The Justice Center plan that could transform downtown

A plan reportedly being considered for a new courthouse tower
(shown in orange) could reshape a significant portion of down-
town Cleveland with sites for new developments (yellow) and
help support proposed projects like the Magellan-Weston tower
(purple). And it could build off of the momentum from nearby
projects like the new Sherwin-Williams headquarters, with its
site plan shown in this unofficial illustration (Ian McDaniel).
CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

At the end of this month, on March 25, the Justice Center Steering Committee may make a decision on whether to build a huge new Cuyahoga County-City of Cleveland courthouse facility or rehabilitate and expand the existing one at 1200 Ontario St. According to sources, the early odds have the committee preferring a new courthouse, primarily due to its lower cost over the next 30 years.

The committee has already decided to relocate the jails out of downtown to a low-rise campus facility. The only question is where. 

For the courthouse portion, the committee wants to keep a new facility as close to the existing, 1977-built courthouse as possible. All of the support infrastructure is already there -- nearby law offices, parking, the hub of public transportation and plenty of restaurants for employees, jurors and visitors.

Part of the calculus against rehabilitating and expanding the 1977 courthouse is the cost escalation factor. Before any construction could occur at the existing site, the new jail site would have to be chosen, designed and built over the next three years. Ditto for the new police headquarters. Then the old jail and police department facilities would need to be demolished, cleared and the site cleaned.

Only then could construction of the expanded courthouse and renovations of the 1977 facility begin, with their expected completion in about five to six years. That would also mean that the 1977 courthouse's offices would have to be moved twice, including to an unidentified interim location.

Construction costs are escalating at 4-6 percent per year, so they also compound. Construction costs rising at only 4 percent annually would therefore increase by 23 percent over five years. At 6 percent over six years, the escalation would reach nearly twice as high. Also, reusing the existing site limits design efficiency and construction schedules.

Significant features discussed in
this article are shown on the above
satellite view. Other locations are
shown for reference (Google).

Consider that a new courthouse costing $400 million to $600 million could soon cost $492 million to $738 million if it had to wait for developable land to be made available at the existing Justice Center site. That influences the committee to look at sites that could be ready much earlier.

Those sites are complicated by the committee's reported desire to not build a huge skyscraper and instead limit the courthouse to a mid-rise. That's a difficult mission considering the new courthouse will contain at least 877,000 square feet of space and the availability of wide swaths of undeveloped land downtown appear to be diminishing relatively quickly.

So where might the new courthouse go? Across the street.

The hot rumor is that the committee is looking at a large city-owned property at the northeast corner of Lakeside Avenue and West 3rd Street for the new courthouse's site. That property is the Fort Huntington Park, right across Lakeside from the Justice Center.

The park was to be the home of a replica of a tiny fort that briefly stood nearby during the War of 1812 but the replica was never built. Today, it's a public greenspace that's a bit off the beaten path and battered by winds unimpeded from nearby Lake Erie, making it inhospitable for much of the year. The fort and park were named after Samuel H. Huntington, Ohio's third governor.

An even more exciting part of that rumored plan is that the 1.6-acre park would be relocated to where the Justice Center complex now stands. The existing Justice Center site totals nearly 7 acres. So the relocated park could be increased in size and still leave a significant amount of land around it for new development.

And a new, larger park would put the old park's features -- John Corrigan statue, Jesse Owens statue, Peace Officers Memorial and Oliver Perry statue -- closer to the heart of downtown where more passersby could see them and learn about them.

This is an unofficial site plan of what might be consi-
dered by the Justice Center Steering Committee later
this month. Since details are lacking, this graphic fills
in some voids by speculating on what features might
be considered now or in the future (Ian McDaniel).

The rumor comes with few details since we're still early on in the courthouse decision-making process. So there's a lot of what-if options about the park and potential development, still in the idea stage, that make this scenario more exciting.

One idea that could be considered is putting parking below the relocated park, much like Cincinnati's rejuvenated Washington Park in the Over-The-Rhine neighborhood. That would alleviate the need for developers of surrounding parcels to try to finance the least cost-effective part of downtown housing -- the parking.

A parking deck below the park could be filled night and day. At night, residents of new apartment and condo buildings would park there. In the daytime, it would be used by office workers, especially as 1,000 surface parking spaces will be lost starting next year to Sherwin-Williams' headquarters development a block away.

This scenario -- a new park surrounded by new residential development -- works whether the 1977 courthouse is demolished or if it's sold to someone wishing to try to rebuild it and convert it to housing or other new uses. When it turns 50 years old in a few years, the 1977 courthouse would be eligible for historic tax credits to help make this brutalist monolith potentially cost-effective for renovation.

But, according to contractors who built the 1977 courthouse, it wasn't well constructed. It was built at a time of much mob corruption and many corners reportedly were cut. That plus political infighting caused the $60 million project to cost $128 million.

Perhaps the only thing worth keeping might be the caissons to bedrock, if the 1977 courthouse is dismantled rather than imploded. If analyses show the caissons are still strong after demolition of the 1977 courthouse, they could be repurposed to support a modern, lighter residential high-rise on the north side of the new park.

New buildings directly and indirectly resulting from the relocation
of the county-city courthouse would alter downtown Cleveland's
skyline in a significant way. And this view from the west doesn't
include other large buildings likely to see construction in the next
year, like City Club Apartments, the new Sherwin-Williams HQ,
nuCLEus and a Tower City Riverview project (Ian McDaniel).

On the south side of the new park, along St. Clair Avenue, there is room for two more new buildings. These could also be residential high-rises. They would be across St. Clair from the Weston Group's The Standard Apartments, a 21-story building originally built as offices in 1925 and renovated in 2018.

North of the new park and west of the site of the 1977 courthouse is room for a fourth building, possibly an office building. That site would put it across Lakeside from the new courthouse tower. It would be a terrific location for offering Class A space for law office tenants.

