Rest in power, Coventry PEACE

Witnessing the long, slow demise of Coventry PEACE Campus since its acquisition by Heights Libraries has felt like looking on while a couple you love battles their way to an excruciating divorce. 

The acronym PEACE originally stood for “People Enhancing a Child’s Environment,” PTA-led volunteers who came together in the early 1990s to build and maintain a then-state-of-the-art playground for Coventry Elementary School.

The Cleveland Heights-University Heights schools closed Coventry in 2007, depriving Coventry Village of a beloved anchor. By 2017, Ensemble Theatre, Lake Erie Ink, FutureHeights, Reaching Heights, ARTFUL and other nonprofits were renting space there, producing a hive of creativity and collaboration. They formed a nonprofit 501(c)3 umbrella organization named Coventry PEACE Inc., for “People Enhancing a Community’s Environment.” (In 2022 Ensemble moved to South Euclid.)

PEACE faced its first major crisis in 2018, as the school system moved to divest itself of the building and grounds. When the Cleveland Heights-University Heights Public Library stepped up to purchase the property adjacent to its Coventry branch for $1 it seemed a win-win solution. The library (which secured the parking lot for its staff and patrons, along with the park), the PEACE tenants, neighborhood residents, and the struggling Coventry Village retail strip all stood to benefit.

Director Nancy Levin stated that the library would assist PEACE until tenants were ready to manage the building on their own. The former open-plan school, built in 1976, was structurally sound but needed a new roof and HVAC system.

Exactly when and how did things begin to go wrong between the library and PEACE?  The parties give conflicting accounts. From Levin's point of view, the tenants failed to meet agreed-upon deadlines and benchmarks. To PEACE members, Levin's expectations seemed to continually change, so that nothing they did was enough. Levin grew increasingly exasperated; the tenants' bewilderment and frustration found expression as anger. The onset of the pandemic in 2020 only worsened the relationship, which has continued to deteriorate with each subsequent lease renewal.

After passing a resolution in support of the Coventry PEACE Campus as an arts hub on Oct. 7, Cleveland Heights City Council hosted a joint meeting with the seven-member library board and Director Levin the following evening. University Heights mayor Michael Dylan Brennan could not attend but sent executive assistant Deanna Bremer Fisher in his place. Coventry PEACE and supporters were present only as observers.

Library leadership repeatedly rebuffed council’s and Fisher’s offers to collaborate in seeking a solution that would allow the tenants to remain and eventually take charge of the building. Levin and the library trustees insisted that "getting [the tenants] out" was non-negotiable. Beyond that, while awaiting the findings of a feasibility study to be completed by year-end, they claimed to have no preconceptions regarding the building's future. A recent community survey and public meeting agenda included demolition as an option.

Throughout the meeting Levin and her board appeared hostile and impatient. They presented contradictory rationales and scenarios—for example, Levin introduced the idea that, as a library property, the building should be regularly open to the public; furthermore, as a publicly owned facility, it should not house private organizations. Later, however, she suggested that possible uses might include medical rehab or childcare services. She and the board said they no longer want to be landlords, although they rent space to Dobama Theatre and Family Connections (also private nonprofits) on Lee Road. Will they terminate those leases as well?

Levin considers the future of Coventry PEACE Inc. and its member organizations to be "not our problem." Her cavalier suggestion that, if the cities want an arts hub, they can establish one elsewhere dismisses an already well-established hub in an ideal location.

Suzanne DeGaetano, longtime owner of the Coventry Road bookstore Mac’s Backs, is particularly distressed: “Coventry Village has created such great programming and events with both the library and the artists. It’s in their DNA and ours to collaborate and cooperate." She cited as just one example nationally known artist and PEACE tenant Robin VanLear, mastermind of the annual Coventry PEACE Lantern Festival, which highlights the holiday season each December.*

To return to our opening metaphor, if this rupture is a divorce, we must note that one party has all the power and owns the single asset under contention. Consider what the community is losing: vital organizations working with underserved children and adults; artists of national stature, including three Cleveland Arts Prize winners; and the dynamism possible with all of them under one roof here in Cleveland Heights, "home to the arts."

Finally, there is the tarnished image of perhaps our most cherished public institution, which exists to serve everyone, including the marginalized among us, and which, in Levin's words, is a "facilitator of democracy." Loss of Coventry PEACE Campus will cast a shadow over the Cleveland Heights-University Heights Public Library for at least as long as current leadership remains in place.

*The 2024 Lantern Festival is scheduled for Dec. 14, 3–7 p.m. It begins with a free public workshop in the PEACE building, where participants of all ages can create their lanterns.

Deborah Van Kleef and Carla Rautenberg

Deborah Van Kleef and Carla Rautenberg are writers, editors and longtime residents of Cleveland Heights. Contact them at heightsdemocracy@gmail.com.

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Volume 17, Issue 11, Posted 4:19 PM, 10.31.2024