Abstract

Bruce Higley discusses the Albert M. Higley Co. and its involvement in Cleveland and the city's Midtown Corridor. Over the past eighty two years (as of interview date) the Albert M. Higley Co. has built many of Cleveland's buildings; most notably the Cleveland Coast Guard Station, the Greyhound Bus Station, and the Red Cross Building. The company has also been involved in many of the buildings at Cleveland State University, Case Western Reserve University, and the Cleveland Clinic. Mr. Higley discusses the changing needs in Cleveland over the years, and describes how the Albert Higley Company has tried to meet those changing demands. He mentions the re-building of Cleveland State University, how it will affect the city, and how to establish residential housing around the University. Other topics include his personal thoughts on bringing companies into the city, regionalism, and the challenges Cleveland must meet in order to make the city a better place (infrastructure, business opportunities, and roadways).

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Interviewee

Higley, Bruce (interviewee)

Interviewer

Calder, James (interviewer)

Project

Midtown Cleveland

Date

7-24-2007

Document Type

Oral History

Duration

41 minutes

Transcript

James Calder [00:00:00] …talk about whatever we want, really. All right. If you want to introduce yourself, that would be great. Just your name and the date or anything you wanna do.

Bruce Higley [00:00:09] Okay. My name is Bruce Higley. Today’s July 24, 2007, and I work with the Albert M. Higley Company at 30th and Chester in Cleveland.

James Calder [00:00:20] Okay, excellent. Obviously, these interviews are focused loosely around the Midtown Corridor.

Bruce Higley [00:00:30] Right.

James Calder [00:00:31] What is your connection with Midtown? The neighborhood, the corridor, the community organization, any of that?

Bruce Higley [00:00:37] Okay, well, we’ve been located in the Midtown Corridor since 1967, this is our second office. And we have been involved with Midtown in a few different ways. We have built some of the buildings, buildings within Midtown over the years, ranging from the Red Cross building on approximately 37th and Euclid to renovation of some of the historic buildings such as the Victory Building within Midtown and some of the other buildings. So we’ve had a business relationship from that standpoint. And we also, as a corporation, have had people who have sat on the board or currently sit on the board of Midtown Corridor. So sort of a mixed involvement.

James Calder [00:01:21] So this is the second office. Where was the first office?

Bruce Higley [00:01:2y] From 1925 until 1967 we were located at East 22nd Street, basically between Euclid and Carnegie. And it is where currently Viking Hall sits. And we were sort of forced out of there, as they were at the time, building a Holiday Inn. And that’s what that building originally was that is now Viking Hall is a Holiday Inn. So at that time, we wanted to stay in the same geographic area that we were and found this building at 2926 Chester and have been there ever since.

James Calder [00:02:03] How was- When the company moved in, how was the neighborhood at that point?

Bruce Higley [00:02:13] You know, I wasn’t there myself in ’67. I think that certainly since we’ve been at this location for the last 40 years, we have seen a combination of upturns and probably some downturns as well. In fact, I was talking with a lady upstairs waiting this morning, and we were sort of talking about how Prospect Avenue in the Midtown area has seen certainly some more challenging days than what we currently have today. And certainly, I think in general, that the whole Prospect area, and hopefully now Euclid, with the Euclid Silver Line work that’s taking place, we’ll see a similar upturn to that, that we’ve seen on Prospect.

James Calder [00:02:55] Yeah, definitely. Can you go into it? I mean, the impressions. A lot of people have impressions of Prospect Avenue around Cleveland. You know, how was that? And you said your building’s on Chester?

Bruce Higley [00:03:09] Yeah, we’re actually on Chester, the corner of Chester on 30th.

James Calder [00:03:13] But that’s still sort of, you know, the same area. What were the impressions? How is that affecting, I guess, the general Clevelander’s impression of sort of this area? How has that played into things with either your business or just with- How do you see that having an effect on the area in general?

Bruce Higley [00:03:31] Yeah, I think in that our business is construction, we don’t deal with people coming to us. The location isn’t necessarily an issue to us, as it might be for somebody who deals with the retail side of things. But I think there has been concern over different periods of time over the last 40 years as to where is this area going. Is it an area that we want to be five years from whatever point in time or ten years from that point in time? And I think that we’ve certainly had concerns, but as we’ve stood steadfast and decided that it was a good location and it was the right place to be, time has proven us out to be correct, and it’s been a good decision to stay where we are. And, you know, today I think we’re very comfortable and very happy with our location.

