Cleveland's North Collinwood Neighborhood Wins 500 Thousand Dollar Arts Based Development Grant

I have actually not been in this neighborhood on Cleveland's East Side, best know for The Beachland Ballroom. Collinwood is also one of several areas of the city gathering momentum at attracting artists and art related businesses.

Several things make this grant, partly funded by The Kresge Foundation.
seem fantastic-starting with it's size! Also great is that the money is going to folks in the area who have already shown themselves good at doing things-not just making grant proposals look good.

"We wanted to work with someone that got it, and Northeast Shores made a compelling case," says Beattie. "They've done a great job of giving artists license to use the neighborhood as their canvas, yet they've followed behind and supported them, resulting in organic, grassroots redevelopment of the neighborhood." He cited the arts-based businesses on Waterloo Road as one example."

Trust artists?

Many details are still to come, but the grant is likely to fund a program to help artist's purchase and rehab area homes and buildings as well as a small "$2,500-$10,000 grants to artists for community-based projects, arts-based community dialogues, and integrating arts-based development into current redevelopment projects in a deeper way."

Would love to hear from people with more knowledge of this area or projects like this going on in Cleveland-or almost anywhere else.

IMHO, all projects of this type would be leveraged by having a well done regional arts website to help spread the word and keep artists more aware and connected.