There actually is a new tower proposed in this area. Magellan Development Group of Chicago and Weston Group of Warrensville Heights are considering a roughly 30-story residential and hotel tower at the northwest corner of West 3rd and St. Clair.

A smaller office building just north of the residential-hotel tower was reportedly under consideration too. But that component would be part of the plan only if a large office tenant or two were signed in advance. The passage of the Transformational Mixed-Use Development tax credit makes this project more likely. It could also aid developments surrounding the new park, too.

The new park -- especially if it had parking below it -- across West 3rd from the Magellan-Weston site would make this and all of the surrounding developments more attractive and more financially viable.

How does this square with the possibility that the committee wants to limit the new 877,000-plus-square-foot courthouse's height? As it turns out, potentially very well. The 1.6-acre Fort Huntington Park site is big. Its 70,000-square-foot plot of land is big enough that it could hold 2½ 1977 courthouse towers built side-by-side. The 1977 courthouse tower has 28,000-square-foot floorplates.

These are the two remaining options still on the Justice Center
Steering Committee's list. A new jail on a new site outside of
downtown has been decided. What hasn't been is what to do
with the courthouse facilities -- should they be rebuilt and
expanded on-site or built new at a new site. This summary
says the less expensive option is for the courthouse to be
built new at a new site -- but where? (CC Public Works).

So, let's play what-if again. What if the new courthouse was built on a six-story, 100-foot-tall pedestal? That would make it roughly equal in height to the 1912 courthouse next door, home to the 8th District Court of Appeals. That pedestal would allow it to accommodate nearly half of the new courthouse's space needs.

And what if the rest of the courthouse space was put in a tower atop the pedestal, right at the northeast corner of West 3rd and Lakeside? That would keep the tower from crowding up against and dominating the 1912 courthouse.

So the new tower above, offering comparable floorplates to the 1977 courthouse tower, could add another 17-18 stories. The total height of the pedestal plus tower would be 23-24 stories, or just under 400 feet high. It's a lofty building to be sure, but not if the entire 877,000-plus square feet was put in a tower with 28,000-square-foot floorplates.

Where could the parking for some of the thousands of workers and daily visitors go? Building a parking garage on the existing the Justice Center site to serve a new courthouse wouldn't work out timing-wise. The parking would have to be built at the same time as the new courthouse tower.

One possibility is to replace the 46-year-old, four-level, 1,200-space Huntington Parking Garage with a new garage with more levels -- much like Willard Park Garage behind Cleveland City Hall. In the 1990s, the city replaced that 1970s garage. It was a mirror of the Huntington garage. The new Willard Park Garage has twice as many levels and parking spaces as the old deck and so could a new Huntington garage.

Another option is for the county to build a new garage on land it already owns next to Courthouse Square, 310 Lakeside Ave. In 2003, the county acquired the site at 426 Lakeside to expand parking options for its many facilities and offices in the area. It is only a surface lot right now, offering more than 120 spaces. A deck built here could dramatically increase the number of parking spaces.

At right is Jail 1 with the courthouse tower rising next to it. Both
may soon be headed elsewhere. What could replace them on this
site could change the face of downtown Cleveland and leave it in
a better shape physically and economically than before (Google).

This site was where Felder Properties demolished the old Schoolbelles Uniforms building in the 1990s for Courthouse Tower, a 27-story mixed-use project featuring a DoubleTree Hotel. That project was abandoned in the 2001 recession.

The county also owns land below the elevated Shoreway -- a roadway that is often considered for downgrading to become a street-level boulevard through downtown to reduce a physical barrier between the central business district and the lakefront.

Downgrading the Shoreway could also spur development of the many parking lots north of the Shoreway and west of West 3rd, which is where Fort Huntington actually stood. The fort could be honored on its actual site -- not the location where Fort Washington Park is now. The county and C&K Properties Inc. own the site where the fort once stood.

Fort Huntington Park was established in 1937 for want of ideas of how else to develop this site. It was left neglected after a mostly residential neighborhood that stood here for decades was razed as part of the Group Plan of 1903. There were plans in the past for building additional court facilities or parking here but those efforts were resisted by the Early Settlers Association of the Western Reserve. The city formalized the park with major renovations in 1977.

Fort Huntington Park isn't sacred ground. The original fort, comprised of a small, star-shaped stockade built of chestnut trees was actually located 500 feet to the northwest. Built as a defense of America's border with British North America during the War of 1812, it briefly occupied a strategic location.

It was positioned west of Seneca Street (today's West 3rd) and north of Lake Street (today's Lakeside) on a bluff overlooking Lake Erie a century before the shoreline was pushed from the bottom of the bluff to farther out into the water. The fort's primary defense was a single cannon mounted on wheels.

This is where Fort Huntington stood more than 200 years ago in
defense of this nation during the War of 1812. We're looking west
from West 3rd Street along Summit Street, below the Shoreway.
If the Shoreway bridge is someday replaced with a street-level
boulevard, the land along it could become more attractive to
development, including an appropriately sited park to honor
the brief service of Fort Huntington to this nation (Google).

No one died here in defense of a nation here as no battles were fought here. A British warship, the Queen Charlotte, appeared off-shore in June 1813 as British forces sought to retake the Northwest Territory for British North America. But a sudden thunderstorm discouraged the ship's commander from attacking the tiny village of Cleveland and its 250 citizens.

Forty years later, the actual fort site was chosen for the city's first new Union Station railroad terminal below the bluff with the Lakeview Hotel, the Lake Shore Hotel and a smattering of residences atop the hill. No trace of the fort remained by the late 1800s, according to Sanborn Fire Insurance maps of 1886.

When there is a massive project like the new Justice Center on the drawing board, it's an opportunity to shake the dust off some old ideas and put them on the front burner. One of those could be to properly honor a small facet of the Battle of Lake Erie with a replica of Fort Huntington where the fort actually stood, plus displays of Clevelanders' efforts in building ships that served in the battle.

