West Side gem may sparkle again as Arch at St. Michaels

The arched main entrance to St. Michael School on Scranton
Road in Cleveland retains its beauty despite decades of accu-
mulated dirt and grime. The school and its adjacent convent
are proposed to be renovated with apartments for seniors,
 mostly low-income, according to public records (Google).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

Article updated July 21 with quote from Councilwoman Jasmin Santana, with corrections made July 27 regarding property ownership.

Considered by some historic preservationists as one of the rare architectural gems on the city's West Side, St. Michael School is in the hands of local interests seeking to restore the luster to this weathered jewel. The five-story school building with its statues of saints and other ornaments was threatened with demolition when the property fell into foreclosure nearly three years ago.

But last year, investors acquired the property at 3146 Scranton Rd. to save and restore the building. The group, led by SoTre Properties' Managing Partner Eric Lutzo along with Kim F. Bixenstine and her husband Bart of Shaker Heights, engaged CHN Housing Partners of Cleveland to purchase and redevelop the site. Hiti, DiFrancesco & Siebold, Inc. of Cleveland is the project's architect.

Permit applications were submitted last week by the development team to the City of Cleveland for the renovation of the former Central Catholic School and convent in the South Tremont neighborhood. The towering St. Michael Archangle Roman Catholic Church next door, at the corner of Scranton and Clark Avenue, is not involved in this transaction or restoration.

Built in 1906 and designed by French-born architect Emile
Uhlrich, St. Michael School structure is designed in the
Victorian Gothic style like its namesake church that's
14 years older, just north of the school (Google).

The 114-year-old school and 60-year-old convent will be adaptively reused as senior independent living. The unit mix will consist of 20 one-bedroom and 15 two-bedroom units in the main school building and 12 one-bedroom units in the convent for a total of 47 units, according to the permit filed with the city's Building & Housing Department.

Laura Boustani, strategic communications manager of CHN Housing Partners, said 45 of the apartments will be restricted and affordable to seniors at incomes that are 60 percent or less of the area's median income and two units will be unrestricted market-rate apartments.

"The project will feature multiple common areas and support spaces including a community room, a wellness center, on-site property management, service coordinator and dedicated maintenance and janitorial staff," Boustani said in an e-mail. "The Arch at St. Michaels represents the preservation and revitalization of a community icon that has been decaying and at risk of being lost."

The project is still early on in the development process; it could appear on the City Planning Commission's docket in October. Also, not all financing is in place. However, the project's partners were recently sent a letter of intent from the city which chose the Arch at St. Michael as one of its projects it intends to support with a pot of tax credits from the Ohio Housing Finance Agency.

An early rendition of plans for the St. Michael School and
convent site that were submitted to the city (B&H).

Tania Menesse, Cleveland's director of community development, didn't respond to an e-mail seeking comment prior publication.

"This is great news for the neighborhood, which is seeing numerous economic development projects and improvements," said Ward 14 Councilwoman Jasmin Santana who represents the area. "St. Michael the Archangel Church is an historic site and reusing the school for affordable senior housing is a great addition."

Estimated cost of the project at this early stage is $12.8 million, Boustani said. Although CHN typically does new construction, it has two historic renovations on its resume. One is the Winton on Lorain, 9431 Lorain Ave. in Cleveland, completed in 2013. The other is the Westerly Apartments, 14300 Detroit Ave. in Lakewood, completed last year.

As proposed in its permit application, all surface-mounted utilities will be removed from the building. The masonry, decorative stone elements, stone ornaments and sculptures will be repaired and cleaned. Stone elements that are severely damaged will be replaced with cast-stone pieces and mortar to match the previously existing elements. All windows and doors will be replaced. The interior will be thoroughly renovated with original historic themes and features.

The 1960-built convent on Prame Avenue is not only less
ornate and newer than the neighboring school, it is also
smaller -- measuring just 12,845 square feet compared
to the 70,695-square-foot school (Google).

The former school, one of three sites used by Central Catholic until 2003, was most recently used as offices for the West Side Ministries. The nonprofit group was affiliated with the Community Care Network, Cleveland Christian Home and other charities to provide social services to the neighborhood.

But Key Bank foreclosed on a loan for the property in 2017 and the property went to auction in February 2018 with a minimum asking price of $600,000 -- or two-thirds of the property's appraised value of $900,000. There were no takers at that price.

The Bixenstines, under the name 3146 Scranton Road LLC, acquired the property through a second auction a year later for $375,000, county records show. They transferred it on Sept. 22, 2019 to a company listing to Lutzo called Arc on Scranton, LLC for $378,750. CHN has an option to acquire the property from Lutzo.

"My husband and I have been private investors in various projects of SoTre Properties, including the St. Michael’s property, for approximately 10 years," Kim Bixenstine wrote in an e-mail. "We believe in SoTre’s mission of saving homes and building community in the South Tremont neighborhood."

The before-and-after views of the school's renovation may
not look much different at first glance, but careful inspec-
tion reveals the extent of work necessary to revive this
aging beauty to its former granduer (B&H).

"Investing in distressed properties in Tremont's southside is the cornerstone of our business," Lutzo said. "As you know, CHN Partners have been exceptional stewards of property in Cleveland for many years and, without exception, their involvement with this project is welcome."

St. Michael School was one four structures designed for religious institutions in Cleveland's urban core by French immigrant Emile Uhlrich, said preservation consultant Steve McQuillin. Each were Byzantine-Romanesque, Gothic Revival or High Victorian Gothic themes evocovative of European cathedrals, which helped many of Cleveland's early 20th-century immigrants feel right at home.

Unfortunately, St. Michael School is the only one that has a future at this point. St. Andrew Catholic Church, built in 1907 at 5135 Superior Ave., was demolished in 2009. St. Procop Church, built in 1902 at 3181 W. 41st St., was closed in 2009. Church of the Nativity/Blessed Virgin Mary, built in 1925 (the school Ulrich designed was built in 1913) at 9600 Aetna Rd., closed in 1992 and is heavily vandalized.

