The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Businessfriendly approach harnessed by city
The city of Avon is continuing along a path of attracting business to the area
Mayor Bryan Jensen said the city relishes its geographic role in being home to three highway interchanges and drawing business to the area.
“Having three interchanges is definitely a positive. Everything is kind of driven through this way. If you even look at our housing, I think last year we built 90 houses,” Jensen said. “All of this
traffic has to come through Avon. So when some people talk about traffic, it’s because of where we’re at and the other communities going through there. Avon Lake by itself isn’t going to sustain a new business. But Avon with the help of Avon Lake and North Ridgeville draw businesses to this area.
“I think we are becoming the one-stop shop.”
In the last two years the Chester Road commercial corridor has grown with the opening of The Cleveland Clinic-Avon and Cabela’s followed by Duluth Trading Co. along with a number of unique business offerings, underscoring Avon’s role as fertile testing grounds for businesses aiming to make their mark in Northeast Ohio.
“We have some things coming down the pipe
that are mainstream, but most of the stuff that came in last year was all first in Northeast Ohio which makes it all really unique offerings for people,” said economic development director and planning coordinator Pam Fechter.
“I would say with Cabela’s making their decision to come out here, that was a big driver,” she said.
In 2017 Avon welcomed Melt Bar and Grilled and Christian Brothers Automotive with Ashley Furniture, Planet Fitness and Main Event Entertainment set to open this year. Jensen added construction on Meijer’s and Menard’s got underway in May and both locations are slated to open in 2019.
With The Cleveland Clinic and Cabela’s planting their flags in the area, both household name brands and unique companies are giving the westside Cleveland suburb a closer look.
“And I think we are very
friendly and business oriented. We’re not asking for 17 hamburger places and 12 pizza places, but we can’t turn them down either,” Fechter added. “So we just pretty much treat everybody from The Cleveland Clinic to a two-person mom and pop to the most important business that day.”
With new business coming to the city and creating a growing industrial tax base, it is allowing Avon to manage growth and prioritize strategic infrastructure improvements
“I think you try to do it in a controlled way,” Jensen said.“The one thing that residents don’t understand sometimes is, the city is growing at leaps and bounds and sometimes the money doesn’t come in until after the infrastructure’s been developed.”
In dealing with traffic concerns the city has pursued infrastructure projects in addition to recently
passing legislation to make texting and driving a primary offense, providing police and the administration with another tool to make Avon’s roads safer for everyone.
In looking at the interchanges, Jensen stressed managing traffic concerns remains is a double-edged sword with some companies, in particular, Dunkin’ Donuts, taking advantage of commuter traffic and placing locations along the interchanges strategically.
“They do spend a lot of money to do their research and even in the building process of doing that,” Jensen said. “It’s hard to say when we talk about Dunkin’ Donuts, they’re at every interchange right now. And when you think about the traffic that goes through the interchanges, it all warrants that. Without that traffic they couldn’t survive and they wouldn’t put their business there. So we’re blessed and we’re cursed.”