High-profile downtown property hits the market

A for-sale sign went up this week across East 9th Street from
Progressive Field for a property now used as parking. The offer-
ing likely coincides with a major renovation of the neighboring
major-league ballpark announced last week (Clifton Haworth).
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One week after a major renovation was announced for the home of the Cleveland Indians/Guardians, a highly visible and potentially attractive property nearby hit the market in downtown Cleveland.

The offering was announced this week with a large sign set up at the northeast corner of East 9th Street and Bolivar Road, across the street from Progressive Field. Geis Companies owns the five parcels being offered, originally acquiring them through two affiliates -- Downtown Investment Group LLC and Geis Prospect Huron Garage LLC, county records show.

The firm listing the properties is Geis Property Management LLC, however the listing does not yet appear on the firm's Web site. Nor does it appear in the Commercial Exchange which lists all commercial sale and lease listings.

Site of the Geis Companies property being offered for sale
is shown outlined in red. Progressive Field is seen at lower
left across East 9th Street (Google).

Conrad Geis, director and managing partner at Geis Companies, said the property offering is a disposition. He said it was not intended to be an offer for a partnership in a development, something which Geis does on many projects including the pending redevelopment of the Rockefeller Building. 

"It's not in the Web site yet but we are just marketing the property as being available," Geis said.

He said he was unable to further discuss the offering at this time. However, all options reportedly remain on the table for this reverse L-shaped 1.1-acre site. The parcels comprising this overall property provide frontage on East 9th, Bolivar and Prospect Avenue.

The timing of the sale comes just a week after the Cleveland Indians/Guardians announced a series of ambitious stadium renovations totaling $435 million as part of a lease extension to 2036 and possible extensions to 2046.

A variety of uses exist at the ballpark village in St. Louis, not just
those patronized by game-day visitors. There is housing, hotels and
offices that exist in this year-round setting (stballparkvillage.com).

There have also been reports for months, including here at NEOtrans, that Major League Baseball (MLB) wants more teams' owners and front offices to engage in the development of "ballpark villages" around their stadiums.

The goal of these villages is to provide retail, restaurants, housing, hotels and other supportive development near ballparks. St. Louis is one of the oft-cited models for MLB's desire for ballpark villages as is San Diego. Others are planned.

Not only would ballpark villages provide spin-off activity from 81 home baseball games per season but also be a year-round neighborhood. They might also provide a revenue stream to help support stadium upkeep and renovations through value-capture mechanisms such as tax-increment financing.

Geis' for-sale land is used as a surface parking lot and a low-level parking deck. The East 9th side was the site of the New York Spaghetti House from 1927-2001. After Geis bought it in 2015 for $1.5 million, it demolished the vacant structure.

A conceptual-level massing of a potential development on
downtown Cleveland land now being offered for sale (GLSD).

At the time, a Geis company representative said the firm intended to develop the site, noting that the company is not in the parking business. And, considering how much it paid for the land, it intended to recoup its investment through development.

Real estate sources who would not go on the record said there were several development suitors and/ or potential partners for the site in the last few years. Geis also reportedly considered building a high-rise condominium tower on the site.

The pandemic halted at least one of those opportunities for a massive development whose conceptual massing is depicted on the sign now set up at East 9th and Bolivar.

That massing shows two towers about 20 stories tall on the property with one facing East 9th and the other facing Prospect. Ground floor retail topped by layers of parking with residential above appear to be what's shown in the conceptual-level illustration.

END

Where will you work tomorrow?

These days, office spaces are appearing in some unusual places
and disappearing in the places where we'd traditionally expect
to find them. It's enough to make one wonder what the future
of the Cleveland office workplace will be like (Vocon).
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Forget everything you know about commercial office space. Expect the unexpected; anything is possible. We may be at a turning point in how, especially where office space is being delivered -- and it's not just about working from home.

Consider, for example, Brickhaus Partners' Bighaus project at Clifton and West boulevards in Cleveland's Edgewater-Cudell neighborhood. It was originally proposed as a five-unit townhouse development. Hardly a surprise. That's what Brickhaus does -- construct high-end townhomes.

But when a small, unidentified office tenant approach Brickhaus about locating its office just beyond the West Shoreway, the Warrensville Heights-based developer reworked its plan for Bighaus. Instead, documents were submitted last week to construct an 11,255-square-foot building described in a permit application as an "office building with two residences."

A source who was familiar with the project but not authorized to speak on the record about it said Brickhaus will have to get a variance from the city's Board of Zoning Appeals in order to develop the site with offices. The site is located in a district zoned for one-family uses.

Brickhaus' five-unit townhouse plan for Bighaus at Clifton and
West boulevards in Cleveland's Edgewater-Cudell neighborhood
may be changed. Instead, two residences over a suite of ground-
floor offices is being considered for this busy corner although
the building' exterior design may not change much (Bowen).

In a brief phone interview, Brickhaus Principal Andrew Brickman confirmed that he is considering adding the office component to the Bighaus project but hasn't made any formal decisions about moving forward with it. Of course, that will also depend on neighborhood reaction and whether the city approves it.

Ward 11 Councilman Brian Mooney acknowledged receiving an e-mail from NEOtrans asking questions about Brickhaus' proposal, but otherwise did not respond to it.

