More apartments breaking ground in Hough, more coming

With the Cleveland Clinic Foundation's growing campus as a backdrop,
developer Richard Arnstine addresses his development team and com-
munity leaders at today's groundbreaking ceremony for The Lumos
apartments on East 93rd Street. From the left are State Rep. Ter-
rence Upchurch (D-10), Arnstine's development partner Zach
Pinkert, Cleveland City Councilman Basheer Jones (Ward 7),
Arnstine, Jaishawna Bares along with The Lumos' principal
investors Agostino Pintus and Kenny Wolfe (KJP).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

 

As shovels went into the ground today for a new apartment building in the Upper Chester section of Cleveland’s Hough neighborhood, the project’s partners were already looking to the future.

A groundbreaking ceremony was held today for The Lumos, 1866 E. 93rd St., an $8.8 million investment in the community that will add quality housing, add more population and support the expansion of more businesses and jobs in the neighborhood.

The Lumos will offer 42 market-rate apartments including studios, one-bedroom units and a small number of two-bedroom homes priced to attract workers from booming University Circle that’s within a short walk or bike ride away.

“Lumos” is the Latin meaning for “To have light” and which is rooted in Greek mythology.

Looking south on East 93rd, The Lumos will add residents to the
Upper Chester section of Cleveland's Hough neighborhood that
is seeing an increasing amount of investment due to its proxi-
mity to University Circle (GLSD).

"I am thrilled to share with you our excitement about The Lumos and the impact that we believe it will have on Cleveland and the Upper Chester neighborhood," said Richard Arnstine, Chairman of ARPI Development, LLC which he founded with his son-in-law Zach Pinkert.

As a life-long Clevelander and Ohioan graduating from Cleveland Heights High School, The Ohio State University and Case Western Reserve School of Dentistry, Arnstine has been a part of the Cleveland community his entire life. He studied real estate early in college but now, as a retired orthodontist, he has gone back to his earlier interest.

“To be able to play a significant role in the revitalization of Cleveland and see it once again taking its place as one of America’s great urban centers is a lifelong dream of mine," he said.

“I want to give a huge thank-you to Councilman Basheer Jones for providing the opportunity for us to become a member of the Ward 7 community,” said Arnstine. “From the onset, Councilman Jones has been a willing partner that made this project possible.”

Dignitaries dig in at the groundbreaking ceremony for The Lumos
apartments. To make way for the new development, the vacant
house visible in the background will be demolished as will
another house just north of it (KJP).

“Affordable housing is critical to strengthening communities and growing local economies,” said Councilman Jones. “Every person in Cleveland needs and deserves a safe and affordable place to call home, and this latest development is making that a reality.”

“ARPI wants partner with our neighbors. We intend to revitalize and stabilize the local community; by supporting families, creating walkable neighborhoods where people feel safe children can play outside and businesses want to be located,” Arnstine added. “We’re looking at additional developments in the Upper Chester-University Circle area.”

Arnstine said construction of the four-story building will take about 10-12 months. Studios will measure about 576 square feet, one-bedroom apartments 718 square feet and two-bedroom units approximately 1,000 square feet.

All apartments at The Lumos will have first-floor patios or upper-floor balconies to enhance a greater sense of community. There will also be an on-site gym, rooftop patio and community room. A 28-space parking lot is planned behind the building.

Site of The Lumos apartments development on East 93rd Street.

The Lumos came together relatively quickly, primarily because of people he met along the way including Tania Menesse, Linda Warren and Justin Fleming at Cleveland Neighborhood Progress.

One of the first people Arnstine met was Zak Baris, President of Comprehensive Zoning Services Inc. Baris put him in touch with Conrad Geis and Brandon Kline, both principals at Geis Companies a leading one-stop-shop design-build-management enterprise.

He also worked with attorneys at McCarthy Lebit and Calfee, Halter & Griswold LLP. Those connections, in turn, put Arnstine in touch with investors Agostino Pintus, Founder of Akron-based Realty Dynamics Equity Partners LLC, and Kenny Wolfe, President of Dallas-based Wolfe Investments LLC.

“Our team has been looking forward to the kickoff of construction for months and we can’t wait to deliver a successful project for this dynamic neighborhood,” Pintus said. “This project is a game changer for Upper Chester and it is only a small part of the changes ahead. We look forward to making this quite a beautiful building.”

Looking northwest from East 93rd Street, The Lumos apart-
ments' height will be consistent with most of the houses in the
Upper Chester section of the Hough neighborhood (GLSD).

"It’s been amazing to see this neighborhood change for the better,” Wolfe observed. “You can see the direction this part of Cleveland is being led and it’s all positive. We’re very excited to be a part of this continued improvement and are committed to bring a quality asset with quality service to the residents here."

“I'm very happy that we can bring the density back to these neighborhoods as it once was,” Baris added. “We’re making more viable neighborhoods from vacant lands. This is about repopulating Hough without taking away from the neighborhood feel. We have many more investments coming up in the neighborhood in the near future. This is just the start of one of many efforts based on a larger vision to bring this community back.”

