University Circle

Wade Lagoon stretches in front of the Cleveland Museum of Art

University Circle is the health care, education, and art and culture center of Cleveland, Ohio. Located 4 miles east of downtown, the Circle occupies approximately 662 acres. It borders Cleveland’s Little Italy, as well as the neighborhoods of Hough, Glenville], Buckeye-Shaker Square, and Fairfax.

University Circle is a major source of employment in the Greater Cleveland area, currently providing more than 40,000 jobs in a variety of fields. Over 13,000 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students attend area institutions, and approximately 2.5 million people visit the Circle each year. University Circle Incorporated, a not-for-profit corporation established in 1957, fulfills many administrative and quasi-governmental functions for the area, including security, transportation administration, development, and marketing.

History

Two-hundred years ago, University Circle was known as Doan’s Corners, after Nathanial Doan, a member of the Connecticut Land Company, who settled his family and started a community here. The Circle did not take shape until the end of the 19th century when two major institutions made this special place their home, and many institutions followed in the 20th century.

The Beginning – 19th Century Development in University Circle started when two universities in Cleveland – Western Reserve University and Case Institute of Technology, were looking to relocate. They found this land four miles east of downtown Cleveland in a fledging community with enough open space to develop. Their relocation led to the birth of an educational center and the creation of a new community called University Circle, named in part after these new institutions, but also the circular street intersection and street car turnaround created at Euclid Avenue and Doan Brook Boulevard (Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard).

20th Century Progress The Circle began to grow rapidly in the 20th century. Its first 50 years were marked by The Cleveland Museum of Art opening its doors in 1916. By the 1920s and 1930s, 19 educational and cultural institutions were located in the area, from the Cleveland Museum of Natural History to the Cleveland Hearing and Speech Center to Cleveland Botanical Garden and others. The arrival of University Hospitals in 1931 (founded in 1866) led to health care becoming another facet of University Circle. Less than one mile away from University Hospitals, the Cleveland Clinic began treating patients in 1921. During the ‘30s and ‘40s, University Circle was a bustling urban district on its main thoroughfare Euclid Avenue, where one could find six movie theaters, countless boutique shops, a bowling alley, and trolley cars shuttling people from downtown Cleveland to uptown University Circle. But the Circle, once with plenty of land to grow, was now full.

University Circle Development Fund Created By 1950, 34 institutions had chosen University Circle as their home. But the new world-class center of innovation needed help with its growth. Stanley A. Ferguson, then president of of University Hospitals, captured the sentiment at the time: "...after nearly 20 years of depression and war, the institutions in University Circle faced a mammoth need for expansion and improvement... the city's population had grown... people were enjoying more leisure time and were looking for worthwhile ways of spending it... museums, libraries and concerts were filled as never before... however, expansion was more than a matter of money or determination because there just wasn't enough room, and because the area was becoming built up like a patchwork quilt."

Enter one of Cleveland's most spirited civic leaders, Mrs. William G. Mather, who recognized that University Circle was at a pivotal point. She wanted a master plan for the Circle and “more relevant relationships for the institutions.” Her vision and generosity led to the hiring of renowned Boston planning firm Adams, Howard & Greeley. After a rigorous 18-month study, the University Circle Master Plan was presented on the afternoon of October 15, 1957, to Cleveland City Council, the Cleveland City Planning Commission, and the Heart of Cleveland Development Committee. The plan gave direction for the Circle's orderly growth and reaffirmed that Cleveland had succeeded in creating an impressive concentration of health care, education, and arts & cultural institutions.

One of the most important recommendations made in the 1957 Master Plan of University Circle was to "establish a central organization to administer the plan and give it some real authority." With that charge and full institutional support, the University Circle Development Foundation (UCDF) was formed as a “service organization to all institutions.” Initial efforts focused on creating a land bank to purchase and hold available land needed by institutions for expansion. Soon, services that could be provided more efficiently if done collectively –parking, shuttle bus service, public safety, architectural review, and landscaping of common areas – were added. The stability provided by these services gave new confidence to the institutions, and the Circle's growth skyrocketed.

The 1960s were a tumultuous time in the country and in the University Circle area. In July 1966, riots occurred in the nearby Hough neighborhood that reinforced mounting neighborhood distrust that the Circle was closed off to the surrounding neighborhoods. Amidst the community tension, six more institutions joined the Circle, and tremendous progress occurred with land banking, parking lot construction, and a variety of amenity improvements, such as tree planting and lighting. The issue of community outreach, however, became an important issue for UCDF and the Circle.

University Circle Inc. Is Formed In 1970, UCDF was reorganized as University Circle Inc. (UCI) with an added emphasis on strengthening the relationship between University Circle and its surrounding neighborhoods. In its outreach to the broader community, UCI began working closely with neighborhood organizations to build housing and to provide access to broader community resources. UCI's Community Education Program was created in 1973 to bring the assets of the Circle to Cleveland schoolchildren, a collaboration that thrives today with four significant UCI programs serving thousands of Cleveland Metroplitan School District children yearly from pre-school to high school.

The 1990 University Circle Master Plan, which updated the 1957 Master Plan, strongly reinforced the importance of neighborhood partnerships. UCI's reorganization moved it from simply being the "caretaker" of the Circle's physical environment to being a catalyst for development, an integral service provider, and an advocate for University Circle as a center of innovation in health care, education, and arts & culture. These ideas were reinforced in Shaping the Future, a vision statement unveiled in January 2000 and designed to take this extraordinary one-square mile into the 21st century as a premier urban district.

Looking to the Future “Shaping the Future" provided the appropriate vision for the organization and several key recommendations for UCI during its 2006 strategic planning process. It was during this year that UCI released its new strategic plan aimed at developing a business model for going forward and benchmarking the specific deliverables according to UCI’s reinvigorated force as a development, service, and advocacy organization. Aligned with a new mission statement, UCI has tracked its performance under these areas toward its goal of creating a premier urban district in University Circle. From this baseline, UCI is moving forward, and each year its progress will be presented in the annual report card. In 2007, UCI achieved remarkable progress toward its goal of becoming a premier urban district in celebrating the organization's 50th anniversary and unveiling a new logo, displayed on the right. UCI now looks to the bright future of 2008, and continuing to breathe new life into University Circle.

Institutions

University Circle is home to more than 50 educational institutions, centers of arts and culture, houses of worship, health care facilities, and neighborhood organizations.

Education - Case Western Reserve University; The Cleveland Institute of Art; The Cleveland Institute of Music; The Cleveland Music School Settlement; Hawken School – Gries Center at University Circle; Montessori High School; Gestalt Institute of Cleveland

Arts & Culture - The Cleveland Museum of Art; Cleveland Museum of Natural History; Cleveland Botanical Garden; The Western Reserve Historical Society; The Cleveland Orchestra; The Children’s Museum of Cleveland; The Sculpture Center; The Cleveland Public Library – MLK Jr. Branch

Houses of Worship - The Church of the Covenant; Epworth-Euclid United Methodist Church; Mt Zion Congregational Church; Pentecostal Church of Christ; The Temple-Tifereth Israel; Cleveland Friends Meeting

Health Care - The Cleveland Clinic; University Hospitals of Cleveland; The Louis Stokes Veteran’s Administrative Medical Center; American Cancer Society; American Heart Association; The Cleveland Sight Center; Cleveland Hearing & Speech Center; Center for Dialysis Care; The Free Medical Clinic of Greater Cleveland

Neighborhood - The Junior League of Cleveland; Magnolia Clubhouse; Maximum Accessible Housing of Ohio; The Ronald McDonald House of Cleveland

External links

• University Circle Incorporated
• University Circle Guide