . However, aft fessor Jim co ding time wi ildren, Nate an category en busier than The com, im the cts g th en jor g du rin wi sp be pro lin ma de ir ch y. Even trial has D-19 pandemic. two shifts green pro con- ness emistry sm changed and the like trave bey ilit , ch ly for sib ug th lar ts on er Do wi cu op sp sia the COVI lly runs one or Korwin ey parti er. — Rachel Ab me, she blic, she, like oth ducts class rgar, his enthu ed to become Th ho x. y, ica Ale pro eth cid ehold in pu McCa pany typ through Frida emic, it’s m BW lfing tog st in the d she de but out the Hous nd mind an e graduated fro chem- and go rty has to tru .

6/25/2020 12:45:19 board of ducts AssociaMonday during the pa e her PM ing in sumers, . Sh on the McCaffe t ve a choic chemist elor’s of science ies are us t, sits Commercial Pro s recognized as said, bu compan nsumer, you ha cery store a ch y and ou ning 24-7. d wa gro with a ba e in biology. been run ide the compan l safety. an The company er in both 2017 “As a co on into the buy for your d nta n. ins rtn an go tio me th pa u ry on e Bo ist vir oic the when yo of product you when tive in en most proud of o- a Safer Ch ut rtac “B po e e’s d. im typ sh onent is mother what to use,” she sai said she’s rty-certified Ec e and 2018. pa Korwin ety comp a ily ducts. Sh That saf personally, as y’s thirdAt fam compan e of green pro ntal Proergies. t to her with all me lution lin the Environ fer Choice an as someone th d E works wi ency on the Sa ducts and an Ag er pro tection a consum

NOMINATION DEADLINE: APRIL 4

a Davis Romon

Korwin Spooner Rebecca

3/25/2021 11:18:19 AM

income, on-court and academic incentives in 2020-21.)

Absolutely. Absolutely. We are investing in athletics. Of course, we have to make some decisions, but we’re committed to the basketball program for sure.  With the pandemic taking up so much of your time, how much of the long-term vision of the university had to be put on hold because of everything there is to deal with day to day?

It’s interesting. From what I’ve learned in

“[DENNIS GATES] IS A GREAT AMBASSADOR. HE CARES ABOUT THESE KIDS’ LIVES AND HOW THEY DEVELOP AS YOUNG MEN.” — Harlan Sands, president, CSU

my career, a crisis is the best time to take a look at what you’re doing and see if you can do that whole Wayne Gretzky thing: See where the puck is going. We actually didn’t put anything on hold. We took what we were learning and kind of integrated it into the underpinnings of CSU 2.0. We’re going to be coming out with that very, very soon. It’s a growth plan for CSU. We’re positioned to get to that next level as an urban research institution.

t’s

Men’s basketball coach Dennis Gates, shown speaking with guard Demetrius Terry, led Cleveland State to a 19-8 record and the school’s first NCAA tournament berth in 12 years. | FRANK JANSKY

ave h ke e

ahead of him, but at Cleveland State, you can, we believed it from the beginning that you can build a Butler model, a Gonzaga model. We’re in the 19th-biggest media market and it’s a fantastic sports town. We

think we can build something that would be unique for a midmajor.  So it’s a matter of building up the resources in athletics, increasing

the revenue and then being able to bump up his salary? (Gates has a five-year deal with an average base salary of $290,000, though he stands to make close to $100,000 in media

 It wouldn’t be an interview with you if I didn’t ask you about the Wolstein Center. How far have you gotten in planning out the arena’s future?

We’re looking at it. We’re doing a facility assessment, and we’re about to spend some time updating our campus master

plan. So it’s the right time to be thinking about that. I think we kind of put it on pause a little bit during the pandemic, when we really couldn’t have any events and everything went into a different mode. But now as we come out of this, it’s time to look at what the future is. I will tell you that in my career I’ve never been at a place where everybody is happy with the athletic facility. It’s either too tall, too short, too big, too deep, too wide, too hot, too cold. That being said, you look at what Wolstein is doing today (the mass vaccination clinic) and you think, “Wow, that’s a really important function and it certainly has a use.” But it is 30 years old and we have to look at it as you would with any building that reaches a certain age. How much is it going to cost us to invest in it, renovate it, update it or build something else?  Have you thought about what the 2021-22 basketball season could look like when there are people in the stands and you have this revitalized men’s basketball program?

Oh man, I should ask you that question. I think if folks can’t get excited now about coming down and being part of this, this is the time. We’re running a lot of media this week because we want everybody to share in this. Our slogan is “This is our time.” ... I think this is the time to be thinking about what Wolstein is going to look like in the fall, because we want to fill it. I walked around Wolstein today and told folks, “Come back in the fall when we play some basketball in here.”

Kevin Kleps: kkleps@crain.com, (216) 771-5256, @KevinKleps

Marianne Corrao

Co-founder and executive vice president, Nexus Engineering Group LLC

but “Engineers typically aren’t known for their people skills, pulling a when it comes down to it, we are in the business of team of people together to accomplish a goal,” said Marianne EngiNexus of president Corrao, co-founder and executive vice business neering Group LLC, a firm she started in 2005 with of our partner and longtime colleague Jeff Herzog. “A key aspect The engiwork is communicating with and relating to people. part.” easiest the actually is neering work deThe firm, headquartered in Cleveland, links engineers and signers with clients throughout the country. “Our clients aren’t in the business of he Singleton file engineering, but they need engineers,” irst job: explained Corrao. “We provide the techhe age of 16, sales associate at a store nical horsepower needed to tackle busiandal Park Mall in its heyday: The Hoop ness problems or capture business opportunities.” The engineering consulting firm, avorite book: which began with just Corrao and Herzog, Bible today employs about 150 professionals, received: she’s advice Best concentrating its work primarily in the oil, to on holding — easy is Money aking Walker Minor file manufacturing industries.

Deb Yandala bling public servachemical and what’s hard.” (the late Gerald Levert) srite nt. She understan been a critical part of has accomplishment: lessness and hope “Marianne ds how jobCEO, Conservanc lessness Nexus to visit: engaged wrote Emily Gamplace can Americalocal grow,” affect famil Favorite helping n Culture ies, disGarden: We y for youth and thedirector op-aho underemp and, strategy and but we sunrise business Park ofloyed Cuy gewater onlyathad bill, a flagand sunset Ida Ford, Cleveland/ said ga Valley Nationa Cuyahoga Coun in,” her ckson came in, he wanted there. force l Park at Nexus,ty Work- nomination. “In Development erations to have herwebucket list: Tg builtofand Top administrator. by example and 2019, “She leads did it. We were grew 19% in annual company takes timethe the world, specifically around aveling t the cultura to meet and atten events where l garden mileup in time company major a d hit job revenue seeke rs areand ntennia Amalfi Coast them as value theion endingl oftime present and see the on federat of d citizens.” of $20 million-plus in revenue. That rdens.”

It’s no small feat stone promembers, to team conve new 55 hired it year, ne all partners acros nt members and ree celebrity quote: s the private, publi the releva team thropic sectors moted 23 existing c and phila womto wom services nrHillary when the need Clinton came s and to the dayofof zero safety incithose groups inters corded 5,000th its expertise working for the Michae city ect. l White “My role, the way dents.” ion and I describe it, is as multiculmulticul what ew said, ‘Who knew diary,” Walker an interm not on Corrao’s radar until college. At was eEngineering Mino ad that?’ r expla The diversity ined. “They repor g aroundphrase became a me so that they t to School, she enjoyed math and science High don’t have e because shean Cuyahoga to reportHeights agency “It was ‘actuall y to the mayor.”

The city’s lead legisland veland.” would be a chemistry major. As a freshman at ationthought is a primshe together strategic of how she is able to bring e example curtogetherState University, she discovered the engineering Cleveland ferent players to for mayor in 2021? of difcreate a cohesive a host that chemical engineering was a better fit. found process involved riculum and strate his gy. is done, I want The on helping focused multi a ple along with nong departmen CSU’sts,Cooperative Education Program and landed entered Shecity ronme nt. underserved This job is overnment reach where she folksposition work who had with been the Standard Oil Co. downtown, a co-op opi- their ing on the lead issue affected by the opi but were not business voices heard. having partner, Jeff Herzog. met her future ks and Hispanics.

“One of the most or any of the STEM careers, weren’t overrun with important Engineering, Depart- do with the posit things for me to Ohio Depart thedevel hped ion I have op the Afin the mid 1980s, but Corrao said it was still not unusual to women is dinate rden. messaging in es that are not being heard to elevate the voic- in the various engineering departments at of women That is what “Cul- here for. I have the ear see.handfuls trateg I am tly completed ist and humof the mayor,” “The professional workplace at that time was defiState.

Cleveland she said.

