There are multiple disciplines within the realm of the economic development trade from capital investments and business expansion projects to new business start-ups, business counseling and beyond. However, even the wide array of tools that Rob Cleveland’s team at Cornerstone Alliance employ on a normal business day couldn’t have predicted the pivotal changes they were successful in making during a year of global pandemic, all while working the vast majority of the time remotely.
Cleveland’s crew at Berrien County’s lead economic development agency turned a year of chaos for many others in the community, into a huge ongoing drive to help turn the tide for many local businesses who had been pushed to the brink by state-mandated closures, severe operational restrictions, and dramatic uncertainties across the board.
I sat down recently with the President & CEO at Cornerstone to talk about what was a decidedly different kind of year for the organization, but one still anchored deeply in success.
Cleveland admitted right up front, “It was a completely different year in that we spent a lot of time working on COVID relief measures, and whether that came down at the federal level or the state level or even the local level with some of the programs we created, there was a huge component of the pandemic obviously, yet we had to focus on our core mission — we certainly didn’t lose sight of that — so we were able to successfully push out a lot of grant opportunities and loans through COVID and then focus on our core business activities as well.”
Cornerstone, working in collaboration with others, literally became a lifeline to many business enterprises in Michigan’s Great Southwest over the past year, with Cleveland saying, “I certainly think we played a role in that and the many things we went through were good in that they really helped define roles and then also spark those collaborations.” He explains, “There were many things that the Alliance was the sole initiator of and then there were many things where we were working with the Berrien County Community Development Office, working with Kinexus Group and Michigan Works, working with the Southwest Michigan Regional Chamber, and so many other partners including the Berrien Community Foundation, the Southwest Michigan Tourist Council, and St. Joe Today. All of those various levels we were working with on certain projects even as we were working independently on other initiatives of our own.”
Looking back on the myriad efforts, Cleveland contends, “We all played critical roles and I thought we did a fantastic job — the collective ‘we’ in the community — of really meeting the needs of business the best way we could and whether that was programs providing grants, providing loans, whether it was trying to siphon information, because especially early on in the pandemic it was coming from all directions and nobody really knew what it was. So again, we worked with partners to really help refine that message, and there was a lot of that activity that went on during the year.”
As Cleveland noted at the outset of our conversation, even though pivotal moments pushed the pandemic into the forefront, the ongoing work of his economic development team could not be simply set aside. One of the ambitious projects ongoing throughout the pandemic is readily visible just outside his front door on Main Street in downtown Benton Harbor, as he suggests, “If you haven’t been through downtown Benton Harbor lately you should, there’s a major redevelopment going on at Pipestone and Main Street, the main corridor right here in Benton Harbor. Cressy Commercial Real Estate out of South Bend is leading the redevelopment of that and the building is really starting to take shape.”
Cressy’s City Center Lofts project is a $3.6-million investment in redevelopment at the crossroads of the city’s central business district. Cleveland says, “They did a lot of stuff on the outside initially and then moved to the inside, so there’ll be a lot of work on the outside still to be done, but right now they’re focused on the inside and we are hoping, and we think in talking to them, that it’s going to be a potential first occupancy in May, so not too far around the corner.”
The project will feature 12 to 16 apartment units in the historic building, as well as some ground floor commercial space, but Cleveland is excited that in a matter of just a couple of short months “we could see people living in that building.” He adds, “It marks more than $3-million dollars in new investment which will bring new people to live downtown, more people to pay the city income tax in Benton Harbor, which certainly helps rebuild roads and those sorts of infrastructure needs. So it’s a great project for the community.”
Another major linchpin on the Cornerstone accomplishments board is the success of their “Move to Michigan” initiative. Cleveland says, “Move to Michigan was very interesting, and honestly would have been viewed as a success in a normal year, but I think really to do it during COVID-19, when everybody was remote really hit it out of the ballpark and we got just tremendous coverage.” The program saw remarkable success and Rob admits, “To be honest, we planted one seed in Chicago when we launched the program and that has led to five million social media impressions, it led to over a thousand applications, and now we’re working through the stages of getting those people moved here.”
Thanks to the Move to Michigan campaign, Cornerstone Alliance has extended offers to two dozen people or so — two dozen families — some with children some without, and they have one person who has moved in already. Cleveland says, “We have another 15 to 20 solidly in the pipeline, but they’re having the same issues that everyone else is having which you see online, and that’s trying to find housing in the community. So we’re working on that as well.”
Perhaps most importantly for the Cornerstone team is the fact that Move to Michigan raised the profile of the community, with Cleveland saying, “That’s what we intended to do, especially when everyone was sitting at home. So we’ve gotten tremendous coverage around the country and different media outlets, and the program was hugely successful in just raising our profile.”
Cornerstone Alliance is a multi-faceted organization with talent in a wide array of disciplines, and despite working the vast majority of the time remotely, they accomplished a lot. Cleveland points out, “Certainly for the impact we have had with COVID relief, everybody at the Alliance played a role whether that was Business Development, the Women’s Business Center, or Small Business Services, we pushed out more than 400 grants and helped businesses at various levels with both grants and loans which were really important and we certainly think that helped,” while adding, “Again, however, we tried to stick to our core, so we helped start 12 new small businesses in 2020. Even during a pandemic year, we still had another dozen businesses started here in the community.”
Cleveland also notes, “The other thing that didn’t get as much attention was our traditional business development. We have been working on a number of projects over the last year. The perfect one would have been Special-Lite. We worked on that with Cathy Tilley leading the way. It took six or eight months, and we didn’t announce it in 2020, having just announced it here in 2021, but that’s 60 new jobs and millions of dollars in investment in Benton Charter Township. Sixty new jobs that we essentially stole from Arkansas, inasmuch as that was a very competitive situation, and anytime you’re working against another state, especially a state in the south like Arkansas, that’s pretty competitive. To be able to take those jobs and move them to Michigan is just an awesome deal to win. So we’ve been working on that all during 2020, and we’ve got a couple of other projects that we’re going to be announcing too, but from an overall standpoint while we really helped with COVID relief, our organization really tried to stick to our core and we were able to succeed in helping businesses get launched and adding jobs.”
Another major victory thanks to the work of the Cornerstone team during the pandemic is the recent completion of planning for a new spec building in the Cornerstone Industrial Park in Benton Township, with Cleveland reporting, “We’ve been working on that for a couple of years and when the economy was super hot a couple years ago, there just wasn’t a need from the local builders. There was plenty of work out there. So this is a huge deal, and we’re excited about the spec building.” By way of explanation, he says the spec building is “essentially a shell building, that brings jobs, because when companies are looking to relocate, they need a building, especially if they’re looking to relocate quickly. So having a building sitting there is going to be attractive to be able to recruit a new company to Benton Harbor-Benton Township and add investment in jobs and grow our tax base. So we’re really excited about the spec building, as it’ll bring more corporate eyes on Berrien County.”
Looking back on 2020, the team at Cornerstone Alliance scored multiple victories including:
- Assisting more than 475 businesses through the facilitation of over 300 loans and grants totaling more than $1.7-million…
- Establishment of the Rent and Mortgage Payment Program with 63 businesses approved for loans totaling more than $95,000 and impacting 498 jobs…
- Capital investments in the community of more than $1,145,445.00…
- Three new expansion projects…
- 65 project leads…
- Nine new business start-ups…
- Progress on the Harbor Center City Lofts building…
- New harbor infrastructure for water taxi stations along the waterfront…
- Success of the Move to Michigan campaign which, with 23 recipients in Phase 1 poised to bring $1.34-million in local spending…
- Success in turning Women’s Business Center programming into a virtual realm so as to not miss a beat during the pandemic…
The future is also looking bright, as Cleveland tells us, “Going back to our core, what’s ahead is focusing on Business Development. We have a ton of leads we’re actively working on. We have a ton of physical development projects that are coming up. We’re excited about the development here at Cressy Commercial Real Estate at Pipestone and Main because it’s going to prove the model. It’s going to prove that you can come in and invest in Benton Harbor and it’ll pay off for you. So I think we’ll see some more physical development activity going on in the city as a result.”
Of course, the pandemic is still very much with us, and Rob notes, “There’s going to be more COVID relief and the Alliance is going to play an active role in collaborating with all of our community partners and whatever we can do to help get additional resources and push them out to our businesses, so we’re keeping an eye on the pandemic, but we really have to continue to focus on what we do which is adding jobs, growing our economy, increasing the tax base and recruiting new companies.”
With many offices still keeping people working remotely, I asked Cleveland about what impact that has in our marketplace, to which he says, “It certainly is changing the dynamic from our standpoint on the commercial real estate market, and we’re really still trying to figure out what that’s going to look like. Are people going to be coming back to work, and what will the commercial market look like?” He adds, “I think the remote work has certainly brought more attention to communities like ours– ‘semi-urban’ I call them — we’re urban and we’re rural, and you can get out and have a great place to live and be out in the environment and do it safely and that’s what Move to Michigan has been about and we’re seeing more people now. We just have to get more homes built and attract all of those people that want to come here.”
Cornerstone Alliance, headquartered at 80 W. Main Street, will continue to take the lead on economic development in the community with each investment in the organization helping to create jobs, attract new business, and expand existing businesses in Michigan’s Great Southwest.
