Summit Artspace Gallery and guest curator Brian Shellito are organizing a unique outdoor art experience this summer for both artists and the public. Streetscapes: Akron in Plein Air will, for the second time, bring together talented local artists to paint urban landscapes along downtown Akron streets. Spectators will be encouraged to visit the creative work sites and witness the process.

Plein Air is a French term meaning “open air.” Painting in plein air refers to painting out-of-doors, a practice of landscape painters for 500 years. On July 27, 28 and 29, participants in the Streetscapes: Akron in Plein Air competition will set up their easels in designated sites downtown to produce paintings. The artworks will be turned in at Summit Artspace at the end of each day for consideration by specially selected judges for inclusion in a gallery show Aug. 10 through Sept. 15.

Gallup CEO Jim Clifton recently spoke at the annual meeting of University Park Alliance (UPA). Here is a man who travels the world, gathering information about cities, countries and economies. Engage him in conversation, and he can quote economic statistics from a dozen different locales.
So when he spoke to nearly 600 people at our annual meeting, it was encouraging to hear him speak of many of the same elements for economic success that we are building upon in Akron.

Clifton, who has just written the book, “The Coming Jobs War,” argues that America’s future economic strength and standing as the world’s largest economy depends on whether we can nurture entrepreneurs on the local level. In his view, innovative, proactive and collaborative leadership within the nation’s cities will be essential to our prosperity and ability to create new jobs.

Rubber City Prints and Summit City Climbing receive top honors.

A fine art printmaking studio and gallery and a state-of-the-art indoor climbing facility have earned top honors among six finalists in the University Park Alliance (UPA) Start UP! Business Plan Competition. Charter One Foundation, through its Growing Communities Initiative, is presenting sponsor of the contest. Each of the two winners will receive $17,500, assistance locating a suitable site within University Park and ongoing consulting support as they bring their business ideas to fruition from in-kind sponsors Vorys, Sater, Seymour & Pease LLC, and Meaden & Moore.

Rubber City Prints is co-founded by Pam Testa and Nicole Schneider and will be a collaborative fine art print studio and gallery offering intaglio, relief, screen-printing and letterpress capabilities as well as exhibition space. Through its future space in University Park, Rubber City Prints will seek to strengthen the local art community through educational workshops, internship opportunities and professional fine art printing services. A minimum of 2,500 square feet of industrial space will be required for the new venture.

Leader of foremost consulting and public opinion research firm and author of “The Coming Jobs War” delivers keynote address.

University Park Alliance (UPA), with presenting sponsor Dominion Foundation and support from Summa Health System, will host the 2012 University Park Alliance Annual Luncheon May 9, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., at The University of Akron (Quaker Station, 135 S. Broadway St.).

Luncheon attendees will learn more about UPA's plans for University Park and its priorities for investing in the community. Event proceeds will benefit UPA's scholarship fund for long-term residents of University Park. 

The keynote speaker of this year’s luncheon will be Gallup chairman and CEO Jim Clifton. Clifton is also author of “The Coming Jobs War,” published last where, in which he predicts that the next economic breakthrough in the U.S. will come from a combination of the forces within cities, great universities and powerful local leaders.

According to Clifton, these three compose the most reliable, controllable and predictable solution to America's biggest current problem -- winning the global war for good jobs.

Developers will break ground on former Chevrolet dealership property this spring; Child Guidance & Family Solutions to be first tenant.

University Park Alliance (UPA) has signed a partnership agreement with Equity Inc., an Ohio real estate services firm to build and manage the first two buildings of a planned “Market Square” mixed-use development on the former Fred Martin Chevrolet auto dealership land on East Market and Forge streets in University Park.

The approximately five-acre property was purchased by UPA late last year for redevelopment in accordance with its “Core City Vision Master Plan” unveiled in May 2011. The plan depicts Akron’s core city -- including University Park, downtown and surrounding areas -- as three major streets and four distinct development districts. The mixed-use development to be called “Market Square” is located on Market Street in the “Crossroads District” and includes a significant portion of an area designated by the City of Akron as the “Biomedical Corridor.” UPA’s master plan has targeted this area to be built around technology and innovation.

