Stark has buyer for downtown nuCLEus properties

This was the last of several incrementally smaller designs for
nuCLEus prior to Stark Enterprises abandoning the development
and selling the properties on which it would have been built.
It isn’t known who the buyer is, but based on recent, comparable
downtown property sales, the buyer would have to have deep
pockets and want to deliver a large development of its own to
get a return on its sizable investment (Stark).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

Properties that were part of Stark Enterprises’ ill-fated nuCLEus megaproject are in the process of being sold in a private, off-market transaction. However, the scope of the sale, the buyer’s identity and the buyer’s intentions remain a mystery. Public records emerged this week showing that there is a pending transaction.

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The 20 most-viewed news stories of 2021 on NEOtrans

Screenshot of the most viewed NEOtrans article of 2021 — Cleveland
Clinic plans to demolish the former Cleveland Play House complex on
Euclid Avenue (NEOtrans). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

Personal experiences matter. That’s the lesson of why one news article gets opened and another article does not. It’s why the pending demolition of the Cleveland Play House was the most-read story of 2021. It got read because people went to see a show there once upon a time, not because it was the only Cleveland-area project designed by a famous Cleveland-born architect, Philip Johnson.

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Is Downtown Cleveland in Target’s bullseye?

Coming soon to downtown Cleveland? Target reportedly is in talks
with several downtown Cleveland property owners about locating
a small, urban-format store in their buildings. The store would be
similar to this 22,000-square-foot store opening this Spring in the
former Kaufmann’s department store in downtown Pittsburgh
(Target). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM  

The upscale discount retail giant Target is in expansion mode. It is focusing on locations in downtowns, near colleges and dense suburbs for small, urban-format stores. But will downtown Cleveland or perhaps University Circle be under consideration?

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Brooklyn Masonic Hall repurposing as Lofts On Pearl

Located in the commercial district of historic Brooklyn Center, the vacant
Brooklyn Masonic Temple was acquired by a Lakewood entrepreneur
who intends to redevelop the structure with market-rate apartments
over two retail spaces facing Pearl Road (Brandt).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

A Lakewood real estate entrepreneur and construction contractor has acquired the vacant Brooklyn Masonic Temple, 3804 Pearl Rd., in Cleveland and plans to renovate it into a mixed-use building called the Lofts On Pearl. It remains to be seen if the project will live up to the Masonic purpose of making good men better.

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Baker Building to be The Fidelity Hotel, speakeasy

Tall but small can be contradictory, but not in the case of the Baker
Building. The skinny building measuring just over 50,000 square
feet will be reborn as The Fidelity Hotel with 71 rooms and suites
restored to the building’s original Gilded Age flair. Permits were
issued last week for the start of the building’s rebirth with more
details to come soon. This view of the building was captured in
July 2021 (Google). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

The 11-story Baker Building, 1900-1940 East 6th St. in downtown Cleveland, has received a construction permit so crews can begin work to prepare for the next stage in the 102-year-old building’s life — a mix of boutique hotel rooms and suites plus ground-floor retail/restaurants. To be called The Fidelity Hotel, the name refers back to the structure’s original name and owner — the Fidelity Mortgage Building. A design-review case at the City Planning Commission for the project was opened today.

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Kan Zaman expands, Ohio City parking crater endures

Kan Zaman Middle Eastern restaurant has been a fixture on West 25th
Street in Cleveland’s Ohio City neighborhood for 14 years. The nearly
5-acre parking lot behind and to the right of it has been around even lon-
ger. But there are rays of hope that the lot could be developed in the com-
ing years if funding can be found for a parking garage containing up to
900 spaces (Google). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

When people in Cleveland’s real estate sector heard Kan Zaman will open a new location on the east side of downtown, their immediate reaction was — are they vacating the old site in Ohio City for a new development?

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Cleveland’s new police HQ, mounted unit, fire station all start

Cleveland city officials hold a ceremonial groundbreaking for the new
Division of Police Headquarters Dec. 16 at East 75th Street and the
Opportunity Corridor on the city’s East Side. It was one of three new
public safety facilities for which groundbreaking ceremonies were held
last week (City of Cleveland). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

City officials broke ground for three major developments for the Department of Public Safety last week, in the waning days of Mayor Frank Jackson’s administration. They were a new police department headquarters, a relocated Mounted Police facility and a new Fire Station No. 26, replacing Cleveland’s longest-operating fire station. All three new developments are located on the city’s East Side.