Ultimately, Arnstine said The Lumos is about what everyone wants – a brighter tomorrow for ourselves and for our children.

“That light is where The Lumos comes from,” he said.

END

Plans are refined for new Cleveland Police HQ

Looking from the northwest corner of East 75th Street and the new
Opportunity Corridor Boulevard, this is the planned façade for the
city of Cleveland's new central police headquarters. (JMT).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

Architects designing the new $108 million Cleveland Police Department (CPD) headquarters have further refined the proposed plans including how the new office building would be placed on the site.

The CPD HQ is proposed to be built on 10 acres of city-owned land at the northwest corner of the new Opportunity Corridor Boulevard and East 75th Street. Proposed is a building that would have a significant glassy façade opening up toward East 75th rather than face the Opportunity Corridor. 

That's based on graphics presented at the Web site of JMT Architecture, one of two design firms hired by the city of Cleveland for this project. JMT has three principal offices -- Cleveland, Baltimore and Philadelphia. The other design firm is Dewberry of Fairfax, VA.

The conceptual plans have yet to be reviewed by the City Planning Commission so no action has yet been taken on advancing the design beyond this early stage. Construction isn't likely to begin until sometime in 2022 with work to be completed in 2024, according to city officials. The Opportunity Corridor itself is due to open to traffic in 2022.

Looking generally north from the Opportunity Corridor Boulevard
to the new police headquarters. East 75th Street and the Orlando
Baking Co.'s plant is seen at the right side (JMT).

In a written statement, JMT notes that the CPD HQ will be the first major project along the new Opportunity Corridor in southeast Cleveland. The planned, 170,000-square-foot facility will house all major police administrative functions that are currently located in a variety of locations around the city and will also serve as a community center for the neighborhood.

Up to 700 police officers and civilian employees will work at the new CPD HQ. The conceptual site plans show about 360 parking spaces will be provided in surface parking lots rather than in a multi-level garage to save money. Approximately 30 of those spaces would be for public parking.

It is assumed that many HQ employees would commute by public transportation. Two rail stations, both on East 79th Street, are located within about a 15-minute walk of the CPD HQ site.

One is a newly rebuilt station on the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority's (GCRTA) Red Line linking the airport to Windermere. That station is the closest of the two rail stops to the new police station. GCRTA opened the new East 79th Red Line station in March after an $8 million reconstruction project.

Looking generally south from the Red Line tracks, the size of the
proposed public spaces around the new police station are more
visible. The publicly accessible area of the police headquarters
is at left, along East 75th with the secure parking for police
department employees is on this image's right side (JMT).

The other East 79th station is one that's overdue for rehabilitation, located on GCRTA's Blue/Green lines between the downtown Cleveland waterfront and Shaker Heights. GCRTA is rebuilding the Blue/Green lines tracks in stages, with the second phase to be completed in October. Also, along East 79th, GCRTA's No. 2 route bus links Glenville, Hough, Fairfax, Slavic Village, Newburg Heights, Steelyard Commons and Tremont.

The conceptual design of the new CPD HQ actually shows two entrances -- one for the for the public facing East 75th and the other for employees facing the ecure parking lots north of the new building.

Relocating the new central police station out of downtown and putting it into the neighborhoods is intended to make the facility more accessible. The proposed building design is intended to make the building feel more accessible and open. Public input into the proposed design will reportedly be sought.

"Effective communication between senior leadership within the police department, city administration officials and community members will be transformative for bridging the gap that currently exists between local residents and the police department," the statement from JMT says.

A half-dozen large facilities exist or are planned within a few
blocks of the intersection of the Opportunity Corridor Boule-
vard and East 79th Street. More details may become avail-
able in the coming months about these facilities (KJP).

"Design excellence in civic architecture and thoughtful programming will provide an environment that welcomes residents, improves community safety and ensures police security," the written statement added.

Although Dewberry is the project's architect-of-record, JMT will be responsible for community engagement activities to work with the City Planning Commission and to gather public input. JMT says it will also administer construction of the new CPD HQ.

Within a few blocks of East 79th, this section of the Opportunity Corridor has a half-dozen proposed new facilities in the works, not just the new central police station. It is already the home of Orlando Baking Co.'s plant.

That has set the theme for additional developments, centered around food production and distribution. Through an affiliate Project Boron LLC, Weston Group, one of Northeast Ohio's largest commercial developers, wants to build a 205,000-square-foot facility here called the Northeast Ohio Food Hub.

The CPD HQ's next newest neighbor could be the Northeast Ohio
Food Hub, a massive cold-storage warehouse whose first phase
alone would be larger than the CPD HQ (CPC).

A second phase for this massive cold storage facility could add another 70,000 square feet to it. The first phase would front the Opportunity Corridor with the second phase built south of the first phase. Also proposed are 235 car parking spaces and 41 truck/trailer parking spaces, closer to West 75th.

In May, the city approved rezoning for the NEO Food Hub while adding Urban Form Overlay zoning to preserve a narrow strip of land along the west side of East 79th, north of the Blue/Green Line rail station.