Brickman did say, however, that if he does go with the residents-over-offices plan, that the exterior design of the structure won't change much if at all. Parking would be behind and under the structure, accessed off West Boulevard. The exterior design evokes the form of other large houses on the other three corners of the intersection of Clifton and West.

Brickhaus acquired the 0.38-acre property last October for $200,000, county records show. Multiple owners and developers have attempted to develop the land for five decades. It has sat vacant since a large house on the site burned down in the mid-1960s.

Small office projects seem to be popping up in Cleveland neighborhoods with greater frequency, as do some unconventional residential/remote-work projects.

The second floor of this former warehouse and printing plant was
renovated by The Krueger Group as offices for a 10-person law
firm. While the immediate neighborhood in Gordon Square has
a growing number of new residential developments and some
light industrial uses, this will be its first law office (Dimit).

Another example is The Krueger Group's development on the southwest corner of West 58th Street and Breakwater Avenue in Cleveland's Gordon Square neighborhood. In addition to a new-construction, 27-unit apartment building, Cleveland-based Krueger has renovated a former auto parts warehouse-turned printing plant into a self-storage facility.

The self-storage facility is the dominant part of the 44,163-square-foot former warehouse structure, comprising 37,411 square feet on the first floor. The 6,752-square-foot second floor was renovated into offices for a 10-person law firm, said Dan Krueger, vice president of preconstruction at The Krueger Group.

Estimated cost of the warehouse renovation was a very affordable $500,000, according to city Building Department records. Self-storage businesses are usually very profitable since they require little staffing. Having a daytime office component upstairs and a new residential building next door will mean a nearly round-the-clock, eyes-on-the-street presence for the neighborhood.

The size of the office component is slightly smaller than the office space Brickhaus will likely be offering to its prospective tenant, also reportedly a law firm, a source said. The commercial component of the Krueger Group's project is completed; the residential part is still working its way through the city approvals process.

In downtown Cleveland, Dallas-based Blueloft Inc. and investor Kenny Wolfe are planning a unique live-work environment in what may be Cleveland's first post-pandemic remote-work tower.

Looks like an office building. But looks and the contem-
porary office market can be deceiving. Instead, a pair of
Dallas investors want to convert 45 Erieview Plaza, lo-
cated at Lakeside Avenue and East 9th Street down-
town, into a live-work city-within-a-city (KJP).

The building, 45 Erieview Plaza, constructed in 1983 as the headquarters of the Ohio Bell Telephone Co., is proposed to be a city-within-a-city with amenities ranging from gaming rooms, movie theater, rock-climbing wall, pet spa, pickleball court and much more.

About 200 market-rate apartments will line the curving outer walls and windows of the 16-story, 496,000-square-foot building, offering great views of Lake Erie. But the window-less inner part of the structure will be used as remote-working spaces.

The city's building code requires residential units to have windows. That and the huge, 37,000-square-foot floorplates in much of 45 Erieview discouraged other prospective buyers who couldn't image how to use the building's interior.

The many amenities being offered, including co-working lounges, spas, conference rooms and other social settings will support planned meetings or happenstance discussions of innovative business ideas. And they will be useful to residents who would live in what is still predominantly an office district. There aren't as many residential amenities nearby here as there are elsewhere downtown, such as along Euclid Avenue.

In fact, along Euclid, some building landlords and office tenants in downtown Cleveland are converting several floors of offices to residential or giving back some of their leasable office spaces to landlords. Jori Maron of Cleveland-based MRN Ltd., doing business as 629 Euclid Ltd., is converting at least two office floors of the New England Building, 629 Euclid, into residential.

Floor plans and other documents show how an affiliate of MRN Ltd.
intends to redesign several floors in its 125-year-old New England
Building, 629 Euclid Ave., from offices to apartments and a fitness
center. The plans were submitted to the city in March (SA Group).

Each 13,740-square-foot floor conversion from offices into 11 market-rate apartments and residential amenities like a fitness center is costing about $1,275,000, according to city building permit records. The New England Building was constructed in 1896.

Plans show the fitness center would measure 2,945 square feet and the apartments average about 1,000 square feet each. The rest of the 17-story building is used for a Holiday Inn Express hotel and an office building including tenants like digital marketer Rosetta Inc. and real estate firm Stark Enterprises.

Over at the 45-story 200 Public Square tower, accounting powerhouse Pricewaterhouse Coopers, LLP (PwC) is giving back to the landlord 8,040 square feet of space on the 18th floor. On the same floor, PwC will retain 9,334 square feet of office space.

Cleveland-based architect Vocon Partners submitted to the city planning documents for the change, including a new partition divider costing $150,000, public records show. The tower's 18th floor measures 24,440 square feet. The building's owner is an investor group led by New York-based DRA Advisors called G&I IX Public Square LLC.

END

Ohio City's INTRO is just the beginning

The nine-story, 350,000-square-foot INTRO would be large enough
for most developer's to be their finale. Instead, as the project's name
implies, it's just the beginning for Harbor Bay Real Estate Advisors
in terms of their potential development activity in Cleveland (KJP).
CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

When Harbor Bay Real Estate Advisors held a topping-off ceremony July 28 for its $145 million INTRO development, it wasn't signifying the peak of something. It was signifying the start of something even bigger.

More than the final form of the mixed-use development is coming together on the southeast corner of Lorain Avenue and West 25th Street in Cleveland's Ohio City neighborhood. The tenants and end-users of the 350,000-square-foot development are also coming together. And Harbor Bay's own businesses are going to be the largest commercial end-users.