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Opportunity Corridor cold storage to boost local biz

The northwest corner of the planned Cleveland Cold Storage ware-
house, nearest to the corner of Opportunity Corridor Boulevard and
East 75th Street, will include a 4,000-square-foot office building that
will be “bumped out” from the warehouse to be closer to the street
and the all-purpose trail along the Opportunity Corridor to give the
building a better street presence and pedestrian access for workers
coming from nearby public public transportation (GMA).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

Opinions varied on the physical appearance of a large new warehouse, as approved Friday by Cleveland’s City Planning Commission. But the project was lauded as the kind of catalytic development that’s needed for Cleveland’s food manufacturing sector, one that belongs on the newly opened Opportunity Corridor Boulevard. Construction of the distribution center is due to start this winter.

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Great Lakes Brewing Co. to start Scranton Peninsula work

Looking north across Scranton Peninsula toward downtown Cleveland,
Great Lakes Brewing Co.’s proposed production facility would rise on
 leveled land in the foreground. At the far left, a property acquired this
past summer by the brewery would also be cleared and graded, but for a
brewpub/tasting room. Leveling and removing trees from the perimeter
 of the two properties is the subject of a permit application submitted
yesterday to the City of Cleveland’s Building & Housing Department.
(Aerial Agents). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

Great Lakes Brewing Co. (GLBC) has asked the city of Cleveland for permission to begin site preparation work prior to the expansion of brewing facilities on to Scranton Peninsula near downtown. A permit application submitted yesterday doesn’t reveal when the actual expansion work would begin, saying instead that the work would prepare for “future use” of the Flats site. However, the permit request hints structural construction for the expansion could begin in about six months.

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Ten Cleveland schools OK’d for new uses

The Audubon Middle School, 3055 Martin Luther King Jr. Dr.,
in Cleveland’s Mount Pleasant neighborhood, is one of 10
school properties that are due to be repurposed in the coming
years with new uses. In the case of this landmark, century-old
building, it will be renovated by Boston-based TCB Ohio Inc.
and the Burten Bell Carr Community Development Corp. with
107 affordable apartments for seniors plus office and community
spaces in the school’s restored ballroom and library (Google).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

City Planning Commission today gave city and school officials authority to enter into agreements with multiple proposed purchasers and real estate developers to acquire and repurpose 10 Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) properties. The disposition of those 10 properties is part of a larger effort to sell and reuse more school sites.

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Midtown development sites to double in size

Demolition of the closed MPC Plating Inc. plant on both sides of East
63rd Street, between Euclid and Chester avenues, in Cleveland’s Mid-
town neighborhood opens the door to the expansion of mixed-use de-
 velopments that were built or underway along East 61st and East 66th
streets. The MPC Plating properties are outlined with black lines
(Merritt Chase). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

A Midtown Cleveland development site is about to get twice as large. Even better, a developer is ready, willing and able to construct mixed-use developments on it, assuming a demolition request is approved. Community development officials said they are excited about the outcomes of clearing and cleaning the site left vacant by a former industrial user.

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NEOtrans’ 56 stories about Sherwin-Williams’ 36 stories

At 618 feet tall, the 36-story Sherwin-Williams headquarters tower
will become the fourth-tallest in downtown Cleveland and drama-
tically change the city’s skyline. The tower will mean different
things to different people, but there was one storyline of how
we got to the start of construction. It involved three years and
56 NEOtrans articles that traced this project from its earliest
origins to today’s groundbreaking ceremony (Pickard Chilton).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

On this date of the groundbreaking ceremony for Sherwin-Williams’ (SHW) new global headquarters, it’s not just a time to look ahead but to look back to see how we got here.

It was three years and two months ago that NEOtrans wrote the first of 56 articles about the SHW HQ project by breaking the news that SHW had started planning work for a new HQ. Or, more accurately, SHW “re-started” planning work that began several years earlier but was put on hold. Of more pressing concern from 2016-18 was SHW acquiring its rival Valspar and paying down its debt from that acquisition.

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Ground broken for apartments and Meijer store

Officials from the city of Cleveland, Cleveland Clinic Foundation,
Meijer grocery store, Fairfax Renaissance Development Corp. and
Fairmount Properties broke ground today on a $53 million grocery
store to be topped by market-rate apartments (CCF).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

In one week, three major groundbreakings were held in Cleveland. Today, representatives of the City of Cleveland, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Meijer, Fairfax Renaissance Development Corp. and Fairmount Properties broke ground on a new grocery store and apartment complex in the Fairfax neighborhood of Cleveland, according to a written press statement released by the Cleveland Clinic.

