A couple hundred people, including Heinen’s employees, elected officials, well-wishers and downtown residents, gathered under elaborate stained glass dome in the century-old two-story rotunda. It’s now filled with deli cases, produce, baked goods, prepared foods and wine.

Morgan Georgie has lived downtown for six months. She’s excited about the new store just down the street.

Changing life downtown
“Instead of driving every few weeks to grocery shop, I work downtown, too; I can walk every couple of days and get my fresh produce. It’s really going to change life downtown.

"The salad bar’s going to be great for lunches, I know everybody at work is excited to come down for lunch. And yeah, I heard about the wine and espresso bar, so that will be something I’ll check out.”  

This is the family-run Heinen’s 18th Northeast Ohio store. With downtown Cleveland’s unprecedented growth, owner Jeff Heinen says the move is a mix of business and civic pride.

“We just felt that this was the opportunity for us as a Cleveland company to try to help continue the momentum of making downtown Cleveland a viable place again.

"And for Cleveland to be viable is very important for Heinen’s. We’re a Cleveland company and the vast majority of our stores are in Cleveland (area). We need Cleveland to be successful for us to be successful.”

This is the company’s first store in a city center, and Heinen says it’s a work in progress.

Learning the rhythms of limited space
“We’ll get better at this as time goes on, but the idea is that we’ll be having wine, beer and food events; we’ll be trying to do things differently with food. Space is kind of limited there, so we’re going to have to learn about the rhythms of the space and how people use it.

"We want people to say on a Saturday or Sunday, 'Heck, let’s go down to Heinen’s. They have some great food and they always have something that’s really kind of unique going on, let’s go down and experience it.'”  

Terry Schwarz is director of Kent State University’s Urban Design Collaborative in Cleveland. She says Heinen’s is showing confidence in downtown’s rebirth, but that involves a risk.

Downtown population still hasn't reached optimum levels
“Typically a large, full-service grocery store comes into a market when there are about 20,000 households. So, in some ways Heinen’s is a little ahead of the curve. There’s somewhere over 13,000 residents in downtown Cleveland right now. But I think it’s a vote of confidence that the housing market in the downtown area is strong and growing, and Heinen’s is moving here to anticipate that growth.”

Schwarz expects downtown Cleveland to hit 20,000 residents in three to four years. She says as more people move downtown, more amenities will pop up, and it becomes a self-sustaining cycle. Jeff Heinen is aware of the challenges they face.

Continued growth key to store’s success 
“The economy needs to continue to recover; people have to continue to think that living downtown is what they want, which we think will be the case.

"And, for those people who’ve not been in downtown Cleveland, or paid much attention, the amount of activity that’s going on is amazing to those of us who’ve watched so little happen for so many years. And if every project gets built that people are talking about building, downtown Cleveland will be a very different place in four or five years. And hopefully we’ll be the beneficiary of that.”

A look at the competition
About a 20-minute walk west of the new Heinen’s is the family-owned Constantino’s Market on the east bank of the Flats. It’s downtown’s other full-service grocery store. Surrounded by hundreds of apartments and condos, Manager Patrick Leigh doesn’t expect to lose much business to Heinen’s.

“We have a pretty solid customer base we’ve established over the last 10 years, and I think our customers are pretty loyal to us and they’re going to stick around. Our business has improved, our quality has improved.

"Heinen’s is far enough away as well that people aren’t going to leave the immediate area and walk or drive over there when they might not have parking.”

Leigh says Constantino’s has been part of downtown’s rebirth, and like Heinen's, he hopes his business will help drive that momentum.