There is a lot involved if the county seeks to build the new courthouse on the site of Fort Huntington Park. But in so doing, it could put a larger park in a more hospitable, accessible location and make its surrounding land available to development to increase residential, Class A office and ground-floor restaurant/retail offerings in an attractive, urban park setting.

It may well be the best option available to address the goals and live within the constraints established by the Justice Center Steering Committee. And it would leave downtown Cleveland in a better, more vibrant condition than it was. Again, this is just a rumor, but it's a very intriguing one. We'll see in what direction the committee goes later this month.

END

Sherwin-Williams' HQ may alienate young talent it wants to attract

Sherwin-Williams' Build Our Future committee
continues to use the BOK Park Plaza as its mass-
ing sample for its new headquarters in downtown
Cleveland. But the building's interior design may
determine whether the HQ achieves one of its ob-
 jectives - attracting young talent (Pickard Chilton).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

Sherwin-Williams' (SHW) stodgy corporate culture is colliding with its desire to attract young talent. That collision is becoming more evident as the planning advances on SHW's new global headquarters. That's unfortunate for SHW and for Cleveland since one of the major goals SHW has for its new HQ is to attract young talent to its company and to Cleveland.

We have seen before that SHW doesn't excel at public-relations nor does it seem to accommodate creative young people sometimes. Both were in evidence when it fired a part-time employee and college student Tony Piloseno who had amassed over 1.2 million followers on his paint-mixing TikTok channel that was giving SHW free publicity. Bloomberg named it one of the five worst PR disasters of 2020.

But as SHW executives, organized in a C-suite-level committee, direct its Build Our Future (BOF) efforts and screen dozens of architectural options by hundreds of design team members, there appears to be a growing frustration about SHW's HQ as well. This is especially true as the design team starts to work outward into the office floors from the building's elevator/stairwell core.

SHW's HQ design architects are from New Haven-based Pickard Chilton and their programming architects are from Cleveland-based Vocon Partners.

The HQ's interior programming is based on the premise of an open floor concept. So while the Pickard Chilton architects who designed the interior spaces at Qualtrics Tower in Seattle are on the job designing SHW's HQ, don't expect the same urban accoutrements here -- thanks to SHW. Seattle's tech scene has a proven track record of attracting young talent and is reflected in its built environment.

Open-floor offices and low-rise cubicles appear to be favored for
employees by SHW's C-suite executives  (QualityCubicles).

That's less true in Cleveland. So instead of traditional corner offices or more modern office pods, coves and meeting booths, look for low-rise cubicles throughout open floors in SHW's HQ. And instead of exposed ductwork and utilities, designers are looking at a drop ceiling of acoustic tiles to reduce noise and dust. On the bright side, the open floors will be surrounded by lots of big windows.

The BOF committee is getting pushback, notably from younger persons, on the open-floor design as well as for a corporate-imposed design principle of having employees work from any cubicle or workstation. SHW employees may be able to request whether they will have a sit or stand cubicle/workstation.

Over to the new Center Of Excellence...

If SHW isn't spending money to make the office tower workspaces a more welcoming place for workers, they appear to be willing to invest extra into the company's new Center Of Excellence (CofE) on Public Square.

This facility, to be off-limits to the public like the rest of the HQ, is labeled a "learning center and amenity" space on SHW's official site plans. Designs are coming into focus for that two- to three-story, roughly 50,000- to 80,000-square-foot building.

The CofE will be used as SHW's talent recruitment venue. It will have conference facilities for employee training and corporate functions, a small company museum for touring new recruits and VIPs, plus a rooftop lounge, perfect for after-work cocktail parties. If it doesn't get too expensive, the CofE's physical form may complement Public Square's butterfly curves, visible from overhead.

Another raw planning sample is the Devon Energy Auditorium
in Oklahoma City -- across the street from the BOK Park Plaza
and connected to it by overhead, enclosed walkways. The audi-
torium has served as a planning sample for SHW's new Center
of Excellence proposed facing Public Square (Pickard Chilton).

Connecting the CofE to the office tower and then the office tower to the parking garage will be two "sky bridges" -- enclosed pedestrian walkways. One sky bridge will be above West 3rd Street and the other will be above Frankfort. Neither will be open to the public.

The sky bridges reportedly were met with opposition by City Planning Commission Director Freddy Collier Jr. But design team members apparently consider the city's building code sufficiently vague on the pedestrian bridges that they are proceeding with their inclusion in the HQ plans.

In 2019, the city approved an enclosed pedestrian bridge above Ontario Street, between the JACK Cleveland Casino and a parking garage. It will be the second such bridge into the casino. To get it, JACK Entertainment had to win approval from the City Planning Commission, City Council and the mayor’s committee on streetscapes and infrastructure, which it did. This second casino walkway hasn't been built yet.

Collier did not respond to an e-mail from NEOtrans seeking confirmation and comment on his reported opposition to SHW's sky bridge.

On to the parking garage...

Design team sources said the proposed SHW parking deck at the northwest corner of West 3rd and Frankfort will not have enough spaces for all of SHW's employees. While the exact number of spaces isn't known, it will likely be roughly half of the HQ's workforce. The HQ is being designed to accommodate 3,500 employees.

A literally narrow example of what SHW has in mind for Frankfort
Avenue in downtown Cleveland is this skinny, unnamed alley in
Oklahoma City. It serves as an example because it is a dead-
zone. The parking garage lacks any accessory uses along
it and the alley has loading docks for the BOK
Park Plaza in the background (Google).

Commuters may park in other lots, take public transportation or walk/bike to work. Additionally, up to 1,000 existing surface parking lot spaces will be erased by SHW's HQ.

As noted in an earlier article, SHW's HQ design team members with whom NEOtrans spoke acknowledged the garage will have a liner building along West 3rd to comply with the city's building code.