"We are humbled to be able to save St. Michael's School and be part of the community building that will be part of this development," Lutzo added.

Tyler Kapusta contributed to this article.

END

Rockefeller Building to start new life with housing, offices

Cleveland's Rockefeller Building, built by Cleve-
lander John D. Rockefeller Sr., is being bought
by a group that will redevelop the historic struc-
ture with micro-unit apartments, offices, retail
and parking. It is the first major spin-off project
from Sherwin-Williams' decision to build its new
headquarters in downtown Cleveland (KJP).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

According to several sources, a development partnership is acquiring the Rockefeller Building, 614 W. Superior Ave., in downtown Cleveland and will redevelop the historic office building with micro-unit apartments, offices, retail and parking.

This is one of the first of potentially several major spin-off real estate development projects resulting from Sherwin-Williams' decision to build its new consolidated headquarters in downtown Cleveland.

Proposed are 436 units of market-rate apartments with some smaller than 300 square feet. There also will be four floors of offices, some ground-floor retail and structured parking off Frankfort Avenue. Acquiring and developing the Rockefeller is a partnership of Realty Dynamics Equity Partners, LLC of Akron and  Wolfe Investments, LLC of Plano, TX. Geis Companies of Streetsboro reportedly is the general contractor.

The micro-units are, in part, intended to serve Sherwin-Williams' employees who recently relocated to Cleveland to work in the headquarters. They will provide residential opportunities next to a headquarters site that offers 3,500 jobs at the outset and ultimately promises many more in the future, potentially up to 4,400 jobs.

The development partnership was attracted to the 115-year-old Rockefeller Building because of its location. It is right across West 6th Street from the nearly 7-acre swath of parking lots that Sherwin-Williams announced in February as the site for its new, $300+ million headquarters complex.

This unobstructed view from the east of the
Rockefeller Building won't be possible for
much longer. The photo was taken from the
"Superblock" -- now parking lots -- that was
bought by Sherwin-Williams Corp. where it
will build its new global headquarters (KJP).

The property that is being sold includes land that measures 1.84 acres of which 1.1 acres is surface parking lot. The Rockefeller Building itself measures 261,264 square feet. The acquisition also will include a five-level, 43,617-square-foot brick and concrete parking garage out back that was built in 1925.

The Rockefeller Building is larger than 75 Public Square -- another development that owes its recent momentum to the neighboring Sherwin-Williams headquarters project. Renamed as Public Square North, renovations are due to get underway next month.

Millennia Companies and Cleveland Construction will convert 75 Public Square into 114 apartments with ground floor retail. The 15-story, 131,000-square-foot building was built in 1915 as the headquarters of the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co.

But pre-development activity at 75 Public Square started long before there were even rumors about Sherwin-Williams' headquarters plans. The earliest insights were first reported by NEOtrans in October 2018 -- nearly a year before the company officially acknowledged it had begun planning for a new headquarters.

Also, NEOtrans had been reporting for months before it was officially announced that the Fortune 500 company had settled on the Public Square site. That news reportedly heightened the buyers' interest in the Rockefeller Building. More details about the renovation project will be revealed when the title transfers.

Title to the building, previously owned by Rockefeller Building Associates, is due to transfer this month. The deal has been in the works for nearly a year. All financing is in place for the renovations to get underway this year once all city approvals have been secured, including a review by the Landmarks Commission. The building was listed in 1973 the National Register of Historic Places.

General contractor Geis has a track record working with historic renovations and conversions of commercial buildings to housing. It is now wrapping up for Detroit-based Bedrock Real Estate the revitalization and conversion of the 880,000-square-foot May Company department store on Public Square into 307 apartments and ground-floor retail.

Although looking tired and in need of renovation, Cleveland's
Rockefeller Building remains an architectural beauty and a re-
minder of the Gilded Age in which Cleveland thrived. Another
of the city's Gilded Age gifts is Sherwin-Williams whose down-
town Cleveland investment is motivating the renovation and
conversion of The Rock into micro-housing and offices (KJP).

Another large historic renovation project on Geis' resume was the massive Cleveland Trust high-rise headquarters and bank rotunda conversion into The 9 luxury apartments, Metropolitan Hotel, several restaurants and Heinen's grocery store.

Rockefeller Building Associates is an affiliate owned by Benjamin Cappadora of Cleveland and Diana Miller of Brooklyn, NY. But the primary person in the partnership is Cappadora who, before 1988, owned the building as Cappadora Realty Corp. Cappadora, now 88 years old, has been quietly looking to sell the half-empty office building off-market for a couple of years.

The Rockefeller Building was built by Standard Oil Co. founder and Clevelander John D. Rockefeller Sr. In 1903, he bought and razed a portion of the Weddell House, one of the city's finest and most historic hotels. For 56 years, it hosted some of the most famous people of the 19th century including President Abraham Lincoln, General Philip H. Sheridan and General George A. Custer.

But the Rockefeller Building wasn't built all at once; it was built in two stages over the seven years. Most of the building was built in 1905 but was expanded west along Superior by 1910. Total cost was $1 million. Rising to 17 stories, the building was Cleveland's tallest at the time and built in the “Sullivanesque” architectural style -- named after Louis Sullivan, called the father of skyscrapers.

Covering the lower floors of the Rockefeller Building is a cast-
iron tapestry of organic-geometric ornaments, likely an homage
to architect Louis Sullivan's Guaranty Building in Buffalo (KJP).

Sullivan was a mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright; but Sullivan's mentor was Cleveland architect John Edelman whose lone remaining work product in Cleveland stands at 1350 W. 3rd St., wrapped in 1960s modernism. It is also the only remaining structure on the Superblock purchased by Sherwin-Williams for its headquarters.

Designed by the firm Knox & Elliot, which later moved its offices into the Rockefeller Building, the structure is considered by many to be the best example in Cleveland of the Sullivanesque style. Its design reportedly was inspired by Sullivan's Guaranty Building in Buffalo, including its vertical columns to express the steel frame underneath and a tapestry of organic-geometric cast-iron ornaments on the lower stories.

