The Urban Land Institute Cleveland (ULI) presented the second of two public Art in Place community listening sessions at League Park’s Baseball Heritage Museum on Wednesday August 30. While the event was interesting to some people, it provided little useful information. Those wishing to find out more about artists and real estate in the Hough neighborhood might want to look elsewhere.
ULI Cleveland, a nonprofit consortium of the international commercial real estate development and investment business, was recently awarded funds to partner with the City of Cleveland to amplify community voices and artist perspectives throughout 2023 to drive more inclusive and participatory real estate development processes. They hosted the event hoping to solicit input from the Hough neighborhood, but only a few residents showed up, and of those attending the meeting, they were skeptical.
Five other national and district councils were awarded funds in Texas, Colorado, Hong Kong, Louisiana and Arkansas. With financial and programmatic support from the Building Healthy Places (BHP) team, participating cohort councils will host Technical Assistance Panels (TAPs) to identify where artists-engaged partnerships in real estate can advance equitable outcomes, empower collective action, and repair the social fabric.
In May 2022, former ULI global governing trustee Michael Spies donated $350,000 to the Urban Land Institute to launch a program through which artists are introduced into the early stages of project development to seek innovative connections to their communities. Spies, a former senior managing director of Tishman Speyer and now active in real estate technology ventures through his firm Fuse Strategies and as a venture partner with Los Angeles-based Navitas Capital, donated to create the Art in Place concept and fund.
Kirstyn Wildey Fritz, an attorney with the McDonald Hopkins Real Estate Group and co-chair of the ULI technical assistance panel, said in her introduction that the purpose of the meeting was to explore what “art in place” means as it relates to the real estate development process.
“The ULI grant will focus on bringing together artists during the real estate process,” she said. “Our goal is to hear from the community first and foremost, and take the stage with real estate developers, professionals and artists that might have specific questions in a panel discussion.”
Fritz said the process will include discussion with the City of Cleveland and the rest of the ULI committee to finalize a series of questions presented to a panel of diverse real estate professionals, local and out of state, that will meet for two days behind closed doors to talk about the questions.
“We will ultimately come up with recommendations in a report available to the public,” added Fritz. “The report will be released late in October, followed by another community meeting.”
Community engagement specialist Antunesia S. Harris, owner of Invigorate Gallery on Hough Avenue, gave a recap of the first community listening session from early August. It included questions about strategically leveraging art within vacant land and properties, ensuring residents and artists continue to thrive and enjoy the community, and creating meaningful artist/developer relationships through public art initiatives.
ULI moderator Greg Nosan, vice-president of operations and strategy, Property Advisors Group (PAG), which specializes in commercial real estate development and investment, property management, and construction, spent the next 30 minutes soliciting responses to his questions.
Dr. Josette Compton, founder and owner of Smart Cookies Skin Care who also works as a community organizer, said residents find it hard to accept real estate developers coming into their neighborhoods and selling it back to them.
“So many neighborhoods in Cleveland get robbed of the opportunity to own property,” said Dr. Compton. “The [Cleveland] Foundation is in Hough now. All these developers are buying up the land around them. We can’t purchase the landmarks we grew up with.”
Someone asked whether the Hough neighborhood had defined boundaries. The room fell silent. Nosan stood back. Fritz looked around the room. Harris surveyed the audience.
ULI could not define the boundaries even though it is the central area of their study. The question was followed by a disproportionate amount of time spent debating the geographic parameters of Hough, with no mention of its social makeup, including median age and annual income, childhood poverty levels, crime, unemployment, diversity and ancestry.
I did a quick search on the Center for Community Solutions webpage to find the median household income is $19,003, with 52.8% of children living below the poverty rate. Two in five households live in housing unaffordable to them, meaning their housing costs exceed 30% of the gross household income. The population is 85% Black/African American. Crime rates are 170% higher than the national average, with violent crimes 373% higher than the national average. According to realtor.com, homes for sale range from $9,500 to $324,000, with a median listing home price of $66,950. None of this information, easy to find from published reports, was provided.
Harris offered an answer.
“Within the Hough neighborhood, you have two CDCs, including Famicos and Midtown Cleveland,” she said. “Each of these community development corporations does work in the community.”
Chris Garland, Community Development Manager, National Community Stabilization Trust (NCST), a nonprofit organization that works to restore vacant and abandoned properties, said developing a permanent cultural land trust or change to zoning would positively affect developers.
“If you have outdated zoning without other instruments in place for developers, that is where you get into loggerheads,” said Garland. “Leveraging public art with vacant land is a very tangible way of understanding what you want to accomplish.”
Near the close of the meeting, Liz Maugans, director of YARDS Projects, gave a presentation on her work with developer Neil Viny and the Dalad Group. YARDS Projects is a commercial art gallery located downtown in the warehouse district where artists regularly show and sell their work. It was a lost opportunity since no real estate developers were at the meeting.
Ultimately, the City of Cleveland has no cultural plan. Whether or not Rhonda Brown, senior strategist for arts, culture and the creative economy, can create one is too early to tell. Until then, city planners continue to follow developers from neighborhood to neighborhood, providing tax incentives and rebates to build on a flawed Ten-Year Housing and Investment Plan “aimed at fostering a robust housing market that will ensure everyone has access to a decent home”. They should be leading the way with a vision for a creative economy and selling it to residents of Hough and other neighborhoods.
“There is hope, but at the same time, it is almost like asking residents, can we please gentrify your neighborhood, and then we will tell you what we did,” added Dr. Compton following the meeting. “This is a poor neighborhood. Developers are not making housing affordable or creating a system where residents can buy into it.”
Bruce Checefsky is a filmmaker and photographer, and published writer. He is the recipient of three Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Awards, a Creative Workforce Fellowship, and four CEC ArtsLink Fellowships.
Cleveland, OH 44103