Sherwin-Williams' HQ: will it be Ohio's tallest or suburban-bound?

Based on new information about Sherwin-Williams' proposed
headquarters and research facility space needs, it's possible that
the global coatings firm could build the tallest skyscraper in
Ohio, like the 1,200-foot-tall Ameritrust Center tower planned
 in 1990 (at left), soaring above the neighboring Key Tower,
Terminal Tower and 200 Public Square. Or SHW could build
a sprawling campus in the city of Cleveland or in the suburbs
(Heintges/KJP).(CLICK TO ENLARGE ALL IMAGES).

UPDATE: Sherwin-Williams isn't commenting on this story and, after it was published, an internal e-mail was sent to company managers and department heads advising them to not comment if any media asks about the company moving its headquarters/research and development activities to new facilities.

It appears the stakes couldn't be higher for the City of Cleveland as global coatings giant Sherwin-Williams Co. (SHW) prepares to issue a request for proposals from development teams seeking to build a massive new headquarters and research facility.

How high are the stakes? Perhaps as high as the 947-foot Key Tower or possibly more. That's how tall the 153-year-old company's new corporate headquarters could be, according to two sources. Or, considering that SHW's executives like being within walking distance of the company's research and development activities, it's possible that the new HQ and R&D facilities could both move to Cleveland's suburbs, taking nearly 4,000 good-paying jobs with them.

So the potential outcomes are an iconic new skyscraper for a growing multinational company in downtown Cleveland or the loss of thousands of jobs from a city trying to recover from decades of job losses.

Those are pretty monumental stakes.

It is apparent that SHW prefers to stay in downtown Cleveland. Since 2014, it has commissioned at least two concepts by an out-of-town architect for a new skyscraper on the Jacobs Lot on Public Square. It hired the world's largest civil engineering firm to flesh out the concepts into plans that were nearly ready to be released to the public in late 2015. That was when SHW executives switched course and began the process of buying Minneapolis-based rival Valspar. The debt from that $11 billion acquisition should be paid down just three years from now.

At right is the Jacobs lot, vacant since 1989, on the West Roadway
of Cleveland's Public Square. It was to be the site of the Ameritrust
Center tower until Ameritrust merged with Society Bank and then
Key Bank. Multiple sources say it was Sherwin-Williams' favored
site in 2015 for a new headquarters tower, before the company
acquired Valspar, became larger and faster growing. Weston's
five-acre Superblock of parking lots is just beyond (Google).

More information is becoming available as the world's biggest commercial real estate services firm prepares to circulate an RFP for a new HQ and R&D facility for the fast-growing coatings giant. It appears months of work by a century-old Cleveland-based law firm in drafting the RFP is nearing conclusion. The RFP is due to be released by the end of this year, multiple sources say.

Everything is on the table. SHW will listen to all offers. And SHW will get a lot of them as it seeks to build 1.6 million square feet of HQ space and R&D facilities, according to two sources.

Those space-needs figures are much higher than what was previously reported on this blog. SHW is growing so quickly and it needs to have the elbow room in its HQ to accommodate future growth for decades to come. Spread among six locations, SHW's Cleveland-area employment is rapidly approaching 5,000 workers, roughly 80 percent of which are office/lab personnel; the rest are industrial. SHW has been headquartered in the Landmark Office Building, 101 Prospect Ave., since 1930 and in the Breen Technology Center, 601 Canal Road, since 1948.

It isn't publicly known how that 1.6 million square feet will be divided among HQ and R&D. But it appears that anywhere from 200,000 to 300,000 square feet could be for R&D. SHW's existing R&D (currently in 140,000 square feet in the crowded Breen Center) space in Cleveland could nearly double in size.

SHW closed its Chicago lab and moved its employees into a former Valspar Applied Science & Technology Center, 1101 South 3rd St., near US Bank Stadium in downtown Minneapolis. That complex measures more than 170,000 square feet. Some R&D employees may stay in Minneapolis. Some may move to Cleveland when SHW's new, larger R&D facility opens.

Even if all of Minneapolis' R&D staff moves to Cleveland (which is unlikely), that leaves about 1.3 million square feet for SHW's HQ space. For comparison, the 57-story Key Tower is 1.25 million square feet. If SHW decides to stay downtown, it might stick with past plans to build its HQ tower on the Jacobs lot on the west side of Public Square. That lot measures 50,000 square feet, but could be reduced to about 40,000 square feet if Frankfort Avenue and the Public Square sidewalk are widened as part of a plan to build a new super-tall here.

