Downtown occupancy finally rings at The Bell

A rendering of The Bell as seen from East 9th Street, looking northward. This
former Ohio Bell headquarters office building is now open and leasing has
begun for residents and its commercial spaces, including  a restaurant and
co-working offices (Sandvick). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.

Despite recent bumps in opening The Bell, the team that converted the former Ohio Bell headquarters into apartments and commercial spaces has hired two Chicago firms to market and manage the property. The announcement comes as the Downtown Cleveland building has received its occupancy permit, effectively declaring the $100-plus-million conversion project as complete.

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Hough renovation secures financing, start date

When renovations are concluded in about 18 months, a modernized building at 9410
Hough Ave. in Cleveland will provide affordable housing near University Circle and
a setting more befitting the mostly positive direction that the Hough neighborhood
 is headed (RDL). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.

In a long-planned redevelopment, the renovation of a vacant and vandalized 10-story apartment building at the east end of Cleveland’s Hough neighborhood finally has the green light to start work. That green light came today as $47 million in financing closed for the project and construction is due to start before the end of this month.

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Cleveland’s lakefront has something no other major Great Lakes city has

 In the late 1800s, railroad tracks were the last things you cross before
getting your feet wet in Lake Erie. That was before hundreds of acres of
new lakefront land near Downtown Cleveland was created with landfill. 
Cleveland was one of the few major Great Lakes cities to have a busy
mainline railroad along its lakefront. Today, it is the only one where freight
trains are the dominant user of those lakefront tracks (Shober &
Carqueville, Library of Congress). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.

When looking at Chicago’s enviable lakefront, it never had it. Toronto’s did, but not anymore. Same with Milwaukee’s and Hamilton’s but due to different circumstances. Detroit, Buffalo, Toledo and smaller cities like Green Bay and Erie never did. What are we talking about here? A busy mainline freight railroad routed along a major Great Lake city’s downtown waterfront.

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Next steps for Bedrock’s riverfront development

The full build-out of Bedrock’s ambitious $3.5 billion riverfront vision first requires the
foundation of infrastructure, public spaces and the creation of development sites for
the Detroit-based developer and others to construct their residential, hospitality,
office and entertainment buildings (Bedrock-MKSK).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.

On Friday, representatives of Bedrock Real Estate will make a presentation to Cleveland’s City Planning Commission about the upcoming steps they will take to ready the site for their ambitious $3.5 billion riverfront development plan. But a majority of those early steps boil down to just one foundational word — infrastructure.

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Cleveland to make prime Ohio City site available

McCafferty Health Center on Lorain Avenue in Ohio City will be made available
to developers to construct affordable housing on the site in a neighborhood with
many expensive houses and apartments. This view is from the alley Fulton
Court behind the health center, near West 44th Street (Google).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.

For years, the underutilized McCafferty Health Center at 4242 Lorain Ave. in Cleveland’s booming Ohio City neighborhood has been a topic of interest among real estate developers and community leaders. Today, Cleveland city officials announced they will soon be entertaining proposals for the site’s development.

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Let’s do another one! Cleveland entrepreneurs of color to compete again

In the first Cleveland Equitable Development Initiative, real estate developers of
color competed for financial prizes to support their projects and were mentored
along the way. Everyone who competed gained awards and insights so no one
went home empty-handed (Cleveland Development Advisors).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.

After a successful inaugural effort of the Cleveland Equitable Development Initiative (CLE-EDI), the Cleveland Development Advisors (CDA) didn’t waste any time at all in deciding to pursue a second round of competitions for 2024-25. Applications open today for the CLE-EDI which aims to level the playing field for historically excluded real estate developers of color.

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Watterson-Lake development awarded financing

Public financing was awarded by the state for the Watterson-Lake development, a
five-story apartment building over a large ground-floor community-service space
plus a dozen townhomes between West 74th and 75th streets, south of Detroit
Avenue at the Lake Avenue intersection. This evolving design shows the
building expanded up to the corner of Detroit and West 74th (Stantec).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.

Key pieces of financing were awarded this week to a significant development planned on the south side of the intersection of Detroit and Lake avenues in Cleveland’s Detroit-Shoreway neighborhood. There, a 136-unit affordable housing project could see construction start by early next year on the site of the former Watterson-Lake Elementary School, 7407 Detroit Ave.

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