Looking into the Cleveland Innovation District's past, future

The New Economy Neighborhood and Innovation Square could
be the site of significant spin-off investment resulting from the
 Cleveland Innovation District initiative. But the initiative is
less about location and more about investment in Cleveland's
economic engines to foster job growth (Fairfax Renaissance).

For more than a year, there have been rumors of a major research and development initiative aimed at University Circle and downtown Cleveland and the health care and educational institutions located there.

But the full breadth and scale of the initiative wasn't publicly revealed until today, culminating in the announcement by Gov. Mike DeWine and others regarding a Cleveland Innovation District fostering up to 20,000 jobs over the next 15 years. The state, led by JobsOhio, and the Cleveland Clinic Foundation (CCF) will put up $565 million to get the district off the ground in a big way.

"It's going to have an even bigger impact than what we're talking about today," said Lt. Gov. Jon Husted at today's announcement broadcast live on The Ohio Channel. "This has the pillars of economic growth -- innovation, talent and investment."

He also referred to the Cincinnati Innovation District, the first innovation district undertaken by JobsOhio. Like Cleveland's, Cincinnati's unites multiple players in that city to foster economic growth. But Cleveland's version will differ.

"The Cleveland Innovation District has a chance to be bigger than this (Cincinnati district)," Husted said. "For one reason, it's a bigger investment. 2021 is the year of recovery and this is the prescription that the doctor ordered."

The district is envisioned to be an effort where private sector resources are united and organized by local partnerships and state incentives to invest in health-care services, products, jobs and related outcomes. About 10,000 jobs will be a direct result of the state-sponsored initiative. Another 10,000 spin-offs are projected to be created in the community, at hotels, restaurants, stores and other businesses.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine joined state and local leaders Jan. 25 in
announcing the Cleveland Innovation District (The Ohio Channel).

Resources by the public and private sectors will be invested in and by each local partner -- Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals, MetroHealth System, Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland State University.

The investments will be attracted by increased college graduations and certifications, new jobs created from the commercialization of ideas nurtured by hospitals and educational institutions, plus sponsored research and urban redevelopment, said Tom Mihaljevic, CEO and president of CCF.

"It's the largest research effort in our 100-year history," Mihaljevic said. "COVID-19 reinforces the urgency of this work."

"Right now, this is more of an innovation initiative rather than a real estate development initiative," said Jeff Epstein, director of the Cleveland Health-Tech Corridor, an umbrella effort to attract innovative health-tech and high-tech businesses to the area. "This much money coming into Cleveland for research and innovation is great."

There is an early real estate outcome resulting from the Cleveland Innovation District. That is a new $500 million, 1,000-employee Global Center for Pathogen Research & Human Health to be constructed by the CCF at the southeast corner of its campus, near Cedar Avenue and East 105th Street. The exact location hasn't been revealed.

CCF solicited construction management assistance for this "significant research building" starting last fall with the goal of seeing construction get underway in the next 2-3 years, according to a real estate industry source. While the size of the structure is not yet known, consider that Sherwin-Williams is planning to build a 680-employee, $250 million research center measuring 480,000 square feet in suburban Brecksville.

While the Cleveland Innovation District is primarily about supporting
innovation, a long-term outcome will likely be the transformation of
neighborhoods near the main campuses of the Cleveland Clinic, Uni-
 versity Hospitals, MetroHealth Medical Center, Case Western Reserve
University and Cleveland State University. This future view looks
south on East 105th Street near Cedar Avenue (City Architecture).

Not all of the $500 million will go for bricks and mortar. The actual cost of construction isn't nailed down yet. Much of the funding will go toward research activities at CCF's new and existing facilities.

And some of the funding for the new pathogen center will be used to create new start-up technology companies in the Cleveland Innovation District and/or attract major employers here. The goal is to add 1,000 new jobs at Cleveland Clinic by 2029 and another 7,500 jobs in Ohio by 2034.

In recent weeks, CCF also reissued requests for proposals for its new 400,000-square-foot Neurological Institute at 9606 Euclid Ave. and for nearly doubling the size of its 130,000-square-foot Cole Eye Institute. The added building will be located at 2030 E. 105th St. Both expansions were put on hold during the pandemic. Together, the new buildings will add hundreds of new, permanent jobs.

CCF also held focus group meetings of community stakeholders during the winter of 2020. Their goal was to determine what neighborhood services were desired in and near the CCF campus, especially the southeast corner, and how best to partner with real estate developers on creating them. More employee housing within walking distance of campus, a full-service grocery store and public spaces were among the community's desires.

That resulted in CCF partnering with Fairmount Properties to develop up to 300 micro-unit apartments, several dozen townhomes and a 40,000-square-foot Meijer grocery store. The city is seeking a $9 million noncompetitive federal loan to help build the grocery store.

Those would be developed on 3 acres of land at the southeast corner of East 105th and Cedar Avenue. And that's just the first phase. Fairmount plans a second phase of roughly equal scale on the block immediately west, bounded by Cedar, East 103rd, East 101st Street and Wain.

More jobs resulting from the Cleveland Innovation District means
more places for people to live, work, shop and play. One of the lar-
gest proposed developments is the Circle Square development be-
tween Euclid and Chester avenues on Stokes Boulevard (Bialosky).

Just south of Fairmount's development, Fairfax Renaissance hopes to break ground this spring on the $12.75 million first phase of Innovation Square, an 85-unit apartment building at 2258 E. 105th. Roughly half the units will be affordable; the other half market-rate. A ground-floor commercial space will be marketed.

Others in the real estate industry were aware of the major announcement coming, too. Midwest Development Partners' planned Circle Square megaproject actually got bigger as they learned last winter of the scope of the Cleveland Innovation District. The first new-construction phases of the project aim to get underway this spring.

In need of more land for the Cleveland Innovation District, CCF added more property to the northwest side of its campus, acquiring and demolishing the ORCA House structures last August, south of Chester Avenue near East 90th Street.

Those property acquisitions prompted more real estate developments along and north of Chester, including the East 90th Apartments by Inspirion Group, the Arpi Apartments by Arpi Development LLC, and Chester75 apartments by the Famicos Foundation. Together, at full buildout, these developments could add 438 apartments.

