Clevo Books to Move Into Vacant Rise Nation Space This Month

After two years of testing the waters in a sizable space at the Euclid Arcades, Downtown's Clevo Books will relocate three blocks east to the old Rise Nation space at 1030 Euclid Avenue in late April.

The move, owner Cathyrn Siegal-Bergman told Scene, stems from a combination of the store coming into its own as well as an itch to leave the Arcades, which have continued to struggle with vacating tenants and lackluster foot traffic following its takeover by new managers CBRE.

Siegal-Bergman is excited for the new digs for the store's growing collection, and for a monthly readings and a planned literary-themed wine bar.

"We're outgrowing the space we're in now," Siegal-Bergman told Scene. The former boutique gym at 1030 Euclid, she said, "seems to be ideal. It gives us new room to grow into."

Along with that wine bar, which will come with a second phase renovation this summer, Siegal-Bergman plans to use Clevo's new 3,000 square-foot store to expand her sidelines merchandise—themed notebooks, pens, book-related gifts—and allow for a more airy, inviting place to hang out. (Which means more furniture.)

Clevo's relocation to Euclid Avenue comes at a time of spring shuffling in Cleveland's literary world.

Last month, The Bookshop, the non-pretentious spot off Madison Avenue in Lakewood announced they were closing and would be liquidating books at a 75 percent discount. (Just as Book Brothers, a well-stocked literary haven a block west, stretches its legs into the space next door.)

And in early April, following a $250,000 state historic tax credit, NEOTrans confirmed that Visible Voice will be moving out of Tremont to a new, rehabilitated storefront close to West 45th and Lorain Avenue. And in December, sisters Catherine Kassouf and Jean Khoury, began renting a space in the largely-vacant Erieview for their travel-inspired Browsing Room Bookstore and Cafe.

The city's only bookstore to specialize primarily in books-in-translation, Clevo grew out of Siegal-Bergman's own work as a German translator. Clevo's shelves are categorized into 53 languages—including works such as Marx's Das Capital and Dante's Divine Comedy—as well as those sporting graphic novels, tomes on photography, classics and poetry.

Siegal-Bergman's eye on Euclid Avenue interplays nicely with Downtown Cleveland, Inc.'s nigh actualization of its five-year retail plan, a strategy aiming to fill long-vacant storefronts downtown with small businesses owned by women, minorities or Veterans.

As of early April, Euclid Avenue, Cleveland's historical commercial locus, remains about a quarter to half vacant, amplified by the exoduses of the Chocolate Bar, Cathy's, Nosotros Climbing Gym, and the Flower Petal as newcomers test the market, like HYPE Clothing, Best Steak & Gyro and the Square Cafe.

Siegal-Bergman said Clevo Books is aiming to have all their books transported to the old Rise Nation space, and reopen, on Independent Bookstore Day, April 27.

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