In that strip, Burten, Bell, Carr Development, Inc. (BBC) plans multi-family residential above retail and other neighborhood commercial uses. The goal is to put affordable housing within walking distance of the new job sites planned along this section of the Opportunity Corridor. It will also provide a more comfortable walking experience for transit riders using the rail station, BBC officials said.

On the east side of East 79th, owners of the nearby McTech Inc. construction company won design approval today from Planning Commission for its planned Construction Opportunity Institute of Cleveland. The owners would lease the 8 acres of land from the city with an option to purchase.

Originally, they had intended to include asphalt and concrete plants as part of the institute, but representatives of the neighborhood and nearby businesses said the smell from those plants would hurt the area's further growth as a food hub. Instead, a 48,000-square-foot training facility is planned on a small part of the property. An athletic facility, library and dormitory could be added in later phases.

END

Cleveland works to welcome Afghanistan refugees

On a peaceful summer evening in downtown Cleveland, people
from all sorts of backgrounds gather at Public Square. It's a
world away from war-torn Afghanistan right now but soon
such places won't be for thousands of Afghan refugees.
They're being airlifted to Cleveland and 18 other U.S.
cities by the State Department so they can start
new lives in a peaceful setting like this (GPC).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

With Cleveland being listed by the U.S. State Department as one of 19 cities suggested for resettlement of Afghan and Iraqi refugees, numerous local organizations are ramping up efforts to attract as many as possible in light of the crisis in Afghanistan.

But they need your help as soon as possible.

This evening, representatives of the local organizations and charities who aid new refugees and immigrants to Greater Cleveland are meeting to design their offer to the State Department. The more help that Greater Cleveland can pledge now, the more Afghans and Iraqis can resettle here.

NEOtrans is a real estate, business and construction blog, so it might seem surprising that we're covering this story. But Cleveland and its economy was built by risk-taking immigrants, many of them fleeing difficult situations elsewhere in the world.

Cleveland needs more jobs, and immigrants start more new businesses than natives. And since Cleveland needs to reverse its decades-long population slide, attracting more immigrants is essential. Immigration is economic development, especially when the immigrants possess desired skills.

Cleveland's diversity is evident in many places,
but perhaps nowhere more than in the West Side
Market. It is a favored location of long-time re-
sidents and new immigrants who co-mingle on
any given day, Tuesdays and Thursdays excep-
ted of course, when the market is closed (KJP).

The local organizations' offer to the State Department could be delivered as early as tomorrow, so the pledges of affordable housing, clothing, food, jobs and donations need to be made promptly, said Joe Cimperman, president of Global Cleveland.

"The State Department says we have to meet three criteria -- willingness to accept refugees, a capacity to accommodate refugees, and what kind of community do we have to support refugees," Cimperman said. "We already have a strong Muslim community in Cleveland with a strong support network here. Will we welcome and support and love them here? I think the answer is yes."

Being able to answer those questions will determine how many Afghan refugees will find their way to Cleveland. So organizations in Cleveland are looking for pledges of housing such as affordable apartments, granny flats and other accommodations that are within walking distance of basic necessities and public transportation.

To identify housing, Global Cleveland is working closely with the Cleveland Chapter of The Council on American-Islamic Relations, Catholic Charities of Cleveland, US Together, the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, Refugee Response, Asian Services In Action-Ohio, and Building Hope in the City. All are collecting offers of temporary or permanent housing, food, clothing, furniture and financial donations. Contact each for details on how to donate. Prospective landlords will be pre-screened.

"We're going to give a report to the State Department tomorrow to show that we've got our act together," Cimperman said.

Asian students chat over the noise of traffic in the bustling Uptown
area of Cleveland's fast-growing University Circle (KJP). 

He said Afghan families have already begun to land in the USA at two Air Force bases. Tens of thousands more are being air-lifted out of Afghanistan to U.S. bases in Germany, Hungary and France. Once they are out of harm's way, security-screened and interviewed to determine whether they will enter the USA as refugees or as Green Card holders with immediately marketable skills.

The State Department selected Cleveland as one of 19 cities it is recommending for resettlement of Afghan and Iraqi refugees under Special Immigrant Visas. However, refugees who already have family or friends in the USA may opt to resettle with them.

"These (19) locations have been identified by the Resettlement Agencies as locations with reasonable cost of living, housing availability, supportive services and welcoming communities with volunteers and resources," the State Department explained.

The State Department will give three months of free rent and six months of food stamps to refugees. After that, they're on their own. So the State Department wants to see refugees relocate to lower-cost markets like Cleveland to make the aid go farther.

"Unless you have close relatives or friends in these areas who are able to provide financial support and housing until you find employment that covers your living expenses, it is best to allow a resettlement agency to choose a suitable location for you," the department continued.

Sunrise along Cleveland's Lake Erie shore. In the coming weeks,
thousands of Afghan refugees will find their way to America's
shores, with some starting a new life in Cleveland (KJP).

Cimperman said recent migrations have kept Cuyahoga County's population from falling farther than the 1 percent it dropped since 2010. In fact, Census data shows Cuyahoga County's adult population actually rose 2 percent in the same period.