The Rockefeller family was very proud of its Cleveland building and wanted it to remain in the family. So John D. Rockefeller Jr. bought the Rockefeller Building from his father for one dollar. Throughout its early years, the building hosted offices for iron, coal and lake shipping interests that made the city an industrial giant.

One of the most entertaining stories of its past is what happened after 1920 when the property was bought by Josiah Kirby, founder of the Cleveland Discount Co., then a large mortgage firm. The building was renamed the Kirby Building. That so angered the Rockefeller family that in 1923 they bought the building back merely to return the structure to its original name. It has been called the Rockefeller Building ever since.

END

Pandemic quarantines CWRU development

Case Western Reserve University's $72+ million South Resi-
dental Village development is on hold indefinitely because
of the coronavirus pandemic (photo by Tyler Kapusta).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

Construction of several residence halls at Case Western Reserve University has been put on hold indefinitely, another victim of the COVID-19 pandemic and the fiscal uncertainties that surround it. Construction on the first phase of the $72+ million multi-phased project was due to start in early 2021.

Christopher Panichi, CWRU's director of planning, design and construction confirmed today that the expansion of the South Residential Village at Murray Hill and Adelbert roads has been halted.

"There's no time frame (on its delay) so yes, it's indefinite," Panichi said

The project may be revisited in the near future because of growing enrollment and since the university has put a lot of effort into this project. That includes feedback sessions with students, drafting of architectural designs and the selection of a general contractor -- Donley's Inc. of Valley View.

"It's unfortunate, but who knows what will happen," Panichi added.

Alhough renovations continue on Fribley Hall and commons,
the proposed residence halls on two university-owned parking
lots on either side of Murray Hill Road are stalled (Google).

Proposed on CWRU parking lot No. 5 next door to Fribley Hall, the university planned to construct the two residence halls costing $72.46 million and adding 600 beds. They represented phases one and two of the South Residential Village expansion and total up to 185,000 square feet of new facilities, according to CWRU planning documents.

A third phase proposed across the street could follow the construction of the first and second phases. Conceptual plans for the third phase show two connected residential buildings on CWRU parking lot No. 44 between Fribley Hall and the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority's Cedar-University Red Line rail station that was renovated in 2014. There is no estimated cost yet for the third phase.

In addition to adding more residential units for CRWU students, part of the goal of developing the two parking lots with housing was to concentrate the South Residential Village closer to campus and transportation services. The existing CWRU campus housing at the top of the hill in Cleveland Heights could eventually be demolished and redeveloped with recreation or newer residences.

NEOtrans is the only Cleveland media outlet to report that CWRU was pursuing this large expansion of the South Residential Village. That article was published last January. This is the first and only follow-up article since then on the project by a Cleveland media outlet.

A construction fence surrounds Fribley Hall and commons
as renovations of the CWRU property continue through the
summer break and into the fall (KJP).

The architect for the new South Residential Village dorms is William Rawn Associates of Boston. The firm's portfolio shows only one local project -- Cleveland Clinic's Taussig Cancer Center, 10201 Carnegie Ave.

Construction of the residence halls was to follow completion of renovations to the 1964-built Fribley Hall and commons, according to a notice of commencement filed by CWRU on Oct. 31, 2019 with the Cuyahoga County Fiscal Officer. Fribley Hall was last renovated in 2000 but that was limited to the cafeteria.

The Albert M. Higley Co. was hired in 2018 as CWRU's general contractor for the renovations to Fribley Hall, county records show.

Plans for the two new residence halls showed one-bed rooms would measure 105 square feet and two bed rooms would measure 170 to 171 square feet. Furnishings would be provided by the university. They are proposed to include one or two bed/dressers, wardrobes and desks per room. Students provided input on the layout, decorations and furnishings at public meetings last winter.

Rendering of Fribley Hall, post-renovation, as seen from the
intersection of Murray Hill and Adelbert roads (CWRU).

Renovation work continues on Fribley Hall including a new outdoor dining area and expanded Fribley Commons. A loading area for Fribley Hall was demolished to make way for the expanded commons and to open up the north side of the hall with more glass.

It has been five years since CWRU built a residence hall -- the Stephanie Tubbs Jones Residence Hall, located in the campus' North Residential Village at 1576 E. 115th St., just south of Wade Park Avenue. No other housing expansions are planned by CWRU even though additional off-campus leasing of apartments is difficult to secure absent new inventory.

The proposed residence halls in the South Residential Village were for second-year tudents. CWRU's enrollment continues to grow, rising from 9,000 students in 2000 to 12,000 last year. Their expansion options have involved building a few new dormitories as well as making it easier for more upperclassmen to live off campus.

There are private, off-campus developments now underway that could provide additional housing to CWRU students in the meantime. They include 1609 Hazel Apartments, 2235 Overlook boarding house, the Baricelli Inn Apartments and, across the street, The Ascent at Top Of The Hill. Other nearby projects are planned but not yet underway.

END

Two developments, two sides of town and redesigned, too

A new development concept is proposed for 12607 Larchmere
Blvd. in Cleveland. Another project, the View On Detroit in
Lakewood, also is moving forward with a new approach
to its conceptual design and proposed uses (SA Group).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

Two small-to-medium-sized developments on each side of town are finding new lives after they've been significantly redesigned. One was a purely residential development in Lakewood that shrank but added mixed use. The other was a mixed-use development in Cleveland's Larchmere district that has become purely residential.

The Larchmere development not only has a totally new design concept but an additional developer involved. Previously, Berusch Development Partners pursued a 20,000-square-foot project with RDL Architects moving its office from Shaker Heights into a 13,000-square-foot ground-floor space next to a new coffee shop and topped by four apartments.

Now, MRN Ltd. founder Rick Maron seeks to bring his penchant for micro-unit apartments to Larchmere. In partnership with Berusch, who bought the 0.356-acre property a year ago, Maron proposes 28 apartments in an L-shaped building surrounding 19 off-street parking spaces.

