How the Coronavirus is affecting construction in Cleveland

There are always rays of hope during a crisis. There are more
than a few available in this Coronavirus emergency (KJP).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

UPDATED MARCH 16, 2020

As successful investor Warren Buffet says, "Be greedy when others are fearful."

So are Greater Cleveland's real estate developers fearful or greedy as Ohio and the country goes into Coronavirus emergency? And what might be the long-term implications of the pandemic on pending real estate developments?

Real estate developers didn't want to go on the record to share their thoughts regarding the Coronavirus pandemic, as they could be misconstrued as being insensitive or opportunistic.

But they welcomed the states of emergency declared by Gov. Mike DeWine and later, by President Donald Trump. The goal is to give health care workers a shot at containing and fighting the spread of infection and keep the number of infected persons from overwhelming health care facilities.

"You want a short recession or a great depression?" said the president of a real estate company who asked not to be named. "Governor DeWine did the right thing by getting ahead of this."

It is also apparent that no real estate companies plan to halt or even delay their development projects. Pre-development planning and coordination meetings are continuing without delay, although they are increasingly being held by teleconferences or by video such as Skype, according to several real estate firm representatives.

Construction is due to start within weeks on Intro, the project
formerly known as Market Square, in Ohio City (Harbor Bay).

All of them appear to be viewing this emergency as a short-term disruption that won't change or halt their plans -- if the economic downturn can be kept as short as possible.

To developers, major Cleveland projects that are due to get underway this year, such as the Sherwin-Williams headquarters and research facilities, the new City Club Apartments downtown, the Circle Square development in University Circle or Intro in Ohio City won't be finished for two years or more. Even some new projects are being put on the drawing board.

Developers aren't building for the economic conditions of today, but for what they anticipate will be conditions two years from now and continuing for years thereafter, they said. But there could be some long-term implications, however.

Existing office leases and new office projects may be scaled back as companies realize they can still be productive when employees work from home. But some companies ultimately like the interactions, idea-sharing and creativity that can best be achieved with sociable office settings. Other companies may still fear losing control of employees by allowing them to work from home.

James Bond (yes, that really is his name), a director at the law firm Fennemore Craig, wrote today that there will be a significant number of people who try online shopping for the first time as a result of Coronavirus fears.

"This could be a tipping point that forever alters some brick-and-mortar stores and how they accommodate the online consumer," Bond wrote. "As at-home and curbside deliveries increase in popularity, retailers will need to consider store sizes, layouts, and pick-up points when they design stores."

A massing of the proposed Sherwin-Williams headquarters in
downtown Cleveland, showing phasing of the project (Vocon).

He also noted that if online shopping becomes more prevalent as a result of the Coronavirus, more industrial space will be required to house inventory at distribution centers. It could also spur the construction of more distribution centers, making hotter an already hot market, as Cleveland's WEWS-TV reporter Kevin Barry reported recently.

On the down side, some Greater Cleveland-area projects might be slowed by the disruption of supply chains. Those disruptions depend on the construction materials and where in the world they are sourced.

Some real estate firms are looking at sourcing their materials from different countries and regions or increasing their cost projections for delays in deliveries and U.S. Customs screening. Lenders are monitoring the situation as well.

According to Bisnow, officials at Avana Capital which provides construction financing for Marriott International's AC Hotels around the country expect that development projects will be impacted by supply disruptions.

“We do anticipate it coming down the line," said Avana Capital co-founder Sanat Patel. "Our concern is really delivery times. If projects are already in production, there is nothing you can do. But if I were starting a project today, as a lender, I would advise them to get ahead on the lead time because of this.”

But softening the blow from these concerns -- if not creating an outright opportunity to "buy the dip" -- are the historic lows in interest rates and low oil prices that directly impact construction costs.

Construction is due to start this summer on the City Club
Apartments (at right), located at 720 Euclid Ave. (Vocon).

The Coronavirus outbreak has led to a sharp decline in U.S. Treasury rates, which has driven down the interest rates on real estate loans. The housing market has responded with its best year since before the 2008-10 Great Recession.

"There's lots of things going on behind the scenes," said the vice president at another real estate company. "With interest rates going down, money just got a lot cheaper. We're in the trenches working on social distancing right now. Our project delivery schedules are delayed maybe a week."

The Greater Cleveland area ranked third in the United States in Nationwide Insurance's Fourth Quarter 2019 Leading Index of Healthy Housing Markets (LIHHM). But that data was from before the Coronavirus outbreak reached the U.S.

"While the risk that the Coronavirus outbreak will disrupt economic activity has increased significantly, the national LIHHM projects that the housing sector will remain a source of growth for the economy in 2020," Nationwide's report noted. "The key to this positive outlook is strong underlying housing demand factors — including above trend household growth, solid job gains and low mortgage rates."