The 1990-planned 63-story Ameritrust Center
tower on the Jacobs lot was to be built on a 12-
story-tall pedestal with 50,000-square-foot floor-
plates (same size as the lot itself), then narrow
significantly among the upper floors (KPF).

The base of Key Tower is only 28,000 square feet. Key, like many tall buildings, tapers inward as it soars higher. Its floorplates average 22,000 square feet. If a new SHW tower's floorplates average close to that, it could be at least 60 stories tall.

Why would SHW consider the suburbs? Again, because SHW wants its HQ and R&D to be close to each other. And since R&D activities for a coatings company involve combustible materials, albeit in small quantities, it might need to be in a location where nearby land uses aren't threatened by an accident.

But right next door to the Jacobs Lot is the largest swath of undeveloped land in the central business district -- Weston Inc.'s Superblock. Currently a five-acre surface parking lot, the Superblock has lots of room and no pending plans for at least half of it. Weston's most recent plan for the Superblock, a multi-building, multi-phase development, has faded away.

The northern half of the Superblock may be in play by Realife Real Estate Group. Through an affiliate 1350 W6 LLC, Realife purchased Stark Enterprises' headquarters, 1350 West 3rd St. Apparently Stark's planned move in a few years to a 24-story office tower in its nuCLEus development isn't soon enough for Reallife. Whatever Reallife has planned for the north half of the Superblock is of a time-sensitive nature -- so much so that Stark will temporarily move by the end of this year to a 28,000-square-foot space at 629 Euclid Avenue.

That still leaves the door wide open for the 2.6-acre southern half of the Superblock -- the portion closest to the Jacobs lot. A 300,000-square-foot R&D facility in two buildings securely separated by 30 feet, each measuring 70 feet wide by 200 feet long (offering floorplates similar to Breen's) and 11 stories tall could front Superior Avenue.

At this location, Superior is a 130-foot-wide right of way with no buildings across the street except for the corner of a hotel ballroom with windowless, concrete walls. Behind the R&D facility could be an 11-level, 3,000-space parking garage for SHW's HQ and R&D workers along Frankfort Avenue, effectively shielding whatever is ultimately built north of Frankfort from the R&D structure.

This view along Canal Road show the proximity of the Breen
Technology Center (far-right) to the Carl B. Stokes Federal
Court House Tower across the street. In the distance is
Sherwin-Williams' headquarters since 1930 -- the
Landmark Office Building (Google).

But the R&D concerns may be overblown in the first place. After all, the federal government doesn't consider SHW's existing R&D facility a structural threat. If it did, it wouldn't have built its 23-story, 430-foot-tall Carl B. Stokes Federal Court House Tower a mere 80 feet from SHW's Breen Technology Center in 2003.

Even if SHW decides against putting an R&D facility in Cleveland's central business district, other sites at the edges of downtown could be in play. One that has been discussed among real estate insiders is Scranton Peninsula. Developers of the 22-acre Thunderbird site have courted SHW, a source said.

There have been references shared in past articles in this blog that SHW's corporate charter requires the company to keep its principal executive offices within one mile of where the company was founded in 1866 -- basically where the Breen Technology Center is today. But a keyword search of corporate governance documents reveals no such requirement.

SHW's articles of incorporation do require "the place where this Company shall be located and its principal business shall be transacted is the City of Cleveland in the County of Cuyahoga and State of Ohio." It appears that amending the articles requires a vote by two-thirds of the company's shareholders.

Outlined in yellow, Sherwin-Williams' 80-acre Warrensville
Heights World Automotive Headquarters and technical center
is only partially developed, offering a potential suburban site
for the corporation's principal executive offices and research
facilities. But it would limit the growth of the Automotive
Finishes Group or force it to relocate as well (Google).

In the end, SHW's consideration of Cleveland's suburbs for its HQ and R&D spaces may have more in common with Swagelok's recent facility search. In 2018, Solon-based Swagelok Co. issued an RFP for a new corporate headquarters and innovation center. While company officials claimed that it would consider building a new home anywhere, few expected Swagelok to leave the city where it was founded in 1965. Sure enough, Swagelok decided to stay put and build a new Solon facility for 400 employees now, and possibly growing to 1,000 in the near future.

SHW's roots go 100 years deeper into Cleveland's soil. To pull them out would be a tremendous blow to the city and to SHW as well. And it wouldn't merely be a public relations stain on SHW.

Executives at Eaton Corp., which relocated its headquarters and 700 jobs from downtown Cleveland to suburban Highland Hills in 2013, are reportedly regretting their move. The reason is Eaton is having a difficult time luring young talent to their sprawling, disconnected office campus. Companies like PNC, NRP Group, BrightEdge, New York Life Insurance and more have moved offices downtown, while others like CrossCountry plans to move its HQ downtown and Progressive Insurance is considering growing its downtown presence.

A departure of SHW to the suburbs may not have a strong chance of occurring, but there is a chance. And it's one that the city and downtown Cleveland cannot afford. On the flipside of that coin is a skyscraper that could become Ohio's tallest and, when combined with an R&D facility, would help fill downtown's largest parking crater with 4,000 jobs and urban vibrancy.

The stakes are monumental.

END

Mid-rise housing on Detroit Ave heads west

This seven-story apartment building is proposed to be built at
4005 Detroit Ave. by Adam Hayoun in Cleveland's Ohio City
neighborhood (LDA).(CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE)

Housing continues to make its inexorable push westward along Detroit Avenue in Cleveland's Ohio City neighborhood. The latest project is 4005 Detroit, a seven-story apartment building with ground-floor retail. Plans for the project were recently submitted to the city for approval.

Proposing the 36-unit residential development is Hayoun Corp. owner Adam Hayoun whose Ohio City resume includes notable historic renovations like the Belden Seymour House, 3805 Franklin Blvd., and the Masters House, 3811 Franklin Blvd. Hayoun is also the principal at ABC Renovation LLC.

In addition to 11 one-bedroom units and 25 two-bedroom units, the proposed apartment building would feature a leasable, 1,318-square-foot retail space and a 605-square-foot lobby fronting Detroit Avenue. It would also have 44 parking spaces on two levels, accessible from Wheat Court, an alley behind the property.

The proposed building is designed to have small frontage on
Detroit Avenue with the structure widening to the south along
the Wheat Court alley (LDA).

Under the corporate name 4007 Detroit, LLC, Hayoun bought the two-parcel, 0.258-acre property for $155,000 in 2016 from David Steinberg, doing business as 4005 Detroit LLC, county records show. The property is located at the western edge of an Opportunity Zone, making it eligible for OZ program equity. A decaying, vacant, 5,602-square-foot warehouse built in 1920 on the site is due to be demolished.

The site is located at the only curve in Detroit Avenue between West 25th and the Cudell neighborhood. It is next to offices for Progressive Urban Real Estate, Blain's Folding Service and Cleveland Bagel.

4005 Detroit Avenue would tower over its one-story neighbors,
but probably not for long. Developers continue to acquire more
properties along the Detroit corridor (LDA).

And while, many real estate insiders have speculated that the spread of high-density housing on Detroit Avenue overlooking Whiskey Island would ultimately force out the growing manufacturing presence of the Kowalski Heat Treating Co., this project shows it would leapfrog it instead. Ironically, 4005 Detroit designer LDA Architects Inc. planned the six-story The Edge apartment building just east of Kowalski.

The project fits in with the citywide 2020 development masterplan's proposed use for this site, which is mixed use/residential. The zoning code allows a 60-foot-tall building to be built here; this building would be 81 feet tall. The gross floor area and minimum setbacks also would require variances from the Board of Zoning Appeals. The building's maximum gross floor area of 49,785 square feet exceeds the 11,237 square feet allowed under the zoning code.

This is the rear of the 4005 and 4007 Detroit Avenue properties
along the Wheat Court alley, as seen in 2016 (Google).

Also, the minimum rear yard setback along the Wheat Court alley is 32 feet, six inches. As proposed, the building has zero setback for the garage and eight feet for the residential part of the structure, according to documents submitted by Hayoun and LDA Architects Inc. to the City Planning Commission.

END

Gordon Park lakefront housing - the sequel

Conceptual renderings show the Shoreline Phase II at East 55th
Street and Interstate 90 would offer views of Lake Erie from
seven sides of its northern frontage. But the building would be
too short to see the downtown Cleveland skyline over its five-
story Phase I next-door neighbor to the west (Vocon).
(CLICK TO ENLARGE IMAGES)

The Gordon Park area on the East Side isn't to be confused with the Gordon Square area on the West Side. Gordon Square is a populous, fast-growing, historic neighborhood. But the lakefront lands along and near Gordon Park could soon add "fast-growing" to its descriptions too, as first reported in a February NEOtrans article.

Now, there's more happening -- a 212-unit, five-story apartment building called The Shoreline Phase II is proposed to be built at 5455 North Marginal Road, according to documents filed with the Cleveland Planning Commission. The four-acre site is on the northwest quadrant of the Interstate 90-East 55th Street interchange. It is located next to the 167-unit The Shoreline apartment building, currently the only housing in the Gordon Park area.