"The mixed-use/office project I'd been planning can't proceed because the coronavirus hit my anchor office tenant hard, which is why I'm now planning micros with Rick," Berusch said in an e-mail.

The development borrows from Maron's recent micro-unit developments in Cleveland including an eight-unit project called Mikros Smart Suites, 11427 Ashbury Ave. in Glenville and the eight-unit Tremont Oaks, proposed at 2260 W. 14th St. in Tremont. In fact, the units are of the same size and design as those being planned in Larchmere.

Proposed site plan for 12607 Larchmere
in Cleveland (SA Group).

Prior to submitting them to the city, Maron didn't change the architectural renderings' labels showing their location and identity of the micro-units from his Tremont project. The concepts were developed by SA Group of Cleveland.

The micro-units measure a mere 436.3 square feet and each unit is identical to the next in terms of their proposed layout. They have a fold-away queen-sized bed, a fold-away wall-mounted TV, and a stowable table for dining, office work or other uses.

A chain-of-title agreement and 30-year non-school tax financing arrangement were approved by the City Planning Commission on May 15 to aid the previously proposed project. Those incentives would apply to the new project as long as the property doesn't transfer to a new owner. An existing two-story warehouse on the site must be demolished prior to construction.

MRN is best known for redeveloping East Fourth Street in downtown Cleveland and for the Uptown District in University Circle. Berusch served as a consultant to MRN on the Uptown development and redeveloped two buildings next to Uptown.

Propoosed layouts based on activities
in the proposed micro-units. They are
the same as those planned for a Maron
development in Tremont (SA Group).

On the other side of town in Lakewood, one of Jerome Solove Development Inc.'s two development sites secured its final zoning approval from the city on July 2. Planning Commission unanimously approved a conditional use permit for the View On Detroit located on Detroit Avenue just east of Bunts Road, said City Council President Dan O'Malley.

The conditional use is for a mixed-use overlay district to construct two four-story structures containing 113 market-rate apartments as well as a designated commercial space on the first floor in the east building. There will also be 140 parking spaces; 113 spaces are required per the building code. The development site is located in a general commercial district.

The eastern building has more of a sidewalk presence than the western one thanks to the first-floor commercial space and a lobby, mailroom, bike storage and fitness area at the corner of Detroit and Parkwood Road. As proposed, the west building has no access points along its ground floor facing Detroit, making it less pedestrian friendly.

The impervious Detroit facade in the west building, closer to the Detroit-Bunts intersection, makes one wonder if a mixed-use building is envisioned for a future phase at the corner. Solove said he has attempted to acquire the property on which Bruce's Automotive sets at the corner of Detroit-Bunts but has been turned down so far by owner George Shaker.

Site plan for Solove's View On Detroit, located at the current
site of the vacant Spitzer Chrysler-Plymouth car dealership
and the former Educators Music shop (JSDI).

Owners of the other properties have agreed to sell to Solove, including the vacant Spitzer Chrysler-Plymouth car dealership and Stavash Family LLC, owner of the now-closed Educator's Music shop. All buildings on both sites will be razed. NEOtrans broke the news in 2018 about Solove's interest in developing this site.

This is the third version of the View On Detroit proposed by Solove. The first proposed a massive, eight-story apartment building west of Parkwood and a multi-level parking deck fronted by a five-story apartment building on Detroit east of Parkwood. The second version scaled down the project with a less-massive eight-story apartment building east of Parkwood and a surface parking lot west of Parkwood.

Solove also is planning a second Lakewood development at another former car dealership. The Columbus-based developer got city approval last year to build 160 apartments and 3,500 square feet of ground-floor commercial space centered at 16000 Detroit, site of the closed Steve Barry Buick.

The development is planned on both sides of Detroit, with three-story buildings and surface lots on multiple parcels. That includes the neighboring Bobby O's tavern, 16013 Detroit. However, Solove has yet to take title to any of the parcels, according to public records. Solove is reportedly wrapping up the financing for both Lakewood projects.

Tyler Kapusta contributed to this article.

END

Lots of good long-term economic news for Greater Cleveland

Rays of employment hope are shining strongly on Greater
Cleveland this summer. There are a number of new, long-
term job-growth developments emerging in metro area.
This article notes some of the bigger ones (Xiaofan Luo).

As jobs start to come back following the pandemic-related economic shutdown, there are also new jobs coming online for Greater Cleveland. These aren't restored jobs; they are jobs resulting from economic growth in sectors that were either unaffected by the shutdown or they are structural changes from employers seeking lower-cost ways of doing business.

One of the sectors that wasn't hurt by the shutdown was the warehousing/distribution sector. Businesses continue to look hard for warehousing/distribution space and the bigger the better.

Amazon has been in the news a lot lately, as it seeks to build new delivery stations like the one planned near Slavic Village or lease existing, large facilities like the one near the Cleveland/Lakewood line.

But those 112,000 to 168,750-square-foot facilities are relatively small compared to some of what's in the works elsewhere in Greater Cleveland. Here is a recent sampling.

A better idea for local Ford plants?

While it's good news that a new suitor will apparently acquire
both of the vacant, Cleveland-area Ford plants, the buyer will
reportedly re-use the huge factories for warehousing instead
of for manufacturing with fewer jobs (fordauthority.com).

According to a source connected with the repurposing of the vacant Ford auto plants in Brook Park and Walton Hills, both will be acquired by the same buyer. At last report in late May, Brook Park Mayor Mike Gammella suggested two bidders were involved in the purchasing of the two plants. He isn't commenting publicly on who it is.

The source NEOtrans spoke with said both facilities would be repurposed for industrial-commercial warehousing activities. The source would not divulge any more information, including if the buyer was a developer or an end-user.

Both plants are massive. The former Brook Park Engine Plant No. 2 measures 1.7 million square feet of facilities, setting on 195 acres of land. The former Walton Hills Stamping Plant totals 2.1 million square feet of structures on 111 acres.

