Kalina House gets early OK for Fairfax site

Kalina House is proposed to help people transition to a new life
after suffering the loss of limbs. Making that transition means
finding new housing, learning how to move around, and be
independent takes an enormous effort. Kalina House is
the place where that journey will begin (AODK).
CLICK TO ENLARGE IMAGES

Cleveland's City Planning Commission unanimously approved conceptual designs for a transitional housing facility for people who have recently lost limbs or the temporary or permanent use of their limbs. The facility, called Kalina House, is proposed to be located at 2055 E. 79th St., between Euclid and Carnegie avenues in Cleveland's Fairfax neighborhood.

Although the proposed building is small, the need is huge, said project backer Mark Kalina, Jr. who lost both of his legs and a pinky in a train-pedestrian accident in Columbus in October 2012. His story is told here by MetroHealth Medical System where he works as a senior analyst in The Center for Health Resilience and helps others adjust to a new life of independence without the use of their limbs.

When Kalina sees people in the hospital who have recently lost their limbs, he sees himself from nearly a decade ago. He also sees their challenges ahead -- independently living, moving about and working. Kalina realizes he was relatively lucky because he had a strong support group who helped him make the biggest adjustment of his life.

Located on the east side of East 79th Street, next to a CVS
Pharmacy and between Euclid and Carnegie avenues, the
Kalina House will be near major medical institutions
including Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals,
St. Vincent Charity Hospital and MetroHealth
Medical Center (AODK).

"Over the last six years we have been developing a housing project to address a gap between hospital and home," Kalina told planning commission members on June 18. "Some individuals face tremendous obstacles in their recovery. This (new facility) is how we plan to fix that."

Kalina House is proposed to have 19 accessible housing units in a roughly 15,000-square-foot, single-floor building with offices, lounge and rehabilitation spaces for physical and occupational therapy personnel and resident activities, said project architect Greg Ernst of AODK Architecture in Lakewood.

"The middle of the building has an outdoor courtyard to bring more light into the units and to give a place to go outside," he said.

Just being around others recovering from a similar traumatic situation helps with one of the biggest challenges -- a feeling of isolation and loneliness. Residents will be able to see and talk with others going through the same challenges they are and thus provide an all-important support group.

This conceptual site plan and associated renderings were
unanimously approved by the City Planning Commission
on June 18. Now, more detailed designs will be drawn
and submitted to the city in the coming weeks (AODK).

"This is my neighborhood and it's nice to see that the missing teeth are starting to be filled in and obviously, the commitment to be in Cleveland goes without saying," said planning commission member August Fluker.

Kalina also started the Mark Kalina Jr. Foundation to offer a source of funding to help people acquire prosthetic limbs, wheelchairs and other costly necessities that help people return to some semblance of a normal life. So not only will those experiencing life-altering trauma have a place to stay while they learn how to cope, they will be given the physical and emotional tools to adjust.

Helping with the real estate aspects of building Kalina House is David Grunenwald, vice president of development at Jacobs Investments, Inc. Jacobs developed much of the Flats West Bank along the river, including the FirstEnergy Powerhouse and Nautica Stage.

View looking north from Carnegie Avenue where a new Bank
of America branch is starting construction (AODK).

"You can't help but be inspired by a young fella whose life changes in a blink of an eye," Grunenwald said of Kalina in a recent online interview. "But he wants to help others."

Grunenwald of Hudson came to know Kalina, a Twinsburg native, through a neighbor who is related to Kalina. Together they toured potential properties located on the HealthLine bus rapid transit route and near Cleveland's largest medical facilities. 

"Sometimes you're just drawn to an area that makes sense," Grunenwald said. "That was true in this case. Eventually we came up with what I believe is a very good program, a very workable program. The facility works and it's in a good location. The city has been cooperative, contributing land from the land bank."

Another view of the Kalina House, looking northeasterly from
East 79th Street. The goal is to make the new facility feel
like a comfortable new home to patients who are trying
to recover from life-altering trauma (AODK).

Grunenwald said the project received a financing commitment from an organization that wanted to be involved in "impactful real estate." However he would not identify that organization.

"I had the easy part," he added. "Real estate is easy. Building buildings is easy. Making it work, making it do what Mark wanted, making it feel like home, that's the hard part. So we're getting there."

A more detailed level of drawings, called schematic design, will be presented to planning commission next. Any refinements will be added to the final design for the commission to approve, possibly by the end of summer. Construction could begin by the end of the year and be completed in a year or less. 

