CLEVELAND, Ohio — It’s a new year with new goals for downtown Cleveland.
In 2017, Downtown Cleveland Alliance set a goal for 20,000 residents by 2020. Now that the time is here, 3News followed up to find out if the goal has been achieved.
“We’re just under 19,000 residents, but over the course of the year we’re going to add over a thousand apartments on Euclid Avenue alone,” explains Michael Deemer, Executive Vice President for Business Development at Downtown Cleveland Alliance.
He says filling those apartments will carry the number to more than 20,000 by the end of the year, which is an important number for national retailers.
“National retailers looking at downtowns across the country really want to see 20,000 residents within walking distance in a central business district and as we progress across 2020 we’re going to hit that goal."
According to Deemer, Euclid Avenue (which he calls downtown Cleveland’s historic main street) is going to be largely complete between Public Square and Playhouse Square with RTA’s HealthLine, pedestrian improvements and twenty apartment buildings along the stretch.
“To a lot of folks, hitting 20,000 residents this year may feel like it came out of nowhere but it’s taken a lot of time, a lot of hard work to get us there but we’re looking forward to celebrating later this year.”
Deemer says the next big goal is 30,000 residents by 2030.
