Cleveland Neighborhood Progress outlines pilot to renovate ‘middle neighborhoods’ and spur market investment

Cleveland Neighborhood Progress on Thursday presented a pilot program to the Select Committee on Housing aimed at restoring older, single‑family "middle neighborhoods" through concentrated home renovations and commercial corridor improvements.

"Middle neighborhoods" are, the group's CEO said, areas of mostly single‑family housing with aging stock and walkable commercial districts that have lost market momentum. "If we're not reinvesting in these neighborhoods, they're generally at a tipping point," Tanya Menas, CEO and president of Cleveland Neighborhood Progress, said in the committee presentation.

Menas described a two‑pronged strategy: targeted residential rehabs clustered tightly in a neighborhood to close the appraisal gap and encourage banks and homeowners to reengage, and parallel investments on the adjacent commercial corridor (storefront white‑boxing, parklets, match grants) to make neighborhoods attractive to residents and small businesses.

Casey Petritis, introduced by Menas as vice president of real estate, told the committee the program seeks concentrated impact. He said the group aims to complete dozens of renovations in focused blocks to demonstrate regular sales at targeted price points and thereby attract private market follow‑on investment. "We want to demonstrate that with not just 1 or 2 properties, but really about 50 to 75 home renovations within these neighborhoods," Petritis said.

Kimberly Hurt, lead of the neighborhood program, walked the committee through a completed North Collinwood project on Muskoka Street. Hurt said the team purchased the house for about $85,000 and spent roughly $330,000 in total development costs to convert an underused 2‑bed house into a 3‑bed, upgraded home with new mechanicals and finishes. "Our program is designed to take a loss," Hurt said. "We are expected to take about a $70,000 loss on the home," a deliberate upfront subsidy, she added, intended to raise surrounding market values.

When a committee member asked about funding, Menas said the pilot is supported by a $3,000,000 grant from the state of Ohio (from the latest general operating budget) and a $7,200,000 investment from the city of Cleveland. Menas said the model is not intended as an affordable‑housing program but as a market‑priming intervention to retain and attract residents who otherwise would move to suburbs.

Presenters emphasized partnerships with local community development corporations, land banks and nonprofit housing organizations (including CHN Housing Partners and Habitat for Humanity) to source properties and coordinate work. Menas also contrasted the Cleveland approach with national tools such as the National Community Stabilization Trust, saying the city’s Neighborhood Development Index uses 18 place‑based, non‑demographic criteria to target blocks where a limited number of renovations can shift a neighborhood’s trajectory.

Committee members asked whether the approach could be applied in other Ohio cities; Menas said the group believes the model translates to places such as Canton and Euclid and invited legislators to provide maps of candidate neighborhoods in their districts.

The presenters offered to follow up with committee members on program details and potential partnerships. No formal committee action or vote occurred during the presentation.

Next steps described by Cleveland Neighborhood Progress include continuing concentrated renovations in Cleveland, pairing residential work with commercial corridor grants, and exploring integration with other housing programs to evolve toward a mixed‑income approach over time.