This page was published in 2009. Some of its ideas are low cost, others are major projects.  As of January 2019, no improvement on this list had been implemented!

Security

To build the public's confidence in visiting Shaker Square, it needs a greater police presence, better lighting. more alarm boxes and more cameras. In their own interest, the city and the Square's owners need to invest more and spend more.

Promotion

Here are some promotion possibilities:

• Ads and promotions geared to holidays such as Fathers Day and Mothers Day

• Shaker Square gift certificates

• Radio, television and internet ads

• Saturday daytime promotions, each week targeting a quadrant. Greater traffic at one business can help its neighbor stores.

• Early-bird dinners. Thousands of older persons live around the Square. Give them an incentive to come to dinner early, before the after-work crowd shows up.

Free Short Term Parking

In 2007 the Coral Company changed its 60 parking meters to give 15 minutes free. Business owners say it helps. But the city's meters on Shaker Boulevard don't offer free short term parking. A change in the city parking code will help small businesses in all its neighborhoods. (2012 update: free short term parking was removed.)

More Parking

Shaker Heights helps local businesses with free short-term parking and small parking lots. Cleveland Heights provides free short-term parking, much metered parking, plus parking structures at Coventry Village and on Lee Road. Cleveland does nothing! How about it Cleveland? The payback: collecting more from sales, property and payroll taxes. Said differently: avoiding long-term declines in tax collections.

Phone "Hot Line"

We call 911 when we see something that needs emergency response. But if we see something on the Square that is messy or dangerous, there is no number to call. Each quadrant has a directory of stores and restaurants. How about a "hot line" shown on those directories?

Visitor and Living Center

There is a University Circle Visitor & Circle Living Center, with a helpful staff, on Euclid Avenue near Mayfield Road. A good idea for the Square. Learn more.

Community Space

Indoor, day and evening, year-round space can help build community. See our page Public Spaces and Community.

Merchants Association

Nearly all businesses on the Square pay a monthly fee for promotion to the Coral Company. We suggest that these funds be controlled by the businesses, through their merchants association, not by the property owner. There will be more promotion, and when Shaker Square changes ownership, its web presence and promotions will continue. (2020 update: when the Coral Company failed, the promotional fund was lost, a repeat of what happened in 2004.)

Special Improvement District

A Special Improvement District (SID) is a way a defined area can assess an additional tax on its property owners and direct how those funds are spent. Coventry Village in Cleveland Heights is a SID. (2016 update: There was talk of an SID for the Square but it was just talk.)  

Library Outpost

The first version of this page had only nine suggestions. We invited visitors to submit a tenth. Here it is.

Have a branch of the Shaker Heights Library at the Square. (The Shaker Square area, while in Cleveland, is in the Shaker Heights City School and Library District. How that happened.) It need not be a big commitment. For a start, a safe place to pick up and return books, video and audio items would help. It could be in a cooperating business or, even better, in our hoped for indoor community space.

See you on the Square.

Arnold Berger

August 8, 2009
updated 9/11, 7/13, 2/14, 4/14, 5/15, 8/18, 1/19, 2/20