MAGNET’S new home in a renovated Hough elementary school in Cleveland aims to create opportunity, reverse industrial decline: Analysis

CLEVELAND, Ohio — It’s hard to think of a new urban project anywhere in Northeast Ohio that focuses more sharply on fighting industrial decline and economic inequality than the new home of MAGNET, the Manufacturing Advocacy and Growth Network.

MAGNET’s mission is twofold: It helps small- to mid-sized firms thrive by taking better advantage of robotics, computer-driven cutting machines, 3-D printers, and other advanced technologies. It also creates pathways to careers in high-tech manufacturing by training a rising generation of workers who need those jobs.

On Thursday, the 38-year-old nonprofit will celebrate the completion of its new facility at 1800 East 63rd St. in the renovated Margaret Ireland Elementary School in Cleveland’s Hough neighborhood.

The invitation-only event will be followed by a community open house on Friday from 1:30 to 6 p.m. with hands-on activities and technology demonstrations, tours, free food, a job fair, and the debut of what must be Cleveland’s biggest and best new playground.

The $18 million project, funded by entities including local foundations and corporations, the City of Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, the Ohio Department of Development, and the Greater Cleveland Partnership, is well worth checking out.

It has transformed an architecturally bland, mid-century modern school into a glassy, light-washed flagship for manufacturing innovation and job readiness on a highly visible site fronting Chester Avenue, halfway between downtown and University Circle.

Ethan Karp, MAGNET’s 35-year-old CEO, sees the project as a way to bust the myths that manufacturing is dying in Northeast Ohio, and that jobs are drying up.

To the contrary, industries ranging from automotive to household products, food production, and precision instruments, account for 20% of employment across 24 Northeast Ohio counties, and drive half of the area’s GDP, or gross domestic product, Karp said in an interview with cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.

But with older workers retiring, regional manufacturers need to fill 10,000 to 12,000 openings for welders, programmers, skilled maintenance technicians, engineers, supervisors, plant managers, and other jobs.

By creating a new launchpad for those positions, MAGNET could help local industries grow while building wealth in long-impoverished Cleveland neighborhoods, including Hough.

“This building is the culmination of what we think is the most aggressive and bold way to raise awareness of manufacturing,’’ Karp said. “People think manufacturing is dark, dirty, dangerous. The building is huge a tool to change people’s hearts and minds about manufacturing.’’

Short distance, big move

Established in 1984 as the Cleveland Advanced Manufacturing Program, the organization now known as MAGNET originally occupied a low-visibility building owned by Cleveland State University just over a mile to the west on East 25th Street.

The organization’s new home is far better suited to its goals of aiding manufacturing firms and providing entrée to good-paying jobs and careers that don’t require four years of college, Karp said.

“We have to figure out the robust systems to get people placed in those jobs,’’ he said. “Ultimately, it’s a person coming out of poverty being raised up in the social elevator that manufacturing can be, and has been for 100 years.”

Like early 20th-century settlement houses that helped immigrants adapt to life in America, the new MAGNET is designed as a gateway to opportunity, but with a very specific focus.

Originally built in 1962, the Ireland elementary school was declared surplus in 2011 by the Cleveland school district as the city’s population shrank. As repurposed by MAGNET, the once inwardly-oriented building now has an entirely new look and feel.

Architects from the Cleveland architecture firm of Bialosky turned classrooms and a former gymnasium and cafeteria into expansive shop floors outfitted with brawny overhead cranes and sturdy concrete floors.

The architects, and contractors from Cleveland-based Krill Co., inserted new steel columns and beams to carry structural loads once supported by classroom walls. The new structural framing made it possible to carve two-story windows in the building’s facades so daylight could pour in.

Classrooms and conference rooms on the building’s second floor now overlook airy workspaces sprinkled with robotic assembly machines, computer-guided routers and lathes, and 3-D printers.

A half-dozen classrooms will be leased by Cleveland schools for classes at all levels, including programs for seniors that could lead to internships and jobs.