Dis- — Kim Palmer derstanding the Dis nitely male-dominated, but I never felt out of place,” she added. munities in Ohio.” career, Corrao worked for Standard Over her more than 30-year The communiing and communi Conservan Inc. in CleveAssociates cy for Cuya Refinery, Middough Lima its at (BP) Oil hoga Valley Natio Natuconnect one of d Museum of Natu to Cleveland nal Park works Ohio’ before returning land and Praxair in Houston, Texas, to ty, running CVNP s most valued treasures and LakeFirst Federal Lake the communistudying engi’s educ more women are ochaTourismOhio; there noted She Nexus. start gram file to s, as well as mana ation, cultural arts and volun While growing ncy, teer proup long-term. profession ging theraisin in events in the park, last don’t they store but Columbus, today, s cha’s parents instil outside neering and Warzooperating retail g mone y for park led in their two saidcts. andproje engineers Priorupcoming to support part passi her g on Almost Nothing does to daug Corrao becom on hters for ing volun a thepersonal in onsulting, strategic teering at churc Conservan experiwas director cy’s “Given community. Kristi yn J. Edin and H. Luke and in the is one of her passions. of themy being ah mentor Cuyahoga Valley CEO in 2002, Deb Yandala n studied lic relations, visual Cente communica and English at embraced being Environmental have me,r, Ithe the always Conservan impact it had on and the tions John Carrollence Educ cy’s residential“I University, alway Her lovepresents picturing a ” she said. learning center. ation itself, of the natur the opportunity s e’s received: Co., do whenever al world mentor a rofit was instilled early childhood in Eucli do-She servecareer in the nonp at The May sector.

Engineering at s on the d.Nexus nd listen to them.”

Her paren to initiate a co-op/intern eager ts placed a high on, during her tion andprogram board ership Cleveland executivewas of the ongo ment store. ing Lead value ” program.

- now in our fourth year of learn ing,the Center and as well we are andEndin by: in Westlake, met as time spent outdoon educaGroup “Growing up a having on the Hunger Comm up five-m g ittee at ors. boards inute walk the engineering on dirty ur from water and fish advisory America,also tional association for FeedingCorrao a na-serves hiss.”family then onpartner kills was disturbing Lake Erie in the era of of “That led of s. In addition, sits on the Execu food bankCleveland as a child,” she State to Toledo. a deep concern she and the University nd hangout: tive Committee recalled. for ronm the envi-of majority with Women ent.” able to keep the of Inwas being to report Coun happy sel ings and the Cuya She at the West Side recently. e recalled hoga Community during the COVID-19 After gettingpandemic.

College Board “Our business her bachelor’s and and kids.”with.” Before employed of Visitor Work Nexus degre Miami University, our force. o work e at As chair of the for plan original think we but Ohio Association to move forward, continues develop an envir Yandala was hiredtheir board, Warzocha ts person, eventually of Foodbanks to tightened onme have clients our ntal as played a key role bit a education pro2020 will be reined in gram at a camp Mike . “Working third hrough pickups DeWine’s dispatching Ohio Natio in Gov.and especially as a campin selorproject counbudgets in collegespend, sonnel to assist nal Guard per-are deferring “She is great causedlikely r wrote. ome at the state’s up in back delive see how will me topick ries the coron business that en much banks 2020. benefit from quarter duringOur view ischildr ” avirus crisis. Now, food always ners client or experiences,” s. Ulti-delivers. she2021.”

Carey aided — Allisonoutdo recalled. new partners, the and into quarter 10 brand thebyfourth d more food bank

ingleton & Part18, she bought a s District east of versity. eate a coworking ion into a space ind of video and cre to help them creSingleton said she

than packs for Kids program and is doubling its Backl families. “In continuing it all mer. “We know sumthat tory, I don’t kids and families, summer is a hungry time for seen demand ” Warzocha said, amid record unem especially now, ha said. ployment.

She deflects any prais Warzocha was e from herself team. “I’m inspi to -al affairs, her red by AM them daily,” she as- hope6/25/2020 11:36:45 recognition said. “I r- 2014. of me is recognition — Michael von of them.”

Glahn n

th .S. eolls, file

lic litigator. But in her first postin law, with the university job Ohio attorney general’s office she was effectively , a tax collector. her miserable.

The work left So she moved to Benesch in its trial Cleveland, taking a job with pract ice group. years of comm ercial litigation, But after four Grossman she found private practice was also not a perfe ct fit.

A yearning for new challenges he setvarious posts took her one of counsel roles after Benesch, including generto riter/ al in the its first femaleat KeyBank (where she became depu ty s gener al counsel) and ser ve Cuyahoga Community yrote Colle for: ge.

The opportunidevelop ty to run the CMBA came in 2015, her hand drive has for leadership ny hig that and a part of her fed longe soul was being “(McM d to run a business. ahon) has an incred ar bynonp e, toYenot ible ability rofit organizatio n with a for-profit to lead a Office in— a skill A When approach appen, comm that will serve the association unity very well and the for many years men said Jill Snitch, to come,” with the McMahon’s count hs their hedirect erpart executive Payc ck or for the Columbus Bar Assoc e their iation.

McMahon said the vis is room the key to Da their She bullies or other detra coping with boardd.” ctors itivity. groun tive d. “I hear my father’s voice is holding your t surrecepsaid. in my head,” she ng “His classic line lwas, ‘Don’t get mad, oueven pubGet ile sh Rebecca. wh by succeeding.’ ” — Jeremy Nobil d ree sure an

y not d know an late who once on hool. in loans ld be-

the PPP,

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6/25/2020 12:45:19 PM

That led to gradu ate school at the versity of Mich Uniigan, vironmental educ where she studied ensources. She was ation and natural rethen hired to devel camping progr op a am in southern Ohio that served children from city neigh borhoods.

Yandala moved as a “trailing spousback to Northeast Ohio e” of her husba never thought I’d return to North nd, Rev. Sherman Bishop.

“I eastern Ohio,” University of Mich she write curriculum igan connection that led to my said. “It was a being hired to center in the park. for a soon-to-open environme ntal education between two cities To find a position in my field in a national park that I love was an unexpected Yandala said the and perfect fit.” development environmental education cente of the Conservancy-manage d r, a have what they call “the best week place where many children plishment in her career of which of their lives” is the accomadults tell me she’s most proud they remember their school camp . “I love when park and that it had an impact in the natio nal on them “Deb is best know n for her inclusive ,” she said. and stressing leadership the importanc e of a collaborativ style, creating ment, and her passi e work environwrote Tina Darcy on for making CVNP a park for all people,” , partner at Howa Search, in her rd & O’Brien nomination. “Con Execu tive not surprised when servancy staff mem Deb presented of inclusion to the value of creat bers were a full house at ing a culture the Public Land conference.” s Alliance annu al “In the past few work around helpi years, I have been most invig orate ng CVNP be acces d people in North sible and releva by our eastern Ohio,” nt for all Yandala said. our organizatio “We n as that keep us from we internally address syste are changing ms and actions being inclusive, experience the park as a safe and as we strive to invite people to welcoming place Yandala is past president of the .”

Alliance, a netw National Park Servi ork chairs the board of 120-plus national park friend ce Friends of Eastern Natio s groups, and that manages park nal, stores and supp a not-for-profit association “Her advocacy orts 160 NPS sites.

Conservancy on through these organizations has placed the a natio Yandala also serve nal platform,” Darcy said. s on the board County and Cleve s of ArtsNow land’s Near West in politan Ministry.

Theatre and Luthe Summit — Michael von ran MetroGlahn

The Nation’s Highest Honor for Museums Congratulations to Great Lakes Science Center staff, volunteers, board, and supporters MARCH 29, 2021 | CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS | 13

.

a.m July 22 | 11

d ation an e dedic we en whos tually as ing wom te! n us vir of inspir en of No year, joi a group le. This of Wom es op ss lut pe cla sa 20 s and its siness the 20 Bu ion in ut nd rs tit de evela ess lea io, its ins sin ain’s Cl Oh Cr bu , st ar y female Northea Every ye enrich ordinar ments the extra achieve n from MINOR

P012_013_CL_20210329.indd 13

TE! OF NO

3/25/2021 11:18:56 AM

FOCUS | SPORTS BUSINESS

Indians, despite decline in season-ticket base, say fu Limit on capacity makes for a ‘complex’ seating process

dres alon Th the larly

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BY KEVIN KLEPS

The Cleveland Indians will open the 2021 season with a maximum capacity of about 10,500 fans at Progressive Field.

In past seasons, the pandemic-impacted seating limit wouldn’t have been enough to accommodate the club’s season-ticket base.

That’s no longer the case, as the Tribe’s core customer group has declined for the third consecutive season. There’s a myriad of factors that have contributed to the drop, from huge payroll cuts to the departures of big names and quick postseason exits.

