Cleveland is rising up in the O-Zone

Perhaps the largest development in Cleveland being marketed
for Opportunity Zone financing is Thunderbird on Scranton
Peninsula. This 22-acre development could soon be the site
for corporate offices, residential buildings and riverfront
parks (CBRE).(CLICK TO ENLARGE ALL IMAGES)

Last week I sat in a small conference room with nearly a dozen real estate developers and investors planning a cool new project in Cleveland's urban core. I was there to add my two cents on a transportation access component of that project. Seated in the corner of the room was another guy, representing a lending institution that provides equity from one of the many fast-growing Opportunity Zone Funds.

The developers began to discuss how tall the apartment building component of their project should be. They agreed to add that question to their yet-to-be-undertaken feasibility study. The guy from the O-Zone Fund lender said in so many words "Whatever you come up with, let me know. There's going to be more than enough funding for your O-Zone piece of the capital stack."

In recent decades, scraping together enough equity for projects in all but a few land uses in all but a few sub-markets in Greater Cleveland has been something akin to a scavenger hunt. The capital stack for projects usually ended up looking like a cross section of baklava. While capital stacks still contain multiple layers, the private equity layer is thicker than it used to be, with O-Zone funding representing a way to expand the private sector contribution.

For those who don't yet know, under the 2017 federal tax overhaul, Opportunity Zones are designated census tracts with an individual poverty rate of at least 20 percent and a median family income no greater than 80 percent of the area median. These areas will be eligible for Opportunity Funds to invest in economic development to receive a 10-year federal capital gains tax break. Up to 25 percent of eligible tracts can be designated as O-Zones. Ohio recommended a maximum 320 out of 1,280 eligible census tracts.

Greater Cleveland's O-Zones include many urban core tracts that are already experiencing high levels of investment. They were designated because the state wanted to maximize the investment in and near O-Zones within its 10-year window. But cities like Cleveland, which has some of its hot neighborhoods (downtown, Ohio City, Tremont, University Circle) included in O-Zones, want to make sure this program doesn't neglect the low-income population it was designed to benefit. So it is encouraging that 20 percent of residential units in a given development be set aside as "affordable." In Cleveland, developers are finding those rents aren't all that much lower than market-rate rents.

Increasingly, real estate project meetings in Cleveland have an O-Zone guy sitting in the corner of the room, offering a pipeline to equity that simply did not exist before. A recent article at Cleveland.com noted that, thanks to the O-Zone program, "the floodgates are about to open."

Now, projects that many Cleveland-based construction crane aficionados could only dream about before are now seeing movement. Like what? Consider these large-scale projects in Cleveland's O-Zones (it is not known if all of these are or will directly receive equity via O-Zone funds):

Harbor Bay's Market Square development could break ground
by fall, featuring an apartment building (at left) and an office
building (at right). At 10 stories, the latter would be the tallest
timber-frame building in the country (Harbor Bay). 

Market Square (Ohio City - West 25th and Lorain): The Forest City will soon be home to the tallest wood timber frame building in the United States thanks to Harbor Bay Real Estate Advisors. A new 10-story office building will be flanked by a seven-story apartment building, built next to the Ohio City rail station on the Red Line linking the airport, downtown and University Circle. Construction is due to get underway this summer.

Public and private financing, possibly including Opportunity
Zone equity, is finalizing the capital stack for Stark Enterprises'
nuCLEus development in the Gateway District (Stark).

NuCLEus (Downtown - East 4th between Prospect & Huron): Demolitions are slated to begin by fall by Stark Enterprises to prepare for the construction of two 24-story towers -- one for residential and the other for offices. Although the project was scaled back from a 54-story tower, the increased liquidity of equity markets, thanks to O-Zone funding, will likely aid this long-planned project.

Library Lofts apartments, circled in red, is the second phase
of the multi-block Circle Square development. But it is the
first new-construction element of the overall development
that could bring a $300 million investment (MDP).

Circle Square (University Circle - 10601 Euclid Ave.): Plans for Library Lofts, representing the second phase of the multi-block City Square development by Midwest Development Partners, are now making their way through the city approvals process. If approved, construction on the apartment building, topping out at 8-11 stories, could begin by year's end, a source says. The development includes a new Cleveland MLK Branch Library to free up its current library site for a future development phase. The first phase involved Orlean Co.'s $16 million renovation of the 13-story Fenway Manor apartments that began in 2018.