James Calder [00:04:18] How is- How have you been involved with the sort of community development projects in here with Midtown Inc. and things like that?

Bruce Higley [00:04:34] As far as the corporate involvement with projects and things?

James Calder [00:04:37] Yeah. Yeah.

Bruce Higley [00:04:39] I don’t know that we’ve done too terribly much, other than supporting Midtown Corridor, because we believe in what it does, and we think that it’s a good organization for the region, and we think it’s- As far as being a good corporate citizen, it’s our place to do it. We have not necessarily, other than board involvement, had a lot of other participation with Midtown Corridor Inc. We’ve certainly, again, I think we’re the beneficiaries of what they do, because I think they’ve done a great job in helping reestablish Midtown as a viable place to do both business and to live for some people as well. But other than, again, having participated with construction renovations on the buildings within Midtown, really, majority of our existence, as it were, has been either side of Midtown building a lot, from the Cleveland Clinic to University Circle and/or Cleveland State to downtown. So we’re sort of been on the ends more than anything.

James Calder [00:05:35] Okay. Talking about the building business in general, what were some of the- Well, any, some of the buildings you’ve built around either midtown or Cleveland in general that stick out?

Bruce Higley [00:05:52] Really. We’ve been very fortunate over our 82-year history to have done, you know, several different landmarks. I’m gonna sort of cheat here just from my own memory, but I mean, going back to the early years of the company, certainly the Cleveland Coast Guard Station, which many people are familiar with, to the Greyhound station that’s on Chester at approximately 14th Street, the old Bond store that used to sit at the corner of Euclid and East 9th Street, which was sort of an interesting building of its time to, again, just a lot of the buildings at Cleveland State University, Case Western Reserve University, the Cleveland Clinic, all different sort of things over the years. And then again here in Midtown, as I’m just sort of flipping through my cheat sheet here, the Red Cross building and things of that nature. So, a little bit of everything.

James Calder [00:06:55] Well, it seems that’s quite a, especially for Cleveland, I mean, those are some of the bigger projects in Cleveland that I can think of, definitely. Especially along Euclid, sort of. Those are Chester and Euclid. Those.

Bruce Higley [00:07:12] Yeah, I mean, a lot of the old time, sort of what we refer to as the Art Deco period of Cleveland and all with the Coast Guard station, the Greyhound station, and the Bond Court building, or Bond Store building rather, just a lot of beautiful old structures that, some of which, unfortunately, aren’t with us here today.

James Calder [00:07:31] Do you have a- What was I going to say? When we also talked about, I mean, we spoke over the phone about sort of like, the changes of the city since, you know, sort of the change of doing business in the city over time. Can you address anything like that? How have you seen things either getting better or worse or just different?

Bruce Higley [00:08:04] Well, I think from our standpoint, if you look over the history over the last 82 years, that the construction in the Cleveland region has followed a few different dynamics. Certainly, as I go back into the period of the Great Depression, a lot of the business that we did at that point was really institutionally focused, be it collegiate or healthcare sort of projects. As we went into the period of the Second World War, things sort of shifted in the economy from the institutional side of things to being a little bit more the manufacturing in support of the war effort and things of that nature. So we were involved with building some of the areas, or not some of, but the area’s largest defense plant that took place during the World War Two. And then as we got back out of that period of time and got into the sixties, a little bit more retail started to flourish in the Cleveland area. And then today, we find ourselves in the region really being dominated by the healthcare and institutional marketplace again. So certainly Cleveland has been very cyclical, I can’t say it right. [crosstalk] Cyclical. There you go. Cyclical. As far as where the construction has been very similar to just following the economy in this region.

James Calder [00:09:23] So the key is almost being flexible with what’s coming at the time?

Bruce Higley [00:09:28] Yeah, I mean, from our standpoint, it has forced us to be somewhat generalist, because you had to be in a position to deal with whatever type of project that might be presented with you in that we work within the limitations of the Ohio region and that we’re not working on a national or international basis. We really need to be somewhat of a generalist, being able to handle all types of construction projects that are in this area.

