Casket maker brings factory to life

Starting as early as this summer, manufacturing operations are expected to
begin at Victoriaville & Co.’s new casket and urn factory in Cleveland’s
Bellaire-Puritas neighborhood following an investment of about $1 million
to retrofit and existing building on West 130th Street (Victoriaville & Co.).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

Construction permits were filed this week with Cleveland’s Building Department to retrofit a west-side factory so Victoriaville & Co. of Victoriaville, Québec, Canada can open its first manufacturing operations in the USA. The plant will manufacture what’s called “death care merchandise” — namely caskets and urns in what is a growing market as the oldest Baby Boomers approach 80 years of age.

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Downtown Lakewood work starts for new bank

Façade designs for the new Chase Bank in downtown Lakewood, showing
the north side facing Detroit Avenue and the south side facing the parking
lot and drive-up ATM (TAP). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

Persons visiting or passing through downtown Lakewood have likely noticed the demolition of a small bank branch-turned-bagel restaurant and wondered what is going to replace it. The answer is that another bank branch will return to that site but with a more pedestrian-friendly approach to the building’s design this time around. And while the new structure will be bigger than its predecessor, the amount of floor space in the building isn’t as much as the new structure makes it appear.

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Two Cleveland-area projects win millions

Looking northward up South Taylor Road at the Taylor Tudors, a trio of historic,
Tudor Revival apartment buildings over street-level retail. The view in this
rendering is from a future phase of the same overall development in Cleveland
Heights’ Stadium Square Historic District which includes 208 apartments, about
24 townhomes and more than 300 parking spaces in a deck hidden behind the
new apartment buildings (RDL). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

Two Greater Cleveland historic rehabilitation projects got an unexpected boost this week to the tune of nearly $7.2 million. The Taylor Tudors portion of a larger development in Cleveland Heights plus a renovation of McKinley School in Cleveland’s Westown-Jefferson Neighborhood were beneficiaries of an oversight by the Ohio Department of Development (ODOD).

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Cleveland Clinic to raze ex-TRW HQ

Cleveland Clinic’s Lyndhurst Campus, the former TRW headquarters and
its surrounding 98-acre site, was on the market for nearly four years. During
that time. Clinic officials said they received no acceptable offers. But that
was disputed by Lyndhurst Mayor Patrick Ward (LoopNet).
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Two significant structures on a large piece of land in Cleveland’s eastern suburbs, whose prominence is owed to the industrial giants of Gilded Age Cleveland, face very different fates. One, the 106-year-old, 45-room Frances Bolton Mansion, will be preserved. The other, the 1985-built, former TRW headquarters with its four office wings radiating from a glassy central atrium, is proposed to be demolished by the end of the year.

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Chicago builder expands to Cleveland

Leopardo Companies’ first project in Cleveland certainly won’t be its
last. In September 2022, representatives of Leopardo Companies’ joined
with those of Wolfe Real Estate, Bluelofts, Inc., Sandvick Architects, and
Comprehensive Zoning Services to start redeveloping the former Ohio
Bell headquarters at 45 E. 9th St. in downtown Cleveland into The Bell
a $102 million mixed-use project featuring 367 apartments (Leopardo).
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Chicago-based Leopardo Companies is already making a name for itself in Cleveland by serving as the construction manager of two major development projects in downtown. But while some construction companies might be content with overseeing a couple of big building projects in a secondary market like Cleveland before moving on to the next opportunity somewhere else in the country, Leopardo has different ideas.

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More downtown firms making moves

The 19th-century Grand Arcade in downtown Cleveland’s Warehouse
District is often thought of as a residential property. But it also has
office condos. The wife of the founder of Herman Legal Group bought
one and is renting it out to the immigration law firm which will move
into it next month (REmax). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

Three legal and financial service firms in downtown Cleveland are on the move to new addresses in the central business district, with two firms seeking smaller spaces as part of an ongoing trend by many office-based employers to downsize their work spaces after the pandemic. The third firm moved to accommodate significant new growth in Cleveland. And each firm is staying downtown, investing in their new office locations, with none of the three seeking a reduction in employment. Indeed, even as some office spaces shrink, the number of employees at those tenants’ aren’t shrinking. Instead, they are taking advantage of remote working and web-based contact with clients.

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Ohio City high-rise may get loan, start date

Developers of Bridgeworks, a 15-story mixed-use building planned at the
west end of the Detroit-Superior Bridge, are near to closing the project’s
financing gap. That would allow demolition and construction of the $104
million development to begin as early as this spring (Mass/LDA).
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On March 14, Cuyahoga County Council is expected to vote on a proposed $2 million loan that could finally close a persistent funding gap on the planned $103.7 million Bridgeworks development. The investment would allow site demolition and construction to start as early as this spring, putting a 15-story building at the west end of the Detroit-Superior Bridge in the booming Hingetown section of Cleveland’s Ohio City neighborhood.

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