Library Lofts high-rise construction starting soon

Although site work on the first new tower at Circle Square in Uni-
versity Circle began three months ago, a formal groundbreaking
ceremony was held July 29 for the 24-story Artisan apartment
building. Site preparation work is due to start next week for
the next tower at Circle Square - the 11-story Library Lofts
offering apartments over a new library (Chris Ronayne).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

Here comes another major construction project that will produce a tower crane in the sky over Cleveland, and over University Circle in particular. And we're just getting warmed up, Cleveland.

Site preparation work is scheduled to start on or about Aug. 2 for Library Lofts -- the next phase of the massive Circle Square development. A tower crane for this project will likely arrive on the site well before Thanksgiving. And with all of the construction happening in Cleveland, there will be a lot for which to be thankful.

Chris Ronayne, president of the neighborhood development corporation University Circle Inc., confirmed to NEOtrans about the start of construction work for Library Lofts, 10541 Euclid Ave.

Cleveland-based Midwest Development Partners' roughly $55 million, 11-story building will feature 207 market-rate apartments above a new, two-story Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) Branch of the Cleveland Public Library (CPL) -- hence the name Library Lofts.

It will be the second of as many as six towers to rise in the $300+ million Circle Square development, bounded by Euclid, East 105th Street, Chester Avenue and MLK Drive.

Designed to look like bookshelves, the 11-story Library Lofts will
provide round-the-clock source of customers to retailers and restau-
rants in a growing University Circle (Bialosky, SO-IL/JKURTZ).

It is near the location of where a dense, vibrant neighborhood called Doan's Corners stood. It was Cleveland's second downtown. But its theaters, shops and residential hotels declined starting in the 1950s and, except for the 13-story Fenway Manor, was completely demolished by 1990.

Work began in early April for the Artisan, 10600 Chester, a 24-story, 267-foot-tall residential-over-retail tower that will be the tallest building in University Circle. Artisan will have 298 market-rate apartments and 287 parking spaces over 14,005 square feet of ground-floor retail. It will overtake One University Circle which held the title as University Circle's tallest since 2018.

"University Circle was Cleveland's second downtown a century ago. And it is again thanks to investments like Circle Square," said Ronayne, who announced nearly a month ago he is running for the office of Cuyahoga County Executive.

The MLK Branch Library will remain open during construction. Once the new library is opened, the existing one, built in 1970, will be demolished for a future phase in the Circle Square development. Plans show a residential tower or possibly a hotel could rise on the old library site.

After the city approved Library Lofts' final design May 21, general contractor Panzica Construction set up a construction timetable for the project. That schedule shows, starting about Aug. 2, Chicago-based Power Construction will build 50 temporary library parking spaces on the east side of Stokes Boulevard and add traffic control measures. Fencing and signage around the building site will follow a week or so later.

Site plan for the huge Circle Square development which includes
"squaring off" the corners at several intersections to slow down
vehicular traffic to make the area safer for pedestrians (MDP).

Site preparations and foundation work for the two-story concrete podium containing the new library will begin on or about Aug. 17. Construction of a 488-space public parking garage, between Library Lofts and Artisan, is due to start in March 2022 with garage work taking about nine months. Artisan and Library Lofts are expected to be completed in spring 2023.

Power Construction is the general contractor for Chicago-based White Oak Realty Partners which is building Artisan next door. These first two Circle Square towers, plus the new public parking garage, are being coordinated between multiple project partners.

"In partnership with CPL, Midwest (Development Partners), White Oak Realty, (architect) Bialosky and the Cleveland Building & Construction Trades Council, we'll have a library-centered neighborhood of more than a thousand new units in a buzzing, pedestrian friendly and transit-connected urban center," Ronayne added. "The future of the city is here."

It certainly is where most of Cleveland's major-new construction work is happening and will likely continue for some time. In addition to the Artisan and Library Lofts, four other major projects are due to start in University Circle in the coming months -- all of which may warrant a construction crane.

Those four are also all associated with the Cleveland Clinic Foundation (CCF). Three of them are directly led by the CCF -- a 400,000-plus-square-foot new Neurological Institute, a 100,000-square-foot expansion of the Cole Eye Institute and a 400,000-square-foot new Global Center for Pathogen Research & Human Health.

At the front-center is the historic Fenway Manor apartments. To the
left of it is Library Lofts. In any other era, that would be one of the
largest towers to rise in University Circle. Not this era. In the rear-
center, the 24-story Artisan is already under construction. It may
be eclipsed in height by another apartment tower to the right-rear
and a new office building at front-right (Bialosky).

For the fourth project, the Clinic is working with a private developer, Fairmount Properties, to jointly develop hundreds of thousands of square feet of mixed uses in phases, just south of Cedar Avenue and west of East 105th.

A decade ago, Fairmount joined with the Wolstein Group to develop Flats East Bank downtown. It then joined with DiGeronimo Companies to build Pinecrest in Orange Village which opened in 2018.

In the first phase of its partnership with CCF, Fairmount envisions 300 micro-unit apartments, several dozen townhomes and a 40,000-square-foot Meijer grocery store rising 5-10 stories above the southwest corner of East 105th and Cedar. A second phase of roughly equal size could follow immediately west of it. Sources said financing for the project is still coming together.

Knez Homes, which is building hundreds of new housing units around University Circle, said the number of new jobs coming to that area over the next decade could create a demand for up to 10,000 new housing units.

Future phases of Circle Square may include a residential tower possibly taller than Artisan, making its altitudinal reign over University Circle possibly as brief as One University Circle's. Also planned is a second new parking garage plus an office building approximately 13-15 stories high that could also approach 300 feet in height.

END

Phantasy Theater renovation as Studio West 117 begins

Rendering of what The Fieldhouse at Studio West 117th could look
like when its renovation is completed in the spring 2022. Other phases
of the Phantasy Theater complex will come on line into 2023 (Groundswell).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

Construction fences are up. Work crews are on site. And a $75 million vision for the rebirth of the Phantasy Theater complex, 11794-11814 Detroit Ave. in Lakewood, into Studio West 117 is starting to come to life.

But if you ride by the site on Detroit, you might miss the bulk of the early activity. The reason is the visible work is occurring behind the Phantasy Theater in a structure at 1384 Hird Ave. most recently used by Mack Products Co.

That structure is called The Fieldhouse by developers Daniel Budish and Betsy Figgie. It's actually three connected structures totaling 29,298 square feet that will host a gym and a South American steak restaurant, Stone oven pizza kitchen and rooftop tapas bar lead by Yanira Llanos and her wife Yasmeen Desiree. The gym will host fitness classes and sports leagues.

Budish, president of Gaslamp Capital LLC which specializes in historic renovations, said he hopes that renovation work on former Mack Products structures, some of which date back to 1905, will wrap up in the spring.

In the past week, construction fences went up around the former
Mack Products building on Hird Avenue, just north of Detroit
Avenue and the main part of the Phantasy Theater complex
at the east end of Lakewood (KJP).

"This is very exciting for us," Budish said. "Work on the Fieldhouse at Studio West 117 should be complete by the end of April. We are saying spring of 2022 just to give some added cushion in case there are any construction delays. We expect to have a major grand opening and Pride celebration in June of 2022."

Budish, son of Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish, along with Figgie who owns Your CFO Resource to provide financial assistance to nonprofit organizations, acquired the Phantasy Theater complex and Mack Products properties last year. Figgie also led the creation of the West 117 Foundation to "support entrepreneurship, arts, culture, health, and human services to create a hub for Cleveland’s LGBTQ+ ecosystem."

At around the same time, they acquired properties at 11600-11618 Detroit on the Cleveland side of West 117th Street. It's a mixed-use building with five businesses on the ground floor, including My Friends Deli, with eight apartments upstairs that will gain more of an LGBTQ+ presence as existing leases expire. 

The duo also joined forces with the Foran Group for a $14 million renovation of the 80,000-square-foot Astrup Awning plant as the Pivot Center for Art, Dance and Expression in the Clark-Fulton neighborhood. Tenants include the Cleveland Museum of Art, Intermuseum Conservation Association, Cleveland Rape Crisis Center, Cleveland Missing, Inlet Dance Theatre and LatinUS.

For more than 100 years, the Phantasy Theater, preceded in name
by the Homestead Theater, stood in the 18000 block of Detroit
Avenue. Now the property will gain a fresh new purpose and
appearance as part of a $75 million redevelopment (KJP).

"Other elements of Studio West 117 continue to progress well," Budish added. "Margie's Closet opened in one of our spaces back in June of this year. We hope to also have some of the Phantasy retail open for next summer as well. The full Phantasy renovation is still expected to be completed in 2023."

As for the total dollar investment when all phases and components are completed over the next couple of years, the $75 million figure may hold true.

"That would be a good estimate for now, with the understanding that some of these project elements still have to be flushed out further," Budish said.

"I'm thrilled about it -- not only for the mission of the organization, but for what it will mean for the east end of Lakewood," said Lakewood's Ward 4 City Councilman Dan O'Malley who is also council president.

Daniel Budish, left, and Betsy Figgie look over the
Phantasy Theater property including an alley that
will be repurposed as an entryway into a part of
the former entertainment complex (KJP).

"This project will be a game changer," he added. "I'm also happy that the developers are using local labor and paying prevailing wage."

The 56,000-square-foot Phantasy Theater complex began its life in 1915 as the Homestead Theater, a live performance and large movie house back when going to the movies was an all-day affair. The theater continued to show movies until 1979.

A couple of years later, it began its next life as a live music venue, hosting up-and-coming new wave, punk, industrial and goth bands like Devo, Exotic Birds, The Pagans, VNV Nation and was the debut location for Nine Inch Nails.

Established musicians performed in the Phantasy and in the adjoining Chamber club as well, like Iggy Pop, Joan Jett with Michael J. Fox, Jesus and Mary Chain, Marilyn Manson, The Pogues, The Psychedelic Furs and the Ramones.

Site plan for The Fieldhouse at Studio West
117th, located on Hird Avenue (Larsen).

Budish and Figgie envision six entertainment spots, a podcasting studio, co-working and retail spaces with low rent to help new businesses get their start. The goal is to offer a safe and comfortable location for LGBTQ-owned businesses gain a foothold and create a site for social interaction and business incubation.

"I think you're going to see a cascading effect with other development projects in the neighborhood for years to come," O'Malley said.

That may extend to nearby properties that include closed or under-utilized buildings like the former Vedda Printing, National Tire & Battery and others. O'Malley said there are always parties interested in redeveloping those properties but nothing was ready for publication at this time.

END

Hough Bakeries redevelopment plan revealed

For nearly 30 years, a local institution beloved by many Greater
Clevelanders has sat vacant at the intersection of Lakeview and
Wade Park avenues. Knez Homes this week confirmed plans
for the site which the Painesville-based real estate developer
 hopes to start renovating by this time next year (Google).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

Few businesses are as symbolic of the rise and fall of Greater Cleveland's fortunes as homegrown confectioner Hough Bakeries. Its former headquarters and plant at 1519 Lakeview Road on the border of Cleveland and East Cleveland has sat vacant since the bakery, once the nation's 10th largest, went bankrupt and closed in 1992.

But its redevelopment may be equally symbolic of Cleveland's reversal of fortunes.

Starting next year, Knez Homes, one of the largest homebuilders in Northeast Ohio, hopes to start construction on renovating the nearly 5-acre plant into a mixed-use complex of housing, offices and possibly a restaurant.

Preliminary plans for the bakery site, contained in a promotional piece about Knez's development activity in the overall Circle North area of Cleveland's Glenville neighborhood, were provided to NEOtrans recently.

Knez Homes' plans for the Circle North area of Glenville, just
north of Cleveland's University Circle, that is being circulated
among interested home buyers (Knez). 

When contacted, Knez Homes founder and CEO Bo Knez confirmed the plans and expressed his excitement in being able to redevelop a site whose corporate history and products are near and dear to many Greater Clevelanders.

"This is a big deal for us," Knez said. "Considering how complicated the site is, the plan has gone better than expected."

Specifically, plans show 17 single-family homes, 22 townhouses, 18 apartments possibly for student housing plus a significant amount of commercial space. The commercial spaces would primarily be for offices and measure roughly 180,000 square feet.

Knez said two companies are looking at the site for office space but until they were signed, he could not identify them. While the site plan has no retail, a restaurateur expressed interest in locating in the bakery's old carriage house. The pandemic put the kibosh on those plans.

Beneath the graffiti, vegetation and
decay is an architecturally beautiful
building that is waiting to be reborn
with new uses (Iryna Tkachenko).

"There's no restaurant currently under consideration but we're open to it," Knez said.

None of the structures facing Lakeview to the south, which is the Cleveland side, or Auburndale Avenue on north, that is the East Cleveland side, would be demolished for the redevelopment project. Knez said they will be refurbished including their original historical features, such as the terra cotta façade facing Lakeview.

Like many other developments in Circle North, the Hough Bakeries redevelopment will be mixed income. Public funding usually requires it and there is a mix of local and state dollars going into the bakery project.

In addition to making it possible so that area residents can afford to live there, Knez said his firm is seeing a big demand for student housing in Circle North. Nearby are Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland Institute of Art and the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Knez Homes' Lakeview Commons, previously called the Wade
Park Townhomes, are rising across Lakeview Avenue from the
Hough Bakeries plant on a parking lot that was used by the
bakery's employees until the plant closed in 1992 (Knez).

He pointed out that the condominiums proposed in the Hough Bakeries redevelopment are actually fee-simple townhomes. That means the buyer has control of their property but the surrounding site is maintained through a homeowners association.

In Circle North, Knez is building up to 400 new housing units. Across Lakeview, on 0.9-acres of land on the railroad side of Wade Park Avenue, was the employees' parking lot for Hough Bakeries. There, Knez is building the 36-unit Lakeview Commons townhouse development.

The primary impetus for Knez developing in the Circle North area in general and Hough Bakeries in particular was Mayor Frank Jackson's Neighborhood Transformation Initiative (NTI), he said.

The program targets four neighborhoods and taps into the Cleveland Impact Fund, a $44 million account to support mixed-income and mixed-use developments. Buckeye-Woodhill, the East 79th Street Corridor, and Clark-Fulton are the other neighborhoods in the mayor's NTI program.

The north side of the Hough Bakeries property, along Auburndale
Avenue in East Cleveland (Google).

There is a strong demand for market-rate housing in and near University Circle which is why Knez is also developing homes in the Fairfax area south of the Cleveland Clinic. Between the growth of the Clinic, educational institutions and other employers in the area, Knez and other developers believe there is a demand for up to 10,000 new housing units near University Circle over the next decade.

Through an affiliate company, Knez acquired the Hough Bakeries plant in December 2019 for $225,000. Some site improvements were made to secure the property and some earthmoving has been done to prepare the site for redevelopment as well as to improve views for new homeowners in the area.

There are also a number of vacant residential properties around the perimeter of the former bakery that Knez is developing with single-family homes. Some will be sold at market rates and others will be made available to qualifying low-income families with the support of the Famicos Foundation, Knez said.

Hough Bakeries started in 1903 with a single store on Hough Avenue at East 87th Street in what was then a middle-class urban neighborhood. A growing Hough Bakeries in 1941 bought the Star Bakery plant at 1519 Lakeview Rd. But into the 1980s, the local firm could not reduce costs enough to fend off outside competition and ultimately went bankrupt.

END

Sherwin-Williams' 2nd HQ tower may rise sooner, not later

Outlined in red at the center of this model is Sherwin-Williams'
proposed second headquarters office tower, located to the left
of its larger first-phase. The second tower is shown here as a
largely featureless massing as it lacks a pending construc-
tion start date. But there are indications that the coatings
giant may have some end-users for the tower and a de-
sire to build the tower sooner rather than later (TV20).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

In models and on graphics, it was presented almost as an afterthought. It was a featureless box standing in downtown Cleveland at the northeast corner of West Superior Avenue and West 6th Street. Next door, the 600-footer served as a magician's tool of misdirection, with its primary role as the global headquarters of Sherwin-Williams (SHW).

But that blank box, a future HQ tower standing what appears to be about 300 feet tall based on the height of the Rockefeller Building across the street, could not be ignored by a joint meeting of city planning review committees on July 20.

To put the size of that building into context, the Ernst & Young Tower (E&Y) built in 2013 at 950 Main St. as part of the Flats East Bank development stands 23 stories and 330 feet tall. It is one of downtown's few trophy-class buildings -- the only office class above Class A. E&Y has the third-highest rents downtown and is 97 percent full, according to real estate brokerage Jones Lang LaSalle.

SHW's proposed second office tower was labeled on site plans as "Future Sherwin-Williams Expansion TBD" -- To Be Determined. Committee members wanted to determine what it would be and how soon will SHW build it. The reason is that an ugly, unwanted surface parking was shown as temporarily occupying that spot until the expansion building could be built.

The phase two office tower is located at the lower-left portion
of this SHW HQ master plan. It also has for its future phases
sections of lower-level mixed-uses along West 6th Street and
St. Clair Avenue to be developed by others (SHW).

"I've been on this (city planning) committee for a long time," responded a skeptical Thomas Zarfoss, a retired landscape architect. "Whenever I hear the term 'temporary' it gets my attention."

How long would that parking lot remain as "temporary"?

Timothy Muckley, SHW's director of corporate real estate, declined to give a date of when that future expansion would be built. And that future expansion also includes the east and south flanks of West 6th and St. Clair Avenue, labeled on conceptual planning documents as "Future Commercial Retail & Office TBD" and standing several stories tall.

"We've made this mistake with manufacturing plants of not planning for the future," Muckley said. "We want this to be our headquarters site for a long time. It's important to be able to have that for growth."

For logistical reasons, the second tower may be difficult to build at the same time as the 616-footer. HQ design team sources said SHW construction firms need the space for materials staging for the main tower, parking deck and Public Square pavilion. A smaller construction staging area, such as north of Frankfort, might suffice for the second tower which Muckley said would have no additional parking of its own.

Here's where it gets interesting...

This model of the SHW HQ shows a slightly shorter phase two
office tower, standing between a massing of the first phase to
the left and the Rockefeller Building to the right (TV20).

Muckley told the planning committee members that SHW is encouraging companies with whom it does business about locating new sales/administrative offices or relocated corporate offices in those future expansion spaces.

"We work with a lot businesses and we'll urge them to locate next door," Muckley said.

For months, NEOtrans was hearing rumors that SHW was actively seeking leases in its HQ tower by other office tenants. The rumor didn't make sense at the time. Why would a company seeking to build a 1-million-square-foot HQ -- with all of the HQ space already spoken for by most Cleveland SHW offices including an 8 percent growth factor -- make that HQ tower available to other tenants?

Because SHW isn't making the main HQ tower available to other tenants. It's making the second HQ tower available to other tenants. An employee of one of those tenants, based on the East Coast, reached out to NEOtrans months ago saying their company would open an office in Cleveland once SHW opened its new HQ.

But SHW doesn't have enough tenants signed up yet or it would build that tower now. It may not be able to get more office tenants to commit until the building's opening is a year away, a real estate insider told NEOtrans.

Since it's only a massing, there is no definitive size for the phase
two office tower. But this image gives a sense of what SHW
seems to want -- a tower that's roughly half the size of 
its first phase HQ tower (SHW).

"They are building expansion capacity into the new HQ, perhaps to relocate other people here to Cleveland or for another acquisition down the road," the insider said. "And they would be looking to lease that space in the short term. I've heard a few companies mentioned as possible tenants in the building. It would be the nicest, newest office building downtown, not to mention any firms that regularly do business with SHW would like to be close."

As for which companies, he declined to provide names but said they're basically any firm that is willing to pay top-of-the-market rents for a trophy-class office building. In other words, think law firms, technology, marketing, real estate and accounting firms, he said.

And, let's not forget that SHW hasn't yet included the relocation to its new HQ roughly 250 employees based in a 128,000-square-foot flex-office space on Hinckley Industrial Parkway on Cleveland's south side. SHW leased that property in 2017 for an unknown term after it acquired coatings rival Valspar for $11 billion.

Some of Valspar's employees were relocated from Minneapolis to Hinckley Industrial, according to SHW sources. Most of Valspar's corporate headquarters and research staff remain in Minneapolis. It is difficult to get a hard number on how many there are. The estimates range from 400 employees to 600 employees.

SHW is understandably very sensitive about saying anything publicly about the future location of Valspar's employees. Since it will take several years before any new SHW office space is available, SHW wouldn't want to tell its Minneapolis employees now that they'll be moving in a few years.

Until SHW builds its phase two office tower plus the low-level
development by others along West 6th and St. Clair, those
spaces will remain as surface parking lots (SHW).

That could lead to a situation where SHW would lose a lot of workers in the next several years because they have the chance to look for another job close to home. And it would be difficult for SHW to hire for those openings that will eventually relocate.

If anything, SHW has tried to reassure its Valspar employees and others in Minneapolis that they value that location.

"Minneapolis is like our second headquarters. We continue to invest in our people and product there," said former SHW spokesman Mike Conway in 2018 who also denied to NEOtrans in 2019 that SHW was even considering building a new HQ. That was months before SHW was ready to make the new HQ official.

Relocating 250 SHW flex-office workers from Hinckley Industrial Parkway and 400-600 Valspar employees from Minneapolis could fill 150,000 to 200,000 square feet of office space. That would provide a significant anchor office presence to the second tower.

Three sources reported to NEOtrans months ago that two HQ towers were planned all along, although two of the sources said neither tower would be very tall or iconic. That part turned out to be false. One of the sources said Cleveland-based architectural firm Vocon Partners was hired by SHW to do programming and spatial/massing work on a five-year contract which started last year.

In late June, SHW subcontractor Independence Excavating was
working near the northeast corner of West Superior Avenue
and West 6th, site of the phase two office tower. Next door
the 616-foot SHW HQ tower will soon join its three sky-
scraping neighbors around Public Square (KJP).

If Vocon's work was limited to the first-phase HQ tower, then it probably wouldn't need a five-year deal. If Vocon is also going to be providing services to SHW for the second tower, then it makes sense to keep them on board for more than just two to three years. It also suggests SHW wants to move forward sooner rather than later on the second tower.

So do the actions of geotechnical firms. They've drilled test bores to collect soil samples and measure the depth of bedrock at multiple locations throughout the 7-acre SHW HQ site west of Public Square. In late June, crews were doing site preparation work at the northeast corner of West Superior and West 6th -- right where the phase two tower would rise.

SHW has a lot more to gain from underselling its new HQ than from overselling it. SHW is more concerned with impressing its shareholders than those of us who admire and count the number of shiny towers in the downtown Cleveland skyline.

So whatever SHW is going to do and when is going to be determined on the potential for increasing value for its shareholder. If having more of its partner companies setting up offices next door will do that, then look for construction to start on this tower very soon.

END

Are Bedrock's Tower City plans serious? Yes, here's why...

This rendering of what Bedrock Real Estate intends to do with the
south concourse of Tower City Center's The Avenue shopping
mall in downtown Cleveland, including a partnership with
Chain Reaction to award three entrepreneurs 18 months
of free rent at Tower City stores (Bedrock).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

Ten days ago, news broke that Bedrock Real Estate would aggressively market its Tower City Center complex so it could exchange its cobwebs and echoes for business tenants and retail customers. NEOtrans opted to not respond to this press release.

Why? Because I was skeptical about how serious Bedrock was. Understandably, shopping malls across the country were dying with some getting replaced by Amazon distribution centers. NEOtrans broke the news about several of them locally, starting with the first one at Euclid Square Mall. And all of those mall deaths occurred before the pandemic got other malls sick, too. 

Bedrock has contributed to the loss of tenants at Tower City as much as the growth of e-commerce and the decline of downtown's office workforce. But while downtown's workforce dipped, its residential population shot up and held strong through the pandemic. Residents are a more lucrative market for retail than workers who tend to make larger purchases nearer to where they live, a recent study showed. But that study also said downtown niche retail can draw customers from far away.

Furthermore, Bedrock has now owned the former Cleveland Union Terminal railroad station-turned-Tower City Center for five years and not been able to reactivate its 366,000 square feet of retail and public spaces. The opposite has happened. It has entertained previous ideas and none of them panned out, including CityBlock (NEOtrans broke the story on that one, too). So why are they are suddenly serious about redeveloping the downtown mall into, of all things, a mall? I had my doubts.

That was until this past week when two events happened.

In 1989, Tower City Center was in the midst of its conversion
from the Cleveland Union Terminal railroad station to a retail
center, office and hotel complex. But as more shopping and
lifestyle centers like Crocker Park, Legacy Village and
Pinecrest opened in the suburbs, fewer shoppers came
downtown and to Tower City (Cleveland Magazine). 

The first event was a note I received from a Bedrock source. "I’m surprised that you haven’t commented on our plans for Tower City on your blog," the source wrote.

I expressed my skepticism and asked why I shouldn't be skeptical.

"You can probably assume what you like from my having reached out to you," the source wrote. "Wish I could be more forthcoming. Keep up the good work. I know a lot of us have appreciated your blog. You seemed to know things about SW (Sherwin-Williams' headquarters site search) before we did or before they did for that matter."

The other event came two days ago from two Tower City tenants reporting to NEOtrans that they were contacted by Bedrock's local staff. The inquiries went something like this: "We'd like to know what your intentions are about remaining at Tower City Center." One was asked if it would be willing to make improvements to their retail space.

Those tenants are in a part of the mall that was unaffected by June's flood. A sprinkler above The Avenue mall at Tower City broke and flooded the mall near the Public Square entrance. Bedrock began securing city permits this week to make significant repairs to the flood damage, according to Building & Housing Department records.

An ill-fated redevelopment scheme for Tower City Center was
Bernie Moreno's CityBlock which would have turned the
mall into an incubator for technology start-ups and
other types of new businesses (Vocon).

If Bedrock is going to be courting retailers, who might they be? Let's consider the market, which involves both timing and population. And let's look at what is called "comps" in the real estate business, or comparables.

A real estate source who does a lot of work in site selections locally was contacted by NEOtrans for his input. He said Bedrock's initiative is mostly about the upcoming National Basketball Association's (NBA) All Star Game, to be held Feb. 20, 2022 in Cleveland.

To a lesser extent, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum's induction ceremony on Oct. 30 will play a role. Both events will be held at the Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse which is connected to Tower City by an underground walkway. Some pop-up retailers may be added by October but it will take longer for other retailers to come on board. That's why the NBA All Star Game is a bigger deal, the real estate source said.

Look for Bedrock to bring in athletic retailers like Nike, Under Armour and Moosejaw plus streetwear shops along the lines of RSVP Gallery or Bodega. Bedrock founder and Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert wants to put his best foot forward at the All Star Game. NBA stars start businesses. Others provide capital to them. And some are free agents, looking for a new team and a new home with cool stores to flash the cash. 

Mainstream retailers line downtown Detroit's main street of
Woodward Avenue thanks to Bedrock giving them low or
no rent for an introductory period of time (Google).

For comps, look no further than what Bedrock did to draw businesses to their properties along Woodward Avenue, Detroit's version of Euclid Avenue. They gave free or reduced rent to retailers that would draw business to benefit other nearby retailers. Finding the right mix of retailers is the key to any successful shopping area.

Along Woodward, you'll find all of the above-mentioned athletic retailers plus Bonobos, H&M, Warby Parker, lululemon, Le Labo, Shinola, Madewell, American Cycle & Fitness, UPS Store, FedEx Office, plus wine stores, day spas, drug stores, bank branches and lots of restaurants and clubs.

Those businesses alone would certainly reactivate Tower City. But what's equally intriguing is Bedrock's stated desire to work with Chain Reaction, a Cleveland-based economic development project, business bootcamp and competition that helps groom the next generation of local entrepreneurs. 

Chain Reaction is produced by Cleveland Neighborhood Progress, the Greater Cleveland Partnership’s Council of Smaller Enterprises, JumpStart and Cleveland Development Advisors. As a sponsor, Bedrock says it will provide mentorship to participants throughout the program’s duration, as well as prizes for the top three entrepreneurial finalists of their competition, combined for 18 months of brick-and-mortar tenancy at Tower City Center.

A conceptual rendering of what Tower City Center's Riverview
phase between Huron Road and the Cuyahoga River could
look like, featuring greenspaces, riverfront promenade,
plus office, hotel and residential buildings (Vocon).

And, as NEOtrans reported earlier this year, look for Bedrock to develop the Riverview phase of Tower City in the coming months and years. It has considered developing this site for some time, including for Sherwin-Williams HQ as alluded to earlier.

Now, Gilbert has one of his own locally growing corporate office end-users that will be looking for a new building soon -- Rocket Mortgage. Add to that a possible hotel and more apartments either in a new building and/or in Sherwin-Williams old HQ in the Tower City complex. They will need Tower City stores and other businesses to patronize.

Will Bedrock be able to attract the chain retailers, even by offering free rent as pop-up retailers over the coming months? Will they stay after the pop-up period expires and they have to pay rent? And how will Tower City's existing retailers who have stuck it out through some pretty dark times react to newcomers getting a free ride?

It will depend on how much new foot traffic the pop-up retailers attract to Tower City and the existing shops. There's a lot for Bedrock, Tower City and downtown retail in general to prove here. I no longer doubt Bedrock's sincerity to try something here. But there are still a lot of questions that have yet to be answered. And they will be, given time.

END

St. Vincent expansion may unite Downtown, Campus District

St. Vincent Charity Medical Center is often overlooked in a metro
area dominated by much larger, higher-profile health care systems.
But St. Vincent has set about to change that, starting with a master-
plan to align its broadening mission to positively affect the health of
Greater Clevelanders with the facilities necessary to achieve it (CSA).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

When you take stock of St. Vincent Charity Medical Center's (SVCMC) properties and how they are used, it becomes apparent how under-utilized they are. And when considered in terms of the 156-year-old hospital's proximity to Downtown Cleveland, it's equally apparent how cut off it is.

Those and other features are among the issues to be addressed by a master-planning effort by Boston-based MASS Design Group to determine how the growing medical institution can better serve its community. Like its bigger colleagues -- Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals and MetroHealth -- SVCMC is constrained by the surrounding city and its dependence on the car.

Nearly two-thirds of land owned or controlled by SVCMC is used for surface parking lots or as greenspace that separates buildings from sidewalks, making them less pedestrian friendly. Some of the greenspace exists for lack of another identified use.

In a written statement, SVCMC said its health campus "will encompass property owned by the Sisters of Charity at East 22nd Street and serve as a catalyst for revitalization in the surrounding area. SVCMC will be an anchor institution, partner and namesake in what will be known as the St. Vincent Charity Health Campus. Depending on what is recommended during the planning and engagement process, new services, programs and partners will be added to the existing services at SVCMC’s main campus."

While nearly all properties in and near the St. Vincent Charity
Health Campus are used, many are not used efficiently or in
ways that would improve safe and comfortable access for
populations that cannot afford to operate cars (Google).

“We work from the philosophy that our built environment should be designed to advance human dignity and promote health,” said Michael Murphy, founding principal and executive director of MASS Design Group. “The Health Campus is an opportunity for the Cleveland community to bring this philosophy to life, and create true health equity through justice and empathy.”

MASS is also serving as the lead consultant for Cleveland State University's campus masterplan. Their work on creating a vision for both campuses, as well as the next phase for the redesign of the Inner Belt/Interstate 90 corridor in 2024, is an opportunity to better link those areas. MASS representatives were in town last week to begin their work with SVCMC.

Among the goals is to not only serve the acute care needs among growing populations in nearby downtown, Ohio City, Tremont and Central, but also to improve health conditions among low-income populations in Cleveland's inner-city neighborhoods. Health care that is accessible physically as well as financially is a challenge. One in four Cleveland households has no car available -- a number that rises to one out of two households in neighborhoods with more poverty, Census figures show.

In those areas, chronic health problems such as high infant mortality rates, drug addictions and harmful effects from residential and industrial pollutants remain untreated. Addressing the health care side of those and other quality-of-life problems is a growing focus for the Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine.

Plans for redesigning the Inner Belt/Interstate 90 may help im-
prove pedestrian linkages between downtown, Cleveland State
University and the St. Vincent Charity Health Campus (ODOT).

Health care system representatives said the design process will recognize Sisters of Charity core values, serving the community with the broadest definition of health, including addressing social determinants, poverty and racial segregation, and upward mobility. Most health systems don't work on such broad issues.

"The expansion of the St. Vincent Charity main campus with partners beyond acute care can lead to a lifetime of improved community health outcomes," said Susanna H. Krey, senior vice president, Sisters of Charity Health System and president of the Sisters of Charity Foundation of Cleveland. 

And while MASS's masterplan will focus on adding facilities, services and physical linkages to SVCMC's existing properties, NEOtrans understands that it won't end there. A source close to the planning work but wasn't authorized to speak publicly said the plan may also look at underutilized properties nearby.

One of those will reportedly be the vacated, historic Cuyahoga County Juvenile Detention Center on East 22nd, between Cedar and Central avenues. There are also several underutilized parking lots nearby owned by the county. The detention center was closed in 2011 when a new facility opened on Quincy Avenue at East 93rd Street.

The interior courtyard of the former Cuyahoga County Juvenile
Detention Center on East 22nd Street (Architectural Afterlife).

The source said that the 90-year-old jail facility will likely be torn down because it cannot easily be repurposed to new uses. But the court building facing East 22nd will be retained and possibly reused.

The county has shown interest in retaining it for new uses, such as a long-term home for the county's  new Diversion Center. Currently located on East 55th Street, the diversion program treats those with substance abuse and mental problems who committed lesser offenses rather than send them to jail.

East of the old juvenile detention is one of the oldest public housing complexes still standing in Cleveland. Olde Cedar, part of the 17-acre Cedar Estates, is set to be razed and replaced with modern housing by the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority. The first phases of replacing the 1950s-era complex were completed in 2017. Current phases include Sankofa Village and Scholar House.

In its official statement, the Sisters of Charity of St. Augustine said "Thoughtful inclusion of residents with lived experience is critical to anchoring as well as developing the vision for the initiative." Drafts of the plan could be available as early as this winter.

END

City OKs Sherwin-Williams HQ concept with conditions

Sherwin-Williams' new HQ tower will be Cleveland's fourth-tallest
skyscraper and be a unique shape in the city's skyline. But as mem-
bers of city planning review boards applauded the soaring tower's
 design, how the project might create or discourage interaction
with pedestrians along downtown's sidewalks was among
the concerns shared at a meeting today (SHW).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

A joint meeting of city planning committees partially approved conceptual plans for Sherwin-Williams (SHW) headquarters (HQ) today. For the portions the review panels didn't approve, they offered guidance on how to enhance the early designs to improve the pedestrian experience along downtown Cleveland's sidewalks.

The plans were jointly reviewed and approved by the Cleveland City Planning Commission, Cleveland Landmarks Commission, Downtown-Flats Design Review Committee and the Warehouse Historic District Design Review Committee. Plans included a more detailed massing whose crown was first described visually and verbally in detail here at NEOtrans earlier this month.

City officials approved SHW's location and height of buildings in its proposed vertical urban campus with these conditions and exceptions:

• Approval excludes the northwest block of SHW land where future development by others is desired.
• Provide a traffic study that includes pedestrian circulation.
• Consider a pavilion height increase with public roof access.
• Demonstrate the street-level experience of the entire site, especially the temporary lots and along Frankfort, through drawings.
• Provide a retail strategy for the site.

Timothy Muckley, SHW's director of corporate real estate, said a new HQ is desperately needed as it has outgrown its obsolete home of 91 years at 101 W. Prospect St. He said the Landmark Office Tower suffers from low ceilings, aging mechanicals, company parking that has a 10-year wait list, and elevators that have "a mind of their own." While employees will work remotely a couple days each week, Muckley said SHW never considered relying wholly on remote employment going forward.

Timothy Muckley of Sherwin-Williams addresses a joint commit-
tee of city planning review boards to garner approval of the
coatings company's new global HQ project (TV20).

"We believe the key to innovation is to connect and collaborate," he told joint committee meeting members. "We need to be one elevator ride away from each other. While other (companies) are fighting to push people out of their headquarters, we're fighting to get them in."

He pointed out that the HQ project is desired to have these features:

• A 616-foot-tall, roughly 36-story HQ tower that will rise at the northwest corner of Superior Avenue and West 3rd Street.
• A site for a future office tower is reserved at the northeast corner of Superior and West 6th Street but will be held as a visitor parking lot rather than greenspace.
• The HQ property will be secure and convenient for employees and visitors.
• The 920-space parking garage will accommodate nearly one-third of of SHW's 3,100 HQ employees.
• The garage was set back from St. Clair Avenue, West 3rd and West 6th to put a retail liner and/or future development around it.
• The 2,500-square-foot retail liner along West 3rd barely exceeds the city's building code.
• A goal of the project is to spur downtown development. SHW noted it already has, with the renovation of 55 Public Square, Rockefeller Building redevelopment, the demolition of the Rockefeller garage for a major development and the proposed Magellan development.
• A glassy Public Square pavilion rising only two-stories and nearly 50 feet tall will pull elements out of the office tower (like a learning center, conferences, Center of Excellence, etc) and will be the cultural hub of SHW.
• Pedestrian skybridges will connect the SHW HQ tower to its parking garage and Public Square pavilion.

The 616-foot height of SHW's HQ tower as it relates to two of its
Public Square skyscraping neighbors is shown with a future
 expansion office building of roughly 20 stories (SHW).

SHW's proposed pair of 15-foot-wide skybridges received significant pushback from planning committee members as well as at least half of the public comments received by the committee prior to the meeting. But the city cannot legally prevent them as they are permitted in the city's building code and the city recently approved two bridges to cross above Ontario Street into the JACK Cleveland Casino although only one skybridge was built.

"I understand the skybridges aren't favored but they are critical," Muckley said. "These two buildings (HQ and pavilion) need to function as one organism."

Bill Chilton, principal at Pickard Chilton, SHW's lead architect for the HQ, added that the skybridges will not pull people off of city streets. The skybridges will be open only to SHW employees. For workers going to lunch, shopping or to catch their buses and trains, they will be setting foot on downtown sidewalks when the HQ is finished in 2024. Many employees don't go outside now as the existing HQ is connected by walkways to Tower City Center.

Views from terraces on the east and west sides of the new SHW HQ
tower are shown as red lines. The maximum heights of low-level
buildings around Public Square are shown as blue lines (SHW).

Muckley said one-third of SHW employees use Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (GCRTA) buses and trains. In fact, SHW officials met with GCRTA staff yesterday to improve transit access for them. SHW is using every HQ employee's home address to create a heat map of where workers live and will share it with GCRTA to seek better transit access to/from where concentrations of their employees live.

Planning committee members also questioned why the two-story, nearly 50-foot-tall Public Square pavilion was desired and/or why it was designed to be so short. They noted that Public Square is surrounded by two types of buildings -- skyscrapers and lower-level structures. The lower-level structures -- Metzenbaum U.S. Courthouse, 200 Public Square's atrium, Higbee's/JACK Casino, Renaissance Hotel and Old Stone Church -- are all in the 65- to 165-foot range of height.

Chilton said a lot of thought went into putting the pavilion and not the HQ tower on the Public Square lot, called the Jacobs Site. It's dubbed the Jacobs Site because it was previously owned by the Jacobs Group. He noted that the floor plate for the HQ, its loading docks and central utilities plant would be too big to fit on the Jacobs Site. Loading docks for the pavilion will be in the HQ tower, off Frankfort, with supplies delivered to the pavilion via the skybridge.

More views of a model showing how the new SHW HQ tower,
its parking garage and Public Square pavilion would relate
to its downtown Cleveland surroundings (SHW).

"We view the pavilion as the front door to Sherwin-Williams," Chilton said. "As for putting the (HQ) tower on the Jacobs Site, it creates tension with Terminal Tower. Pulling it back (to West 3rd) gives it that relief. When looking at it (the HQ tower) from different views around the city, it retains views and allows terminal Tower to breath visually."

The pavilion will have at its southwest corner a Barista store filled with Sherwin-Williams-branded merchandise, such as clothing, coffee mugs and other promotional items. But those reportedly will be for employees. Right now, SHW hasn't decided whether to make the pavilion open to the public, said Matt Heisey, principal at Vocon Partners, SHW's interior architect.

Warehouse District Executive Director Tom Yablonsky suggested opening up the pavilion to public access, enlarging it and putting a café on its rooftop. He added that a taller pavilion would also make the skybridge across West 3rd appear less prominent.

Major components of the first phase of SHW's HQ (SHW).

Furthermore, city planning officials expressed concern about pedestrian flows between the Warehouse District, Public Square and Euclid Avenue where transportation, restaurants and stores are located for downtown residents and businesses. SHW will direct its traffic engineering consultant Nelson Nygaard to also evaluate pedestrian traffic flows through the HQ site.

Frankfort Avenue between West 3rd and West 6th is being vacated as a city street and will become SHW property. SHW will close it off to through traffic for vehicles but leave it open to pedestrians. There will be bollards or some other vehicular barrier on Frankfort just west of West 3rd. Employee vehicles entering the parking garage will stack up on Frankfort in the mornings. Delivery trucks to SHW are also more numerous in the mornings. After work, employee vehicles will exit onto West 3rd.

However, Muckley said Frankfort will be landscaped and, at the city's urging, be the subject of a retail study that could possibly result in raising the garage's ground level from 11 feet to 20 feet to accommodate more ground-floor retail uses.

A screenshot from today's meeting showing the SHW HQ model
that includes the future phase expansion building (TV20).

The site for future expansion of the SHW HQ also received some attention -- both by SHW's Muckley and by city planning representatives. Muckley said SHW needs to have room for expansion as the company has grown rapidly in the last few decades.

"We've made this mistake with manufacturing plants of not planning for the future," he said. "We want this to be our headquarters site for a long time. It's important to be able to have that for growth."

Even though a significant structure of roughly 20 stories is shown in basic massings of the HQ campus, SHW officials declined to discuss publicly when it might need to build that second office building. Muckley did say that no new parking facilities are anticipated for that future building. The proposed parking garage will not be designed to construct additional levels on top of it. He said the future expansion site would temporarily remain as a parking lot.

"I've been on this (city planning) committee for a long time," responded Thomas Zarfoss, a retired landscape architect. "Whenever I hear the term 'temporary' it gets my attention. To make cities walkable, you can't be walking along parking lots."

Public Square pavilion and HQ tower podium connections (SHW).

Before the HQ project was officially acknowledged by SHW, NEOtrans reported information from sources close to the project that the HQ+R&D project would measure as much as 1.8 million square feet and ultimately accommodate up to 6,000 employees. About 1,000 of those workers will be based in the new 500,000-square-foot research center in Brecksville.

HQ design team sources say the first-phase, 1-million-square-foot office tower will have enough space for 3,500 employees although 3,100 office workers will be located there at the outset. If the 6,000-employee, 1.8-million-square-foot goal for the HQ+R&D is still the target, another 1,500 workers have yet to find their way into the HQ campus. Another 300,000 square feet office space may be coming.

SHW has yet to include in its HQ plans any efforts to relocate more than 250 workers from its 151,830-square-foot swing/office space at 4780 Hinckley Industrial Parkway in Cleveland. Or, for that matter, there are roughly 1,000 workers in Minneapolis in facilities previously owned by Valspar until SHW acquired the rival company in 2017.

A phase two office building measuring 300,000+ square feet for roughly 1,500 or more employees appears to be on SHW's to-do list. But it's not likely to make any of that public until after it takes care of its first priority -- its new, 21st-century global HQ and research facilities. 

END