Cleveland Foundation awards $13.5 million in grants

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Barb Galbincea
Plain Dealer Reporter

The Cleveland Foundation on Friday awarded $13.5 million in grants, including $1 million to help develop an arts and retail district around Case Western Reserve University.

The university's grant is to be used for design and construction in public areas. The $150 million Uptown project, on more than eight acres at Euclid Avenue and Mayfield Road, will include shopping, entertainment and housing.

Russell Berusch, the university's vice president for commercial development, said the grant is both substantively and symbolically significant.

Along with providing seed money for quality design work, Berusch said, the award is important because it shows Cleveland's largest foundation "recognizes the importance of University Circle and this project in particular and is stepping up in a big and early way."

Construction could begin in late fall of 2008 but is more likely in the spring of 2009, Berusch said.

John Wheeler, Case's vice president for Cleveland and regional affairs, called the grant "a real shot in the arm" for the project, which he said will boost the vitality of the whole University Circle neighborhood.

Also on Friday, the foundation's board approved $1.5 million in continuing support for the Cleveland Orchestra. About $1 million is to implement the orchestra's strategic plan, with the remaining $500,000 tagged for education and community outreach.

The foundation made a similar $3 million award to the orchestra in 2005.

Among other grants approved:

$525,000 for continuing support of the Civic Innovation Lab, which provides mentoring, training and up to $30,000 to people with ideas that can make a measurable economic impact.

$240,000 to the Institute for Education Renewal at John Carroll University. The institute promotes literacy education in Greater Cleveland's inner-ring suburbs and professional staff development.

$200,000 to Peace in the Hood for a community empowerment project to decrease gang-related crimes and violence among youth.

$150,000 to Neighborhood Progress Inc. to support its 2-year-old effort to prevent foreclosure and redevelop abandoned property.

$70,000 to Baldwin-Wallace College, which is designing a framework for a regional fire district. The proposed district would include Berea, Brooklyn, Brook Park, Middleburg Heights, Olmsted Falls, Parma and Parma Heights

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