The repurposing of the two huge plants is good news. But it's not the great news that some local community development leaders had hoped for. One of them said privately that, while warehousing jobs are better than having huge factories sitting idle, warehouses have fewer jobs per square foot than manufacturing faciltiies. Also, warehousing jobs don't usually pay as much as those in manufacturing.

Consolidated operations are a gas

AmeriGas' existing Business Services Office at 24650 Center
Ridge Rd. in Westlake will move next year when its lease
expires. Employees from this location will join several
hundred others consolidated from other cities into a
new site possibly in Brooklyn Heights (Google).

AmeriGas Partners L.P., the nation's largest propane marketer, could see its Greater Cleveland presence grow dramatically as early as next year. Following its 2019 acquisition by UGI Corp., AmeriGas is looking to consolidate its call center and customer service operations.

A source who spoke off the record said that AmeriGas could be consolidating several hundred jobs to and within Greater Cleveland. That includes up to 125 employees at its Business Services Office at the King James Office Park in suburban Westlake. AmeriGas' lease at 24650 Center Ridge Rd. will expire next year.

Where might the jobs be consolidated? The source said that a site in Brooklyn Heights is under consideration. Cleveland could also be an outside possibility. However, no specific locations are publicly known at this time. As a side note, the Cleveland suburb Brooklyn Heights should not be confused with the suburb Brooklyn.

The move has nothing to do with COVID-19. Instead, it is the result of corporate realignment following UGI's acquisition. UGI pledged "to align its liquefied petroleum gas distribution operations across the U.S. and Europe to drive efficiencies and accelerate growth." A second AmeriGas call center in South Carolina also is planned.

Cleveland, Pittsburgh in a healthy fight

Cleveland has some healthcare heavyweights on its team as
well as a number of small, healthy startups that helped
nurse the region to the nation's second-best metro
area for healthcare jobs (Kevin M. Nord).

If there was a championship for healthcare jobs, Pittsburgh would be edging out Cleveland for the lead. But in this competition, being No. 2 in the nation for healthcare jobs isn't a losing spot to be in.

According to a June report by Phoenix-based Grand Canyon University, the two Rust Belt rivals in football and in their post-industrial economic recoveries are fighting it out on the field of one the nation's biggest job-growth sectors.

Points that contributed to Cleveland's high score were the number of available healthcare jobs, average pay, share of healthcare jobs among all local jobs, living wages and average apartment rents. The latter two categories helped push Cleveland and Pittsburgh to the top of the ranking and contributed to a medical powerhouse like Boston falling to 13th.

Interestingly, 14 of the cities that scored high for healthcare jobs were located in the Great Lakes-Northeast region. Only four top-ranked cities were located in the southern states east of the Mississippi River. Three were located west of the Mississippi but east of Rocky Mountains. And only one city west of the Rockies, Riverside, CA, was ranked highly for healthcare jobs.

Israeli tech startup IDs Greater Cleveland

UVeye Ltd. may put its North American operations group head-
quarters and a production facility in Greater Cleveland (UVeye).

A fast-growing tech-startup will locate its North American operations group in the Greater Cleveland area, if the hiring of the two men to lead it is any indication. UVeye Ltd. hired Glenn Hemminger of Mentor as its managing director of North American operations and Bob Rich of Chardon as director of North American sales.

Hemminger previously was director of international business development at Cleveland-based Dealer Tire and Rich worked in sales at DealerSocket, CDK Global, Cars.com and The Cleveland Plain Dealer, according to a UVeye press release.

A Cleveland-area headquarters or operations center location was buoyed by the fact that UVeye plans to establish offices in Ohio and New York. Furthermore, UVeye said it has multiple sites under consideration for future production and warehouse facilities, including in Ohio, Michigan and Texas, as well as several locations in the southeastern United States, the company said.

In the past year, UVeye raised $35 million in venture capital from Toyota Tsushu, Volvo and others. UVeye's inspection technologies can identifty paint and sheet-metal defects, component damage, missing parts and other quality-related issues within seconds. Auto manufacturers as well as auto repair shops, such as service departments at car dealerships, are potential customers.

The scanning and inspection technology can also be used in security applications to identify explosives, weapons, toxins, drugs and other potential threats hidden within vehicles at border crossings and at entrances to secure facilities.

Silicon Valley firm to sew up costs in Cleveland

Stitch Fix Inc. opened its first eastern distribution center in
2016, a 484,000-square-foot facility near Bethlehem, PA
employing 500. A similar number of jobs may soon be
bound for Greater Cleveland thanks to the company
recognizing the region's high quality workforce
and lower costs of living (lehighvalley.org).

There is always a benefit of similar businesses locating near each other so they can draw from an agglomeration of workers and suppliers skilled in that field. But when that market grows so hot that the costs of living affects the cost of doing business, then it's time to move employees who can work from anywhere.

That has happened to San Francisco-based Stitch Fix Inc., a personal-shopping service and clothing retailer. It will lay off 1,400 people in California while hiring 2,000 people in lower-cost cities like Austin, Dallas, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh and Cleveland.

The 1,400 laid-off workers will be offered jobs at the new locations. The laid-off workers represent about 18 percent of Stitch Fix's total workforce, according to a report. All of the 2,000 new jobs will be stylist positions.

No workplace locations are identified for the new jobs nor is a breakdown available as to how many jobs will be based in each city. But even if the 2,000 jobs aren't divided evenly among the five cities, Cleveland is likely to get a significant number of jobs from this restructuring.

Prior to the pandemic, the Cleveland-Akron area was one of the nation's hottest housing markets and was expected to be even hotter in 2020. The reason was -- and based on the news in this blog posting, still is -- because of the low housing costs and high quality of life here versus high housing costs on the coasts.