Not to be outdone, Signet Real Estate Group acquired nearly 6 acres of land in October for $2.4 million and is seeking to demolish several structures on its property for a mostly residential mixed-use development.

One of those endangered structures is the 134-year-old Allen-Sullivan mansion, 7218 Euclid. Signet is reviewing the feasibility of relocating the house across Euclid or rescuing architectural pieces of it in accordance with city design-review laws. Sources said the historic Italian-American hall behind the house cannot be saved, however.

Cleveland State University's $48 million, 100,000-square-foot
Center for Innovations in Medical Professions Building that
opened in 2015 was a toe in the water for the university. CSU
is taking a deeper dive into health care research and education
that, when combined with Cleveland Innovation District
funding could transform the region's economy (CSU).

Another factor possibly benefitting the Cleveland Innovation District is the new Transformational Mixed-Use Development (TMUD) tax credit. In Cincinnati, real estate investors are hoping to use the TMUD credit to develop a 20-acre property near hospitals and universities to capitalize on the innovation district over the coming decades. The TMUD tax credit could come into play in Cleveland as well.

As new jobs and real estate investments are occurring in anticipation of the Cleveland Innovation District activities, educational and health care institutions have been taking steps to support the innovation district going back more than a year.

In January 2020, Cleveland State University hired Forrest Faison III as senior vice president for research & innovation/chief healthcare strategy officer. Faison is a former U.S. Navy Vice Admiral and served as the 38th Surgeon General of the Navy and chief of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery from 2015 to 2019.

He will oversee the broad effort to unify and expand the university's educational, outreach and scholarship efforts in all aspects of health care, while spurring the continued growth of Cleveland as a center for medical innovation.

As a result of his hiring and the formation of CSU's new campus masterplan, look for significant new medical school and research buildings proposed for CSU's downtown Cleveland campus in the coming years. These facilities could feature thousands of students and research jobs and be a magnet for many millions of dollars of state and federal funding for education and research.

Private sector growth is likely too. Camera and copier giant Canon is expanding its presence into the medical imaging business. In 2016 it acquired industry giant Toshiba Medical Systems for $6 billion.

And last fall, Canon acquired Quality Electrodynamics LLC (QED) of Mayfield Village. Canon has designated its medical business as a new business that will expand and drive future growth for the company. The acquisition of QED, staffed locally by nearly 200 employees, furthers this strategy.

END

Sherwin-Williams HQ site plan, buildings come into focus

According to sources on Sherwin-Williams headquarters develop-
ment team, this is the approximate layout of the HQ site in down-
town Cleveland, west of Public Square. The designs of proposed
buildings shown here are approximate examples based on exist-
ing works by SHW's architect Pickard Chilton (KJP/Google).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

A site plan for the Sherwin-Williams (SHW) headquarters (HQ) in downtown Cleveland is coming into focus. And what the HQ lacks in height, it might make up for in street presence especially along West 6th Street and St. Clair Avenue.

SHW-owned properties along those two streets are proposed to be developed by others. Last summer, SHW acquired the Superblock (bounded by Superior, West 6th, St. Clair, West 3rd) from the Weston Group as well as the Public Square lot from the Jacobs Group. The 6.82 acres of land is used entirely by surface parking lots.

That will change a year from now when SHW begins constructing a global HQ for upwards of $300 million. Planning is still very early in the process, currently consisting of programming, flow and general square footage requirements. So while things can and probably will change, sources in the SHW HQ development team say the site plan consists of the following:

BOK Park Place, the headquarters of the Bank of
Oklahoma, is the model for Sherwin-Williams
proposed new headquarters. But SHW's build-
ing will likely be about a half-dozen stories
taller and a little bit wider (Pickard Chilton).

• A 1-million-square-foot office tower at the northwest corner of Superior Avenue and West 3rd Street. As reportedly earlier, the modern glass box tower will reportedly look similar to Pickard Chilton's (also SHW's HQ architect) 27-story, 700,000-square-foot BOK Park Plaza in Oklahoma City.

But SHW's HQ will reportedly be a little taller (about 30-35 stories) and have slightly larger floorplates (nearly 30,000 square feet vs 25,000 at BOK). Average floor heights above the lobby reportedly will be only 14 or 15 feet, suggesting a building 450 to 500 feet tall.

The design of Sherwin-Williams atrium, called the Center for
Excellence, in its existing HQ, is unknown. But sources said
a comparable, albeit smaller structure could be Devon Energy
Center's Auditorium in Oklahoma City (Pickard Chilton).

• A new Center For Excellence (may have a new name) measuring about 50,000 to 80,000 square feet on Public Square featuring a conference center for employee training and corporate meetings, a small company museum (their existing museum is only 6,000 square feet) and possible retail space. A comparable structure may be Pickard Chilton's smaller, 22,000-square-foot Devon Energy Center Auditorium, across the street from the BOK Park Plaza.

A more aspirational structure may be found in the 120-foot-tall, 12,522-square-foot (of usable space) Devon Energy Center Rotunda. Either way, the Public Square center will be connected to the HQ with an enclosed walkway above West 3rd.

There are two parking garages for BOK Park Plaza. The north
parking deck is this one, featuring 700 parking spaces and
leasable commercial spaces on the ground floor. SHW's
version may be a little wider and taller (Google).

• SHW may have only one parking structure, located on West 3rd, north of Frankfort Avenue from the base HQ building. The BOK Park Plaza has two parking decks totaling 1,500 spaces. SHW's deck may be similar to BOK's 700-space north deck, albeit larger and have ground-floor commercial spaces.

The north edge of SHW's deck apparently will stay about 100 feet south of St. Clair so it won't necessitate demolishing or notching around 1350 W. 3rd. It isn't known if this deck will be designed to accommodate a future tower atop it. Geotech drillers measured the depths to bedrock below this and other SHW lots.

The biggest unknown at this point is how future development
partners might design the east side of West 6th Street and the
south side of St. Clair Avenue. Five years ago when Weston
Group owned this land, it proposed mostly residential uses
over stores and restaurants. This conceptual image looked
north on West 6th toward St. Clair (Weston).