James Calder [00:09:54] How about sort of the, I don’t want to say the artistic side of construction, especially in the city. Like, especially, I’m glad you kept it out, that Bond building is just a cool building. There’s. I’ve seen so many actually cool pictures of it, too. Just how it sort of stretches down.

Bruce Higley [00:10:11] Right.

James Calder [00:10:13] You know, how does that get thought of? Is that something you deal with or think about when you think about construction?

Bruce Higley [00:10:19] Well, it’s something that we like to do. It’s something that we tend to pursue as a company. We look for projects that we will consider to be more the legacy quality projects, things that are going to hopefully be around 100 years from now. It doesn’t always happen that way, as with the Bond store. But certainly the more complicated, the more challenging, the more artistically defining a project is, the more appeal it has to us as a corporation to want to go and pursue it.

James Calder [00:10:50] Are there any other buildings besides these ones that you could think of that are really artistic achievements or challenges that you can think of?

Bruce Higley [00:10:59] Oh, I think there’s a lot that we have done. They aren’t necessarily directly- There’s the Coast Guard station. They aren’t necessarily all here in Cleveland, though.

James Calder [00:11:09] Oh, that’s all right. Just things you think about if you-

Bruce Higley [00:11:12] Just sort of going through different periods of time. That was the original rendering of the Greyhound station, which looked better in rendering than it looks today. A lot of the buildings at Case, Tomlinson Hall, just, I think, architecturally were magnificent buildings at Oberlin College. This is the Sophia Brooks Auditorium, which I think was a magnificent structure for its time. Things like St. Christopher’s Church in Rocky River, which, of course, were beautiful buildings. So a lot of different structures that I think that, to me, at least, are beautiful buildings. And we’re very proud to have been a part of Western Reserve [Historical] Society, the Thompson Auto Museum, then down at Case. A lot of the buildings you’ll see down at Case Western Reserve University, the law school, Cleveland State, obviously, the Woodling Gym and the natatorium structure, the University Center building. So just all different things over the years. I personally tend to love the old buildings more than the newer buildings. Nothing against the newer ones, but that’s interesting, but it’s not quite the same.

James Calder [00:12:33] Well, there’s all that construction going on in CSU now. Do you know, are they tearing down University Center?

Bruce Higley [00:12:41] Yeah, the building that you were just looking at is actually torn down. They’re going to build a new University Center of some sort.

James Calder [00:12:48] Is your company involved with any of that stuff?

Bruce Higley [00:12:51] No, we’re currently not involved. We’ll probably pursue some of it, but we’re not currently involved with it.

James Calder [00:12:56] What- Well I guess that’s something I wan tot ask about, too, is just seeing the growth of things like Cleveland State, from sort of Fenn College and Fenn Tower to trying to cover blocks. What are sort of the challenges, either from a building perspective or just anything you sort of picked up dealing with the University of sort of trying to build a university in the middle of a city that’s already built up kind of?

Bruce Higley [00:13:27] Well, I think certainly from a construction standpoint, it’s not too bad. We’re used to working in a city environment, tight, congested. I don’t think there’s a problem from that end. I think Cleveland State, though, has been great for this part of the city, that they have acquired a lot of properties that were in need of demolition or restoration or whatever the case might be. And as Cleveland State has expanded, I think it’s actually made not just the university better, but I think it’s been better for the whole city of Cleveland and certainly for the east side where we’re located. And hopefully now, as they’re pushing a little bit more towards becoming a residential university, I think that will continue to add a little more life to the area. So it’s not just a lot of life with people getting there in the morning and leaving in the afternoon and then dead after that point in time. So I think Cleveland State continues to hold a lot of promise for the city and for the region, and again, for our little sector of the city east of downtown as well.

James Calder [00:14:28] I agree.

Bruce Higley [00:14:30] And really, I hope they’re successful with the whole residential push, and I don’t know how they’re doing with the dorm that they just brought online, the old-

James Calder [00:14:38] Fenn Tower building.

Bruce Higley [00:14:39] Fenn Tower building, yeah. But hopefully that’s working well for them, and hopefully they can do a couple more to again, to try and get some more life down in the city.