The four-acre patch of grass outlined in red shows the proposed
location of an investor partnership's planned, 212-unit apart-
ment building, just east of downtown Cleveland (Vocon).

The Shoreline Phase II represents an investment of approximately $30 million by a group of investors led by the property's owner Quay 55 East Limited Partnership. An exact investment amount isn't yet known. Mark Coffin, whose name is listed prominently on public records associated with the property and the partnership, has yet to return a phone call seeking more information.

Coffin's firm developed The Shoreline on six acres next door in 2002, back when it was called Quay 55 and had only 138 apartments. This five-story apartment building was originally the four-story Nicholson Terminal building, once a warehouse that received new cars from Detroit by ship. But Coffin defaulted on a $20 million U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development-guaranteed loan.

The five-story Shoreline Phase II western face, as it would
appear to the existing residents of The Shoreline Phase I,
from across an expanded parking lot (Vocon).

The property went through several owners until 2017 when Landmark Lakeshore LLC bought Quay 55, renamed it The Shoreline, and got approval to add 29 apartments to the property by converting indoor parking spaces to housing. That 2018 development represented a new spark of developer interest in the area, fueled by the quick leasing of the added units.

The partnership's 144,016-square-foot second phase includes 160 one-bedroom apartments, 32 studio apartments, and 20 two-bedroom apartments, as well as a new pool and poolhouse to be shared with The Shoreline Phase I. Phase II will add 322 outdoor surface parking spaces and 95 indoor spaces. In Phase I are 63 indoor and 67 outdoor parking spaces. Total parking is proposed to be 561 spaces, planning documents show.

Site plan and parking plan for The Shoreline Phase II shows
the location of a total of 561 existing and planned parking
spaces, as well as the location of the new pool and a new
poolhouse for residents of both phases (Vocon).

It is the second large housing development to be planned within walking distance of Gordon Park this year.

On Feb. 15, B.R. Knez Construction, Inc., DBA Knez Homes, presented conceptual plans to the City Planning Commission to get its feedback before proceeding with more detailed designs for a mixed-use development.

Commission members urged Bo Knez, president and CEO of Knez Homes, to reduce the density of his proposed plan and improve connectivity with "nearby amenities," according to planning staff feedback. The site is at 5700 South Marginal Rd. with two parcels of city-owned land totaling 3.9 acres. In urban development, that is a large canvas.

Knez's concept for a mixed-use development at Interstate 90
and East 55th were not warmly received by the City Planning
Commission which urged Knez to reduce the proposed density
and improve connectivity with nearby amenities (RSA).

On it, Knez says he plans 50-60 townhomes, 90-100 apartments and 8,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space on the Shoreway side for retail, restaurants or offices. Townhouses would be above the commercial spaces, he said in a phone interview.

Knez, who is a very active developer in Greater Cleveland and especially in the urban core, was born in Slovenia and raised in the East 55th-St. Clair Avenue neighborhood. He said he has wanted to develop near his old neighborhood for some time but the market wasn't right. Now, the market for housing in the Gordon Park area is obviously improving.

END

Old CPD station? New CPD station

Cleveland's historic Central Police Station on Payne Avenue
may become the site of a large, new police headquarters and
storage facility. (Google) CLICK TO ENLARGE IMAGES

Trying to repurpose an existing building in or near downtown Cleveland for the city's new police headquarters was a well-intentioned exercise with a cost-saving goal. Despite it not being fulfilled, the effort may still have a happy ending. The reason is the police department may go back to its old home.

After rejecting two existing buildings downtown, city officials are reportedly interested in locating the new Cleveland Police Department headquarters at the site of the 1937-built Central Police Station, 2001 Payne Ave., according to source who could not speak publicly about the project because he was not authorized to do so.

The new CPD HQ will be a substantial structure, combining about 500,000 square feet of new and renovated offices, storage and parking. No construction cost estimates are available for the now-favored site, but they are likely to be far higher than the $60 million the city figured it would need to buy and modify the ex-Plain Dealer building nearby before that deal died last fall.

The historic Central Police Station was CPD's HQ until 1977 when the department relocated to the Justice Center, 1300 Ontario St. But the old HQ measures about 90,000 square feet -- only half of the 180,000 square feet that CPD needs just for its administrative and operations offices in its new HQ.

Furthermore, the old Central Police Station is being actively used by the Cleveland Police Athletic League and offices for the CPD's Bureau of Community Policing which includes the Neighborhood Watch Program, Auxiliary Police, Citizen's Police Academy and more. Those and other uses may continue to occupy a substantial part of the old police station.

