Coinciding with Fair Housing Month, FutureHeights invites residents to attend a free public forum, Choosing to Make the Heights Home, on Tuesday, April 24, 7–8:30 p.m., at The BottleHouse Brewing Company, 2050 Lee Road.

Speakers will include experts on current housing trends, as well as residents who have recently purchased homes in Cleveland Heights. The panel will lead an open and candid discussion about the decision-making process of buying a home.

The diversity of housing stock and walkable business districts are major assets in Cleveland Heights. The forum will explore what else drives buyers’ decisions on where to purchase a home. Does Cleveland Heights have what buyers are looking for? What more could the city do to promote its amenities to potential homeowners? How can the community build on its assets to make it a more desirable place to live?

Register for this free event at https://cleheightshome.eventbrite.com.

The FutureHeights Neighborhood Mini-Grants Committee awarded $3,577 to five projects in the spring round of its grant program. Awarded were Noble Neighbors, $500 for Talent of the Heights; Saint Alban’s Episcopal Church, $750 for Beautify the Hill; CUE, $1,000 for Lower Shaker Lake Public Space Reclamation; Montford Community Garden, $327 for Gardening Set-Up Grants; and Friends of the Delisle Center, $1,000 for Beautifying the Delisle Center’s Outdoor Spaces. Congratulations! Sept. 15 is the next grant application deadline. Learn more here.

In association with the Ohio Small Business Development Center and with the support of US Bank, FutureHeights will host a series of six free workshops in 2018 for small business owners to increase their knowledge of current trends and give them new skills to thrive in today’s environment.

The first of these workshops, Social Media & Retail, will be held on Friday, Feb. 16, from 9:30–11:30 a.m. at the Small Business Development Center, located at 2340 Lee Rd, in Cleveland Heights.

Speaker Chris Smith is a social entrepreneur, small business development consultant and graphic designer. His entrepreneurial experiences began in college competing in several business plan competitions across the nation. He currently works for JumpStart, Inc., supporting several programs working with technology and on-technology companies throughout Northeast Ohio. Smith’s talk will focus on using social media to assess community needs, market to a wider audience, and create lasting relationships with customers and neighbors.

Whether or not you are well versed in the use of technology, this workshop will add critical information and provide new perspectives on social media’s use in the retail market. All are welcome, from well-established vendors to students and start-ups.

RSVP here. For more information, contact sbasu@futureheights.org or call 216-320-1423.

FutureHeights hosted Community-Building for Change, a public forum and interactive workshop on Jan. 23, from 7-8:30 p.m., at The BottleHouse Brewing Company, 2050 Lee Road.

The workshop helped Heights residents gain the knowledge and skills needed to create and maintain strong, effective neighborhood groups, and empowered residents to take action to support and improve their community. Topics included civic engagement, effective organizing and creatively solving challenges.

Brenda May, one of the leaders of Noble Neighbors; Kaela Geshke, wealth initiatives and community network builder of Neighborhood Connections; and Travelle Harp, director of Northeast Ohio Alliance for Hope (NOAH), collaboratively led the interactive workshop and discussion. View video of the forum here.

The City of Cleveland Heights has formed a working group to work out the details of FutureHeights’ partnership with the city as its community development corporation. FutureHeights selected the following to participate: Deanna Bremer Fisher, executive director, and Robert Brown and Micah Kirman, board members. City Manager Tanisha Briley will serve with the group and selected Karen Knittel, city planner, and Tim Boland, economic development director, as the additional city staff members. She also appointed three independent members: Tom Stone (formerly of MtPleasantNow), Benjamin Nichols (VP of National Initiatives for Enterprise Community Partners), and Ken Surrat (Deputy Director of Housing for Cuyahoga County). Strategy Design Partners will facilitate the group’s meetings.

The first meeting took place on Nov. 29 at Cleveland Heights City Hall. Participants introduced themselves; city staff discussed the city’s programs and services, structure and community development priorities; and FutureHeights discussed its programs and services, structure and priorities. The next meeting is set for Dec. 21.

Learn more about candidates for local elections at the League of Women Voters of Greater Cleveland, CH-UH chapter and FutureHeights Candidates Night. The event begins at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 18, at the CH Community Center, 1 Monticello Blvd. The order of the program is as follows: UH Mayor, 7 p.m.; UH City Council 7:25 p.m.; CH-UH Board of Education, 8 p.m.; CH Municipal Court Judge, 8:45 p.m.; CH City Council, 9 p.m.

Also check out the 2017 Voters Guide to Candidates and Issues, which is published as a public service by the League of Women Voters of Greater Cleveland, CH-UH chapter and FutureHeights. It is inserted into the print issue of the Heights Observer and is available online at www.heightsobserver.org.

On Friday, Oct. 20, Heights residents headed to Lee Road for the annual night of safe trick-or-treating with the merchants. Check out some of the zany, funny & imaginative costumes!

This event is co-sponsored by Cedar Lee Special Improvement District and FutureHeights. Photos are by Gabe Schaffer.

FutureHeights presents Creating Great Places in the Heights, a public forum on creative place-making, on Tuesday, Oct. 10, at 7 p.m. at The BottleHouse Brewing Company, 2050 Lee Road.

No tickets are required, but let us know you are coming by RSVPing here.

Desirable communities sometimes happen out of sheer luck, but more often they are great by design.

In this community forum, our panel discusses the art of Creative Place-Making. Place-Making is more than just building physical spaces, it is the art of elevating the human experience of a space. What is the role of Place-Making in the Heights? What are exciting local examples of Place-Making in our community? What more can be done?

Presenting:

Bob Brown
Former director of the Cleveland Planning Commission and interim director of Midtown Cleveland, will discuss the human side of community spaces through the lens of physical and human development, and local examples of place-making in the Heights.

Ali Lukascy-Love
Architect and Community Projects Manager at City of Euclid, will talk about place-making projects in Collinwood and Euclid and how they’ve helped transform the fabric and reputation of a neighborhood.

Nelson Beckford
Senior Program Officer for A Strong Neighborhood at the Saint Luke’s Foundation, will talk about the success of the award-winning Making Our Own Space (MOOS) initiative and how similar projects can reinvent communities.

Facilitating:

Mark Chupp and Vince Reddy

Share your creative place-making ideas with us here.

At its July 31 meeting, Cleveland Heights City Council declared its intent to partner with FutureHeights as the city’s community development corporation (CDC) and authorized the city manager to form a working group to flesh out the details. The resolution passed 4-1, with Council Member Kahlil Seren casting the dissenting vote. Council Members Michael Ungar and Jason Stein were absent.

The legislation will take effect Sept. 4, when council returns from its summer recess. City Manager Tanisha Briley will create a nine-member working group that will have three city staff representatives, three FutureHeights representatives, and three members of the community at large. The group will discuss goals and priorities, governance, funding sources and other topics to help guide the CDC and determine the roles of the CDC and city staff.

FutureHeights, a nonprofit community development group that has served the city for 15 years, became a member of the Ohio CDC Association in April 2017—a formal recognition that its activities are those of a CDC. In August 2016, at the mayor’s request, FutureHeights submitted a business plan to the city, outlining a potential partnership in which it would be the city’s CDC.

Both the city’s master plan, adopted in March, and the council-appointed Economic Development Advisory Committee recommended that the city work with a CDC and mentioned FutureHeights as the logical choice.

Learn more here.