Mr. Levy is a frequent speaker before industry groups, including NAIOP, ICSC, ULI and CREW. In 2010, he won CBRE’s Gary J. Beban Teamwork Award, which acknowledges professionals who take a multi-disciplinary approach to client service. Mr. Levy currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women.
Prior to joining CBRE, he was a principal at Stifel Nicolaus (formerly Legg Mason Capital Markets), a leading investment bank serving the real estate industry, where he played a significant role in M&A, IPO and private capital-raising activities. Before that, he served as assistant general counsel at the Witkoff Group and was an attorney at Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson and Jones Day Reavis & Pogue.
Mr. Levy is a graduate of Cornell University and Harvard Law School.
Presentation Topics:
Mr. Levy's presentation will center around the State of the Economy. He will discuss the overall economic outlook for Northeast Ohio, commercial real estate in general; the outlook for commercial real estate in Northeast Ohio; what a global gateway market is, how it compares to secondary markets (such as Cleveland and Northeast Ohio); key economic variables; how commercial real estate impacts small business and other employers and the overall benefit of a strong regional economic market.
Joe Marinucci
Joe Marinucci has led the Downtown Cleveland Alliance (DCA) since 2006. Under his leadership, the DCA has evolved from a special improvement district (SID) focused on the Clean & Safe Program, to an organization engaged in various aspects of Downtown Cleveland from business attraction and retention and retail development, to marketing and special events. Setting specific priorities for the organization, has helped DCA experience incremental progress that has led it to where it is today. The DCA has helped attract 130 businesses to Downtown, and created and retained thousands of jobs through its Business Development Center, rebranded the Financial District to the NineTwelve District, renovated Perk Plaza, created the weekly food truck meet-up Walnut Wednesday, extended RTA's popular, free green trolleys, worked to redefine North Coast Harbor and helped to attract retain back to downtown Cleveland bring business to the 5th Street Arcades.
In 2014, Marinucci along with a host of community leaders and partner organizations commissioned Step Up Downtown, a vision and tactical plan for the future of Downtown. Step Up Downtown serves as the natural evolution for the SID. While Clean & Safe, marketing and business development will continue to grow, DCA will evolve from a “place manager” to “placemaker” in the next five years.
Presentation Topics:
In his presentation, Mr. Marinucci will discuss the "Live, Work, Play" concept, how it relates to residential units and how to analyze what downtown residents need; creating a walkable downtown; population growth of downtown Cleveland and key employment centers in downtown Cleveland.
Dr. Byron P. White
Dr. Byron P. White has spent his career as a journalist and administrator in academic, corporate, non-profit and public sectors facilitating mutually beneficial engagement between institutions and urban communities. He currently is Vice President for University Engagement and Chief Diversity Officer at Cleveland State University, where he is responsible for developing and overseeing strategies that advance civic engagement, workplace engagement, and inclusion and multicultural engagement.
Before joining CSU, White was Vice Chancellor for Economic Advancement for the University System of Ohio, and Associate Vice President for Community Engagement at Xavier University in Cincinnati. He began his career as a newspaper journalist, serving as the editorial page editor of The Cincinnati Post, and as an editorial writer for the Chicago Tribune and editor of its Urban Affairs Team. He later became the Tribune’s senior manager for community relations.
Between newspaper stints, White was executive director of the Conference of Walnut Hills Churches in Cincinnati and worked as a consultant with community-based organizations on Chicago’s West Side through the Asset-Based Community Development Institute at Northwestern University, on whose national faculty he serves. He currently represents Cleveland State on the boards of Cleveland Neighborhood Progress, the Cleveland International Film Festival, and Campus District Inc., which he chairs.
White is a Research Associate at the Kettering Foundation, and serves on the Advisory Board of the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University. He has a doctorate in higher education management from the University of Pennsylvania, a master’s degree in social science from the University of Chicago, and a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the Honors Tutorial College at Ohio University.
Presentation Topics:
In his presentation, Dr. White will highlight the impact that Cleveland State University has had on Northeast Ohio. He will touch on how CSU provides an affordable college education for Northeast Ohio residents; the University as an employment center, enabling employees to become homeowners; how CSU functions as a community anchor, has a multiplying effect on Northeast Ohio through our efforts to modernize and expand the campus and how CSU is the largest land owner in downtown Cleveland.