Little Italy demolition OK'd, development plan tabled

At the center of the image is a proposed new restaurant at 12115
Mayfield Rd. in Cleveland's Little Italy. An existing structure on
the site was approved for demolition but its proposed replacement
was deemed too tall by the Landmarks Commission (RWBA/CPC).

It's not Italy's Leaning Tower of Pisa, but La Barberia University Spa, 12115 Mayfield Rd. in Cleveland's Little Italy, has an obvious eastward lean to it. In fact, the only things keeping the 126-plus-year-old building from tipping into the Tavern of Little Italy next door are some support posts and an enclosure for an automated teller machine.

Earlier today, Cleveland's Landmarks Commission unanimously approved demolition of the spa building but tabled the property owner's development plans for the skinny site. Owner Fatmir Hajrullahi proposes a restaurant with a party room on the top floor due to the success of his restaurant and party room at Maxi's Bisto next door, said Travis Logsdon of Blatchford Architects in Cleveland Heights.

"There really isn't a great opportunity to save the building," Logsdon said. "It's in really bad shape. The owner is proposing a new restaurant in this location with a party room above. He has a similar set up at Maxi's. He's always booked for events."

Chief City Planner Maurice Ruelens agreed that the building is in poor condition. In addition to it leaning, the building has water infiltration in the basement and a leaking roof. The building was substantially renovated in 1962, eliminating much of its original architectural character.

"The building is leaning and partially held up by the ATM enclosure," he said.

The age of the building is in question because no original permit was filed prior to its construction. The earliest reference to the building was in the newspapers which reported that a stabbing murder had occurred there in 1894 when it was a restaurant-bar, Ruelens added. In the 1940s, the building was a laundromat when it was bombed -- apparently during a mob dispute.

12115 Mayfield is seen in this
view from 1954 when it was
the home of a travel agency,
shortly after the building was
bombed and before it was
remodeled in 1962 (CPC).

Public records show this and multiple other properties nearby were owned by the D'Agostino family for decades until 2011. The D'Agostino family acquired properties in Little Italy starting in the mid-1930s from Frank Milano, one of founding members of the Mayfield Road Mob.

"The building unfortunately has suffered greatly over the years," said commission member Stephen Harrison. "Maybe one more bomb blast and it would be gone."

"There's a real pitch to the floors on the upper stories," commission Secretary Donald Petit concurred. "Posts were added in the alley to keep it from falling into the building to the east. It's really tough to make a case to restore this building. I don't think it's architecturally significant. It's been altered. It seems like the conditions really belie a restoration in this case."

Ray Kristosik, executive director at Little Italy Redevelopment Corp., said the neighborhood design review committee not only approved the building's demolition but also the development plan for the new restaurant. The first draft of the proposed building was one story taller than the plan later approved by the neighborhood committee and referred to the Landmarks Commission.

"The other one looked like a rocket ship," Kristosik said, referring to the original building plan.

But commission members requested further reductions in the new building's height which is four feet taller than the two immediately neighboring structures.

View of 12115 Mayfield, at center, in September 2019 (Google).

"It's a part of a streetscape that has a rhythm," Harrison said. "This (existing) building fits in like the piece of a puzzle."

Another feature of the new restaurant that raised concerns by the commission was the glassy exterior facing Mayfield. Commission member Michele Anderson said it was inconsistent with the design on the rest of the street. But Logsdon showed a rendering of what the new building could look like at night, showing that neighboring buildings also put a lot of light on the street.

"The desire is to get a lot of lighting into the building and at night it would be a beacon at the end of Murray Hill Road," Logsdon said.

Blatchford Architects also designed the renovations at Mia Bella restaurant, 12200 Mayfield, located at the southeast corner of the intersection with Murray Hill -- across the street from the proposed restaurant.

The new building is proposed to be 14 feet longer than the existing building and have a basement deeper than the current one which is only six feet deep. That will require reinforcing foundations for the neighboring buildings before excavating. Demolition of the existing building will have to be done carefully as well so as not to damage the neighboring structures only inches away.

Logsdon said the demolition will start in the back and disassemble the building going toward Mayfield. At the request of the commission, interior elements of the building will be preserved including a tin ceiling at the front of the first level. Also, the commission urged that sandstone blocks from the basement be incorporated into the design of the building somehow, such as in the courtyard or perhaps an interior feature.

Proposed statue and setting for Cleveland Indians baseball legend
Rocky Colavito. Because he was not inducted into the baseball
hall of fame in Cooperstown, NY, his statue cannot be installed
at a major league ballpark such as Progressive Field. Instead,
the statue is proposed for Anthony Brescia (Tony Brush)
Park in Little Italy (HSB-CPC).

In other Landmarks Commission news involving Little Italy, the commission approved a statue commemorating Cleveland Indians baseball legend Rocky Colavito. The statue would be installed at Anthony Brescia (Tony Brush) Park, 12002 Mayfield.

The statue's setting was designed by HSB Architects and the sculptor will be David Deming. It will be maintained by the Italian-American Brotherhood Club, based across Mayfield from the park.

Matthew Gambatese, member of the statue's fundraising committee, said Colavito is supportive of the statue. Colavito, born in 1933, was a right-outfielder for the Indians from 1955-59. He played for 14 seasons but was traded at the height of his career after the 1959 season -- the last time the Indians were in a pennant race until the mid-1990s.

The trade was called the "Curse of Rocky Colavito." He lives today in Florida. The goal is to start work on the statue in the spring. To help with fundraising for the statue, contact the committee at its Web site.

END

University Circle towers' financing secured, spring start eyed

Circle Square would create a new downtown for University Circle,
Ohio's fourth-largest employment center and one of Ohio's fastest-
growing employment and residential districts. It is proposed to be
built less than a block from where a vibrant mini-downtown called
Doans Corners stood until the 1970s (CPC-MDP).

UPDATED SEPT. 4 WITH MORE/UPDATED GRAPHICS AND QUOTES

Seeing the $300 million Circle Square development back on Cleveland's City Planning Commission's docket again is great news for University Circle and the region. At the start of summer, it was uncertain whether the massive project would see the light of day again, or at least in so ambitious a scale.

