Designer, retailer plan Dredgers Union store on East Fourth Street in downtown Cleveland

The apparel and home goods store will take 4,500 square feet on the first floor of a former department-store building at 2043 East Fourt St. If Dredgers Union is successful, it could demonstrate that there is a market for new retail on East Fourth and in other parts of downtown Cleveland.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- In a city built around the Cuyahoga River, the word "dredging" is synonymous with hauling up muck and opening the waterways to maritime traffic.

But to Danielle DeBoe, dredging means clearing a path for retail in downtown Cleveland. Sean Bilovecky sees it as digging back to a tradition of designing, making and selling things close to home.

When the pair opens Dredgers Union, a 4,500-square-foot store on East Fourth Street, in June, it will be downtown Cleveland's first new shopping destination in years. The apparel and home goods store could be a bellwether for retail in the center city, where once-lively storefronts sit empty.

"I think we're finally at a place where the foot traffic on East Fourth Street supports this," said Ari Maron, a developer whose family transformed the once-dingy street into a dining-and-entertainment mecca. "Our hope is that this will be the first of several retail deals, not only on East Fourth but elsewhere in downtown."

Dredgers Union will occupy the ground floor of a former department store building at 2043 East Fourth St. The store will carry a private label of men's and women's clothing, designed in Cleveland and sewn in America; made-to-measure suits and dress shirts; other apparel brands that are new to Cleveland or Northeast Ohio; bedding; kitchen gadgets; soaps and candles; and the occasional table or piece of furniture.

Specialty retailers like Dredgers Union were one plank of a plan floated by TerreMark Partners of Georgia, a consultant that has worked on development strategies for nonprofit groups and property owners across Cleveland. Two years ago, TerreMark suggested that historic buildings along Euclid Avenue could be filled with upscale outlet stores, flanked by furniture and home goods businesses, restaurants in PlayhouseSquare and college-centric stores surrounding Cleveland State University.

Released during a recession when even the largest retailers shelved growth in favor of survival, plans for bringing stores back to downtown Cleveland have been slow to evolve. After several months of improving sales, however, retailers are eyeing expansions in 2012 and 2013. And downtown Cleveland might be better-positioned to compete for stores, with a new convention center under construction, a medical mart being built and a casino planned near Public Square.

"It's still a very valid concept, and I hope that it starts to prove itself out this year," Craig Kaser, a partner at TerreMark, said of the retail strategy.

PlayhouseSquare Real Estate Services is working on deals to bring a gallery and a restaurant to a building at 1309 Euclid Ave., and proponents of the District of Design -- an effort to amass design-centric businesses and retailers between East 13th and East 25th streets -- are planning their second annual downtown furniture fair for late May.

"We've waited for the national market to rebound," said Joe Marinucci, chief executive officer at the Downtown Cleveland Alliance, which represents property owners. "Now that the quarterly results for the national retail economy proved stronger, we'll look to resurrect that [retail plan] and really push it."

East Fourth could be a proving ground for shopping, as it has been for restaurants, entertainment venues and apartments.

"We see this as a calculated risk," Yvette Ittu, president of Cleveland Development Advisors, the investment arm of the Greater Cleveland Partnership. The group recently lent $560,000 to the Maron family to help the developers renovate the space for Dredgers Union and buy a two-story building on Prospect Avenue.

"It's going in an area downtown that already has residents, it has tourists, it supports the workers. We think this is sort of a magnet for folks downtown."

DeBoe, a former retail buyer, moved from Ohio City to an apartment on East Fourth Street in October. At 33, she owns a boutique called Room Service on West 25th Street and has gained a cult following for her "Made in the 216" events, which bring together locally produced t-shirts, furniture, knickknacks, housewares and other items twice a year. She and Bilovecky had been considering a short-term downtown retail project before Maron approached her about opening a permanent store.

Bilovecky, who is 34, grew up in Munroe Falls in Summit County and attended Kent State University. In 2006, he and Cleveland Heights boutique owner Brian O'Neill started Wrath Arcane, an edgy menswear label that gained an ardent following and international distribution deals. When the economy soured, many of the brand's smaller buyers went bust. Wrath Arcane shipped its last order last fall. Meanwhile, Bilovecky came up with the Dredgers Union name, new designs and a plan to sell directly to consumers.

"If Wrath Arcane was more like Joy Division or The Clash, Dredgers Union is more like the Rolling Stones," he said, describing a style that he believes will appeal to downtown residents and office workers alike.

Not every item sold at Dredgers Union will be designed in Cleveland or made in America, but Bilovecky is committed to finding U.S.-made clothing whenever possible.

"I'm about to have a daughter, and I would like her to grow up in a country that is more self-sufficient," he said.

Prices for the private-label clothing likely will range from $35 to $70 for a hoodie, $60 to $80 for a woven shirt, and from $200 to $300 for outerwear. Bilovecky would not publicly identify the other brands he plans to sell.

On the home goods side, DeBoe hopes to cater not only to residents and workers downtown, but also to suburbanites visiting East Fourth for dinner or an event and travelers staying at downtown hotels and looking for mementos of Cleveland. She plans to host her June "Made in the 216" sale at Dredgers Union, in the store's 6,000 square foot basement - a space that could be used for other events and, eventually, an expansion.

Shoppers across the country are paying more attention to homegrown products and independent retailers, said Stacy Mitchell, a senior researcher at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a research and education group in Minneapolis. The challenge for vacancy-plagued cities like Cleveland and Detroit, she said, will be amassing enough retailers to bring consumers back downtown, while providing the support to keep urban pioneers alive until other businesses join them.

"Someone needs to make the first move," DeBoe said. "Sean and I are brazen enough to say, 'Well, heck, let's just do it.'"