In an interview last week, Harbor Bay's Vice President of Design & Development Dan Whalen revealed that only about 6,000 square feet of commercial space remains uncommitted in the nine-story, two-winged complex. INTRO is Cleveland's first and America's tallest mass-timber building. It is due to be completed in Spring 2022.

How do we know this is just the start of the Northbrook, IL (Chicago suburb) company's foray into Cleveland? Because actions speak louder than words.

Looking north on West 25th Street toward the intersection of Lorain
Avenue, INTRO is on the right, the West Side Market's tower is in
the middle and the United Bank Building is at left (KJP).

Whalen acknowledged that Harbor Bay will establish a significant office presence at INTRO, measuring about 30,000 square feet. Harbor Bay does more than just build things. It also owns and manages its real estate portfolio including restaurants, event centers and other properties.

"We will have a Harbor Bay office here in Cleveland at INTRO," he said. "We're looking at hiring about 150 employees for our hospitality, construction and real estate lines of business here."

He emphasized the office staffing will be to manage its Cleveland portfolio including construction, not a relocation of Chicagoland personnel. The inclusion of a construction office is a pretty strong indication that Harbor Bay plans to develop more properties in Cleveland.

"We've only just begun," Whalen sang, channeling The Carpenters' 1970 hit song. 

Although still a work in progress and a month from being ready to
welcome tours of prospective tenants, this model apartment already
shows off INTRO's Austrian woodwork and floor-to-ceiling win-
dows with views of the Market Square District (Dan Whalen).

When it was first proposed, INTRO was going to include a roughly 10-story office building just south of the expansive structure that's under construction now. But state-led financing including a temporary tax exemption was stopped at the behest of city, school and Cleveland Metroparks officials in the 11th hour.

Without the exemption, the 150,000-square-foot office component wasn't going to pencil so it was dropped. Harbor Bay also couldn't interest office tenants seeking a new or larger space to pay downtown rents in Ohio City. Then there was the pandemic's affect on encouraging more remote work and less office time.

Whalen confirmed recent rumors that Harbor Bay was instead considering a multi-family building for its phase two in the Market Square District instead of the office building. He wouldn't confirm or deny additional rumors that the building's height would approach the 175-foot zoning limit for this area, meaning a building possibly exceeding 15 stories.

He also would not discuss whether Harbor Bay would seek a Transformational Mixed Use Development tax credit for a phase-two building. A 15-story height and a $50 million project cost are among the minimum requirements for a development to tap the new TMUD program.

On July 28, Harbor Bay raised into place the final
structural beam for INTRO, coinciding with a
topping-off ceremony later that day (KJP).

A possible second phase for INTRO might also depend on successful leasing for phase one. However, residential leasing for phase one hasn't yet begun. Whalen said it would start in mid- to late-September with several types of model units in the building that will be available for tours.

Although formal residential leasing hasn't started, Harbor Bay has been accepting residential inquiries for weeks. They have more inquiries than the 288 apartments that will become available for move-in by March or April 2022.

Meanwhile, retail/restaurant leasing at INTRO has been under way for months with the first retail tenants already announced. They include a Bank of America branch, an AT&T Store plus two Harbor Bay-managed businesses. NEOtrans broke the news about those two businesses last month.

One will be a café and market called Leaps & Bounds that will fill a 3,328-square-foot ground-floor space at the corner of Lorain and West 25th, across from the West Side Market. Whalen said the café will roast Harbor Bay's own brand of coffee.

The other Harbor Bay-owned tenant will be Truss Cleveland -- a top-floor, 12,000-square-foot event center. It will have five event spaces including a 6,000-square-foot main event hall, a 4,000-square-foot rooftop terrace, plus a 500-square-foot wedding suite with make-up vanities and private bath.

At INTRO's topping-off ceremony July 29, Harbor Bay's Dan Whalen
addresses a crowd of development team representatives, city officials,
union leaders and other members of the community (KJP).

"We've had 450 inquiries in eight weeks and booked 30 weddings already and we don't even have a finished space on the top floor," Whalen said.

The rest of the building won't be done by February 2022 but he said Harbor Bay will have Truss Cleveland finished by then. The reason? The top-floor event space will host private parties for the National Basketball Association's All-Star Game weekend Feb. 18-20, 2022, Whalen said.

Whalen was tight-lipped about the three-story, 14,108-square-foot restaurant space at the northeast corner of INTRO, across Gehring Avenue from the Ohio City Red Line train station. All he would say is that the space would actually be two Harbor Bay restaurants, each with independent concepts. They will be a casual restaurant on the first floor and an upscale restaurant on the second floor topped by a third-floor terrace, he said.

A new café called Leaps & Bounds, to be owned by Harbor Bay,
will occupy INTRO's highest-profile corner, that of Lorain
Avenue and West 25th Street in Cleveland (Bialosky).

But detailed plans were submitted to the city this week showing more than just the $2.7 million price tag for building out the two restaurant spaces.

The public record also revealed the identities and themes of the two restaurants, albeit buried in the fine print of the architectural drawings. The first-floor casual restaurant will have a wood theme and be called Pioneer, offering "Quality fire-grilled meats sourced from local farmers," plans show.