"Had we not had the influx of immigrants, it would have been far worse," he said. "In the next three to five to 10 years, we'll see an increase in population because of this."

He noted that the resettlement of Jews during and after the breakup of the Soviet Union 30 years ago brought 40,000 immigrants to Greater Cleveland. Many of them settled in the eastern and southern suburbs where they opened shops and started other businesses.

After the war in the former Yugoslavia 25 years ago, thousands of Albanians came to Lakewood and Cleveland's West Side while Kosovar refugees settled in Cleveland's St. Clair-Superior neighborhood. The Serbian population grew in the southern suburbs. Lebanese, Iranians and Iraqis settled primarily on the city's West Side.

"The first Ethiopian restaurant in Ohio, Empress Taytu on St. Clair (Avenue), was the result of refugees fleeing African hunger," Cimperman said. "Shopping districts in Beachwood and the Heights are active due to thousands of Soviet Jews coming here. Immigrants bring life to our communities. Afghan refugees can, too."

END

Demolitions requested for Bridgeworks high-rise

Developers of Bridgeworks, a proposed 16-story tower at the north-
east corner of West 25th Street and the Detroit-Superior Bridge, are
seeking demolition permits for one structure, parts of another, plus
parking lots and a sidewalk at the Ohio City site (LDA/Mass).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

UPDATED AUG. 19, 2021

It's generally a good sign for a proposed development when demolition work is getting organized to make way for that development. But it doesn't guarantee construction will start soon -- or ever -- for the project or appease concerned neighbors.

A request for a demolition permit was submitted to the city today by Cleveland-based LDA Architects Inc. on behalf of developer Bridgeworks LLC. It is seeking to build a 16-story tower with 130 hotel rooms, mid-building restaurant, plus 170 apartments over ground-floor retail at the northeast corner of West 25th Street and the Detroit-Superior Bridge.

Bridgeworks is a project-specific joint venture between Grammar Properties and M. Panzica Development who previously collaborated on Church+State nearby in the Hingetown section of Cleveland's Ohio City neighborhood.

Their two-building, $60 million development, with its 11-story State tower and 6-story Church companion, has leased 86 percent of its 158 market-rate apartments and nearly all of its ground-floor retail spaces just one year after the entire complex opened, according to Apartments.com. And that was during the worst pandemic in a century.

This is a basic overview of the Bridgeworks site and the proposed
demolitions prior to construction of the 16-story tower and associ-
ated parking garage with north toward the top of the image (LDA).

That success has the developers desiring to set the stage for an encore. Their application for a demolition permit targets the former Cuyahoga County Engineer's property, to which Bridgeworks LLC took title on June 30. Bridgeworks paid the county $4.15 million for the 2.5 acres of land, easements and on-site structures, county records show.

According to today's application, the developers will expend about $320,000 to raze the 57-year-old, 22,395-square-foot Engineer's laboratory/office building and remove other site features. They propose to remove parking lots on the west and east sides of the site, pull up the sidewalk from the property's frontage along old Superior Viaduct/Vermont Avenue, and do selective demolition or removal and storage of features from the 80-year-old Art Deco-designed garage.

Items to be tagged, removed and stored include the garage's time-worn stone veneer from the north and west sides of that building. Salvageable stone will be restored and reattached during Bridgeworks' construction. Some interior and exterior furnishings and features from the 13,649-square-foot garage will be removed and discarded. They include garage doors, windows, partitions, casework, slab floors and roof structure, plans show.

Developer principal Michael Panzica said he had no update regarding a potential groundbreaking date for Bridgeworks. A source close to the developers said they do not have all of their layers of financing in place to begin construction. The developers reportedly want to get the demolitions out of the way so they could start construction as soon as they finalize their financing, the source said.

An aerial view of the Bridgeworks site showing all of the struc-
tures, parking lots and neighboring features -- including the
future site of the Irishtown Bend Park above the Cuyahoga
River seen at far right (myplace.cuyahogacounty.us).

That same source said a big piece of that financing is desired to be a Transformational Mixed Use Development (TMUD) tax credit. The TMUD program doesn't yet exist and has run into multiple delays in implementing its rulemaking and program administration.

Todd Walker, chief communications officer for the Ohio Development Services Agency, told NEOtrans the Ohio Tax Credit Authority hoped to launch the new TMUD program by the end of September and begin accepting applications for tax credits as large as $40 million. Bridgeworks' height and construction cost would meet or exceed the TMUD program's 15-story and $50 million minimums.

The TMUD program is expected to be very competitive. There are potentially dozens of projects just in Greater Cleveland that could be submitted for TMUD credits with many more statewide. For example, developers of the half-billion-dollar Centennial project downtown said they are seeking the maximum $40 million TMUD tax credit. Up to $80 million will be available in each of the next four years for eligible projects within 10 miles of Ohio's six largest cities.

"It is my understanding that the Bridgeworks project is holding out and plan to apply for a TMUD tax credit," confirmed Michael Rogalski, chair of the Waterfront District Block Club which represents the neighborhood's residents. "Until there is a yes or no on the tax credit, I don't believe Bridgeworks will proceed or change in scope of what it is as a project. The neighborhood is generally supportive of development, if done well and done respectfully."