• Last but not least is the roughly 2 acres of SHW-owned land left over along the east side of West 6th and the south side of St. Clair. SHW will apparently not be developing this land for its HQ, now or in the future.

Instead, according to SHW HQ development team members, the goal is to partner with real estate developers to expand Warehouse District eateries, shops, structured parking and add new lodging south and east along the edges of the new SHW campus. The goal is to expand the district's street life and to create an urban campus desired by the young talent that SHW is trying to attract.

Although specific designs for SHW's buildings aren't yet completed, examples of Pickard Chilton's finished products are found worldwide. But it seems that many of SHW's inspirations are being drawn from the BOK Park Plaza and its surroundings. That may be due in part to SHW's conservatism if not outright stodginess. 

This image provided by the SHW design team shows an early
placeholder design to show what the BOK Park Plaza would
look like if built on the northwest corner of Superior Avenue
and West 3rd Street (contributed rendering).

Curiously absent from the HQ's spatial discussions is the relocation of several hundred SHW employees from a 128,000-square-foot flex-space office that SHW leases at 4770-4780 Hinckley Industrial Parkway in Cleveland.

This office space was opened after SHW acquired Minneapolis-based Valspar and ran out of space for more employees at SHW's offices in downtown Cleveland -- its HQ at 101 W. Prospect Ave. and the Skylight Office Tower, 1660 W. 2nd St.

Yet SHW said it intends to relocate to its new HQ downtown the offices for its Automotive Finishes Corp. located in Warrensville Heights. The research functions from the automotive unit will move to the new research and development (R&D) center in Brecksville.

SHW's existing R&D facility, the John G. Breen Technology Center, 601 Canal Rd., was donated by SHW to the City of Cleveland last July. The donation includes the 140,000-square-foot R&D center and 5.7 acres of land. City officials haven't revealed what they intend to do with the land, however the land is next to the newly extended Towpath Trail and the planned Canal Basin Park.

END

Bedrock considers Tower City Riverview TMUD project

In 2019, Bedrock Real Estate Services commissioned this
conceptual rendering as part of planning for Tower City's
Riverview area below Huron Road and above the
Cuyahoga River in downtown Cleveland (Vocon).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

With the news breaking this week that Quicken Loans' affiliate Rocket Mortgage may add at least 700 jobs over the next few years, many are asking where would these new jobs be located.

Meanwhile, Bedrock Real Estate Services, one of the many Dan Gilbert-owned partner companies of Quicken Loans, has ramped up the hiring of development subcontractors to conduct due-diligence activities in Cleveland. That's according to two sources who were not authorized to speak publicly about those activities.

Those activities are being focused on a narrow strip of land owned by Bedrock partner Rock Ohio Caesars Cleveland LLC, below Huron Road and above the Cuyahoga River. Within that strip yet split by Canal Road are two parcels owned by Rock Ohio -- the 8.5-acre, 678-space Tower City Riverview Parking public lot and the 11-acre, 1,330-space Tower City Riverview South employee parking lot.

Over the past two years, Bedrock has contracted with Cleveland architectural firm Vocon Partners, LLC to explore ways to use that land. Their vision involves a potential Transformational Mixed Use Development (TMUD) including an office building, a high-rise apartment building, a hotel and recreational public spaces along and above the river.

According to one of the two sources, Bedrock has extended its agreement with Vocon. The other source said Bedrock has also hired design and engineering firm IBI Group of Toronto to provide construction and engineering services. Both sources said the due-diligence work at this stage is very preliminary and consists of geotechnical and environmental analyses.

Location of major real estate features in this article (KJP/Google).

Thus, the sources say it is unlikely that Quicken Loans or Bedrock have made any decisions about where Rocket Mortgage will be located in the future. Ken Till, senior vice president of development at Bedrock, did not respond prior to publication of this article to a LinkedIn message.

"I'm not sure where they will go," said Ward 3 Councilman Kerry McCormack who represents downtown. "But obviously it's very, very good news for downtown and the City of Cleveland. That's 700 brand-new, well-paying jobs."

According to a News5Cleveland.com interview of Cleveland City Council President Kevin Kelley, he estimated the new employment at "700 to 1,000 jobs." Council is reviewing an ordinance that would provide a $975,000 Job Creation Incentive Program grant from the city to Quicken Loans.

The Detroit-based lending firm's local office and its 400 employees relocated in 2016 from the former main post office between Prospect, Huron, West 3rd and West 6th street to 81,000 square feet of space in the 90-year-old Higbee's Building, 100 Public Square.

Since then, Quicken Loans/Rocket Mortgage added another 300 jobs in the Higbee's Building. That brought its footprint in the building to about 150,000 square feet. More than doubling existing employment by adding another 700-1,000 jobs could exceed the remaining available office space in the Higbee's Building.

In 1990, Forest City Enterprises envisioned a major real estate
development to follow its Tower City project (KJP collection).

According to Jones Lang LaSalle's (JLL) 2020 Cleveland Skyline Report, there's only about 130,000 square feet of office space not yet leased in the Higbee's Building. Of the total 815,000 square feet of space in the 13-story building, 527,000 square feet is used for offices; the rest is the Jack Casino. Floors four, six, eight and nine are fully leased with offices, JLL's report says.

Even if the Higbee's building had room for the lending firm's expansion, there's another reason why it may move. A Gilbert-owned firm no longer owns the Higbee's Building and has also sold the casino operations.

Gilbert's Rock Ohio sold the building and the Thistledown Racino property in a lease-back deal in October 2019 for $843 million to Vici Properties. The casino operations sold this month and will move its headquarters and about 90 jobs from Detroit to Cleveland. 

Those sales plus a newly created TMUD tax credit to support real estate megaprojects means that Bedrock Cleveland has the resources to move forward on developing properties under Gilbert's Rock Holdings' umbrella.

After the sale, Rock Holdings said it "will continue to invest significant capital into these (Cleveland) properties which will have a lasting positive impact on the city and Cuyahoga County."

A diorama showing another vision by Forest City Enterprises for
the Riverview phase of its Tower City development (KJP collection).

There are several other matters affecting potential development of the Riverview properties. One is the apparently reactivated $110 million proposal to convert most of The Avenue at Tower City into a technology hub called CityBlock.