The Indians, though, say the most commonly cited reason for the current drop in season-ticket holders is the pandemic. Some customers, after the team played a reduced schedule with no fans last season, cited health concerns and not yet being vaccinated when they didn’t renew their seats, said Indians vice president of sales and service Tim Salcer.

In February 2020, the Tribe, before COVID-19 put so many industries on pause, had 11,000 full-season equivalents. The total, with four 20-game packages counting as one FSE because teams normally have 81 home games to sell, was down 2,000 from 2019 and 2,800 from 2018. The Indians’ 13,800 FSEs in 2018, when the club was riding the momentum of a franchise-record winning streak and significant payroll boosts, was the highest in a decade.

By the time the Indians learned they would start the 2021 season with a 30% seating capacity at Progressive Field, the club’s season-ticket base had decreased 13.6% year-over-year, to 9,500 FSEs. The Tribe’s season-ticket accounts were down 1,000, or 15.2%, to 5,600.

Salcer said the Indians, “based on where we’re at versus where we were historically,” think the season-ticket total is in a good position. From 201016, the club’s FSE total fluctuated between 6,000 and 9,000, prior to a run of three consecutive division titles.

The Indians played their 30-game home schedule without fans in the stands at Progressive Field last season. | PHOTGRAPHS BY JASON MILLER/GETTY IMAGES

Shortstop Francisco Lindor, a four-time All-Star, was traded to the New York Mets in January. Lindor can become a free agent after the season and is expected to command a contract of at least $300 million.

“We do believe that the commitment that our season-ticket holders have made at 9,500 FSEs is still a very strong number for us based upon challenges that are outside of everyone’s control,” the Tribe’s VP of sales and service added.

The pandemic unquestionably wreaked havoc on the finances of many clubs. Game-day income, which teams have said accounts for more than 40% of their annual revenue, was almost nonexistent, with the Indians playing a 30-game home schedule before the media, staffers and cardboard cutouts.

“We lost tens of millions of dollars, more than we expected,” Tribe owner Paul Dolan recently said in a Zoom meeting with the Akron Roundtable.

There also is little doubt that the decline in season-ticket holders has been

exacerbated by payroll cuts that have coincided with the departure of minority investor John Sherman (who purchased the Kansas City Royals in 2019) and a four-year stretch in which the Indians, since advancing to the 2016 World Series, are 2-8 in playoff games and haven’t won a postseason series.

The 2021 Indians are projected to have a payroll of about $53 million.

That would be the lowest for the club in a decade and would be almost $82 million lower than the $134.9 million roster with which the Tribe opened the 2018 season.

In January, the Indians traded two of their most popular players, shortstop Francisco Lindor and pitcher Carlos Carrasco, to the New York Mets in a move that saved about $31 million in 2021 payroll and brought a couple of intriguing infielders (An-

RubberDucks, Captains set to return to the ballpark Indians’ minor league affiliates will see fewer games and fans amid lingering pandemic

BY BOB SANDRICK

Jim Pfander and Jen Yorko shared the same optimism as 2021 began.

They both believed minor league baseball would return this spring after COVID-19 canceled the 2020 season.

However, it wasn’t until mid-February that Pfander, president of the Akron RubberDucks, and Yorko, general manager of the Lake County Captains, knew for certain that the 2021 season was on. That’s when they received their 120-game team schedules from Major League Baseball.

“That was the key piece we needed to get down to business,” said Yorko, whose team is the High-A affiliate of the Cleveland Indians. “Once we got the schedule, we could reach out to

Pfander

Yorko

sponsors and ticketholders and organize promotions.”

The Captains and RubberDucks, the Indians’ Double-A affiliate, hope those promotions, along with various theme nights, will draw fans back to their ballparks this year. Both teams’ home openers are on May 4.

Unfortunately, due to the lingering

pandemic and related restrictions imposed by the state, the teams can fill just 30% of their stadium seats, at least to start the season. That means only about 2,300 fans can attend a single RubberDucks game. The limit is 1,800 for the Captains, who play at Classic Park in Eastlake. Both teams will require fans to wear masks and stay socially distant.

“We hope our stadium capacity will increase as we show we can keep fans distanced and safe,” Pfander said.

Both baseball teams are counting on the new season to restore their finances after having lost two of their main sources of revenue, ticket and concession sales, last year. Yorko said her full-time staff was reduced from 15 to four workers. Pfander said he avoided layoffs but still faced finan-

cial challenges.

“Not having Ducks games hurt us significantly, but we are in a position to bounce back,” Pfander said.

Promotions and themes It was Pat O’Connor, then-president of Minor League Baseball, who canceled the 2020 season in June.

Teams across the country scrambled to find ways to survive.

Both Canal and Classic parks hosted movie nights and other special events last spring and summer. The teams invited travel league and high school teams to play in their stadiums in front of a few hundred socially distanced fans.

See MINORS on Page 17

Though games weren’t being played, the RubberDucks held Swing For Your Swag events in 2020, where fans could take batting practice on the field at Canal Park.

14 | CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS | March 29, 2021

P014_015_CL_20210329.indd 14

3/25/2021 11:41:35 AM

E Indi staff the syst tive Sa team COV prov — t Prog mor an i caut ty li even U mon limi Th agai sold wer Apr York T the the wer pub Th got strip gett 14 h with port en c Th son ing Apr purc the who “Th of t we’v neve have T six dist mea

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have noripur019) e In2016 mes s. d to ion. club $82 lion ned

two ortcher York $31 ht a An-

dres Gimenez and Amed Rosario), along with a pair of prospects.

The move, Dolan acknowledged to the Akron Roundtable, “was particularly painful.”

‘Complex planning’ Even with all of the reductions, the Indians, boosted by a stellar pitching staff and complemented by one of the highest-regarded minor league systems in MLB, should be competitive in 2021 and beyond.

Salcer and the Tribe’s business team are hoping that — should the COVID-19 numbers continue to improve and more restrictions are lifted — the chance to attend a game at Progressive Field for the first time in more than 18 months will prove to be an intriguing draw. The Indians are cautiously optimistic that the capacity limits will significantly increase, or even be lifted, this summer.

Until then, the club is taking a month-by-month approach with its limited supply of tickets.

The club’s April 5 home opener against the Kansas City Royals has sold out, and, as of March 23, there weren’t many seats available for an April 22-25 series against the New York Yankees.

Tickets for the Yankees games and the rest of the April schedule, with the exception of the home opener, were made available to the general public on March 22.

The club’s season-ticket holders got first dibs. Tickets were sold in strips, with full season-ticket holders getting the chance to buy seats for all 14 home games in April, and those with half-season plans having an opportunity to purchase tickets for seven contests.

The next step was giving season-ticket holders the option of buying seats for individual games in April, followed by those who had purchased the flexible vouchers that the club introduced last fall and fans who had bought six packs.

“The planning was probably some of the most complex planning that we’ve ever had to do — things that you never could have imagined that you’d have to do at a ballpark,” Salcer said.

Tickets are sold in pods of one to six seats, which, because of social distancing between groups, has meant almost every season-ticket

“WE DO BELIEVE THAT THE COMMITMENT THAT OUR SEASON-TICKET HOLDERS HAVE MADE AT 9,500 FSES IS STILL A VERY STRONG NUMBER FOR US BASED UPON CHALLENGES THAT ARE OUTSIDE OF EVERYONE’S CONTROL.” — Tim Salcer, Indians vice president of sales and service

holder had to be relocated. The pods primarily are in groups of two and four, Salcer said.

If almost the entire ballpark was sold in groups of four, the Tribe could have a gate of about 11,000, the VP of sales and service said. But smaller

seating arrangements will result in the maximum attendance most often going below that figure.

Should the Indians and other pro clubs get the green light from the state to increase capacity, the Tribe will implement the new limit for an

entire month of home games. If the 30% cap stays in place, season-ticket holders who purchased strips would have their commitment automatically roll over to May. The club’s ideal scenario, of course, would be the pandemic situation improves so dramatically that the attendance restrictions are removed. If that’s the case, the Tribe’s core customers would return to their normal seats.

Earlier this month, Gov. Mike DeWine said the hope is that the clubs will be playing at “full capacity” by July 4.

“As we go deeper into the summer, the possibility of being back to normalcy and being back at Progressive Field is

really exciting for all of us,” Salcer said.

The Tribe VP said more than 80% of the club’s season-ticket holders rolled over their commitments to 2021. Fans who did so received 10% bonus credits that can be used toward future purchases.

Dugout suites, normally part of the Indians’ suite sales, aren’t available at the start of the season because of MLB’s COVID-19 protocols. Those areas, as has become custom in the last year, are being utilized as inventory to offer corporate partners for potential signage.

Kevin Kleps: kkleps@crain.com, (216) 771-5256, @KevinKleps

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MINORS

six-game homestands with the same opponent to reduce travel time and virus spread.