Similarly, low oil prices can be a construction stimulus. The benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude oil price has stayed between $50-64 over the past year. It began falling from $53 on Feb. 17 to the low $30s on March 13. Oil prices haven't been this low in four years. Nearly all construction costs are oil-based to varying degrees.

There is every reason to believe that the world will return to normal when this emergency fades. From SARS to Bird Flu to Ebola, there is always another health scare around the corner. As Abraham Lincoln once remarked in much darker times of the Civil War, "And this too shall pass."

END

Legal dispute ends over building at edge of Sherwin-Williams HQ site

Looking across the sea of parking in the Jacobs (right) and
Weston (center) lots is 1350 W. 3rd. The Superblock is the
two blocks of parking in the center, divided by Frankfort
Avenue. Sherwin-Williams proposes to build its massive
global headquarters on these parking lots (Google).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

UPDATED MARCH 12, 2020

A legal dispute over a small building at the edge of Sherwin-Williams' (SHW) new headquarters site in downtown Cleveland has been resolved. But the long-term future of the building at 1350 W. 3rd St. remains in question.

The building is at the southwest corner of West 3rd and St. Clair Avenue and is the sole survivor of multiple historic buildings demolished for parking lots over the past 70 years on the so-called "Superblock."

Stark 1350, LLC, an affiliate of Stark Enterprises, had filed a foreclosure action Feb. 6 against 1350 W6 LLC, an affiliate of Realife Real Estate Group. On March 10, Stark filed a notice of voluntary dismissal with the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court to end the dispute. Judge Cassandra Collier-Williams presided over the case.

Stark's lawyers on the case, Robert Kracht and Nicholas Oleski, acknowledged receipt of e-mails from NEOtrans seeking information on the dismissal but offered no comment. Stark Chief Operating Officer Ezra Stark also did not reply to an e-mail seeking comment.

According to a source who was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter, the foreclosure action was resolved amicably out of court. Terms of the resolution were unavailable. However, the source added that SHW's imminent HQ development on adjacent properties did not figure into the resolution of the dispute.

"There was no discussion of a possible sale to Sherwin-Williams," the source said.

The building at 1350 W. 3rd in 1964 was a soot-covered but
architecturally ornate, Victorian-era structure that served some
of the many printing companies in the neighborhood. Today,
the modernized structure awaits its fate amid a sea of parking
in the Warehouse District (CPL/Google).

Realife's building is the former Stark Enterprises headquarters. Stark relocated its offices to 629 Euclid Ave.

Coinciding with the December 2018 sale, affiliates of Stark Enterprises and Realife entered into a mortgage in which Stark lent $1,650,000 to Realife and awarded a deed to 1350 W. 3rd. The building's sale price was $2.65 million, according to broker Newmark Knight Frank.

Per the mortgage, which is publicly available through court and Cuyahoga County Fiscal Officer records, Realife must make regular payments to Stark of $11,052.74 and get Stark's permission for any improvements, demolitions or any other changes made to the property. According to court filings by Stark, Realife had failed to make payments on the mortgage when due.

On Jan. 23, Stark Enterprises filed a complaint on a cognovit promissory note against affiliates of Realife Real Estate Group, court records show. A cognovit promissory note favors the lender. It was agreed to by Stark and Realife as part of the mortgage.

On Jan. 27, Common Pleas Judge Joseph D. Russo rendered a cognovit judgment of $1,671,782.25 plus 14 percent interest against Realife and associates. A cognovit refers to a judgment entered after a written confession by the defendant without the expense of ordinary legal proceedings.

1350 W. 3rd St. was originally built as the Gilman
Building for the A.S. Gilman Printing Co., 182-
184 Seneca St. in 1882. The structure was de-
 signed by the anarchist and architect John
Edelman (Steve McQuillin collection).

Another source said Realife reportedly had a potential tenant recently for 1350 W. 3rd. An Austin, Texas-based eCommerce firm named Zilker Technology was apparently intending on signing a lease here for its first Midwest office. But on or about Jan. 20, Zilker walked away due to some unfavorable stipulations in the lease and instead signed a lease in the Caxton Building, 812 Huron Rd.

"The language allowed for the lease to be terminated at any point, a result of developing situations with a future neighbor,” the source said. The future neighbor he referred to was SHW's HQ.

A Realife representative disputed this when he told Crain's Cleveland Business last month that the company had no plans to sell the building.

The property at 1350 W. 3rd is at the northeast corner of the Superblock. Despite its 1960s-era cladding in an attempt to modernize it, the building is 132 years old. It measures five stories and 18,000 square feet.