Geotechnical drilling to gather soil samples was conducted in
March below a parking lot at 720 Euclid Ave. prior to the
engineering work for an apartment tower that could be
up to 20 stories tall (NCLE-UrbanOhio.com).

Cleveland City Club Apartments (Downtown - 720 Euclid Ave.): Two sources say this is going to be a high-rise apartment building in the 17- to 20-story range. The scale of this proposed development is comparable to that of City Club's apartment projects in other Midwest cities. It is possible that construction on this project could start by the end of this year or early next year.

An updated rendering of Akara's Kenect Cleveland apartment
building, sans movie theater, in the Wolstein Group's Flats
East Bank development downtown (Akara).

Kenect Cleveland (Downtown - 1155 West 11th St.): When the Wolstein Group wraps up construction of several riverside restaurants in the first part of Phase 3 of its Flats East Bank development, look for it to proceed with construction of the second half of Phase 3. This includes a 12-story apartment building and shops in partnership with Chicago-based Akara Partners. That means construction should start early next year.

In Cleveland's fast-growing University Circle, a new apartment
building up to 10 stories tall may rise on the current site of the
Centers for Dialysis Care (Google). 

Infinium (University Circle - 11717 Euclid Ave.): A source says that the Finch Group seeks to build an 11-story 133-unit mixed-income apartment building with 32 townhouses, ground-floor retail and a parking deck at the site of the current home of the soon-to-be-relocated Cleveland-East facility for the Centers for Dialysis Care. The property is owned by University Circle Inc. There is no timeline for development yet but it could be in the next 12-18 months.

While the Avian office building isn't by itself a large real
estate project, it is likely to be the first phase of the huge
Thunderbird development that promises to transform the
desolate Scranton Peninsula into a vibrant, mixed-use
neighborhood of offices, housing and shops (CBRE).

Thunderbird (Scranton Peninsula - 2000 Carter Rd.): This large, 22-acre site is being developed in 2- to 8-acre chunks and heavily marketed for O-Zone funding. Although Great Lakes Brewing Company's expansion here was announced first, the first development will likely be the repurposing of a vacant industrial building at 1970 Carter with offices, called The Avian at Thunderbird. Also, the NRP Group of Cleveland is reportedly taking a 7.44-acre parcel to develop a parcel called Lot A with 300+ apartments. Lastly, Hemingway Development may be seeking to build offices, shops and waterfront parks here.

At this time, reports are that only Geis' square-shaped parcel at
the northeast corner of East 9th Street and Bolivar Road may
be developed with mid- to high-rise condo building. The rest
 of Geis' land here may remain a parking deck (Google).

Bolivar-9th condos (Downtown - 2173 East 9th St.): A source says that a skinny residential tower, perhaps upwards of 10 stories tall, could be built on this site. Downtown Investment Group LLC, a Geis Companies affiliate, bought the former New York Spaghetti House and razed it for future development. Although there is not yet a timeline for this project, the city in 2015 gave Geis permission to use the property for a parking lot for up to five years.

Since 2000, The Frangos Group has acquired 3.3 acres of land
along East 14th between Prospect and Carnegie avenues, west
of the Wolstein Center at CSU. Most of the land was acquired
in 2017 and 2018 as The Frangos Group shifted its focus from
operating parking lots to developing real estate (Google).

Prospectus 14 (Downtown - 1412 Prospect Ave.): Throughout its history, the Frangos Group has focused on parking as its core business. But the firm is widening its horizons by pursuing more real estate development opportunities, including on its 3.32 acres of land it has acquired in an angular block in the Campus District. Sources say a large development is in the works here, including possibly a high-rise apartment building.

Those are Cleveland's largest developments not yet under construction which are benefiting or could benefit from Opportunity Zone financing. This doesn't include two projects I wrote about just last week in my article Developers discover Midtown's other axis. And, as with my opening example, there are more projects in the early stages of planning that might offer buildings about 10 stories tall, give or take a couple of floors, whose developers don't yet have site control. Hopefully I'll be able to share news about them soon.

