2014 Team NEO: Minority Business Development

By Cassie Neiden
Community Benefits Agreements are helping to keep major development projects locally staffed while providing opportunity for minorities, female workers and students.
Jovon Essord was laid off from Donley’s, a construction company, and had collected unemployment for three months. But the Cuyahoga Community College construction engineering student had a second child on the way, and he needed a full-time gig. 

Essord is acquainted with Cleveland councilman T.J. Dow, who let him know about an opportunity at a new development project. He landed a carpentry apprenticeship working on the Upper Chester Project — a $42 million, 177-unit apartment building in Cleveland’s Hough neighborhood — in April. 

Now he’s learning the trade on one of the city’s major developments, which is within walking distance of his home. 

“My favorite part about the project is that it’s in my area. I’m able to leave the house and walk to work if I want to,” Essord says. “To work in the area and deal with something that you’re going to see every day just excites me.”

In part, Essord’s apprenticeship is the result of a combined effort among the city of Cleveland, the Greater Cleveland Partnership and multiple private contractors. With construction projects such as the Upper Chester apartments, Cleveland Convention Center hotel, the conversion of the Ameritrust complex into The 9 hotel and apartments and more going on throughout Cleveland’s core, a question arose: How do you translate those huge investments into community benefits so that the surrounding area also benefits?

In February 2013, the parties composed a memorandum of understanding that serve as the community benefits agreements, which hold development projects accountable for creating direct and local benefit. By weaving together public and private interests, employers agree to hire minority and female workers, and participate in partially public-funded pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship programs for high school and adult students in trades needed for the projects.

The city paid for a demand-driven workforce study in an effort to find out more about what fields are in demand for apprenticeships that could turn into full-time jobs. The study found that although private sector efforts would be voluntary, they were eager to participate, says Natoya Walker Minor, chief of public affairs of Cleveland’s office of equal opportunity.

“We created a will where there wasn’t any before,” she says. “We have owners in the room talking about how they’re going to create and institutionalize community benefits for projects that they have.” 

Each development project will have its own community benefits agreement, tailored to the specific needs of the community where the project is located, says Dominic Ozanne, president and CEO of Ozanne Construction and one of 20 co-writers of the memorandum of understanding.

“In the past, every time there was a big project, that project would develop its own standards and contracting and employment and apprenticeship goals,” he says. “Once that project was over, all that initiative ended, so there was no ongoing infrastructure.” 

Apprentices such as Essord, who is employed by Ozanne Construction, all have opportunities to advance. They spend one week of every month in 12-student classes with two instructors. Once the classes are completed, they receive a raise and are able to apply those new skills on the job site immediately. 

“We’re about to put in drywall in metal framing, so the class I’m taking [next month] is drywall and metal framing,” he says. 

So far, two major projects have written and adopted their own community benefits agreements: the FirstEnergy Stadium Modernization Project and the Upper Chester Project.

The diversity and inclusion committee tracks progress with monthly reports from contractors, which include the hours worked by Cleveland residents, hours performed by minorities broken down by race and the participation of female enterprises.

The Greater Cleveland Partnership is also developing a website, expected to launch in mid-July, that will make these numbers available publicly, says Walker Minor. 
In the meantime, the community is already seeing results. Essord, a member of the Carpenter’s Union 435, says he’s recommended his out-of-work fellow members for apprenticeships on the Upper Chester project. 

“They’re reaching out to a lot of people,” Essord says. “It’s not a hard process. People should take advantage of the opportunity.”