James Calder [00:14:48] I think it would be great. I agree. It’s tough. It’s like in, you need to get life going to get people to move down, but then-

Bruce Higley [00:14:56] It’s the old Catch-22. Well, with the kids, I mean, the students, I mean, if they can get a critical mass of students living on campus, and then as you look at Euclid Avenue and you look at the retail along Euclid Avenue, you’ll start to be able to support more retail and just that whole area hopefully will continue just to become more and more alive as they finish the Euclid Avenue work and everything else.

James Calder [00:15:22] One thing I, well, I guess that’s also a construction answer, but I guess sort of catering to things like that. How do you, do you have any insight and how do you cater to sort of, you know, keeping a student community within a city just because, you can’t go too upscale, you can’t go too downscale either, is that anything you’ve ever dealt with or-?

Bruce Higley [00:15:44] I’m not sure if I understand what you’re asking.

James Calder [00:15:46] Sort of keeping like, I know, like right now a lot of people go to CSU live, Cleveland Heights area almost where people in Case, live, because the housing is cheap and it’s still safe, but it’s cheap housing, basically. Like how do you cater to a downtown sort of? Cause downtown housing tends to be more expensive?

Bruce Higley [00:16:08] Yeah, I’m not sure that I have a great answer on that. We’re gonna certainly see over the next 4, 5, 10 years as they bring a lot of these new developments online, hopefully downtown from the, I guess it’s the Avenue project and the Stark development and Wolstein’s development down in the Flats will bring a lot of living units online in Cleveland. But as you say, I think they’re going to all fairly much be the higher-end side of things. And so from a student’s perspective, or even somebody getting out of college who wants to live, live in an urban environment, I’m not sure how affordable a lot of these things will be. And so I think you’re right that there might be a need there for something not, you know, not cheap necessarily per se, but more middle market that a student and or a recent graduate could afford to help encourage them to stay downtown and stay in the city.

James Calder [00:17:01] I don’t know, I just thought that one was-

Bruce Higley [00:17:03] No, that’s a good point. That’s a good point.

James Calder [00:17:07] They have. One thing I was going to ask about the Higley Company is the history of the company itself. When did it begin? Where? Well, originally, well, go ahead.

Bruce Higley [00:17:22] That’s okay. The company was founded in 1925 and it was founded by my grandfather, who was a veteran of the First World War and then a 1917 graduate out of the, at the time was known as the Case School of Applied Science, which is what we today know as Case Western Reserve University. And he started the company again in 1925 and really was very successful in his early years in doing a tremendous amount of- Running out of tape there?

James Calder [00:17:55] Just checking levels.

Bruce Higley [00:17:56] Oh, okay. A lot of different projects throughout the region, and built the company up tremendously, despite having to go through the Depression of the thirties and the Second World War. And in the fifties, he was joined by my father, who was a graduate of Denison University and who had fought over in the Korean War. And my grandfather then retired in 1967, and my father took the helm from that time until he retired in the mid 1990s. And then I have had the pleasure of being involved with the company from that point on. So it’s been a lot of fun.

James Calder [00:18:36] So it’s really been a family-run business.

Bruce Higley [00:18:40] Yeah, it’s a family-run business, in my opinion, sort of a nice size or a nice type of family run business, because it’s always been a family of one generation or one person per generation. So we haven’t had the issues a lot of family corporations face, which is a lot of brothers, sisters, cousins, and everything else there trying to run the show that it’s just strictly my grandfather, strictly my father and his generation, and strictly me in this generation. So to me, at least, it keeps it sort of nice that way.

James Calder [00:19:14] We’ve interviewed people around sort of the area of similar situations, or at least family-run businesses. It seems like sometimes with the family-run business, there is sort of that continuity and a philosophy that sort of started originally with the founder and goes on. Is there anything like that that you can comment on with-?

Bruce Higley [00:19:38] Well, I think that’s one of the key things when you look at really any business, whether it’s family-run or not, which is the maintenance of the culture of that business as you transcend from one generation or one succession to the next. And I think certainly something that we focus on very much as a company, that we try to take the original core values that were established back in the early or the late 1920s, rather, and make sure that those core values transcend from one generation to the next, so that the culture of the company remains consistent throughout the past 82 years and hopefully into the next 100 years or whatever. But that certainly is a challenge I think everybody faces in all businesses.