So officials are looking at renovating the old five-story Central Police Station and, behind it, constructing a new office building of about 120,000 to 150,000 square feet. To benefit from outdoor light and to reduce heating, cooling and lightning expenses, open floors with floorplates no more than 30,000 square feet are optimal. That could mean a four- or five-story new-build office building.

Yet that is only part of the picture when it comes to estimating the size of the new CPD HQ. The largest part of the new HQ is the parking and storage -- secure parking for employees and storage/supply of police vehicles, plus public parking. The police garage also requires office space for supportive services. The garage and supportive offices for police vehicles doesn't need to be next to the HQ, but the city considered it desirable.

The now-favored site for the Cleveland
Police Department headquarters, parking
and storage facilities, which could spread
out onto adjacent city lots (Google/KJP).

If all of the uses were stacked in a structure with 30,000-square-foot floorplates, it would be more than 16 stories tall. In reality, the public parking might be split off in a city-owned parking lot on the west side of East 19th Street. That would allow secure employee parking and police vehicle storage and servicing to be in a multi-level garage next to or below a new, consolidated CPD HQ-storage facility.

The city issued a request for proposals (RFP) in early 2017, hoping that owners of downtown buildings would jump at the chance to land a huge tenant like the CPD. But none could meet the city's requirements, including:

• The CPD HQ and police storage/garage facilities should be located east of the Cuyahoga River, west of East 55th Street and north of I-490;
• 180,000 square feet of office space for HQ operations;
• 115,000 square feet of space for storage, garage and supportive offices;
• Secure parking for 400 passenger cars separate from public parking (equal to a 160,000-square-foot parking garage);
• Private elevators and secured stairwells if multiple floors in a shared building;
• Ability to separate staff from the public portions of the operations;
• Ability to install high-technology and work in an efficient, high-quality, healthy environment;
• Occupancy by Dec. 31, 2017 or March 31, 2018 at the latest.

The city's preferences were to find leased space for up to 20 years in an existing or new building near the municipal and county courts as well as the city's Emergency Operations Center at the Justice Center. It preferred lots of public parking, flexible office floor plans, plus back-up communications, power, water and heating systems.

CPD's current home is the eight-floor portion of the Justice
Center on Ontario Street. The city wants out of the aging site
and the county wants to consolidate its offices from nearby
buildings into a single, county-owned structure (Google).

None of those could be found in an existing structure or structures. If the city had begun its search 20 years or even 10 years ago, they might have been able to find a suitable building. Not now. To quote Ian Hunter, "All of the good ones are taken."

And that doesn't even take into account Department of Homeland Security regulations which affect the design of law enforcement facilities, especially the principal offices, employee parking and storage facilities for a major city's police force.

Indeed, those regulations were apparently what doomed the city's signing of a purchase agreement with developer Fred Geis' GLP Superior LTD that owns the former Plain Dealer building, 1801 Superior Ave. It is located a few hundred feet north of the site the city is favoring now.

Homeland Security regulations reportedly prohibit a police station sharing a building with tenants who are not subject to security screening, or possibly even taking over a building whose former tenants didn't screen its visitors. The ex-Plain Dealer building is home to the YMCA of Greater Cleveland, the Council of Economic Opportunities for Greater Cleveland, as well as cleveland.com.

The possibility that Homeland Security regulations doomed the ex-Plain Dealer site was buoyed by the fact that city officials refused to discuss the reasons why the city suddenly backed out of the purchase deal without any prior notice. The city planned to invest $60 million to buy, renovate and modify the ex-Plain Dealer property.

So, between the lack of existing downtown structures with enough suitable space and the complications associated with Homeland Security regulations, the city basically has no choice but to build a new or mostly-new CPD HQ.

Fortunately, the city may already have most of the money it needs to afford a new-build, consolidated CPD HQ-storage facility. Consider that the city received $9.25 million from the sale of its old police HQ. It will also save $5.1 million per year by closing the downtown municipal jail and paying the county to house its prisoners.

That $9.25 million can be part of the down payment for financing a CPD HQ-storage facility, with annual payments of $5 million over 20 years, which is what the city is willing to do, per its RFP (noted above).

At least the city has found a site where it can use an already existing, city-owned building -- a former police station, no less -- and city-owned parking lots to develop its police station of the future. And considering that most of the nearby buildings are pretty short, the new CPD HQ could have a commanding presence on the eastern edge of Cleveland's central business district.

END