MWW1 is the poster child for what the Lee Road Corridor can become: a location for thriving businesses with connections to the adjacent community – and to the community at large through its work with the Shaker Schools.
By Joe Miller
Crystal Jones, Matt Wright and their daughter, Nyomi. Photographs by Damian Eduardos
Driving down Lee Road, the former Pontiac dealership at the corner of Hampstead Avenue can easily be mistaken for another obsolete relic of Shaker Heights: a once-bustling auto row. But looks can be deceiving. On the inside, new owners Matt Wright and Crystal Jones are giving the sprawling 61-year-old building a 21st century mission as the new home of their company, MWW1 Engineering and Prototyping Services.
Their plan is quickly transforming the old showroom and service bays into a mixed-use, high-tech facility where Wright and Jones hope to solve clients’ problems, breathe life into new product ideas, and even find time to inspire the next generation of engineers.
It’s exactly what the couple envisioned when they decided to move their business and their family out of the Detroit suburbs: a versatile workspace with room to grow and a nearby community – they just bought a house in the Lomond neighborhood – where they can raise their four-year-old daughter, Nyomi.
“We just couldn’t find anything in Detroit that fi t our needs,” says Wright. “There was nothing as unique as this where we could actually live in the same community. I walk to work two or three times a day now.”
“Obviously the shop is very important, but it was really our family dynamic that brought us here,” Jones says.
Family dynamics were far from Wright’s mind when he first launched MWW1 seven years ago. Seeking a way to strike out on his own after a career in the automotive industry, the young engineer noticed that there were plenty of consultants focused on pure engineering and design, and many others centered on production. Few could offer both. Wright built MMW1 to fill that niche and guide customers from the germ of an idea all the way to the assembly line.
The 41-year-old was lead engineer on the Saleen S7 performance sports car and helped develop a hybrid electric car at another company. But Wright set up his new company to take on any challenge no matter the industry. MWW1’s eclectic client list now includes hospitals, universities, military suppliers, and one online vinyl record shop.
During a tour of MMW1’s new home, Wright runs through recent projects, from a metal weight designed to keep old vinyl records flat while playing, to a Y-shaped syringe for eye surgeries. Just the night before, he was on the phone with a Vietnamese start-up company that needs help bringing an electric car to market.
“If a doctor or an engineer or a manufacturer has a problem, we’ll design a solution and build it,” he says. “I just like solving problems. I like building little knickknacks and doodads. And I can’t sit still very long on one project, so this work is perfect for me.”
While Wright handles the engineering side, Jones, 37, manages the money and the operations. She joined MWW1 in 2017 just after the birth of their daughter, leaving a career in finance and banking. “We thought it would be a wonderful opportunity for us to grow together not only professionally, but as a family,” she says.
It’s a balance they’re exploring at the new location, where mom, dad, and daughter are already turning the building’s second floor into what can be best described as a live-at-work environment. Mixed in with the computers, desks, and draft plans is a play area for Nyomi and a living room set from their old house in White Lake, Michigan, made complete by a pink, bunny-shaped bean bag chair.
There’s even room for the family’s two dogs, Barney and Brady, who relax on the floor not far from where new employee Terrance Scott designs the metal housing for a military radio.
The shop is very important, but it was really our family dynamic that brought us here.
Downstairs are the makings of a mini-factory. Just inside the building’s garage doors, the first floor is filled with manufacturing and fabrication equipment shipped from their old house and workshop in Michigan. The stars of the show are a huge Haas computer-controlled mill and an even larger lathe. Both multi-ton machines are equipped to cut and shave chunks of metal into nearly any shape a customer needs.
And, unlike their old place, there’s plenty of room to grow. Although the building’s long-time tenant, the Shaker Heights City School District, continues to rent the back half of the 15,000-square=foot structure as warehouse space, MWW1 still has much more space than it had in its old 2,000-square-foot shop in Michigan.
“We had always been space limited, so this new facility allows us to do more,” Wright says. “At some point in the future I’d like to do everything in-house. We design it up front, and you go back there and assemble it.”