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38-year-old building wins historic tax credit

Another $100+ million residential development in downtown
Cleveland is due to get underway by spring. The conversion
of the former Ohio Bell headquarters in downtown Cleveland
won the state’s largest historic tax credit, even though the build-
ing was built in 1983. It was one of three Cleveland projects and
among 36 projects statewide to win Ohio historic tax credits (KJP).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

Champagne was flowing in the lobby of 45 Erieview as Ohio Department of Development officials announced the winner of one of the state’s largest historic tax credits — a 38-year-old office building to be converted mostly into high-end housing. The $5 million tax credit may round out the $102 million project’s financing, allowing its sale and redevelopment to move forward.

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City Club Apartments breaks ground for its first Cleveland project

Dignitaries broke ground today for the new 23-story City Club Apart-
ments, 776 Euclid Ave. in downtown Cleveland. But City Club Apart-
ments Chairman and CEO Jonathan Holtzman said it won’t be the Mi-
chigan-based company’s last project in Cleveland. Tossing dirt with
golden shovels were, from left, lead project architect and Vocon Part-
ners LLC Principal Denver Brooker, City Club’s Holtzman, Ward 3
Councilman Kerry McCormack, City Council President-Elect Blaine
Griffin and Downtown Cleveland Alliance President & CEO Michael
 Deemer (KJP). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

It wasn’t just the sound shovels hitting the dirt at the City Club Apartments’ groundbreaking ceremony today in downtown Cleveland that was heard. It was also the news that the Farmington Hills, MI developer and owner of multi-family and mixed-use properties was just getting started in establishing a presence in Cleveland. But no one overlooked the importance of the latest residential high-rise being added to Cleveland’s main street, least of all the man most responsible for it.

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A large property near you may be ripe for a jail

A Cuyahoga County steering committee has supported this basic,
conceptual design of a new jail facility called the Cuyahoga County
Corrections Center. The big question now is where to put it. An request
for proposals was issued yesterday to help answer that question (JCESC).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

It’s definitely an unusual move. Typically, when a government agency needs a property for a new facility, it does an alternatives analysis of all the properties that meet its criteria. It then ranks them according to that criteria and then pursues acquisition of their preferred property or properties. If that doesn’t work out, the agency pursues its second favorite site. And so on.

Not Cuyahoga County. Instead of approaching owners of big, development-ready sites for its sprawling integrated Cuyahoga County Corrections Center (CCCC), the county wants you to come to them.

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Little Italy’s largest townhouse project in a decade

An early rendering of the Woodhill Townhomes accurately shows their
height at four stories with rooftop decks. However, in the final design,
the second-floor balconies on the townhomes are now walk-outs on
all of the fronts and on some of backs. The third-floor balconies are
Juliet balconies, meaning that the doors can be opened but a person
cannot walk out on them. But they can be serenaded by a Little Italy
Romeo. This view looks southerly along Coltman Road (SixMo).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

So far in the 21st century, Little Italy has seen a large townhouse development get built roughly every decade. With past townhouse developments happening in 2001 and again in 2010, Little Italy is overdue for another. One of Northeast Ohio’s largest homebuilders is getting ready to fill that void.

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Latest project may extend West 25th’s density

This is a basic massing of The Pearl to show its potential scale, if it wins
support from the Duck Island Block Club. Architectural details will be
added after this conceptual phase is refined. Overlooking Walworth
Run ravine, The Pearl would offer market-rate apartments above
retail at the intersection of West 25th Street and Columbus
Road. This view looks generally north (Bialosky).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

A frantic pace of development continues in and near Cleveland’s Duck Island enclave, where Tremont meets Ohio City, especially along West 25th Street south of the Market District. The latest entry is Independence-based Realife Real Estate Group’s The Pearl, a seven-story apartment building over parking and a retail space.

