Strings of twinkle lights dance in perfect Rockette rows over East Fourth Street. They hang like garland between buildings, creating a festive runway in the core of downtown. The night is rainy, but wetness coats the cobbled surface with a glossy finish, almost like a shiny postcard you'd send to a friend about this memorable little place in New York or Paris or Italy.
But we're in Cleveland.
And there's a contagious energy charging through that 425-foot-long alley of a street, which snakes between Prospect and Euclid avenues. There's a sense of urgency, in a way. Like you've accidentally discovered a treasure that you must drink in, celebrate.
"It's a different experience every time you visit — every time you walk down the street," says Ari Maron, a partner in MRN Ltd., a family-owned firm founded by his father, Rick Maron. MRN has gradually reclaimed nostalgic East Fourth Street and rehabilitated its historic buildings, luring in new life — attractive tenants like Lola, Pickwick & Frolic and The Corner Alley.
East Fourth Street is "eater-tainment" central.
There's no other like it. Not Baltimore's Inner Harbor, not New Orleans' Bourbon Street, and certainly not any lifestyle center plopped in suburbia, says Ron Lam, a partner in Los Angeles-based Trifecta Management Group (TMG), which designed The Corner Alley and Zocalo Mexican Grill & Tequileria concepts specifically for East Fourth Street.
"What is unique about East Fourth Street is that a single developer owns most of it, and [the Marons] did not build it from scratch," Lam says. "There is one vision, one thought. And for someone to take that vision from fairly abandoned, run-down buildings and create what is there today is quite amazing."
Maron says East Fourth Street simply caters to a demand.
"We're providing people with an experience that, frankly, they were already looking for," he says, relating that demographics backed up the investment.
There are 120,000 office workers within a five-minute walking distance of East Fourth. Gateway attracts a good 4.5 million people each year, Maron says. There are still 11 Fortune 500 companies based in Northeast Ohio. The metropolitan statistical area that bundles Cleveland, Akron and Canton — Cleveland+ as we know it today — is the sixth largest in the United States. The people are here. "There's something to this," Maron says.
The question was never: If we build it, will they come?
"Our feeling was, if you can build an environment and product that people feel comfortable in, there will be people who want to live in a walkable, urban area," Maron says.
The Maron family's vision of Cleveland as a vibrant urban setting drives the project's momentum. The neighborhood is an example of how existing infrastructure can be converted into a relevant, lively destination.
"The street is a city experience," describes Nick Kostis, owner of Pickwick & Frolic Restaurant and Show Bar. He suggests that a crowd of 100 people jammed onto the 40-foot-wide pedestrian byway would feel like a party in Times Square.
East Fourth embraces its wanderers. "We had to be a part of it," Kostis says simply.
Buying into the Block
Kostis didn't expect a complete regeneration of East Fourth Street when he decided to plant his novel entertainment complex there, which opened in 2002. "We were just looking for a home," he says.
The Regional Transit Authority had purchased the Warehouse District building Kostis leased for Hilarities, so he went in search of an appropriate backdrop for his new concept. "I didn't want to be just a comedy club," he says. "I wanted to be something that was fuller, and that experience had to start not at the front door, but at the street."
Revitalization of East Fourth Street occurred in baby steps. It started with one building, modest resources and a small crew of about 10 men, Maron describes. In 1994, when Rick Maron purchased the Buckeye Building on the corner of East Fourth Street and Prospect Avenue, the area was a red light district with throwback wig and costume shops that hinted at the street's theatrical history.
Rick and his crew renovated the Buckeye Building interior and carved out 36 apartments. Dennis Flannery opened his pub on the first level. The Indians pitched their opening season at Jacob's Field, and Gund Arena (now "The Q") was still a new home for the Cavaliers. "The Gateway neighborhood was looked at as the next area for development by virtue of those investments," Ari Maron says.
When the Buckeye Building was 75 percent occupied, enough to cover the debt service, Rick grew his investment by purchasing the Windsor Block on the corner of East Fourth Street and Euclid Avenue. With the addition of these four buildings, the crew expanded to 15 and by 1998, the building opened to residents.
Still, the street was not yet a neighborhood, Maron acknowledges. There was more crime than entertainment, more drug activity than retail business.
"Dad's vision was, ‘I'm going to do my building and this is a project I can take on,'" says Maron, who was in college at Rice University in Houston at the time.