Most of the county engineers buildings are visible in this aerial view
 looking north with the Detroit-Superior Bridge visible at the bottom.
The lab/office building is at the right, the Art Deco-styled mainte-
nance garage in the center, and a portion of the long-closed sub-
way station entrance building is at the left in the trees (Allegro).

Demolishing buildings for a proposed development that isn't fully secured may bring back bad memories for some Clevelanders. In 1989, the Jacobs group proposed the AmeriTrust headquarters supertall (63 stories, 1,198 feet tall) for the west side of downtown's Public Square. In 1990, they demolished two significant buildings, the 12-story 1 Public Square built in 1913 and the 13-story 33 Public Square built in 1895 to prepare for the tower's construction.

But the national banking industry was going through a wave of consolidations and AmeriTrust, once the Midwest's largest bank, was acquired in 1991 by Society Bank (later merged with Key Corp.). Society was finishing work on its own tower on Public Square at the time and didn't need two Cleveland skyscrapers. Plans for the AmeriTrust tower were scrapped. The site has been a parking lot for three decades but is proposed for Sherwin-Williams new HQ tower.

"I am not necessarily a fan of the buildings currently on the Bridgeworks site being demolished until a pretty sure guarantee that Bridgeworks project in some capacity will go forward," Rogalski added. "The last thing we need in this city is more surface parking lots."

But he explained that removing the existing parking lots on the Engineer's property may also be premature. The westernmost lot is used by St. Malachi Church, located across the street, for overflow parking on Sundays and for special events.

"I think it is important for the Bridgeworks development team to consider its neighbor, St. Malachi, the relationship they hope to have with the church going forward, when making that decision," Rogalski said. "It's good to be a good neighbor."

END

High-profile downtown property hits the market

A for-sale sign went up this week across East 9th Street from
Progressive Field for a property now used as parking. The offer-
ing likely coincides with a major renovation of the neighboring
major-league ballpark announced last week (Clifton Haworth).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

One week after a major renovation was announced for the home of the Cleveland Indians/Guardians, a highly visible and potentially attractive property nearby hit the market in downtown Cleveland.

The offering was announced this week with a large sign set up at the northeast corner of East 9th Street and Bolivar Road, across the street from Progressive Field. Geis Companies owns the five parcels being offered, originally acquiring them through two affiliates -- Downtown Investment Group LLC and Geis Prospect Huron Garage LLC, county records show.

The firm listing the properties is Geis Property Management LLC, however the listing does not yet appear on the firm's Web site. Nor does it appear in the Commercial Exchange which lists all commercial sale and lease listings.

Site of the Geis Companies property being offered for sale
is shown outlined in red. Progressive Field is seen at lower
left across East 9th Street (Google).

Conrad Geis, director and managing partner at Geis Companies, said the property offering is a disposition. He said it was not intended to be an offer for a partnership in a development, something which Geis does on many projects including the pending redevelopment of the Rockefeller Building. 

"It's not in the Web site yet but we are just marketing the property as being available," Geis said.

He said he was unable to further discuss the offering at this time. However, all options reportedly remain on the table for this reverse L-shaped 1.1-acre site. The parcels comprising this overall property provide frontage on East 9th, Bolivar and Prospect Avenue.

The timing of the sale comes just a week after the Cleveland Indians/Guardians announced a series of ambitious stadium renovations totaling $435 million as part of a lease extension to 2036 and possible extensions to 2046.

A variety of uses exist at the ballpark village in St. Louis, not just
those patronized by game-day visitors. There is housing, hotels and
offices that exist in this year-round setting (stballparkvillage.com).

There have also been reports for months, including here at NEOtrans, that Major League Baseball (MLB) wants more teams' owners and front offices to engage in the development of "ballpark villages" around their stadiums.

The goal of these villages is to provide retail, restaurants, housing, hotels and other supportive development near ballparks. St. Louis is one of the oft-cited models for MLB's desire for ballpark villages as is San Diego. Others are planned.

Not only would ballpark villages provide spin-off activity from 81 home baseball games per season but also be a year-round neighborhood. They might also provide a revenue stream to help support stadium upkeep and renovations through value-capture mechanisms such as tax-increment financing.

Geis' for-sale land is used as a surface parking lot and a low-level parking deck. The East 9th side was the site of the New York Spaghetti House from 1927-2001. After Geis bought it in 2015 for $1.5 million, it demolished the vacant structure.

A conceptual-level massing of a potential development on
downtown Cleveland land now being offered for sale (GLSD).

At the time, a Geis company representative said the firm intended to develop the site, noting that the company is not in the parking business. And, considering how much it paid for the land, it intended to recoup its investment through development.

Real estate sources who would not go on the record said there were several development suitors and/ or potential partners for the site in the last few years. Geis also reportedly considered building a high-rise condominium tower on the site.

The pandemic halted at least one of those opportunities for a massive development whose conceptual massing is depicted on the sign now set up at East 9th and Bolivar.