From Page 14

“The smiles on those kids’ faces as they played under the lights reminded us why we do what we do,” Pfander said. “We’re here for the community.

“For one night, they could feel like big-leaguers. We put their names and photos on the video board. We really wanted them to have that experience.”

In addition, the Ducks launched a QuAkron Cares program, in which fans bought tickets to future games and supported COVID-19 relief through donations to the United Way of Summit and Medina. This year, the teams are planning a slew of special events and theme nights for their 60 home games. On June 26, for example, Jaleel White, who played Urkel on the sitcom “Family Matters,” will meet and greet fans at Canal Park in Akron. And the Captains will bring back Buck Night, where fans can buy a hot dog, fountain soda and draft beer for $1 each. Fireworks nights will also return to Classic Park.

The RubberDucks announced last week that all 60 of their home games will be tied to a theme. The team will give away bobbleheads, T-shirts and mullet caps, shoot off fireworks and invite families to bring their dogs on Bark in the Park night.

For the Captains, all this activity means the team will call back some of the full-time workers it laid off last year, and if the ballparks are allowed to increase their capacities, even more workers will return.

Meanwhile, Yorko and Pfander said most of their corporate sponsors, who advertise at games, are still on board for 2021, although Yorko said some won’t be back due to COVID-19-related budget cuts. Oth-

BAUNACH

From Page 8

A nonprofit is fast path to digital equity Achieving digital equity is critical to the public health of Greater Cleveland. We recognize that access to the internet opens opportunities for individuals to improve their educational, economic and health outcomes.

This is why, as a nonprofit, DigitalC goes above and beyond making broadband connectivity accessible and affordable. We have customer teams that reside and are active in the neighborhoods they serve. We strategically operate from offices centrally located in these neighborhoods, and we have made significant investments in building a service model for acquiring customers and then brokering post-connectivity needs, such as engaging subscribers with providers for both digital litera-

COTTER/NAPOLI

From Page 9

Access to quality legal representation can prevent the negative impacts of evictions for individuals, families and communities. Current tenant protections will not last in perpetuity.

We will see a spike in evictions in later 2021. As of February, more than 13,800 Cuyahoga County residents have applied for rental assistance since the pandemic began, and those residents lost an aggregated $203 million in annual income.

Without additional resources focused on legal representation not

Shuffling and switching

The Akron RubberDucks’ Wilson Garcia is shown at the plate during a 2019 game against Binghamton. After the pandemic derailed the 2020 season, baseball is back at Canal Park this year. | CONTRIBUTED

“THE SMILES ON THOSE KIDS’ FACES AS THEY PLAYED UNDER THE LIGHTS REMINDED US WHY WE DO WHAT WE DO. WE’RE HERE FOR THE COMMUNITY.” — Jim Pfander, president of the Akron RubberDucks

ers simply went out of business because of the pandemic.

At any rate, revenue in 2021 won’t reach the level of previous seasons.

The RubberDucks won’t bring in the 350,000 fans they have in previous years, due to capacity limits, and

teams will host just 60 home games instead of the usual 70.

“Those 10 games are pretty significant,” Pfander said.

A safe experience Pfander and Yorko have both been working with local boards of health and other pandemic experts to ensure that fans are safe.

At Classic Park, fans will sit in groups of no more than six and will be spaced at least 6 feet from other groups. Floor markings will keep concession customers at least 6 feet apart when standing in line.

In Akron, the RubberDucks will introduce the FanFood app, which will

At DigitalC, we’re ready to learn more from those we serve. We’re working with our customers to help them achieve digital health equity.

We’ve enlisted the help of St. Vincent’s, MetroHealth, Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals, Cleveland State and Case Western Reserve universities, local libraries, corporations, and local and national foundations.

This involves training community health workers and others to screen patients for gaps in digital skills and connectivity, referring them to local partners to address these gaps, and then training them to use patient portals to access electronic health records, telehealth and digital health apps.

Through partnerships, Cleveland can quickly become a national leader in digital equity and inclusion, and in the process open pathways for its residents to have equitable access to the American dream: The belief that anyone, regardless of where they were born, the color of their skin, or which class they were born into, can attain their own version of success in a society in which upward mobility is possible for everyone.

just in Cleveland Housing Court, but throughout our region, the ripple effects of these evictions will hold our region back for decades.

The city of Cleveland’s initial annual $300,000 support of RTC is leveraged with private philanthropy and other funds to complete a $2.4 million annual program budget. This Cleveland model is unique: No other city in the United States that has legislated a housing right to counsel is designed this way: Fundraising is crucial for initial success, and long-term government support is contemplated for growth and sustainability once further evaluation proves positive results for the community. The initial six-month

data from our recent report begins to shed light on the importance of longterm government investment to stabilize housing and neighborhoods.

The United Way and Legal Aid teams stand ready to collaborate with public officials and business leaders to build on what we have accomplished. Now is the time to scale up and create further impact to secure safe, stable housing in our community. In paraphrasing Frost’s poem, the most famous line is repeated: “But I have promises to keep, / And miles to go before I sleep, / And miles to go before I sleep.” We have unfinished business, promises to keep — and miles to go before we sleep.

cy services and devices.

The fact that Cleveland is ranked among large U.S. cities with both the worst rate of residents connected to broadband and the highest poverty rate is no coincidence. Countless studies demonstrate that those born into the combination of poverty and broadband starvation suffer with shorter life expectancy, higher rates of infant mortality, and higher death rates for the 14 leading causes of death. Poverty restricts the resources needed to avoid risks and adopt healthy behaviors. A lack of broadband access compounds these consequences.

End of zip codes as determinants of health, wealth

allow customers to order hot dogs and soft drinks from, and delivered directly to, their seats. The app will cut down on the number of people milling around in the concourse.

Yorko said a similar app was introduced at Classic Park toward the end of the 2019 season and during movie nights last year. The team found that half the concessions sales were made through the app.

As for the players, Pfander said he was still waiting to hear what safety measures they will have to follow, although it’s already been determined that players will practice in shifts and social distance when they can.

One interesting development, Pfander said, is that teams will host

ENTIN

From Page 9

ARPA does not put the states in a worse position than they would otherwise find themselves. The restriction on using ARPA money to offset tax cuts seeks only to make sure that the federal spending goes for its intended purpose — to cover costs of the COVID-19 pandemic. It imposes a condition on federal spending, something that the Supreme Court has consistently approved.

The four-part legal test for conditional spending was most succinctly summarized by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, a staunch advocate of strong constitutional limitations on federal power, in a 1987 case that upheld a provision that denied 5% of federal highway funds to states that refused to set their minimum drinking age at 21.

Yost effectively concedes that ARPA’s restriction satisfies three parts of the test: It promotes the general welfare, is clear, and directly relates to the purpose of the federal expenditure.

Yost relies on the fourth prong, claiming that ARPA coerces the states to maintain higher taxes. But it is not enough that states might hesitate to refuse ARPA money.

The Supreme Court rejected a similar argument in the drinking-age case. Only one state refused to raise its drinking age as a condition for receiving full highway funding, but the Court found that the condition was not coercive because the states had the option of leaving their drinking age unchanged and receiving less federal

The RubberDucks and Captains will see changes to their coaching staffs and rosters, although Pfander and Yorko said that’s the usual state of affairs in minor league baseball.

Akron manager Rouglas Odor will return for his second year after leading the club in 2019, and Captains manager Greg DiCenzo, who was scheduled to take over the team in 2020, is back for the 2021 season.

Yorko said most of the Captains’ roster changes are due to the team becoming the Indians’ High-A affiliate, switching places with the Lynchburg, Va., squad, which is now the Indians’ Low-A affiliate. Lake County fans will see higher-caliber players this year.

The Lake County-Lynchburg switch was part of MLB’s restructuring of the national minor league system. Last year, MLB took over the minor leagues after its agreement with the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues — an umbrella organization for minor league baseball — expired Sept. 30 with no replacement deal.

“It was a whole new way of doing things,” Pfander said. “Our minor league office made the schedule before. Now MLB is doing it.”

Although the MLB breakup with the minor league umbrella group was bitter, Pfander sees the new arrangement as a positive development.

“We were working as partners anyway,” Pfander said. “We’ve had a great relationship with the Indians. It makes sense for us to fall under their umbrella.”

Contact Bob Sandrick: clbfreelancer@crain.com highway aid.

The same principle applies here: ARPA withholds federal COVID relief to the extent that the funds offset state tax cuts. The federal government need not provide any COVID relief, but it can make sure that the relief it does provide gets used for the purpose of defraying pandemic expenses. The states get to choose between ARPA funds and tax cuts.

Under well-established legal doctrines, Yost’s challenge to ARPA should fail. Beyond that, the lawsuit is ill-advised. It seems to rest on the notion that there is such a thing as a free lunch. On Yost’s logic, the federal government must at least sometimes give the states money with no strings attached.