It's all that's left of a diverse collection of 19th-century and early 20th-century ornate warehouses, offices and other commercial structures that covered the nearly 6 acres of Superblock. Clearance of the Superblock, bounded by West 3rd and 6th streets, plus St. Clair and Superior avenues, began in the 1950s as highways and more cars began to intrude into the urban core.

It was built in 1882 as the Gilman Building for the A.S. Gilman Printing Co., publisher of the weekly American Sportsman. The structure was designed by anarchist/socialist architect John Edelman, mentor to the famous architect Louis Sullivan, who credited Edelman with the concept of “form follows function,” according to building preservation consultant Steve McQuillin.

END

Seeds & Sprouts V - Early intel on real estate projects

This is the Fifth edition of Seeds & Sprouts - Early intelligence on Cleveland-area real estate projects. Because these projects are very early in their process of development or just a long-range plan, a lot can and probably will change their final shape, use and outcome.

The building at right, above, and at left, below, are facing con-
demnation orders from the city of Cleveland. Between the pair
of Vesta Corp.-owned buildings is another Vesta-owned apart-
ment block -- albeit thoroughly renovated. That could be the
the future for its two vacant neighbors in Hough (Google).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

Two Hough apartment blocks may be saved

Facing a condemnation order from the City of Cleveland, affordable housing developer and property manager Vesta Corp. of Connecticut is appealing and requesting 180 days to abate building code violations at two 96-year-old, vacant apartment buildings it owns -- 1552 and 1568 Ansel Road. The city's Board of Building Standards is scheduled to consider Vesta's request at its April 15 meeting.

Although the code violations could be abated through demolition, the two substantial buildings may instead be saved per the appeals and their immediate code violations addressed with repairs. That may be what happens as Vesta has been acquiring and improving apartment buildings on Ansel in recent years.

Vesta owns four apartment buildings along the west side of Ansel, between Kenmore and Wade Park avenues, in the Hough neighborhood, just across Rockefeller Park from University Circle. The two troubled apartment buildings are on either side of the 66-unit, 1928-built Regency Square Apartments, 1560 Ansel, that Vesta acquired in 2012 and thoroughly renovated in 2013.

The seven-unit Overlook Apartments at 1552 Ansel was acquired by Vesta in July 2016 by sheriff's deed for $20,000. The 37-unit Lynette Apartments at 1568 Ansel was acquired by Vesta in January 2016 by warranty deed for $75,000. Attempts to reach Vesta representatives by e-mail were not successful.

Several blocks south of here at Hough Avenue, construction is almost finished on Signet Real Estate Group's 163-unit, $35 million Axis at Ansel apartment building. Just west of it, at 9410 Hough, an unknown buyer is doing its due diligence of the vacant, 1973-built Kingsbury Apartments with an eye toward renovating the 10-story, 160-unit building. These are some of the many spillover effects from the growth of nearby University Circle and Cleveland Clinic.

This 93-year-old apartment building at the southeast corner of
Edgewater Drive and Cove Avenue in Lakewood was acquired
last week and may be renovated by Adam Hayoun (Insight).

Lakewood landmark gets new owner, rehab pledge

Adam Hayoun, who is best known for renovating historic structures in Ohio City, has bought 12065 Edgewater Dr. in Lakewood for $1.8 million on March 2, according to county records. Hayoun, dba MSH Edgewater Investment LLC, acquired the 25-unit, 1927-built apartment building from 12065 Edgewater LLC.

Hayoun also secured a $1,523,761.88 mortgage on the property from Lima One Capital, county records show. It's a fascinating building architecturally, with a copper-roofed turret above a high-ceiling corner suite at Edgewater and Cove Avenue.

Hayoun already has the building up on his Insight Holdings Web site, with the note: "Soon going for construction." Given Hayoun's history, he's likely to fix up the place. However, no plans have been filed with the city as of yet, said Bryce Sylvester, director of planning and development for the City of Lakewood.

"Our first acquisition of 2020 (is) an amazing 25 units (sic) building in one of the most desired streets in (Greater) Cleveland," says Hayoun's Insight Holdings Web page about the project. Hayoun could not be reached for comment.

Two structures -- the old gas station and the older house -- that
are visible in this view at the northeast corner of Carnegie Ave-
nue and East 79th Street are proposed for demolition. In their
place could be a retail development. Although small, a deve-
lopment here would join two other property investments
made in the past year at this intersection (Google).

Carnegie-East 79th seeing spurt of investments

Yet another potential restaurant/retail business could be coming to the intersection of Carnegie Avenue and East 79th Street in Cleveland's Fairfax neighborhood. But before any construction starts, two pending demolitions must first be approved by the city and possible environmental remediation performed.

A 110-year-old duplex and a 51-year-old former Sohio gas station are proposed for demolition by Property Acquisitions LLC, an affiliate of LRC Realty of Akron. LRC is primarily a developer of small- and medium-sized retail properties. But it has also dabbled recently in several mixed use projects in Akron, Youngstown and Pennsylvania.