END

Cleveland Clinic advances its 'Big 3' projects

The Big 3 Cleveland Clinic developments include
the new Neurological Institute, expansion of the
Cole Eye Institute and the new Global Center for
Pathogen Research & Human Health. Those are
just the medical facilities. The Clinic jointly de-
veloping a mixed-use project with Fairmount
Properties near the pathogen center (Google).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENARLGE THEM

Cleveland's largest employer is about to get even larger. While Cleveland Clinic Foundation (CCF) is officially mum on expansion details, NEOtrans is hearing rumors from sources that one or more of their "Big 3" projects may be bigger than originally anticipated.

The Clinic's Big 3 are the new Neurological Institute, expansion of the Cole Eye Institute and the new Global Center for Pathogen Research & Human Health. Combined they will add 1 million or more square feet of new medical, research and office facilities to University Circle, Ohio's fourth-largest employment district. And that's just the medical stuff CCF is pursuing.

Recently, CCF made some moves to advance those three projects. The Cole Eye Institute expansion and the new Neurological Institute are farther along in the development process than the new pathology center. The latest news is that the Clinic responded to bids from prospective construction managers for the Cole Eye and Neurological buildings and chose who will oversee their construction.

"Whiting-Turner Contracting will provide construction management services on our Cole Eye Institute building and Turner Construction will provide construction management services on our Neurological Institute building," said Alicia Reale Cooney, CCF's senior manager of corporate communications.

The building at left is a conceptual sketch of the Cleveland Clinic's
new Neurological Institute, looking east from East 96th Street with
the Intercontinental Hotel at right and the Crile Building standing
at the end of the greenspace. The Neurological Center may
wrap around the East Mount Zion Baptist Church (CCF).

But Cooney wasn't prepared to disclose the size of those buildings even though CCF had previously released those parameters. Preliminary space needs were estimated at about 400,000 square feet for the new Neurological Institute at 9606 Euclid Ave. and 100,000 square feet for expansion of the 130,000-square-foot Cole Eye Institute at about 2030 E. 105th Street.

Rumors are swirling that one or both of those buildings may be larger than those early estimates, adding hundreds of additional jobs to Cleveland that weren't anticipated when they were first proposed.

"The design and pre-construction process are still underway," she said, not willing to disclose if any changes were being considered. "Additional information will be shared once more details are available."

The two new CCF buildings are due to see construction start this winter. Architects, civil engineers, construction subcontractors and others are being brought on board to conduct design and programming.

Last month, CCF issued a request for proposals for the third of its Big 3 new buildings -- the new pathogen center which is a result of the launch of the Cleveland Innovation District and was given priority during the COVID-19 pandemic. The RFP contained a couple of specifics, such as an anticipated Spring 2022 groundbreaking, but also had some ambiguities.

East 105th Street at Cedar Avenue is likely going to look quite a
bit different in a few years as two big projects, the new pathogen
center as well as a planned mixed-use joint development with
Fairmount Properties, are in the works here (Google).

"Planning is in (the) early stages but Cleveland Clinic’s Global Center for Pathogen Research & Human Health, part of the Cleveland Innovation District, will include approximately 400,000 square feet of additional research space to be located along Cedar Ave. for the growth of research operations and training and innovations," Cooney told NEOtrans shortly after the RFP was issued.

She could not identify a cross street along Cedar but said a general location would be in the area of "Cedar Avenue near Cleveland Clinic's main campus." Sources close to the project say the pathogen center would likely be near East 105th Street because CCF wants the pathogen center to connect to their existing research buildings in that area.

And those are "just" the medical buildings CCF is pursuing. The Clinic is also working with Fairmount Properties to jointly develop hundreds of thousands of square feet of mixed uses in phases, south of Cedar near East 105th.

In the 2000s, Fairmount joined with the Wolstein Group to develop Flats East Bank downtown. It then joined with DiGeronimo Companies to build Pinecrest in Orange Village which opened in 2018.

In the first phase of its partnership with CCF, Fairmount envisions 300 micro-unit apartments, several dozen townhomes and a 40,000-square-foot Meijer grocery store rising 5-10 stories above the southwest corner of East 105th and Cedar. A second phase of roughly equal size could follow immediately west of it. Financing for the project is still coming together, sources said.

END

Photos, details of Sherwin-Williams' new HQ interiors

Bright, open and modern office spaces are what
await Sherwin-Williams employees at their new
headquarters tower west of Cleveland's Public
Square. Features like this semi-circular video
conference booth mix collaboration and tech-
nology, a stark difference from the antiquated
rooms at SHW's old HQ (contributed photos).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

At last, we have more illustrations showing the preliminary designs of the new Sherwin-Williams (SHW) headquarters!

OK, they're photos of the proposed interiors rather than renderings of the exterior. But during employee tours of the interior mock-ups, HQ design team members confirmed the physical HQ descriptions NEOtrans has reported are accurate.

And considering that up to 3,500 Greater Clevelanders, plus many suppliers and customers will be seeing more of the HQ interiors than the exteriors, the design concepts are very important to attracting and retaining talent to SHW and Greater Cleveland.

So far, the early reviews from SHW employees who toured the new HQ mock-ups in the old SHW HQ indicate the design team is on the right track to shedding its stodgy, closed-office settings in its old building in the Tower City Center complex. SHW plans to invest at least $600 million in its new headquarters downtown and new research facility in suburban Brecksville. Sky-high materials costs may push that budget much higher.

By 2024, SHW employees will begin moving
into their new offices such as this one in what
apparently will be Cleveland's fourth-tallest
and Ohio's sixth-tallest building.

"This (interior design) makes me want to stay at Sherwin-Williams and (it) shows me someone somewhere is noticing a culture change has to be made," said a 20-something-year-old employee who left a progressive company in a modern building to work for SHW. He preferred anonymity as he is not authorized to speak for the company. "Between this and the permanent only-in the-office three-days-a-week schedule, I'm sold."

"They (tour guides) said the new building will have floor-to-ceiling windows which I'm personally thrilled about," said another SHW employee who was among groups of about a half-dozen people taking guided tours every 30 minutes.

After employees tour the buildings, the HQ design team will send out surveys to employees at the HQ on Prospect Avenue. Also to taking tours of the mock-ups and the follow-on surveys will be employees relocating to the new HQ from the Breen Technology Center on Canal Road and the Warrensville Technology Center on Warrensville Center Road in Warrensville Heights.

Work spaces in the new HQ will be divided among
"me" and "we" settings. The "me" settings like these
workstations offer some privacy but also the colla-
borative benefits offered by working in the office.

SHW hired Pickard Chilton to be the lead architect for the HQ including the exteriors. Vocon Partners LLC was chosen to design the new HQ's interiors. HGA Architects and Engineers, LLC is the base building architect for the HQ.

According to HQ design team members who spoke to NEOtrans on the condition of anonymity, they will be working on the designing interiors for many more months. In fact, they expected to be refining the HQ's interior plans even after shovels hit the dirt for the new HQ west of Public Square in downtown Cleveland in late-2021.

The 3,500-employee capacity of the new building may not be reached for a few years, design team members said. That workforce figure depends on an 8 percent rate of corporate growth plus the relocations from Breen, Warrensville and its Chicago Metro District Office in suburban Schaumburg.

Every floor in the new SHW HQ will have a
café where employees can get lunch, a snack or
simply exchange ideas over a cup of coffee.

Some other interior design features of the new HQ:

• Very modern, efficient and environmentally benign design of HQ is a goal;
• Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification of HQ to be sought from the U.S. Green Building Council;
• High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filtration system to be provided;
• Ultraviolet filter glass curtain wall windows;
• The theme among floor uses are "Me and We" spaces;
• 10x12-foot offices, conference rooms and elevators/stairwell core will be near the center of each floor;
• Workstations around the exteriors of each floor will be for individual contributors;
• Every HQ employee will have a desk regardless of their work schedule;
• Extra workstations will be provided for visiting employees from the new Brecksville research center, for field employees and workers from other sites;
• There will be "huddle rooms" and "call rooms;"
• A small café will be on each floor;
• A larger gym for employees;
• Furniture hasn't been decided but the winning vendor must use SHW coatings.

The biggest difference from this mock-up in the old
HQ is the new HQ will have floor-to-ceiling windows.

During the employee tours, the guides also described the new HQ's exterior design features. Many of those features were previously reported by NEOtrans.

During the tours, the guides confirmed the building will exceed 30 stories but wouldn't give an exact number as the height hasn't been finalized. NEOtrans has learned from design team sources that the number of floors will probably be near or reach 40.

In our most recent SHW HQ article, NEOtrans reported that the latest design of the HQ has an angled roofline that tops at or near 600 feet above the street. That would make the SHW HQ tower Cleveland's fourth-tallest.

A semi-private seating area for calls or messaging.

Most of the HQ tower will have square floorplates, as NEOtrans has reported that this will be a boxy (aside from the roofline) tower instead of curved or angular. An outdoor terrace cut into the lower midsection of the building overlooking Public Square is proposed to break up the façade and offer an amenity space for employees and corporate events. Lighted SHW logos will be atop the tower.