This cannot be right. It is one thing to support targeted federal assistance to state and local governments to help them address serious problems. It is quite another to say that the Constitution requires the federal government to subsidize state tax cuts.

A victory for Yost could make states more reliant on federal money to pay their bills, which might enhance federal leverage, whereas ARPA critics want to reduce Washington’s authority. It also would undermine political accountability: Voters will not know whom to credit for their lower state taxes, and they might not realize that the federal government is subsidizing public services that otherwise would have to be reduced.

ARPA might be good public policy, or it might be bad public policy. But it is not unconstitutional.

The place to debate that policy is in the political arena, not the courts.

March 29, 2021 | CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS | 17

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CRAIN'S LIST | SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS Ranked by full-time local employees as of Jan. 1, 2021 LOCAL FULL-TIME EMPLOYEES RANK

COMPANY

TOTAL 1-1-2021

TOTAL 1-1-2020

CODERS 1-1-2021

INDUSTRY FOCUS

SOFTWARE PRODUCTS

MAIN LANGUAGES

TOP LOCAL EXECUTIVE

1

HYLAND 28500 Clemens Road, Westlake 44145 440-788-4988/hyland.com

2,233

1,872

365

Health care, higher education, government, finance, insurance, manufacturing

Content management and intelligent automation solutions

C#, C++, C

Bill Priemer, president, CEO

2

MRI SOFTWARE LLC 28925 Fountain Parkway, Solon 44139 800-321-8770/mrisoftware.com

493

450

136

Property management and accounting for the real estate industry

Residential Management, Commercial Management, Investment Solutions, Workplace Management

VB.NET, C#, Java

Patrick Ghilani, CEO John Ensign, president

3

OVERDRIVE INC. One OverDrive Way, Garfield Heights 44125 216-573-6886/overdrive.com

366

329

74

Public libraries, schools, corporate

Libby, Sora, OverDrive

C#, ASP.net MVC/ Web API, SQL Server, React, Kafka, Ruby

Steve Potash, founder, CEO

4

FOUNDATION SOFTWARE/PAYROLL4CONSTRUCTION 17800 Royalton Road, Strongsville 44136 800-246-0800/foundationsoft.com

317

294

54

Accounting software for the construction industry

Foundation, Foundation mobile, Foundation Service Dispatch mobile

PowerBuilder, Delphi, C#, JavaScript

Mike C. Ode, president, CEO Fred J. Ode, founder

5

TRIMBLE TRANSPORTATION 6085 Parkland Blvd., Mayfield Heights 44124 440-721-2020/transportation.trimble.com

250

252

50

Transportation logistics

TMWSuite, TruckMate, Innovative, TL2000, TMT Fleet Maintenance, TMT Service Center

C#, .NET Framework, Java

James Langley, senior vice president

6

MIM SOFTWARE INC. 25800 Science Park Drive, Suite 180, Cleveland 44122 216-455-0600/mimsoftware.com

182

143

35

Medical imaging

MIM, MIM Maestro, MIM Encore, MIM Symphony, MIMcloud

Java, Ruby on Rails, C++, MATLAB

Andrew Nelson, CEO

7

MEDIQUANT LLC 6900 S. Edgerton Road, Suite 100, Brecksville 44141 844-286-8683/mediquant.com

178

128

6

Health care

DataArk, OpenArk, ArkLoad, Patient Archive

C# .NET, JavaScript, and T-SQL

Jim Jacobs, CEO

8

BRANDMUSCLE 1100 Superior Ave., Suite 500, Cleveland 44114 216-464-4342/brandmuscle.com

175

200

2

Local marketing

BrandMuscle Integrated Local Marketing Platform

C#, SQL, JavaScript

Michael Marchetti, chief customer officer

9

PATRIOT SOFTWARE 4883 Dressler Road N.W., Suite 301, Canton 44718 877-968-7147/patriotsoftware.com

137

94

32

Small business

Payroll, Accounting, HR, Time & Attendance

.NET/C# development

Michael J. Kappel, founder, CEO

10

BINARY DEFENSE 600 Alpha Parkway, Stow 44224 800-246-2792/binarydefense.com

76

72

14

Cybersecurity

Binary Defense Managed Detection and Response (MDR)

F#, Python, Go, JavaScript, C/C++

Mike Valentine, cofounder, CEO

11

RVSHARE 155 Montrose W. Ave., Akron 44321 888-482-0234/rvshare.com

75

—

20

Travel, hospitality

RVshare

Ruby and JavaScript

Jon Gray, CEO

12

FENETECH INC. 260 Campus Drive, Aurora 44202 330-995-2830/fenetech.com

70

67

30

ERP solutions

FeneVision, Q2S, FENml

.NET Framework

Ronald W. Crowl, president, CEO

12

NEW INNOVATIONS INC. 3540 Forest Lake Drive, Uniontown 44685 330-899-9954/new-innov.com

70

79

19

Medical

Residency Management Suite, Undergraduate Management Suite

C#, Angular

Steve C. Reed, CEO

14

HCL SOFTWARE (URBANCODE) 50 Public Square, Suite 1800, Cleveland 44115 330-554-2202/hcltechsw.com

60

55

50

Software/technology

HCL Accelerate, HCL Launch, UrbanCode Deploy, UrbanCode Velocity

Java, JavaScript, node.js, mongoDB

Brian J. Muskoff, director of product

15

TALIS CLINICAL 650 Mondial Parkway, Streetsboro 44241 216-706-4480/talisclinical.com

56

50

48

Hospitals

ACG-Anesthesia, ACG-Perfusion, ACGRemoteView-ICU, ACG-ECMO, ACG-L&D

Full stack

Gary Colister, president, founder

16

7SIGNAL INC. 6155 Rockside Road, Independence 44131 216-777-2900/7signal.com

50

50

15

Hosptials, manufacturing, large corporations

Sapphire Eye, Mobile Eye

Java, Javascript, C/ C++

Thomas M. Barrett, CEO

16

STREAMLINK SOFTWARE (AMPLIFUND) 812 Huron Road, Suite 550, Cleveland 44115 216-377-5500/amplifund.com

50

—

15

Government, nonprofits

AmpliFund

.NET Framework

Scott Smith, CEO Adam Roth, president

18

TRIBUTE INC. 141 Broad Blvd., Suite 206, Cuyahoga Falls 44221 330-656-3006/tribute.com

48

48

14

Industrial distribution

Tribute, TrulinX

.NET Framework

Susie Hopper, president

19

POINTE BLANK SOLUTIONS LTD. 30400 Detroit Road, Suite 400, Westlake 44145 440-243-5100/pointeblank.net

47

47

25

Government, health care, education

MatrixPointe Software, CasePointe, Koolu

C#

Thomas J. Coury, chairman, chief software architect

20

BANYAN TECHNOLOGY 31011 Viking Parkway, Westlake 44145 844-462-2269/banyantechnology.com

46

46

18

Freight carrier connectivity software

Live Connect, Live Lane Specials, Intelligent Freight Pricing Suite, Capacity Optimizer, Insights

C#, MVC4/5, SQL, JavaScript, XML

Brian Smith, CEO Lance Healy, founder, chief innovation officer

21

DATA-BASICS INC. 600 Broadway Ave., Bedford 44146 216-663-5600/databasics.com

44

44

21

HVAC, construction, field service and accounting

SAMPro Enterprise, TechAnywhere, DBAnalytics, TimeAnywhere, CRMAnywhere, FMAnywhere, DBFleet

SmallTalk, Android, HTML, Azure, DBFrameWork

Arthur K. Divell Jr., CEO

21

MAIN SEQUENCE TECHNOLOGY INC. 4420 Sherwin Road, Hamilton Hall, Willoughby 44094 440-946-5214/pcrecruiter.net

44

46

11

HR applicant tracking, recruiting CRM, staffing software

PCRecruiter, PCRecruiter Job Board, PCRecruiter Outlook Portal, PCRecruiter Capture

Microsoft / React / SQL Server

Gretchen A. Kubicek, CFO Martin H. Snyder, president

23

FORMFIRE LLC 1100 Superior Ave., Suite 1650, Cleveland 44114 216-357-7400/formfire.com

39

38

4

Health insurance

FormFire

.NET Framework

Colin Ingram, cofounder, CEO

24

SQUIRRELS LLC 121 Wilbur Drive N.E., North Canton 44720 855-207-0927/airsquirrels.com

38

31

13

Education, business, home, OEM

Ditto, Reflector, AirParrot

C, C#, Objective-C, JavaScript

Andrew Gould, CEO

25

DAKOTA SOFTWARE 1375 Euclid Ave., Suite 500, Cleveland 44115 216-765-7100/dakotasoft.com

27

35

5

Environmental, health and safety

ProActivity Suite - Profiler, Auditor, Tracer, Scout

.NET Framework

Reg Shiverick, president

Researched by Darleen White (researcher@crainscleveland.com) | Information is supplied by the companies.