That liner building must hide the parking deck behind it along its entire street frontage with at least 70 percent of that building comprised of active uses -- i.e. uses that generally include retailers, restaurants, hotel lobbies, residences, cultural amenities and recreational space.

The design team reportedly considers Frankfort an alley, not a street. If SHW is correct, it would not be required to add a liner building or any active uses along Frankfort under the city's code.

As the design team continues to use Pickard Chilton's Bank of Oklahoma (BOK) Park Plaza as its massing model, they are also using some of its design features for inspiration as well. Sources said team members consider Frankfort to be like the alley that is between BOK Park Plaza and the tower's north parking deck.

Before SHW's architects came to Cleveland to design its HQ, some
had worked on designing the interior of Qualtrics Tower in Seattle.
This isn't a cafeteria but a comfortable office setting designed to
foster collaboration or privacy as needed (Centrel Imagery).

That includes the loading docks for the BOK Park Plaza, which are accessed via that unnamed alley. On the site plan released by SHW, it shows a notch or backsquare in the northwest corner of the office tower's outline, off Frankfort. That is the proposed location of the SHW HQ's loading dock.

The loading dock and the inactive garage wall may dash the hopes of those wanting to see SHW embrace past visions by Stark Enterprises or Weston Group. Those developers proposed turning Frankfort into a walkable narrow street of lively cafes, restaurants and shops on the ground floors of mid- and high-rise buildings. Instead, SHW is designing Frankfort to be a dead zone of trucks, service vehicles and blank walls.

While that opportunity appears lost, some may be regained by SHW's reported desire to farm out to developers the western and northern flanks of its HQ campus. Those flanks, totaling some 2+ acres, line West 6th Street and St. Clair Avenue. With them, SHW is hoping to entice expansion of mixed uses already in the Warehouse District along those streets to serve employees, customers, suppliers and visitors.

Revisiting the issue of the office tower's height...

As mentioned above, the design team has used BOK Park Plaza as their HQ model. BOF committee members liked the 27-story building's basic massing as well as its modern glass box style with which to start their design discussions. The 430-foot-tall, 700,000-square-foot BOK Park Plaza actually has rectangular floor plates shaped like parallelograms.

After much debate, BOF committee members increased the massing height to 32 stories and again to 35. Average floor heights appear to be in the 14- to 15-foot-per-floor range, which would put SHW's HQ height in the vicinity of 500 feet. That would make it the fifth-tallest building in downtown Cleveland. 

This is one of the few illustrations secured by NEOtrans from SHW's
design team. It shows the BOK Park Plaza tower placed on the
northwest corner of Superior Avenue and West 3rd Street, thus
giving the team an idea of what the SHW HQ could look like.

But at this point, there are no renderings done. All that the team has is a concept for a podium that would stick out the back side of the tower by Frankfort. By contrast, the southeast corner by Superior Avenue and West 3rd Street would likely rise straight up to the top of the tower from the sidewalk possibly with few, if any, building stepbacks, design team members say.

Security-conscious SHW will not have any public uses along the sidewalks of its HQ podium nor in the lobby. Cafeterias, a coffee shop or other services will be on the second floor, up an escalator/stairwell from the lobby. They will be for employees only.

Another interior building design feature that the team has completed is the building's core -- elevators and stairwells. The designed height of this core can be changed pretty easily and it may need to be.

Committee members have been watching Pickard Chilton digitally manipulate its glass box massing to add subtle curves or angles to it, then measure the impacts on building height, width of floorplates, building programming and, most importantly, cost.

A subtle curve added to the building's midriff could add or subtract a story or two to/from the building's height. Or angling the building from ground to crown could cause more significant impacts. So for those who want to know exactly how tall the building will be, that can't be answered yet since the team lacks an exterior rendering -- but they are getting close to creating one.

This is the only SHW HQ design illustration to be released officially.
In the absence of other information secured by NEOtrans from the
secretive coatings giant, this graphic might otherwise instigate
only questions. This article provides the answers (SHW).

Speaking of illustrations, since hundreds of people are now involved in the HQ planning process, SHW executives and design team members are prohibited from sharing project illustrations to its own HQ design team let alone the media. Instead, they're only sharing word descriptions internally.

That little tidbit tells you how secrecy-conscious this coatings company is, and not just about its new headquarters project. Sources would put themselves at risk of being fired because of SHW's compartmentalized process would allow them to more easily identify where leaks are coming from.

And, besides, they're working on so many variations of designs at this stage, it would be pointless to share them anyway. What they're considering now isn't necessarily what they're going to build.

For example, the site plan that was publicly released in February was the end product of winnowing the options from 40 different variations of site plans. Many of the early versions had the office tower on the former Jacobs Lot fronting Public Square. The 40 variations were pared to 30 the following week, then to 20, then 10, then 3 and finally to one.

One last design item offers hope for PR "disaster" SHW -- a company that sometimes acts like it's the National Security Agency. Their existing incognito HQ at 101 W. Prospect Ave. has no signs or logos indicating that it's the central offices of a multi-billion-dollar worldwide company.

That's apparently going to change at the new HQ. Sources on the design team say that there will be two big SHW logos atop the new office tower. One logo will face east and the other will face west. That seems to underscore native Clevelanders' contentions that the city has no north or south sides, just east and west.

END

New Flats East Bank tower to be shorter, groundbreaking delayed

Looking north along West 10th Street and the light-rail Water-
front Line, the proposed start of the second half of the Flats
East Bank development is seen next to the Main Avenue/
Shoreway Bridge. But the final product may be shorter
and wider than what is shown here. A later phase is
seen along Front Street in the background (HSB).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

In addition to a spate of high-rise developments on the horizon, there are also new low- to mid-rise developments just around the corner, too. One of them is a project that was originally proposed to be a mid- to high-rise building.

Instead, a mixed-use building representing the first salvo for the second half of the Flats East Bank development will be reduced from 11 or 12 stories down to seven or eight stories. And, as NEOtrans learned this week, its construction timeline will be pushed back by about five or six months.

Called Kenect Cleveland, this component that previously featured 325 micro-unit apartments, 25,000 square feet of co-working space, 22,000 square feet of ground-floor retail and a parking structure had already lost its planned multi-screen cinema due to a declining movie theater industry.

Kenect Cleveland developer Akara Partners CEO Rajen Shastri confirmed in a March 2 e-mail that its portion of the project will "no longer (be) above six stories." Kenect is a brand name prefix for multiple developments in multiple cities by Akara Partners of Chicago.

Site plan of Flats East Bank showing the second half of the pro-
posed development, featuring up to 2,000 new residential plus
tens of thousands of square feet of commercial space (HSB).

Scott Wolstein, CEO of the Wolstein Group and a partner in the project with Akara, clarified that Akara's six-story structure will be built above a podium. The podium of retail and restaurant spaces apparently is the responsibility of Wolstein. He would not elaborate on each partner's roles in the joint venture, however.

But the construction style is no secret. Typically, in a new, mixed-use, mid-rise building in Cleveland, the first story or two is built from reinforced concrete and accommodates commercial uses such as retail or restaurants. Above it is usually a stick-built (ie: wood-framed) apartment building.

That combination provides for a strong, mid-rise structure that is financially feasible to build in Cleveland's low-rent, high-construction-cost market.

A shorter building may mean fewer housing units or retail spaces, unless they spread northward into the area where the movie theater was planned. But Wolstein said those details have yet to be ironed out.

A conceptual image of the next planned building for Flats East
Bank. This concept has already changed. Instead it will be less
tall and possibly spread out more evenly on the site (HSB).

"We are not prepared to get into that level of detail," he said. "It will all be in the public domain when we submit plans to the city for permits."

In December, Cleveland City Council extended by 30 years an existing 30-year Tax Increment Financing (TIF) arrangement for the Flats East Bank development that began a decade ago. That will let Wolstein's Flats East Bank affiliates forego non-school property taxes on the 23-acre parcel until 2071.

It will also allow Wolstein to refinance an existing $30 million loan from the federal Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD), thereby reducing his payments and freeing up cash for the next phase of development.

After the city extended the TIF, Akara acquired the 2.45-acre property for the next phase, bounded by West 10th and 11th streets, Front Street and Main Avenue for $6.1 million, county records show. At about the same time, Wolstein and Akara's Shastri said they had hoped to break ground on their mixed-use building in June.

On the first day of fall last year, the third phase of Flats East Bank
was taking shape on the riverfront. It will have an Asian fusion
restaurant, a nightclub/restaurant, plus a live country music
club topped by a cigar and whiskey bar (Iryna Tkachenko).

"HUD will take longer than June unfortunately and (so we're) probably looking at year end," Shastri said in his e-mail.

The first phase of the Flats East Bank development, valued at $275 million, consisted of a  23-story, 480,000 square foot office tower that's 95 percent leased, an eight-story, 150-room Aloft Hotel and 30,000 square foot of restaurant and retail space. It was completed in 2013.

In 2016, the second phase was finished, totaling $146 million not including boardwalks, streets and other infrastructure. This phase featured an eight-story, 240-unit apartment building with 100,000 square feet of ground-floor retail and restaurant space. The apartments are more than 80 percent full and all of the restaurant/retail spaces are leased.

The first two phases were a joint venture of the Wolstein Group and Fairmount Properties. Fairmount sold its interest in Flats East Bank in 2018. Soon thereafter, Akara Partners entered the picture.

Site of the next phase of development on Flats East Bank is this
2.45-acre parking lot, seen here from West 11th Street at Main
Avenue. A groundbreaking for a seven- to eight-story mixed-
use building with hundreds of apartments over retail has
been pushed back to the end of this year (KJP).

Later phases of Flats East Bank could total nearly 2,000 residential units and tens of thousands of square feet of commercial space including co-working spaces, retail and restaurants. Each new phase of development would be added based on demand and market conditions. In total, it could be valued at about $550 million, Wolstein said.

Total value of investment by Wolstein and his original Flats partner, the Fairmount Properties, in the first half of Flats East Bank totaled nearly $500 million. Combined with the second half of development, the total investment in the Flats East Bank could exceed $1 billion.

The long-range plans were revealed last October during Downtown Cleveland Alliance's Episode 22 of its "Downtown Now!" Webinar and first reported on by NEOtrans. In his presentation, Wolstein described the growing market for the massive, long-term development plan.

"I have four millennial children," he said. "It was in vogue for children of that age to pick up their roots to go Chicago, New York, San Francisco and so forth. I think we've gotten to the point where people are giving a second look to Cleveland: 'You know what, I really don't need to leave. I can live here and make a good life in Cleveland.'"

END

Seventeen 10+ story projects may see construction in the next year

Up to 17 real estate development projects of 10 stories or more
could see construction start by this time next year. Four are re-
novation/conversion projects. The rest are new construction. A
few of them may get their start dates pushed back farther into
2022. And a few surprises may come out of nowhere as well.
 One thing's for sure, it's going to be a busy time in Cleveland.
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

In Cleveland, there are 17 buildings of more than 10 stories tall that could see their construction start in the next year. And with out-of-town developers showing greater interest in Greater Cleveland, especially after the state passed the Transformational Mixed-Use Development (TMUD) tax credit, there may be another building or two that comes out of nowhere and surprises us in the next 12 months.

What's most encouraging is that about half of the projects definitely aren't or probably aren't going to be seeking TMUD tax credits to close their financing gaps. It isn't known for certain which developers will apply for what projects since the TMUD program isn't up and running yet. 