Another are the post-2024 departures of Sherwin-Williams' (SHW) headquarters in the Landmark Building, 101 W. Prospect Ave., to the west side of Public Square and the coatings firm's John G. Breen Technology Center, 601 Canal Rd., to Brecksville.

When SHW vacates and sells the 91-year-old Landmark Building, the 900,000-square-foot structure may be converted to housing. That could leave several of its tenants in the lurch, however.

SHW occupies about 800,000 square feet of the Landmark Building. The remaining spaces are filled by the offices of three law firms -- McCarthy, Lebit, Crystal & Liffman Co., Weisman, Kennedy & Berris Co. and Reminger Co. -- plus Century Federal Credit Union. It isn't known yet if or where those tenants of the SHW-owned building may relocate.

Lastly, along the riverfront is SHW's Breen research facilities, set on 9.2 acres of land. SHW donated nearly 6 acres of this property to the City of Cleveland in July 2020 including the land on which the 140,000-square-foot research center sets.

Most of Breen's land is used for surface parking and greenspace but the entire site could be converted to a park. The city, Cuyahoga County, Cleveland Metroparks and Canalway Partners are developing the Canal Basin Park and Towpath Trail nearby.

END

More surprises in Sherwin-Williams' emerging HQ design

Sherwin-Williams is focused on refining the design of its base
HQ building, but not the location of it which is proposed to be
at the northwest corner of West Superior Avenue and West 3rd
Street -- not immediately fronting Public Square. Instead, the
proposed use for the former Jacobs Lot is that of a company
museum, retail store and conference center (KJP/Google).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

 
At first, a contributed rendering posted here at NEOtrans looked like it contained an oversight. But with more information coming in like drops of paint, a site plan for Sherwin-Williams' (SHW) new headquarters (HQ) is gaining more color.

The rendering published in NEOtrans' previous SHW HQ article shows the base HQ building (represented by SHW's inspirational prototype -- the BOK Park Plaza tower from Oklahoma City) plopped down west of Public Square.

But the specific location being considered right now for SHW's main HQ building is one block west of the West Roadway of Public Square. The HQ's front door wouldn't open out on to Public Square from what was previously called the Jacobs Lot, according to a source on SHW's HQ development team. The source requested anonymity because the source was not authorized to speak publicly about the HQ planning work. 

The 1.17-acre parking lot, previously owned by the Westlake-based Jacobs Group, was the proposed site for various skyscrapers. The proposals ranged in height from a 21-story mixed-tenant office building floated in 2008 to a 62-story, 1,198-foot Ameritrust HQ in 1991. SHW considered putting its new HQ tower here in 2014-16 before its acquisition of rival Valspar caused the company to shelve those plans.

SHW's Center for Excellence is the public entry to its existing
headquarters on Prospect Avenue. This entry and reception
area features exhibits about the company and flags of the
countries in which SHW does business. A much larger
center is contemplated on Public Square (SHW).

A tower may not be what SHW has in mind for the ex-Jacobs Lot. Instead, SHW's HQ development team is looking at constructing a different kind of front door for the global coatings giant. Its inspiration is 700 miles south in the Peachtree City.

Across the street from Atlanta's Centennial Olympic Park is the 92,000-square-foot World of Coca-Cola museum. This interactive museum in Coke's HQ city attracts 1.2 million visitors per year compared to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame & Museum's 500,000 annual visits.

SHW is considering a similar corporate interface and attraction for its HQ. It would be similar to but much larger than its Center for Excellence, a 6,000-square-foot point of entry for all visitors to its headquarters since 1930 in the Landmark Building, 101 W. Prospect Ave.

There, visitors can learn about the company's 154-year history, its products, their uses and ideas for the future. On Public Square, the center would be within range of a paintball shot from SHW's first business address at 118 Superior St.

SHW's Public Square center could also feature other uses including a retail store, conference center, board room and more. Thus, its scale is not yet known and no formal designing has been done for the ex-Jacobs Lot yet, the source said.

SHW's base HQ building would be located one block west of
Public Square, as shown here. However, this unofficial ren-
dering shows the BOK Park Plaza from Oklahoma City
inserted. The actual SHW HQ building will likely be
a little bit taller than 27 stories (contributed).

That's why drilling to bedrock below this and other lots throughout the entire 6.8-acre SHW-owned HQ site is being undertaken. Much is not yet known where other HQ uses -- parking decks, training center, lodging, etc. will be located let alone how they will be designed.

The exception is the base HQ building. SHW and its development team are reportedly comfortable with the basic style -- a modern glass box tower similar to the aforementioned 27-story, 700,000-square-foot BOK Park Plaza designed by SHW's HQ architect Pickard Chilton. The multi-tenant office building houses the headquarters of the Bank of Oklahoma.

But after HQ development team meetings this week, SHW may be willing to put all of their HQ offices in this tower, totaling 1 million square feet. If the already large, 25,000-square-foot floorplates in the BOK Park Plaza model aren't widened, SHW would bump up its building height from the previously reported 27 stories, to possibly 35-38 stories. At an average of about 16 feet of height per floor, that could push the HQ's height to nearly 600 feet, making it Cleveland's fourth-tallest skyscraper.

Refining the design of the base HQ building currently is the focus of the development team, the source said. Then the team will zoom in on the design of the museum/conference center on Public Square. After that, the rest of the HQ site will be addressed.

This shows that the design of the project is not as far along as previously reported. Yet, sources say SHW wants to start construction about one year from now. SHW said in public announcements that it would like to move into the new HQ in 2024.

END

Sneak peak at what the Sherwin-Williams HQ might look like

Sherwin-Williams' proposed new global headquarters will fea-
ture several structures, the largest of which will rise one block
west of Public Square. This is a contributed rendering of that
building which may see a few more floors added to it after a
design meeting held earlier this week. But the basic style of
the building will reportedly appear as shown, based on a
tower recently built in Oklahoma City and designed by
SHW architect Pickard Chilton (contributed image).

