20120109-NEWS--1-NAT-CCI-CL_-- 1/6/2012 4:06 PM Page 1 $2.00/JANUARY 9 - 15, 2012 FitzGerald to put his stamp on MetroHealth County boss faces new board appointments, CEO choice head on WHO’S COMING AND GOING? A look at MetroHealth’s trustees Appointed: 2005/Ends: 2016 By TIMOTHY MAGAW Over the next two years, Mr. he and other county officials will and when their terms expire: ■ John M. Moss [email protected] FitzGerald plans to replace three be, as he put it in an interview with ■ Polly H. Clemo Appointed: 2010/Ends: 2016 members whose terms are expiring Crain’s Cleveland Business, “con- Appointed: 1995/Ends: 2015 ■ Donna Kelly Rego A changing of the guard is in on the 10-member board of trustees sultative” partners in the nation- ■ Ronald Fountain, chairman Appointed: 1983/Ends: 2013 store for the leadership at the hard- for the county-subsidized health wide search for the replacement for Appointed: 1997/Ends: 2013 ■ J. B. Silvers pressed, 175-year-old MetroHealth system. Those appointments would MetroHealth CEO Mark Moran, ■ William Gaskill, vice chairman Appointed: 2011/Ends: 2017 System, and Cuyahoga County be on top of the two picks Mr. who announced last month he Appointed: 1980/Ends: 2012 ■ Charles Spain Jr. Executive Ed FitzGerald is likely to FitzGerald has made since taking would step down from the post once ■ Thomas M. McDonald Appointed: 1990/Ends: 2014 have his fingerprints all over the office last year. the board named his successor. Appointed: 2008/Ends: 2014 ■ Vanessa L. Whiting transition. Mr. FitzGerald also expects that See METRO Page 17 ■ Terry Monnolly Appointed: 2011/Ends: 2017 Former JumpStart aide joins chorus of nonprofit critics AxioMed co-founder takes issue with group’s board makeup, staffing By CHUCK SODER [email protected] A former employee of JumpStart Inc. has joined the critics of JumpStart. Chuck Birchall Jr., co-founder of AxioMed Spine Corp. of Garfield Heights, last week sent JumpStart a six-page-long list of criticisms and recommendations regarding how the Cleveland-based nonprofit that assists and invests in young companies could save money and provide better services to entre- JANET CENTURY PHOTOS preneurs. ABOVE: Karl West, director of the Cleveland Clinic’s Medical Device Solutions unit, runs the hospital system’s mechanical prototype shop. Mr. Birchall, who spent more than BELOW: Mr. West holds an aortic valve with calcification created by the shop’s Connex 3D printer. Birchall three years as an entrepreneur- in-residence at JumpStart before the By DAN SHINGLER nonprofit eliminated his position about a year ago, is one [email protected] of a handful of local entrepreneurs who have criticized THE JumpStart publicly over the past year. However, he is the urgeons and other doctors who See JUMPSTART Page 4 perform miracles get most of the limelight at the Cleveland Clinic, OTHER but in the basement of its main INSIDE Scampus, a crew of machinists, fabricators, engineers and researchers does impressive Westlake may change water works MR. FIX-IT work, too — though mostly on steel and Cleveland is butting heads with the western suburb as it plastic, as well as the occasional human considers leaving the city’s water system. PAGE 3 body part. Unknown to most, the world-renowned ALSO: Out of view of patients, hospital and research institution has a full ■ Energizer’s local unit is making more machine shop and other manufacturing- consumer products. PAGE 6 docs, Clinic shop allows related rooms housed below its medical ■ Cohen & Co. takes more space for buildings near University Circle. The shop growth. PAGE 7 for tool rehab, new idea gives the Clinic the ability not only to make, modify and repair tools for its own development See FIX Page 8 SPECIAL SECTION 02 6 SMALL BUSINESS NEWSPAPER Exploring the benefits and potential pitfalls of Entire contents © 2012 74470 01032 business partnerships ■ Page 13 by Crain Communications Inc. Vol. 33, No. 2 0 PLUS: GETTING AHEAD ■ TAX TIPS ■ ADVISER ■ & MORE 20120109-NEWS--2-NAT-CCI-CL_-- 1/6/2012 1:11 PM Page 1 Can we ever thank you enough? (We hope not.) Once again, for the third year in a row, we want to say ‘thank you’ for making us the #1 volume Mercedes-Benz dealer in the Central United States. We’ll continue to earn your business by finding you just the Mercedes-Benz you want when you want it and offering exceptional service that includes pick-up and drop-off wherever you are. We can’t thank you enough for your continuing trust in us. The #1 Volume Mercedes-Benz Dealer in the Central U.S.