However, some developers have already made their intentions known, publicly and privately, regarding the TMUD program. We should find out officially soon because the first applicant projects, according to the new  TMUD law, need to be certified as TMUDs by the Ohio Tax Credit Authority before the end of the state's fiscal year June 30.

Also, note that this list includes renovations and new construction. There are four 10+ story-tall buildings whose renovations could get underway by this time next year. At least one is waiting to tap into the TMUD program which can benefit $50+ million projects that are either 15+ stories tall or measure 350,000 square feet or more among all connected buildings or parcels.

The pending renovations (so far) are:

The 22-story 55 Public Square building is due to be sold to K&D
Group which seeks to redevelop it with mixed use (Google).

55 Public Square -- 55 Public Square, 22 stories, 480,000 square feet. Originally planned to be renovated into higher-end offices by Optima Management Group, alleged criminal matters are forcing its sale to K&D Group which is instead seeking a mix of residential and commercial uses. K&D will likely seek a TMUD credit to make a go of this project.

The biggest pending real estate development project in Cleveland,
be it new construction or renovation, is the conversion of the 1.3-
million-square-foot Union Commerce Bank into 870 apartments
and 90,000 square feet of commercial space (Millennia).

Centennial -- 925 Euclid Ave., 21 stories, 1.36 million square feet. Centennial is a mixed-use development of workforce housing, retail and offices. Millennia Cos. has considered TMUD credits for this project. Centennial and nuCLEus (see below) were set to see construction start a year ago but both were put on hold with the onset of the pandemic.

Redevelopment of the Rockefeller Building could
start in the next year and repurpose much of the
building with micro-unit apartments (KJP).

Rockefeller Building -- 614 W. Superior Ave., 17 stories, 261,264 square feet. According to preliminary plans, micro-unit apartments are planned on floors 5-16, offices on floors 2-4 and ground-floor retail or other commercial uses are planned. Some minor repair work on the building's exterior has started already. This first phase of development might not involve a TMUD credit.

The Baker Building, originally built in 1919 as
the Fidelity Mortgage Building, may be repur-
posed as a boutique hotel (LoopNet).

Baker Building -- 1900 E. 6th St., 11 stories, 54,000 square feet. The 102-year-old building is likely to be repurposed as a boutique hotel. After the Walton Enterprises buys a building, it typically sits on a building for 24 months before starting development work. The Baker Building was acquired a year ago. As is, it wouldn't qualify for TMUD credits.

And, here's the rest of the list. More than a dozen new-construction projects creating buildings of 10 or more stories could see construction start by March 2022. They are presented here alphabetically:

The 24-story Artisan apartment tower is set to become the tallest
building in University Circle in a couple of years (FitzGerald).

Artisan -- 10600 Chester Ave., 24 stories, 234 feet tall, 306,200 square feet. Construction could start by the end of this month on 298 market-rate apartments over 287 structured parking spaces and 14,005 square feet of ground-floor retail.

Chicago-based White Oak Realty Partners is on an accelerated timetable to build Artisan, University Circle's tallest building. Thus, White Oaks is unlikely to seek TMUD credits. This, Library Lofts (see below) and a 488-space public parking garage will comprise the first phase of the Circle Square mega-development.

With each new iteration, Bridgeworks keeps getting taller. This
latest plan has it at 18 stories and 200 feet tall (MASS/LDA).

Bridgeworks -- 2429 Superior Viaduct, 18 stories, 200 feet tall, 230,000 square feet. After their successful efforts in building the nearby Church+State in Ohio City's Hingetown, Grammar Properties and M. Panzica Development hope to start construction of Bridgeworks by mid-summer.

The prospect of a TMUD credit helped shape the project's more vertical design. A 130-room hotel that was planned next to the 170-unit, mixed-income apartment building will instead be put above the apartments. The square footage didn't change.

Site prep has started for the construction of the 23-story City Club
Apartments on one of Euclid Avenue's last parking lots (Vocon).

City Club Apartments -- 720 Euclid Ave., 23 stories, 250 feet tall, 250,000 square feet. One could argue that construction is already under way as city of Cleveland utility relocations started in February to make way for the construction tower crane.

As of this week, the general contractor hasn't gotten the official green light from the developer and property owner, an affiliate of David Goldberg, to start site work. That go-ahead isn't expected until mid- to late-March.

Dream Hotel would rise across Euclid Avenue from the 10-story
University Hotel & Suites, now under renovation (Bialosky).

Dream Hotel -- 3635 Euclid Ave., 19 stories, 200+ feet, 350,000+ square feet. There are conflicting reports about the future of this project. Last fall, Dodge Reports said the project was delayed which a local official confirmed. Recently, Dodge Reports said the project was abandoned which two sources disputed, saying the project was merely on hold.

Dream Hotel representatives couldn't be reached for comment. When the project was first announced in May, representatives of the national hotel chain said they hoped to start construction by now. Here's hoping the unique, event-space hotel combined with the Masonic Temple is still active and starts construction by this time next year.

Sheila and Eric Samson Pavilion at the Cleveland Clinic Medical
School may be comparable in scale, 477,000 square feet, but the
proposed pathogens center will likely be more vertical (Foster).

Global Center for Pathogen Research & Human Health -- near East 105th St. and Carnegie Ave., about 20 stories, about 300 feet tall, up to 500,000 square feet. As a part of the State of Ohio's Innovation District program, Cleveland Clinic and other partners will build a $200 million to $300 million pathogens center tower at/near the location noted here, sources said.

When? The Clinic began reaching out to construction management firms last fall to build the pathogens center. And the Ohio Development Services Agency recently awarded a 15-year job creation tax credit for the pathogen center that would take effect Jan. 1, 2024. Construction on a similarly sized Sherwin-Williams research center in Brecksville may take two years. Thus it seems possible that work might begin within a year on the pathogens center.

Add about 5-7 stories to this 10-story office building, originally
planned to be the second phase of the Market Square project,
and make it residential. That's what is now planned (HPA).