An area located off the light-filled main lobby is configured as an outpost of the Great Lakes Science Center with educational exhibits devoted to milling, welding, injection molding, and vacuum forming — a technique used to shape plastic materials.

A photo booth is designed to enable users to create quick photos for ID badges or resumes. Visitors can interact with a robot that serves drinks.

Social spaces clustered around the lobby are designed to enable manufacturers to connect with technology consultants, and employers to rub elbows with trainees seeking opportunities.

“This facility truly allows for people to bump into each other and say ‘hi,’ ‘’ Karp said.

He also emphasized that MAGNET’s location in Hough is critically important to its mission.

In the summer of 1966, Hough was famously torn by riots sparked by redlining and other anti-Black policies that turned the neighborhood into an overcrowded tinderbox.

Today, Hough is the focus of numerous revitalization efforts. They include the development of market-rate apartments spurred by the growing campus of the nearby Cleveland Clinic and the completion in 2008 of the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority’s Euclid Avenue HealthLine.

The nonprofit MidTown Cleveland Inc., which oversees development in the 85-block commercial neighborhood south and west of Hough, has attracted more than $300 million in new development.

Those projects include a new Dave’s Supermarket; the Tru by Hilton Midtown Cleveland hotel; the University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children’s Ahuja Center for Women and Children; and the Link59 office complex.

Nearby, at East 66th Street and Euclid Avenue, the Cleveland Foundation is putting the finishing touches on its new, $22 million headquarters, a timber-framed building, scheduled for completion later this year.

The headquarters was conceived as the first phase of a 10-block, $400 million Innovation District. In July, the foundation unveiled the design for Phase II of the project, the $28 million to $30 million Midtown Collaboration Center, now set for completion in 2024.

The center will host satellite programs run by entities including Case Western Reserve University; University Hospitals; the Cleveland Institute of Art; the nonprofit Assembly for the Arts; Hyland Software; the M7 Foundation; and JumpStart Inc., a nonprofit economic development firm. All are aimed at spurring investments by high-tech firms on a half-dozen adjacent building sites.

Lillian Kuri, the foundation’s executive vice president and chief operating officer, said MAGNET’s decision to flank the Innovation District on the north side of Chester Avenue will help recruit companies to the area while spreading benefits into Hough.

The combination of MAGNET and the entities in the Collaboration Center will enable the foundation to be choosy about which companies it will invite to join the district.

“It’s going to be a case of who are the right partners, not necessarily whether there’s demand,’’ she said. “And that’s because of MAGNET.”

Karp said he and his board envisioned the potential for growth in the area as they sought a new location for MAGNET.

But rather than impose itself on the neighborhood as a do-gooder riding to the rescue, MAGNET consulted with community leaders to ensure a smooth fit.

The sizable playground on the west side of the MAGNET complex, called Heroes of Manufacturing Park, grew out of those discussions, said Aisia Jones, vice president of community empowerment for MidTown Cleveland Inc.

Equipped with a zipline, a four-level climbing tower, and play stations with gears, levers, and other mechanical elements, the playground is meant to inspire curiosity about manufacturing among neighborhood children, whether or not they choose a career in industry.

A two-story mural painted on the west façade of the MAGNET building, also developed in collaboration with community members, sends a clear message of opportunity and inspiration based on Black history.

Painted by the leading, mid-career Cleveland artist Darius Steward, the mural portrays leading Black industrialists, inventors, and scientists from the past century including Jerry Lawson, Ursula Burns, Madam C.J. Walker, Garrett Morgan, Guion Bluford, and Shirley Ann Jackson.

It’s one of many signs that MAGNET is proud of its new home.

“Our board had a choice,’’ Karp said. “They could have put us in an industrial park in Solon, but they said, ‘no you need to be in the city.’ If 30% of our work is helping people get into careers, we need to be in the city. We need companies to come here and see that their future workforce is right down the street.”