By the time Maron graduated with a music degree in 2000 and joined the family business, Rick Maron began to consider purchasing the entire block. His two sons, Ari and Jori, became partners in the business. Ari found his niche in urban planning, and Jori applied his finance and accounting strengths to the business.
The Marons discussed ways to develop the entire neighborhood. They continued to invest in East Fourth Street, though it wasn't that easy.
You see, in the late 1800s, East Fourth Street consisted of Brooklyn-style brownstones — Euclid Avenue boasted mansions. "The city was growing like crazy," Maron relates. "This was the Industrial Age."
People decided to capitalize on their homes by leasing them to a developer, who would tear down the building and rebuild. "You can still look at the old parcel maps," says Maron, noting that under 2057 E. Fourth, where MRN offices are located, there were three parcels. "Because there were three homes at that time," he explains. "And those owners banded together and leased the buildings."
The Marons weren't simply buying seven buildings. There were 30 parcels and 250 property owners — MRN had to buy out all of them. This took seven years.
"Frankly, that's part of why East Fourth Street was developed by a small, family company at the time," Maron says. "The big developers didn't want to invest the time or sweat equity to go through all of that."
The other challenging piece of the project was maintaining the buildings' architectural integrity. "You couldn't recreate these buildings today if you wanted to," Maron remarks. "It's important that people feel a connection to the history of this city and their experience there today."
Nostalgia attracted Kostis, who compares East Fourth to old Short Vincent with its colorful characters and legendary watering holes. "East Fourth Street has a chance to recapture the spirit and liveliness, the vigor and vitality, the movement and action of Short Vincent," Kostis says.
Still, the first tenants were curious about who would buy into the street next. "We addressed things like parking and what are the sales going to be like," says Maron, pointing to Pickwick & Frolic's upper deck, which has been converted into a 400-car parking garage. East Fourth Street sales today are up compared to last year (the patios helped summer business) and better than comparable neighborhoods in other metropolitan areas. But Maron won't reveal how much better.
"As we added buildings and new apartments, the occupancy of the older buildings increased because we were starting to build a neighborhood," says Maron, singing the motto of developers: Retail follows rooftops.
And Kostis was optimistic before the numbers began climbing.
"We felt that the locale would be a place where we could invite people to experience the city again," he says, looking at a street that wasn't bright lights and bustling on weekend nights at the time. "If [the success] had not happened, we'd still be there. That it did, just fulfills the very hope and optimism we went there with."
Courting the Entertainers
Creating a unique experience requires attracting retailers, restaurateurs and investors who are committed to the vision: to create a "soul of the city" and offer a completely different product than other commercial centers like Crocker Park or Legacy Village.
What would draw people downtown? What would inspire those 1,200 office workers to stay downtown — even live there?
"We had to figure out our niche, and we found there was a market opportunity in food, beverage and entertainment, but it wasn't enough to just shove bars onto the street," Maron says. "They had to be destinations."
The suburban market is oversaturated with retail, he adds. Cleveland has 14 regional shopping centers. Pittsburgh has five. "We knew we couldn't compete with the suburbs," Maron says. "We knew we couldn't do deals with Gap and Express."
But a venue like Pickwick & Frolic fit the bill. "If you want that experience here, you have to come downtown, and there is nowhere else in the region where you can have that," Maron relates.
The House of Blues had not opened a venue for five years before signing on as an East Fourth Street tenant. "Baklava financing" — layering historic tax credit tools and tax increment financing to fund the $15 million project — along with cooperation from the city, helped usher the opportunity from discussions to a signed deal.
The venue draws music fans from a 175-mile radius, Maron points out. "We wanted to validate the [East Fourth] project for consumers by having certain brands they would recognize," he says.
And after House of Blues came Lola.
"We chased Michael Symon hard for years," Maron laughs. Again, if East Fourth Street was to pull in people, its offerings couldn't be comparable to what they can get closer to home. "Michael himself is a brand that people know and recognize, and Lola is a destination," Maron says simply.
Symon supports the vision. "He always got it. He's an urban guy," Maron remarks.
Timing had prevented Symon from making the move from Tremont sooner. MRN wanted the proven, intensely popular Lola, not a new restaurant. "Our biggest concern was closing out a restaurant in Tremont and re-concepting that," Symon acknowledges.