Three properties and possibly a fourth are involved. Located in between the former gas station owned by Joe Z, LLC and the duplex owned by investor Naomi Colston is a Cleveland Land Bank property. North of Colston's duplex is another land bank parcel. Both land bank properties had houses on them until they were leveled in 2016. The total area of land for LRC's development is 0.69 to 0.848 acres.

By comparison, the property across East 79th, Angie's Soul Cafe, measures 0.67 acres. Angie's opened in January after closing its St. Clair Avenue location. There are two other Angie's restaurants on the East Side. The Carnegie restaurant was renovated from its prior function of 24 years -- a Hot Sauce Williams restaurant that closed two years ago.

On the other side of Carnegie, a 19th-century Italianate house that was heavily modified in 1920 into a commercial structure was demolished last summer. O.M. Carnegie Realty, LLC acquired eight parcels in 2018 from Regal Arms Housing Inc. and combined them into a single, 1.2-acre parcel. On it, a Dunkin Donuts shop was built in its place. A billboard property at the southeast corner was left untouched.

The gas station's current owner Joe Z, LLC is owned, in turn, by Mahmoud Zayed, according to county tax records. Zayed and his son Ashraf Zayed, both of Westlake, were sentenced to 30 and 37 months in prison, respectively, in 2016 for food stamp fraud involving the Al-Manar Market on West 117th Street in Cleveland.

Joe Z paid off a $60,000 mortgage issued by the property's owner, E&C Properties Ltd. in October 2019. Then, on March 5, a construction permit was submitted by Joe Z to the city although with no other information included.

Typically, a prospective developer will submit construction and/or demolition permit applications through the current property owner once a purchase agreement has been secured but before closing. LRC Realty President Frank Licata did not return an e-mail and a voicemail message prior to publication.

END

Cleveland Clinic, Fairfax seek homes, biz & opportunity

It may be hard to imagine now, but hundreds of new homes
could be restored to the Innovation Square area of Fairfax,
starting with the dark building at left, due to rise by Sep-
tember on East 105th Street at Hudson Avenue. Also in the
cards could be some unusual developments for the Cleve-
land Clinic -- including a grocery store, housing and other
non-conventional real estate investments by the globally
prominent health care system (City Architecture).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

UPDATED MARCH 11, 2020

As more sections of the 3-mile, $330 million Opportunity Corridor Boulevard open, more stakeholders are pursuing real estate opportunities. That's especially true where the first two sections have opened, from East 93rd Street north to Chester Avenue. Work is moving forward on the third and final section from East 93rd west to East 55th Street, set to open in two years.

That has stakeholders like the Cleveland Clinic, Fairfax Renaissance Development Corp., property owners and real estate developers making their plays on and near the Opportunity Corridor. The area with the most activity is the stretch of East 105th Street, north of the recently expanded Red Line rail station at Quincy Avenue.

One of the stakeholders seeking to develop real estate is the Cleveland Clinic. That's hardly surprising considering how much they've developed in Fairfax so far. But what they're considering developing is a surprise.

Cleveland Clinic has organized focus groups of Fairfax residents, property owners and others to determine what to develop and where. And it's not the usual medical facilities that it's considering building, according to a source who spoke off the record.

Instead, the Clinic is looking at building neighborhood assets like a grocery store and possible housing on underutilized land it owns in the southeast part of its campus near East 105th and Cedar Avenue. The Cleveland Clinic did not dispute the source's information but would not provide details yet.

The Innovation Square Fairfax Neighborhood
Plan was released in 2017. Some aspects are
already being realized like Playwright Park
between East 101st and 103rd streets, next
to an extended Hudson Avenue. Other parts
of the plan are fluid, such as the Brooks Life
Sciences building on Cedar Avenue between
East 97th and 100th streets or a larger resi-
dential building on East 105th north of an
extended Hudson (Fairfax Renaissance).

“Now that the northern section of Opportunity Corridor is open, we plan to further develop the southeast part of our campus," said the Cleveland Clinic's media relations department in a written statement issued in response to requests for information by NEOtrans.

"We look forward to working with our community partners on future opportunities that will help accelerate the Fairfax neighborhood reinvestment plan. More information will be shared as details become available,” the Cleveland Clinic said in its statement.

Several sites may be in play in the near term. One could include a 0.6-acre property owned by the Cleveland Clinic at the southeast corner of East 105th and Carnegie Avenue, according to a second source who also asked to speak off the record.

That site, an unimproved lot, may be in play because it doesn't require the expense of constructing parking. It is next to and connected by an overhead walkway to a 3,000-space, 794,077-square-foot parking deck that was built by the health system in 2015.