James Calder [00:20:23] Is there anything, even sort of anecdotal things, that you remember from the family about sort of being about the business, or I guess, what are your sort of key values for the culture of your business that’s been sort of passed down?

Bruce Higley [00:20:42] Well, I mean, certainly from- And I always hate talking value somewhat because it always sounds trite when you say it because everybody will espouse sort of the same values. And I think it loses meaning when people talk about honesty and integrity and everything else. It just sounds trite after a while. But I think that in general, that our culture, our way of doing business really revolves around a, taking a long-term perspective on decisions that you do or anything that you do in business, that it’s not really necessarily what’s going to reward you most in the short term, that’s important, but it’s what’s doing right by a client and doing right by anybody that’s part of your team, that in the long run, it will pay you back. So as long as you maintain that long-term perspective versus looking for the short-term gain or whatever, I mean, that’s sort of a primary focus that we have as a company. Anecdotally, we were talking about it the other day, someone was telling a story about a time which doesn’t really relate to values, but a time, just thinking back to the Depression and running business during the thirties or early thirties, that we apparently had done work for somebody who was either a, I think they were a manufacturer and retailer of, among other things, peanuts in the city of Cleveland. And they found themselves in rather dire straits as the Depression was going on and found themselves incapable of paying their bills. So they actually paid the company off in peanuts. And I know my father said that for years, my grandfather had more peanuts in the house than they could eat within 100 years or whatever. One of the- Just. You said anecdotal stories is one of the ones I remember from back when.

James Calder [00:22:35] That’s great. I mean, things were- You think that would happen today?

Bruce Higley [00:22:40] I don’t necessarily think- I mean, times change, and if you ever found ourselves in that unfortunate situation where somebody found themselves in tough times, certainly our position would be to work with them any way we possibly could. If their only way to pay us was in peanuts, I think we’d probably tell them to keep the peanuts [laughs] and we’ll move on in life and deal with it later. So, I’m not sure I would take the peanuts today.

James Calder [00:23:08] But, yeah, I mean, I think you make a good point that the important thing is working with people too, sort of help them along through their situation.

Bruce Higley [00:23:18] Especially, you got to do the right thing by people, whether it’s an employee, whether it’s a customer that you’re working for, whether it’s an architect you’re working with. Important thing at the end of the day is to treat them as you want to be treated if the situation was reversed and if you do the right thing for them and do right by them, in the long run, it will pay you back.

James Calder [00:23:36] So do you think there’s a trick to, like you said earlier, it’s hard to say those things because everyone says them. The key is really doing them.

Bruce Higley [00:23:47] That’s it. You gotta love it. Yeah, everybody says it, so you gotta look.

James Calder [00:23:51] So how, does that make it more difficult to sort of cultivate those values when it’s almost hard to explain them without you can say them, and it’s just, you know what I mean?

Bruce Higley [00:24:04] Well, I think from a corporate standpoint, when you bring new people in, and we’ve gone through this, a lot of corporations go through this. As you grow, as you bring, you know, younger people in who really don’t know the company, A, you’ve got to take the time to explain to them the cultures and the values of the organization. But even though I can sit here and I can tell you these things, unless you see it and you see that the company lives by what somebody’s telling you, it doesn’t have a lot of meaning. So more important than trying to teach a culture or values to somebody that you bring into the organization is they’ve got to see it being practiced every day in everything that you do. Because if they don’t feel that it’s being practiced, then everything you just said goes out the window. So that, I think it’s more critical to do it in practice, bottom line.

James Calder [00:24:54] Do you think that, you know, being part of things like community development things, things like that, does that sort of, I don’t know if that helps values within the company, but, you know, promote- What kind of values are they sort of trying to promote, or do you see-?

Bruce Higley [00:25:12] Well, I mean, certainly as a company, we push our people to give back to the community that we live in, and I think we do that in a lot of different ways as an organization, as a family, and as individuals. I serve on several boards here in Cleveland. I’m president of the Achievement Centers for Children, president of the board of directors of Achievement Centers, sit on the board of the Cleveland Sight Center. For years, I was on the board of the American Red Cross, and other people in the organization do similar things. I mean, it’s very important to be an active participant within the community. Likewise, I think philanthropically, it’s important to support the community equally and as a family the Higley family has a fund with the Cleveland Foundation that we use to give back that we’ve been very fortunate as a large result of things that have happened here within the Cleveland area. So I think it’s important to give back to the community in a similar fashion so that we are always trying to identify the right opportunities and the right chances to be able to do that, to support the community and give back to the community at the same time.