After last week's NEOtrans articles about the height of Sherwin-Williams' (SHW) base headquarters (HQ) building on Public Square, a rather important meeting was held this week. The subject? The height of the proposed SHW base HQ building, according to a source on the HQ development team.

NEOtrans reported that the SHW base HQ building just west of Public Square would top out at 27 stories and about 410- to 440-feet tall. That apparently triggered some feedback, if not outright pushback to the HQ development team by some influential SHW persons not on the development team. 

So in the team meeting this week, participants debated the height of SHW's base HQ building. The outcome was that a few floors will be added to the base HQ tower. That extra height will come either by subtracting square footage from a secondary office building proposed on the other side of West 3rd Street or perhaps from slimming down the base HQ building.

At 15 to 17 feet per floor, that could result in the base HQ tower approaching 500 feet in height, putting it's height ranking between that of No. 5 One Cleveland Center (450 feet) and No. 4 Erieview Tower (529 feet). That would make the new SHW HQ tower Cleveland's new fifth-tallest building.

SHW's base HQ building will reportedly appear
very similar in design to the 2018-built BOK
Park Plaza in Oklahoma City (Pickard Chilton).

What apparently isn't up for debate anymore is the style of the building -- a modern glass box. And according to the development team source, there is a building elsewhere in the USA that is nearly identical to what is being considered for the SHW base HQ building.

BOK Park Plaza in Oklahoma City, built in 2018 and designed by SHW architect Pickard Chilton, is SHW's inspirational prototype. This multi-tenant building has the headquarters of and naming rights by Bank of Oklahoma.

This 27-story, 430-foot-tall building has about 700,000 square feet of space. It was developed by Hines Interests Limited Partnership. BOK Park Plaza was built across the street from another Pickard Chilton-designed tower -- the 52-story, 844-foot-tall Devon Energy headquarters that some Cleveland urbanistas apparently hoped would be SHW's inspirational prototype instead.

SHW's HQ development team reportedly likes the BOK Park Plaza because of its reflective, shimmering and transparent qualities. It's a conservative style for a conservative company. Some on the team called it a sleek, elegant design. The tower has a unique parallelogram-shaped footprint owing to its angled siting, with identical parallelogram floorplates continuing up through the entire building.

Outside the front door of BOK Park Plaza is this outdoor public
space facing the intersection of West Sheridan and North Hudson
avenues as well as the Myriad Gardens. In downtown Cleveland,
a very similar tower would face in the direction of Public Square.
The Oklahoma City building is sited at an angle with respect to
the nearby 90-degree-angled intersection. From directly above,
 the building appears as a parallelogram (Pickard Chilton).

Glass boxes are often embraced by corporate America to provide a visual connection between the inside and outside worlds. They allow nighttime observers to see inside just as the building's occupants can see out. Such buildings are one with their environments as they reflect the sky and surrounding buildings.

As more companies strive for ecological sustainability and healthier work environments, glass boxes can address both, according to the Paladino Blog. The proximity to and arrangement of windows, called fenestration, can offset the need for artificial lighting to provide a psychologically healthy connection to the outdoors, called the biophilic effect. And it also reduces energy consumption which helped BOK Park Plaza earn a LEED-CS GOLD energy label.

Although the approximate height and style of the base HQ building are now known, what isn't known is how the rest of the 6.8-acre SHW HQ site will be developed. A second HQ office building of about 20 stories was reported by NEOtrans last week.

So was the likelihood of one or two massive parking decks to accommodate up to 2,000 cars for SHW employees and to replace1,000 existing spaces lost to the SHW HQ development. A training center and possibly an on-site hotel could round-out the development site, as could a couple of spaces next to or on top of the parking structures for future HQ expansion. However the layout and styles of these structures aren't yet known.

END

Seeds & Sprouts XV - City Club tower groundbreaking & more

This is the Fifteenth edition of Seeds & Sprouts - Early intelligence on Cleveland-area real estate projects. Because these projects are very early in their process of development or just a long-range plan, a lot can and probably will change their final shape, use and outcome.

Construction on the 23-story City Club Apartments on Euclid
Avenue is now due to start in March and take about 15-18
months to add more than 300 apartment downtown (Vocon).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

City Club Apartments groundbreaking due in March

Look for activity to get underway in about two months at the surface lot at 720 Euclid Ave. And we're not talking about more commuters returning to the downtown Cleveland parking area.

According to a source who was not authorized to speak publicly, groundbreaking on the new City Club Apartments tower is due to occur at the end of the first quarter of 2021. That would put the start date towards mid- to late-March.

The project has been delayed by nearly a year generally due to the pandemic and specifically to a shortage of construction materials. There was no publicly visible planning activity surrounding the project throughout the spring and early summer last year. That changed in August when the project appeared on City Planning Commission's docket and was given final design approval.

NEOtrans broke the story that the project was active again and that a November groundbreaking date was anticipated. That was pushed back to January and, now, to March due to difficulty in getting construction subcontractors lined up, the source said.

City Club Apartments are planned with about 313 market-rate units, roughly half of which will be 400-square-foot studio apartments. The smaller units will be marketed to younger residents who have been priced out of the downtown market. This will be the first Cleveland development sought by the Michigan-based City Club chain. 

The building will be 23 stories tall, or about 250 feet high. It will measure 250,000 square feet and cost up to $100 million to build. City Club Apartments will be the third new-construction residential tower built on Euclid Avenue since 2019, following opening of the 28-story Beacon and the 34-story Lumen.

Expansion of The Shoreway Apartments overlooking Edgewater
Park and Lake Erie is proposed by J-Roc Development (J-Roc).

West Side residential projects to add units

Several small new residential expansions are planned in the Detroit-Shoreway and Ohio City neighborhoods. Together, one renovation and two new-construction projects will add several dozen housing units.

The most visible of these is a proposal to add 16,800 square feet to The Shoreway Apartments, 1200 W. 76th St., overlooking Edgewater Boulevard, formerly the West Shoreway, and Edgewater Park. Based on the proposed square footage, the expansion could result in the addition of about 16-17 units to the 45-unit apartment building.

Seeking the expansion is J-Roc Development which redeveloped the former Pat Catan's warehouse into housing in 2013. J-Roc attorney Nick Catanzarite, whose family owned the Pat Catan's craft store chain until it was sold in 2016 to Michaels, acknowledged receiving an e-mail from NEOtrans seeking information about the project but otherwise didn't respond to it.

