Thursday, March 16, 2023

Cleveland adds fewest apartments among major metros

The largest development in downtown Cleveland that’s adding more
housing is the 23-story City Club Apartments at 720 Euclid Ave. that
will add 303 housing units. Other projects in the works could add
thousands more apartments in the next couple of years (KJP).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

New data from a leading North American real estate services firm shows that Greater Cleveland had the smallest number of new apartment units under construction in the USA in the fourth quarter of 2022. That snapshot of construction activity in America’s multi-family rental market shows that, not only is Greater Cleveland lagging way behind the nation’s largest metropolitan areas in adding new apartments, it’s also lagging behind many of its peer metros. The report comes as the City of Cleveland considers reducing its financial incentives for new developments.

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Wednesday, March 15, 2023

Cleveland Habitat for Humanity opens first union-built home

 Sierra stands with a large group of people who helped make her new home
on Grandview Avenue in Cleveland’s Buckeye-Woodhill  neighborhood
possible. That included those standing closest to her, Habitat for Humanity
President/CEO John Litten, Habitat’s Associate Director of Affordable
Homeownership Jessica Morrison, and Cleveland City Council President
Blaine Griffin. Also standing with Sierra are representatives of the city,
donors and workers who helped finance and build the home (Emma Wind).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

A new home on Grandview Avenue was the first all-union-built home in Greater Cleveland to be provided by the Greater Cleveland Habitat for Humanity program. And yesterday its residents got the keys to it. Thanks to the Habitat for Humanity program, the 14th house was built on Grandview Avenue in Cleveland’s Buckeye-Woodhill neighborhood. The resident, Sierra, mother of six, couldn’t hold back her tears of happiness.

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Saturday, March 11, 2023

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.).
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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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Friday, March 10, 2023

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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Wednesday, March 8, 2023

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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Tuesday, March 7, 2023

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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Monday, March 6, 2023

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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