Upstairs, the drawings reveal a Spanish-Portuguese restaurant and tapas bar to be called Jajá. A tapa is an appetizer or snack in Spanish cuisine. In some bars and restaurants, tapas have evolved into a more sophisticated cuisine.

And "Jaja" in Portuguese is pronounced "zha-zha." In Spanish, it means laughter, like "haha." In Portuguese, it means "now now." But Whalen said his company didn't intend for it to mean anything, so they're having the last laugh.

Two restaurants will be located in the low-rise portion of INTRO,
offering views of downtown Cleveland and the Market Square
District, especially from a third-floor terrace (KJP).

For the remaining 6,000-plus square feet in uncommitted retail spaces, Whalen said he is seeking tenants that will serve the neighborhood on a daily basis. Those could include a barber, nail salon, class-based fitness tenant and more. There will be no large-scale retailer in INTRO.

"We don't need an anchor in our building to attract tenants," he said. "The West Side Market is already the anchor. There's an authentic neighborhood vibe about it."

In the public space between INTRO's two building wings, Whalen said Harbor Bay will be hiring someone to activate it with public art and engaging programming. He specifically mentioned as a potential program the Christkindl Holiday Market which is offered in more than a half-dozen cities in the U.S. and Canada during the holiday season.

"We want to make it the town square of Ohio City," Whalen said.

INTRO is a massive building and thus a massive undertaking.
But based on Harbor Bay's actions, this development probably
won't be its last hurrah in Greater Cleveland (KJP).

Other than the news that Harbor Bay will staff a construction office at INTRO, there have been other recent actions that underscore the Chicagoland firm is just getting started in establishing a larger presence in Cleveland.

Sources said in 2019 Harbor Bay was near to buying the Voss Industries building across West 25th from INTRO. Again, Whalen wouldn't confirm or deny the rumor. Instead, an investor team led by real estate broker Terry Coyne bought the property for $4.8 million after selling to Voss a newer plant in Berea.

County records show MRN Ltd. bought the 237,106-square-foot Voss plant and 4-acre property in March for $7.5 million, adding to its portfolio on the west side of West 25th. MRN is aggressively moving forward in redeveloping the large, 85-year-old factory into a mix of residential and commercial spaces.

Considering the scale of the Voss property, it shows how big Harbor Bay was willing to expand here locally. And its latest actions and plans show the firm remains serious about additional expansion here after construction work of INTRO's phase one is done.

Tyler Kapusta contributed to this article.

END

Circle Square, Ohio City, Van Aken District, Woodhill Station show what's possible

Putting more residents, jobs and services next to existing rapid
transit boosts Greater Cleveland's quality of life. More real es-
state developers are recognizing the value to them from invest-
ing next to transit, as well as the growing number of public in-
centives to make those investments. In 2019, Mayfield Station
Apartments was rising next to the new Little Italy-University
Circle Red Line rail station. More developments like this are
happening at more stations in Greater Cleveland (KJP).
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A few short steps away from a few rapid transit stations, thousands of housing units, millions of square feet of commercial space and a low-mileage lifestyle are rising in Greater Cleveland. And yet the work is just getting started.

There are many more developments coming to within steps of the region's 90 rapid transit stations. In the concept of Transit Oriented Development (TOD), the more doorways that are put closer to a transit stop, the better.

It's better for developers, the community and, of course, the transit agency. The developer/investor wins because structured parking in dense developments is costly to build and maintain, doesn't produce enough revenue to offset the costs, requires significant public subsidy and/or increases rents on tenants.

It's better for the community because all jobs, housing, shops and services are accessible to anyone regardless of whether they have a car. One in four Cleveland households have no car. For low-income households, car ownership often rivals housing as the largest expense.

The density of taxpayers plus utility/mail/public service customers, reduction of heat and stormwater runoff from smaller roofs and parking lots, plus less pollution and traffic from fewer vehicle-miles traveled by cars are all community benefits.

Aspen Place Apartments opened in 2019 next to the West 65th-
Ecovillage Red Line rail station, adding 40 units of affordable
housing that is steps away from a 38-mile rail system that ex-
tends the range of access to jobs and services (DSCDO).

TOD is better for the transit operator because the more transit-proximate doorways, be they to a residence, office, shop or community service, intuitively means more potential riders. And rather than extending the transit system farther out from the city in a costly pursuit of sprawl and ridership, the jobs, residents and services are brought to the existing transit system.

Adding more doorways near transit is a tangible result of TOD's overarching goal: "Successful TOD depends on access and density around the transit station," says the U.S. Department of Transportation, which offers numerous financial incentives for TOD.

But just because a development is built near a transit stop doesn't make it a TOD. If its design discourages pedestrian access by being set back from the street behind a big parking lot, has only one use in a low-density setting, and lacks doors and windows that don't give pedestrians easy access or a sense of security, then it probably isn't TOD.

There are far too many of these land uses around transit stops in Greater Cleveland, says the nonprofit rail and transit advocacy group All Aboard Ohio. They say the region needs more and larger TOD near rail stations. The absence of density and mixed uses around more stations is a major reason why Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority's (GCRTA) rail system is one of the worst performing rail systems in the nation.

Meanwhile pro-business groups like the Greater Cleveland Partnership have yet to lead the region when it comes to TOD. Instead it has spoken more forcefully in urging GCRTA to expand outward to chase after jobs moving farther from the labor pool and into low-density settings where transit must travel long distances to capture fewer riders. It's a high-cost, low-yield endeavor.