On Dec. 16, J-Roc's Development Director Aaron Taylor and project architect AoDK Architecture of Lakewood received an e-mail from the city's Building Department that the developer's request for a building permit was denied due the lack of a submitted site plan.

Most submitted site plans are denied by the city anyway because they require zoning variances to conform to the city's antiquated zoning code. But the permit application remains active while the zoning review of the site plan continues.

"At this time your application is declined, however, once I receive the site plan, I can continue the zoning review," wrote Lisa Ray, assistant plans examiner for the city's Building Department, in an e-mail available on the department's Web site. "Failure to respond within 30 days from the date of this letter, your application will become null and void and will be discarded."

Presumably, the addition will be to the west of the existing four-story Shoreway Apartments, above a portion of a 40-space parking lot. There is also a 40-space indoor parking area. That location west of the existing building is already owned by the apartment complex and would provide residents with views of Edgewater Park and Lake Erie.

Several blocks to the east, at 1331 W. 65th St., Apt Development Group, LLC of Cleveland proposes to demolish a two-story, four-unit brick apartment building for a new 16,450-square-foot residential structure, according to city building records. That's enough floor space for about 16 residential units.

Last September, Apt Development Group affiliate Apartment 92-Gordon Square, LLC acquired the century-old apartment building and two parcels totaling 0.21-acres for $380,000, county records show. The property has enough room to accommodate two 8,250-square-foot floors over about 20 parking spaces.

Jake DeScenna, vice president of development at Apt Development Group, did not respond to an e-mail seeking more information prior to publication of this article. The firm primarily manages residential properties for The Landmark Companies, founded by John Carney.

To the south, at 4431 Lorain Ave., Cleveland Bricks LLC of Cleveland proposes to renovate the second floor of a small mixed-use building into three apartments over a first-floor bar-tavern space, according to plans submitted to the city.

In 2016, Cleveland Bricks acquired 4431 Lorain and the neighboring 4441 Lorain, totaling 0.12 acres for $200,000, county records show. According to Reddit, 4431 Lorain was listed for sale last year by Cleveland Bricks for $200,000. It was built in 1890, according to LoopNet. 

The BP gas station at East 9th Street and Carnegie Avenue in
downtown Cleveland will see its convenience store triple in
size and add four leasable retail spaces (LoopNet).

Downtown gas station to add retail spaces

One of downtown's main entrances will soon gain some new business activity. The BP gas station at Carnegie Avenue and East 9th Street plus the adjacent Carnegie Ballroom are proposed to be renovated with up to four retail spaces, available for lease, according to a LoopNet listing.

The pending renovation follows the November acquisition of the Carnegie Ballroom by Four Aqua Holdings LLC which has owned the gas station since 2008. Four Aqua Holdings of Wadsworth bought the ballroom for $950,000, county records show.

The 11,391-square-foot, 108-year-old ballroom is connected by an enclosed walkway to the neighboring Hilton Garden Inn which sold in late 2019, a story NEOtrans also broke. The BP gas station's convenience store (aka C-Store) will be relocated into the ballroom's first floor and tripled in size. The existing BP store will be demolished. 

According to its real estate listing, the retail spaces that will become available total 4,000 square feet. There is also a 2,600-square-foot kitchen with elevator as well as 19 parking spaces next to the ballroom, just north of Interstate 90. The property owner reportedly hopes to start renovations this year.

END

Sherwin-Williams HQ design concept comes into focus

Based on input from Sherwin-Williams' headquarters development
team, this is an unofficial rendering of what the HQ could look like.
While the design may differ, the scale of buildings is the important
thing to note here. A 27-story base HQ building on Public Square
with a roughly 20-story secondary office building on the west side
of West 3rd Street is proposed. Other structures include large park-
ing decks, a hotel and corporate training facilities (Ian McDaniel).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

Three sources have confirmed it -- the new Sherwin-Williams (SHW) base headquarters (HQ) tower on Public Square will reportedly top out at 27 stories -- or more than 400 feet high. Plus, there will be a second headquarters office building of about 20 stories tall exceeding 300 feet in height.

Turns out this basic concept -- two 20-something-story HQ buildings -- has been SHW's plan all along.

There are also likely to be other significant structures on SHW's 6.8-acre planned urban campus that is now a swath of lifeless parking lots in downtown Cleveland's Warehouse District, based on what sources have said this week.

Those structures include as many as two massive parking garages plus a training center and possibly a hotel. Some ground-level spaces and/or roofs of parking decks will be left undeveloped for future expansion.

How those structures will be arrayed across the former Jacobs and Weston lots is the subject of much speculation beyond the secretive SHW HQ development team. But team members aren't completely successful in their secrecy, otherwise NEOtrans would not be aware of the basic HQ concept or the potential additional land uses.

How the skyline of downtown Cleveland could look in a few
years, as viewed from the south. The new SHW HQ complex
is visible in blue at the left side (Ian McDaniel).

The building heights are less than what was shared in earlier reports and less than what many Clevelanders have hoped. But the sharpening vision for the SHW HQ is revealing an urban campus that the global coatings giant hopes to use as a recruiting tool to lure creative young talent to work for the company here.

In the summer of 2019, SHW's HQ consultant Welty Building Co. reached out to major general contracting firms and a select few property owners. It asked for design and cost proposals for an HQ and research facilities totaling 1.6 million to 1.8 million square feet. The scope of the HQ was to be at least 1 million square feet divided among two connected buildings, each in the 20- to 30-story range.

Through Welty, SHW told the respondents that it wasn't interested in an iconic skyscraper. In fact, in communications to respondents that included an SHW executive, that executive reminded respondents that the 1866-founded company didn't achieve such a high stock price (then about $600 per share, now above $700) by abandoning its conservative values.

The executive also passed along HQ preferences from SHW CEO John Morikis. After touring them, Morikis reportedly liked the cozy, collaborative design of Goodyear's new HQ in Akron but apparently didn't like the sterile, monolithic design of Eaton's new HQ in Highland Hills.