March 6, 2020 was last time the downtown-scale Circle Square development was on Planning Commission's agenda. A few things have changed since then, and we're not just talking about the weather.

The pandemic swept the globe and smacked the financial markets with an uncertainty not seen in a century. Given that, financiers asked if it was wise to pursue a project as significant as Circle Square that featured an 11-story apartment building and a 24-story residential tower in just the first phase.

Such a question is why the University Circle project hasn't been subjected to further design-review by the city since early March when the temperature in Cleveland struggled to escape the 30s. The developers, Midwest Development Partners of Cleveland and White Oak Realty Partners of Chicago, were since put in a holding pattern by their financiers including Ponski Capital Partners and others.

A proposed 24-story residential tower at 10600 Chester Ave. and adjoining
parking garage are once again making their way through the design-review
process after a six-month hiatus during which the entire Circle Square
 development seemed very much in doubt (CPC-MDP).

Before the pandemic, they had hoped to start construction in June. But by the time June rolled around, the project was in serious doubt.

That also put the Cleveland Public Library (CPL) in a bind as it planned to build a new facility for its Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) Branch on the ground floor of the 11-story apartment building, called Library Lofts, 10553 Euclid Ave.

"The developers will let us know by July 1, 2020 whether they will go forward with the apartments above the branch or not," said CPL Chief Legal Officer Joyce Dodrill at the May 21 CPL board meeting.

"We are hoping that they will come through with that (project). Although we do have bond money involved in that project, we are working with the developer who has incurred a delay because of financing. We are currently delayed as we wait to hear from the developers in terms of building apartments over our branch," Dodrill added.

Library Lofts apartments over a new MLK Branch library was
approved by Planning Commission last winter in the hopes that
construction could start in June 2020. But pandemic-related
uncertainty put the project at risk until financing ultimately
came through this summer. The existing Fenway Manor
apartments are seen at right in this view (CPC-MDP).

But by July, the economy was rebounding and there was a light at the end of the pandemic's tunnel. Reaching that light should lead to further economic recovery in Ohio's fourth-largest employment center -- University Circle.

The developers of Circle Square got the good news they wanted. The project's financiers were back on board.

That's why Circle Square is back before Planning Commission after a six-month hiatus. The Library Lofts and associated MLK Branch library had already received final approval last winter. But the 24-story apartment tower at 10600 Chester Ave. and a public parking garage at 10590 Chester Ave. had so far gotten only conceptual approval until now. Both still had to get schematic approval, followed by final approval.

Schematic approval was given by the commission Sept. 4 for the 10600 Chester tower, public garage and street plans. If final approval follows in a couple of months, and if CPL and the developers are on the same timetable, construction could begin in the spring, possibly as early as March, according to a source close to one of the developers who said the timing now depends on CPL's readiness.

Circle Square's conceptual masterplan features residential, retail,
hotel and offices in a setting similar to the mini-downtown that
once tood at Euclid Avenue and East 105th Street, at the bottom
of the image, for more than 100 years (CPC-MDP).

But library officials said they are waiting on the developers adding that CPL needs to move forward soon on construction of the MLK Branch as well as three other Phase 1A library facilities -- Hough Branch, Jefferson Branch and Woodland Branch that will include a new Central Distribution Facility & Book Storage. These and other buildings are part of a 10-year, $100 million CPL facilities masterplan.

"Because the library issued bonds for the funding of our masterplan project, we are required by law under IRS regulations to spend down the proceeds within a five-year period," Dodrill said. "We are actually required to spend down 85 percent of the bond funds within three years."

She said if CPL is unable to complete that, it would have to seek a three- to five-year extension. If CPL failed to meet the extension, the bonds could lose their tax-exempt status which would cost the library substantially more money to pay back the bonds as well as possibly face some IRS sanctions.

"We have to build around the existing MLK library," said Steve Rubin, partner at Midwest Development Partners at the Sept. 4 Planning Commission meeting. "It has caused some unique challenges which requires us to build from outside in."

Several high-speed turning lanes for cars are due to be removed
to make way for Circle Square and to make this area safer and
more comfortable for pedestrians (CPC-MDP).

Circle Square is ultimately buoyed by recent projects in Cleveland's "second downtown." They include First Interstate Properties' 276-unit, $116 million One University Circle, 10730 Euclid Ave., which opened in September 2019. Midwest Development Partners' 272-unit, $50 million Centric Apartments, 1999 Circle Dr., opened in December 2018. Both attracted 95 percent occupancies less than one year after opening despite top-of-the-market rents.

If the developers' and CPL's schedules can be worked out to accelerate Circle Square, there's no reason why construction couldn't begin sooner rather than later.

"We're excited about a shovel hitting the ground in 2021," said Chris Ronayne, president of University Circle Inc. "This is good for our construction trades and it's good for continued momentum in a complicated time."

He also noted that the project will force a redesign of streets into more of a grid that will slow cars and eliminate gentle turning lanes that allowed traffic to move faster. The existing "spaghetti junction" of roadways makes that area dangerous for pedestrians.

The view looking north on Stokes Boulevard-East 107th Street north from
the proposed new Reserve Court. At left and above in the foreground is
a future hotel with the 10600 Chester residential tower just beyond. At
right are proposed office and residential buildings. Down the street
is the existing Judson Manor apartment building (CPC-MDP).

And there could be lots of pedestrians in and around Circle Square which will essentially be a new downtown for University Circle. The new street layout will involve $7.9 million worth of public investment over the next four years.

"On behalf of all west-siders, I'm in favor of abolishing all crazy chaotic east-side intersections," said Ward 17 Councilman Charles Slife of West Park, a Planning Commission member.

A new Circle Square masterplan was also on Planning Commission's agenda for review. It features multiple mid- and high-rise buildings containing about 800 apartments, up to 100,000 square feet of retail, a future hotel and a proposed 13-story office/life sciences building. It would be the first for-lease Class A office building built in University Circle this century.

Numerous mixed uses, primarily cafes and retailers, are shown in Midwest's ground-floor uses plan. The desired uses include a grocery/pharmacy, restaurants, dry cleaner, beauty salon, pet store, cafes and building lobbies.