James Calder [00:26:17] Do you think that’s important, too, being sort of actively involved? That’s one thing that sort of sends your money over. And do you think that active involvement is- What can you say about that?

Bruce Higley [00:26:30] Yeah, well, I think both are important. I think that you’re right. I mean, it’s one thing to write a check. It’s something else to go there and really participate and lend your blood, sweat and tears to the mission of an agency or what somebody’s trying to accomplish. And I think they’re both important realities of things that I think that everybody wants the time, the expertise that different board people will bring to different organizations. And that’s absolutely critical. But they also need the financial support. I mean, it’s both sides. So I think that it’s incumbent upon everybody in the Midtown area and Cleveland in general, especially this region, where we have sort of some of the economic challenges that we have. That’s really incumbent upon all of us to be willing to roll up our sleeves a little bit and get in there and help both with our time, but also financially support a lot of these agencies that are trying to do a lot of good in the city of Cleveland.

James Calder [00:27:27] As you said, we are facing some economic challenges or we have been. Could you address specifically how you sort of, or your company has sort of either felt those challenges or what, just from sort of living through here and being an area of business or so long, you think could sort of be done to address some of them?

Bruce Higley [00:27:51] Yeah, I’m not sure that I have the answers on how to address them, unfortunately. I think, again, I think it’s great when we see more people having the opportunity to move downtown, to develop more of a dynamic downtown city environment, because I think we need to be able to lure more businesses into the city. And as I know, there’s an effort now, we don’t necessarily want to be stealing from Lakewood into Cleveland to get people moving the city. That’s not doing the region any good. We have to get businesses coming in from Chicago or from other areas of the country, to be willing to relocate here or invest in the city of Cleveland. But certainly from a business standpoint, when we look at where our work’s been in recent years, the corporate work that we’ve done has been diminishing. And I think it’s a reflection of, again, you really aren’t having corporations expand in Cleveland or move into the Cleveland area. So there’s not as much Fortune 500 work as there was 15, 20 years ago in this region. And fortunately, the institutions, the hospitals, the universities are growing and so that’s sort of offsetting that loss of corporate work. But they’re not going to keep going at the pace they’re currently going at. So we really need to work at attracting businesses, enabling the businesses that we currently have to grow within the city of Cleveland and bring new jobs into the region. Because if we don’t, I think it’s going to be a tough time here for everybody eventually.

James Calder [00:29:17] Well, they have, I think they might come and take a picture.

Bruce Higley [00:29:23] Hi, how are you? Okay.

James Calder [00:29:30] That’s an interesting point because you hear a lot of things about, well, even historically, when you, when people talk about the decline of a downtown area, it’s always people leaving to go to the suburbs. The suburbs are almost always sort of the problem. Even if that’s where you go home and live and I guess that’s what you learn. You know, what, so did you see that? Or I guess I’m trying to say is, do you feel like there could be more connection or like regionalism, I guess?

Bruce Higley [00:30:05] Yeah, I think they’re, at least if you read the Plain Dealer that they are, and I think appropriately so, sort of pushing a regionalism thought process now. And we’re seeing some suburban communities, as I understand it, start to consolidate services so we don’t have as much duplication. But I think that regionalism approach has to go further, and it really has to be looking at the whole of Cuyahoga County and even beyond as one area. And we’ve got to start or stop fighting each other for business or jobs or housing and start working together collectively to ensure everybody’s continued success. And Cleveland’s a little bit of a different city. I’ve lived in different places in the country where you don’t have as much dominance about the suburbs. The cities themselves are just larger, and everybody happens to be in the city. And you don’t have quite the same infighting because of that. Cleveland, because it’s broken up into so many different little pieces, I think it faces challenges as a result of that. And if we could start to handle things more on a regional basis or get rid of some of the infighting that takes place, I think we’d all be further ahead. Now, that being said, we still need to bring jobs in the region. We’ve got to get corporations moving in or expanding within this area.