Artspace VP shares insight for developing live/work spaces for artists

When artists move into struggling urban centers, they often improve the community, but it’s typically to their own detriment. The cost of rent goes up, forcing the artists back out of the spaces they worked so hard to develop.

It’s important to recognize and prevent key populations from being displaced from the community when creative living spaces are built, cautions Wendy Holmes, senior vice president of Artspace, a national nonprofit that develops affordable living and working space for artists.

At a recent event hosted by University Park Alliance, Holmes shared the story of Minneapolis’ warehouse district, which prompted the formation of her organization. “There were a lot of artists in the warehouse district of Minneapolis, and those artists kept getting forced out because they would create a sense of place that other people found desirable, and their rents would go up and they would get kicked out. We call that the Soho effect, and it happens in many communities across the country.”

Whether it meant jumping for joy, bed springs or lilacs in bloom, Summit Artspace Gallery asked area artists to think spring when creating works for its 2012 Fresh Art show. This time, titled "Fresh & Springy," the popular annual exhibition challenges artists to stretch their creative muscles and work in novel styles, new directions and unusual materials. Selected works are on display from March 9 through April 14.

Summa Foundation has sponsored three cash prizes of $500, $300 and $200 for winning artists. The announcement will be made at a meet-the-artists reception March 9 from 5 to 7 p.m. The opening celebration is free to the public.

“Artists were invited to embrace the theme and allow their ideas to flow and grow or leap and cavort,” said gallery coordinator Joan Colbert. “Springy can mean bouncy, resilient and fresh -- literally or figuratively.”

People still ask why I came to Akron. I tell them that the longer I’m here, the more evidence I see that Akron has the components to attract talent, as well as national attention, on the merit of economic redevelopment potential that stands to become a model for traditional American cities seeking a new and prosperous future.

Because I wasn’t born here, I weighed the possibility of living and working here with detachment. Having spent my career in cities around the country, I understood the pitfalls of urban redevelopment plans -- and there are plenty of them.

Yet in Akron, I saw something rare. To borrow from a buzzword, I saw “intelligent optimism” on the part of city leaders planning an economic revitalization. Akron enjoys solid planning, backed by years of effort to draw on an existing knowledge base, to develop a new economic base that is global in reach. Importantly, a talented development team and collaborative leadership backs the local effort.

The news site MSN Real Estate recently cited Akron, Ohio, as one of the five “most promising” real estate markets in the nation, defined by those markets expected to suffer the smallest slides. The forecasting firm Local Market Monitor made the picks.

The MSN report notes that Akron’s average home price of $148,508 fell by 4 percent in the last year, and that the local market should hit bottom this year followed by a modest 2 percent gain in 2013. “Jobs — especially manufacturing jobs — are coming back to Akron,’’ the report said. “Like many Midwest cities, there was no housing boom here to speak of. Values are down just 13 percent from the peak, about a third of the hit the U.S. as a whole suffered.”

On its face, the fact that Akron’s real estate market is to drop less than most others across the country may seem nothing to feel good about. A city doesn’t grow with a soft real estate market. But if you look beneath the surface, there is reason for those of us in Akron to see opportunity ahead. The ranking also is affirmation of our economic recovery as we separate ourselves from the pack of traditional manufacturing cities stuck in the doldrums.

You do not have to look too closely at our nation’s checkbook to realize the extent to which cities will struggle in 2012 to transform into increasingly competitive and lively communities. Urban redevelopment will happen in cities that are creative, specific and unified.

Akron, Ohio, is an example of a city that is positioning itself well, having a master plan for growth that seeks to trigger hundreds of millions of dollars in development in 2012 and beyond.

Surprised? If so, it is understandable. Akron is the former Rubber Capital of the World, a city with an industrial heritage. As such, its economic challenges reflect that of many other “legacy cities” struggling to recover from deep manufacturing losses.