END

Developers discover Midtown's other axis

Exciting plans and projects are percolating along East 55th
Street in the heart of Cleveland's Midtown district. This was
once one of the city's most vibrant neighborhood downtowns.
New investments here could help restore some of that lost
density (Pennrose). CLICK TO ENLARGE ALL IMAGES

Much of the rebuilding in Cleveland's Midtown, between downtown and University Circle, has focused along the parallel east-west roadways of Euclid, Carnegie and Chester avenues. But the primary north-south axis, East 55th Street, is largely devoid of similar development activity. That's true even where East 55th intersects Euclid, Carnegie and Chester.

Those intersections once had the density and activity of a small downtown called Penn Square, with large apartment and commercial buildings, shops, cafes, theaters, two streetcar lines that carried 150,000 riders per day (as many riders as all of the transit agencies combined serving Northeast Ohio today), and Cleveland's main station for the Pennsylvania Railroad that had 24 daily passenger trains to/from places as far west as St. Louis and as far east as New York City.

Looking east on Euclid Avenue toward the intersection of East
55th Street in the early 1940s. The Pennsylvania Railroad bridge
slices across the vibrant scene, including one of the city's busiest
streetcar transfer points outside of downtown thanks in part to
Pennsylvania RR station just out of view to the right (Press/CSU).

Today, it is home to social service organizations, gas stations, vacant lots, abandoned buildings, and a City of Cleveland vehicle maintenance garage. That could soon change with two major developments emerging and long-range planning underway.

Indeed, it already is changing with more than $80 million in new development within a few blocks of the East 55th-Euclid/Carnegie/Chester area. This includes a new Link 59 office building, University Hospitals Rainbow Center for Women and Children, and Dave's Supermarket just east of East 55th. Just west of East 55th, a 65,000-square-foot former automobile assembly building at 4600 Euclid Ave. was renovated into offices, as was the 54,000-square-foot former Agora Building (previously the Metropolitan Theater opera house and WHK auditorium) into the Offices at Penn Square, 5000 Euclid.

Two major, new developments are being pursued by proven companies with a good track record of delivering complicated and/or large-scale projects in Cleveland: Berusch Development Partners, LLC and Pennrose Properties, LLC.

Pennrose's plans -- to redevelop the long-vacant Warner & Swasey complex -- are publicly available albeit still conceptual. They are posted at the Cleveland Opportunity Zone Exchange, a Web-based portal where investors seeking to minimize capital gains taxes and where real estate developers seeking to build within designed Opportunity Zones (dubbed O-zones) can find each other.

Warner & Swasey's four lower-level sheds as seen from
the roof of the factory's taller structures. This view is one
of 15 photos of the site by Jeffrey R. Stroup published
in an online slideshow by Scene Magazine (Scene). 

Pennrose estimates the Warner & Swasey redevelopment will cost about $53 million and is seeking a $10 million Opportunity Zone investment.

The City of Cleveland, which owned the Warner & Swasey property since 1991, requested proposals for the redevelopment of the unused, 3.1-acre site last year. The RFP also noted that if the winning developer wished to acquire the neighboring city-owned parcels, totaling 7.9 acres and which includes a city vehicle maintenance garage, the city would be willing to consider selling them as long as the developer has a strategy for replacing the garage.

Pennrose was the winner. According to its listing on the O-zone portal, the Philadelphia-based firm acquired the entire 7.9 acres of land, which includes the east side of East 55th, from Carnegie to Euclid and over to the Norfolk Southern Corp. railroad tracks. The city will contribute to the project several vacant, decaying buildings ranging from one to five stories tall and totaling 221,727 square feet, Pennrose representatives said in their listing.

A rendering of the Warner & Swasey property for a renovation
project proposed in 2010. That project fell through (Geis).

The north end of the site was the former Pennsylvania Railroad passenger station which was built in 1912 (replacing smaller depots dating to the 1850s) and demolished in 1973. Its two pedestrian underpasses below the tracks, which had stairwells and baggage elevators up to track-level platforms, remain. South of it is the five-story Warner & Swasey building, made of reddish-brown stone and constructed from 1904 to 1910. It replaced the original Warner & Swasey facility that had been erected on this site in the early 1880s. Warner & Swasey built telescopes and machine lathes here.

As currently proposed, the low-level structures will be repurposed to provide covered parking while the five-story building will offer housing over offices and a small amount of amenity retail to support the residential and office tenants. The housing will be affordable at a range of incomes and targeted to mixed-income workforce households. The office and program space will be marketed to supportive services for job readiness, workforce development and employment training organizations.

