UPDATED: Beachwood Economic Development Department Closed - For Now

Beachwood Economic Development Director Vince Adamus has resigned from his position with the city effective Monday, Feb. 28 with the suspension of the city’s economic development department.

Beachwood Mayor Merle Gorden said that the city has not yet made a decision about how or to what degree the city will continue to provide these kinds of services. He added that he wants to make business retention a focus on the city’s efforts moving forward.

 Once a budget has been determined, he said, a committee comprised of himself and council members will discuss what comes next.

“We are a business-oriented community with a large tax base supported by the business community and our residents,” said Gorden. “We will continue to be an economic development leader going forward.”

In 2010 the economic development department’s expenditures were $576,591 and it made about $90,000 in revenue.

Adamus came to the city from the Beachwood Chamber of Commerce, where he was CEO for about a year and a half, when Beachwood stopped contracting the Chamber for economic development services and created its own department in September 2009.

In his 16 months with Beachwood, Adamus continued to run the Business Development Center, an incubator for small businesses that closed this month due to budget constraints.

Gorden said that with the November 2010 announcement that the center would close, the Economic Development Department’s four employees were told that their jobs would be eliminated by Feb. 28.

Three of those employees have left the city staff already.

The center was established by the Chamber but taken over by the city with the creation of the Economic Development Department.

Adamus estimated that a few dozen businesses used the incubator since its 2005 inception. Two of those businesses –  and TOA – are “graduates” that moved to other locations before the incubator closed. 

Of the 22 businesses using the incubator at its closure, nine have relocated to commercial space in Beachwood and two others moved to the owners’ Beachwood homes, keeping 25 jobs in the city.

TOA and the Ohio Commerce Bank employ 50 more. TOA is expected to hire 20 more people by the end of the year, he added.