"It will bring a neighborhood to what has been an intersection with spaghetti infrastructure," Ronayne added. "It's great to see the west side of University Circle take shape and restore a neighborhood that has been taken over by cars in the past 100 years."

END

NRP Group abandons Scranton Peninsula project

Scranton Peninsula will remain a largely blank slate for a little while
longer as NRP Group has abandoned its plans to development a 330-
unit housing complex near downtown on the Cuyahoga River (KJP).

A worldwide economic downturn and a shift in market approach have forced the NRP Group to abandon its plans to develop a 330-unit apartment-townhouse complex on Scranton Peninsula, across the Cuyahoga River from downtown Cleveland.

Among major cities, Greater Cleveland has suffered more pandemic-related job losses than all but three other cities -- New York, Las Vegas and Boston. And NRP Group has been shifting its focus from developing market-rate housing to affordable and workforce housing,

In fact, The Peninsula Luxury Apartments and Townhomes reportedly would have been one of NRP Group's last market-rate residential developments. Proposed on Carter Road were 315 apartments in two C-shaped buildings and 15 townhouses scattered among three locations on the 7.44-acre site. A two-level parking deck also was planned.

But hints that the project might be in trouble started leaking out in June. when NEOtrans reported The Peninsula's groundbreaking would be pushed back from July to early 2021. Then, in a status report dated today, the construction database Dodge Reports listed the $36 million The Peninsula project as "abandoned."

Site plan approved by the City Planning Commission for The
Peninsula, NRP Group's now-scuttled housing development it
had planned on Scranton Peninsula (CPC/RDL).

The NRP Group contact listed with the Dodge Reports' project listing is the company's Senior Estimator Tim Spisak. He didn't respond to an e-mail seeking comment but did acknowledge receiving the e-mail. Also not answering an e-mail was Ken Weinberg, NRP Group's vice president of construction. NRP Group, based in downtown Cleveland, is one of the nation's largest multi-family developers.

The Peninsula was proposed to be part of the massive, 21-acre Thunderbird development announced two years ago on one-fourth of the 80-acre Scranton Peninsula. Thunderbird is a partnership of Fred Geis, East-West Alliance and J-Roc Development that would either develop land or sell land to others to develop.

First to be sold was an eight-acre lot, purchased by Great Lakes Brewing Co. in 2018 for an expansion of its brewing capabilities. But Great Lakes wanted to expand its canning capacity first, which it will in Strongsville. Any development by Great Lakes to expand its brewing production is at least a year away, said a source who spoke off the record.

So far, the only aspect of the Thunderbird development to see tangible progress is J-Roc Development's renovation of a century-old 27,000-square-foot warehouse into offices called The Avian at Thunderbird. No other construction work for the other four lots in Thunderbird has begun or was announced. J-Roc owner Jesse Grant did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment prior to publication.

The large size of Scranton Peninsula and its proximity to down-
town Cleveland is evident in this aerial view (AerialAgents).

The land that NRP Group sought for its development was under a purchase agreement but hadn't closed. It isn't known what NRP Group will do with that agreement. NEOtrans broke the story in May 2019 that NRP was abandoning its phase two of The Edison At Gordon Square project in the Detroit-Shoreway neighborhood so it could build on Scranton Peninsula. Phase one of The Edison leased out faster than any NRP Group development before, a company source said.

One of the last market-rate developments NRP Group will pursue is called Metro Gateway South. Dodge Reports' update this week shows the project is due for a Nov. 1 start. It will feature two buildings with 180 market-rate apartments between Woodbridge and Trowbridge avenues, across West 25th Street from the $1 billion redevelopment of MetroHealth Medical Center.

One block north at Sackett Avenue will be another apartment development by NRP Group called Metro Gateway North. It will feature 72 affordable housing units on three floors over a first-floor commercial space, fitness room, community room and kitchen, according to plans submitted to the city. CCH Development, the nonprofit development arm of MetroHealth, is a partner in both projects and is contributing significant capital to each.

Other local NRP Developments are still a go, as they offer affordable housing. Slavic Village Gateway, an 88-unit housing development with a new home for the University Settlement, is under construction at 5163 Broadway Ave. Churchill Gateway, 52-unit apartments and work training center at 10700 Churchill Ave. in Glenville, is on schedule to see construction in June 2021.

END

Mixed-use could boost proposed downtown office tower

Stark Enterprises' nuCLEus office tower might accelerate
its timetable from six-years-and-counting to imminent if
it was redesigned as a mixed-use office/residential high-
rise building over a retail/parking podium (LoopNet).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

For six years, Stark Enterprises' nuCLEus proposed development has always been about mixed use. But it is yet to be about construction. It could be about both if the uses were mixed in a single tower.

For its downtown Cleveland project in the Gateway District, it has proposed a mix of ground-floor retail, restaurants and entertainment topped by parking. Above that, the project has offered various layouts of offices, residential and hotel uses in several combinations -- one tower, two towers and even two towers with a cantilevered bridge between them.

NEOtrans broke the news in April about Stark's latest iteration of nuCLEus -- a single, office-only tower over retail/parking. With this new, lower-cost version, Stark has pared away square footage for which it lacks pre-construction commitments. With that approach, prospects for building nuCLEus seemed better than ever.

Or so it seemed. But let's first go back 20-30 years ago in Stark's journey to the here and now.

Stark didn't alway love mixed use and sense of place like it does now. For the development firm's founder Robert Stark, his love of mixed use and sense of place began in the 1990s when the developer of strip retail plazas expanded his Promenade shopping center in Westlake. It added a Borders book store with an adjoining outdoor cafe and event space.

Seeing people use it for everything from poetry readings to weddings, the light bulb went off in Stark's head, Stark told me 20 years ago when I wrote for Sun Newspapers. His vision for the Westlake lifestyle center Crocker Park was cemented when he visited Mizner Park in Boca Raton, FL and saw the neo-traditional mixing of uses like old town centers with streets as public realms.