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Cleveland Flats peninsula finally coming back to life

One of the largest vacant tracts of land near Cleveland’s urban core
moved closer to development this week with City Planning Com-
mission’s approval of schematic plans for Silverhills at Thunder-
bird. The project is located on the mostly undeveloped Scranton
Peninsula across the Cuyahoga River from downtown Cleveland.
That huge peninsula, once home to steel production facilities and
lumberyards, sat mostly vacant for 40 years and is finally coming
 back to life (Dimit). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

Friday was a big day for Scranton Peninsula in Cleveland’s Flats. A new brewpub opened in a repurposed industrial structure next to the Cuyahoga River. City Planning Commission gave conditional approval to plans for a new neighborhood that would add more than 300 housing units to the city’s riverfront. And the commission approved new zoning for a large area of the Flats to support additional development.

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Hough tower to be redeveloped, expanded in $34M project

Vacant for at least a decade, stripped of salvageable items by thieves,
open to the elements and now vines are climbing up the side of the
condemned 10-story apartment building at 9410 Hough Ave. as
seen in this July 2021 view. But that’s not deterring SLSCO Ltd.
from taking on the project and even expanding it to include
a large new community center (Google).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.

A major project to redevelop a vacant and blighted 10-story building, as well as to construct a large community center on Hough Avenue on Cleveland’s East Side was revealed by a city official at today’s City Planning Commission meeting. The development is one of many planned or underway in the Hough neighborhood which had long been a poster-child for urban decay in Cleveland.

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Downtown project delayed by commissioners’ absence

An aerial view looking northward toward the proposed Apartments
at Bolivar to be located just north of the Erie Street Cemetery and on
the southeast side of downtown’s central business district (Desmone).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

City Planning Commission today was unable to advance a major downtown Cleveland project toward design approval, despite its members enthusiastically supporting an earlier conceptual version of the plan. In recent months, multiple commission meetings had to be ended early before important agenda items could be addressed, resulting in those projects being delayed to a future meeting where the applicants had to sit through another hours-long session.

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City Club Apartments groundbreaking set

A formal groundbreaking ceremony for the 23-story, roughly 250-
foot-tall City Club Apartments in downtown Cleveland is planned
for 11 a.m. Dec. 10. However, there are signs that site preparations
in the 700-block of Euclid Avenue are about to begin (Vocon).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

Among the new Sherwin-Williams (SHW) headquarters, Fairmount Properties’ Fairfax Market/Apartments and the City Club Apartments, where was the betting line on the City Club tower officially breaking ground first? If you bet the last to be the first, you’re a winner.

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Funds sought for Cleveland-Chicago rail development plan

Amtrak’s existing (blue) and proposed (green) routes and stations are
shown here, with a focus on the Cleveland-Chicago transportation cor-
ridor. A group of metropolitan planning organizations in the corridor
led by Greater Cleveland’s Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating
Agency want to address freight and passenger rail traffic congestion
on the busy Norfolk Southern rail line to allow for expansion of both
 (Amtrak Connects US). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

Agencies between Cleveland and Chicago have joined forces to request federal funds to identify how best to expand freight and passenger rail services on the busy Norfolk Southern (NS) Corp.-owned rail line that links those metro areas.

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Sherwin-Williams HQ construction starts (PHOTOS)

The roof of the Rockefeller Building, above the 17th floor of John
D. Rockefeller’s classic structure at 614 W. Superior Ave., offers
a front-row seat to the construction of another addition to the
downtown Cleveland skyline — the global headquarters of
Sherwin-Williams (all photos are contributed or by KJP).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

Nov. 29, 2021 may be remembered as the day that construction work began on Sherwin-Williams’ $300-plus-million global headquarters. To others, it may be known as the date when one of downtown Cleveland’s largest “parking craters” died. Even though the official groundbreaking ceremony isn’t scheduled until 5 p.m. Dec. 15 (hopefully with no further delays), it looks like quite a bit of work may be under way by that time.

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County offers large East Cleveland property

Located near East Cleveland’s central business district on Euclid
Avenue is this roughly 4.25-acre property, shaded in blue, owned
by Cuyahoga County that it would like to sell or lease for possible
redevelopment. The site is between the Red Line rail rapid transit’s
Superior Station and stops on the HealthLine bus rapid transit, only
a half-mile from the edge of University Circle (Google).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE

Cuyahoga County has issued a request for proposals (RFP) for the disposition of a large piece of land that, if redeveloped, could help commercial activity in East Cleveland’s central business district. The sale or lease and possible redevelopment of the property could leverage off nearby University Circle and adjacent transit lines in providing a desperately needed economic lift to the long-struggling inner-ring suburb, say two advocacy groups.

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More student housing near Cleveland State University

Two commercial buildings on Prospect Avenue are due to be trans-
ferred next week to a new ownership group that plans to renovate
each with apartments for students at nearby Cleveland State Uni-
versity (Google). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM 

A group of local investors is seeking to develop two historic commercial buildings near Cleveland State University (CSU) with student housing. However, ground-floor commercial spaces will be retained, including one for an existing tenant, the Cuyahoga County Veterans Service Commission.

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Apartments + Meijer market to break ground Dec. 14

An expansive six-story apartment building with a ground-floor Meijer
grocery store at Cedar Avenue is one of many developments get-ting
underway along and near East 105th Street at the east end of the new
Opportunity Corridor Boulevard. Ground will be broken for this
planned mixed-use building on Dec. 14 (Bialosky).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

One day after Cleveland City Council approved tax incentives for a new apartment building with a Meijer urban-format grocery store on the ground floor, a contractor for the developer applied to the city for permits for that project’s groundbreaking ceremony. The event will be held from 1-2:30 p.m. Dec. 14 at the project site — the southwest corner of East 105th Street and Cedar Avenue.

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Sherwin-Williams sets new HQ groundbreaking date

Sherwin-Williams’ new headquarters tower will be the fourth-tallest
building in downtown Cleveland’s skyline, reaching 36 stories and
616 feet above the corner of West 3rd Street and Superior Avenue.
But the exact site where the golden shovels of a groundbreaking
ceremony will turn shovels of dirt isn't exactly clear. The new
data for that ceremony is -- 5 p.m. Dec. 15, 2021 (Pickard
Chilton). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

After a last-minute change in plans, Sherwin-Williams (SHW) has set a new date for a groundbreaking ceremony for its new, $300-plus-million global headquarters in downtown Cleveland. The event will instead be held from 5-8 p.m. Dec. 15.

The location appears to be roughly the same location as before — on the parking lot closest to the west side of Public Square. But it’s not easy to tell from the event coordinator’s permit application to the city, submitted today.

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Duck Island apartments, townhouses planned

Proposed by M Panzica Development LLC, the Abbey Avenue
Apartments, left, and Townhomes, seen at right, would fill one
of the  largest undeveloped plots of land in Duck Island. The
enclave is actually part of Tremont but many consider it a tran-
sition rea between Tremont and Ohio City to the west. Either
way, it’s a hot development zone. This is the northeast corner
of the proposed apartment and townhome development 
(GLSD). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

On one of the largest undeveloped plots of land in the heart of Duck Island’s development hot zone, a locally active real estate developer plans to build a mix of for-rent, market-rate housing styles. The project, called Abbey Avenue Apartments and Townhomes, is proposed for the block bounded by Abbey, Smith Court plus West 19th and 20th streets.

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Cleveland offers more jobs than some Sun Belt powerhouses

Greater Cleveland is creating more jobs than most cities in the
Great Lakes/Midwest region and, indeed, more than in some
Sun Belt economic powerhouses. That is intensifying the de-
mand for more new housing, including these apartment build-
ings being built by Columbus-based Avenue Partners on West
73rd Street in the Battery Park area (Graves Lumber).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

Whether they’re statistics from the U.S. Department of Labor or employment listings at one of the world’s largest jobs Web sites, the data for Greater Cleveland is looking rosy again, for the first time since the global pandemic began in early 2020. Indeed, the number of paychecks being created in this Great Lakes metropolis is exceeding those being created in traditional Sun Belt economic powerhouses like Austin, Charlotte, Orlando and San Diego.

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Sherwin-Williams HQ builders to get an HQ, too

View and location of the 18,000-square-foot Gilman Building next
to the 1-million-square-foot Sherwin-Williams global headquarters.
The Gilman will apparently endure for a couple more years as the
construction offices for the headquarters project after a construc-
tion management firm acquires it in the coming days (Pickard
Chilton). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

With an anticipated sale of the Gilman Building closing this week, Sherwin-Williams’ (SHW) global headquarters development team expects to gain its own HQ of sorts in the form of a construction office over the next two years. But the long-term future of this five-story, modernist-clad Victorian-era building at 1350 W. 3rd St. in downtown Cleveland is uncertain.

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Cleveland lakefront park wins design funds

A conceptual plan for expanding lakefront land farther out into Lake
Erie would not only create more land for lakefront recreation, but it
would also protect Interstate 90 from damage by wave action and
rising lake water levels resulting from climate change (Metroparks).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

While shovel-ready plans for an expanded lakefront park just east of downtown Cleveland could be just 18 months away, don’t expect to be able to use that enlarged park for many more years. That’s especially true for a proposed off-shore park island.

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City Club Apartments tower gets go-ahead

It could be merely a matter of weeks before a groundbreaking
ceremony is held for the 23-story City Club Apartments tower on
Euclid Avenue, just west of East 9th Street and the unrelated City
Club Building (Vocon). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

With project financing closing today and a construction permit in hand, it may only be a matter of weeks before shovels hit the ground at 776 Euclid Ave. for the new City Club Apartments tower.

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Four regional trail projects advance

Four regional trail projects in Cuyahoga County were advanced in
their planning to either study their feasibility or to develop detailed
engineering and environmental documentation so they can be eligible
for federal construction dollars. A close-up of the the southeast/lower-
right portion of the above map appears at the link below (Metroparks).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

Cleveland Metroparks today announced it was awarded $950,000 by the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) to advance the planning and design of four regional transportation projects that encompass 5.7 miles of trail and bicycle connections on Cleveland’s East Side and in the city of Euclid. Three of the four projects impact Cleveland’s Slavic Village neighborhood and the southeast side of the city.

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BOOMING! More big East Side warehouses coming

Four large development sites on Cleveland’s near-east side, ranging
in size from 11 to 40 acres, are already on the market and/or being
developed for one user or many end-users to capitalize on the locally
and nationally booming warehousing and light-industrial market. All
of the sites are close to major highways and transit lines to ensure
access to shipping routes and the region's workforce (MyPlace/KJP).
 CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

More than 1,000 jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of investment are some of the potential spin-off benefits from multiple large warehousing projects blooming on Cleveland’s East Side — along the Opportunity Corridor and in Slavic Village.

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Sherwin-Williams HQ groundbreaking delayed

An empty Jacobs Lot on Public Square in downtown Cleveland
greeted pedestrians, motorists and homeless people this morning
Instead, there was supposed to be a large tent set up on this lot for
a ground-breaking ceremony to celebrate the official start of con-
struction of Sherwin-Williams’ new global headquarters (KJP).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

Today was to be the day that VIPs and media would record for posterity the official start of construction on Sherwin-Williams’ (SHW) new $300-plus million global headquarters. However, that celebration is going to have to wait for another day.

“Due to scheduling conflicts, the HQ groundbreaking event will not take place today,” said Julie Young, SHW’s vice president of global corporate communications, in an e-mail to NEOtrans. “A new event date has not been finalized.”

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Cleveland Clinic to demolish ex-Cleveland Play House

Featuring three theaters around a central rotunda, the 1984 renovation
of the Cleveland Play House and inclusion of the former Sears depart-
ment store resulted in the largest regional theater complex in the Uni-
ted States totaling nearly 300,000 square feet. But since CPH moved
to the Allen Theater downtown in 2011, Cleveland Clinic Foundation
has struggled to find a new use for the facility which is to be razed
(Google). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

Redesigned by a world-famous architect in his hometown. Site of the first stage performances by the Clevelander who made The Wicked Witch of the West famous. Shaker Heights native Paul Newman and many other notable actors also got their starts at the place once called the 86th Street Theater.

According to two sources, the Cleveland Clinic Foundation will seek to demolish all structures that were once part of the Cleveland Play House (CPH), 8500 Euclid Ave. That includes the adjacent former Sears department store along Carnegie Avenue. Demolition could occur this winter.

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Fairfax Market development wins financing

For now just vacant land, the southwest corner of East 105th Street
(at left) and Cedar Avenue (at right) will likely be a very different
place soon. With construction due to start early next year on the
Fairfax Market and many other developments nearby, this part of
the Fairfax neighborhood may be a vibrant, urban neighborhood in
just two years (Bialosky). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

Financing was awarded to the first phase of a mixed-use development on the southeast corner of East 105th Street and Cedar Avenue that aims to capitalize on the many infrastructure, health care and residential developments nearby.

Using the working titles of Cedar Avenue Mixed Use and/or the Fairfax Market, Fairmount Properties’ won $37 million in bond financing from the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority for the $59 million, 190,000-square-foot building and attached three-level, 209-space parking garage.

