Each month, Inside Business looks deeper into a number in the news to better understand how it affects Cleveland businesses or the local economy. This month, the indicator is:
Let’s call this number Akron 2.0 … that’s how residents rated the Rubber City’s aesthetics, using a three-point scale, in a recent Soul of the Community survey commissioned by the Knight Foundation.
Based on community passion and loyalty, the study identifies Summit and Portage counties’ abundance of parks and walking and bike trails as one of the region’s two major strengths. The other is education (1.94), specifically the area’s universities, which get higher marks than its public schools (2.16 to 1.74) in a Gallup Poll of more than 1,500 residents.
And maybe no one in the city believes more fervently than Akron developer Tony Troppe that the region’s beauty and knowledge can be combined to address what the survey identified as the city’s most critical opportunities, improving its social offerings (i.e., a vibrant nightlife) and its openness, a category that included retaining graduates from the University of Akron and Kent State University.
I encountered Troppe in downtown Akron not long ago. He was riding a bicycle through Maiden Lane, the jazzy arts district he has created at the intersection of Market and Main streets, the city’s long-dormant crossroads. Troppe’s renovated buildings are filled with two upscale restaurants, a coffee shop, a wine bar, art galleries and the Musica nightclub, which packs in crowds to see local and national bands.
It’s all just a short walk from $100 million in downtown Akron investments — including a renovated library and the ultra-chic Akron Art Museum. Just a bit farther away is the Towpath, Akron’s section of the 112 miles of bike-and-hike trails that will ultimately link Cleveland and Zoar, Ohio. Troppe is already developing single-family homes and condos nearby with his partners. “This is the city of the future,” he said, sitting on his bike atop a parking deck overlooking downtown.
The developer then stood up and gestured toward Akron’s Cadillac Hill, just west of downtown, where he had hoped the medical-school consortium NEOUCOM would build an expansion not far from the home where Thomas Edison was married. That’s not happening now, but Troppe remains undaunted. He turned toward the expanding University of Akron behind him, then south toward the top of his United Building, where a massive banner pronounces: “Knight Center of Digital Excellence for Akron.” That project will provide free wireless connectivity for 90,000 Akron residents and 30,000 downtown workers.
He mimics the unseen corridor that will link all of this and attract medical industry to the city. Maybe even Chinese investment. Phew!
“A Knowledge Center,” he said, speaking as if it were already a proper noun. “That’s what we’re building here.”
Then he got back on his bike and rode away.