Stark Enterprises' aggressive vision for developing downtown's
largest parking crater -- the Warehouse District's Superblock.
In the 2000s, Stark sought Ernst & Young and other on-the-
move major office tenants to come to this site. Another
large downtown employer, Sherwin-Williams, chose
this site for its new headquarters after Stark moved
on to pursue development of nuCLEus (Bialosky).

As Stark often says "it's all about the experience."

But one thing Stark hasn't done in six years since the firm first announced nuCLEus between Huron Road, Prospect Avenue and East 4th Street is to start construction. It's hard to experience something when it doesn't get built.

Unlike many other builders who wait to see if they have the financing before announcing their projects with pretty graphics, Stark goes in the opposite direction. That leaves the firm open to scorn and even ridicule.

He laid out a grand plan in the 2000s when he tried to turn downtown's Warehouse District into Pesht to complement downtown Cleveland's Buda. But the Budapest metaphor was labored, his development bite was too big and all that we received of Stark's Pesht was a cleaned-up, modernized Gilman Building to which Stark Enterprises moved its headquarters from suburban Woodmere.

Now, mention "nuCLEus" in the presence of other developers and you'll invariably get a contemptuous facial reaction. You might even get a joke -- e.g. "maybe he'll build a Payless Shoe store or perhaps a couple of restaurants."

That's not entirely fair considering the paint is still fresh on Stark's Beacon at 515 Euclid Ave. -- the first new-construction high-rise apartment building downtown since The Park Center (today's Reserve Square) was completed in 1973. After Stark opened the Beacon, more apartment towers have entered or are entering the downtown market -- The Lumen, City Club and possibly another.

Proposed on the site of a large parking crater in downtown Cleve-
land, nuCLEus would create more urban vibrancy, retail activity
and tax base. But after six years of revised plans and no construc-
tion, the parking crater continues to survive (LoopNet).

Timing is important. Interest rates are low. With the pandemic, spectators are prevented from using the Gateway stadiums, so few people are parking in the sea of surface lots on which nuCLEus would rise. The disruption of major construction to downtown is much less right now with many people still working remotely.

And, it appears that there is going to be a huge flurry of major construction projects in the next few years with the City Club Apartments, The Viaduct, Rockefeller Building renovation, Dream Hotel tower, major Cleveland Clinic projects, Circle Square and two whales -- the Sherwin-Williams headquarters plus the new Justice Center courthouse/consolidated jail complexes.

It seems that now might be time to add a different block of apartments -- within Stark's already re-redesigned nuCLEus office tower. 

Earlier this year, Stark removed from its nuCLEus masterplan a 24-story apartment tower, leaving just the 340,000-square-foot office tower over the retail/parking pedestal. The plan allows for a second tower to be added at a later date atop the pedestal, much like Beacon was added to the already existing 515 Euclid parking/retail pedestal.

While Stark has significant capital resources available to build the office tower, they're not enough. The firm cannot hold a goundbreaking ceremony yet. Word is that Stark is having difficulty filling up enough of the offices to secure construction financing. The retail commitments are even less well known at this time.

Right now, it appears that Stark has about 200,000 square feet of commitments for the office tower between its own corporate offices and those of Benesch Friedlander Coplan & Aronoff LLP. The growing law firm reportedly wants 180,000 square feet of office space, but that was the number before the pandemic. It isn't known if Benesch's and Stark's numbers have changed since.

With only weeks before accepting its first tenants, the brand-new
Beacon apartments on Euclid Avenue was Stark Enterprises' first
new-construction development in downtown Cleveland (KJP).

Benesch's lease at 200 Public Square runs out in the summer of 2022. It will take about two years to build nuCLEus. Benesch will reportedly go on a month-to-month lease at the end of its current lease if nuCLEus isn't finished by summer 2022.

There were rumors that Benesch had inked a five-year lease extension to stay at 200 Public Square. But Julie Gurney, director of marketing and client development at Benesch informed NEOtrans in an e-mail that the law firm has not extended or renewed its lease. How long will Benesch continue to wait?

Stark Enterprises, which occupied the entire 18,290-square-foot Gilman Building at 1350 W. 3rd St., moved its corporate offices last year into 28,000 square feet at 629 Euclid Ave. Between it and Benesch, assuming there are no unannounced commitments, the nuCLEus office tower is roughly 55-60 percent pre-leased. 

That's not enough for Stark to start construction. Perhaps another 30,000 to 50,000 square feet of leasing commitments might do the trick to get shovels in the ground. We may be tempted to doubt whether that's possible during the midst of a pandemic when companies are rethinking their office space needs and designs.

But it is possible. In just the past month, two fast-growing companies announced they are moving their offices from the suburbs to downtown. If Fathom and Goldwater Bank didn't need to make a move ASAP, they could have filled more than 30,000 square feet of nuCLEus' office tower. And that's the rub -- having Class A office space that's readily available.

Stark could offer that if it repositioned part of the proposed office tower to include apartments. If Stark turned five floors into apartments, it would leave 242,495 square feet for offices. If Stark turned six floors over to apartment, it would leave 223,000 square feet for offices.

Stark Enterprises' latest conceptual proposal for
nuCLEus is to build a single, offices-only tower.
Perhaps this long-discussed development could
improve its chances of getting built if 100,000
square feet across 5-6 floors were changed over
to residential uses (LoopNet).

With leasable floor plates of 19,501 square feet (excluding the central elevator/stairwell core that includes public restrooms), that would allow enough space for about 20 apartments per floor, averaging 975 square feet per unit. If one floor at the bottom of the apartment block was designed with 40 micro units and another, at the top, with 10 lease-to-own penthouses, the six-story apartment block concept could offer 130 apartments. The smaller five-story concept could offer 110 apartments.

By adding apartments, Stark can also tap into public incentives that aren't available to a commercial-only structure, namely tax abatement. It wouldn't be available to the whole building but a partial inclusion would tip the numbers in favor of construction. To do so, the residential part of the building would have to be a separate parcel, including the three rooftop amenity spaces proposed on floors four, eight and 25 of this building.

One might ask if the slow residential market is forcing Stark to offer up to six months of free rent if people sign two-year leases at the Beacon, why would Stark add more residential inventory to the market? The reason is that the market for downtown living has a lot of growing left to do and any new building that starts construction today won't hit the market until 2022.