END

CSU starts process for skyline-altering master plan

Cleveland State University's 85-acre campus at the edge of
downtown features several buildings that are prominent as
viewed from the East Side. Will they stay prominent? Will
they be redesigned? Or will they be joined by more promi-
nent campus buildings? Those questions will be answered
by a master plan process starting later this year (CSU).

A lot can change in just six years. That's especially true when it comes to a university that's continuing to make the transition from a regional commuter school to more of a nationally prominent residential institution.

And when that university is also trying to reconfigure its athlethic facilities, privatize its parking and capitalize on Cleveland's international standing as a medical center, then it's time to take a fresh look at its campus.

So Cleveland State University (CSU) has issued a request for qualifications from urban planning and design firms to create an updated master plan for what is currently an 85-acre campus. According to the Dodge Reports, CSU is requesting qualifications for planning services to be submitted by 2 p.m. July 24 to Jeremiah Swetel, CSU's executive director of facility services.

The plan is essential for securing funding, be it from public- or private-sector sources, for any capital construction projects at the state university that has 12,248 undergraduates and a total enrollment of 16,327. That's compared to 10,132 undergraduates and 15,293 total enrollment since Fall 2000. CSU President Harlan Sands has called for the master plan as he juggles multiple challenges regarding its facilities.

This was from CSU's last master plan, conducted in 2014. Al-
though a few facilities resulted from this plan, such as the new
Washkewicz College of Engineering, other projects didn't hap-
pen, like moving the athletic fields closer to Interstate 90 and
developing the old athletic fields with student housing (CSU).

While Swetel didn't respond to an e-mail seeking more information, two sources familiar with CSU's facilities did. They're familiar with the reasons for updating the university's master plan for the first time since 2014. And, although they were not permitted to speak publicly about CSU's upcoming work, they say that the master plan's findings could be skyline-altering.

Because CSU is at the eastern edge of downtown Cleveland, any changes to buildings of 10 stories or more or new buildings of similar size will be noticeable if built in and near CSU. So, for example, if the 21-story, 363-foot-tall Rhodes Tower were to be significantly renovated or even replaced, it would alter the skyline.

Changing or replacing the campus' tallest building, including the library and main classroom building, is reportedly going to be one of the possible projects considered. This connected complex will turn 50 years old next year and is in need of renovations and modernization.

And when CSU completed its last campus master plan in 2014, it had recently made some significant investments in improving its facilities as a residential school. The university converted the 22-story Fenn Tower into a 438-bed residence hall in 2006. Five years later, it traded the 438-bed Viking Hall for the slightly larger and brand-new 600-bed Euclid Commons, 2450 Euclid Ave.

Although no new on-campus student housing was built by CSU
since its last campus master plan, several private developments
were built for students. One of those was The Edge apartments
built in 2017 on Euclid Avenue at East 18th Street (Clayco).

The 13-story Viking Hall was CSU's first dormitory, originally built in 1971 as a Holiday Inn but converted in 1986 to dorms. Viking Hall, 2130 Euclid, was razed in 2011. But CSU still has only two on-campus residence halls totaling just 1,038 beds. University staff say it needs more. By the way, the city's zoning code allows for buildings to be built as tall as 600 feet in and near the campus.

There are nearly a dozen privately built and managed apartment buildings around the CSU campus, many of them designed with students in mind -- such as the 2017-built, 11-story The Edge building on Euclid at East 18th Street. But only one of the private complexes is CSU-approved housing -- the 2012-built Langston apartments on Chester Avenue. Rents are increasing quickly at downtown's off-campus housing.

More students continue to come and, increasingly, they are coming from out of state, especially from more expensive East Coast cities and Chicago. The students are seeking a good education in an urban setting but without the burdensome tuition. In August 2017, CSU welcomed its first-ever 2,000-student freshman class.

"This new milestone further highlights the transformation Cleveland State has undergone over the last decade," said then-CSU President Ronald Berkman. "We are now a destination university with a growing national reputation for offering students tremendous academic quality and excellent career connections in a vibrant urban environment."

The future of the Wolstein Center is in doubt as CSU enters a
new campus master plan process. The Downtown Cleveland
Alliance also identified the underused arena as a potential
major development site on its Web site (DCA). 

Adding new residential offerings and possibly achieving them through a public-private partnership will likely be a focus for the updated master plan, the two sources said. The question is, where could the new housing be located in an already well-built up campus and its downtown hinterlands?

Part of the answer may lie at the site of the Wolstein Center. This 13,610-seat arena was built in 1991 to serve a fast-growing college basketball program as well as the Cleveland Crunch professional indoor soccer team, concerts and nationally prominent speakers.

But when the Cleveland Cavaliers moved downtown in 1994 to the new and larger Gund Arena (now Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse) and the Crunch folded, the Wolstein Center never achieved its promise. Today, the Wolstein Center burdens CSU with a $1 million-per-year operating deficit.

Replacing the arena with a smaller facility has been on CSU's to-do list for at least five years. It sits at the center of a 9.3-acre parcel that if, utilized more effectively, could accommodate a smaller arena of about 5,000-7,000 seats surrounded by new student housing. A local model is Case Western Reserve University's outdoor DiSanto Field which is ringed with dorms, bleachers and a parking garage.

Krenzler Field hosts soccer and, here, lacross games and prac-
tices against a backdrop of downtown's skyline. This and two
other athletic facilities were proposed in 2014 to be relocated
closer to Interstate 90 so that this near-downtown site could
be developed with student housing (CSU).

Another CSU athletic facility the master plan will likely take a hard look at is Krenzler Field. The soccer and lacrosse field features a removable, air-supported dome. It neighbors on Chester the Viking Softball Field and the Medical Mututal Tennis Pavilion. Krenzler Field was renovated in 2018 for $2.9 million.

But as lacrosse and especially soccer have increased in popularity, including the possibility of a professional outdoor soccer team playing in Cleveland, the 1,500-seat facility may be too small. A larger stadium could be part of the master plan and incorporate facilities for softball and tennis. The 2014 plan had these athletic facilities moved closer to Interstate 90 but, like the Wolstein Center's replacement, it never happened.

