A new value is being ascribed to vacant land in Cleveland's effort to burnish its brand beyond moribund post-industrial dumping ground to a green city on a blue lake. Here’s how the framers of this vision are setting the stage for vacant land reuse efforts which will take the spotlight at the National Vacant Properties Conference in Cleveland in October:

During the last four years, The Council of Smaller Enterprises (COSE) rolled out a slew of energy savings programs. And while some early birds are feeding, hundreds of small businesses who may starve in this recession have shied away.

That concerns Nicole Stika, COSE’s Energy Program director.

“We’re providing a whole suite of products that think beyond paying utility bills,” she says. “The businesses that are doing something are already into sustainability. They’re the early adopters.”

She’s referring to the slow-to-launch Green Plus a program where businesses can get an evaluation of their energy use and develop a plan to reduce it. They have access to an online system developed in North Carolina’s Research Triangle, and hands-on assistance from an MBA student.

So far, a dozen companies have plunked down the $350 to participate in Green Plus (two companies—LubeStop and Taylor Companies—have been certified).

“If the ROI (return on investment) is not less than 12 months, it’s hard for the small business. Changing behaviors is our struggle.”

Stika’s strategy involves constant reinforcement and targeted messaging. She remains optimistic that business owners who take a minute from their hectic schedule to hear about the programs, will eventually flock.

“As Ohio’s energy efficiency mandate gets steep enough, the businesses that use a lot of energy—such as restaurants and cold storage—will be first to take advantage,” she predicts. 

• Sustainable transportation advocates took a break from dissecting ODOT’s haughty view on the Innerbelt Bridge to serve cake—Marie Antoinette-style—to remind Clevelanders that if you live without a car (25% of the population) or want to ride a bike, you are a peasant in the minds of those who design roads in Ohio.
• Thumb your nose at creativity and the experts you’re paying millions to design our Innerbelt Bridge? It’s why ODOT is “stuck in reverse” ClevelandBikes’ Kevin Cronin eloquently states in this PD column.
• Tired of being treated like a second class citizen by ODOT? Come celebrate a new vision for "complete streets" on September 17 at Progressive Field—we'll party down in the market pavilion (inside the park, Gate C, E. 9th Street side) with local bands, discounts on beer and dogs and a chance to socialize with local sustainable transportation advocates.

• Case kicks off its Year of Water today with a Convocation address from environmental journalist Elizabeth Royte. Royte investigates the bottled water phenomenon—and the environmental and social implications of the multi-billion dollar industry behind it—in the university-wide Common Reading selection, Bottlemania.
• By now, most of us have heard of the Pacific junk gyre, a swirling soup of plastic the size of Texas. But truth be told, no amount of railing and chest beating is going to be as effective in telling the story as American director Ramin Bahrani’s short film, Plastic Bag. It’s an emotional triumph—supplying both release and a strengthening of resolve in the face of a global tragedy.

ReImagine a Greater Cleveland keeps the city’s deep thinkers and land-based technical experts concentrating on how to restore ecological and economic function to 3,300 vacant parcels in Cleveland (and more in the suburbs). At what was intended to be the final steering committee meeting last week, Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative (CUDC) Director Terry Schwarz revealed some of the proposed “catalytic” projects that could offer proof of concept for the ReImagine study, Pattern Book and work groups, which worked for more than a year establishing a new framework for reusing vacant land. The Cleveland Foundation has committed to funding conceptual designs for two-four projects from the ReImagine initiative.  

As they continue to bear down on the most effective way to translate this vision into a few projects, what’s under the microscope seems to fall into a two categories: those that catalyze existing projects and assets and those that create a wholly new opportunity.

Neighborhood Progress Inc. Senior Planner Bobbi Reichtell—who championed this project with Schwarz and the committee—commented that the goal should be to improve the lives of those struggling with the negative impacts of vacancy.

At noon today (August 18), citizens seeking access for all on the new Innerbelt Bridge will help Clevelanders celebrate the 51st birthday of the current, already decrepit, bridge by handing out pieces of cake on Public Square; at the Westside Market, and in the Tremont neighborhood.

Their message is:

Just as Queen Marie Antoinette is said to have replied 'why don't they just eat cake?' when told that the peasants were protesting their lack of bread, The Ohio Department of Transportation is saying 'why don't they just drive cars?' when confronted with the hundreds of citizens, scores of business leaders, and several brave politicians who have asked that this $500,000,000 bridge connecting two of our densest, most pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods, is built with a sidewalk.