If a mixed office-residential nuCLEus tower fills up quickly, then another might be contemplated atop the retail/parking podium, just east of the laneway Stark proposes through this development. It might even feature a boutique hotel as part of its mix of uses as the hospitality market will surely recover and evolve in a few years. Stark could also renovate and expand its condemned Herold Building, 310 Prospect Ave., with offices, boutique hotel or residential.

It's likely that executives at Stark Enterprises have considered these angles and possibilities to move nuCLEus forward. It would be interesting to hear their views, but so far no one there is talking about them on or off the record. It's not for want of trying. Chief Operating Officer Ezra Stark didn't respond to an e-mail from NEOtrans seeking comment on these possibilities and requesting an update on the overall nuCLEus project.

Hopefully, this is Stark just being patient, knowing that there's another office tenant or three out there somewhere, ready to sign a letter of intent (or better yet, a lease) to occupy nuCLEus in a couple of years. Perhaps that's all about Stark's experience.

After six years of waiting, some of us aren't so patient about seeing a big parking lot linger on East 4th in downtown Cleveland. That's all about our experience.

END

Seeds & Sprouts X - Early intel on real estate projects

This is the Tenth edition of Seeds & Sprouts - Early intelligence on Cleveland-area real estate projects. Because these projects are very early in their process of development or just a long-range plan, a lot can and probably will change their final shape, use and outcome.

Conceptual plans for the new Walz Branch of the Cleveland Public Library,
topped with 51 affordable senior apartments, were presented to the Cleve-
land Landmarks Commission this week. Although the design intends
to raise the library's presence in the 7900 block of Detroit Avenue,
the commission said it went too far, pointing to the trapezoidal
overhang that dominates the facade (RPMI-Bialosky).

New Walz Library, apartments offer neighborhood transformation

Cleveland Landmarks Commission gave mixed reviews in its first look this week at plans for a new Walz Branch of the Cleveland Public Library (CPL) topped by affordable senior apartments. The development is proposed to be built on the site of the existing library, 7910 Detroit Ave., as well as where the neighboring Detroit Chateau apartment building, 7918 Detroit Ave., now stands.

Also the commission approved demolition of the 100-year-old Detroit Chateau, owned by the Detroit-Shoreway Community Development Organization (DSCDO), to help clear the way for the project. Demolition approval rested with the Landmarks Commission because the building is located in the  Detroit-Shoreway Historic District. Detroit Chateau is due to be razed in December.

Detroit Chateau has only seven of its 19 units occupied by tenants who will be relocated to new housing. The building needs $1.5 million in improvements and incurs a $20,000 per year operating losses to the community development corporation, said Brittany Senger, DSCDO's project manager of multi-family development.

When DSCDO asked the State Historic Preservation Office in 2013 to include the heavily modified Detroit Chateau on the National Register of Historic Places, it determined the building doesn't have sufficient historical or architectural character to warrant inclusion. That significantly reduced the chances of the building being eligible for historic tax credits or getting renovated.

Instead, DSCDO will apply for low-income housing tax credits to be awarded in May 2021 from the Ohio Housing Finance Agency for new construction. The apartment building above the new Walz Branch could have 51 apartments -- 20 two-bedroom units, 26 one-bedroom apartments, and five studios totaling 38,914 square feet. Planned is a rooftop deck, community room, on-site laundry and wellness center, Senger said.

The 53-year-old library also has its issues. As part of its 10-year, $100 million masterplan to rebuild or replace its facilities, CPL said the Walz Branch should have 15,000 square feet to meet programming requirements. Walz has only 9,700 square feet. The library is named after Dr. Frederick Wilhelm Walz who donated land for the library upon his death in 1945.

Also, the library building has no elevator or restrooms on the main level fronting Detroit, requiring disabled patrons to go outside and use the sloping parking lot to reach the lower level at the back of the building. Public meeting rooms are also on the lower level, Senger said.

"This has been a 10-year planning process," said Ward 15 Councilman Matt Zone. "With the land assembly (by DSCDO) behind the site, this has the opportunity to be one of the most transformative developments in our neighborhood in perhaps the last 50 years."

But several commission members pushed back against conceptual designs for the library topped by apartments. Much of the disdain was directed at the inclusion of a trapezoidal roof overhanging the glassy facade facing south at Detroit. Some said it was too thick, too tall, too large and blocks the apartment building residents' views of the street. There was no action taken by the commission on the conceptual designs.

Senger said that Zone wanted a design that gave the library a noticeable presence from the street. He said too many people pass by the library and don't even know that it's there. The conceptual designs for the mixed-use development were produced by Robert P. Madison International Inc. and Bialosky Cleveland.

After final designs are submitted and approved by the commission, the Walz Branch library is scheduled to be temporarily relocated in 2022 and its 53-year-old building demolished. Completion of the new branch topped by apartments is anticipated for May 2023.

Jacobs Entertainment Inc.'s 5.6 acres of land it listed for sale is
shown above in yellow and includes the air rights above the
 parcels shown in blue and green (LoopNet). 

CASTO backs away from Flats site, replaced by another?

Confirming a report shared only by NEOtrans, Columbus-based real estate developer CASTO acknowledged it was interested in a large plot of Flats West Bank land put up for sale by Jacobs Entertainment Inc. However, a representative of Casto said they chose not to pursue it further.

"CASTO is not in a tentative agreement nor do we plan to acquire the 5.6-acre land described in the (NEOtrans) articles," said Lauren Bowers, CASTO's manager of marketing and communications. "We did look at the land a while ago but nothing came of it."

The 5.6 acres land that Jacobs put up for sale in March is located on the Cuyahoga River waterfront. The land, with about 300 parking spaces on them, is north of Jacobs' Nautica Entertainment Complex including the Powerhouse at Nautica. The offered land does not include the Powerhouse's parking lot -- only the air rights above it.

Jacobs is asking $17.5 million for the land, or just over $3 million per acre. That's in the ballpark for recent sales of land around the edges of downtown Cleveland. If the sale amount is close to that, only a large, vertical development might generate enough revenue to achieve a decent return on the property investment.

