Chris Urban
Master of Urban Planning, 2011
Senior Manager of Physical Development at the Greater Cleveland Partnership
For the past five years, Chris Urban has served as the senior manager for physical development at the Greater Cleveland Partnership (GCP), the nonprofit regional chamber of commerce for Northeast Ohio.
As a member of the GCP’s Business and Real Estate Development department, Chris is heavily involved in the planning and implementation of public infrastructure and real estate development projects. His position allows him to routinely interact with numerous public, private, and non-profit organizations focused on creating a more vibrant social and economic climate in Greater Cleveland.
Chris is involved in a diverse array of planning and development efforts in the Cleveland area. He oversees the day-to-day management of the Greater Cleveland Civic Connection, a collaboration of public infrastructure entities that includes the City of Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, the regional wastewater and transit agencies, and the county’s port authority. Civic Connection provides a forum for leadership from these infrastructure agencies to collaborate with the private sector in making strategic capital investments and providing efficient service to the community.
Chris has also been heavily involved in the Opportunity Corridor, a new boulevard that will provide improved access to the growing medical and cultural amenities in the University Circle district and to several hundred acres of vacant or underutilized land in a part of Cleveland that has seen significant disinvestment and population loss. Beyond the construction of the boulevard, the corridor project continues to involve a bevy of planning and community development efforts, including brownfield remediation, workforce development and job training, neighborhood planning, multi-modal transportation planning, public art, community outreach, and business expansion.
Additionally, Chris currently serves as the vice chair of the Cuyahoga County Natural Resources Assistance Council, a volunteer committee that provides recommendations for the awarding of state funding assistance to projects which preserve, expand, and revitalize parks and natural open space throughout the highly-urbanized county.
Chris continues to provide urban planning experience to both GCP and several additional initiatives, including the recently completed renovation of Public Square, the historic central public space in downtown Cleveland.
Chris earned his master of urban and regional planning from Ball State University in 2011 following a nine-year media relations career in which he worked at a pair of NCAA Division I athletic departments. Thanks to this additional experience, Chris is able to lend support in graphic design, desktop publishing, and photography which aid in many of his planning activities at GCP.
In his free time, Chris enjoys making frequent visits to two of his favorite locations in the city: the historic West Side Market and the beautifully-renovated Cleveland Museum of Art. A native of Northeast Ohio, he lives in Cleveland’s West Park neighborhood with his wife, Lauren, son, Charlie, and dog, Emma.