The Inner City 100
100 street-smart companies.
91. Christy Webber Landscapes
182%
6.9 million
135
Landscaper Christy Webber gets a big kick out of turning the city of Chicago green. She's about to close on a 12-acre former industrial brownfield, where she hopes to create an ecofriendly home base -- with rooftop greenhouses and a pond -- for about five landscaping companies.
92. Rysar Properties
180%
22.9 million
45
This real estate development and construction company is refurbishing apartment buildings (a mix of low-income units and luxury lofts) from downtown to the outer reaches of Cleveland. CEO Ken Lurie says his company makes a special effort to work with first-time homebuyers.
93. Redbarn Pet Products
178%
13.2 million
90
Redbarn makes fresh-meat dog food. Of the eight new products Redbarn launched in the past year, the top seller has been the Pooch Pizza, an eight-slice pie of cheese-and-pepperoni-flavored dog treats that comes in a little square box.
94. ExecuScribe
174%
3 million
21
Rochester, N.Y.
Linda Yaniszewski recently signed a 10-year lease on a downtown office space for her corporate and medical transcription company. The building is a block from the Rochester Museum & Science Center. "We've renewed our commitment to the city," Yaniszewski says.
95. Kira
171%
20.7 million
320
Kira uses technology to build and maintain sites for the military in 12 states. Dispatchers track maintenance workers using GPS devices and assign them to jobs accordingly. CEO Carlos Garcia has lined up $350 million in Pentagon contracts spanning the next 15 years.
96. American Christmas Decorations
169%
4.3 million
91
ADVERTISEMENT
Web-Only Exclusives
- Are Things Happening in Detroit?
Kwame Kilpatrick, the optimistic mayor of Detroit and winner of this year's ICIC Mayoral Leadership Award, believes the Motor City is becoming a hotbed of entrepreneurship, despite what others say. - 2005 Inner City Almanac
Why do companies locate in the inner city? What was the average valuation of companies on the 2005 list? And what contributed most to their growth over the past five years? Discover answers to these questions and more in this collection of interesting facts and statistics about the companies that made the 2005 Inner City 100 list. - 2005 Inner City 100 Hall of Fame
Three companies will appear on the Inner City 100 for the fifth time out of the seven years that the list has been in existence. Here are this year's inductees into the Inner City Hall of Fame.