On the opposite side of the historic Superior Viaduct, another development team is seeking a separate, potential project at 1250 Riverbed St. Although still early, it could be a high-rise development that might require construction of a multi-level parking deck on Elm Street, between the Powerhouse and Stonebridge Plaza, 1237 Washington Ave.

Word is that 1250 Riverbed's development team is talking about that parking deck with another development team that is pursuing the Jacobs Entertainment property. However it is not known who is interested in the Jacobs land this time.

CASTO's first development in Cleveland is still under construction. Work is wrapping up on the Dexter Place apartments in Ohio City, on Franklin Boulevard at a traffic circle that's being restored at West 28th Street and Fulton Road. The five-story Dexter Place has 115 market-rate apartments over 8,660-square-feet of ground-floor commercial space.

Buyers Products is expanding again in Mentor where it already has
more than 1.4 million square feet of offices, warehouses and manu-
facturing facilities. The company is adding a 280,000-square-foot
distribution center and 17,500 square feet of offices (Buyers).

Buyers Products breaks ground for new warehouse

Construction is underway to double the size of Buyers Products' distribution center and corporate headquarters in Mentor to accommodate the company’s growing business needs. The company, a leading manufacturer in the work truck equipment industry, is located at 9049 Tyler Blvd.

The expansion includes 280,000 square feet of 67-foot-high, brand-new, state-of-the-art warehouse space with 20 additional docks. Simultaneously Buyers will add another 17,500 square feet of office space and expand its employee parking. Although the company did not disclose how many new jobs will be added by doubling the facility's size, the existing warehouse and offices accommodate several hundred jobs.

"As customer demands continue to grow, it’s imperative that we keep up," said Gary Kadow, warehouse operations manager at Buyers. "Our customers know to come to us for excellent service and rapid delivery. They expect to get what they need delivered when they need it. This expansion ensures we continue to exceed those expectations."

Buyers current warehouse stands at 250,000 square feet. It was built in 2002 and expanded to its current size in 2007. It added another 310,000 square foot fabrication facility in Mentor and, in 2012, the company acquired a 500,000-square-foot manufacturing facility, also in Mentor at 8200 Tyler. That brought Buyers-owned facilities in Mentor to four, totaling more than 1.4 million square feet.

On August 18, a small groundbreaking ceremony was held in accordance with current social distancing guidelines to kick-off construction of the new expansion. The ceremony included brief statements from company leadership and a “Golden Shovel” ceremony to honor outstanding members of the Buyers team for their contributions toward the company’s ongoing success. The company was founded in 1946.

END

Biz moving from suburbs to downtown Cleveland

 

Moving from Beachwood to the corner of East 9th Street and
Bolivar Road, near Progressive Field in downtown Cleveland,
are the regional offices of Goldwater Bank (Google).
 CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

For the second time this month, there is news that a company is relocating office jobs from the suburbs to downtown Cleveland. Earlier this month, NEOtrans broke the news that digital marketer Fathom will relocate its headquarters and about 100 jobs from Valley View to the West Bank of the Flats.

Now, NEOtrans has learned that another fast-growing company, Goldwater Bank N.A. Mortgage Division, will relocate its offices downtown by the end of the year. The Phoenix, Ariz.-based private commercial bank is moving its regional lending office from 23500 Mercantile Rd. in Beachwood to the Utica Building, 2217 E. 9th St. Goldwater will occupy the entire 11,129-square-foot first floor and an undetermined portion of the Utica Block's 11,129-square-foot basement.

The bank's office has 46 people based out of its Beachwood office although some are working remotely -- which was the case before the global pandemic hit. All of those jobs will now be based out of the new downtown location, said Ilya Palatnik, Goldwater's regional manager.

"This (downtown office space) will allow us to expand to a employment level of up to 104 employees," Palatnik said. "We keep a lot of administrative and clerical workers working remotely, but that was the case before COVID."

On Goldwater's behalf, Fischer & Associates Architects Inc. of Lorain submitted plans to the city earlier this month to secure a permit for interior demolition of the Utica Building's first floor. It previously held the Brickstone Tavern and the Stella Music Club. Both establishments were damaged, looted and closed as a result of the May 30 rioting that occurred downtown.

According to the permit application, workers will demolish and remove all existing restaurant and bar equipment including hoods, suppression equipment, bars, flooring, lay-in ceilings and non-bearing partitions and railings. They will also thoroughly clean the first floor and create a clean "white box" ready for new finishes. All existing emergency lighting, exit lighting, fire extinguishers and suppression will be maintained. The work is estimated to cost about $15,000, according to the permit application. 

The interior of the Utica Building features
this atrium and staircase (LoopNet/Cresco).

There will be follow-on permit applications for build-out of the interior finishes as well as for exterior signage. That would involve replacing the large Brickstone sign above East 9th with one for Goldwater, Palatnik said. He hoped demolition and build-out work could occur this fall. 

As part of the relocation and the addition of new jobs that the move will enable, the city of Cleveland will provide financial assistance through its Tech Delta program. That will aid Goldwater's acquisition of new equipment, computers and wiring, Palatnik added. Details about the amount of assistance was unavailable, but incentives per company per location through the Tech Delta program are capped at $50,000.

Goldwater Bank was founded in 2007. It established the Beachwood office in 2014, expanding to Fairview Park and Chagrin Falls/Bainbridge in 2018. But the latter two offices were consolidated into the Chagrin Falls location last year, Palatnik said. He noted that the relocation to downtown is a strategic one, and not merely to attract more young talent to the company with a back-to-the-city move.

"There's a little bit of that, but ultimately we want to be centralized east and west," Palatnik said. "Some of our employees live on the east side and some west. We want to be downtown. It's a business-savvy setting on East 9th."

The location is across East 9th from Progressive Field. The Utica Block is an historic, three-story brick building constructed in 1880, once called the Park Hotel. As the baseball stadium was being constructed in 1993, the downtrodden Utica Building was renovated with ground-floor restaurant/bar spaces and offices on the upper floors.