But casual Lolita fits better in the Tremont neighborhood anyway, he says. "We wanted to be in another area of Cleveland that was going through a gentrification process, much the same of when we opened Lola in Tremont," Symon says.
Like Kostis, Symon recognized a vibe on East Fourth. "The street took us away," he says. "It really has a New York feel to it."
Meanwhile, the Marons continued to cultivate the streetscape and infuse East Fourth Street with dynamic features like lights and quaint patios that would engage its visitors — enchant them.
"Some of that [individuality] is a legacy we had nothing to do with," says Maron, referencing turn-of-the-century storefront facades. "It's the legacy of the architecture."
Other features are imported from Maron's travels. The lights were inspired by Paris' fashion district. The outdoor patios are much like those on Mulberry Street in New York City. The way sidewalks are flush with the street, creating no barrier from the pedestrian byway to storefronts, comes from Venice, Italy.
Then, while touring the country looking for different concepts to add to East Fourth's playlist, the Marons met Ron Lam of TMG. Together, they designed The Corner Alley and Zocalo Mexican Grill & Tequileria, filling a need for a Mexican eatery/bar downtown.
Further expanding the palate, Terry Tarantino of Little Italy's La Dolce Vita introduced his Mediterranean restaurant called La Strada. Jimmy John's Sub Shop and Teresa's Pizza & Vino Dolce offer casual fare.
Along with these venues come the characters — the colorful, the interesting, the nostalgic. The now characters of Cleveland like Kostis and Tarantino and Symon. "These are the purveyors and operators, and you come down to East Fourth and you know them," Maron says.
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Retail & Rooftops
The Project: 500,000 square feet
the Street: 425 feet long, 40 feet wide
Apartments: 160 units (occupied)
66 units under construction
Retail: 90 percent occupied
'Play' List:
Flannery's Irish Pub
House of Blues
Jimmy John's Sub Shop
La Strada
Lola Bistro
Pickwick & Frolic Restaurant and Show Bar
Teresa's Pizza & Vino Dolce
The Bang and The Clatter Theater
The Corner Alley
Wonder Bar
Zocalo Mexican Grill & Tequileria
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Connecting to Tomorrow
The East Fourth project injected spirit into a small pocket of downtown, much as the Warehouse District has. Now the Marons hope the district will encourage other Cleveland neighborhoods to develop, and grow the critical mass of people living and playing in city limits.
"Hopefully, in 10 years we'll stop referring to the Warehouse District, East Fourth Street and Gateway and we'll look at all of this as our downtown historic district," Maron says.
"It's not a long walk," he adds, referring to the Euclid Corridor spine that will connect these neighborhoods.
Today, about five miles east of "the soul," MRN and Zaremba Homes are revitalizing another vital organ to Cleveland's economy with the Uptown project in University Circle. This involves rebuilding The Triangle on the corner of Euclid Avenue and Mayfield Road, and investing $120 million for mixed-use development in the city's fastest-growing area.
"The key is really similar to the East Fourth Street project," Maron relates. That is, leveraging existing infrastructure, rousing public interest and packaging together the new and old.
"There are so many assets in University Circle, but it needs a heart — something to tie it together," Maron says.
A heart and a soul. The city will fill in, eventually, Maron believes.
"It's already happening, you can see it," he says, his enthusiasm like a drug. You want to believe. This really is working.
Maron notes that Euclid Avenue investments clear $300 million, which will put about 1,500 jobs in the pocket between Ontario and East Ninth streets. There's Playhouse Square, Idea Center, a College Town in the works. There's the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals and their kingdoms. "So see, it's really already happening," he affirms.
As for East Fourth, the project is nearly complete but always evolving. "It's never done," Maron says. As the city develops, he expects demands for convenience outlets like grocery stores nearby.
But regardless of whether storefronts change or tenants come and go, East Fourth is always a different experience for people. Different acts perform at Pickwick & Frolic; different bands play at House of Blues.
Still, there is that sense of familiarity — a distinctly Cleveland experience that has blossomed beyond Maron's wildest dreams.
"It's all about that continuum," says Maron, referring to a connection between the street's vivid past and its fresh energy. "The history and what people remember is also part of the future, and they can see that future happening."
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editorial@inside-business.com)