INTRO phase 2 -- 2099 W. 25th St., about 15-17 stories, up to 175 feet, up to 250,000 square feet. A 10-story office building was originally planned for phase two of its Market Square development. Due to the soft office market, Harbor Bay Real Estate Advisors of Chicago is instead considering an apartment building that would approach the site's 175-foot height limit, set by the city's building code.

Reaching such heights might allow the project to be eligible for a TMUD tax credit. But before phase 2 could be considered, Harbor Bay will need to weigh the progress of first-phase leasing starting this summer. Company representatives said their learning experiences in building the mass-timber first phase would allow them to build a mass-timber second phase faster and less expensively, possibly starting in early 2022.

This is one of two remaining possible outcomes for the
Justice Center Courthouse Tower. But the jail will move
to a campus site outside of downtown (PMC).

Justice Center Courthouse Tower -- site unknown, 15-35 stories, 225-550 feet tall, at least 877,000 square feet. At the end of March, the Justice Center Executive Steering Committee may decide whether to rebuild and expand the existing, poorly built courthouse tower at 1200 Ontario St. or replace it with a less costly, efficiently designed courts facility somewhere downtown.

At this time, it appears that the new courthouse tower may be favored due to its potentially lower cost. If so, and depending on the site chosen, it could result in a mid-rise tower of about 15-20 stories. But some are interested in a smaller site and a more expensive, taller tower. If a site is chosen by summer, it is possible however unlikely that construction could get started in early 2022. A longer timeline is more realistic.

Library Lofts mixed-income apartments will rise on Euclid Avenue
with the new, taller Artisan in the background at left (Bialosky).

Library Lofts -- 10553 Euclid Ave., 11 stories, about 115 feet tall, about 152,000 square feet. Construction of this 205-unit mixed-income apartment building over the new MLK Branch Library will coincide with that of Artisan, listed at the top.

A late-March groundbreaking date still appears to be the goal but plans for the new branch library haven't been approved yet by the City Planning Commission. A shell for the library may be provided with the MLK branch added near the end of construction.

Although the actual form of the proposed Magellan-Weston
development is unknown, its principal structure, a hotel and
 residential building, may be about 30 stories (Ian McDaniel).

Magellan-Weston tower -- 310 W. St. Clair Ave., about 30 stories, 300-325 feet tall, potentially 500,000 square feet. A mixed-use development featuring a residential-hotel tower over a pedestal of parking with a future office addition is contemplated by Chicago-based developer Magellan Development Group and Cleveland-based Weston Group.

This project will almost certainly depend on it being awarded a TMUD tax credit to make the numbers work. It along the Rockefeller Building and 55 Public Square rehabs are spin-off projects resulting from the new Sherwin-William headquarters. If this proposed tower wins a TMUD credit early on, it could see construction within the next year although a later start date is more likely.

Originally, nuCLEus was to be a 600-footer as this view looking
east on Prospect Avenue portrayed in 2015. Now that Stark has
succeeded in getting the TMUD tax credit program passed, all
 design options may be back on the table (NBBJ).

nuCLEus -- 420 Prospect Ave., 25-54 stories, 350-647 feet tall, 400,000-1 million square feet. At long last, Stark Enterprises got the TMUD program passed into law -- a program motivated by nuCLEus. Yet, one year ago, Stark representatives were within days of making an announcement about a potential nuCLEus groundbreaking. And then the pandemic hit.

Much of Stark's portfolio is retail- and college housing-based -- sectors slammed by the pandemic. In January, Stark got a $22 million injection of cash from U.S. Real Estate Credit Holdings III-A, LP. It was leveraged through newly merged Stark affiliates that own student housing around Kent State University's campus. The question is, if it wins a TMUD credit, will Stark go back to its original nuCLEus plan of a 54-story Jenga-styled tower?

The BOK Park Plaza tower in Oklahoma City is
being used by architects as a placeholder massing
for the Sherwin-Williams headquarters tower. But
the final form will be about eight stories taller and
may add curves or new angles (Pickard Chilton).

Sherwin-Williams global headquarters -- 1450 W. 3rd St., 34-35 stories, 475-525 feet, 1 million square feet. The coatings giant said it hopes to break ground at the end of 2021 on its new headquarters complex with designs to be submitted to the city by summer.

Included is an office tower at the northwest corner of West 3rd and Superior Avenue, a new Center of Excellence on Public Square, plus a massive parking garage at the northwest corner of West 3rd and Frankfort Avenue for up to 1,000 cars. No TMUD application will be submitted by Sherwin-Williams.

One of Cleveland undeveloped waterfronts is the one that's closest
to Public Square. This conceptual rendering shows a potential pro-
 gram of work for Rock Ohio to develop that waterfront (Vocon).

Tower City Riverview --  115 Huron Rd., 15-25 stories, 225+ feet tall, unknown as to mass. Two of the fastest-growing mortgage companies in the nation have the bulk of their office employment in downtown Cleveland, or soon will. CrossCountry Mortgage will move its headquarters from Brecksville to the east side of downtown. And Rocket Mortgage is rapidly expanding its offices in the Higbee Building at Tower City Center. But will they stay there?

Sources say preliminary site evaluation is under way by design and engineering firm IBI Group of Toronto for developing the Riverview parking lots between Huron Road and the Cuyahoga River. Recent massings by Vocon architects for Rock Ohio's affiliate Bedrock Real Estate show a mix of offices, residential and recreation for this area. This is a potential applicant for a TMUD tax credit.

Two towers are planned to rise at the north end of the Van Aken
District and next to the Shaker Heights Country Club (SCB).

Van Aken District Phase 2 -- 19999 Farnsleigh Rd., 17 stories, 190 feet tall, about 230,000 square feet. A likely TMUD candidate, this project would add about 225 market-rate apartments to the new Van Aken District in a stunning design of two connected towers. One tower is proposed to be 17 stories and the other 16.