The ground level of the Warner & Swasey facility is proposed to
have 33,654 gross square feet of office space in the base plan with
up to 40,453 gross square feet if the fourth parking shed, near the
top of the graphic, is developed with offices instead. Floors 2-5 are
proposed to be converted to residential, as seen below (Pennrose).

"We believe the site will be able to achieve collected rents within a comparable range of the overall rent per square foot averages at the selected properties (that offer comparable residences nearby)," Pennrose representatives said in a written statement.

Estimated monthly rents are $1,105 to $1,170 for one-bedroom units and $1,275 to $1,360 for two-bedroom units. These rents are well below the average collected rents at the comparable developments in the Midtown/University Circle area. Pennrose anticipates receiving Low Income Housing Tax Credits this year, as well as federal and state Historic Tax Credits, New Market Tax Credits plus private debt, most likely agency products with favorable terms.

St. Luke's Hospital (before) and St. Luke's Manor (after) its
redevelopment by Pennrose Development in 2014. The photos
show that a gutted building can be saved and turned into a
comfortable, even elegant building again (Pennrose).

Pennrose has a track record with large-scale, complicated and historic renovation projects in lower-income neighborhoods nationwide. Its best local example is the renovation and conversion of the 1927-built, 380,000-square-foot St. Luke's Hospital in Cleveland's Buckeye-Shaker neighborhood into a senior housing complex. The long-vacant building was heavily vandalized but Pennrose was able to bring it back to life as St. Luke's Manor for $53 million -- ironically for the same price as is estimated for the Warner & Swasey project.

Meanwhile, at the southwest corner of Euclid and East 55th, a gas station could soon give way to a mixed-use development. It has been nearly 40 years since this corner had such a use. The L-shaped, three-story Leonard Building, with apartments over ground-floor retail, succumbed to a loss of transportation access, depopulation and ultimately the wrecking ball by the early 1980s. It was replaced by a Shell gas station.

Tarrify Properties has city approval to demolish its gas station
at East 55th Street and Euclid Avenue. Replacing it may be a
larger mixed-use development spreading to adjacent parcels
south to Carnegie and west to the former Agora Building,
renovated as the Offices at Penn Square (Google).

Since 2004, the gas station property has been owned by Ahmad Taye of Tarrify Properties. His firm gave a presentation to the City Planning Commission on behalf of a Cleveland-based national developer, Berusch Development Partners, proposing to demolish the station.

For a demolition to be approved by the city, a site plan has to be submitted showing how the property would look after its structures are torn down. A site plan with temporary landscaping was submitted and the demolition was approved March 15. Demolition and removal of underground tanks began in early April. However a long-term site plan showing the eventual proposed development was not submitted nor is it publicly available, said MidTown Cleveland Inc. Executive Director Jeff Epstein.

Looking east on Euclid Avenue toward the intersection of East
55th Street in October 2018. Compare this view with the second
image from the top of this article. If Berusch's and Pennrose's
plans come to pass, this once-vibrant urban intersection won't
look so desolate anymore (Google).

He also said there were no further updates regarding Berusch's project, even though the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority in January acquired by quit claim deed 1.7 acres of land to the south and west of the 0.9-acre gas station site. And in February, the port authority amended a longstanding property access and assessment agreement with Lassi Enterprises, LLC, the land assembly and project partnership equity subsidiary of MidTown Cleveland Inc.

If the port authority and gas station sites are combined as part of a single development, it would abut the Offices at Penn Square and run the length of East 55th between Euclid and Carnegie -- opposite of the Pennrose development site.

Interestingly, Berusch worked with Pennrose on the St. Luke's redevelopment in 2014 as well as many other developments in Cleveland's urban core, in the suburbs and associated with college campuses in Ohio and New Jersey. Unfortunately, no one is yet revealing what Berusch's plans are.

END

Hingetown, Cleveland's hottest development hotbed

A picture is often worth a thousand words. This graphic shows
how many developments were built, are under construction, or
in advanced planning in Cleveland's Hingetown since 2000.
CLICK TO ENLARGE ALL IMAGES (Google/KJP)

Hingetown, that little enclave within a neighborhood within a city seemingly couldn't be growing any faster than already it is. No matter where you stand in Hingetown these days, you're either standing next to a 21st-century real estate development, across the street from one or you can see one less than a block away. Increasingly, in Hingetown, you're surrounded by projects.

