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Efforts continue to persuade Federation to stay downtown
BY: MARILYN H. KARFELD Senior Staff Reporter
Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland officials made it clear this week that they intend to move their headquarters to Beachwood, despite a fevered campaign urging them to stay downtown at 1750 Euclid Avenue.
The proposed new headquarters may be located in an existing office building in Beachwood that Federation has reportedly explored buying and renovating, the CJN has learned. Federation trustees are expected to make the final decision on the central address of the Jewish community in a vote on Sept. 11.
Since last May, Harley Gross, chairman of the Federation board of trustees, has publicly said that the unanimous recommendation of the organization’s building committee is to move Federation’s headquarters to an eastern suburb. But when he read a prepared statement to that effect at an early morning board meeting this week, immediately after impassioned speeches from several Clevelanders committed to Federation staying in the city’s urban core, his remarks distressed those in the pro-downtown faction.
“It’s very discouraging. Federation hasn’t budged an inch,” complained S. Lee Kohrman, a Federation trustee-for-life and chairman of the David and Inez Myers Foundation. Jewish community survival depends on the health of the general community, and moving Federation out of downtown would be a disaster, he told trustees.
Kohrman, Larry Pollock, and Deborah A. Coleman, all current Federation trustees, and longtime Federation activist Anita Gray spoke on behalf of the Committee to Keep JCF in CLE, a group of about 50 community leaders who have lobbied hard to persuade Federation officials to stay downtown.
“I thought the building committee was still studying the issue,” Gray told the CJN after the trustees’ meeting. Federation officials “haven’t understood the ramifications of moving out east and leaving downtown.”
Annie Becker, Federation director of communications and marketing, said Gross’s statement about the building committee’s recommendation to move east “came across wrong.” The committee has not made its final decision, she insisted, and Gross was merely reiterating the group’s “opinion.”
Recommendations to expand a downtown Federation’s programming and services that Gray outlined for Federation trustees came from about 250 people who attended two community forums earlier this month. While participants were instructed to focus only on a downtown “presence” for Federation, most wanted to address “the 800-pound gorilla in the room,” the location of Federation’s headquarters, David Goldberg, founder of the pro-downtown committee, told the CJN.
“The current Federation location does not help us meet the challenges facing the Jewish community,” Gross maintained in his remarks to trustees. “We pay a significant opportunity cost having a facility removed from the community it serves.”
The building committee, which realizes the “symbolic importance of a presence downtown,” has yet to decide if Federation should purchase and renovate an existing structure or build a new facility, Gross told trustees. The committee’s final report, to be delivered to trustees before their Sept. 11 vote, will address the future use of the downtown building and the nature of Federation’s ongoing downtown presence, Gross added.
That “presence” could be downtown programming, meeting space, or even additional offices for staff based in Beachwood, Gross told the CJN after the meeting. Until all these issues are sorted out, “we’ve refrained from putting the (current) building on the market.”
Cleveland State University, located nearly across the street from Federation, has reportedly expressed interest in the property.
Although he hoped a “significant majority” of trustees would agree on the location of Federation’s headquarters, Gross would not comment on what would happen if board members remain roughly split on the issue. Dividing the staff between a downtown and Beachwood location is not an option, he emphasized. “It would be inefficient to have a split operation with a staff the size we have.”
In his remarks to trustees, Kohrman referred several times to Federation’s possible move to Science Park, an office-building development on Richmond Road, just south of South Woodland Road.
Gross and Becker declined to comment on any pending real estate deal to purchase an existing building in Science Park. “We don’t provide details on business decisions that could affect our operation before the board votes on them,” Becker said.
New Federation facilities are part of the multi-year Centennial Initiative fundraiser, said Gross. He and Becker declined to identify the lead donor for a new Federation building.
In an August 20 letter to Federation trustees, Goldberg’s Committee to Keep JCF in CLE said the group “is taking the unequivocal position that the JCF headquarters and its staff should remain downtown.” The letter further stated that a new vibrant, dynamic headquarters would help attract and retain the next generation of Jews, many of whom will be living downtown and on the near West Side, address community relations, and enhance the economic revitalization of Cleveland.
Federation must think about the Jewish community “through the eyes of its future,” businessman Pollock told trustees. Federation’s donors dropped from a high of about 25,000 to about 13,000 today, Pollock said. But the Jewish population in Cleveland has not dropped 50%. “The connection to the Jewish community has dropped.” (CJN files show over 19,000 contributors in 1992. CJN stories from the 1960s and 1970s do not indicate number of Federation campaign donors.)
Making a relocation decision based on little or no demographic and forecasting data is unwise, Pollock continued. Noting that he has served on numerous nonprofit and corporate boards, he added, “I have never been asked to vote on such an important decision without all the information.” Trustees have also not seen the full details on a new or renovated building or funding sources.
“How can we vote ‘yes’ (to move to Beachwood) when we haven’t seen the new strategic plan” under development by Federation’s strategic planning committee?
Instead, Pollock urged trustees, “Vote ‘No.’”