Although there was one notable aspect Morikis did like about Eaton's HQ, a source said. The CEO's office isn't at the top of the building. Instead, it's on the fifth-floor -- not even higher than the trees surrounding the Eaton HQ. Then-CEO Sandy Cutler didn't want height. He wanted a campus-style HQ with quick access to the parking garage and a better view of the trees and ground, not the sky.

An aerial looking from the north above downtown Cleveland,
this unofficial view shows how dominant the parking garages
(seen in dark gray) would need to be in order to accommodate
up to 3,000 parking spaces. If these parking structures were
any shorter, they wouldn't leave much room on the SHW
HQ site for anything else, including a hotel, training
center or future growth (Ian McDaniel).

Those are some of the reasons why SHW stayed with their basic concept for the HQ throughout the development process. According to reports from persons representing different roles on the SHW HQ development team, the basic form of the HQ complex west of Public Square will apparently be as follows:

• A 27-story, 400-plus-foot-high, 500,000- to 600,000-square-foot base HQ building with an address on Public Square. Depending on the floor heights and any rooftop decorative elements, this building could range in height somewhere between the Justice Center Courthouse Tower (410 feet) to the Erieview Tower (529 feet).
• A 20-story (approximately) secondary office building that is 300-plus feet high with 400,000- to 500,000 square feet bounded by the west side of West 3rd Street, Superior Avenue and Frankfort Avenue. It may be connected by overhead walkway or tunnel across West 3rd to the base HQ building.
• A training center as sources said SHW plans to relocate all training of vice presidents, salespeople, information technology, human resources and other on-the-job development will all be consolidated from the southwest suburbs and University Circle to the new headquarters site.
• Potentially an on-site hotel; if an extended-stay hotel it selected, it would require more space and height to accommodate.
• At least one (more likely two) massive parking decks. One will accommodate most of the initial 3,000 SHW workers. The other will make up for the 1,000 surface parking spaces lost to the SHW HQ development.  

Drilling crews this week continued to measure distances to bed-
rock below the future site of the SHW HQ campus in downtown
Cleveland's Warehouse District. This week they worked north
of Frankfort Avenue and just west of West 3rd Street (KJP).

While the exact locations of these parking decks aren't known, their scale and the remaining site leaves little wiggle room for them to be built elsewhere but near the center of the Superblock bounded by Superior, West 3rd, St. Clair Avenue and West 6th Street.

To fit two parking decks totaling 3,000 spaces on the Superblock while still leaving space around their perimeters for additional development might require two 10- to 15-level decks, each covering about an acre of land.

Limiting parking garage vehicular access to a secondary street like Frankfort would conform to the Superblock's Urban Overlay District zoning. So would hiding parking decks behind usable spaces like offices, hotel rooms, training facilities -- or at least having ground-floor commercial spaces like restaurants and retail.

"The Urban Overlay (UO) District is established to foster a high level of walkability and design quality for Cleveland's urban streets," according to the City Planning Commission Web site. "The UO will do this by requiring pedestrian-oriented building features, preserving and enhancing the architectural character of new and existing buildings and protecting public safety by minimizing conflicts between vehicles and pedestrians."

It is unlikely that the parking would be put below the HQ buildings, adding 27 and 20 stories above a dozen levels of parking and making the overall structures appear taller.

The reason is that one of the sources expressed disappointment about the 27-story tower. He didn't qualify his remarks by saying something along the lines of "at least it will be on top of a tall parking garage, making the combined structure look more like a 40-story building." The exception may be a limited amount of subterranean parking for executives below the base HQ tower.

Several buildings in downtown Cleveland will be vertical con-
temporaries of the new SHQ HQ buildings. The Stokes Federal
Courthouse Tower at far right, the Celebrezze Federal Building
at far left, and the Justice Center tower to the left of Key Tower
(tallest building) will likely be the height of the new SHW's
base HQ building on Public Square. SHW's secondary office
tower will likely be similar in height and square footage to
the Ernst & Young Tower in the foreground-left (Google).

Although a dozen-level parking structure is a tall garage (and heavy when fully loaded with vehicles), shorter parking decks would gobble up too much space. It could be the tallest parking garage in downtown Cleveland, eclipsing the 11-level Ontario Street Parking (formerly the May Co. garage), 2047 Ontario St. at the northeast corner with Prospect Ave.

At the request of SHW's development team, Ohio TestBor of Hinckley continues to drill down to bedrock at multiple locations on the HQ campus site. This week, they're boring holes just west of West 3rd and north of Frankfort. They've already drilled south Frankfort just west of West 3rd, as well as on the former Jacobs lot on Public Square.

Such drilling is an indicator where SHW may put tall and/or heavy buildings in the first or later phases of HQ development. As noted in the last article on this subject, it may also be an indicator of where soil conditions cannot support even a medium-sized structure with a floating mat concrete slab foundation, thus requiring caissons dug to bedrock for structural support.

While many Clevelanders may be disappointed in seeing SHW build a 27-story HQ on Public Square, the number of floors don't always tell the tale as to how tall a building might actually be. Consider that average floor heights are 18.7 feet in the Stokes Federal Courthouse, 16.5 feet in Fifth Third Tower, 15.7 feet in Ernst & Young Tower and 15.5 feet in Key Tower. Those are the last four office towers built downtown.

Using those floor heights, the new SHW base HQ building would measure anywhere from 418.5 feet to 505 feet high. That would rank it somewhere from the fifth- to the ninth-tallest building in Cleveland. And that's without any decorative elements atop the structure.

The secondary HQ office tower, at about 20 stories and using the average floor heights noted previously, would reach anywhere from 310 to 374 feet high. Such a height would rank it somewhere between the 13th- and 19th-tallest building in Cleveland.

END

SHW's new HQ may not feature an iconic skyscraper

Sherwin-Williams covers the Earth, but will it scrape the sky
above downtown Cleveland or develop more of those lifeless
parking craters west of Public Square? There are now rumors
for each course of action, with legs beneath each (SHW).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

 
UPDATED JAN. 5, 2021

Throughout the last two-plus years at the Sherwin-Williams (SHW) rumor mill, one of the favorite items of scuttlebutt has been the potential height of the new headquarters (HQ) building -- or buildings.

