Innovation

Centric is intended to not only provide housing in the thriving Uptown neighborhood but also to bring people together as a community by offering fun leisure activities and opportunities for social connection. Centric has a very unique design and feel but also offers a variety of uses beyond its accommodations. These amenities include a full-service fitness center/gym, local food and grocery delivery, onsite dining, an expansive courtyard, gathering spaces, and much more. With Centric, the developers sought to engage the community rather than solely provide a living space but also intended on building a mixed-use complex that would stand the test of time and bring people together by hosting regular social events.

Generally, Midwest Development Partners targets areas of the city that are under-served or they will receive opportunities through the brokerage community. If the proposed land has potential, and they are able to develop a viable plan that makes financial sense, they will move forward with development. Steve Rubin, a partner at MDP, expressed that he sees land as "a canvas" and his firm "wants to paint the best painting they can on it." When they find a location, they look at the institutional/human assets that surround it and what appears to be lacking, then try to imagine what the perfect use for the land will be. This take on real estate development, almost as an infrastructure project for benefit of the community as a whole, is what sets Midwest Development Partners apart from other developers. By creating a building that serves a multitude of purposes and further acts as an anchor of the community, they are ensuring that the neighborhood will thrive well into the future.

Inspiration

Around 2012, University Circle Inc. (UCI), the local community development organization, sent out invitations to developers to submit plans and ideas for what could be built on the parcel of land that Centric currently occupies. Another local real estate developer had proposed the construction of a residential and commercial building but ran into some problems and subsequently invited Midwest Development Partners to get involved. The increased development taking place in the neighborhood piqued MDP's interest and in tandem with the prior developer, they re-imagined the design. With UCI's blessing, the developers soon broke ground on the project.

University Circle is seen by Midwest Development Partners as being the “second downtown of Cleveland and the uses that make a second downtown are only going to grow.” When they initially got involved with the project, they saw the area as underserved and ripe for opportunity. Despite the well-known economic woes suffered by Cleveland over the past century, this neighborhood has survived by virtue of institutions such as The Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals, The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Natural History Museum, and the academic institutions: Case Western Reserve University, The Cleveland Institute of Art, and the Cleveland Institute of Music. From its inception, Centric was seen as an opportunity to complement these great institutions by making University Circle a truly livable community. Zac Ponsky, partner at Midwest Development Partners, believes these neighboring institutions as key drivers behind the recent influx of young people and working professionals to the urban core of Cleveland.

Overall impact

The advantage that Centric provides is its uniqueness and its feeding off of what surrounds it rather than what was “stacked” beneath it on the same premises. This permits the property to organically meld into the surrounding University Circle community and benefit from the neighboring institutions while simultaneously benefitting them. The property also fills a void that existed in the community, both physically and commercially, bridging the gap between the uptown and Little Italy neighborhoods. This adds to the walkability of the neighborhood while increased foot traffic in-turn improves safety but most importantly, it adds some variety to the existing commercial offerings. The municipality, in this case, measures the benefit of such an undertaking through the economic development it provides. Among the innumerable benefits that this innovation provides are the jobs that it creates, either directly associated with the property (i.e. front desk and administrative jobs) or jobs that come about from the businesses occupying the commercial spaces on the ground level. These are tangible economic benefits can be calculated but the less tangible benefit is, as Steve says, “the benefit of bringing people together in a place.”

Business benefit

As it relates to Centric’s benefit to Midwest Development Partners, Steve says that “as far as evaluating a project and its benefits to the community, that’s really not our job as businessmen. But that’s not to say we ignore it as most of our projects are very community driven.” He indicates how intertwined their development is with the community as they do so much more than simply build a building. It’s difficult to support the cost of such development projects without some sort of public/private partnership and in this case, the community development corporation benefits by Centric providing new and exciting accommodations to draw in foot traffic while Midwest Development Partners benefits from the shared costs and grant moneys provided to them.

Social and environmental benefit

The innovation benefits society by promoting sustainable community development in the University Circle neighborhood and vicinity for over a hundred years to come. The institutions in the area are growing and have already contributed to the development currently taking place in Uptown and beyond, with neighboring communities such as Midtown and Little Italy benefitting as well. There are other ancillary benefits to society and the environment due to the methods of construction and design of the building as well as updates to the surrounding infrastructure.

For example, they intend on these buildings lasting well into the future and as a result, use materials that are durable and will last. They have also incorporated design elements such as a sustainably irrigated courtyard that further benefits the environment. A significant part of the construction involves updating and improving the road system in the area, which Zac Ponsky cites as being directly attributed to the public/private partnership mentioned before. In summation, this sort of development project benefits society as a whole by contributing to the economic development of the region, which in recent years has helped to make Cleveland and the University Circle neighborhood an attraction for both residents and visitors alike.

Interviews

Zac Ponsky, Partner

Steve Rubin, Partner