VOL. 38, NO. 38
SEPTEMBER 18 - 24, 2017
Source Lunch
Akron Now is not a bad time to own a plastics company. Page 26
Howard Katz, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law Page 31
CLEVELAND BUSINESS
MANUFACTURING
The List The largest hotels in Northeast Ohio Page 24 REAL ESTATE
Energy Focus CEO eyeing brighter future Forest By RACHEL ABBEY McCAFFERTY rmccafferty@crain.com @ramccafferty
Ted Tewksbury likes a turnaround. That’s good, because Energy Focus Inc., where he’s currently chairman, CEO and president, certainly needs one. Energy Focus, a Solon-based maker of LED lighting products, saw
its net sales drop from about $64 million in 2015 to $31 million in 2016. The company had long put a focus on military sales and was working to diversify, but it wasn’t happening fast enough. Tewksbury was named to his current role in February of 2017 and quickly began making changes to the company’s sales strategy and its product roadmap. He has a Ph.D in electrical engineering from the Massachu-
setts Institute of Technology, and he previously was CEO of Integrated Device Technology Inc. and of Entropic Communications. So, with his technology background, it’s no surprise Tewksbury is putting a focus on how Energy Focus can better use it. Tewksbury wants the company to move beyond what he calls “passive” light tubes to “smart lighting,” which can respond to occupancy and activity levels in a room. Energy Focus had
no such products when Tewksbury joined. “This tube is capable of doing a lot more than just being a source of light. This is a little plastic container, and it’s got a fair amount of space inside of it,” Tewksbury said, holding one of the company’s LED products. “So, today, we put a string of LEDs in here and call it a tubular LED. But there’s a lot of room in here to put other stuff.” SEE ENERGY, PAGE 28
REAL ESTATE
‘Mortgage desert’ gets helping hand
Executive director Rob Curry said CHN can be “a tough landlord.” (Ken Blaze for Crain’s)
CHN Housing Partners is seeking to expand its services for low-income homeowners By STAN BULLARD sbullard@crain.com @CrainRltywriter
Cleveland Housing Network is outgrowing its name, but not its mission of using quality affordable housing to help build strong low-income families and vibrant neighborhoods.
The new name, effective Thursday, Sept. 14, is CHN Housing Partners, which the Cleveland-based nonprofit’s board and staff leaders believe incorporates the larger scope of activities it plans and in some cases has already undertaken. It also builds on the organization’s reputation burnished by working since 1981 with low-income people on a panoply of
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housing-related initiatives from lease-purchase housing to energy conservation. A major initiative for CHN is need-driven in many Cleveland and suburban neighborhoods in the wake of tighter lending standards for banks providing home mortgages under federal regulations created after the housing bust and Great Recession.
Rob Curry, CHN executive director, said, “There are absolute mortgage deserts out there. We want to create mortgage products that, before and after purchase, move the needle for families with low incomes. It’s one of the riskiest types of loans and costs lenders as much for smaller mortgages as large ones.” SEE CHN, PAGE 29
City tests sale, joint venture By STAN BULLARD sbullard@crain.com @CrainRltywriter
Today’s Forest City Realty Trust is far different from the sprawling, multipronged real estate development firm that grew since 1920 from Cleveland roots to the national level. It's still the owner of a vast portfolio, but the smaller, more focused company it has become in the past six years may be on the threshold of even bigger changes. Although experts discount the chance Forest City may disappear from Cleveland, that specter surfaced last week as the real estate investment trust’s board announced it has hired investment bankers to undertake a broad review of options for the property owner with assets from New York and Washington, D.C., to San Francisco. It’s also a secondary outcome after the $15 million sale of Post Office Plaza in August marked the company’s exit from the ranks of downtown Cleveland property owners. That was not much money in the totality of Forest City’s $8 billion portfolio, but it meant a lot for the company in a far different way. “Buyers like portfolios based in major metros,” said Sheila McGrath, a New York-based Evercore analyst who covers the company. And in this case, after Forest City’s board announced Sept. 11 it would examine all options to improve shareholder value, which ranges from being sold to forming a joint venture or making acquisitions to give its stock values a lift, Citigroup analyst Michael Bilerman’s team headlined its report on the development this way: “Don’t you want me(?)” However, wanting Forest City and getting it are likely to be two different things. SEE FOREST CITY, PAGE 28
Meeting and event planner << Are
trade shows still relevant in the digital economy? Page 13 Sustainability is within reach for meeting and event planners. Page 20 It’s showtime in Summit County. Page 22