This undeveloped site belonging to the Cleveland Clinic could
soon be in play for a major development. At right is a 3,000-
space garage that's largely unused at night, meaning that a
residential tower could be built on the lot without requiring
construction of structured parking. At left is the 12-story-
tall Tudor Arms hotel and apartments (Google).

It is also across East 105th from two other potential development sites. One is a 1.5-acre parking lot at the northwest corner of East 105th and Cedar. The other is a 1.6-acre parking lot at the northeast corner of East 100th Street and Cedar.

The latter is on the opposite corner from a planned 21,000-square-foot building for Brooks Life Sciences bio-repository. Another medical-related development due to rise at the east end of the Cleveland Clinic is a 100,000-square-foot expansion of the Cole Eye Institute at East 105th and Euclid Avenue. In the middle of the campus will be a new, 400,000-square-foot Neurological Institute on Euclid at East 96th Street.

The second source said that Midwest Development Partners envisions a possible grocery store in a future phase of its massive Circle Square development. If built, the grocer would likely be on the ground floor of a larger building on the east side of Stokes Boulevard (East 107th Street) between Euclid and Carnegie avenues.

Fairfax Renaissance Executive Director Denise Van Leer said that the Fairfax land use plan Cleveland Clinic was referring to is the community development corporation's Innovation Square Fairfax Neighborhood Plan.

First phase of development of Innovation Square could start
construction by September with the development of an 85-
unit mixed-income apartment and condominium building
at 2258 East 105th St. (City Architecture).

Innovation Square is a three-phased development featuring 223 mixed-income housing units along with some small commercial uses west of East 105th. Offices and research facilities are proposed east of East 105th.

Although she didn't wish to comment on what Cleveland Clinic is proposing, Van Leer did say that Fairfax Renaissance is moving forward with its Innovation Square development plan.

"The first phase will be an 85-unit mixed-income apartment building along Opportunity Corridor," Van Leer said. "We are planning to start construction on the building in August, September of this year."

This $9.8 million mixed-use building will be developed by McCormack Baron Salazar Inc., a large developer of mixed-income communities headquartered in St. Louis. The four-story building will feature 41 units of affordable housing and 44 market-rate condominium units with ground-floor commercial space.

In addition to housing, retail and medical facilities, general
office buildings should be developed in the Fairfax-Univer-
sity Circle area, according to property owner Tom Pecsok
and commercial realtor Newmark Knight Frank (NGKF).

The proposed design includes one- and two-bedroom units with accessible suites. Additional development amenities will include a rooftop deck with a resident lounge, fitness rooms, bike storage and repair plus electric car charging stations. The building will be an easy walk to the Cleveland Clinic in one direction and the East 105th-Quincy train station in the other.

The first phase will rise at 2258 East 105th. That will become the northwest corner of East 105th and Hudson Avenue -- once Hudson is extended west of East 105th. The new street will extend past the north edge of the new Playwright Park to East 100th Street, according to the neighborhood masterplan. Several homes were acquired by Fairfax Renaissance and demolition approved by the city to make way for the new street.

Another site worth watching is a 0.54-acre parcel owned by Tom Pecsok of Castle Rock, Colorado. The property includes the 103-year-old, 22-unit Liberty Fairchild Apartments, 10820-22 Carnegie Ave. He has it listed for sale with Newmark Knight Frank for $2.6 million.

"I was actually born In the building in 1938," Pecsok said. "Yes, 10820 Carnegie Avenue, Suite 9. I went to Observation Elementary School back then on the corner of Stearns Road and Carnegie where the new School of the Arts is. I could talk to you for hours regarding (Cleveland's second downtown at) 105th and Euclid in the 1940s."

A site plan suggested by property owner Tom Pecsok and the
commercial realtor Newmark Knight Frank shows how large
a potential development site at Carnegie Avenue and Stokes
Boulevard could become by combining parcels owned by
Pecsok, University Circle Inc. and Cleveland Clinic (NGKF).

His father William Pecsok owned the apartment building and sold it to Tom in 1987 for $120,000. Tom Pecsok had already moved to Los Angeles 14 years earlier and began a career in commercial real estate. Today, he sees his old apartment building as becoming part of a larger development site, possibly involving the two adjacent parcels, totaling 2.36 acres.

The adjacent parcels contain the Cleveland Clinic's six-story DD Building, 10900 Carnegie, on one side and the former Davidian Brothers carpet warehouse, 10816 Carnegie, on the other. The latter was acquired by University Circle Inc. (UCI) for $400,000 in October 2018, county records show.

The remainder of parcels going west from the former Davidian property to the intersection of Carnegie and Stokes are all undeveloped and owned by UCI. In total, with Pecsok's property but without Cleveland Clinic's DD Building property, they measure 1.5 acres. With all parcels, they total 3.2 acres. He contends the site works better for a corporate or general office building rather than residential.

