Cleveland Lake Shore Power Plant land gets new owner

In this westward-looking view, the 62-acre former Lake Shore Power Plant
site is outlined in red. In the foreground  is East 72nd Street and Gordon
Park South at left, Interstate 90 at right, and East 55th Street beyond.
Downtown Cleveland is in the background (Google).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.

It seemed too good to be true, and alas, it was. Title to a large, mostly vacant property for the former Lake Shore Power Station, 6800 S. Marginal Rd., in Cleveland, is being transferred to a new owner. The 62-acre site is across Interstate 90 from the bulk of Cleveland Metroparks’ lakefront improvements. But it’s not the Metroparks, the city or even a developer seeking to add recreation, housing or a mix thereof next to Lake Erie.

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Among Ohio real estate blogs, NEOtrans in top 10

Every new day offers new waves of opportunities to cover the news
involving the development of Greater Cleveland (File).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.

Feedspot, an international news aggregator, ranked NEOtrans in the top 10 of Ohio real estate news blogs. Feedspot compiles news feeds from online sources so users from all over the world can customize and share them with other social network users.

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Great Lakes Brewing confirms relocation options

Great Lakes Brewing Company has been expanding its footprint in Cleveland’s
Ohio City neighborhood since it here in 1988. That includes acquiring the
Gehring Building with the Chase Bank branch for its expanded offices and
possibly a larger brewpub. But the growth of both the brewer and the neigh-
borhood is prompting the craft brewer to look elsewhere for expansion
(Google). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.

In a statement issued today by Great Lakes Brewing Company (GLBC), their chief executive officer confirmed NEOtrans’ report from last week that it is considering relocating its production facilities from Cleveland’s Ohio City neighborhood and packaging facility in Strongsville to a site in Avon. The press statement also confirmed it hasn’t ruled out continuing with its plans to relocate them to Scranton Peninsula in Cleveland’s Flats. And it will retain its Ohio City brewpub and gift shop. More than 200 jobs are involved among all of GLBC’s facilities.

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Downtown Cleveland skyscraper sells cheap

Downtown Cleveland’s Huntington Building, also called 200 Public
Square, is the city’s third-tallest skyscraper at 658 feet. The Class-A
office property sold for a discounted amount owing to the challeng-
ing office market in the wake of the pandemic and the growth of
remote working (KJP). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.

According to a well-placed source, Downtown Cleveland’s third-tallest skyscraper is under a purchase agreement from a New York City-based buyer. The 45-story Huntington Building, also known as 200 Public Square, has seen its share of challenges since the pandemic and the rise of remote working nearly four years ago as other office properties have. That is one reason why the building has reportedly sold for a vastly discounted rate.

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Lowest unemployment rate in 23 years

Greater Cleveland’s largest and fastest-growing job sector is education and
health services, or “eds and meds.” One of the biggest employment drivers
 is the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. Here, at its new Ted Ross Lab at Lerner
Research Institute, Clinic workers help develop vaccines in a tissue culture
room. Ross is Global Director of Vaccine Development at Cleveland
Clinic (CCF). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.

For many Greater Clevelanders, they had a merry Christmas year thanks to one of the tightest job markets locally in more than two decades. According to preliminary data released late last week by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the unemployment rate for the Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor metropolitan area was the lowest it has been since December 2000.

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Happy holidays to you!

  Photo by KJP (CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE).

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to you and yours from NEOtrans!

Great Lakes Brewing move to Avon on tap?

Great Lakes Brewing Company may abandon its plans to build a production
facility and tasting room on this vacant land on Scranton Peninsula in Cleve-
land’s Flats and instead build a consolidated facility in Avon next to Interstate
90 that also relocates its Strongsville canning plant. Company officials are
reportedly ‘strongly considering’ the Avon site. Just beyond the vacant land,
NRP Group’s The Peninsula apartments were rising in this October 2023
view (KJP). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.

ARTICLE UPDATED DEC. 24, 2023

A Cleveland icon may not be in Cleveland much longer. Executives and owners of Great Lakes Brewing Company (GLBC) are debating a significant relocation of most of its operations out to west-suburban Avon in Lorain County. The 200-employee company has been headquartered and its beer products brewed in Cleveland’s Ohio City neighborhood since its founding 35 years ago. But Avon’s mayor said an announcement may be made about the potential new site “in the coming months.”