Get 39 companies and +140 executives in Excel format. Become a Data Member: CrainsCleveland.com/data 18 | CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS | March 29, 2021

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INCENTIVES

From Page 1

The admissions landscape has shifted over recent years. Tuition discounts at private schools were already increasing before 2020, and a recent national change relaxed the rules around recruiting tactics.

Not everyone is dishing out deals to applicants, though. Highly selective schools across the country have an influx. Many think that’s due to many institutions moving to make admission tests optional during the pandemic. But national application data released in January shows there’s not as much interest at less selective or smaller institutions.

And it’s vital for colleges, especially those that depend heavily on tuition, to enroll students now following a year in which many schools took financial hits.

“If you have a second year where you’re way short on your budget, you’ve already laid off a bunch of people, you’ve already cut to the bone, you don’t have a lot of other choices at this point,” said Mark Salisbury, CEO and co-founder of TuitionFit, which focuses on making college pricing more transparent.

Cleveland State University introduced its “2-for-1 tuition promise’’ in 2020. It operates similarly to Ashland’s, except students don’t have to live in a residence hall and the minimum gradepoint requirement is 3.0. CSU’s latest tuition rates haven’t been released, but an in-state student taking 12 credit hours would have paid about $5,592 per semester during this academic year.

The university’s vice president for

Ashland University is one of several schools to introduce incentives for the fall 2021 semester. | ASHLAND UNIVERSITY

“IF YOU HAVE A SECOND YEAR WHERE YOU’RE WAY SHORT ON YOUR BUDGET, YOU’VE ALREADY LAID OFF A BUNCH OF PEOPLE, YOU’VE ALREADY CUT TO THE BONE, YOU DON’T HAVE A LOT OF OTHER CHOICES AT THIS POINT.” — Mark Salisbury, CEO and co-founder of TuitionFit

enrollment management, Jonathan Wehner, said it was important for the institution to tie the program to students’ performance.

“We wanted students to understand that we were going to make an investment with them, but we wanted them to earn it,” he said.

Neither scholarship covers additional fees like room and board expenses. Those are often additional lucrative income streams for schools.

Officials said both efforts are being primarily footed by gifts.

Ashland’s Campo said he thinks recent trustee support will fully cover the costs associated with the scholarship. A $1 million gift to CSU will help fund the tuition promise, along with fundraising efforts, according to Wehner.

Other places across the region have other new incentives. Tuition is free for 2021 high school graduates at Stark State College. Kent State University introduced a direct admission pathway to its MBA program for freshmen and transfer students. The Uni-

versity of Akron is waiving its requirement for freshmen to live on campus.

Applications are being incentivized, too. John Carroll University offered a laptop in the fall to students who applied and scheduled a visit by mid-December. The University of Mount Union announced plans to raffle off 22 awards to students who deposited before mid-March.

Malone University is giving applicants a chance to win a $2,500 scholarship this month, too.

Yet there are still weeks to go before May 1. That’s the day dubbed National College Decision Day, though some experts say it doesn’t carry as much weight. Loads of campuses nationwide extended their deadlines last summer.

Just last week, Moody’s Investor Service upped higher education’s outlook from negative to stable. The credit rating agency wrote the sector is still facing “significant enrollment uncertainty headed into fall 2021” even with the bump.

“I think that what we’re seeing is institutions finally realizing that they can no longer survive with just a single, linear, funnel-shape sales approach to get students,” said TuitionFit’s Salisbury. “They’re going to have to find other ways to attract students.”

As for Cleveland State and Ashland, each reported an uptick of early interest. CSU said applications are up by about 30% year over year. Ashland officials said they’re hoping for about 500 new deposits, which would be an increase from the 432 students enrolled last fall.

Amy Morona: amy.morona@crain. com, (216) 771-5229, @AmyMorona

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MARCH 29, 2021 | CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS | 19

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AKRON REAL ESTATE

Greater Akron’s office market was a ‘mixed bag’ in 2020 Amid the uncertainties of the COVID-19 pandemic, vacancies and subleasing are on the rise

BY DAN SHINGLER

Greater Akron’s market for office space had a tepid year of COVID, with vacancy rates and subleasing activity up as companies worked to figure out what their future workplaces will look like and began configuring themselves accordingly.

That’s according to several real estate developers and brokers around town, as well as research from firms such as JLL in Cleveland, which tracks the Akron office market with a quarterly report.

“A lot of people are just looking to right-size their space,” said JLL senior vice president Warren Blazy III. That’s one reason subleasing efforts were on the rise in the area, he said, combined with some non-COVID factors, such as the acquisition of A. Schulman in 2018 by another plastics company, Houston-based LyondellBasell. As those two have integrated, it has freed up space at the former Schulman headquarters in Fairlawn and 34,000 square feet of that space hit the sublease market in 2020, Blazy said.

In total, the amount of vacant space available to sublease in and around town increased from fewer than 10,000 square feet at the beginning of the year to nearly 90,000 square feet by year’s end, according to JLL’s data.

A lot of it came onto the market as companies were preparing themselves for a future in which at least some of their workers either no longer come to the office, or don’t come in five days a week like they did just a year ago, Blazy and others said.

“It’s showing the uncertainty that COVID has presented out there, absolutely,” Blazy said. “What that means over the next six months is going to be really interesting to see. …

There’s still a lot of unknowns as each company continues to look at how they’ll manage their real estate.”

Vacancy rates for office space were up to 19.6% from 16.6% a year earlier, JLL found in report for the fourth quarter of 2020. Asking rents, meanwhile, fell to an average of $17.96 per square foot, down just one penny from the year before, JLL reported.

Though Colliers International reported rents at a lower average rate of $16.11 per square foot. Colliers also reported an increase in vacancy rates, but found them to be lower, at 14%, for Greater Akron, but at 18.9% for downtown Akron.

The firms track real estate differently. Colliers includes the Canton area in its data, for instance, while JLL’s report focuses on Akron and its Summit County suburbs.

But both firms reported a year of uncertainty and challenges for the office market and said there are more changes to come. Colliers has even started an effort to target potential clients looking to sublease space because of COVID, vice president Jon Caiazza said.

Colliers clients found that their workers’ productivity did not suffer with remote work — something many expected would happen — and Caiazza said more corporate employees now want to work from home at least part of the time. That’s going to lead to more long-term changes, he predicted.

“There’s going to be a percentage

Looking up through the atrium at Akron’s redeveloped The 159 building, where some lower floors will remain offices, while the upper floors have been converted to apartments that will have shared office space and conference facilities for future work-from-home tenants. | THE 159

of the workforce that always stays at home,” Caiazza said. “You’re going to see some larger companies turn into more of a hub and spoke operation, instead of just a corporate hub.”

In other words, they’ll maintain smaller, central offices in cities while opening smaller, part-time offices for work-from-home employees to access in the suburbs, he predicted.

“I can’t say it’s catching a ton of steam yet, but I think that’s a direction we’ll be headed in,” Caiazza said.

Building owners already are beginning to adjust and some are offering work-from-home amenities, including Tom Rybak, who’s finishing up space in the former Law Building

in downtown Akron. It has been renamed The 159 building and has 107 luxury apartments, along with retail space. It also now offers shared office space for potential work-from-home tenants. Tenants in the 11-story building’s upper six floors will have access to shared office space that will be similar to what a hotel business center might offer, with meeting spaces, available by reservation and sanitized between uses, Rybak said.

Rybak said he’s also offering smaller office spaces down below, where he’s got about 30,000 square feet still available; the building has 40,000 square feet of total office space. He said he’s making smaller spaces

available because he’s already hearing from potential tenants that don’t want to maintain large offices.

“We’ve seen interest from people who don’t feel comfortable going back to a larger office. They want office space in a smaller environment, and we’ll provide them with that,” Rybak said.

GOJO, which uses most of the space at 1 GOJO Plaza just off South Main Street for its headquarters, saw the same thing, said its senior director of corporate communications, Samantha Williams. That’s why she said the company divided up space for two new tenants last year.

“Once we were open to that, we Class A space, like that found at GOJO’s downtown headquarters, had the least trouble finding new tenants in 2020, say real estate experts — especially if landlords were willing to offer smaller spaces, as GOJO Plaza did.

GOJO INDUSTRIES

had considerable demand for each unit. ... We worked really closely with each tenant to ensure we could create ideal spaces for their needs and everything turned out beautifully,” Williams said via email.

Real estate professionals don’t think the traditional office is going to go away entirely. Blazy points to the cybersecurity company TrustedSec’s recent announcement that it’s building a 20,000-square-foot headquarters in Fairlawn as evidence of that. And others say they’ve been able to lease traditional office space over the past year.