That's a dramatic change considering that drug dealers and prostitutes once roamed this northeast corner of Cleveland's Ohio City neighborhood. Today, they have given way to young professionals eager to share their fresh ideas, families pushing baby strollers and entrepreneurs looking to make their mark or a new start. It's come a long way from what was a "toxic corner" as Vanity Fair told the enclave's story four years ago.

Now, one of the neighborhood's biggest developers, The Snavely Group, is rapidly expanding its footprint on Detroit Avenue which is along the northern edge of Hingetown (actually, the West Shoreway seems to be the unofficial northern boundary).

By the end of this year, Snavely reportedly hopes to delve into Phase 3 of its multi-phase, mixed-use, mixed-income development, moving westward from West 25th Street. A fourth phase may not be far behind that.

Snavely's first phase, The Quarter (clad in green), is under
construction in this January 2018 scene. Two buildings across
Detroit Avenue were undergoing renovation as part of phases
1 and 2. The third phase will renovate the historic Painters'
Union in the center-foreground and add a 5-story apartment
building on the parking lot at bottom (Aerial Agents).

“This project is a place-making project,” said Peter Snavely Jr., vice president of development for the Snavely Group in a written statement. “It’s a mixed-use, mixed-income, socially-driven project.”

Last year, Snavely completed its first phase at the northwest corner of Detroit and West 25th, called The Quarter -- 194 apartments above 30,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space. The commercial space is fully leased and the residential units are 93 percent leased, according to The Quarter's Web site. The development replaces a huge, windswept parking lot.

Tenants for the ground-floor commercial space in The Quarter include the Music Settlement, an early education and music school, APG Office Furnishings, D.O. Summers dry cleaners, and The Grocery OHC, a local grocery offering healthy, locally sourced food. But the first phase also continues across Detroit -- though only to the ground floors of two historic buildings. There, Hingetown's reputation as a place where entrepreneurs can find a guiding hand is enhanced.

The first floor of the Forest City Savings and Trust Building was renovated into the Ohio City Galley, a restaurant incubator including a 200-seat food hall and four kitchens for new-start restaurateurs. To the west is the Seymour Building whose first floor was redeveloped with the The Beauty Shoppe, a co-working office space and Foyer café, according to an article by Novogradac & Company LLP, a real estate services consulting firm specializing in affordable housing development.

Soil boring equipment for geotechnical testing was on the site
of Snavely's planned third phase of its Hingetown master
development during the first week of April (KJP). 

The second phase stayed in one of those historic buildings. Snavely is renovating the upper floors of the Forest City Savings and Trust Building with 38 affordable apartments. The building will be renamed Forest City Square, with work due to be completed by the end of the year. Total investment among the first two phases is $60 million.

Next is the third phase -- 88 apartments in two buildings. One is an existing structure -- the three-story Painters Union building at 2605 Detroit Ave. that is due to be renovated. Next to it could be a newly built, five-story building like The Quarter across Detroit albeit smaller in land area. It will be on the April agenda of the Clinton-Franklin Block Club which will meet at 7 p.m. April 25 at St. John's Parish Hall, 2600 Church Ave.

 An image from the schematic designs for
phase 3, submitted by Snavely to the city
for approval. A renovated painters Union
building is at left and the new-construction
 element is at right. (Vocon)

Deciding whether to pursue a third phase likely wasn't a difficult one for Snavely, considering the speed and market-rate rents at which The Quarter leased out. But the third phase, due to start this fall, will feature affordable apartments for residents earning 80 percent of the average median income. Snavely was able to offer reduced-rate apartments thanks in part to Opportunity Zone funding, according to the Novogradac article.

A possible fourth phase may come in a couple of years, pending the relocation of two businesses. The first relocation would be Cleveland Vibrator Company, 2828 Clinton Ave. Its relocation, which isn't yet finalized, would make way for the other relocation, that of The Adcom Group whose offices are currently located at 1370 W. 6th St. in downtown's Warehouse District.

The 1.7-acre Hingetown site of the Cleveland Vibrator Company
 is being acquired for redevelopment, including for ground-
floor offices and apartments on the upper floors  (Google/KJP).

Although still in a preliminary stage, four sources say the development concept for the fourth phase involves putting the offices for Adcom, a fast-growing marketing company, on the lower floors of a new building with apartments on the upper floors.