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Two Tremont markets fade in a rite of passage

If left unattended for one growing season, the vines would surely
swallow up the Fairfied Food Market in Tremont. The dive is a
reminder of Tremont’s working-class era as well as the years be-
fore gentrification began to take hold at the start of the 21st cen-
tury. But gentrification swallowed up the market before the
vines could (KJP). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

Tremont doesn’t have a grocery store but it does have tiny neighborhood markets. And two gritty members of that shrinking fraternity are about to fade into history.

The demise of the Fairfield Food Market and the Abbey Market & Grocery are a rite of passage as Tremont continues its transition from a rough and tough neighborhood of Eastern European, African-American and Appalachian people who worked in the nearby mills and other Cleveland industries. Replacing them in the last few decades are a wide and gentrifying mix of young professionals, service workers and others who live in new or renovated townhomes and apartments.

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Downtown townhomes sell to out-of-state investor

For nearly $6 million, the 16-unit, for-rent Milton Townhomes sold
to an investor from Tulsa, Okla. who is acquiring properties of
similar value in markets throughout the United States (KJP).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

 

Yesterday, a 16-unit townhouse complex on the east side of downtown Cleveland and built five years ago was sold to an out-of-state investor. The buyer, Milton Townhomes LLC, acquired the for-rent townhomes and their 0.4-acres of property for just under $6 million from Jobu Needs A Refill LLC — referring to a line from the 1989 sports comedy movie Major League about the Cleveland Indians.

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Large apartment building planned in Lakewood

In addition to the redevelopment of the Phantasy Theater on Detroit
Avenue in Lakewood into Studio West 117, its developers would
like to construct a large apartment building on the site of the closed
National Tire & Battery service center seen at left in this August
2019 view. A few months after this photo was taken, the NTB
shop closed and was put up for sale. (Google).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

Site is across the street from Phantasy Theater

One of the surprise applicants to a new ‘megaprojects’ tax credit program was the Studio West 117 development, a project now under way at the east end of Lakewood. Until the tax credit applications were submitted Oct. 29 to the Ohio Department of Development, public information about the project showed it was limited to renovations of historic buildings.

Now, a significant new-construction apartment building for seniors is being added to the $75 million planned revitalization those historic structures into a hub of entrepreneurship, arts, culture, health and human services for Cleveland’s LGBTQ+ community.

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Ohio City project’s rejection to be appealed

Knez Homes’ second try at building townhomes on Bridge Avenue
in Cleveland’s Ohio City neighborhood met the same rejection by a
planning panel as the first, despite making changes so it would
meet zoning code requirements. The developer said it would
appeal the rejection through the courts (Knez).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

Despite meeting the requirements of the city of Cleveland’s existing and proposed zoning code, a planned townhouse development for the Ohio City neighborhood was shot down by the City Planning Commission. It is the second time a townhouse project by the same developer at this location was rejected by the same panel.

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Big commerce park planned for Slavic Village

A large warehousing, distribution and logistics development called
Commerce Park 77 is planned for Cleveland’s Slavic Village neigh-
borhood. It could add hundreds of jobs and hundreds of thousands
of square feet of new warehousing space on the east side Interstate
77 that’s accessible to labor including from the Broadway Avenue
transit corridor. This image is an example of the type of large-
scale warehouse structures planned for the site (ULI).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

Due in part to the explosive growth in e-commerce, developers can’t build warehousing, distribution and logistics centers in Northeast Ohio fast enough to meet demand. The challenge for shippers, investors and community development officials is to find sites big enough and close enough to existing transportation routes and customer markets, as well as to an existing workforce.

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Nine of 42 TMUD applications are from Greater Cleveland

Applications to the Ohio Department of Development’s
new Transformational Mixed Use Development tax
credit program were submitted last week that could
put more construction cranes over Ohio’s largest cities
and even some smaller municipalities. NEOtrans re-
ceived a list of applicants today and is sharing that list
lpublicly (CurbedLA). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

Responding to a public records request from NEOtrans, the Ohio Department of Development supplied to NEOtrans a complete list of all applications to the new Transformational Mixed Use Development (TMUD) tax credit program. Project applications had to be submitted to the state at the end of the business day Oct. 29. There are a lot of numbers to break down in the applications.