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Record Rendezvous building among historic renovation awards

The middle building is 300 Prospect Ave., the former Record Rendezvous
building that won an historic tax credit award today from the state to aid
in its rehabilitation. The former record store and its founder Leo Mintz
are prominent in the history of rock-and-roll music. However, it’s not
yet known if a recreated Record Rendezvous store will be part of its
post-rehab future (KJP). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

An historic building in Downtown Cleveland that housed Record Rendezvous, where the term “rock and roll” was reportedly first used to describe the genre, was awarded tax credits to aid in its restoration. It was among dozens of historic buildings across the state that were awarded credits today by the Ohio Department of Development.

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East 105th: What difference a decade makes

There’s only two things that are the same in these two photos from
August 2014, top, and December 2023 at bottom. One is the street
address — 2200 E. 105th St. The other is the brownish 16-story
Walker Center which was the tallest building in the University Circle
area in 2014. Today it’s the third-tallest and nearly blocked out of
view by the Cleveland Clinic’s 3,000-car, 915,000-square-foot East
105th Parking Garage. At left is the new Medley Apartments over
Meijer grocery store. Across the street is the former IBM Explorys
building that may be the new home for Canon Healthcare research
 (Google/KJP). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.

For many Greater Clevelanders and visitors, they now enter the Cleveland Clinic’s Main Campus and the University Circle area on the new Opportunity Corridor Boulevard. But few traveled this way before the boulevard was completed in late-2021 and may not have a full appreciation of how much the scenery along their commute or visits have changed in less than a decade.

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Brooklyn Masonic Hall gets new lease on life

Residential and commercial leasing is underway for the new Lofts On Pearl
which is the old Brooklyn Masonic Temple in Cleveland’s Brooklyn Centre
neighborhood. Lakewood-based developer Kostas Almiroudis is moving
his offices onto the ground floor at left to focus on further redevelopment
of the area (KJP). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.

A Masonic rehabilitation has a different meaning in Cleveland’s Brooklyn Centre neighborhood these days. At 3804 Pearl Rd., it means the renovation and repurposing of a 25,536-square-foot Brooklyn Masonic Temple into 26 market-rate apartments over two ground-floor commercial spaces bracketing the building’s terrazzo-, marble- and wood-laden lobby.

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Three big county projects about to advance

This is an unofficial conceptual massing (a rendering to show scale, not
design) of what a new Consolidated Courthouse could look like if built
near the lakefront at The Pit between West 3rd Street, at left, and West
9th Street, at right. In between, atop five levels of structured parking
and a layer of public atriums of shops and restaurants could be two
courthouse structures of nearly 450,000 square feet each. Such a com-
plex would not only meet Cuyahoga County’s requirements but also
provide stadium parking relocated from a to-be-developed lakefront
(Ian McDaniel). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.

Fifteen years ago, when the Great Recession could let someone go bowling down East 9th Street without hitting anyone, three major construction projects were about to get started and provide the city of Cleveland with much-needed economic stimulus. Back then, construction of the new Huntington Convention Center, the Flats East Bank redevelopment, and the new Inner Belt highway bridges represented a total public works investment of nearly $1.5 billion.

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Oswald HQ moving to Flats East Bank

Oswald Companies is moving its headquarters across Downtown Cleveland
to the former Ernst & Young Tower at Flats East Bank with an option for
future expansion in the same building. Oswald will gain naming rights to
the 23-story building (LoopNet). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.

Oswald Companies today announced that it has entered into a lease agreement to move its headquarters to a larger space at the former Ernst & Young tower on the East Bank of the Flats, a prominent fixture on the downtown skyline. Once all necessary approvals are received, the move will be completed in 2024 and plans include a name change to Oswald Tower.

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More international flights arriving Cleveland

Sangster International Airport is located just east of Montego Bay, Jamaica.
Starting in March, Cleveland will be just four hours away from this Carib-
bean destination thanks to the return of the first direct flights on this route
since 2017 (Shutterstock). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.

Joined by Cleveland airport officials, Frontier Airlines today announced that it will be starting nonstop flights to Montego Bay, Jamaica in March with an introductory low fare. The new, direct flight is the first new international flight from Cleveland Hopkins International Airport resulting from its new crew base there. But it may not be the last.

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Cuyahoga County’s economy surges

Multiple construction cranes preside over the Cleveland Clinic’s Main
Campus near University Circle. In the foreground is the site of one of
the largest building projects in Ohio — the 1-million-square-foot
Neurological Institute on Carnegie Avenue. It is eclipsed only by
the Sherwin-William headquarters downtown. In the distance are
two cranes for the Cleveland Clinic’s new Global Center for
Pathogen Research & Human Health measuring nearly 300,000
square feet (Courtesy, clevelandskyscrapers.com).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.