Top-tier buildings tend to do best, which they say is likely why sites such as GOJO Plaza have remained full.

GOJO Plaza had little trouble replacing a law firm that vacated 20,000 square feet in 2020, leasing the space to the Akron arm of the law firm Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith and to the hardware wholesaler Banner Solutions for its headquarters. Williams said the two tenants wanted smaller spaces than the company initially offered for lease.

Don Taylor, CEO of the Welty Building Co., said his company has been able to keep its Fairlawn headquarters 100% occupied. Welty leases out much of that building. Although there has been some tenant shuffling of late, Taylor said he has been able to replace any lost leases.

“We’re full. The building’s completely leased. We had a couple of tenants move out, but we had new ones move in,” Taylor said.

In 2020, the accounting firm Bober Markey Federovich took about 17,000 square feet in the 62,000-square-foot building, while Huntington Bank took another 7,500 square feet, Taylor said.

He cited similar success on White Pond Drive in Akron, he said, where Stark State College created a vacancy in the Harmony Point Building, but the Hondros College of Nursing snatched it up.

Other office spaces, at the Harmony Point Building and in Welty’s big Bowery Project downtown, have seen less activity, so 2020 was a “mixed bag” overall, Taylor said.

“On the first floor (of Harmony Point), we had the Census Bureau, but they’ve since moved out and we’ve not seen a whole lot of activity there. And at Bowery we’ve got nothing,” Taylor said.

But at Bowery, its 4,000 square feet of space is a tiny portion of the six-building project, which also includes 92 apartments that Taylor said have been leasing well, and 40,000 square feet of retail space that has not. Residential leasing has gone well, and Taylor said he hopes the rest of the project will gain traction once COVID lifts.

“I think the space there is less interesting as office and more interesting as bars, restaurants and hospitality,” Taylor said of the Bowery District.

Looking forward, real estate experts expect a busy year in 2021.

There will be more shuffling, but activity is already picking up, said Colliers vice president Lorin Schultz.

“As soon as the vaccines started rolling out, I noticed a huge increase in activity,” Schultz said.

Dan Shingler: dshingler@crain.com, (216) 771-5290, @DanShingler

20 | CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS | March 29, 2021

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PROJECT

From Page 1

“We bring the high-rise financing and structuring to the deal, whereas the local developer will bring the zoning and the political arena, which is probably their expertise,” says Brian Gordon, an executive vice president responsible for vetting development opportunities, in a video on the company’s website.

Wolstein, the developer shepherding the 23-acre Flats East Bank project on the Cuyahoga River, said he connected with Magellan through mutual contacts in Chicago and is talking to the company about multiple opportunities. He cautioned that the Warehouse District proposal is far from concrete. Nothing is likely to happen on the ground for at least a year.

“Projects of this magnitude take time to put together,” he said.

In late February, West Third and St. Clair popped up as the possible site of a luxury hotel in a fourth-quarter hospitality market report produced by the Newmark real estate brokerage.

Wolstein confirmed that he and Magellan had been pursuing a specific hotel for the site. But the hospitality company they were courting pulled back. He wouldn’t identify the company or the hotel brand.

In Austin, Magellan is wrapping up a mixed-use tower that includes apartments and two hotels, flying the Thompson and Tommie flags that are part of the Hyatt Hotels Corp. family of brands. A Magellan project in Nashville includes a W hotel, which is set to open in August, according to Marriott International Inc. Wolstein said a hotel is not an essential component of the Warehouse District project, which is likely to include apartments, ground-floor retail and garage parking. Offices might be possible, but only if an anchor tenant signs on. Even then, he noted, an office tower would be tough to pull off, since there’s not much public subsidy available for deals involving tenants hoping to hop from older downtown buildings to new digs.

“I don’t want to get that specific, because it doesn’t matter,” Wolstein said of discussing project components. “We’re just studying the site. It could go in a lot of different directions.”

YOST

From Page 7

Zach Schiller, research director for progressive think tank Policy Matters Ohio, is incredulous to the lawsuit.

“Ohio badly needs these funds to fight the virus and make the investments to allow Ohioans to get back on their feet,” Schiller said in a statement. “As bold as it is, the rescue plan won’t make up for all the resources certain Ohio politicians drained from our communities to hand out tax cuts and tax breaks to the wealthy few and corporations.

Ohio lawmakers shouldn’t waste rescue funds pursuing that same failed policy. Yost is off base in seeking to block the law.”

The ARPA suit will not impede the state’s receipt of the $5.5 billion in stimulus dollars due to come its way, Yost said.

Other critics, like constitutional law expert Jonathan Entin, the David L. Brennan Professor Emeritus of Law at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, aren’t sold on Yost’s legal case.

The Asher family, local developer Scott Wolstein and Chicago-based Magellan Development Group are exploring plans for a high-rise, mixed-use project on a 2.2-acre site in the Warehouse District. The property stretches north from St. Clair Avenue between West Third and West Fourth streets, across the street from the Justice Center complex. | PHOTOGRAPHS BY MICHELLE JARBOE/CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

“PROJECTS OF THIS MAGNITUDE TAKE TIME TO PUT TOGETHER.” — Scott Wolstein, developer

The block owned by the Asher family includes parking lots not far from Public Square.

The site is immediately west of the Justice Center complex and north of the sea of pavement where the Sherwin-Williams Co. plans to construct its new headquarters.

T.J. Asher, Weston’s president of acquisitions and development, confirmed that his family has a term sheet with Wolstein and Magellan.

He characterized the arrangement as “a very loose,” three-legged deal and said that Weston would play a passive role in any development.

“We are talking with Magellan, and we are trying to do something with them,” he said. “They candidly thought they had a hotel, and it fell apart. We are in no man’s land with them right now.”

Weston, which sold 5.7 acres of parking last year to Sherwin-Williams for the paint giant’s headquarters project, has owned parking lots north of St. Clair for decades. In 2013, Weston bought the seven-story Marion Building, in the middle of the block, from Cuyahoga County, which was shedding real estate.

Public records show that Weston recently gained control of the final parcel, a sliver of land that includes the three-story Bertsch Building, for an undisclosed price. That tiny building on West Third started its life in

“WITH (ARPA), ONE MAY QUESTION WHETHER THE ‘INDIRECTLY’ LANGUAGE IS AMBIGUOUS. WHEN DOES A STATE INDIRECTLY USE (ARPA) FUNDS TO REDUCE TAXES? THE STATE OF OHIO IS ARGUING THAT IT’S NOT CLEAR WHEN A STATE DOES OR DOESN’T ‘INDIRECTLY’ USE FEDERAL MONEY TO REDUCE TAXES.” — Reginald Oh, a constitutional law professor with Cleveland-Marshall College of Law

“Under well-established legal doctrines Yost’s challenge to ARPA should fail,” Entin said. “Beyond that, the lawsuit is ill-advised. It seems to rest on the notion that there is such a thing as a free lunch. On Yost’s logic, the federal government must at least sometimes give the states money with no strings attached.”

Like Entin, Reginald Oh, a constitutional law professor with Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, said there are two Tenth Amendment claims raised by Yost regarding provisions of ARPA when breaking down the complaint: an anti-commandeering claim and a coercion claim.

“The state of Ohio contends that Section 602(c)(2)(A) compels states by restricting them from using their

sovereign powers to reduce taxes to further federal policy,” Oh said.

“However, this doctrine does not apply to a situation where the federal government is giving money to the states and then imposing some conditions on how that money is used.”

Oh argues an anti-commandeering issue would be raised if the federal government passed a law prohibiting states from reducing taxes without the provision of any funding.

But, he said, “we don’t have that situation here.”

As far as the matter of coercion, the key U.S. Supreme Court case is National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) v. Sebelius, which dealt with the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion requirement.

Yost cites the case as evidence of support for the request for an injunction.

“In that case, under the ACA, if states did not expand Medicaid, they potentially could have lost all of their pre-existing Medicaid funding. The (U.S. Supreme Court) held that the condition was coercive, because the threatened loss of pre-existing Medicaid funding would effectively force states to expand Medicaid,” Oh said.

“The situation is different with (ARPA) because if the state reduced taxes, they would not lose any pre-existing federal money, nor would they lose all of their (ARPA) funds,” he added. “If they choose to reduce taxes with the (ARPA) money, they would only have to reimburse the

1903 as Wohl’s Hungarian Restaurant. The ground floor is currently home to ABC Bail Bonds.

Both buildings would have to be razed to make way for new construction, Wolstein said.

The site is zoned to allow for structures of up to 600 feet.

The properties sit in a national historic district, which does not offer any protection for notable buildings, and a local landmark district, which does. The Cleveland Landmarks Commission would have to review and approve any demolition requests, along with new development plans.

Razing the Marion and Bertsch buildings might make sense, but only if they’re replaced with a high-quality project on sound financial footing, said Tom Yablonsky, executive director of the Historic Warehouse District Development Corp.