And, save the date: if you'd like to see Cleveland with more active transportation options plan on attending a major event downtown on Friday, September 17—the date the bridge contract is to be awarded, to showcase the need for better public planning and policy for active transportation.

The Sept. 17th event will focus on celebrating the area's growing Complete Streets movement, which holds that ALL streets be built to safely and conveniently accommodate all citizens—including seniors, children, and people with disabilities, as well as those who walk, bicycle, or rely on public transit; whether by necessity, or by choice.

Get your cake (and eat it too) today at the following locations:

Case has started installing energy-saving LED lights in 250 fixtures on campus as part of its plan to fulfill the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment. The university says the bulbs will save $19,000 a year, but costs are reportedly $3.2M. LEDs are expensive, however, the manufacturers claim they'll last 25,000-50,000 hours. The first lifecycle study of LEDs from Carnegie-Mellon shows            that they are better for the environment and will presumably "pay back” Case. As costs for energy rise, the payback period for LED lights may get shorter, especially if Case’s power bill goes up in the future with its producer, the Medical Center Company, agreeing to move beyond dirty coal to a cleaner alternative.   

Last week we reported about the NEO Food Web, a new effort to close the local food gap. This week, the group posted a bunch of videos that explore those gaps further and look at an emerging opportunity in a local sustainable economy (we like Sudhir’s line that sustainability is messy, and add, it can look pretty in the end). The videos include:

How did Shearer’s—a relatively small player in its field—come to build the first snack manufacturing facility with a LEED-Platinum rating? The answer can be found in the inversion of what Shearer’s peers see as an exorbitant but necessary cost of doing business: energy. The reason only three other manufacturers globally have a LEED-Platinum facility is where energy is consumed.

“The lion’s share, some 80% of our energy, is used out on the (production) floor,” Shearer’s Sustainability Manager Scott Weyandt explained to a group wearing hair nets, goggles and Walkman-style audio gear that he was leading past a conveyor belt of tortilla chips to the main attraction: The tortilla oven. It was Shearer’s idea to build a new one that could do double duty, both bake the sweet corn masa cakes and capture heat that can be reused to warm the building and the water for boiling corn and potatoes. But that’s only part of what explains why Shearer’s and not another. It begins with CEO Bob Shearer who was able to invert a big number like 80% into an opportunity.

“These guys just threw every assumption out and said ‘we’re not going to just get to the minimum necessary,” said LEED founder Robert Watson who flew in to attend the Shearer’s ribbon cutting. “When they found that the building envelope accounts for only eight percent of their energy, they could have given up right there. But they have a CEO who walks the talk, who sees the giant kettles as space heaters and started from there.”

As the ReImagine a Greater Cleveland initiative looks for a natural response to the blight of vacant land, the leading, city-scale model for short-term ‘stabilization’ being discussed at a recent meeting was Philadelphia Green, a city program that has put in holding 7 million sq. ft. of vacant land by installing split-rail fences and lawns. The ReImagine effort is exploring how to do this in Cleveland, but with low-mow grass to reduce the city's annual $3 million maintenance bill. More compelling is the small scale but large impact model developed on the other end of the state by G-Tech, a 7-employee start up of two Carnegie-Mellon grads. The Pittsburgh company is gaining attention with its simply elegant solution of hiring city kids to plant sunflowers on empty lots. This summer, they covered 15 burned out parcels in bright yellow, started a partnership to test sunflower seeds for biofuel and participated in greening a large public housing property. More.

Local food is all the rage, but how can Northeast Ohio build that into a sustainable economy? A coalition has formed to look at gaps in what they call the “food value chain”—a new business model where buyers and producers intentionally work together to make local food widely available at affordable prices.

The Northeast Ohio Local Food Assessment, funded by the ReImagine a Greater Cleveland initiative, is looking at the economic impact of shifting 25% to local, sustainably grown food. Brad Masi, director of the New Agrarian Center; Leslie Schaller, director of Athens, Ohio based nonprofit ACE-Net, which formed a local food business incubator; and Michael Shuman, co-founder and director for research and public policy for the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) were hired to do the study.

Shuman, an economist, used the Minnesota Input-Out Multiplier Model (IMPLAN) to show that a 25% shift to local food would create 27,000 jobs, $723 million in earnings and $126 million in state and local taxes a year. The breakdown of jobs includes: