The Beachland Battles for the Future of Waterloo
By Lee Chilcote

If Cindy Barber wrote the book on entrepreneurialism – and after five years of running the Beachland Ballroom, a funky music club in Cleveland’s North Collinwood neighborhood, with business partner Mark Leddy, she probably could – she might give some simple advice: Make sure that you have some money in reserve.

“When 9/11 happened, no one was coming out, and I still had to pay my bills,” she says. “I didn’t have a line of credit to get through it.”

We’re sitting in the Whatnot Coffee Shop, a new business on Waterloo just a block from the club. Cindy pauses to take a bite out of the breakfast sandwich that the waitress has just put down. It’s past noon, but her day has just begun, and if her dark sunglasses are any indication, it won’t be over for a while. Around us, a couple of locals nurse mugs of coffee and flip through newspapers.

“I didn’t have anywhere to go except my own credit cards,” she recalls. It was just a year after the Beachland opened. “I had to run them up, and there’s never been a chance to catch up – plus there have been low times since then. Now we’re desperately trying to refinance our debt.”

Of course, entrepreneurs don’t usually have access to a lot of money; if they did, their success stories would have already been written. Chapter One of Cindy and Mark’s unwritten book might explain it like this – entrepreneurs are, by definition, risk-takers, but they need at least one get-out-of-jail-free card along the way. For social entrepreneurs that are motivated by community betterment as much as profit making, the business plan has to be as good as their intentions.

On a street pocked with dark storefronts, and in a neighborhood with its share of urban blight, the Beachland’s neon sign is a beacon. The club offers a potpourri of acts from mosh-pit punk to granola-and-sandals folk, and from up-and-coming local bands to nationally-known performers. The smaller tavern sports music posters from bygone days, and with its missing ceiling tiles and cracked barstools, has a rough-around-the-edges feel. The vast ballroom, once a social hall for Croatian families, has beat-up hardwood floors, and walls still adorned with the murals of Croatians working the fields.

Despite this veneer, the Beachland is struggling. Challenges include fans’ unwillingness to plunk down money in a bad economy, the slowness of other businesses to follow the club’s lead and invest in Waterloo, and the outward flow of young, creative people. You might say the Beachland is exactly the kind of venture that Cleveland’s economy needs to beat its doldrums, yet its economic realities read like a business plan challenge for today’s arts entrepreneurs.

# 1: Develop the Audience

As co-owner and manager of the Beachland, Cindy spends most of her waking hours there; booking bands, paying bills, managing staff, jumping in to tend bar when things get hot. Along the way, she’s gotten to know her customers well.

“There’s a story I’m hearing all the time; it’s become background dialogue,” she says. “A lot of the people who hang out or work here are younger, creative people, and many have been laid off or downsized from some creative venture. Some are picking up part-time work; others are leaving town because they can’t find jobs. There are a limited number of entertainment dollars in Cleveland, and I feel like those dollars are continually shrinking.”

One potential solution, she says, is public funding for the arts. The Beachland is not a non-profit – “though we act like one,” she jokes – yet it would benefit from some kind of audience development, or coordinated regional promotion of arts and culture.

“We’re losing buying power and people,” she says, “and we need to do something to change that. Ideally, a government entity would do this, but there’s some resistance to this. So maybe we need to look at what we can we do on our own.”

In the meantime, the Beachland is taking some big risks on the shows they’re promoting, and Cindy is hoping the audience will follow her lead. The club recently brought in soul legend Bobby Watson for “dirt cheap.” Despite the good price, the club lost money when only about 50 people came to the show.

# 2: Line up Support Early

Meanwhile, in another part of town, the House of Blues on East Fourth Street recently opened its doors. Since the opening night party on Thanksgiving weekend, it’s been the talk of the town. Can it be sustained?

If the club develops staying power, it won’t be by accident, the developers say. MRN Ltd., led by Rick and Ari Maron, lined up support from the city of Cleveland, Cuyahoga County and others. MRN used incentives such as historic tax credits and Tax Increment Financing (TIF) to make their deals work. They also convinced the city to re-do the street with heated sidewalks, custom brickwork and artsy lighting (they chipped in part of the cost).

“Our goal is to create something unique to the city,” says Ari Maron. “There’s only one Pickwick and Frolic or House of Blues in Cleveland – we don’t need to compete with the lifestyle centers and the malls.”

The difference between them? MRN is a developer with money; Cindy is an entrepreneur with a dream. (In her former life, she helped to found the Cleveland Free Times.) She didn’t intend to start a music club – she did it, she says “because this is my neighborhood.” The Croatian Hall went up for sale, and the Beachland was born.

Though she gripes about the hype that House of Blues has received – “there seems to be this attitude among the powers-that-be that, if it comes from out of town, it’s better,” she says – she acknowledges receiving support from the city and her councilperson, Mike Polensek.

“I haven’t gotten a huge amount – no grant money or tax abatement,” she says. “But we’ve done two Storefront Program rehabs on the façade and the parking lot.” (The program offers a rebate to property owners that fix up the exterior.)

North Collinwood also isn’t downtown. The average suburbanite may have to use Mapquest to find out which highway exit to take. In the beginning, Cindy was brushed off by five or six banks before landing a financier. “They told me I had a great business plan, but it should be in the Flats,” she says. Five years later, despite the club’s investment and the hundreds of people it attracts each week, the Beachland remains one of a few bright spots on the street.

# 3: Build a Critical Mass

Still, Cindy insists that entrepreneurs, while not arriving like lemmings, are on their way. Since the Beachland opened, she’s pushed the redevelopment of Waterloo as an arts and culture district with a restaurant, wine bar and coffee shop. In the last few years, the idea has been gaining momentum.

“Things on the street were happening slowly, so I ran for the board of the community development corporation, Northeast Shores, to push it harder and faster,” she says.

First, there’s Arts Collinwood, a ragtag band of artists and activists promoting the arts in the neighborhood. Despite a small budget and no staff, they’ve accomplished a surprising amount. They obtained funding to run a summer arts camp for neighborhood kids, and worked with the Beachland to put together a holiday arts show called Weekends on Waterloo. One of the leaders, Sarah Gyorki, started the Whatnot Coffee Shop two years ago. More recently, an anonymous benefactor purchased a building at 156th and Waterloo, steps from the Beachland, and there are plans to convert it to an art gallery and café at street level, as well as performance space and artist studios. Unlike the Whatnot Coffee Shop, whose future is up in the air, the new café will be run by a restaurateur. The group plans on doing a search for the right tenants. “We look at Waterloo as a kind of centerpiece for our efforts,” says Sarah Gyorki. “This has the potential to be a destination district – unlike some other neighborhoods in Cleveland, North Collinwood never went all the way down. We still have good business districts, and a great location.”

There’s also Music Saves, a new music shop on Waterloo run by Melanie Hershberger and Kevin Neudecker. The owners, a “young couple with a dream of opening up a music store that decided this was it,” as Cindy describes them, didn’t initially have the money to buy the building. Most commercial loans require a twenty percent down payment – something that’s not feasible for people just getting started. So instead, the CDC bought it, and through a creative financing scheme, they are leasing it back. Once Kevin and Melanie have their credit established, they can go to the bank and obtain financing to buy the building. A portion of their rent will go toward that eventual purchase in the meantime. They operate the store in a street-level space, and live in the rear, much like the original, immigrant entrepreneurs that settled the street. Prior to these renovations, the building was an old barbershop in foreclosure.

Music Saves’ business plan includes keeping late night hours to coincide with the Beachland, and getting musicians to do in-store concerts. Kevin Neudecker, who describes himself as “just a user” who “can’t play a note,” was inspired to start the music store with his partner Melodie after she obtained a Master’s degree in Photography and came up empty in her job search.

“People weren’t exactly knocking on her door,” Kevin told me. “I had a radio show when I was at Bowling Green, and we both love Indie and Alt-country. We decided to open Music Saves here to take advantage of being close to a music club. We couldn’t afford a space on Coventry, and didn’t want to be in a strip mall somewhere – we wanted to be part of a neighborhood.”

How are things going so far? Any surprises along the way? I ask. Kevin shrugs. “There’s no user’s manual,” he says. “We expected not to know what to do. But we’ve been open six months, and so far, things are going better than expected.”

Northeast Shores Director Brian Friedman argues that North Collinwood is seeing a “quiet renaissance” that, while not as talked about as much as Tremont, is there. “Northeast Shores sees itself as a partner in development, and Music Saves is an example,” he says. “We want to build off the momentum of the Beachland, and create an arts and entertainment district on Waterloo that will complement our business districts. We want restaurants and wine bars, so people at the Beachland can make a night of it. We want people to say, ‘We’re going to Waterloo to see a concert,’ like they say, ‘We’re going to Coventry.’”

Five or six other deals are in the works. Whether they pan out, the key to making the street viable seems to be for the owners put together a workable plan, and to try to create some synergy between businesses.

“The sausage shop across the street, R & D Sausage, is run by an older Croatian gentleman,” says Cindy. “He’s getting ready to retire – and he’s not necessarily interested in coming across the street to see the Legendary Shack Shakers! He’s surviving because he has people that come in from the suburbs who have used him for years, and he’s a wonderful butcher.”

“But...” She shrugs and lifts her hands. “He needs a succession plan.”

#4: Write Your Own Succession Plan

The conclusion to Cindy and Mark’s entrepreneurial story hasn’t been written. She’s tired – on top of running the club, she’s also caring for a sick relative – but not yet ready to throw in the towel. The day that we sit down to talk, she’s got bags under her eyes, but smiles when she talks about last night. “I was up till 3 AM saying goodbye to the Reverend Horton Heat, after he said wonderful things about the Beachland,” she says. Stories like this one, about a national musician that loves to play the club, bolster her spirit. “The legendary, word-of-mouth success has surpassed my wildest dreams,” she shakes her head. “One of our bartenders went to England with his band, and somebody recognized her American accent and asked where she was from. He said, ‘Oh, my favorite club in America is in Cleveland, do you know the Beachland Ballroom?’”

As the club approaches its fifth anniversary, Cindy is starting to realize that for the venture to thrive, it needs a succession plan.

“In some ways, I don’t have any choice but to keep going,” she says with a sigh. “I’d love to step back and find someone else to run the Beachland – someone with the right vision and integrity, who wants to carry on the things that we’ve created.”

Cindy and I are walking back to the ballroom along Waterloo, past Music Saves with its neon sign turned off. We turn into the parking lot – it strikes me how different the club looks in the daytime, more like a lonely outpost than a busy hub. Tonight, the street will be lined with cars. There’s a sense of things slowly stirring – old buildings coming back to life, new businesses opening up.

“I hope the Beachland proves to be a long term investment,” she says. “I believe this is what the city needs – more cultural pockets.”

For now, you won’t find the advertisement in the PD or the Free Times. But Cindy is piecing together a succession plan – sending out feelers to those in Cleveland’s music biz, etc. She’s on the lookout for a partner, someone younger – someone with access to capital, someone with good, creative energy.

Interested parties can reach Cindy Barber at the Beachland Ballroom, between the hours of noon and 3 AM...

http://www.beachlandballroom.com and http://www.northeastshores.org
Music Saves can be reached at 216-481-1875.

Interview by Lee Chilcote leechilcote@yahoo.com (:divend:)