One of the reasons why the athletic facilities sat on the back burner is because the university has been reviewing a new parking privatization plan. It could net CSU more than $50 million up front and possibly hundreds of millions of dollars in the coming decades from investing those funds. CSU has seven parking garages and 16 lots totaling 4,131 parking spaces.

Additional parking and public transportation facilities could be in the offing. Access to CSU on the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority's trains and buses from the eastern suburbs is slow and all routes require at least one transfer to reach CSU. Improved transit circulation downtown would create a more connected neighborhood for CSU's residential students.

Could enhanced public transportation be a
part of CSU's master plan? CSU may revisit
a plan for a downtown rail loop to improve
transit access to CSU from the eastern sub-
urbs and create a more connected downtown
for CSU's residential students (GCRTA). 

One way to accomplish those things is to revive a $120 million plan from 20 years ago to extend the light-rail Waterfront Line south from the lakefront, through CSU's and Cuyahoga Community College's campuses to create a loop of downtown Cleveland, according to the nonprofit group All Aboard Ohio.

Last but certainly not least is an exciting new effort to boost CSU as a center of medical innovation. Earlier this year, CSU hired Forrest Faison III, former U.S. Navy Vice Admiral and served as the 38th Surgeon General of the Navy and chief of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery from 2015 to 2019.

He was named senior vice president for research and innovation/chief healthcare strategy officer at CSU. Faison will oversee a broad effort to unify and expand the university's educational, outreach and scholarship efforts in all aspects of health care, while spurring the continued growth of Cleveland as a center for medical innovation.

“(Faison's) leadership will also be critical to further our efforts to create the health care programs, technologies and workforce that will improve the lives of people throughout the community and enhance the continued advancement of the regional economy,” said CSU President Sands in a written statement.

Campus master plans are only as good as the follow-up to
implement them. How might this latest master plan by CSU
change downtown Cleveland's skyline and improve the
urban educational and campus life experiences for its
growing student population? (Ian Meadows).

Until recently, there has been only one publicly funded medical school in Northeast Ohio -- the Northeast Ohio Medical University (NEOMED) far away in Rootstown, between Akron and Youngstown.

So CSU joined with NEOMED to create the NEOMED-CSU Partnership for Urban Health, which has its physical presence in the 2015-built, $48 million Center for Innovations in Medical Professions Building at the southwest corner of Euclid Avenue and East 22nd Street.

As a result of Faison's hiring, look for a significant new medical school and research buildings to be included in CSU's upcoming master plan, said one of the two sources. The new medical school and research facilities could feature thousands of students and research jobs and be a magnet for many millions of dollars of state and federal funding for education and research.

CSU's strengthened effort in the healthcare field is intended to provide a steady and voluminous supply of students and interns for Greater Cleveland's large medical institutions. And it will likely strengthen the region's already robust healthcare research scene.

END

GCRTA may unify its rail system with single rail car fleet

The Greater Cleveland Transit Authority has operated two types
of rail cars since 1955 (light-rail at left, heavy-rail at right). But
the authority is reconsidering that dual system as faces replacing
its aging rail cars with new ones that can fit into its Central Rail
maintenance facility near East 55th Street, shown above (KJP).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

For those who like the idea of being able to take one train without transfers from Shaker Heights to the airport or possibly from University Circle to the Van Aken District, then a new challenge-turned-opportunity may be of interest.

The Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (GCRTA) may replace its two aging rail fleets with a single type of rail car that can operate on any of GCRTA's three rail lines. This is big news because GCRTA had been considering replacing its two old, yet separate rail fleets with two new and still-separate rail fleets, continuing an inefficient practice set into motion nearly 80 years ago.

A single, interoperable rail fleet also raises some intriguing possibilities if GCRTA ever gets into expansion mode again. More on that later. Those future possibilities, not just the efficiency aspects, are why a single rail fleet has been urged by advocacy groups like All Aboard Ohio for many years.

Currently, GCRTA uses two types of rail cars that are interoperable on only three miles of Greater Cleveland's 39-mile rail system. One is a fleet of light-rail vehicles (LRV) made by the Breda Co. in 1980-81. These 34 cars operate on the Blue and Green lines between the downtown Waterfront and Shaker Heights. The first segments of this LRV system were built in 1913, modernized in the 1980s and expanded in 1996.

The other is a fleet of heavy-rail vehicles (HRV) made by Tokyu in 1984-85. These 40 cars operate on the Red Line between Hopkins International Airport, downtown Cleveland and Windermere in East Cleveland. This HRV route was first planned in the 1940s and opened in 1955.

GCRTA's Red Line is operated by heavy-rail vehicles that serve
high-level station platforms that are at the same height as the
floors on the trains to ensure access by disabled riders (AAO).

The two rail fleets are inoperable on their different rail lines because of the types of rail stations they must serve. The HRVs serve high-level station platforms. The LRVs serve low-level platforms. On the three route-miles that the HRVs and LRVs are interoperable, there are three stations with both high-level and low-level platforms.

All of GCRTA's 52 rail stations and trains must be compliant with federal ADA standards which includes having station platform floors at or near the same level as the rail cars' floors. This is called level boarding, requiring a vertical gap of no more than two inches. There must also be a minimal horizontal gap separating the train and platform that does not exceed four inches.

All Red Line stations are ADA-compliant as are the busier Blue/Green stations (e.g.: Green Road, Warrensville on both lines, Lee Road on both lines, Farnsleigh, Shaker Square, East 55th and all of the other Blue/Green line stations farther into the city). Nearly two dozen Blue/Green stations are not yet ADA-compliant.

To rebuild all 52 stations to serve both high- and low-floor HRVs and LRVs and be ADA-compliant would cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Merely modifying just the 19 high-platform Red Line stations so they could accommodate a single type of rail car might cost $10+ million.

GCRTA's rail car replacement consultant, LTK Engineering, said modifying the stations would negate any cost savings from having an interoperable rail fleet with standardized replacement parts, standardized training, etc. LTK and GCRTA proposed to acquire 34 new HRVs costing $3 million each and 24 new LRVs at $4 million each.

