Seeds & Sprouts XVII - Cavs team shop to get facelift, Minute Men HQ & EDEN townhomes

This is the Seventeenth 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.

The Cleveland Cavaliers team shop in Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse
in October 2010, shortly after it was completely renovated. It is
about to be renovated again with a fresh new look prior to
the 2022 NBA All-Start Game (OnyxCreative).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

Cleveland Cavaliers team shop to get facelift

With the National Basketball Association's All-Star Game coming to Cleveland Feb. 20, 2022, work is about to get underway on giving a fresh new look to the Cleveland Cavaliers team shop at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse in downtown Cleveland.

Permit applications were submitted to the city last week by Van Auken Akins Architects, LLC of Cleveland on behalf of the Cavaliers Operating Company LLC. Initially, this round of work will be for removing all furnishings, lighting and decorative features to create a white box space in which to put an updated retail operation. Estimated cost of the interior demolition work is $40,000, according to the permit.

"We will be submitting a series of applications over the next few months for the Cleveland Cavaliers Team Shop Renovation project," wrote John Kaminski, Van Auken Akins' senior project manager/architect in his application to the city. "This first submission is for demolition work within the space only."

Interior of the Cleveland Cavaliers team shop showing the 2010-
added mezzanine and ceiling-hung scoreboard that is linked
electronically to the main scoreboard (OnyxCreative).

The team shop is on the East 6th Street side of the arena. It wasn't touched by a $185 million renovation of Quicken Loans Arena into the Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse in 2019. The last time the team shop was renovated was in 2010. That $4 million update included adding a second floor and expanding the shop to nearly 6,000 square feet to ease crowding in the store during games.

Although details of the renovation were not readily available, it is unlikely to be as significant as the last one with the inserted mezzanine. Other work done in 2010 included a new canted exterior glass wall entrance, polished stained concrete floors, plus a ceiling-hung scoreboard electrically interconnected to the arena’s main scoreboard.

The Cavaliers Operating Company hired the Whiting-Turner Contracting Co. as its the construction manager. In addition to architect Van Auken Akins, the design consultant is Snarkitecture, Inc. of Long Island City, NY. McHenry & Associates Inc. of Warrensville Heights will be the mechanical, electrical and plumbing engineer.

Minute Men Staffing proposes to more than double the size of its
existing HQ on Carnegie Avenue in Cleveland's MidTown (AODK).

Minute Men Staffing publicly releases HQ expansion plans

In submitting its headquarters expansion plans to the city, Minute Men Staffing revealed designs for an addition that would more than double the size of its MidTown Cleveland HQ. Minute Men, which provides temporary and long-term staffing to client employers, is located at 3740 Carnegie Ave.

Plans show a glassy, 45,000-square-foot, three-story office building and associated site improvements including a larger parking area. The addition will be connected by a dual-floor, enclosed walkway to Minute Men's 39,000-square-foot HQ which ranges from one to three stories tall.

Minute Men's HQ site was expanded June 8 to 3.5 acres when the staffing firm acquired the Refuge Baptist Church, 3713 Cedar Ave., and its quarter-acre parcel for $170,000, according to county records. The 91-year-old church and fraternal hall, measuring nearly 10,000 square feet, would be demolished to expand parking, site plans show.

The proposed HQ expansion site plan for the 3.5-acre Minute
Men Center's property has Carnegie Avenue to the north or top
of the image and Cedar Avenue at the bottom. The HQ addition
will be constructed on the west side of the property (AODK). 

Although the number of employees working at the HQ is unknown, its square footage suggests it has about 200 employees, not including thousands of temporary workers dispatched from that location. Those numbers could double with the planned expansion having an estimated cost of at least $10 million.

Minute Men has hired AODK Architecture of Lakewood as its project architect, Independence Construction of Independence as its general contractor and Osborne Engineering of Cleveland as its civil engineer, according to documents submitted to the city.  

The fast-growing employment firm, which is expanding nationwide, has annual revenues of more than $300 million. Minute Men was founded in 1968 by Samuel G. Lucarelli who passed away in 2013. His son Jay Lucarelli runs the company today. Their existing HQ was originally built in 1935 as the HQ of the National Dairy Products Corp. (doing business as Sealtest) and expanded by 9,310 square feet in 1997.

Elevations of the four connected townhomes along Madison
Avenue that will be made available for rent to low-income
persons with disabilities (HD+S).

Two townhouse projects planned, east and west

The Emerald Development and Economic Network Inc. (EDEN) has submitted construction permit applications to the city for two supportive townhouse developments. One would be on the city's west side and the other on the east side. Together, the $1.5 million investment represents the first phase of what EDEN hopes will be additional phases of townhomes citywide to provide housing for low-income people with disabilities.

The larger of the two rental developments will be on the west side at 7915-19 Madison Ave., across the street from EDEN's offices, 7812 Madison. The site is in the Detroit-Shoreway neighborhood. Here, five townhomes costing $1.1 million will be built on vacant land owned by EDEN that extends south to Guthrie Avenue, according to documents submitted to the city.

Along Madison will be four connected two-story townhomes. Three of them will have two bedrooms and the fourth will have three bedrooms. A fifth townhome will be a disabled-accessible, one-story structure next to Guthrie. These townhouses will have off-street parking to conform with the city's urban form overlay district zoning.

A five-unit townhouse development on Madison Avenue in
Cleveland's Detroit-Shoreway neighborhood is planned and
due to be joined by a two-unit townhome project on East 162nd
Street in the South Collinwood neighborhood (HD+S).

The two east-side townhomes will be located on vacant, EDEN-owned land at 701 E. 162nd St. One will have two bedrooms and the other three bedrooms. All seven townhomes will range in size from 953 to 1,250 square feet and be available only to residents whose income is 30 percent or less of the Greater Cleveland area's median gross income (AMGI). The exception is the three-bedroom unit that will be available to residents whose income is 60 percent or less of the AMGI.

Both east- and west-side projects will provide durable and energy efficient materials and systems including conformity to Enterprise Green Community standards for rental housing development, according to a summary submitted to the Ohio Housing Finance Agency which provided subsidies to the project.

For 30 years, EDEN has offered many different programs designed to help persons with disabilities and/or coming from homelessness to realize their potential. The nonprofit organization, which is a contract agency of Alcohol Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services Board of Cuyahoga County, owns and operates 12 permanent supportive housing complexes with 738 units and more than 200 units of scattered-site housing.

END