"There are a lot of options," he says. "Is it not interesting that no substantial office development has gone in between Pinecrest and Van Aken on the east side and the Cleveland CBD to the west? I believe there exists an unmet need for commercial development in the Circle, especially with the coming completion of the Opportunity Corridor in two years."

END

Lumen apartment tours reveal modern elegance, towering views

Public tours of The Lumen -- Ohio's
tallest residential tower -- began this
week. NEOtrans took a tour yesterday
along with lots of photographs and new
information about the latest star to shine
on Cleveland's Playhouse Square (KJP).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

If you want to rent your preferred apartment at Ohio's tallest residential building, you'd better take a tour of The Lumen soon. But if you want to see what the views look like from the upper floors of the building, wait until summer before booking a tour.

Rental prices, marketing information and guided hard-hat tours began this week at the 34-story, 396-foot-tall apartment tower at 1600 Euclid Ave. in Cleveland's Playhouse Square district. And on Tuesday of this week, the building got its first signed tenant, said Justin Young, property manager at Greystar for The Lumen.

From now until July 21, the public can take hard-hat guided tours of Ohio's tallest residential building by booking them via this Eventbrite page. Tours are offered Mondays through Thursdays most weeks. There is no cost to register, but tour group sizes are limited to 10 persons. As of March 5, tours for the rest of March are booked solid.

The view from Overture, one of The Lumen's floorplans avail-
able for tours this week. These apartments were furnished for
the benefit of tour-goers to provide some examples of what
apartments might look like once residents move in (KJP). 

I took a tour this week and was joined by a mix of young and middle-aged apartment seekers. One was a young man who boomeranged via New York City, who was seeking a more affordable urban setting. Another was a woman who lived in Washington DC and grew tired of the traffic there.

Yet another was Daniel Cotter, a local man who was considering renting an apartment at The Lumen but was more curious at this point to see everything that the building had to offer. Unfortunately the early tours aren't venturing into parts of the building that are still heavily under construction.

"I kinda thought we would see a little more like maybe some of the amenities on the fifth floor that they mentioned," he said. "I did like the furnished apartments and being able to walk around at will."

Panoramic views of the kitchen and living room in the Overture
floorplan above and Ensemble below. Overture has one bedroom,
a den and one bathroom while Ensemble has two bedrooms and
 two baths. These views are from The Lumen's ninth floor (KJP).

The tour also went no higher than the ninth floor, which isn't high up enough to see over several neighboring buildings. Those neighbors include the 22-story Keith Building across Euclid, the 16-story Hanna Building immediately west of The Lumen or the 11-story The Edge apartments immediate east.

On the fifth floor is the amenity deck offering a 22,000-square-foot community room, fireplaces, outdoor television, a heated outdoor pool on the roof of the 550-space parking garage, gas grilling stations, fitness center and yoga studio, plus on-demand fitness classes. The building is pet-friendly, said Matt McClung, senior community manager at Greystar for The Lumen.

Greystar Worldwide, LLC was hired by Playhouse Square Foundation to provide leasing and management functions for the apartment tower. In addition the hard-hat tours starting this week, the official leasing Web site for The Lumen went live this week as well.

A panoramic view of the bedroom in Overture. All of the bed-
rooms on the tour have windows with shades and curtains (KJP).

Among the 318 apartments, there are 26 apartment floorplans. There are 6-7 units per level on floors 2-4, 11 units per level on floors 6-32, and six units per floor in the penthouse levels 33 and 34, McClung said.

Rents range from $1,448-1,655 per month for the smallest units called Aria, measuring 571 to 630 square feet. A common-sized, one-bedroom with a den apartment style called Overture, priced at $2,029-2,248 per month, measures 870-918 square feet. A two-bedroom floorplan called Ensemble is priced at $2,752-2,887 per month and measures 1,236 square feet. Ensemble's price varies depending on what floor it's on.

Details about these and other floorplans are available in The Lumen's leasing office. It opened recently across the street from the tower at 1501 Euclid Ave., Suite 112. The leasing office will eventually move into the lobby of the tower, Young said.

Each of the apartments on the tour
were fully furnished for purposes
of display and orientation (KJP).

 As construction progresses, more of the building will be open to tours and, ultimately, move-ins. Young said that floors 1-15 will be available for move-ins starting on June 29, floors 16-20 on Aug. 3, and floors 21-34 opening Aug. 17.

Although the tour didn't visit the tower's upper floors, there are still views to be had on the lower floors of The Lumen. Thanks to its design that "leans" over Euclid, the building allows residents and visitors vantage points up and down Cleveland's main thoroughfare. The lower floors also deliver the street action, which on weekend nights in the second-largest theater district outside of New York City delivers plenty of vibrancy.