But as GCRTA and LTK representatives talked to rail car manufacturers to replace the HRVs (which LTK says the Tokyu-built cars are decaying more quickly than the Breda-built LRVs), GCRTA discovered a new challenge. HRV manufacturers today are building train cars that come in what's called "married pairs."

A light-rail vehicle on the Blue Line departs the Farnsleigh
station for the end of the line at Warrensville, site of the new
Van Aken District transit-oriented development. Heavy-rail
trains with high floors and no stairs cannot serve this line
or the Green Line because the stations have low-level
platforms, tight curves and tight clearances (AAO).

In other words, each HRV is really two shorter cars but semi-permanently connected to each other. To disconnect them requires partially disassembling them -- a costly and time-consuming process needed each time one of dozens of rail cars goes in for inspections or maintenance. Together, the married pairs are longer than GCRTA trains and their entire Central Rail Maintenance Facility near East 55th Street, built in the early 1980s, was designed around GCRTA's rail fleets.

Today's married pair HRVs are too long for GCRTA's maintenance facility, especially a highly useful and efficient transfer table that moves trains around to different work tracks inside Central Rail. Modifying Central Rail to accommodate married-pair HRVs could cost tens of millions of dollars -- potentially more than the cost of modifying GCRTA's rail stations. Modern LRVs are shorter than contemporary HRVs.

Furthermore, any investment to modify the stations and allow the same trains to travel anywhere in the GCRTA rail system, directly benefitting transit riders. In contrast, any maintenance facility modifications won't be personally seen by riders and thus can't offer the kinds of direct benefits that enhance the transit-riding experience.

Michael Schipper, GCRTA's deputy general manager of engineering & project management, said staff will prepare a briefing to the GCRTA board in late summer before it issues a request for proposals this fall to rail car manufacturers.

In it, staff will reportedly include an option of either acquiring HRVs and modifying Central Rail which could reduce its availability to the entire rail system for months. Or it could include acquiring standardized LRVs and modifying Red Line stations which could remove from service each half (west and east halves) of the line for weeks at a time.

Reequipping the rail fleet with trains that can use any rail line,
including future ones, increases the destination possibilities
and thus increases the value of land around rail stations
for transit-oriented development such as this which
now surrounds the 2015-built Little Italy-Univer-
sity Circle Red Line station (KJP).

The reason why the Red Line HRV stations would have to be modified and not the Blue/Green Line LRV stations is because the HRVs are nine inches wider than the LRVs and their floors are 14 inches higher than those in the tallest LRVs. It would be far more costly and disruptive to modify the Blue/Green Line stations. And, besides, the HRVs are decaying faster and must be replaced in five years or less, LTK says.

That means extending the trackside edge of each Red Line station platform by about 4.5 inches and raising the tracks through each Red Line station by 14 inches. At most stations, raising tracks involves a relatively simple and inexpensive addition of more ballast (a type of gravel) and tamping it (ie: tucking) it under the track at each station.

That gets a little more complicated at the four stations (West 117th, Cedar-University, Little Italy-University Circle and Superior) that are on or right next to bridges above streets. And it gets a lot complicated at the Airport station where the tracks are attached to concrete slabs. GCRTA may also want to modify Tower City station (its tracks are also attached to concrete slabs) to use platforms at the same height as the trains' floors to expedite the loading and unloading of large crowds.

Replacing the entire rail fleet and making modifications to Red Line stations or to Central Rail will cost upwards of $240 million. GCRTA has $118 million committed thus far which is near to what GCRTA needs for placing an order for the new HRVs, Schipper said.

Benefits to GCRTA riders from a standardized fleet of rail cars could someday go beyond running Green Line trains from Green Road in Shaker Heights through to Hopkins Airport without an en route transfer.

Consider if GCRTA extended the under-used Waterfront Line around the east side of downtown, next to Playhouse Square, through Cleveland State University, St. Vincent Charity Hospital, Cuyahoga Community College and back to the Red/Blue/Green lines near the East 34th Street station.

These were the final, recommended options
for extending the light-rail Waterfront Line
around downtown Cleveland, creating a
loop around the central business district.
This would become even more useful if
GCRTA used a standardized rail fleet
so that trains from all of the rail lines
could use the loop (GCRTA).

It could also help promote the development of the northeast side of downtown above the lakefront bluffs, now just a collection of parking lots and low-scale commercial buildings. A tax-increment financing district along the rail corridor could help provide a non-federal construction share and/or help sustain the downtown rail loop's operations. And best of all, trains from the Red, Blue and Green lines could all serve the downtown loop in clockwise and/or counter-clockwise directions.

One of the biggest shortcomings of GCRTA's rail system is that it has only one dominant downtown station. Tower City is located on the western side of downtown. A downtown rail loop, as GCRTA proposed in 2000 and found feasible enough that it would warrant federal funding, would put all of downtown Cleveland within a 10-minute walk of a rail transit station.

Another shortcoming of the GCRTA rail system is that it doesn't extend outward far enough. Rail extensions to Euclid and to Highland Hills/I-271 were recently studied and found to be promising (the Highland Hills extension was studied before the Van Aken District, Pinecrest and other developments were built). But GCRTA lacks the local and state funding to attract the necessary federal dollars.

Both of those extensions were assumed to involve trains operating to downtown and back only. But with a standardized rail fleet, LRVs could also operate between Highland Hills and Euclid via University Circle which is where many commuters from the eastern suburbs are bound.

More destinations make development around existing rail stations more attractive. And there are already increasing amount of station-area developments occurring downtown, in University Circle, Little Italy, Ohio City, Detroit-Shoreway, Shaker Heights and elsewhere.

These examples show not only the kind of operational flexibility that a single type of LRV fleet for the entire GCRTA rail system offers, but how it could foster greater access to jobs, station-area housing and economic development for Greater Cleveland.

END