As a part of his State of Downtown at the City Club last month, Michael Deemer, president and CEO of Downtown Cleveland Alliance (DCA), outlined a three-part strategy to keep the downtown on a growth track. It involves enhancing the quality of life and pedestrian experience, restoring downtown’s vibrancy and “going back on offense in attracting new businesses.”
Enhancing the quality of life starts with creating a clean and safe environment for residents, workers and visitors alike.
“We will be focusing on increasing the visibility and responsiveness of our ambassadors,” said Deemer. “We are going to build on the success of our co-responder pilot project with Medworks to make sure downtown is a model for connecting people experiencing homelessness or crises related to mental health or addiction.”
Restoring downtown’s vibrancy means making it an exciting place to be.
“That begins with bringing workers back downtown,” said Deemer. “We’re doing everything in our power at DCA to encourage that — whether it means encouraging people to get vaccinated or working with employers to identify best practices or how to communicate with their teams to make them want to come back to the office.
“We also know that in order to be successful in restoring downtown as a favorite place, we need to make our downtown a place that people love to be. We need to make it a place that inspires people to choose downtown over dull virtual experiences and 2D ‘Zoom fatigue.’”
How will DCA do that?
“We are going to animate downtown streets, parks and public spaces with arts, activities and energy,” answered Deemer.
In the third part of the strategy,
“We are going to collaborate with our strategic partners to communicate with business leaders, entrepreneurs and
investors why Downtown Cleveland
is a great place to grow a business,” said Deemer.
That will be accomplished by combining data analysis and design into a compelling narrative to show the real story of Downtown Cleveland and all it has to offer.
“Over the course of the summer, we have collaborated with TeamNEO in launching an office attraction marketing project that was focused on the Erieview Historic District,” said Deemer. “We also launched a pilot project for retail attraction that was focused on Euclid Avenue. We’re going to build on those strategies and take them across downtown, and work with partners to attract more businesses, more retail growth for downtown.
“That’s how we will confront the pandemic, and that’s what we will prioritize over the course of the next year.”