Mentor chamber names City Manager Ken Filipiak its award of distinction honoree

The Mentor Area Chamber of Commerce named City Manager Ken Filipiak its 2026 Special Award of Distinction in mid-October, days after the Oct. 9 groundbreaking for Uptown Mentor — the $10 million redevelopment Filipiak fronts, and the project carrying more than $7 million in public incentives.

The honor does not sit among the chamber's routine categories. Those went to Cheryl Kuonen, named Business Leader of the Year, and Euclid Fish Company, named Business of the Year. Filipiak — Mentor's appointed city manager, the official who runs the city's day-to-day operations and fronts its development push — received the special award alone.

Filipiak answered in the language of a working partnership, not a pat on the back. "I am deeply honored to receive the award. The partnership between the city and the Chamber has never been stronger," he said. "Chamber members are the business leaders and investors that we depend on to maintain a flourishing economy, which in turn, fuels public sector services. It's only through building and maintaining relationships that we understand each other's needs."

In his telling, the city and the chamber are pursuing the same growth, and the award is the chamber's own statement of that claim.

The project behind the award

Uptown Mentor is roughly $10 million in mixed-use development — 45 market-rate apartments and commercial space, with occupancy expected in early 2028. The groundbreaking was held Oct. 9 at 8677 Mentor Ave. in the Old Village.

Filipiak has cast the project as transformational — a walkable center in an area that has lacked investment for decades — and he made that case in his Feb. 24 State of the City address.

Public money in the same office

More than $7 million in combined city, county, state, and federal incentives underlie Uptown, including a 30-year tax-increment financing agreement. In the same Feb. 24 address, Filipiak put the 2026 road program at about 27 neighborhood streets and roughly $4 million in resurfacing and repairs.

Both figures — $4 million for streets, more than $7 million into a single development — move through the same municipal office the chamber is now honoring.

Who wasn't in the room

Filipiak will accept the award Nov. 17, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:45 p.m., at Cater to You Catering Center, 7575 Bellflower Road. The room will hold the city and the chamber, the two partners Filipiak says have never been stronger.

The taxpayer will not be at the table. Uptown's 45 apartments and commercial space now head toward an expected early-2028 opening, the point at which the more than $7 million in public incentives will have a finished project to show for it. Who was minding the public's end of that bargain is the question that goes with the award into the Old Village as Uptown rises.