James Calder [00:31:23] Do you know, like you said, you said you didn’t have the ideas to fix things. Do you have any sort of thoughts on it? I mean, obviously it’s speculation to a certain degree. If we could fix it, we probably would.

Bruce Higley [00:31:37] Yeah, I think it is speculation to a certain degree. I think that what Cleveland lacks, in my opinion, is a clear vision of where it wants to be in 20 or 25 years. And what you look at when you look at other cities, what they clearly do have is they have, in many cases, not in every case, a very clear vision of where they’re going or where they want to go as a city and a very dynamic leader who’s helping drive that process. And I think that’s what Cleveland unfortunately has lacked, is that common, you know, vision as to where we’re going and somebody to really push and drive that vision? I think if we can get that, then I think we can hopefully get someplace.

James Calder [00:32:23] Were things different, and I’m thinking about this, and I was young, so it’s harder to tell, but I remember sort of like in the mid nineties, things like that, it almost seemed like we had had a direction, or at least there was that feeling in some areas.

Bruce Higley [00:32:38] Well, there was that feeling because a lot was going on with Jacobs Field was taking place and a lot of the downtown development that. Yeah, I think there was perhaps a little bit more of a vision at that point, a little bit more direction that was taking place. I think it’s a little bit more lacking today than it was at that point in time. I think this whole thought process relative to bringing Medical Mart to Cleveland and downtown and how that might spur convention center and some other things going on are great, but I think they’re great if they’re part of, again, a pre thought out vision and plan as to where you want to get. I hate to see the city just become responsive to an opportunity and not in the long term, have that opportunity to feed into reaching a given goal that it wants to reach. But I’m afraid we tend to be more responsive in the city than really pragmatic in planning our own futures.

James Calder [00:33:36] Is there, you know, as a leader in sort of business and things like that, do you see what kind of sway, I guess, do community development corporations like Midtown have in sort of the city’s overall vision? Is that sort of another thing, like they’re very divide and sort of deal with their own area or-?

Bruce Higley [00:33:56] Well, yes and no. I mean, certainly Midtown has a very focused area that they’re trying to deal with. But I think that their goals and their objectives go beyond just the borders that are clearly defining what Midtown is. And I think that right now they’re dealing with issues, say, regarding the whole change to the Innerbelt as it comes to the city and the closing of certain arteries that flow through Midtown and serve Midtown businesses. But I think they’re looking at it not just with its impact on Midtown. I think they’re looking at the impact going beyond Midtown and what it means to the community as a whole. So I think actually they’re serving a very important purpose as it relates to some of those things. And in this case, they’re, I don’t want to say fighting with, but they’re certainly dealing with some of the bureaucracy of Columbus and Ohio Department of Transportation, and they’re coming through, doing what they want to do without really thought process of perhaps how it impacts the local community. And I’m sure they’re thinking of it at some level, but not as much as I think perhaps they should be. And so again, I think an institution like Midtown is actually doing a very important service to the whole city with what they’re doing.

James Calder [00:35:04] What are some of the issues, I guess specific issues with the highways?

Bruce Higley [00:35:10] Well, they’re talking about changing the whole Innerbelt as it comes through Cleveland, and they’re doing it for several different reasons. I understand that one of the primary ones is taking out Dead Man’s Curve or softening Dead Man’s Curve. But one of the issues that ODOT’s facing is that there are so many entrance and exit ramps off the Innerbelt as it passes through the city that it creates a hazardous situation, because if you ever drive up there, you have Prospect dumping onto the freeway at the same time, Chester’s getting off, Chester’s getting back on, the same time Payne’s trying to get off. So you have all this crisscrossing going on. And so ODOT’s goal is to reduce some of that to make it safer. And I think nobody’s going to argue that at all. But the problem in reducing some of those crossing points, they’re cutting off access to some of the primary arteries that feed University Circle, talking about taking both Carnegie and Prospect off, so you can’t get off either one of those streets in the future. Well, that has a real big impact, you know, so your only access is Chester Avenue all of a sudden. And that creates-

James Calder [00:36:19] Which is crowded enough.