And then there's the windows themselves -- they extend from floor to ceiling. They shut out the outside noise although some windows open. A few of the apartments have balconies. In the corner units, those tall windows extend all the way into the corners where there are electrical outlets for someone to place a decorative lamp for reading. Or they can plug in their music without worrying about draining their batteries as they soak up the sights of a city on the rise.

Tour-goers and guides mingle in the apartments that were on
display. Three floorplans were part of this first week of tours.
More parts of the building will be added to the tours as more
construction work on the building is completed (KJP).

The decor is elegantly modern and features simplicity and some gadgets. There are neutral colors, lots of angles, 9-foot-8 ceiling heights, wood-look laminate floors in common areas of apartments, carpeting in the bedrooms and ceramic tile in the bathrooms. Kitchens feature stainless steel appliances, gas stoves, white quartz countertops and tiled backsplashes.

The gadgets include Honeywell smart thermostats, Schlage control electronic access to apartments and Draper roller shades on the floor-to-ceiling windows. There are soft-close cabinets and walk-in closets with slide-rod shelves.

Although it's the latest and tallest new residential tower in downtown Cleveland, it certainly won't be the last. Construction is due to start this summer on the 23-story City Club Apartments, 720 Euclid. There are also for-sale offerings starting to emerge downtown as well to meet the seemingly insatiable demand for housing in Cleveland's urban core.

Other areas of the building were
in various stages of construction,
with less advanced work done
higher up in the building. Yet
the lobby still has a ways to
go as it was used for construc-
tion materials staging (KJP).

END

Tremont Lincoln Heights plan shows change is coming

An overall view of Tremont's Lincoln Heights neighborhood,
with Interstate 90 on the south and eastern sides of the area.
Ohio City is at the top with West 25th Street at far left and
Lincoln Park at far right (Seventh Hill Design/TWDC).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

UPDATED MARCH 4, 2019

A development vision for the south-western part of Tremont called Lincoln Heights won unanimous support Monday from its immediate community. Now, that conceptual vision is headed to City Planning Commission on Friday for its possible adoption.

The plan shows existing and proposed buildings, greenspaces and parking lots in the area generally along West 25th Street and Scranton Road, from about Fairfield Avenue south to Interstate 90/490.

While that area hasn't seen the intensity of development as the rest of Tremont, there are signs on the landscape and in recent property transactions that show its fortunes are starting to change.

"The purpose of the plan is to proactively think about neighborhood development with the community," said Ward 3 Councilman Kerry McCormack whose ward includes Tremont, Ohio City and Downtown.

City Council on June 4, 2018 authorized City Planning Commission Director Freddy Collier to enter into an agreement with the Tremont West Development Corp. for the Tremont Lincoln Heights Planning Study. Council also approved using $5,000 in Ward 3 Casino Revenue Funds for that purpose.

"This is a perfect example of how to proactively engage residents and the community in city planning," McCormack added.

This close-up shows the area along Scranton Road including
Sustainable Community Associates' proposed The Lincoln
apartments at the intersection of Willey/Kenilworth avenues.
However it doesn't show potential developments on the north
side of the intersection (Seventh Hill Design/TWDC).

Tremont West Development Corp. hired Seventh Hill Design of Cleveland to draft the plan and produce some graphics to help illustrate it. Seventh Hill Principal David Jurca shared those conceptual images publicly today via Twitter.

"Our Lincoln Heights plan was unanimously approved by the block club and Tremont West (Development Corp.) board," Jurca wrote. "Now, we present to the Planning Commission this Friday. A hand-drawn rendering of the vision plan is shown, but some of the most important elements are policies to address affordability."

"Seventh Hill's David Jurca and team did an awesome job engaging all of the stakeholders in this area," said Khalid Hawthorne, housing and economic development director for Tremont West Development Corp.

"This area experienced large increases in property tax values of 200-300 percent," he added. "That is great if you are able to take out a home equity line but if you are low- and/or fixed-income it just means extra expenses. Will long-term residents be forced to sell?"

He said part of the solution is requiring that 20 percent of housing units in a given development involving city-owned land-bank properties be priced as "affordable." That policy is spelled out in Tremont West Development Corp.'s Near Westside Housing Inclusion Strategy and is available on the community development corporation's Web site.

The renderings show some under-construction buildings as existing, such as St. Joseph Commons, the new Front Steps Housing and Services building at 2554 W. 25th St. Or, there's the The Tappan, 2703 Scranton Rd., Sustainable Community Associates' latest development.

The largest collection of conceptual/new buildings shown in
the Lincoln Heights plan was east of West 25th Street and
north of the Nestle plants. But one of the property owners
in that area says that nothing is under development in that
area at the present time (Seventh Hill Design/TWDC).