In addition to taking the entire first floor and part of the basement, Goldwater will also have acces to a rooftop deck. Palatnik said Goldwater will have offices here and not a retail operation. The rest of the 33,3870-square-foot building is occupied by offices for digital marketer Hileman Group and engineering firm Barber & Hoffman Inc.

Stonebridge Plaza, Suite 100, is seen left of the center of this photo taken
from Center Street at Washington Avenue on the Flats West Bank. The
plaza building dates from 1870 and will soon become the new home
of Fathom. The digital marketing firm will move its headquarters
to what is becoming a mini-hub of tech companies (Google).

The building is owned by an affiliate of GBX Group LLC of Cleveland and managed by George Management Ltd. of Lakewood. There were rumors last year that Midwest Development Partners LLC, the prior owners of the Utica Building, wanted to build a high-rise next to or on top of the Utica.

On Dec. 27, 2019, GBX and the George groups granted to the Historic Gateway Neighborhood Corp. a preservation and conservation easement and to relinquish the development air rights above the Utica Building, according to documents filed with Cuyahoga County.

That could provide to the GBX and George groups charitable tax deduction advantages from not developing the air rights to preserve the historic building. As part of the deal, Historic Gateway received a $40,000 donation upfront and $2,500 per year for the first five years. Annual payments will be increased beginning with the sixth year and every five years thereafter. Future increases will be equal to changes in the Consumer Price Index, according to the easement.

Goldwater isn't the only business moving its offices from Cleveland's suburbs to an historic building downtown -- or, in Fathom's case, the edge of downtown.

Earlier this month, NEOtrans reported that Fathom, a digital marketing and analytics firm, will move its headquarters from Valley View to Cleveland's Flats West Bank. The move will follow the company's June 17 purchase and planned renovation of a property at 2020 Center St., called Stonebridge Plaza, Suite 100.

Plans for the renovation work were submitted in late June to the city's Building & Housing Department for a building permit and are due to appear before Planning Commission soon. Fathom acquired the property through an affiliate called PromiseONE Properties LLC for $1.35 million, county records show.

Fathom's new headquarters featuring a contempoary design will soon
be added to the 1870-built Stonebridge Plaza, Suite 100, located at
2020 Center St., Flats' West Bank, in Cleveland. The company is
relocating from suburban Valley View (Bialosky Cleveland).

Like the Utica Building, Fathom's new home dates from the 19th century. Their destination is an 1870-built, 15,452-square-foot former machine shop that briefly was used as a Cantina Del Rio restaurant in the 1990s. It was converted to offices in 2006 by the K&D Group as part of the Stonebridge development. PromiseONE acquired the property from Stanley Zona, LTD which in turn is owned by Roger Zona.

Zona also owned TPI Efficiency, a procurement consulting firm which had its offices at 2020 Center. TPI's Efficiency's offices moved across the street to 2019 Center after Zona and another investor, Chad Kertesz, acquired the six-story Stonebridge Center office building in April for $1.7 million and renamed it The Hive My Place.

In late June when it acquired Stonebridge Plaza Suite 100, PromiseONE Properties also received a construction loan in the amount of $1,920,000 from First Federal Savings & Loan Association of Lakewood, public records show.

PromiseONE Properties intends to renovate the historic property for its own office needs. That includes 7,984 square feet for up to 79 workers on the first floor and 5,519 square feet for up to 55 employees on the second floor. Thus the maximum occupancy is 134 workers, according to planning documents Fathom and its architect Bialosky Cleveland submitted to the city.

Like Goldwater, Fathom is a fast-growing business. It began in 2006 as Fathom SEO LLC, a search engine optimization firm. Today, it has roughly 175 employees with gross revenues of $20 million to $30 million per year according to several business databases. In addition to its current headquarters at 8200 Sweet Valley Dr. in Valley View, Fathom has offices in San Diego, Detroit and Columbus.

Fathom's new home is becoming a mini-hub of technology firms. In addition to TPI Efficiency, Snip Internet, EmployStream, BoxCast and Kloud9 all have offices on the West Bank of the Flats.

END

Rockefeller Building sold, new chapter begins

 

The Rockefeller Building was sold to a partnership
that intends to redevelop the 115-year-old office
building into a mix of apartments, offices and
ground-floor retail. The downtown Cleveland
property is located across West 6th Street from
the site of the planned $300 million Sherwin-
Williams headquarters complex (KJP).

Title to the Rockefeller Building in downtown Cleveland transferred today to a partnership that seeks to redevelop the historic edifice with housing, offices and ground-floor retail.

The 17-story building is located at 614 W. Superior Ave., across West 6th Street from the planned site of the new Sherwin-Williams headquarters. This purchase is the first what may be several spin-off investments directly resulting from the massive headquarters project.

Although all of the financing isn't yet in place to proceed with a renovation, the sale puts the building in the hands of motivated owners who have deeper pockets. The owners are a partnership of Realty Dynamics Equity Partners, LLC of Akron, OH and Wolfe Investments, LLC of Plano, TX.

The property's sale price was $13.35 million, members of the development team said. Anthony Spitalieri from Fidelity National Title assisted with the transaction.

Agostino Pintus, managing director of Realty Dynamics, and Kenny Wolfe, president of Wolfe Investments, were unavailable for comment. However, members of the development team were able to discuss on the record the purchase as well as the proposed renovation project.

"This building is in a perfect location with Sherwin-Williams' new headquarters going up across the street," said Conrad Geis, director and managing partner of general contractor and building manager Geis Companies. "Sherwin-Williams is a prime driver for business here."

The detailed and decorative facade of the Rockefeller Building on
its Superior Avenue side. The facade is a signature of a build-
ing designed in the Sullivanesque style of architecture (KJP).

The buyers and development team looked at numerous other buildings downtown for purchase and renovation. However, the Rockefeller Building apparently was their first choice and that preference was reaffirmed after looking at all of the other possibilities, so the group circled back to the Rockefeller.

The sellers were Benjamin Cappadora of Cleveland and Diana Miller of Brooklyn, NY. Together, they owned Rockefeller Building Associates which in turn owned the building since 1988. Cappadora has been a part of the building's ownership since January 1967 when Cappadora Realty Corp. acquired it from 614 Superior Co., public records show.