Bruce Higley [00:36:20] Which is crowded to begin with. So you’re creating a big burden on D. Chester Avenue, which isn’t in a position to accept all that traffic. And now you’ve cut off two primary arteries headed down towards the Cleveland Clinic or University Circle, impacting not just the commuters trying to get there, but the businesses that are located in those areas as well. So that’s where Midtown is trying to get in and trying to help come up with a plan that will make the Innerbelt safer, which is ODOT’s, I believe, primary concern, but at the same time, not economically hurt Midtown through the process. And obviously, everybody ultimately come up with something that actually economically helps the city. If we’re going to spend all this money and build these bridges and build this new trench through the city, I mean, it’s great to have the economic impact of that work, but it would be nice to have it provide positive economic impact on the community itself when it’s all said and done, and right now people feel it’s the opposite, it’s gonna have a negative economic impact on the city. So that’s what that, as I understand at least, that’s what that battle is all about.

James Calder [00:37:25] That’s interesting. I did, I didn’t know as much about that. I’ve heard more of the- Well, they’re doing so much like the Shoreway, things like that. That’s another one.

Bruce Higley [00:37:35] Yeah. Taking the Shoreway to more of a boulevard sort of a plan, getting closer to- If you ever spend time in Chicago, sort of the way Lakeside, not Lakeside.

James Calder [00:37:48] I know what you’re talking about.

Bruce Higley [00:37:50] But anyhow their, you know, boulevard there and trying to get more of that feel, which I think is great idea, actually.

James Calder [00:37:56] So that’s. I’m trying to see we’ve done pretty well so far. I. There was something else I was gonna ask, I’m trying to think of it, but one thing I did kind of want to switch gears for a second, just unless there’s anything you wanted to add on that subject. And just the family business, obviously, being in Cleveland, did you grow up in the area?

Bruce Higley [00:38:24] I grew up in Shaker Heights and spent my life there until I went off to college on the east coast and then moved to Seattle, Washington, after college, and moved back to Cleveland in the mid 1980s and have been living in Shaker Heights ever since. So I’m pretty boring, actually.

James Calder [00:38:41] That’s where my family’s from, Shaker Heights.

Bruce Higley [00:38:43] Okay, well, that’s nice area, nice place to raise a family.

James Calder [00:38:46] Yeah. So that’s what I understand. Do you have any stories just growing up in Cleveland? We always like to ask those. [laughs]

Bruce Higley [00:38:54] Any stories growing up in Cleveland? Well, I don’t know. I mean, certainly growing up in the early seventies and seeing some of the issues the city faced back then. I’ve actually, though, we’ve seen the population decline in Cleveland since that point in time. I guess, overall, I’d say I’ve seen a lot of positive things happen in the city since then. I think of driving downtown as a teenager to go to whatever venue there might have been. And I think the city, at least my feeling or my perception, is a lot safer today than it was back at that point in time, I think a lot cleaner than it used to be. So I think in many respects, the city has made great strides. Unfortunately, at the same time, we have been losing a lot of our residents in the city of Cleveland. We have lost a lot of work or jobs here. So the city has made good strides, but there’s a long way still to go and lots still to be done.

James Calder [00:39:54] Excellent. Anything else you want to add?

Bruce Higley [00:39:59] No, I’m pretty boring, as I said.

James Calder [00:40:01] I don’t think so. It’s been great so far. We’ve got a lot of stuff.

Bruce Higley [00:40:06] Yeah. Not as much direct connection with Midtown or whatever.

James Calder [00:40:10] But that’s- I mean, that’s all right. That’s-

Bruce Higley [00:40:12] All I can really say is, you know, a few years back, we were faced with whether to renovate our offices after being there for 40 years or whatever. Think about moving out of the city as they’re talking about the work with the Innerbelt and the impact that might have on us. And ultimately, we decided we’d rather stay in the city and stay in this area than head out to some of the nether lands or regions. And we’re glad we’re here. I think it’s great for our employees that they’ve got great access in and out of the city where we’re located. It’s nice to be in a city environment, downtown environment, and I think people actually enjoy it more being downtown than if they had to go to some office out in the suburbs someplace. So we’re pleased to be here.

James Calder [00:40:56] Excellent. Well, that sounds good.

Bruce Higley [00:40:58] Okay.

James Calder [00:40:59] All right.

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