Investing in Greater Cleveland's infrastructure is at
the heart of this scene from 2020. While crews have
installed new tracks and ballast for the Blue/Green
Lines, contractors construct bridges for the new
Opportunity Corridor Boulevard (GCRTA).

GCRTA's rail system represents a multi-billion-dollar asset for the region. GCRTA is in the midst of a major capital improvement program, seeking to reduce its state-of-good-repair backlog from more than $600 million in unfunded projects. That backlog has meant speed limits on rail lines, aging trains that break down and electrical systems that fail.

In just five years, GCRTA has halved its backlog to $300 million by either making necessary capital improvements or by identifying funding for them. Rebuilt tracks, modernized electrical systems and new trains are going to arrive despite a recent hiccup. More federal funding for transit infrastructure is contained in President Joe Biden's bipartisan infrastructure bill.

The Green and Blue lines linking Shaker Heights and downtown Cleveland are currently getting tracks rebuilt from the ground up and in affordable sections. The first section was rebuilt last year, from near East 55th Street to Buckeye-Woodhill Station for $10 million. This week, work started on rebuilding the portion from Woodhill to Shaker Square for $8 million. Construction will conclude in October.

Some of Ohio's largest developments are rising next to GCRTA stations on its rail and bus rapid transit lines. Of those, only Sherwin-Williams' new headquarters is larger than the Circle Square development north of Euclid Avenue and Stokes Boulevard in University Circle, directly served by GCRTA's HealthLine bus rapid transit.

In Circle Square, a second downtown is rising along Stokes Boule-
vard to the north of Euclid Avenue, route of the HealthLine bus
rapid transit. The scale of this massive development will be
eclipsed only by Sherwin Williams' new HQ (Bialosky).

At just over 1 million square feet among all phases, this second downtown for Cleveland led by Midwest Development Partners is adding mixed uses of residential or offices over retail and neighborhood services.

Construction on the 24-story Artisan tower is well underway with work just getting started on the 11-story Library Lofts. Several more towers will follow, representing a total investment of more than $300 million.

And Sherwin-Williams' new HQ downtown, whose first phase offers 1 million square feet in a 616-foot-tall tower, will bring another $300 million-plus investment. A second-phase tower could deliver an additional 300,000 square feet. Those towers will be just west of Public Square where all of Cleveland's rail and bus rapid transit lines come together. More than one-third of Sherwin-Williams HQ employees commute by transit.

Two major developments are adding much-needed density within a few steps of GCRTA's light-rail Blue Line -- Woodhill Station in Cleveland and the Van Aken District in Shaker Heights. At GCRTA's Buckeye-Woodhill Station, abandonment is being reversed. At the Warrensville-Van Aken Station, car-dominant land uses are being remedied.

Construction is underway by Marous Brothers and the Community Builders Inc. on the first phase of Woodhill Station -- a roughly $40 million, 135,000-square-foot apartment building on the former site of the Buckeye-Woodland Elementary School, 9511 Buckeye Rd. The mixed-income, a 120-unit apartment building will offer 41 one-bedroom, 61 two-bedroom and 18 three-bedroom apartments.

Financing is coming together for the next phase of the Woodhill
Station development, to rise at the northwest corner of Buckeye
and Woodhill roads. Up to 300 people will soon live across
the street from the light-rail Blue/Green lines (OHFA). 

Financing is also coming together for the next phase of Woodhill Station -- a $25 million, 69-unit, mixed-income apartment building that will rise between the first phase and the northwest corner of Buckeye and Woodhill roads.

It will have a ground-floor retail/community space at the street corner to add street presence to the project. Together, the two buildings will place up to 300 new residents across Buckeye Road from a GCRTA light-rail station that was rehabilitated in 2013.

At the east end of the Blue Line, RMS Investment Group and its the Van Aken District are turning a tangle of roadways, post-war shopping plazas and their seas of surface parking into a walkable downtown for Shaker Heights. Pieces were already in place to create this downtown. Nearby is the 12-story Tower East office building and the 8-story Chelsea Condominiums.

Van Aken District's first phase opened two years ago, bringing a mix of retail, restaurants, residential, offices and public spaces. The next phase, approved by the city in June, will bring 225 market-rate apartments in an 18-story tower connected to a new 15-story tower.

Construction on both towers is due to start in early 2022. So is a new GCRTA rail and bus station plus public realm improvements that will support additional development in the southeast part of the Van Aken District.

Two new towers are due to see construction next year at the Van
Aken District -- a transit-oriented development at the east end of
the light-rail Blue Line (seen at left) in Shaker Heights (Bialosky).

That kind of density is desperately needed around more GCRTA rail stations that can be the central hubs of each neighborhood. And each of those neighborhoods can be a 15 Minute City where nearly all of a resident's daily needs, from working, shopping, education, health care and more can be accomplished within a 15 minute walk or bike trip.

One station that is seeing significant densification and diversification around it is the Red Line's Ohio City station. With the West Side Market plus offices and other employers nearby, it is already a destination station. But it's becoming a trip-origination station too, what with INTRO and Waterford Bluffs due to add up to 800 residents starting in 2022.

Within feet of the station, the first phase of Harbor Bay Real Estate Advisors' INTRO will add 288 residential units and 35,000 square feet of commercial space. A second phase may soon follow, adding many more apartments.

In the other direction from the train station, Stoneleigh's Waterford Bluffs will deliver another 241 apartments next year. Additional developments are planned, including MRN Ltd.'s conversion of the 237,000-square-foot Voss Building on West 25th Street into a mixed-use complex, plus new-construction residential on the west side of West 26th Street. MRN also plans a joint-development with GCRTA next to the rail station.

Between the Waterford Bluffs development in the foreground and
the larger INTRO project in the background is the red clock tower
of the Red Line's Ohio City train station, seen at the base of the
red construction tower crane. These and other developments
will likely produce more accessibility to and from Greater
Cleveland's underutilized rail system (KJP).

One of the most active station-areas in the last five years has been the Little Italy-University Circle station which was built new for $15.6 million in 2015. It replaced a poorly sited and little-used station at Euclid-East 120th.

The new station's ridership grew by more than 100 percent just in the first year. Since then, Centric, Random Road Lofts, La Collina and Mayfield Station Apartments representing an investment of more than $100 million have followed.

New public funding could help stimulate more development along rapid transit lines, especially on polluted former industrial sites called brownfields. Ohio is making $350 million available to clean up these properties and another $150 million to aid in structural demolitions and revitalization of sites that aren't brownfields. Without these funds, developers and investors would be more likely to invest in duplicative communities at the urban fringe than reinvigorated ones closer in.

One of the most significant new public funding initiatives to support complex, large-scale developments in Ohio's largest cities is the Transformational Mixed Use Development (TMUD) tax credit. Eligible real estate developments will have a construction cost of at least $50 million, involving a building at least 15 stories tall or more than 350,000 square feet of connected buildings. Up to $100 million per year over the next four years will be available to qualifying projects.

If more developments of scale are located along rapid transit corridors, they will allow Greater Cleveland's to leverage more value from its existing infrastructure. That value includes linking more residents to accessible housing, jobs, shopping and services, reducing housing and transportation costs, while lessening costly car dependency, pollution and traffic thereby improving Greater Cleveland's quality of life.

And the region is just starting to open the door to more TOD.

END

Renaissance Hotel plans $80 million renovation

One of Cleveland's oldest hotels, built on the site of prior hotels and
lodges going back more than 200 years, will be renovated from top
to bottom over the next 14 months or so. The work will coincide
with construction that's due to start this winter on the 1-million-
square-foot Sherwin-Williams headquarters across Superior
Avenue. Site preparations for the new HQ were under-
way when this photo was taken last winter (KJP).
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More details are coming to light on the renovation of downtown's Renaissance Cleveland Hotel. And that light is revealing a project much larger in scale and value than what had previously been reported. According to information from a source close to the project who was not authorized to speak about it, the 103-year-old hotel will be renovated from top to bottom for up to $80 million.

Renovation work is already under way on the 431,352-square-foot structure. Additional work will begin later this year and be completed in Fall 2022. The work will include floor-to-ceiling repairs and updates of all hotel rooms, public spaces, 60,000 square feet of ballrooms/meeting spaces, restaurants and retail spaces. There will also be exterior repairs and improvements made, the source said.

"It's a significant renovation," the source said, speaking off the record. "There's a lot of good stories with the Renaissance (Hotel) project. There's a lot of historic interest in it. Since it's on Public Square, it's on our city's front door and it ties in with a lot of other projects including Sherwin-Williams' (new headquarters) across the street. It took a lot of time to put it (the financing) all together."

The source also said the project will keep the same number of rooms -- 491, including 50 suites. It will continue to be owned 50/50 by Skylight Investments of Toronto and an unidentified partner. Skylight, which bought the hotel in 2015, has a 20-year franchise agreement with Marriott and the hotel is managed by Aimbridge which manages over 300 hotels in the United States.

Despite changing ownership and undergoing renovations multiple
times in its 100-plus-year history, the Renaissance Cleveland
Hotel retains its historical charm and elegance (Wiki).

Initial reports in the media told of a project with a first phase valued at $20 million and focused only on the lower floors of the 12-story hotel. That was based on an application by Skylight Investments for a 25 percent Ohio Historic Preservation Tax Credit. 

But that application was not granted in the latest round of awards June 30. Winners of the next round will be announced at the end of September. State tax credits are highly competitive; they have no post-construction review or pull-back provisions if historic preservation and design standards are not met.

Instead, Skylight is pursuing federal historic tax credits which are not competitive and have a 20 percent income tax credit for qualified expenditures. But they trigger a post-construction review and credits can be pulled back if the building's renovation doesn't meet National Park Service standards and if the structure is changed in any way within five years.

The hotel, at 24 Public Square, has multiple funding sources. In addition to private sector loans, Skyline will also be pursuing tax-increment financing (TIF) that will not touch property taxes for the Cleveland Municipal School District, the source said. Approval of the TIF from city council and the mayor will be required.

Although no expansion of the hotel is under consideration at this
time, it was considered at one time. In 1994, shortly after the
Tower City Center project was completed, this 19-story
addition was contemplated at the triangular corner
of  West Superior and Prospect avenues (file).

There has been lodging on this corner of Public Square for more than 200 years. In 1815, Phinney Mowrey opened Mowrey's Tavern, selling it five years later to Donald MacIntosh who renamed it as the Cleveland House and then the City Hotel. It was heavily damaged by fire in 1845 and replaced by the Dunham House.

