The city of Cleveland and the nonprofit Site Readiness for Good Jobs Fund unveiled a new strategy Wednesday to counteract decades of industrial decline and loss of factory jobs in city neighborhoods.
The new project, called the Midline, aims to revive walk-to-work manufacturing jobs across a 350-acre swath of Cleveland’s neglected East Side extending roughly 1.5 miles southeast from East 55th Street and Euclid Avenue to Opportunity Corridor.
Details were released to Ideastream Public Media and other news outlets prior to the event.
The Midline vision calls for creating at least 1.5 million square feet of industrial and commercial space that would generate roughly 2,500 direct jobs within easy reach of transit and ultimately contribute $100 million in tax revenue for the city annually.
The city and the Site Readiness Fund didn’t announce any deals with specific companies. Instead, they described the event as the launch of a long-term strategy involving land assembly, environmental remediation and future recruitment of companies, with more information to come starting later this year.
“This is the new face of Cleveland,’’ Brad Whitehead, the inaugural managing director of the Site Readiness Fund, said in an interview before Wednesday’s announcement.
Read the entire piece by Steven Litt on The Midline website or Ideastream Public Media.