Innovation, influence and business in America's medical cities.

Euclid Avenue: A strip of opportunities and challenges

CLEVELAND, Ohio — Members of the health-care industry, public officials and business interests have launched a study to see whether space between the edge of Cleveland’s downtown and the hospital-heavy University Circle neighborhood could bea hub for medical business.

The study will look mostly at the “HealthLine” — a three-mile stretch of Euclid Avenue bookendedby a neighborhood that includes Cleveland State University, St. Vincent Charity Hospital and Cuyahoga Community College on one end,andby Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals Case Medical Center and Case Western Reserve University on the other. The study alsowill examine theareas around those end points andportions of E. 55th Streetnext to Euclid Avenue, as well asthe role of the Port of Cleveland.

Angelou Economics, a Texas economic consulting firm, started the study in mid-May to determine whether that area could create a focused biomedical cluster in the tradition of North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park, or whether it should bebroadened to include all innovation and technology companies.

The firm’sfinal recommendations and an implementation strategy should be done by September, said Jim Colson, the company’s chief operating officer.

An array of organizations — city and county governments, the Cleveland Port Authority, biotech advocate BioEnterprise and the non-profit Cleveland Foundation — are participating in and funding the study. BioEnterprise President Baiju Shah said the regionalready has created a vibrant collection of businesses and medical research that has yet toreach its potential.“We’ve struggled to create the energy because we have sprawl,” Shah said. “We have companies hidden away in different parts of our region that aren't easily connected with one another or the [medical] institutions.”

Clusteringcan be geographic or byinterests. Michigan, for example,”clustered” its top medical universities — though they’re hours apart from one another — to better collaborate on and spin off commercially viable medical research. Akron launchedabiomedical corridor project based on its concentration of polymer, engineering and orthopaedic research, among other things.

Euclid Avenue has its mix of opportunities and challenges. Cleveland Clinicgradually hasexpanded along Euclid Avenue anyway — it is in negotiations to purchase the Cleveland Playhouse, one of the large masses of well-kept properties on the street. However, many patches of the street are peppered with abandoned and toxic properties that could make a true “connection” between sides difficult.

Plus, some research say it’s less clear whether clusters can help increase jobs as much as they aidbusinesses that jointhe clusters. Sometimes, jobs created by businesses in a cluster arecreated somewhere else.

Shah said the health services around University Circle have outgrown that area. “How do we create a vision for what happens in 10 years that really creates a health corridor around the two major poles [University Circle and Cleveland State-area] and that takes advantage of the transformation of the HealthLine?” he asked.

[Photo courtesy of Flickr user T(h)ed Ferringer]