A Meeting of the Minds
“Up front” refers to the former showroom facing Lee Road, currently being renovated into a modern design and engineering center. The open office plan, which they hope to unveil in 2022, will feature work spaces along the walls of tall windows, a central “clean build area” where employees can collaborate on projects, and a full kitchen.
“It’ll be a place where engineers and students can have a meeting of the minds,” says Jones. “There will be no walls or cubicles, no barriers to conversation.” It’s a third act of sorts for a building that in recent years has only been notable from the outside as a showcase for Shaker High School artwork in its front windows.
It was built in 1960 by longtime Shaker veterinarian Dr. Kegham K. Goekjian and was the home of Feder Pontiac for more than 20 years, one of many dealerships that once populated the area. Although the name changed several times over the years – Guice, Qua, Zalud – this was the place to buy new Pontiacs until the dealership finally closed its doors in the 1990s.
It wasn’t until 2007 that the building – still owned by Goekjian’s heirs – found new life as a warehouse for the Shaker Heights City School District. In hindsight, Wright and Jones’ purchase of the building was a happy accident.
Wright briefly lived in Shaker and attended Hawken School. His father, a pediatric ophthalmologist, worked at the Cleveland Clinic. But he spent most of his childhood in Southern California and, after graduating from Hawken in 1997, his college years in Michigan. For her part, Jones grew up in Detroit’s East English Village neighborhood and lived in Michigan all her life.
They knew they wanted to move to Cleveland – they had friends here from Wright’s Hawken days and liked the area – but Shaker wasn’t necessarily on their radar.
Bids on commercial properties in Cleveland and Cleveland Heights fell through, so their realtor put the couple in touch with Nick Fedor, executive director of Shaker Heights Development Corporation. Before they knew it, Mayor David Weiss was introducing them to the building’s latest owner, Craig Stout.
Stout, for his part, wasn’t looking to sell. A Shaker graduate – class of 1966 – and a former trustee of the Shaker Schools Foundation, Stout bought the building in 2016 to ensure the School District would have local warehouse space.
“As a landlord, you couldn’t ask for a better tenant than the District,” Stout says. “They pay rent like clockwork, handle all the maintenance, and they’re never going out of business.”
Still, there was something about the MWW1 pitch that swayed him. First, Wright and Jones agreed to let the District remain a tenant in the building under a three-year lease. And then they sweetened the offer.
“Not only were they willing to share the space with the District, they offered to start working with the High School’s engineering program,” says Stout. “So we did the deal.”
Ready to Learn
For Wright and Jones, connecting with future engineers and inventors was always part of the plan. They recently established Tech Trades, a non-profit focused on introducing minority students and women to engineering and technology. So far they’ve hired three interns from the High School’s engineering program.
Wright has the three seniors restoring a 1976 Chevrolet Camaro, but he hopes soon to give them more experience working on real designs and production. Shaker seniors David Szoke and Evan Ward, who will both study engineering this fall at Ohio State University, are ready to learn.
Wright with Shaker seniors Evan Ward (left) and David Szoke, who will both study engineering this fall at Ohio State University.
“It’s been intimidating at MWW1, but at the same time very exciting. Matt has all the tools and resources we need to get the work done,” Szoke says.
“Being here has given me a different perspective,” he says. “Every day Matt seems to be working on something different. He’s really made me think about what I actually want to do.”
While the quick connections to Shaker schools have helped validate the relocation from Michigan, it’s the community’s diversity that really sealed the deal for Wright and Jones. “I love walking up Lomond Boulevard and seeing the different people and kids and families,” Jones says. “It really resonates with me and our family. And having a biracial daughter, I want her to have that exposure.”
“It’s a multi-cultural community,” says Wright. “Coming from Detroit, where it’s still very segregated, this feels very comfortable to us.”
Learn more about MWW1 Engineering and Prototyping Services.
Originally published in Shaker Life, Summer 2021.