In the spirit of Oscar Wilde, one could say that a year’s worth of economic output data might be considered a curiosity. But multiple years may be considered a trend. Last year, the growth of Cuyahoga County’s gross domestic product (GDP) ranked 10th among Ohio’s 88 counties and was the best performer among Ohio’s most populous, urbanized counties. according to new data released last week by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

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Cuyahoga County OK’s first microgrid utility in USA

Compass Energy Platform was chosen to serve as the utility opera-
tor for Cuyahoga Green Energy to serve Greater Clevelanders
(Shutterstock). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.

This week, Cuyahoga County has launched the first microgrid electrical utility in the United States. Cuyahoga Green Energy (CGE) has contracted with Compass Energy Platform to serve as the operator for the county-run utility.

Cuyahoga County Council unanimously approved the 10-year contract at its Dec. 5 council meeting. Together with $1.8 million of Department of Energy funding secured by U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown, Compass Energy Platform will bring its own capital and engineering partners to develop and finance the utility’s first three projects planned in Euclid, Brooklyn and the Aerozone region adjacent to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport.

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BrandMuscle opens new Cleveland hub

BrandMuscle opened its new office hub yesterday in Downtown
Cleveland — one of two for the marketing technology company.
Their new spot is the Post Office Plaza in the Tower City Center
complex. The other is located in Chicago (Google).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.

The bad news is that a Downtown Cleveland employer has reduced its office footprint. The good news is the company, BrandMuscle, a mid-sized marketing technology firm, opened a new office yesterday downtown. The better news is that BrandMuscle kept Cleveland as one of its two remaining office hubs along with Chicago, while closing other offices in Austin, TX and Kansas City, MO after switching to a largely remote-work culture.

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Birthing Beautiful Communities to rise on Chester

Northeast Ohio’s first stand-alone birthing center, in what would be a visible
and accessible location, is designed to help reduce Cuyahoga County’s
nationally high infant mortality rates (City Architecture).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.

For the non-profit organization Birthing Beautiful Communities (BBC), their mission is often noted in news stories detailing Cuyahoga County’s infant mortality crisis. Sadly, the county has had one of worst infant mortality rates in the country and is a symptom of much larger problems including poverty, poor nutrition, inadequate housing and unaffordable health care. Much of the need is in Cleveland’s inner city and especially on the East Side. So, to meet the need, BBC is seeking to construct Northeast Ohio’s first free-standing birthing center in Cleveland’s Hough neighborhood, on the north side of Chester Avenue, between East 63rd and 65th streets.

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Cabinet-maker MasterBrand to move HQ to Beachwood

North America’s largest cabinet maker MasterBrand Inc. will move its
corporate headquarters and dozens of jobs from Jasper, Indiana to
3300 Enterprise Parkway in suburban Beachwood (Google).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.

A newly independent corporation with 13,600 employees company-wide in more than 20 manufacturing facilities and offices is relocating its headquarters to Greater Cleveland — specifically, Beachwood. While a 26-year-old, three-story office building at 3300 Enterprise Parkway will be its new corporate headquarters, MasterBrand’s operations center will remain in Jasper, Indiana along with a production facility and training center.

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Amtrak expansions to Cleveland win funding

Amtrak service in North Carolina has broken new ridership records with state-
supported services including 10 daily trains linking Charlotte and Raleigh at 79
mph. This is an example of the kind of Amtrak expansion of Ohio is reportedly
reportedly seeking (NCDOT). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.

U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown announced today that the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) has selected four key routes in Ohio as priorities for Amtrak expansion and directed $500,000 to draw up construction-ready plans for each. Once those plans are finalized, then those routes would be eligible to apply for federal construction funding.

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Sherwin-Williams to move Valspar to Greater Cleveland

The name “Valspar” was removed from its headquarters and research center
near downtown Minneapolis, replaced by Sherwin-Williams’ name several
years after the Cleveland-based company bought its rival in 2017. But now,
sources say that most if not all 700 of the former Valspar employees
 will be moved to Greater Greater Cleveland (Google).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.

Within the next few years, Sherwin-Williams reportedly intends to relocate most, if not all of Valspar’s headquarters and research jobs, or up to 700 employees, from Minneapolis to Greater Cleveland, according to a highly placed source. Global coatings giant Sherwin-Williams acquired its former rival in 2017 for $11 billion, setting off a remarkable growth trajectory for both companies. That is resulting in the construction of a Downtown Cleveland office skyscraper, the gobbling up of more existing office space downtown, a new suburban research center and the start of planning for significant additional downtown office space.

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