Cappadora, now 88 years old, has been quietly looking to sell the half-empty office building off-market for a couple of years. Geis Property Management & Leasing is taking over management of the property. Management and planning activities are led by Al Krist, president of Geis Properties.

The new owners and development team are in the process of securing federal historic tax credits for the building. These are non-competitive tax credits meaning that, if a building meets federal criteria at the time of the application, it will get them. There is a post-construction review and inspection by the National Park Service. If the building continues meet federal standards for five years after construction, its owner keeps the tax credits.

Without financing in place, representatives of the development team said there are no plans at this time to relocate within the building or evict from the building its existing tenants. The tenants are all on month-to-month leases. The 261,264-square-foot building is 51 percent occupied.

This unobstructed view from the east side of the
Rockefeller Building won't be possible for too
much longer. The photo was taken from the
"Superblock" -- now parking lots -- bought
by Sherwin-Williams Corp. earlier this
year where it will build its $300
million headquarters (KJP).

The building has faded from its former glory in recent decades. But any visitor to the Gilded Age building can see past the dust, rust, leaking pipes, grime and tarnish that a beauty exists underneath, waiting to be reborn. The building, built in two stages in 1905 and 1910, features all of the marble, iron, brass and woodwork one would expect in a structure built by Cleveland native and Standard Oil Co. founder John D. Rockefeller.

Geis Companies of Streetsboro will have the honor of restoring the building's luster and the responsibility of managing the property once construction gets under way. And the firm will manage the property once the work is done.

"When you walk in, you're going to know you're in a Rockefeller building," Geis said. "We're going to stay in line with the design, look and feel of this building to ensure the preservation of the building and the meaning behind it. We're also going to do a substantial facade cleanup like what our team did with the May Co. building (on Public Square). The Rockefeller is going to have the same kind of look and feel. It's going to be beautiful inside and out."

Although renovation plans are still conceptual, the development team proposes repurposing floors 5-16 of the Rockefeller Building with 436 apartments including 273 micro-unit apartments. The apartments would measure anywhere from about 273 to 726 square feet each, preliminary plans show.

Floors 2-4 will have renovated offices for existing or new tenants. The ground floor, with entrances off West Superior and West 6th, will have 12,000 to 15,000 square feet of retail, be it shops, barber/salons, restaurants and/or food hall. They will be accessible not only to the building's office tenants and hundreds of residents, but also to Sherwin-Williams' 3,500+ office workers and visitors.

The Vault at The 9, below the Heinen's grocery store at East 9th
Street in Euclid Avenue, offers an example of how a vault in
the lower level of the Rockefeller may be renovated and
repurposed. Geis Companies renovated The 9 and may
soon renovate the Rockefeller too (Vault9Cle.com).

"We're going to be bringing in some strong tenants on the ground floor," Geis said.

The development team proposes lots of amenities for the building's tenants, including a movie theater, dog park, rooftop amenities and more. And while the top floor is normally used for penthouses, it won't be in The Rockefeller. Instead, it will be used for storage units because it can't be used for much else.

"The ceiling heights (on the 17th floor) are low -- just seven feet," Geis said. "It was originally used for vaults and they were put on the top floor for security."

The theory was that the vaults' location improved the chances of catching a safe-cracker before he could get down to street level. That knowledge would hopefully discourage would-be thieves from trying. The Rockefeller Building was an imposing building -- the city's tallest when it was built. There was also a vault in the basement, reached by a marble staircase, that offers redevelopment possibilities.

"It could be similar to The Vault at The 9," Geis said, referring to the cocktail lounge that Geis Companies fashioned from a large bank vault in the basement of the 113-year-old Cleveland Trust rotunda at East 9th Street and Euclid Avenue.

The Rockefeller has features not available in any other historic building downtown including the potential for mixed use and good floor layouts offering a high ratio of rentable space to gross space. The investors and development team said that would help generate more revenues than other potential office-to-residential conversions downtown.

Although looking tired and in need of renovation, Cleveland's
Rockefeller Building remains an architectural beauty and a re-
minder of the Gilded Age in which Cleveland thrived. Another
of the city's Gilded Age gifts is Sherwin-Williams whose deci-
sion to build its new headquarters downtown is motivating the
renovation and conversion of The Rock into micro-unit apart-
 ments, refurbished offices and ground-floor retail (KJP).

Cleveland's first "skyscraper" was built in the “Sullivanesque” architectural style -- named after Louis Sullivan, called the father of skyscrapers. Sullivan was a mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright; but Sullivan's mentor was Cleveland architect John Edelman whose lone surviving work product in Cleveland stands at 1350 W. 3rd St., wrapped in 1960s modernism. It is also the only remaining structure on the Superblock purchased by Sherwin-Williams for its headquarters.

Designed by the firm Knox & Elliot, which later moved its offices into the Rockefeller Building, the structure is considered by many to be the best example in Cleveland of the Sullivanesque style. Its design reportedly was inspired by Sullivan's Guaranty Building in Buffalo, including its vertical columns to express the steel frame underneath and a tapestry of organic-geometric cast-iron ornaments on the lower stories.

Acquisition of the Rockefeller Building includes a 95-year-old, five-level, 43,617-square-foot brick-and-concrete parking garage behind, accessed off Frankfort Avenue. Geis said the garage could be retained for parking, repurposed with retail or put back on the for-sale market after a tax-increment financing incentive is added to it. It is unlikely to be demolished as it is in an historic district -- the Historic Warehouse District. 

Also included in today's sale is the 1.84 acres of land on which the Rockefeller Building and its parking garage sets. Of that land, about 1.1 acres is currently used for surface parking. Geis said the land would initially be used for construction staging. After that, it could be developed with new uses.

Once renovation work starts on the Rockefeller Building, it could take about 18-24 months to complete. Geis noted that his company's renovation of the May Co., completed this year, and The 9, finished in 2015, were each completed in under 18 months.

"We are able to do it (so quickly) as Geis is a design-build firm so we can do projects up to 20 percent faster because of all the in-house capabilities we have," he said.

END