University Circle's Chris Ronayne to speak at Cedar Fairmount annual meeting

Chris Ronayne

The annual meeting of the Cedar Fairmount Special Improvement District is on Tuesday, Oct. 9 at 9 a.m., at Nighttown The public is invited.

At 10:30 a.m., Chris Ronayne, president of University Circle Inc. (UCI), will give a talk at the meeting on "University Circle: The Neighborhood without Borders."

This will be an opportunity to discuss future relationships between University Circle and Cleveland Heights and the Cedar Fairmount Business District.

Ronayne was named president of UCI in 2005. UCI is the nonprofit community service corporation responsible for the development, service, and advocacy of University Circle as a world-class center of innovation in health care, education, arts and culture, and as a premier urban district.

Since becoming UCI’s seventh president, Ronayne has developed a dynamic and aggressive agenda to leverage the institutional assets of the Circle’s anchor “Eds, Meds, and Arts” organizations, and transform it into a vibrant mixed-use district.

Ronayne and his staff partner with more than 40 member institutions to oversee the growth and direction of Ohio’s fastest growing employment district, with UCI providing community planning, development, education, marketing, police, and other shared services.

Before joining UCI, Ronayne served the City of Cleveland as planning director, chief development officer, and chief of staff. He was the chief architect of the city’s Waterfront District Plan, an ambitious effort to reconnect the people of Cleveland to Lake Erie.

Ronayne is member of the American Planning Association and CEOs for Cities, and he is a member of the board of the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority, Notre Dame College, and Positively Cleveland. He is chairman of the Holden Parks Trust and the Levin Visiting Committee at Cleveland State University, from which he holds a master's degree in urban planning. Ronayne received his bachelor's degree in business from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

He is married to Natalie Ronayne, executive director for the Cleveland Botanical Garden. They live in Cleveland with their two children.