Cast your vote on Federation’s future location in the CJN’s poll on our home page, clevelandjewishnews.com.
mkarfeld@cjn.org
The proposed new headquarters may be located in an existing office building in Beachwood that Federation has reportedly explored buying and renovating, the CJN has learned. Federation trustees are expected to make the final decision on the central address of the Jewish community in a vote on Sept. 11.
Since last May, Harley Gross, chairman of the Federation board of trustees, has publicly said that the unanimous recommendation of the organization’s building committee is to move Federation’s headquarters to an eastern suburb. But when he read a prepared statement to that effect at an early morning board meeting this week, immediately after impassioned speeches from several Clevelanders committed to Federation staying in the city’s urban core, his remarks distressed those in the pro-downtown faction.
“It’s very discouraging. Federation hasn’t budged an inch,” complained S. Lee Kohrman, a Federation trustee-for-life and chairman of the David and Inez Myers Foundation. Jewish community survival depends on the health of the general community, and moving Federation out of downtown would be a disaster, he told trustees.
Kohrman, Larry Pollock, and Deborah A. Coleman, all current Federation trustees, and longtime Federation activist Anita Gray spoke on behalf of the Committee to Keep JCF in CLE, a group of about 50 community leaders who have lobbied hard to persuade Federation officials to stay downtown.
“I thought the building committee was still studying the issue,” Gray told the CJN after the trustees’ meeting. Federation officials “haven’t understood the ramifications of moving out east and leaving downtown.”
Annie Becker, Federation director of communications and marketing, said Gross’s statement about the building committee’s recommendation to move east “came across wrong.” The committee has not made its final decision, she insisted, and Gross was merely reiterating the group’s “opinion.”
Recommendations to expand a downtown Federation’s programming and services that Gray outlined for Federation trustees came from about 250 people who attended two community forums earlier this month. While participants were instructed to focus only on a downtown “presence” for Federation, most wanted to address “the 800-pound gorilla in the room,” the location of Federation’s headquarters, David Goldberg, founder of the pro-downtown committee, told the CJN.
“The current Federation location does not help us meet the challenges facing the Jewish community,” Gross maintained in his remarks to trustees. “We pay a significant opportunity cost having a facility removed from the community it serves.”
The building committee, which realizes the “symbolic importance of a presence downtown,” has yet to decide if Federation should purchase and renovate an existing structure or build a new facility, Gross told trustees. The committee’s final report, to be delivered to trustees before their Sept. 11 vote, will address the future use of the downtown building and the nature of Federation’s ongoing downtown presence, Gross added.
That “presence” could be downtown programming, meeting space, or even additional offices for staff based in Beachwood, Gross told the CJN after the meeting. Until all these issues are sorted out, “we’ve refrained from putting the (current) building on the market.”
Cleveland State University, located nearly across the street from Federation, has reportedly expressed interest in the property.
Although he hoped a “significant majority” of trustees would agree on the location of Federation’s headquarters, Gross would not comment on what would happen if board members remain roughly split on the issue. Dividing the staff between a downtown and Beachwood location is not an option, he emphasized. “It would be inefficient to have a split operation with a staff the size we have.”
In his remarks to trustees, Kohrman referred several times to Federation’s possible move to Science Park, an office-building development on Richmond Road, just south of South Woodland Road.
Gross and Becker declined to comment on any pending real estate deal to purchase an existing building in Science Park. “We don’t provide details on business decisions that could affect our operation before the board votes on them,” Becker said.
New Federation facilities are part of the multi-year Centennial Initiative fundraiser, said Gross. He and Becker declined to identify the lead donor for a new Federation building.
In an August 20 letter to Federation trustees, Goldberg’s Committee to Keep JCF in CLE said the group “is taking the unequivocal position that the JCF headquarters and its staff should remain downtown.” The letter further stated that a new vibrant, dynamic headquarters would help attract and retain the next generation of Jews, many of whom will be living downtown and on the near West Side, address community relations, and enhance the economic revitalization of Cleveland.
Federation must think about the Jewish community “through the eyes of its future,” businessman Pollock told trustees. Federation’s donors dropped from a high of about 25,000 to about 13,000 today, Pollock said. But the Jewish population in Cleveland has not dropped 50%. “The connection to the Jewish community has dropped.” (CJN files show over 19,000 contributors in 1992. CJN stories from the 1960s and 1970s do not indicate number of Federation campaign donors.)
Making a relocation decision based on little or no demographic and forecasting data is unwise, Pollock continued. Noting that he has served on numerous nonprofit and corporate boards, he added, “I have never been asked to vote on such an important decision without all the information.” Trustees have also not seen the full details on a new or renovated building or funding sources.
“How can we vote ‘yes’ (to move to Beachwood) when we haven’t seen the new strategic plan” under development by Federation’s strategic planning committee?
Instead, Pollock urged trustees, “Vote ‘No.’”
Cast your vote on Federation’s future location in the CJN’s poll on our home page, clevelandjewishnews.com.
mkarfeld@cjn.org
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