That massing shows two towers about 20 stories tall on the property with one facing East 9th and the other facing Prospect. Ground floor retail topped by layers of parking with residential above appear to be what's shown in the conceptual-level illustration.

END

Where will you work tomorrow?

These days, office spaces are appearing in some unusual places
and disappearing in the places where we'd traditionally expect
to find them. It's enough to make one wonder what the future
of the Cleveland office workplace will be like (Vocon).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

Forget everything you know about commercial office space. Expect the unexpected; anything is possible. We may be at a turning point in how, especially where office space is being delivered -- and it's not just about working from home.

Consider, for example, Brickhaus Partners' Bighaus project at Clifton and West boulevards in Cleveland's Edgewater-Cudell neighborhood. It was originally proposed as a five-unit townhouse development. Hardly a surprise. That's what Brickhaus does -- construct high-end townhomes.

But when a small, unidentified office tenant approach Brickhaus about locating its office just beyond the West Shoreway, the Warrensville Heights-based developer reworked its plan for Bighaus. Instead, documents were submitted last week to construct an 11,255-square-foot building described in a permit application as an "office building with two residences."

A source who was familiar with the project but not authorized to speak on the record about it said Brickhaus will have to get a variance from the city's Board of Zoning Appeals in order to develop the site with offices. The site is located in a district zoned for one-family uses.

Brickhaus' five-unit townhouse plan for Bighaus at Clifton and
West boulevards in Cleveland's Edgewater-Cudell neighborhood
may be changed. Instead, two residences over a suite of ground-
floor offices is being considered for this busy corner although
the building' exterior design may not change much (Bowen).

In a brief phone interview, Brickhaus Principal Andrew Brickman confirmed that he is considering adding the office component to the Bighaus project but hasn't made any formal decisions about moving forward with it. Of course, that will also depend on neighborhood reaction and whether the city approves it.

Ward 11 Councilman Brian Mooney acknowledged receiving an e-mail from NEOtrans asking questions about Brickhaus' proposal, but otherwise did not respond to it.

Brickman did say, however, that if he does go with the residents-over-offices plan, that the exterior design of the structure won't change much if at all. Parking would be behind and under the structure, accessed off West Boulevard. The exterior design evokes the form of other large houses on the other three corners of the intersection of Clifton and West.

Brickhaus acquired the 0.38-acre property last October for $200,000, county records show. Multiple owners and developers have attempted to develop the land for five decades. It has sat vacant since a large house on the site burned down in the mid-1960s.

Small office projects seem to be popping up in Cleveland neighborhoods with greater frequency, as do some unconventional residential/remote-work projects.

The second floor of this former warehouse and printing plant was
renovated by The Krueger Group as offices for a 10-person law
firm. While the immediate neighborhood in Gordon Square has
a growing number of new residential developments and some
light industrial uses, this will be its first law office (Dimit).

Another example is The Krueger Group's development on the southwest corner of West 58th Street and Breakwater Avenue in Cleveland's Gordon Square neighborhood. In addition to a new-construction, 27-unit apartment building, Cleveland-based Krueger has renovated a former auto parts warehouse-turned printing plant into a self-storage facility.

The self-storage facility is the dominant part of the 44,163-square-foot former warehouse structure, comprising 37,411 square feet on the first floor. The 6,752-square-foot second floor was renovated into offices for a 10-person law firm, said Dan Krueger, vice president of preconstruction at The Krueger Group.

Estimated cost of the warehouse renovation was a very affordable $500,000, according to city Building Department records. Self-storage businesses are usually very profitable since they require little staffing. Having a daytime office component upstairs and a new residential building next door will mean a nearly round-the-clock, eyes-on-the-street presence for the neighborhood.

The size of the office component is slightly smaller than the office space Brickhaus will likely be offering to its prospective tenant, also reportedly a law firm, a source said. The commercial component of the Krueger Group's project is completed; the residential part is still working its way through the city approvals process.

In downtown Cleveland, Dallas-based Blueloft Inc. and investor Kenny Wolfe are planning a unique live-work environment in what may be Cleveland's first post-pandemic remote-work tower.

Looks like an office building. But looks and the contem-
porary office market can be deceiving. Instead, a pair of
Dallas investors want to convert 45 Erieview Plaza, lo-
cated at Lakeside Avenue and East 9th Street down-
town, into a live-work city-within-a-city (KJP).

The building, 45 Erieview Plaza, constructed in 1983 as the headquarters of the Ohio Bell Telephone Co., is proposed to be a city-within-a-city with amenities ranging from gaming rooms, movie theater, rock-climbing wall, pet spa, pickleball court and much more.

About 200 market-rate apartments will line the curving outer walls and windows of the 16-story, 496,000-square-foot building, offering great views of Lake Erie. But the window-less inner part of the structure will be used as remote-working spaces.

The city's building code requires residential units to have windows. That and the huge, 37,000-square-foot floorplates in much of 45 Erieview discouraged other prospective buyers who couldn't image how to use the building's interior.

The many amenities being offered, including co-working lounges, spas, conference rooms and other social settings will support planned meetings or happenstance discussions of innovative business ideas. And they will be useful to residents who would live in what is still predominantly an office district. There aren't as many residential amenities nearby here as there are elsewhere downtown, such as along Euclid Avenue.

In fact, along Euclid, some building landlords and office tenants in downtown Cleveland are converting several floors of offices to residential or giving back some of their leasable office spaces to landlords. Jori Maron of Cleveland-based MRN Ltd., doing business as 629 Euclid Ltd., is converting at least two office floors of the New England Building, 629 Euclid, into residential.

Floor plans and other documents show how an affiliate of MRN Ltd.
intends to redesign several floors in its 125-year-old New England
Building, 629 Euclid Ave., from offices to apartments and a fitness
center. The plans were submitted to the city in March (SA Group).

Each 13,740-square-foot floor conversion from offices into 11 market-rate apartments and residential amenities like a fitness center is costing about $1,275,000, according to city building permit records. The New England Building was constructed in 1896.

Plans show the fitness center would measure 2,945 square feet and the apartments average about 1,000 square feet each. The rest of the 17-story building is used for a Holiday Inn Express hotel and an office building including tenants like digital marketer Rosetta Inc. and real estate firm Stark Enterprises.

Over at the 45-story 200 Public Square tower, accounting powerhouse Pricewaterhouse Coopers, LLP (PwC) is giving back to the landlord 8,040 square feet of space on the 18th floor. On the same floor, PwC will retain 9,334 square feet of office space.

Cleveland-based architect Vocon Partners submitted to the city planning documents for the change, including a new partition divider costing $150,000, public records show. The tower's 18th floor measures 24,440 square feet. The building's owner is an investor group led by New York-based DRA Advisors called G&I IX Public Square LLC.

END

Ohio City's INTRO is just the beginning

The nine-story, 350,000-square-foot INTRO would be large enough
for most developer's to be their finale. Instead, as the project's name
implies, it's just the beginning for Harbor Bay Real Estate Advisors
in terms of their potential development activity in Cleveland (KJP).
CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

When Harbor Bay Real Estate Advisors held a topping-off ceremony July 28 for its $145 million INTRO development, it wasn't signifying the peak of something. It was signifying the start of something even bigger.

More than the final form of the mixed-use development is coming together on the southeast corner of Lorain Avenue and West 25th Street in Cleveland's Ohio City neighborhood. The tenants and end-users of the 350,000-square-foot development are also coming together. And Harbor Bay's own businesses are going to be the largest commercial end-users.

In an interview last week, Harbor Bay's Vice President of Design & Development Dan Whalen revealed that only about 6,000 square feet of commercial space remains uncommitted in the nine-story, two-winged complex. INTRO is Cleveland's first and America's tallest mass-timber building. It is due to be completed in Spring 2022.

How do we know this is just the start of the Northbrook, IL (Chicago suburb) company's foray into Cleveland? Because actions speak louder than words.

Looking north on West 25th Street toward the intersection of Lorain
Avenue, INTRO is on the right, the West Side Market's tower is in
the middle and the United Bank Building is at left (KJP).

Whalen acknowledged that Harbor Bay will establish a significant office presence at INTRO, measuring about 30,000 square feet. Harbor Bay does more than just build things. It also owns and manages its real estate portfolio including restaurants, event centers and other properties.

"We will have a Harbor Bay office here in Cleveland at INTRO," he said. "We're looking at hiring about 150 employees for our hospitality, construction and real estate lines of business here."

He emphasized the office staffing will be to manage its Cleveland portfolio including construction, not a relocation of Chicagoland personnel. The inclusion of a construction office is a pretty strong indication that Harbor Bay plans to develop more properties in Cleveland.

"We've only just begun," Whalen sang, channeling The Carpenters' 1970 hit song. 

Although still a work in progress and a month from being ready to
welcome tours of prospective tenants, this model apartment already
shows off INTRO's Austrian woodwork and floor-to-ceiling win-
dows with views of the Market Square District (Dan Whalen).

When it was first proposed, INTRO was going to include a roughly 10-story office building just south of the expansive structure that's under construction now. But state-led financing including a temporary tax exemption was stopped at the behest of city, school and Cleveland Metroparks officials in the 11th hour.

Without the exemption, the 150,000-square-foot office component wasn't going to pencil so it was dropped. Harbor Bay also couldn't interest office tenants seeking a new or larger space to pay downtown rents in Ohio City. Then there was the pandemic's affect on encouraging more remote work and less office time.

Whalen confirmed recent rumors that Harbor Bay was instead considering a multi-family building for its phase two in the Market Square District instead of the office building. He wouldn't confirm or deny additional rumors that the building's height would approach the 175-foot zoning limit for this area, meaning a building possibly exceeding 15 stories.

He also would not discuss whether Harbor Bay would seek a Transformational Mixed Use Development tax credit for a phase-two building. A 15-story height and a $50 million project cost are among the minimum requirements for a development to tap the new TMUD program.

On July 28, Harbor Bay raised into place the final
structural beam for INTRO, coinciding with a
topping-off ceremony later that day (KJP).

