A happy accident happened in Gordon Square — and it led to a new row of LGBTQ+ focused businesses.
Last year, Bridget Kent Márquez, executive director of Northwest Neighborhoods, Gordon Square's community development corporation, envisioned enlivening a hallway in the Gordon Square arcade building that held some empty office spaces. Márquez briefly mentioned their vision to Amanda Cole, executive director of Plexus LGBT + Allied Chamber of Commerce, at lunch. Cole’s connections, combined with Plexus touring an office space, and two other organizations already calling the hallway home, all came together to create a new vibe inside the spacious building located at 6516 Detroit Ave.
The row now features Nueva Luz Urban Resource Center, Cleveland Sex Therapy, Plexus and The Buckeye Flame.
How was it all possible? Cole and Ken Schneck, editor of The Buckeye Flame, credit Márquez and the team at Northwest Neighborhoods for the community and values they have fostered at Gordon Square.
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“The fact that Northwest Neighborhoods places an effort on making sure that not only is there affordable housing, but that they have diverse businesses, they're supporting diverse business owners, and they want to make sure with rainbow flags and rainbow decals and attracting queer-owned businesses that Gordon Square is a vibrant place to live and work,” Cole told Cleveland Magazine.
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With this row, Márquez, Cole and Schneck emphasized the importance of having a hub like this for the LGBTQ+ community in Greater Cleveland. It provides LGBT-owned and allied businesses and organizations an area to support and collaborate.
More importantly, it creates an area where LGBTQ+ people can feel safe, supported, welcomed and proud: aspects that Márquez believes all humans need and deserve. These are also the reasons that drive her and her team to continue building a place anyone can thrive.
​”To be able to have a community that supports you, that's welcoming, that's proud,” Márquez says, “I think all humans need that and deserve that, and having those spaces be right here is something that I think evermore makes what we are doing as a community development organization worth it day in and day out.”
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At Gordon Square, history runs deep, but a new chapter is being written, and the new cluster of businesses will add to it. Since 2000, the LGBT Center of Greater Cleveland has been in Gordon Square in one location or another. Near West Theater has hosted a Drag Queen story hour since 2019. The Druzy Dreamer is an LGBTQ-owned business that has been in Gordon Square since 2022. Other Gordon Square businesses are Plexus members, which Cole hopes more will become.
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Schneck feels this row shows the public an inspiring concentration of LGBTQ+ energy — something that's rarely seen in Northeast Ohio.
“For the public to be able to see this inspiring concentration of queer energy, that queer energy has nothing to do with nightlife,” Schneck says. “The idea of an LGBTQ incubator where all of these different businesses and organizations are both aware of and supporting each other is something you might see in larger cities. And to see it in Cleveland is really encouraging.”
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