"I personally, along with some other partners, are in the process of buying some commercial property in Ohio City," said Adcom CEO Joe Kubic. "We haven’t yet finalized our plans for it though. It is certainly a possibility that Adcom may relocate there at some point, but we are happy in our current location as of now."

Few places in Greater Cleveland have had so many real estate development projects built or planned in so small of an area in recent years as Hingetown. While downtown adds housing units in big gulps, Hingetown adds them in seemingly countless nibbles. Even as this walkable neighborhood's bites into the market are getting bigger, the appetite seems insatiable.

For now it's just a big hole in the ground. Soon, two apartment
buildings, one six stories tall and the other 11 stories, will rise
for the Church+State development between Detroit and Church
avenues, and West 28th and 29th streets. The latter was called
State Street. It shows how Hingetown continues to grow and
foster a much more vibrant urban neighborhood just west of
 downtown Cleveland (Ken Prendergast).

The spark to this development brush fire began with a main street of shops, cafes and restaurants along West 29th Street south of Detroit. It was led by investors Marika Shiori-Clark and Graham Veysey. They named it Hingetown because it's like a hinge between the Gordon Square Arts District, the Market District, and the Warehouse District.

The goal was and is to have an inclusive, socially conscious, entrepreneur-based enclave, located in the cultural heart of Cleveland's LGBT community. Shiori-Clark and Veysey renovated an 1854-built firehouse with a coffee shop and businesses. Other pioneering efforts were the Federal Knitting Mills Apartments conversion and renovation of a long-vacant streetcar electrical substation-turned-art gallery called the Transformer Station.

END

New county jails proposed as UC-area high-rises!

This reportedly is the conceptual design for Cuyahoga County's
new consolidated jail facility proposed on East 105th Street, just
north of the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority's newly
 expanded East 105th-Quincy Red Line station (KJP file).

Instead of seeking to develop high-rise, quality, affordable housing near rapid transit stations along the Opportunity Corridor, community development corporations are vying for Cuyahoga County's proposed consolidated jail facility.

The winning site, according to 13 sources, is on East 105th Street at Quebec Avenue. The location is next to the newly expanded East 105th-Quincy Red Line rail station, just east of the county's nine-story Juvenile Justice Center built in 2011. As part of the Opportunity Corridor project, the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (GCRTA) opened the expanded station last year after investing $5 million in local and state funds. The previous station was rebuilt in 2005 for $1.3 million.

GCRTA's newly expanded East 105th-Quincy station, looking
westward. The proposed jail facility will reportedly be located
just out of view to the right (GCRTA).

The new Cuyahoga County Consolidated Jail Facility, comprised of two towers, one 27 stories and the other 18 stories over a two-story pad offering restaurants, neighborhood retail and a Star-On-The-Fly drive-through coffee store, is projected to cost $1.8 billion. It will not only address overcrowded conditions at the aging jails downtown, it will unite in one location county and municipal jails from several suburbs.

"This Transit Oriented Development will place hundreds of exciting jobs within a short walk of a rail station, which is what TOD is all about and what the Opportunity Corridor is all about," said John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt, president of Schmidt Corrections Construction Corp. "This jail is about opportunity."

But Ken Prendergast, executive director of All Aboard Ohio, a nonprofit that advocates for improved transit and for TOD to address the region's spatial mismatch between jobs and job seekers, called the project a missed opportunity.

The proposed location of new Cuyahoga County Consolidated
Jail Facility on East 105th Street at Quebec Avenue (Google).

"This has to be a joke, right?" Prendergast asked. "The largest planned project on the Opportunity Corridor is going to be a jail? Sure, the jail jobs and retail jobs will be a welcome addition to this depressed neighborhood that's within sight of the shiny towers of University Circle. But that's not what TOD is all about."

All Aboard Ohio recently advocated for developing larger-scale housing developments next to Opportunity Corridor rail stations at East 105th and at East 79th streets. The organization said that new, inexpensive construction techniques combined with Opportunity Zone financing and existing incentives for affordable housing should make these larger-scale developments more viable and likely.

"I'm sure the jail towers will be a tremendous visual addition to University Circle's growing skyline," Prendergast added. "But it's time for this region to stop developing as if every day is April Fool's Day."

END