Last updated : December 23, 2024
Cleveland may be on the verge of a comeback. This is no doubt welcome news to a city that saw more than its share of bad news during the past few decades. When the national economy was good, Cleveland reaped fair to middling gains at best. A downturn in the national economy hit the city with a disproportionately large number of job losses. Given those conditions, the metro area has been unable to gain traction.
According to a recent study by a group of Wells Fargo economists, a number of encouraging developments on the ground indicate that may be changing.
Cleveland Cavaliers/Quicken Loans Arena
NBA star LeBron James is coming back to the Cleveland Cavaliers. Between the additional staff that will be needed at Quicken Loans Arena, increased ticket sales, and a bump in business at local bars, restaurants, and hotels, King James’s return is expected to boost the city’s “LeConomics” by an estimated $500 million.
While each of the above-mentioned developments will undoubtedly deliver its share of fiscal benefits, a more solid foundation for Cleveland’s comeback is being laid by local companies whose vision extends beyond making the next buck, beyond taking care of Number One, to improving conditions not only the city, but in the world at large.
Cleveland Clinic
Fittingly enough, the Cleveland Clinic—long recognized as a leader in biomedicine—lies at the heart of the city’s resurgence. With an eye toward enhancing Cleveland’s already existing reputation as a national healthcare hub, the Clinic recently joined hands with Case Western Reserve University to break ground for a $515 million Health Education Campus. By housing the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine together with Case Western Reserve University’s School of Medicine, School of Dental Medicine and Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing under one roof, the Campus will potentially attract new residents to the city’s Greater University Circle.
That’s a definite bonus, but the new facilities promise to provide even greater benefits by forming teams that work together to streamline healthcare to more effectively address its complex and complicated challenges. Developing expert teams and pairing them with cutting-edge technology provided by Microsoft and IBM will create a global resource, making the Campus a world leader in healthcare. In turn, that reputation will attract top talent from other countries.
With its global vision and renewed, perhaps unprecedented, emphasis on cutting-edge technology, the Clinic has either spawned and/or formed partnerships with a handful of other fast-rising companies, businesses that are already contributing to Cleveland’s economic upswing by creating jobs now, while positioning themselves, and the city, for future growth.
Lubrizol
Lubrizol, for example—a technology-driven global manufacturer of engineered polymers—recently partnered with the Cleveland Clinic’s commercial division, Cleveland Clinic Innovations, with an eye to accelerating the development of breakthrough medical devices and pharmaceuticals. In keeping with its globalization efforts, Lubrizol also partners with local universities to actively recruit foreign talent from a wide range of disciplines, expanding Cleveland’s talent base in the process.
Cleveland HeartLab
After considerable research, the CEO of Cleveland HeartLab—a company that develops technologies to test for heart disease and a Clinic partner tasked with transforming Clinic innovations into workable, not to mention profitable, medical products—decided to base his outfit in the city’s rapidly growing 1,600-acre Health-Tech Corridor. The Corridor, already home to more than 130 biomedical and technology companies, is a hive of the bioscience trade that promises to be a key player in Cleveland’s recovery. Recognizing bio science’s value in economic diversification—a diversification that can cushion Northeast Ohio from future setbacks in the manufacturing sector—the city is constructing a $465 million, 235,00-square-foot Global Center for Health Innovation—as a commercial site for the medical industry and a gathering place for healthcare professionals.
Explorys
Cleveland Clinic spin-offs include healthcare-data provider Explorys, an up-and-coming company currently staffed by 85 sharp, young techies. Explorys offers a Google-esque search engine to doctors and researchers, allowing them to scan millions of anonymous patient records for disease patterns and treatment outcomes. Their brand of service, the ability to offer “big data”, holds big promise—not only for the medical industry, but for Cleveland’s chance to gain a step up in the emerging (and highly profitable) field of information analytics.
Bottom line, business as usual is rapidly changing for the better in Cleveland. As the city develops a more global vision and encourages a spirit of innovation, as spin-off companies rapidly identify and fill emerging niche markets and the city’s pool of top talent continues to deepen and broaden—a positive snowball effect seems more than possible.
Manufacturing Industry
Welcome improvements in the automobile and steel industries have birthed a reemergence in the area’s historically important manufacturing sector, netting Cleveland a 1.1 percent hiring increase. The site selection consultants of Team Northeast Ohio (Team NEO) enticed 16 new or expanded operations to the area, including, among others, Nestle USA, Six C Fabrications, Pepperidge Farm, and Cristal USA—providing Cleveland with a stable underpinning of well-paying factory jobs.
Republican National Convention
The 2016 Republican National Convention and a relative resurgence in tourism has spurred an increase in hotel construction, a trend that lends credence to the assumption that investors are betting on Cleveland long-term, rather than simply for the duration of the convention.