RMS Corp. is trying to position the Van Aken District, located at the end of the light-rail Blue Line, as the downtown of Shaker Heights. There is already the 12-story Tower East office building immediately east of the Van Aken District. Additional offices are planned as part of the mixed-use district but will likely wait until the office market warms up again.

In total, that makes seven to nine projects out of 17 listed here (including the four renovations listed at the top) that could be potential applicants for TMUD tax credits. That's a welcome sign as it will leave more credits in the future for more projects, including some of which that were listed in this recent project inventory.

Many of the projects or potential projects listed in that inventory may not be ready to see construction start in the coming year. Or, there simply is a lack of information to say whether those projects have enough financing to move forward. But suffice it to say, the next year and beyond are going to be busy times in Cleveland's real estate construction industry.

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Little Italy development site back in play

These preliminary views show a 105-unit apartment building
proposed along East 123rd Street at the north end of Little Italy,
next to Lakeview Cemetery. Also planned as part of the develop-
ment are nine for-sale townhomes along Coltman Road (GLSD).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

After many years of false starts and litigation, a large vacant parcel at the north end of Little Italy is back in play for a new real estate development.

Property owner University Circle Inc. has selected a partnership of Property Advisors Group of Beachwood and M. Panzica Development of Cleveland to develop what is called the Woodhill Supply site. The vacant 2.14-acre property is located in the 1800 block of East 123rd Street and Coltman Road.

Preliminary illustrations of the partnership's vision for the site were submitted earlier this week to the city of Cleveland's Building Department for a zoning review. The zoning review will reveal what, if any, variances may be needed prior to securing a building permit from the city.

Plans also have to be approved by the local design-review committee and the city's Landmarks Commission as Little Italy is an historic district. GLSD Architects, LLC, a Geis Companies affiliate, is the project's designer.

Early planning drafts show a 114-unit housing development offering a mix of for-sale and rental units. It includes an L-shaped, 105-unit Woodhill Apartments building along East 123rd next to Lakeview Cemetery plus two new streets, both linking East 123rd and Coltman and proposed new parking lots adding about 105 spaces.

The Woodhill Supply site is the location of the proposed Panzica-
Property Advisors Group development (Cuyahoga County).

The roughly 98,000-square-foot apartment building is proposed to be mostly four stories tall with a section at the northeast corner, away from existing housing, standing five stories. Also proposed is a row of nine, three-story-tall, for-sale townhouses along Coltman. The townhomes would have their own garages on the ground-floor of each unit and accessed from behind.

Plans show the apartment building with a ground-floor lobby, on-site management/leasing office, gym, two parcel rooms, as well as a meeting room with kitchen. Outdoor grassy areas include tables and benches plus a play area for children. Those plans are being studied by the neighborhood's design-review committee.

"We're working through the preliminary design discussions with the stakeholders," said development principal Mike Panzica. "Still premature to discuss in detail."

UCI President Chris Ronayne also said it was premature to discuss the proposed project.

This would be the second Little Italy endeavor by the partnership of M. Panzica Development and Property Advisors Group. Their first, Baricelli Inn Apartments, is under construction on Cornell Road next to the historic Baricelli Inn, an 1896-built stone mansion that was previously the Washington Place Bistro & Inn. The new-build apartment building will have 44 housing units while the historic inn will be converted into a dozen apartments.

An early draft from last fall of what the for-sale townhomes along
Coltman Road could look like, and how they could screen views
of the apartment building from some nearby homes (contributed).

For UCI, it's their second potential asset disposition this year to a developer seeking to inject new residential life into an underutilized property. At Ford Drive and Hessler Road, developers Rick Maron and Russell Berusch want to renovate two historic buildings with nine apartments and add behind them a new building with 23 micro-unit apartments.

Since UCI isn't a governmental agency, it isn't subject to public bidding requirements. Instead, for each asset disposition, UCI sent requests for information to several developers to solicit responses from them. The responses were reviewed by UCI's Development Committee.

At a Feb. 10 community meeting on the Ford-Hessler development, UCI's Vice President of Community Development Debbie Berry said UCI was looking for particular developers. Specifically, they were looking for developers that had the capacity to deliver projects and had experience in working in the community development organization's service area.

The Little Italy site became available after Woodhill Supply Inc., a distributor of kitchen and bath materials, moved out of the neighborhood in 2010 for locations in Cleveland and Willoughby.

In 2005, Woodhill Supply President Arnold Kaufman and salesman Michael Semlar were convicted of their involvement in a Cleveland Water Division corruption case and sentenced to prison. The vacated buildings caught fire in 2015 and their heavily damaged remnants were demolished. No documents regarding cause of the fire were immediately available. 

Preliminary site plan showing a redevelopment concept for
the Woodhill Supply site in Little Italy (GLSD).

In 2014, Visconsi Companies Ltd. of Pepper Pike proposed a 205-unit apartment complex featuring two buildings, each six stories tall. One would have been along Coltman and the other along East 123rd. Between them was to be a two-level parking garage with the first level below ground and the second level topped by a green roof.

Although the project was approved by the Landmarks Commission and granted variances by the Board of Zoning Appeals, a neighbor of the development site filed multiple legal challenges over several years against the city, its zoning administrator and then-property owner East 123 St. Properties, Ltd. for approving the project.

Despite his legal defeats and mostly unsuccessful appeals, the resident wore down Visconsi which gave notice in March 2018 to the Eighth District Court of Appeals that it would no longer pursue its option to acquire the property. The resident promptly dropped the legal challenges.

In March 2019, UCI acquired the Woodhill Supply property for $1.975 million from East 123 St. Properties. The property is next to UCI's operations center and police department. However, UCI determined that disposing of the Woodhill Supply site for redevelopment offered its highest and best use.

Tyler Kapusta contributed to this article.

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