Hingetown, Cleveland's hottest development hotbed

A picture is often worth a thousand words. This graphic shows
how many developments were built, are under construction, or
in advanced planning in Cleveland's Hingetown since 2000.
CLICK TO ENLARGE ALL IMAGES (Google/KJP)

Hingetown, that little enclave within a neighborhood within a city seemingly couldn't be growing any faster than already it is. No matter where you stand in Hingetown these days, you're either standing next to a 21st-century real estate development, across the street from one or you can see one less than a block away. Increasingly, in Hingetown, you're surrounded by projects.

That's a dramatic change considering that drug dealers and prostitutes once roamed this northeast corner of Cleveland's Ohio City neighborhood. Today, they have given way to young professionals eager to share their fresh ideas, families pushing baby strollers and entrepreneurs looking to make their mark or a new start. It's come a long way from what was a "toxic corner" as Vanity Fair told the enclave's story four years ago.

Now, one of the neighborhood's biggest developers, The Snavely Group, is rapidly expanding its footprint on Detroit Avenue which is along the northern edge of Hingetown (actually, the West Shoreway seems to be the unofficial northern boundary).

By the end of this year, Snavely reportedly hopes to delve into Phase 3 of its multi-phase, mixed-use, mixed-income development, moving westward from West 25th Street. A fourth phase may not be far behind that.

Snavely's first phase, The Quarter (clad in green), is under
construction in this January 2018 scene. Two buildings across
Detroit Avenue were undergoing renovation as part of phases
1 and 2. The third phase will renovate the historic Painters'
Union in the center-foreground and add a 5-story apartment
building on the parking lot at bottom (Aerial Agents).

“This project is a place-making project,” said Peter Snavely Jr., vice president of development for the Snavely Group in a written statement. “It’s a mixed-use, mixed-income, socially-driven project.”

Last year, Snavely completed its first phase at the northwest corner of Detroit and West 25th, called The Quarter -- 194 apartments above 30,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space. The commercial space is fully leased and the residential units are 93 percent leased, according to The Quarter's Web site. The development replaces a huge, windswept parking lot.

Tenants for the ground-floor commercial space in The Quarter include the Music Settlement, an early education and music school, APG Office Furnishings, D.O. Summers dry cleaners, and The Grocery OHC, a local grocery offering healthy, locally sourced food. But the first phase also continues across Detroit -- though only to the ground floors of two historic buildings. There, Hingetown's reputation as a place where entrepreneurs can find a guiding hand is enhanced.

The first floor of the Forest City Savings and Trust Building was renovated into the Ohio City Galley, a restaurant incubator including a 200-seat food hall and four kitchens for new-start restaurateurs. To the west is the Seymour Building whose first floor was redeveloped with the The Beauty Shoppe, a co-working office space and Foyer café, according to an article by Novogradac & Company LLP, a real estate services consulting firm specializing in affordable housing development.

Soil boring equipment for geotechnical testing was on the site
of Snavely's planned third phase of its Hingetown master
development during the first week of April (KJP). 

The second phase stayed in one of those historic buildings. Snavely is renovating the upper floors of the Forest City Savings and Trust Building with 38 affordable apartments. The building will be renamed Forest City Square, with work due to be completed by the end of the year. Total investment among the first two phases is $60 million.

Next is the third phase -- 88 apartments in two buildings. One is an existing structure -- the three-story Painters Union building at 2605 Detroit Ave. that is due to be renovated. Next to it could be a newly built, five-story building like The Quarter across Detroit albeit smaller in land area. It will be on the April agenda of the Clinton-Franklin Block Club which will meet at 7 p.m. April 25 at St. John's Parish Hall, 2600 Church Ave.

 An image from the schematic designs for
phase 3, submitted by Snavely to the city
for approval. A renovated painters Union
building is at left and the new-construction
 element is at right. (Vocon)

Deciding whether to pursue a third phase likely wasn't a difficult one for Snavely, considering the speed and market-rate rents at which The Quarter leased out. But the third phase, due to start this fall, will feature affordable apartments for residents earning 80 percent of the average median income. Snavely was able to offer reduced-rate apartments thanks in part to Opportunity Zone funding, according to the Novogradac article.

A possible fourth phase may come in a couple of years, pending the relocation of two businesses. The first relocation would be Cleveland Vibrator Company, 2828 Clinton Ave. Its relocation, which isn't yet finalized, would make way for the other relocation, that of The Adcom Group whose offices are currently located at 1370 W. 6th St. in downtown's Warehouse District.

The 1.7-acre Hingetown site of the Cleveland Vibrator Company
 is being acquired for redevelopment, including for ground-
floor offices and apartments on the upper floors  (Google/KJP).

Although still in a preliminary stage, four sources say the development concept for the fourth phase involves putting the offices for Adcom, a fast-growing marketing company, on the lower floors of a new building with apartments on the upper floors.

"I personally, along with some other partners, are in the process of buying some commercial property in Ohio City," said Adcom CEO Joe Kubic. "We haven’t yet finalized our plans for it though. It is certainly a possibility that Adcom may relocate there at some point, but we are happy in our current location as of now."

Few places in Greater Cleveland have had so many real estate development projects built or planned in so small of an area in recent years as Hingetown. While downtown adds housing units in big gulps, Hingetown adds them in seemingly countless nibbles. Even as this walkable neighborhood's bites into the market are getting bigger, the appetite seems insatiable.

For now it's just a big hole in the ground. Soon, two apartment
buildings, one six stories tall and the other 11 stories, will rise
for the Church+State development between Detroit and Church
avenues, and West 28th and 29th streets. The latter was called
State Street. It shows how Hingetown continues to grow and
foster a much more vibrant urban neighborhood just west of
 downtown Cleveland (Ken Prendergast).

The spark to this development brush fire began with a main street of shops, cafes and restaurants along West 29th Street south of Detroit. It was led by investors Marika Shiori-Clark and Graham Veysey. They named it Hingetown because it's like a hinge between the Gordon Square Arts District, the Market District, and the Warehouse District.

The goal was and is to have an inclusive, socially conscious, entrepreneur-based enclave, located in the cultural heart of Cleveland's LGBT community. Shiori-Clark and Veysey renovated an 1854-built firehouse with a coffee shop and businesses. Other pioneering efforts were the Federal Knitting Mills Apartments conversion and renovation of a long-vacant streetcar electrical substation-turned-art gallery called the Transformer Station.

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New county jails proposed as UC-area high-rises!

This reportedly is the conceptual design for Cuyahoga County's
new consolidated jail facility proposed on East 105th Street, just
north of the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority's newly
 expanded East 105th-Quincy Red Line station (KJP file).

Instead of seeking to develop high-rise, quality, affordable housing near rapid transit stations along the Opportunity Corridor, community development corporations are vying for Cuyahoga County's proposed consolidated jail facility.

The winning site, according to 13 sources, is on East 105th Street at Quebec Avenue. The location is next to the newly expanded East 105th-Quincy Red Line rail station, just east of the county's nine-story Juvenile Justice Center built in 2011. As part of the Opportunity Corridor project, the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (GCRTA) opened the expanded station last year after investing $5 million in local and state funds. The previous station was rebuilt in 2005 for $1.3 million.

GCRTA's newly expanded East 105th-Quincy station, looking
westward. The proposed jail facility will reportedly be located
just out of view to the right (GCRTA).

The new Cuyahoga County Consolidated Jail Facility, comprised of two towers, one 27 stories and the other 18 stories over a two-story pad offering restaurants, neighborhood retail and a Star-On-The-Fly drive-through coffee store, is projected to cost $1.8 billion. It will not only address overcrowded conditions at the aging jails downtown, it will unite in one location county and municipal jails from several suburbs.

"This Transit Oriented Development will place hundreds of exciting jobs within a short walk of a rail station, which is what TOD is all about and what the Opportunity Corridor is all about," said John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt, president of Schmidt Corrections Construction Corp. "This jail is about opportunity."

But Ken Prendergast, executive director of All Aboard Ohio, a nonprofit that advocates for improved transit and for TOD to address the region's spatial mismatch between jobs and job seekers, called the project a missed opportunity.

The proposed location of new Cuyahoga County Consolidated
Jail Facility on East 105th Street at Quebec Avenue (Google).

"This has to be a joke, right?" Prendergast asked. "The largest planned project on the Opportunity Corridor is going to be a jail? Sure, the jail jobs and retail jobs will be a welcome addition to this depressed neighborhood that's within sight of the shiny towers of University Circle. But that's not what TOD is all about."

All Aboard Ohio recently advocated for developing larger-scale housing developments next to Opportunity Corridor rail stations at East 105th and at East 79th streets. The organization said that new, inexpensive construction techniques combined with Opportunity Zone financing and existing incentives for affordable housing should make these larger-scale developments more viable and likely.

"I'm sure the jail towers will be a tremendous visual addition to University Circle's growing skyline," Prendergast added. "But it's time for this region to stop developing as if every day is April Fool's Day."

END

USL Cleveland soccer stadium site chosen

While a new Cleveland USL soccer stadium will probably be
less elaborate than this new stadium being built in Louisville,
it shows how much the USL has grown in some markets. The
new home of the Louisville City Football Club will seat 11,700
and can expand to 20,000 seats. The site will also have offices,
retail & a hotel (LouCityFC).(CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE)

For 30 years, a forlorn spit of land south of the Inner Belt highway in downtown Cleveland has been eyeballed by different people for different types of sports stadiums.

Now, the latest and perhaps most realistic stadium effort has reportedly targeted land owned by the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) for a 5,000-plus-seat United Soccer League (USL) venue. That's according to two sources, one a major local developer and the other a Cleveland building and construction trades representative.

Brothers Greg and Shaw Abrams, co-owners of six Force Sports fitness centers, are apparently teaming up with as-yet unidentified investors to acquire and develop the site, as well as to pay the USL's $5 million franchise expansion fee. The team will be called the Cleveland Force, as the Abrams brothers acquired the naming rights to the Force, an indoor soccer league team that briefly thrived at the since-demolished Richfield Coliseum from 1978-88. However, the Abrams said they are not in a position yet to confirm the site.

"Our goal is to make sure that a stadium deal can be announced at some point soon," Greg Abrams said in an e-mail March 28. He said the announcement will be made as soon as he gets the OK from his partners.

The site involves less than half of the 49-acre, former Norfolk Southern intermodal rail yards. It is located just south of the Interstate 90 Inner Belt and is bounded by Ontario Street/Broadway Avenue, East 9th Extension and Commercial Road. ODOT acquired the land in 2011 for $29.8 million to construct the Inner Belt's new Cuyahoga Viaduct bridges.

ODOT acquired all 49 acres of Norfolk Southern's intermodal
rail yards on the south side of downtown Cleveland in 2011. An
ODOT spokesman said it doesn't want or need the entire site
and confirmed that there are suitors interested in acquiring at
least some of the land, but refused to identify them until
agreements have been finalized (Cuyahoga County/KJP).

A soccer stadium measuring at least 400 feet wide and 500 feet long could fit on the mostly level land next to the Inner Belt. An ODOT spokesman confirmed there have been inquiries about that property but no deals have been finalized.

"There is excess land that ODOT is having appraised," said Brent Kovacs, public information officer at ODOT District 12. "ODOT has received inquiries about the land. ODOT would like to sell the land, but there is no agreement to sell or lease the land with any party, at this time."

Constructing USL Division II stadiums in other cities cost anywhere from $15 million to $65 million. The United States Soccer Federation sets the USL Championship league at one level below the top-rung North America's Major League Soccer (MLS). The Abrams brothers and their partners reportedly want Cleveland in this league to draw better players, competition and attendance.

The USL continues to grow in franchises, popularity and games. In 2018, USL's Championship league was drawing an average of nearly 5,000 fans per game. However, the USL's most popular team, FC Cincinnati that attracted 25,000 fans per contest last year, was moved up one level to the MLS.

This is an oversimplified diagram of how a soccer stadium and
supportive uses could fit on the site that is reportedly being
targeted for a new USL Cleveland franchise (Google/KJP). 

This would be Cleveland's second attempt at a USL franchise. The first one lasted just three years, from 2007-09. In its first two years, the Cleveland City Stars regularly filled Cleveland State University's (CSU) 1,800-seat Krenzler Field on Chester Avenue. For its third season, the Stars moved from USL's lower division to the upper division, so it had to offer a stadium of at least 5,000 seats, per league rules. The team's home games were played at Bedford's Bearcat Stadium and attendance dropped. There were some conversations about building a new stadium downtown, including at the former intermodal yards, but the Stars franchise was losing money and soon folded.

After rumors that it was looking to replace Krenzler Field, CSU renovated the soccer stadium last year for $2.9 million, including a removable, air-supported dome. A spokesman said CSU will not move its soccer program to the proposed USL stadium due to the number of indoor and outdoor matches and practices that CSU can host at Krenzler Field.

"At this juncture, we have had no discussions with parties associated with the construction of a USL soccer stadium, or any partnership with the team after completion of the project," said Roger McAfee, CSU's assistant athletic director for communications.

The size of the proposed USL stadium, supportive infrastructure and surrounding amenities like parking, restaurants/bars and team shops is limited by other land uses and the topography of the land. The site is perched atop a hill overlooking the Cuyahoga Valley and is next to a trench through which the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority's (GCRTA) rapid transit rail lines pass. To the north is Interstate 90's Inner Belt, although the highway bridges over the land that has a paved and illuminated parking lot on it.

The Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority's rapid transit
rail line cuts through the southeast edge of downtown Cleveland
and alongside the site (at left) where the USL soccer stadium is
 proposed to be built (KJP collection).

GCRTA has no current plans to build a station here but some long-range planning from 20 years ago proposed adding an infill station or relocating the East 34th-Campus station to this vicinity. If a station was built, it might cost up to $15.6 million as the 2015-built Little Italy-University Circle Station had. That was the last all-new rail station built by GCRTA. However, GCRTA completely redesigned and replaced its existing Tri-C Campus District Station 1 mile east of here in 2018, costing $7.5 million. Some GCRTA rail stations are located less than a mile from each other.

On the other side of the GCRTA rapid transit line is Cleveland Black Oxide, a small industry that makes metal finishing products. Its 22,000-square-foot building sits on 0.71 acres at 836 Broadway Ave. Its owner and President Bob McElwee bought a roughly 14,000-square-foot building in October 2018 at 3490 W. 140th St. But McElwee says it was for storage, not for relocation. He also notes that he has been approached by developers recently.

"We don’t have plans to move, however there have been developers talking with us about purchasing our building or building us a new building and doing a like kind exchange," McElwee said. "We are also looking at expanding at our current site (on Broadway). The folks that have approached us were not involved with a stadium development."

The LouCity FC stadium in Louisville is now under construction
and carries a price tag of $65 million. However, it is unlikely that
Cleveland's new soccer stadium will be so grandiose. But it could
be expandable to someday offer the kind of facility now enjoyed
by soccer fans in many top-attendance USL cities (LouCity FC).

Discussions about building a sports stadium at this location date back to the late 1980s. But those early efforts focused not on world futbol, but on American football -- the Cleveland Browns. When serious discussions were getting underway for the Gateway sports complex, the Browns were invited to participate along with the Cavaliers and Indians. The Browns stadium was proposed to be where the current soccer stadium is planned, south of the Inner Belt. Ultimately, however, then-owner Art Modell preferred to renovate the existing lakefront Municipal Stadium.

In 1996, after Modell moved to Baltimore, the City of Cleveland didn't want to build a new Cleveland Browns stadium anywhere other than on the lakefront site of the old stadium. But there were those with dissenting opinions in Mayor Mike White's administration who wanted it built on the newly vacated Norfolk Southern intermodal yards. The complicated site was rejected because the city wanted the Browns returned to Cleveland without delay and without having to build the infrastructure necessary to accommodate 70,000 sports spectators.

But the site might just be right for a 7,000-seat soccer stadium. We'll see if it's good fit here.

END

Ohio City manufacturer bucks housing trend

The Kowalski Heat Treating Co. is a manufacturing outlier in the
booming Detroit Avenue residential corridor in Cleveland's Ohio
City neighborhood (Google).(CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE)

A stretch of Detroit Avenue in Cleveland's Ohio City neighborhood, once known as Mariners' Row for its many boat dealers and boating stores, is quickly becoming home to a number of mid-rise apartment buildings. From The Quarter, Federal Knitting Mills, Mariner's Watch, Edge 32, to the latest and largest project yet -- Church + State -- more than a dozen blocks of Detroit Avenue next to the West Shoreway (now Edgewater Parkway) are lined with apartment buildings from four to 11 stories tall.

A notable exception is a holdout manufacturer, Kowalski Heat Treating Co., that has grown from 3,000 square feet to 83,000 square feet during its 44 years, adding nearly 23,000 square feet just in the past week.

A source said owner and President Steve Kowalski had secretly been looking to move to larger quarters in a business park elsewhere in Cleveland but the deal fell through. If so, it makes sense that Kowalski may stay put because his metalworking equipment is expensive to move. But the source said it is possible that Kowalski's latest acquisition might be for storage in the short term. In the long term, he could still sell his entire property to a developer and relocate his operation which employs about three dozen people.

Prior to 5 p.m. March 22, Kowalski had not returned two voicemails and an e-mail seeking clarification for this article. A woman who answered the phone earlier that day at Kowalski Heat Treating said the company wasn't planning on moving.

There are other indications that Kowalski Heat Treating will keep expanding to increase production of treated metal products and continue bucking the trend of an increasingly residential Detroit corridor overlooking Lake Erie and Whiskey Island.

To the right of the new Edge 32 apartments is the former head-
quarters and plant of Conveyer & Caster that was bought on
March 18 by Kowalski Heat Treating. Conveyer & Caster
moved out to Westlake and Kowalski moved in (Google).

On March 18, a corporation owned by Stephen G. Kowalski of Bay Village closed on the purchase of 0.83 acres that belonged to The Storefront Ltd. (doing business as Conveyer & Caster Inc.), 3501 Detroit Ave. Storefront is named after the Stohr family who founded Conveyer & Caster in 1961 and continues to run it today. The land and four buildings, including a house on Clinton Avenue, were valued in 2018 by Cuyahoga County at $719,400 for tax purposes.

The purchase amount is not publicly available. However, SGK Development Co. and KMJC Properties LLC, both owned by Kowalski, secured two $1.44 million mortgages from The Storefront Ltd. which also acted as lender, according to documents filed with the Cuyahoga County Fiscal Officer.

SGK Development is the firm that owns most of the 1.16 acres on which Kowalski Heat Treating had been operating. Its mortgage pertains to the parcels in those 1.16 acres. KMJC Properties was formed in January as part of Kowalski's efforts to acquire the neighboring Conveyer & Caster site.

Conveyer & Caster moved its offices, manufacturing plant and roughly 30-40 employees on March 1 to a 75,000-square-foot building it renovated at 29570 Clemens Rd. in Westlake. KMJC Properties' mortgage pertains to the parcels in the 0.83 acres that Kowalski acquired March 18.

It isn't known for what purpose Kowalski will use or has used the $2.88 million in loans. But it appears that one loan was used to acquire the Conveyer & Caster site and the other to possibly improve, replace or add equipment owned by Kowalski Heat Treating.

Stephen G. Kowalski, owner and president of Kowalski Heat
Treating, now has a significant presence on the Detroit Avenue
corridor that stands out along the West Shoreway (Google/KJP).

Kowalski Heat Treating has been expanding ever since the company was founded by Steve Kowalski's father Robert in 1975. The company's previous expansion before last week was in 2014 when it acquired Kennick Mold & Die, 3601 Detroit, for what Kowalski calls Plant 6. That acquisition brought the six-building site up to 60,000 square feet.

In 2002, according to Crain's Cleveland Business, Kowalski invested $2.5 million to refurbish its then-18,000-square-foot site and add 10,000 square feet of space to it. The article noted that Kowalski said he had no thoughts of relocating the company because many of his employees lived in Cleveland.

"We love this area," Kowalski told Crain's 17 years ago. "This location is ideally suited for our business. We didn't do this (refurbishment of the building) for the short term."

Ironically, back in 2002, Kowalski also said he doubted the ability of the Detroit corridor to support more shops and housing. Yet, the neighborhood continues to boom with the addition of more shops and housing -- and a growing manufacturing plant.

END