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MidTown seeks partner for ambitious Euclid-East 55th rebirth

The intersection of Euclid Avenue and East 55th Street was
one of Cleveland’s most densely developed urban nodes. That
is, until post-war urban sprawl, white flight and deindus-
trialization drained the city of more than half of its population.
MidTown Cleveland Inc. is undertaking an effort to help
reverse that trend and re-energize this once-vibrant urban
node (MTC). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

MidTown Cleveland Inc. wants to restore much of the density and vibrancy at what was once among the city’s most important intersections. It is requesting a development partner to help it achieve that goal.

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Ex-Westinghouse plant sold to developer

One of the impossible-to-ignore landmarks on Cleveland’s West
Side is the former Westinghouse plant which towers over the West
Shoreway near Edgewater Park. But the vacant monolith could
soon regain signs of life under a new owner with deep pockets
who wants to redevelop the property (Google).
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One of the most visible properties on Cleveland’s West Side is the former Westinghouse plant, as it towers over the West Shoreway near Edgewater Park. And it’s now in the hands of an investor who intends to redevelop the historic property into a mix of uses including residential, hotel, restaurant and commercial. News of a pending sale was first reported by NEOtrans in July.

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Paving for opportunity along a new corridor

Slicing through mostly urban prairies depopulated of residents and
employment over the last 50+ years, the Opportunity Corridor promises
to repopulate what has been called The Forgotten Triangle. This Oct. 2,
2021 view looks west from East 79th Street with downtown Cleveland
in the distance. Aerial views are from a video posted here (Taco
Slayer Aerial). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

A few days after the ribbon is cut at 2 p.m. Nov. 3 for the Ohio Department of Transportation’s (ODOT) new Opportunity Corridor Boulevard, the first traffic will enter the roadway and its parallel multi-purpose trail. That traffic will pass through 1,000 acres of what was a crowded, uneasy mix of neighborhoods and heavy industries until the 1970s. Today, it is a mostly peaceful setting that has gone back to nature.

It has been derisively dubbed The Forgotten Triangle. Its residential population and industrial workforce had all but vanished, leaving behind a mostly empty shell behind. And it got its triangular description due to the arrangement of its principal streets — Kinsman Avenue, Woodland Avenue and Woodhill Road.

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Developer acquires lakefront industrial site for housing

A large property close to Edgewater Park and downtown Cleveland
sold yesterday to Property Advisors Group, a developer with a 45-
year history of investment in Greater Cleveland. The sale could offer
a new lakefront housing development and cause more real estate
dominos to fall in what has been an industrial area for more than
a century (Cresco). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

Some real estate developers join a parade already in progress. Others start the parade. Property Advisors Group (PAG) appears to be in the latter category with their acquisition yesterday of a large property at 8400 Lake Ave. on which it intends to build housing.

PAG is starting what some expect will be the arrival of more investors and more residential developments along and north of Lake Avenue, between Detroit Avenue and Clifton Boulevard. This is an area that hasn’t yet seen the kind of investment activity as Gordon Square to the east or the stability of the Edgewater neighborhood to the west.

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Townhouse, apartment project announced near University Circle

Park Lamont proposes to add 77 housing units divided
nearly equally between apartments and townhouses
at East 97th Street and Lamont Avenue. The site is just west
of University Circle and north of the Upper Chester neighbor-
hood (GLSD). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

More Eds-and-Meds jobs in and near University Circle means more housing in the same areas. The latest proposed housing development is Park Lamont on Lamont Avenue at East 97th Street. It offers a unique mix of townhomes and apartments in the same project, and in the same phase.

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Sherwin-Williams HQ construction materials start to arrive

The first construction materials for Sherwin-Williams new headquarters
began arriving today at the HQ site west of Public Square in downtown
 Cleveland. This view looks east from the HQ site toward Public Square.
The truck is parked on Frankfort Avenue which will be vacated as a
public right of way for the new HQ (Scott Muscatello).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

With nearly three weeks to go before Sherwin-Williams (SHW) plans to hold a groundbreaking ceremony for its new global headquarters, construction materials began arriving today at the future HQ site in downtown Cleveland.

And that groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled two weeks before the coatings giant hopes to receive final approval from the City Planning Commission for its HQ plans. The ceremony will be held at 3 p.m. Nov. 16 on the so-called “Jacobs Lot” on the west side of Public Square.

The folks who desire to cover the Earth in their paints sure do seem eager to start covering nearly 7 acres of downtown Cleveland with their new HQ.

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