That hotel was enlarged in 1852 and operated as the Forest City House for the next 64 years until it was demolished for the current structure. Built in 1918 as Hotel Cleveland, it was originally a 1,000-room hotel. It was the first structure in the Cleveland Union Terminal Group, a city-within-a-city uniting passenger railroad and rapid transit station facilities under one roof with offices, shops, hotel, department store and central post office.

The terminal group, including the hotel, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. In the 1980s and early 1990s, the former railroad station was converted into a mixed-use complex called Tower City Center.

Skylight had considered selling the hotel two years ago, but the pandemic and then Sherwin-Williams choosing its new HQ site across the street changed that. Skylight spokesman Ibrahim Adam did not respond to an e-mail seeking more information prior to publication of this article.

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Apartments planned at ex-elderly care facility in Ohio City

Dalad Group is proposing to redevelop this 19th-century mansion
turned-elderly care facility on Franklin Boulevard in Cleveland's
Ohio City neighborhood into 38 market-rate apartments (Gibbon).
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UPDATED AUG. 5, 2021

A first step in the approval process is starting Aug. 5 for a roughly $12 million redevelopment of a former elderly care facility into a market-rate apartment complex at 3105 Franklin Blvd. in Cleveland's Ohio City neighborhood.

Dalad Group of Independence is seeking conceptual approval from a neighborhood-level design-review committee of Franklin Yards. Its vision is to redevelop the former Vantage Place assisted living facility with 38 apartments.

Proposed are 26 one-bedroom apartments and 12 two-bedroom apartments spread among two buildings totaling 54,411 square feet. A third historic building previously used for storage and located on West 32nd Street has no definitive plan for re-use as yet, according to documents provided to the city and Ohio City Inc., a community development corporation.

Seven apartments would be located in what was originally a late-19th-century mansion. The rest would be in a building constructed in 1915 along West 31st Pl. as a women's residential center by the Young Women's Christian Association. The facility's former parking lot on the east side of West 31st would be reactivated to provide 42 of the proposed 48 parking spaces for Franklin Yards.

Site plan for the proposed Franklin Yards, 3105 Franklin Blvd. (Gibson).

"We like historic rehab projects," said Andrew Iarussi, president of construction at Dalad Construction and senior vice president of development at Dalad Group. "They present an opportunity to create something that you can’t quite accomplish by building new today."

He said Dalad was drawn to this location because of Ohio City's historic character. It's also close to shops, cafes and restaurants on West 25th Street and in Hingetown. And it's less than a quarter-mile walk to the Irishtown Bend Park and Lake Link Trail.

"We were also drawn to this particular property because of the large internal courtyard," Iarussi said. "It sets up nicely for a dynamic green space which is always a main component of our projects."

Plans show one-bedroom apartments would measure 558-673 square feet and two-bedroom units 900-1,052 square feet. In the 1915-built residential building, there would be eight basement units but all will have windows and one will have a sunken outdoor terrace on the west side of the building.

Proposed floor plans for the residential structures in the
Franklin Yards development (Gibbon).

Units will have access to several outdoor patios as part of the interior courtyard that would be opened up by demolishing a 1960-built, one-story common area for the former residential facility. Franklin Yards will also have a small fitness room, community living room and tenant storage areas, plans show.

The storage building on West 32nd, which dates to 1915 and measures just 2,172 square feet, may be renovated as a small office or possibly as a neighborhood retail space. The building cannot be demolished due to restrictions from Dalad Group receiving an historic tax credit of $1.9 million from the Ohio Development Services Agency. 

"Our project team is still working through the design development, and at the same time we’re exploring financing that will allow us to deliver a middle-market rate product," Iarussi explained.

He said the goal is to offer apartments that are affordable to a renter in the 80-120 percent range of the region's average median income. That would equate to rents for one- and two-bedroom units ranging from about $950 to $1950 per month. Ohio City Inc. Executive Director Tom McNair was not immediately available to comment today.

Site of Franklin Yards as seen in May from the southeast corner
of Franklin Boulevard and West 32nd Street (KJP).

"Over the past year, we have been working under a demolition permit to remove non-historic building elements and old mechanical systems," Iarussi said. "We hope to gain approvals and a construction permit to start the renovation work later this year."

NEOtrans broke the news on the sale of Vantage Place to Dalad Group in October 2018. The sale was closed two months later but a purchase price was not disclosed in county records. However, a Dalad Group affiliate created for acquiring the 1.376-acre property secured a $1.35 million mortgage to create a lien and security interest in the property. In 2018, the property was valued at $1.3 million by the county for tax purposes.

Sixty years ago, the property was purchased by the Sisters of the Humility of Mary as a residence for the Sisters teaching at Lourdes Academy first located across the street at 3007 Franklin and later moved to 4105 Bridge Ave., according to former resident Sister Mary Hurley, HM. It became a private healthcare facility starting in 1976 when the Coury family of the Aristocrat Berea Nursing Center purchased it.

Called Vantage Place since the late-1980s, the property went through other owners until it was acquired by Thomas Scheiman. Reportedly faced with federal budget cuts for elderly care facilities and his own retirement, Scheiman decided to sell the property to Dalad Group.