But it also shows some planned developments, such as Sustainable Community Associates' The Lincoln, an 83-unit apartment building proposed to rise at the southwest corner of Scranton and Willey Avenue. And it shows a large collection of new structures, including a mix of single-family homes and multi-family buildings concentrated east of West 25th Street, north of the Nestle plant.

Some of that land is owned by affiliates of Tremont-based SoLo Development. But SoLo President Adam Waldbaum said he wasn't aware of what the intent of the plan was in showing those building concepts, although he is a member of the Lincoln Heights Block Club.

"I'm not developing anything at this moment in that area," he said, adding that he did not wish to discuss his company's plans. "As time progresses, I'd like to share more."

When asked if the plan could help provide residents with some expectations of what future developments could involve, thus reducing so-called NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) opposition, he said the planning exercise was successful in incorporating a variety of opinions.

"Seventh Hill did a really good job in taking everyone's thoughts into consideration," Waldbaum said. "I gave my input to it. I'd like to see some things go differently (with the plan) but wouldn't we all."

END

Circle Square plan was big, gets bigger

When it was first announced in 2015, the Circle Square project
was big and ambitious. Now it is even more so, owing to the
success of recent developments like One University Circle
(seen at upper left). The bigger plans, including a 24-story
apartment tower shown in red, will be up for approval
this Friday at City Planning Commission (MPD).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

When Midwest Development Partners first announced its Circle Square plan five years ago, then-called University Circle City Center or UC3, it was considered bold and ambitious.

Cleveland in 2015 was still shaking off the body blows it took from the Great Recession and even from the early-2000s recession before that. But this was University Circle -- Cleveland's fastest-growing employment hub.

That hub, the center of the region's eds-n-meds jobs machine, continues to crank out employment opportunities at a pace exceeding the national average, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

So when Midwest Development Partners representatives make their presentation of revised plans for Circle North on Friday to the City Planning Commission, it will show a bigger and more ambitious vision.

Midwest Development Partners and its development team are
presenting to the city its larger vision for the Circle Square
Development that will create a second downtown for
Cleveland in the heart of University Circle (MDP).

The original conceptual design, previously approved by the commission in 2015, showed 625 multi-family residential units, seven townhomes, a 160-room hotel, 110,860 square feet of retail and 1,245 parking spaces in several multi-level garages.

The commission will be asked to approve the revised design and infrastructure plans which show 807 multi-family residential units, 104,990 square feet of retail and 1,469 parking spaces. The rest of the conceptual plan would remain the same, according to documents submitted to the city.

A proposed infrastructure plan shows the removal of high-speed turning lanes from Chester Avenue eastbound to Stokes Boulevard southbound as well as to MLK Boulevard southbound. The goal is to slow down traffic and improve pedestrian safety as more mid- and high-rise buildings are built nearby.

The surrounding area already has four large residential buildings -- the 7-story Park Lane Villa, 11-story Judson Manor, 13-story Fenway Manor and the 20-story One University Circle. It also has the Cleveland Clinic's 16-story W.O. Walker Center.

Infrastructure plan for the area around the proposed Circle
Square development site (MDP).

Also being sought on Friday is commission approval of conceptual designs for a 24-story apartment tower and its associated parking garage at 10600 Chester Ave. On that project component, Midwest Development and its financial affiliate Ponski Capital Partners are joined by the Chicago-based team of White Oak Realty Partners and FitzGerald Associates Architects.

Planning Commission recently approved the first new-construction element of Circle Square -- the 11-story Library Lofts apartment building and new MLK Branch Library. Ground will be broken for that structure on or about July 1.

Although its groundbreaking will be the first new building in the Circle Square development, Library Lofts' construction is intended to occur simultaneously with 10600 Chester, said Chris Ronayne, President of University Circle Inc.

"We are on a trajectory of growth," he said. "One University Circle and Centric, being 95 percent occupied, are giving market investors confidence."

These two images show the ground floor and upper-level
site plans for the Circle North development (MDP).

First Interstate Properties' 276-unit, $116 million One University Circle, 10730 Euclid Ave., opened in September 2019. Midwest Development Partners' 272-unit, $50 million Centric Apartments, 1999 Circle Dr., opened in December 2018. Their ability to attract high occupancy numbers less than one year after opening have occurred while having top-of-the-market rents.

The proposed hotel would rise on the site where the current MLK Branch Library has stood for 50 years, 1962 Stokes Blvd. After the new library is built and opened in two years, the old library will be demolished.

"The hotel is currently planned for the next phase, connected to the parking," Ronayne said.

Numerous mixed uses, primarily cafes and retailers, are shown in Midwest's ground-floor uses plan. The desired uses include a grocery/pharmacy, restaurants, dry cleaner, beauty salon, pet store, cafes and building lobbies.

END