Richmond Heights looking to expand into health and wellness

Seniors enjoy lunch inside Richmond Heights Community Center. (Frank Mecham- The News-Herald.)

Richmond Heights has been expanding in 2023.

The old Richmond Heights Town Square Mall was demolished to make way for the construction of Belle Oaks Marketplace starting in the new year. In addition, Flexjet finished its new world headquarters and operations center at Cuyahoga County Airport located in the outskirts of Richmond Heights earlier this year.

These are all signs of what Richmond Heights Mayor Kim Thomas says is the culmination of trying to revitalize the city into a vibrant community.

“When we look at Belle Oaks, we already started the demodulation of the old mall and preparing the site of phase one of the constitution,” Thomas said. “The construction is on the highly anticipated Meijer store and that project is the first step in revitalizing the commercial spaces in Richmond Heights.”

Thomas says that Flexjet expanding its center and adding more employees helps the city as well. The new headquarters boosted the number of employees on site from 400 to over 600 and is expected to expand further.

“What this means for Richmond Heights is growth, revenue growth for us.” Thomas added.

In addition to private businesses, Thomas says that with the help of ARPA funds Parks and Recreation aims to look at how the parks within the city will develop in the future.

“We were able to come together and come up with a strategic plan for our parks,” she said. “Right now, our pool is in total disarray, so the consultant will come up with a strategic plan not only for our pool but also the three parks within Richmond Heights.”

Going into the new year the city will be focusing on trash or rather the lack of it. Richmond Heights didn’t have a recycling program before but starting in 2024 it will. Thomas said she has heard new residents were taken aback after moving to the city and finding out that a recycling program wasn’t in place, and she wanted to change that.

Now recycling bins are hitting the doors of residents every day. Waste Management partnered with the city and is distributing the new recycling bins and should finish by the end of 2023.

Thomas says the start of the long-awaited program is one step in trying to keep trash from entering the landfill and says programs like this one will also help keep city streets clean.

“Richmond Heights several years ago started the recycling program,” she said. “However, it wasn’t successful. Now we have the opportunity to get it right by just really educating our residents on the needs and importance of recycling.

“The more we recycle, I always tell residents, the more waste we reduce sending to the landfill conserves natural energy,” she added. “But I think for us we wanted to make sure that we got it right this time and in order to get it right we had to start this educational campaign.

“We started six months prior to the launch of our recycling program just to make sure the residents got the education that they needed and to make sure that there is no cross contamination.”

Thomas says that the recycling program is part of Richmond Heights turning a focus on health and wellness. Thomas says that in 2024 the city will be opening a Health and Wellness Center in order to increase access to pre-emergency preventive care.

Thomas says that these programs are always helpful, and she wants to increase them, but part of the problem is funding.

“We are a small suburban community with less than 11,000 people so the other challenge is we are constantly seeking opportunities for funding,” she said. “Most municipalities are, but we are always seeking funding from the county, from the state, from federal for resources to support our economic development initiatives.”

Thomas said going into the new year she hopes Richmond Heights can find more ways to gain access to that funding.

She also hopes to work with the new City Council members Asu Mook Robinson and Brian Silver. The two newcomers will be replacing long standing council members Frank Lentine, who was voted out in the November election, and Mark Alexander, who did not seek reelection.