North Ridgeville hires director of planning and economic development

NORTH RIDGEVILLE — The city now employs a professional who will focus specifically on attracting and retaining businesses, as well as planning future growth in North Ridgeville. City Council voted unanimously to hire Kimberly Lieber as North Ridgeville's first director of planning and economic development on Monday, approving her appointment by Mayor Kevin Corcoran. Lieber held a similar position for North Olmsted for the last 18 years and said she sees great opportunity for development in North Ridgeville. "My first job is to listen to the community and understand … what the residents want to see, what the elected officials' input is, and just to use my planning background to help synthesize that into something that makes sense," she said. Initially called just "Director of Economic Development," Council voted to change the job title to "Director of Planning and Economic Development" on Monday. The reason for that addition, Corcoran said, was because "planning has probably been missing more from the city than even the economic development side of things." The position was created more than two years ago, but no one was hired for the role until now. That delay was due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Corcoran said. He said that during his first few months as mayor, in early 2020, he and Safety Service Director Jeff Armbruster traveled around to different cities to interview planning and economic development directors about their jobs. Lieber was one of the people who they spoke with at that time, Corcoran said, and he reached out to her recently after North Olmsted's former mayor lost re-election to see if she may want to work for North Ridgeville. "It worked out where she is going to join us and bring a world of experience and help us not only attract businesses, but help us with planning purposes as well," Corcoran said. Lieber will earn $110,000 per year in the position. With a lot of undeveloped land still existing in North Ridgeville, Corcoran said he believes there is much opportunity to plan out the city's future growth. "I think, unfortunately, that has been missing from the city for quite a long time," he said. Contact Dylan Reynolds at (440) 329-7123 or dreynolds@chroniclet.com. Follow him on Twitter @drey1357.