“I don’t want West Third Street to become a parking-garage corridor,” he said.

Downtown has welcomed two new apartment towers — the Lumen and the Beacon on Euclid Avenue — during the past 18 months. But other lofty proposals, including the ambitious nuCLEus project first unveiled in the Gateway District six years ago, remain stalled.

Developers are anxiously awaiting the rollout of a new state tax credit program for transformational, mixed-use projects, which could boost ground-up construction and redevelopment alike. Those tax credits will be competitive, though, and they’re only one piece of an extremely complicated financial puzzle.

Cleveland City Councilman Kerry McCormack, who represents much of downtown, is enthusiastic about the possibility of bringing more density and height to the center city, with uses such as apartments and hotel rooms to complement Sherwin-Williams’ new headquarters.

“The idea of killing two more surface lots in the Warehouse District is a really exciting prospect. … I feel like we’ve been talking about the negative impact that the surface parking lots have on the vibrancy of downtown for a long time,” McCormack said. “So it is good to see that plans are happening.”

Michelle Jarboe: michelle.jarboe@ crain.com, (216) 771-5437, @mjarboe federal government the specific amount used to reduce those taxes.

The states would still keep the rest of the (ARPA) money. So, it’s a really different situation from the ACA case.”

A trickier issue, Oh said, relates to the federal government’s spending power. The Supreme Court has held that when the federal government imposes certain conditions upon the receipt of federal money that the conditions must be clearly unambiguous.

“With (ARPA), one may question whether the ‘indirectly’ language is ambiguous,” he said. “When does a state indirectly use (ARPA) funds to reduce taxes? The state of Ohio is arguing that it’s not clear when a state does or doesn’t ‘indirectly’ use federal money to reduce taxes.”

If the ARPA case doesn’t go his way, Yost intends to appeal.

“This could end up in the Supreme Court,” Yost said.

Crain’s government reporter Kim Palmer contributed to this report.

Jeremy Nobile: jnobile@crain.com, (216) 771-5362, @JeremyNobile

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THE WEEK GIVE THEM LIBERTY ...: The lights may go on as soon as late this year for 20 apartments at the long-dark Victorian-era Liberty Textile Building in downtown Cleveland under a plan that received a key city approval on March 25. The Cleveland Landmarks Commission unanimously approved a certificate of appropriateness required for a renovation of the four-story building. The project was presented by Berardi Partners, a Columbus-based architecture firm with a Cleveland office, on behalf of the Kassouf family, which operates parking lots downtown and has owned the Liberty Textile Building through an affiliate since the 1980s. Anthony Delfre, a managing director and a principal in the Cleveland office of the Brown Gibbons Lang investment banking firm who works on structuring and financing the Kassouf family’s deals, said to look for activity soon. He said Cleveland Construction Co. of Mentor is scheduled to start working on the site as soon as the first week of April, and financing already is in place for the project.

Road. The three- and four-bedroom | homes will range in size from 1,381 square feet to 1,759 square feet and will CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS | be offered at base prices between $200,000 and $230,000 CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS

The JLL real estate brokerage is marketing the former Plain Dealer headquarters on Superior Avenue for sale — again — at an undisclosed price. | MICHELLE JARBOE/CRAIN’S

BUILDING UP: Akron’s strategy to rebuild its population with residential development, spurred on since 2017 by a 15year tax abatement program, is getting a boost with a new housing development breaking ground March 25. Mayor Dan Horrigan, other city officials, national

builder K. Hovnanian Homes and Lake County’s Knez Homes are kicking off the construction of The Crossings at Auld Farms, a $12 million development of 51 single-family homes. The project is just west of the Akron Zoo in the West Akron neighborhood, off Diagonal

Dealer building is likely to command | PA G E 21 less than half that price today, real estate brokers said.

S E P T E M B E R 3 - 9 , 2 018 S E P T E M B E R 3 - 9 , 2 018

|

PA G E 21

NFTS IN THE NFL WORLD: Hall of Fame Resort & Entertainment Co. is getting FOR SALE: Perhaps the third time will into the non-fungible tokens busibe the charm. The former Plain Deal- ness. The Canton company signed a er headquarters building, at the east- partnership with Dolphin Entertainern edge of downtown Cleveland, ment Inc. of Coral Gables, Fla., an enjust hit the market again at an undis- tertainment marketing and content closed price. The property spent the development firm, to offer non-funlast year in limbo, after two potential gible tokens, or NFTs, that will “allow sales — the first to the city and the fans of professional football and second to a local staffing company — sports entertainment to buy and sell fell through. The 235,312-square-foot exclusive content” developed by Hall office building occupies a prominent of Fame Resort and its partners. NFTs site in the Superior Arts District, are units of data on a digital ledger; where developers are transforming each NFT can represent a unique old warehouses and garment facto- digital item, and therefore they are ries into offices, apartments and re- not interchangeable. NFTs can repretail space. Across the country, news- sent digital files such as art, audio, paper companies have been videos, items in video games and shedding downtown real estate for other forms of creative work. Hall of years as a way to cut costs and gener- Fame Resort said the partnership ate cash amid financial strains and with Dolphin gives it “another way to staff cuts. Constructed 20 years ago at generate Advertising Sectionrevenue from its burgeona cost of nearly $40 million, the Plain ing media division.”

Advertising Section

PEOPLE ON THE MOVE

Advertising Section

To place your listing, visit www.crainscleveland.com/people-on-the-move or, for more information, contact Debora Stein at 917.226.5470 / dstein@crain.com.

ADVERTISING / MARKETING

CONSTRUCTION

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shark&minnow

Marous Brothers Construction

Align Capital Partners

shark&minnow welcomes Mary Carter as Associate Writer & Public Relations Specialist.

Carter joins the strategy and design consultancy after working for Cision PR Newswire as an Associate Account Executive. In her new role within the Media Arts department at shark&minnow, Carter will develop brand stories to captivate readers through public relations, advertising, content marketing, and editorial.

Carter is a proud alumna of the E. W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University.

Marous Brothers Construction is pleased to welcome Charles (Ed) Dorsey as a Superintendent to our Construction Management Group. Ed is currently overseeing a Millenia Housing Management project, renovating senior living apartments in Memphis, TN. On this project we will be doing extensive interior and minor exterior renovations. Ed is responsible for coordinating, directing and overseeing the completion of all field activities.

Align Capital Partners is pleased to announce James Moss has joined the firm as Vice President. James brings experience evaluating new deal investment opportunities and working with senior management teams on strategic initiatives in the technology, business services, and diversified manufacturing industries. He will be responsible for sourcing, executing, and monitoring ACP’s investments.

James earned his BA from Morehouse College and an MBA from UPenn’s Wharton School of Business.

CLASSIFIEDS CLASSIFIEDS

To place your listing in Crain’s Cleveland Classifieds, To place your listing inBurgess Crain’s at Cleveland Classifieds, contact Ainsley 313-446-0455 contact Ainsley Burgess at 313-446-0455 or email ainsley.burgess@crain.com or email ainsley.burgess@crain.com REAL ESTATE REAL ESTATE

LAW CONSTRUCTION

CONSTRUCTION

Marous Brothers Construction

Marous Brothers Construction

Marous Brothers Construction is pleased to welcome David Bolt as Project Development Manager to our Carpentry & Interiors Group. He brings over 35 years of experience in Architectural Millwork Interiors and will be working on expanding the scope of the Carpentry and Interiors Group.

David will be increasing our focus on new geographical areas, building on a very strong current client base and establishing new long-term relationships for continued growth.

Marous Brothers Construction is pleased to welcome Mike Plickert as a Superintendent to our Construction Management Group. He is responsible for coordinating, directing and overseeing the completion of all field activities and the performance of all aspects on the project including self-performing trades, subcontractors and suppliers.

Mike learned much of his profession from his father, who was a carpenter himself.

Welcome to the team, Mike!

Gallagher Sharp LLP Gallagher Sharp is pleased to announce the addition of Partner Jennifer Fewell Phillips, Esq. Jennifer defends employers against claims involving all areas of employment law including harassment, discrimination, and retaliation, in court and before administrative agencies. She provides counsel on organized labor matters, employee training, employment contracts, trade secret protections, and severance agreements. She received her law degree from The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law.

ENVIRONMENTAL CONSULTING

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BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY Polymer Casting Company FOR SALE Very Profitable Polymer Casting Company Sales FOR$926,603 SALE Asking $595,000 Very Profitable mike@empirebusinesses.com Sales $926,603 www.empirebusinesses.com Asking $595,000 440-461-2202 mike@empirebusinesses.com www.empirebusinesses.com 440-461-2202

LIST YOUR AD TODAY LIST YOUR AD TODAY

22 | CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS | March 29, 2021

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