† Mercedes-Benz of North Olmsted 28450 Lorain Road • 855-218-1285 • www.mbohio.com †Based on MBUSA YTD regional sales results 12/31/11. Mercedes-Benz of North Olmsted Lorain Rd. GREAT NORTHERN MALL 71 Stearns Rd. Great Northern Blvd. Clague Rd. 480 AIRPORT 28450 Lorain Road 10 minutes from the Airport 5 minutes from Crocker Park 20120109-NEWS--3-NAT-CCI-CL_-- 1/6/2012 4:05 PM Page 1 JANUARY 9 - 15, 2012 WWW.CRAINSCLEVELAND.COM CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS 3 Industrial INSIGHT Pressure real estate rising in vacancies Westlake inch down water war Office market, though, sees slight uptick Cleveland disputing By STAN BULLARD west ’burb’s estimate [email protected] on costliness of exit Flat. Despite big events that ranged By JAY MILLER from the sale of the closed Chrysler [email protected] stamping plant in Twinsburg to companies gobbling up large chunks The city of Cleveland is raising the of space at the 200 Public Square stakes as it watches the city of Westlake office building in downtown Cleve- move to disconnect its water hose from land, that one word sums up the con- Cleveland’s spigot and re-connect to Avon Lake. dition of Northeast Ohio’s industrial THE UNIVERSITY OF AKRON Cleveland is casting doubt on the and office markets in 2011 versus The University of Akron plans to extend its public-private partnership strategy for upgrading its residence halls — financial and engineering estimates the 2010. like it did at its Exchange Street project, above — to its academic buildings. The interior of Leigh Hall western suburb is relying on to substan- Such is the picture gained from (below), a 1940s-era building, already has been renovated with state-of-the-art classrooms and equipment. Grubb & Ellis Co.’s just-released tiate its plan to switch water suppliers. report on those two markets. It’s also raising legal issues that, if For the first time in three years, sustained, would add substantially to the report shows, vacancy declined in Westlake’s cost of a move. Northeast Ohio’s industrial market, A departure would be a blow to to 11.9% as of year-end 2011 from DEVELOPMENT, Cleveland’s Division of Water, which 12.8% at the end of 2010. By contrast, has excess capacity in its system and is the vacancy rate of the office market working to overcome critical customer inched upward, to 21.9% at the end DESPITE DEBT service failures that angered public of 2011 from 21.6% a year earlier. officials and residents across the 70 Much of the progress on the communities it serves. industrial front came In lieu of borrowing, University of Akron hopes to expand recent Westlake has been mulling a switch INSIDE: A from a shrinkage of since at least 2008, when the city of closer look the market due to spate of public-private deals to continue on-campus momentum Cleveland announced a four-year rate at Grubb and demolition of mas- increase phase-in that would boost the Ellis statistics. sive old factories. By TIMOTHY MAGAW years given the school’s lofty debt cost of water 35%. In addition, its resi- Page 16 That space was all [email protected] load — about $425 million — and its dents have complained about botched empty, so it ac- desire to continue to build to accom- billing and poor repair service. counted for a sizable amount of the he University of Akron isn’t modate further enrollment growth. In a telephone interview last Wednes- 7% drop in vacant industrial space, going to let a steep pile of “We don’t want to lose that day, Jan. 4, Westlake Mayor Dennis to 36 million square feet at the end of debt stop the school from momentum, and we have others Clough said his city also would like 2011 from 39 million a year earlier. continuing to develop its trying to catch us because they see water mains replaced or rehabilitated However, due to the industrial Tcampus and the blighted areas our formula is working,” said Ted when Westlake makes major repairs of market’s massive size, Grubb & Ellis surrounding it, as it plans to use Curtis, the university’s vice president streets. He’s annoyed when a freshly reports the amount of rentable other people’s money to make cap- for capital planning and facilities. repaired street is torn up after a water industrial space was down a little ital investments happen. “There’s a point in borrowing where line breaks. Cleveland’s Division of less than 1%, to 301 million square The university has dabbled in the we still have the demand, but you run Water, like most utilities, is reluctant to feet from 303 million. public-private partnership arena in out of funds, so now we’re leaning replace equipment before the end of its A pickup in industrial property the past to finance capital projects, heavily toward public-private part- useful life. transactions last year along with the but administrators expect the number nerships.” The tentative plan is for Westlake to smaller size of the market combined of such deals to ramp up in coming See DEBT Page 7 buy water wholesale from Avon Lake.