Rumors have pegged the height of SHW's tallest HQ structure ranging anywhere from 40 to as much as 55 stories. Depending on floorplates and floor heights, the base tower (having a Public Square address) was rumored to approach if not overtake the height of one or more of its Public Square neighbors. They are the 658-foot 200 Public Square, the 708-foot Terminal Tower and the 948-foot Key Tower.

One source, a specialty contractor, was instructed by SHW's development team lead by a joint venture of Welty-Gilbane to prepare a bid for work on the HQ building. Their scope of work, the contractor was told, was to prepare for a building that rivaled the height of Key Tower.

And then there's the latest rumor which goes in the opposite direction, height-wise. Three sources informed NEOtrans this week that SHW has considered two initial office buildings on its 6.8-acre HQ site. And neither one might top 30 stories, they said.

Specifically, the rumor has the base HQ building on the former Jacobs Lot on Public Square topping out at up to 27 stories. Averaging about 16 feet per floor, that could result in a building height of roughly 430 feet -- barring any rooftop decorative elements. That would be equal in height to the Stokes Federal Courthouse at the corner of West Superior and Huron Road.

According to new rumors, SHW's new head-
quarters will feature a 27-story building on
the block, formerly called the Jacobs Lot
next to Public Square Square. A 20-story
building will reportedly be built across
West 3rd Street from it with structured
parking and future buildings on the rest
of the SHW properties -- formerly the
Weston lots (SHW).

The second office building would be on the west side of West 3rd Street, between Superior and Frankfort avenues. It would top out at 20 stories, the two sources said. At an average floor height of about 16 feet, that might be approximately 320 feet tall.

It's not the first time we've reported that SHW wasn't interested in an HQ with a commanding presence downtown. After all, a visitor to downtown might have difficultly finding their existing HQ without directions. More than a year ago, NEOtrans reported that the conservative, if not stodgy SHW wasn't interested in an "iconic" tower exceeding 40 stories on its proposed urban campus.

But there's some substance behind this latest rumor.

A well-placed source in the SHW HQ team confirmed that when SHW was searching for a downtown HQ site, it asked respondents for proposals that included two 20-something-story buildings with a pedestrian connection between the the two.

How does that square with the latest information that geotechnical firm Ohio TestBor of Hinckley was drilling to bedrock at the SHW HQ site? City officials and drilling workers confirmed the drilling crews were boring multiple holes to identify the depth to bedrock at two potential building sites. One was at the former Jacobs Lot on Public Square and the other on part of the former Weston lots, a site just west of West 3rd.

In 2008, before the Great Recession killed it,
the Jacobs Group and Hines Inc. proposed a
21-story, multi-tenant office building on the
site where SHW may now be considering a
27-story HQ building (Jacobs Group).

Drilling to bedrock at two distinct locations suggests two skyscrapers of 30 stories or more.

Why would SHW's HQ development team request drilling to measure the depth to bedrock if they weren't planning on building structures taller than 30 stories?

After all, the rule of thumb is that a building shorter than 30 stories would be light enough so its foundation could be constructed of a less-expensive "floating mat" concrete pad. Otherwise, a taller and heavier building would require reinforced concrete caissons extending 200 feet or more to bedrock.

But that depends on the type of soil conditions below SHW's proposed HQ site, a construction-engineering source said.

"Drilling to bedrock should indicate something larger, but even a 25-story building might require caissons," the source said. "It all depends on the structural load paths and bearing capacity of the soils."

In its permit applications to the Cleveland's Division of Water Pollution Control and Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District, Ohio TestBor said it would be drilling through sand and clay to bedrock.

The SHW HQ site includes all of the parking lots
visible in this eastward view from the Rockefeller
Building. The parking lot in the background of
this photo is the former Jacobs Lot on Public
Square on which SHW's base HQ office building
will rise. The block in the foreground is part of
the former Weston lots. West 3rd Street separates
the lots and what may be the two tallest buildings
in SHW's HQ campus, based on recent drilling.
For reference, 55 Public Square at left is 22
stories and 300 feet tall (Garfield-12323).

Contractors working for SHW's development team had been gathering core samples to learn about subsurface conditions below the Weston and Jacobs lots since November and December of 2019. More subsurface investigatory work was done in July 2020.

So if buildings with desired heights of about 300 to 400 feet tall couldn't be supported by the soil conditions, SHW would have discovered it from that core sampling in late 2019 and mid-2020.

It also squares with what the Ohio TestBor drilling crews said in December. They said they weren't taking core samples; they were measuring the depths to bedrock. SHW knew what they were getting into, soil-wise. Although the EnviroProbe workers drilling last month just east of West 6th and north of Superior were taking core samples -- likely for a shorter structure.

And if the rumor is correct, that 27- and 20-story buildings are planned, what does that include?

Drilling crews bored their way to bedrock on both sides of West
3rd Street, north of Superior Avenue, indicating two tall struc-
tures are planned. But it may also indicate that the soils below
these parking lots could not support medium-sized buildings
without caissons beneath them dug to bedrock (Ian Meadows).

It isn't known if parking would be contained within the towers on both sides of West 3rd, or if levels of parking counted toward their rumored heights. If the rumored building heights were just for the offices and not the parking on the lower levels, it would make them taller than a building having just 27 and 20 stories of office uses.

SHW has said publicly several times that its HQ will measure about 1 million square feet -- a figure that has never included parking. Every real estate insider NEOtrans has spoken with expects the SHW HQ to include a significant amount of structured parking -- not just for many of the 3,000 HQ employees, but also to make up for the 1,000 surface parking spaces in the former Jacobs and Weston lots that will be developed.

So there could be one or more parking garages totaling thousands of parking spaces either within the frames of the new HQ office structures or in separate parking garages or both. Two thousand parking spaces could involve 700,000 square feet of structured parking, for example. Three thousand spaces could bring more than 1 million square feet of structured parking.

This rumor is the latest among several about the potential size of this Cleveland real estate whale. But, like the others, there are some legs to this rumor -- and they're not just caissons. Fortunately, each day brings us closer to seeing the actual plans for the HQ project.

END