The Cleveland City Council held a prolonged committee meeting on August 13, 2025, addressing over two dozen ordinances spanning economic development, public safety, public health, human resources, and city planning. Key decisions included approval of a forgivable loan for the Famico's Foundation to redevelop a historic mixed-use building, transfer of land for the opportunity corridor, a new contract with the county for prisoner housing with an increased per diem, and a pilot program using automated technology for property condition surveys.
The following ordinances were approved unanimously or with minimal discussion:
We did have two pieces of economic development that we did not finalize before we go straight to the uh county piece, which is 723. Uh, first and foremost is the ordinance number eight nineteen dash 2025 by Council Members Cornwell, Harrison, and Griffin by Department of Request, an emergency ordinance authorizing the director of economic development to enter into a forgivable loan agreement with Famico's Foundation or its designee to provide economic development assistance to partially finance the acquisition and development of interior and exterior improvements at a mixed use building located at 1355 East 105th Street and other associated costs necessary to redevelop the property. Uh who's been working on this project as well as Mr. John Inalipo, executive director of the Famicos Foundation and Mr. Khalid Hawthorne, uh the director of real estate uh for the Famicos Foundation. Uh we are here today talking about 1355 East 15th Street, uh, wherein our department, and you can see a picture of that building up there. Uh, it's in a uh fairly deteriorated state. Uh, right. We are looking at investing a $500,000 forgivable loan of neighborhood transformation initiative funds. Uh, this is a project that is directly across the street uh from the Glenn Village project, so major investment that was made uh by the city of Cleveland there. It's actually kind of Caddy Corner from Glenn Village on the East 15th Street corridor. Uh, and we think that this is an extraordinarily important project to get this one brought back to life. It will have ground floor commercial space that'll be reactivated and then apartments above. Uh, I am going to hand it over to uh uh Mr. Analipo. This this property does have kind of a long story uh within the community. Um but again I'll hand it over to Mr. Analifo to talk uh let me go to talk a little more about their plans for the property. Thank you, Director. Council President members. Um this particular property, as uh the director said has a storied past. Um and we really do want to put it in good use because at the moment it's a nuisance in our neighborhood. We have people who have tried to call for demolition of it. But because of that storied past, which we all would like to forget, but not forget it by demo, but to remember it by doing something good with it. Um in 1984, a young lady 14 years old, Gloria Point Pointer, was murdered in this particular building. Um, and it took almost 20 years for the police to find out who did it. Um get him at last and send him to jail. Uh there has been French of Hars that wanted the building demoed. Um, I have worked with building and housing, Department of Economic Development for us to shift this building because the mother of the individual Ms. Pointer indicated that she didn't really want the building to be demoed. She would rather we save the building, put it to good use, and have a marker in the vicinity that will memorialize uh Gloria. And that is what we are trying to do so that um this money that we're getting from the city will help us accomplish that. I also want to add that that particular building is one of the two remaining storefronts on issue 105 between Whit Park and Superior Avenue. It's important for us also because actually we build all the houses, we build it in the neighborhood. People have asked us, but where should we go to get beer? Where should we go for entertainment? We don't. And this is one of the work for me because foundation is doing in our neighborhood. It's like if we don't do it, nobody will do it for us. I'm gonna hand over to Ms. Khalid Orton to uh talk more about the project. So this excuse me. This will be a uh 1.5 over for 1.5 million dollar investment into this into this corridor. Um as mentioned before, we've had uh been working on this corridor for a long time. Uh very from single family um duplexes we converted to single family homes and uh converted uh created live work spaces along 105 uh spaces for uh mixed use development. So this is next step in line, but then it's you know, one of the many steps in line that we've uh we've worked on, been working uh working on in this corridor. Um we have the so one the idea is that we want to restore, we want to restore the past here that where this was a thriving street, a thriving corridor. Um we talked, I think Glenn Village was mentioned earlier. Um the things that Glenn Village is missing is a critical mass. Uh critical mass and um addition people knowing that that it's there as we continue building out this corridor, uh people will know it's there, they will come.