A possible second phase for INTRO might also depend on successful leasing for phase one. However, residential leasing for phase one hasn't yet begun. Whalen said it would start in mid- to late-September with several types of model units in the building that will be available for tours.

Although formal residential leasing hasn't started, Harbor Bay has been accepting residential inquiries for weeks. They have more inquiries than the 288 apartments that will become available for move-in by March or April 2022.

Meanwhile, retail/restaurant leasing at INTRO has been under way for months with the first retail tenants already announced. They include a Bank of America branch, an AT&T Store plus two Harbor Bay-managed businesses. NEOtrans broke the news about those two businesses last month.

One will be a café and market called Leaps & Bounds that will fill a 3,328-square-foot ground-floor space at the corner of Lorain and West 25th, across from the West Side Market. Whalen said the café will roast Harbor Bay's own brand of coffee.

The other Harbor Bay-owned tenant will be Truss Cleveland -- a top-floor, 12,000-square-foot event center. It will have five event spaces including a 6,000-square-foot main event hall, a 4,000-square-foot rooftop terrace, plus a 500-square-foot wedding suite with make-up vanities and private bath.

At INTRO's topping-off ceremony July 29, Harbor Bay's Dan Whalen
addresses a crowd of development team representatives, city officials,
union leaders and other members of the community (KJP).

"We've had 450 inquiries in eight weeks and booked 30 weddings already and we don't even have a finished space on the top floor," Whalen said.

The rest of the building won't be done by February 2022 but he said Harbor Bay will have Truss Cleveland finished by then. The reason? The top-floor event space will host private parties for the National Basketball Association's All-Star Game weekend Feb. 18-20, 2022, Whalen said.

Whalen was tight-lipped about the three-story, 14,108-square-foot restaurant space at the northeast corner of INTRO, across Gehring Avenue from the Ohio City Red Line train station. All he would say is that the space would actually be two Harbor Bay restaurants, each with independent concepts. They will be a casual restaurant on the first floor and an upscale restaurant on the second floor topped by a third-floor terrace, he said.

A new café called Leaps & Bounds, to be owned by Harbor Bay,
will occupy INTRO's highest-profile corner, that of Lorain
Avenue and West 25th Street in Cleveland (Bialosky).

But detailed plans were submitted to the city this week showing more than just the $2.7 million price tag for building out the two restaurant spaces.

The public record also revealed the identities and themes of the two restaurants, albeit buried in the fine print of the architectural drawings. The first-floor casual restaurant will have a wood theme and be called Pioneer, offering "Quality fire-grilled meats sourced from local farmers," plans show.

Upstairs, the drawings reveal a Spanish-Portuguese restaurant and tapas bar to be called Jajá. A tapa is an appetizer or snack in Spanish cuisine. In some bars and restaurants, tapas have evolved into a more sophisticated cuisine.

And "Jaja" in Portuguese is pronounced "zha-zha." In Spanish, it means laughter, like "haha." In Portuguese, it means "now now." But Whalen said his company didn't intend for it to mean anything, so they're having the last laugh.

Two restaurants will be located in the low-rise portion of INTRO,
offering views of downtown Cleveland and the Market Square
District, especially from a third-floor terrace (KJP).

For the remaining 6,000-plus square feet in uncommitted retail spaces, Whalen said he is seeking tenants that will serve the neighborhood on a daily basis. Those could include a barber, nail salon, class-based fitness tenant and more. There will be no large-scale retailer in INTRO.

"We don't need an anchor in our building to attract tenants," he said. "The West Side Market is already the anchor. There's an authentic neighborhood vibe about it."

In the public space between INTRO's two building wings, Whalen said Harbor Bay will be hiring someone to activate it with public art and engaging programming. He specifically mentioned as a potential program the Christkindl Holiday Market which is offered in more than a half-dozen cities in the U.S. and Canada during the holiday season.

"We want to make it the town square of Ohio City," Whalen said.

INTRO is a massive building and thus a massive undertaking.
But based on Harbor Bay's actions, this development probably
won't be its last hurrah in Greater Cleveland (KJP).

Other than the news that Harbor Bay will staff a construction office at INTRO, there have been other recent actions that underscore the Chicagoland firm is just getting started in establishing a larger presence in Cleveland.

Sources said in 2019 Harbor Bay was near to buying the Voss Industries building across West 25th from INTRO. Again, Whalen wouldn't confirm or deny the rumor. Instead, an investor team led by real estate broker Terry Coyne bought the property for $4.8 million after selling to Voss a newer plant in Berea.

County records show MRN Ltd. bought the 237,106-square-foot Voss plant and 4-acre property in March for $7.5 million, adding to its portfolio on the west side of West 25th. MRN is aggressively moving forward in redeveloping the large, 85-year-old factory into a mix of residential and commercial spaces.

Considering the scale of the Voss property, it shows how big Harbor Bay was willing to expand here locally. And its latest actions and plans show the firm remains serious about additional expansion here after construction work of INTRO's phase one is done.

Tyler Kapusta contributed to this article.

END