As many as 86 elderly residents, many with mental illnesses, were relocated to other care facilities in Greater Cleveland at the end of 2018 when Vantage Place was shut down. The property has been vacant ever since.

Tyler Kapusta contributed to this article.

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Lakefront developments at East 55th alive again

The Landmark Companies' Shoreline apartments is, for the time being,
the only lakefront residential development east of downtown Cleve-
land to Bratenahl. That could soon change if two newly revived
developments are realized (Kyle Lanzer-Metroparks).
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Two significant lakefront developments near Gordon Park were put on the back burner by their developers during the depths of the pandemic. But now, both developers are bringing their projects forward to get them cooking again.

Part of the reason is the Cleveland Metroparks is leading a comprehensive effort to improve the lakefront near its Gordon Park and East 55th Street Marina which is a popular recreational area.

One project is a mixed-use development sought by Knez Homes on the south side of Interstate 90 and just east of East 55th. Up to 150 market-rate residential units and 8,000 square feet of commercial space are proposed for the former site of a 12-story Howard Johnson's hotel razed in 2009.

The other project is a residential development by The Landmark Companies on the water's edge of Lake Erie, north of I-90 and just west of East 55th. Proposed is a five-story building with 212 market-rate apartments called The Shoreline Phase II.

Location of the two proposed developments at the interchange of
Interstate 90 and East 55th Street east of downtown (Google).

Bo Knez, founder and president of Knez Homes, said he has asked his development team to bring its project at 5700 South Marginal Rd. back to the fore. The site measures 4.24 acres of city-owned land which Knez has an option to buy.

"We're back on the drawing board for East 55th," Knez said in a phone interview. "We're giving RSA (Architects LLC) directions to move plans forward."

In February 2019, Knez proposed a conceptual plan with 50-60 townhouses including eight homes above commercial spaces such as restaurants, retail and/or offices along South Marginal. Tucked behind would be 90-100 apartments in a five-story building.

But back then, some City Planning Commission members said the project was too dense and not connected to the surrounding neighborhood. Knez, who was born in Slovenia and raised nearby in the East 55th-St. Clair Avenue neighborhood, said there's no immediate neighborhood within an easy walk. Instead, he would be creating one.

The most recent rendering of Knez Homes' East 55th development
that dates from 2019 will be refined prior to resubmittal to the
City Planning Commission for final approval (RSA).

RSA Architects will refine the plans in order to secure final approval, Knez added. But he said he did not know when those revised plans would be ready to be submitted to the city. 

On the other side of Interstate 90 and East 55th, The Landmark Companies began pursuing city approvals for Shoreline Phase II. It's the next phase after the former Nicholson Terminal warehouse was renovated into Quay 55 and 138 apartments in 2002. Landmark bought Quay 55 in 2017, renamed it The Shoreline and converted some of its indoor parking into 29 additional apartments.

Phase II would result in a second, five-story building just east of the first, bringing more apartments, a larger swimming pool and 322 more outdoor surface parking spaces plus 95 indoor spaces. In Phase I are 63 indoor and 67 outdoor parking spaces. Total parking would be 561 spaces. City Planning Commission approved the conceptual designs two years ago.

John M. Carney, a principal with Landmark Management said the project was delayed by the pandemic and by having to secure some additional property from the city. But, contrary to rumors that the project was dead, he said the project is most definitely active.

The Landmark Companies' Shoreline Phase II is proposed to add
more than 200 apartments to Cleveland's lakefront (Vocon).

"Right now, we're working it," Carney said in a brief phone interview. "The plan is to proceed per the plans that received preliminary approval from the city. We're working on a few things with the city of Cleveland on the east boundary."

Although Carney wouldn't specify exactly what is being pursued, there is a vacant piece of city-owned, waterfront land measuring just over 1 acre immediately east of the 10 acres Landmark owns. Of that 10 acres, phase two would rise on 4 acres of vacant land at 5455 North Marginal Road.

This area along the lakefront, from Burke Lakefront Airport east to the Cleveland Lakefront Nature Preserve, is the subject of a multi-agency planning effort led by the Cleveland Metroparks. Called the Cleveland Harbor Eastern Embayment Resilience Study (CHEERS), the goal is to accommodate dredge disposal, create additional aquatic and terrestrial habitat, protect existing highway infrastructure and enhance the lakefront.

Cleveland Metroparks plans a major expansion of Gordon Park
by using lake and river dredgings to extend the shoreline and
create an island. The development of more recreational and
public spaces along the lakefront could boost residential
development south of I-90 where FirstEnergy's
power plant stood until 2017 (Metroparks).

I-90 has been battered in recent years by storm-driven waves that pushed abnormally high lake levels onto the roadway and into a water inlet below the highway. Water from that inlet was used by the former FirstEnergy Lake Shore Power Plant until it was closed and demolished in 2017.  

With the power plant gone, there was no longer a reason for I-90 to be routed around it next to the lake. Some wanted to see I-90 moved south, through the former power plant's property. Instead, a less costly option was embraced by the CHEERS effort -- push the lake shore farther north, including the creation of a park island and a cove between it and the lake shore.

The Green Ribbon Coalition, which promotes an enhanced and more accessible lakefront, said the Metroparks' proposed improvements could lead to additional development and expansion of public spaces. That may include redeveloping much of the 62 acres of land on which the power plant sat. FirstEnergy said the site was cleaned of pollutants when it demolished the plant.

END