Ten Cleveland schools OK’d for new uses

The Audubon Middle School, 3055 Martin Luther King Jr. Dr.,
in Cleveland’s Mount Pleasant neighborhood, is one of 10
school properties that are due to be repurposed in the coming
years with new uses. In the case of this landmark, century-old
building, it will be renovated by Boston-based TCB Ohio Inc.
and the Burten Bell Carr Community Development Corp. with
107 affordable apartments for seniors plus office and community
spaces in the school’s restored ballroom and library (Google).
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City Planning Commission today gave city and school officials authority to enter into agreements with multiple proposed purchasers and real estate developers to acquire and repurpose 10 Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) properties. The disposition of those 10 properties is part of a larger effort to sell and reuse more school sites.

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Midtown development sites to double in size

Demolition of the closed MPC Plating Inc. plant on both sides of East
63rd Street, between Euclid and Chester avenues, in Cleveland’s Mid-
town neighborhood opens the door to the expansion of mixed-use de-
 velopments that were built or underway along East 61st and East 66th
streets. The MPC Plating properties are outlined with black lines
(Merritt Chase). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

A Midtown Cleveland development site is about to get twice as large. Even better, a developer is ready, willing and able to construct mixed-use developments on it, assuming a demolition request is approved. Community development officials said they are excited about the outcomes of clearing and cleaning the site left vacant by a former industrial user.

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NEOtrans’ 56 stories about Sherwin-Williams’ 36 stories

At 618 feet tall, the 36-story Sherwin-Williams headquarters tower
will become the fourth-tallest in downtown Cleveland and drama-
tically change the city’s skyline. The tower will mean different
things to different people, but there was one storyline of how
we got to the start of construction. It involved three years and
56 NEOtrans articles that traced this project from its earliest
origins to today’s groundbreaking ceremony (Pickard Chilton).
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On this date of the groundbreaking ceremony for Sherwin-Williams’ (SHW) new global headquarters, it’s not just a time to look ahead but to look back to see how we got here.

It was three years and two months ago that NEOtrans wrote the first of 56 articles about the SHW HQ project by breaking the news that SHW had started planning work for a new HQ. Or, more accurately, SHW “re-started” planning work that began several years earlier but was put on hold. Of more pressing concern from 2016-18 was SHW acquiring its rival Valspar and paying down its debt from that acquisition.

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Ground broken for apartments and Meijer store

Officials from the city of Cleveland, Cleveland Clinic Foundation,
Meijer grocery store, Fairfax Renaissance Development Corp. and
Fairmount Properties broke ground today on a $53 million grocery
store to be topped by market-rate apartments (CCF).
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In one week, three major groundbreakings were held in Cleveland. Today, representatives of the City of Cleveland, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Meijer, Fairfax Renaissance Development Corp. and Fairmount Properties broke ground on a new grocery store and apartment complex in the Fairfax neighborhood of Cleveland, according to a written press statement released by the Cleveland Clinic.

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38-year-old building wins historic tax credit

Another $100+ million residential development in downtown
Cleveland is due to get underway by spring. The conversion
of the former Ohio Bell headquarters in downtown Cleveland
won the state’s largest historic tax credit, even though the build-
ing was built in 1983. It was one of three Cleveland projects and
among 36 projects statewide to win Ohio historic tax credits (KJP).
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Champagne was flowing in the lobby of 45 Erieview as Ohio Department of Development officials announced the winner of one of the state’s largest historic tax credits — a 38-year-old office building to be converted mostly into high-end housing. The $5 million tax credit may round out the $102 million project’s financing, allowing its sale and redevelopment to move forward.

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City Club Apartments breaks ground for its first Cleveland project

Dignitaries broke ground today for the new 23-story City Club Apart-
ments, 776 Euclid Ave. in downtown Cleveland. But City Club Apart-
ments Chairman and CEO Jonathan Holtzman said it won’t be the Mi-
chigan-based company’s last project in Cleveland. Tossing dirt with
golden shovels were, from left, lead project architect and Vocon Part-
ners LLC Principal Denver Brooker, City Club’s Holtzman, Ward 3
Councilman Kerry McCormack, City Council President-Elect Blaine
Griffin and Downtown Cleveland Alliance President & CEO Michael
 Deemer (KJP). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

It wasn’t just the sound shovels hitting the dirt at the City Club Apartments’ groundbreaking ceremony today in downtown Cleveland that was heard. It was also the news that the Farmington Hills, MI developer and owner of multi-family and mixed-use properties was just getting started in establishing a presence in Cleveland. But no one overlooked the importance of the latest residential high-rise being added to Cleveland’s main street, least of all the man most responsible for it.

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A large property near you may be ripe for a jail

A Cuyahoga County steering committee has supported this basic,
conceptual design of a new jail facility called the Cuyahoga County
Corrections Center. The big question now is where to put it. An request
for proposals was issued yesterday to help answer that question (JCESC).
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It’s definitely an unusual move. Typically, when a government agency needs a property for a new facility, it does an alternatives analysis of all the properties that meet its criteria. It then ranks them according to that criteria and then pursues acquisition of their preferred property or properties. If that doesn’t work out, the agency pursues its second favorite site. And so on.

Not Cuyahoga County. Instead of approaching owners of big, development-ready sites for its sprawling integrated Cuyahoga County Corrections Center (CCCC), the county wants you to come to them.

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