Build it and they will come. This seems to be the mantra of University Circle, a neighborhood in Cleveland that is experiencing a cultural renaissance. The revival, anchored by the refurbished galleries and stunning atrium of the Cleveland Museum of Art, includes the new home of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA).

More art-centric expansion is to come, with the Cleveland Institute of Art breaking ground last month on a 80,000-square-foot George Gund Building, which will house the Cinematheque art-house film theater as well as galleries and classrooms.

University Circle, one of only two Cleveland neighborhoods with both job and population growth of late, has long been home to many of the city’s cultural gems. Planners, in fact, developed the area on the city’s east side in the mid-1800s as a cultural counterpoint to the thriving downtown business district, setting aside land for institutions that would merge into Case Western Reserve University.

By the 1980s, dilapidated Gilded Age mansions had been replaced by, among other buildings, the sprawling Cleveland Clinic, the renowned hospital complex covering 10 city blocks along Euclid Avenue. However, cultural institutions like the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Cleveland Botanical Garden and Severance Hall, home to the Cleveland Orchestra, remain around the campuslike parkland of Wade Oval.