Dave Ferrante, owner of Visible Voice Books in Tremont, Thursday August 2, 2007. Ferrante’s shop is on the move to Ohio City. (Thomas Ondrey/The Plain Dealer)The Plain Dealer
CLEVELAND, Ohio – The “voice” in Visible Voice Books is about to get a whole lot louder.
After nearly two decades tucked into Cleveland’s Tremont neighborhood, the bookstore is packing up its shelves and heading a mile and change west, into Ohio City.
“It was time to find a larger place to execute a bigger vision for what I’ve always had for Visible Voice,” said Dave Ferrante, the bookstore owner.
“When this opportunity came along, it was a perfect fit in every sense of the word.”
The move isn’t just about geography—it’s about scale, ambition and making good on the “visible” part that’s been on view for years.
When it opened in 2007, Visible Voice was part of Tremont’s creative backbone: A second-floor hideaway where you could stumble into a perfectly curated book, sip some coffee or wine and maybe catch a reading or small performance.
It had that lived-in, serendipitous vibe; a literary salon crossed with a neighborhood living room. But at just 1,100 square feet, the space could only do so much.
Eventually, the ceiling wasn’t just metaphorical — it was very real. Now that ceiling is about to be shattered. Or at least removed.
“When we were demoing this new location, the false ceilings yielded to some very high ones,” Ferrante said. “That’s when we all realized this building had indeed been a theater in its former life.”
The new Visible Voice is landing in a former Lorain Avenue theater at 4601 Lorain Ave., rehabbed after decades of neglect.
It’s six times the size of the original location.
At 6,000 square feet, this new VV can hold three times as many books, along with a full café, a bar, a mezzanine for reading or studying and a stage big enough for national touring acts and local talent alike.
It’s a bookstore, but it’s also a hangout, a venue, a café and a cultural hub rolled into one.
But that’s not all. The menu for the café is being crafted by Melt founder Matt Fish and will be executed by former Coffee Coffee Coffee owner Trey Kirchoff so expect food with actual personality — sandwiches, salads, small plates and fare that invites patrons to linger instead of rush.
Pair that with coffee, espresso or a drink from the bar and suddenly you’ve got a place where flipping through your new book or catching a band feels equally natural.
And that band? The stage can hold 150 people, which opens the door for both intimate shows and marquee literary events—something sorely missing from the scene since the days of poetry slams at the Beachland Ballroom or, before that, Speak in Tongues.
That latter venue — a collectively operated DIY creative space and concert venue that was located at 4311 Lorain Ave. — operated from 1994 to 2001.
Nothing ever quite replaced its presence in this part of the city… until now.
“There’s so much we can do with this new space; things that I’ve personally wanted to see happen for a long time but was hampered by lack of space,” said Ferrante. “That will no longer be an issue.”
He sees the new VV as a communal hub in the making.
Elsewhere in this new space, three conference rooms give book clubs, workshops and community groups a dedicated home.
“One of these rooms was actually the projector room for the theater,” Ferrante said. “With the unique stage space and these cool 80-year-old murals that we found in the demo process, there’s a lot to take in.”
For the first time, the hybrid bookstore has the space to live up to its name fully — audible, visible and alive in every sense.
The new neighborhood is ready for it, too.
Lorain Avenue is in the middle of its own glow-up, thanks to Sartorial, Cent’s Pizza, The Judith café and more filling in the storefronts.
Visible Voice will join forces with Ferrante’s other nearby businesses (Proof BBQ and Guitar Riot) under a banner he’s calling “The Highlands,” a two-building cluster of music, food, yoga and now, literature. He nicknamed the zone after the 1997 Bob Dylan song.
“It’s a song about finding a place for relief,” Ferrante said. “With everything we have in the neighborhood, that just felt like a good name for things.”
Leaving Tremont was not an easy thing easy, but this is not a farewell, either. In the interim, Ferrante’s right-hand-slash-general-manager, Abby Robejsek, has been juggling the transition between the spaces “like the pro that she is. I’m grateful she’s been such a big help, as she always is.”
This new spot is less than two miles away, and the heart of the store — the curated sanctuary, the accidental discoveries, the conversations that start between shelves — will travel with it.
Only now, there’s more room to breathe. More room to grow. And more things to lose an afternoon or evening to without ever meaning to.
“We’re excited about the future,” Ferrante said.
The space is expected to open in November.
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