The building fronting Public Square will be three stories tall and serve as the welcoming facility to SHW, complete with a Center of Excellence relocated from the old HQ to provide historical and corporate progress exhibits to new recruits and VIPs. Also, this welcoming facility will serve as SHW's training center with meeting facilities and a rooftop amenity space for employees.

The HQ tower will be connected by elevated walkways to the Center of Excellence/training center on Public Square (over West 3rd) and to the parking garage (over Frankfort Avenue). City Planning Commission staff reportedly pushed back on the walkways but SHW has been adamant about them.

A more traditional office space with meeting table.

A liner building along the West 3rd side of the parking garage will be built to comply with the city's building code. The liner must hide the parking deck along its entire street frontage with at least 70 percent of that building comprised of active uses such as retailers, restaurants and/or other spaces.

Since the 1970s, SHW has grown steadily. Back then, it shared the 1930-built, 900,000-square-foot Landmark Office Buildings on Prospect with the headquarters of Erie-Lackawanna Railroad, Republic Steel and Standard Oil of Ohio (Sohio). SHW bought the property in 1985 and now occupies about 90 percent of it.

Even before SHW acquired its rival Valspar in 2017, its Cleveland corporate offices had spilled over into the neighboring Skylight Office Tower as well as a flex office space on Hinckley Industrial Parkway in Cleveland.

Here are some additional photos of the mocked-up interiors:

Group meeting room with video screen and whiteboard.

A call room is the 21st-century phone booth. 

Another conference room, laden with technology.

A huddle room for quick conferences to address
problems or collaborate for opportunities.

The next thing many Greater Clevelanders hope to see from SHW and its HQ design team is exterior renderings of the new HQ. In order to start construction by the end of the year, a public release and city reviews of those plans will have to occur very soon.

END

Cleveland tops in U.S. for best home-buying power

Moving to Cleveland from 'superstar' cities has saved new arrivals
an average of nearly $200,000 in the value of their housing, a new
analysis shows. That's one result of the Great Reshuffling that's
allowing people to get more bang for their buck by working re-
motely in amenity-laden cities like Cleveland (alliecarr.com).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

Once again, Greater Cleveland is No. 1 -- and this time it's a good No. 1 ranking, one that shows home buyers from other metro areas have more buying power here than in any other metro. The ranking also is a metric used to measure which metro areas may have benefitted most from the "Great Reshuffling."

The Great Reshuffling is a confluence of social, demographic and economic factors causing high demand for housing as Americans rethink where they live. A big driver of that change is Americans seeking to decouple their home location from their office location as telework opportunities grow.

According to an analysis by the web-based realty company Zillow.com, that has caused many Americans to look for larger homes in more affordable markets. Greater Cleveland is one of those affordable markets, yet continues to maintain big-city amenities originally provided when the city's and metro area's populations ranked in the top 10, nationally.

That's a motivating factor behind why Cleveland, one of the nation's most affordable markets, was able to attract residents from much more expensive markets. And that put Cleveland at #1 in Zillow's ranking for the greatest shift of movers from expensive to affordable cities. 

Cleveland ranks No. 1 among major metro areas in buying power as
measured by the Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI). The online real
estate firm calls it a smoothed, seasonally adjusted measure of the
typical home value and market changes across a given region and
housing type. It reflects the typical value for homes in the
35th to 65th percentile range (Zillow).

That is reflected in the average reduction in the values of homes in the market they moved to versus where they moved from:

1. Cleveland, OH -$197,369
2. Oklahoma City, OK -$187,063
3. Miami, FL -$144,164
4. Pittsburgh, PA -$143,326
5. Buffalo, NY -$140,212

"In 2020, movers to these five metro areas could expect much lower local home values, on average, than the areas they moved from," the Zillow report said. "For example, the typical home value in areas movers relocated to in Cleveland was $197,369 lower on average, than in the areas they moved from."

Nationwide, the average long-distance mover relocated to a ZIP code with home values nearly $27,000 less than where they came from last year. At the same time, U.S. movers in 2020 relocated to ZIP codes with homes 33 square feet larger than where they came from, on average.

The Cleveland data can be taken in one of two ways. On the negative side, Cleveland's low housing values are a reflection of low demand and low growth in the past. On the positive side, the fact that Cleveland is attracting people from much more expensive, growing cities is a good sign.

On the other hand, if you're moving to these five West Coast
metro areas, you're purchasing power was the worst in the
nation in 2020. More people moved from these cities
than moved to them in the Great Reshuffling (Zillow).

"Many movers can now move toward more-affordable locales, either seeking to save money or get more bang for their housing buck," wrote Jeff Tucker, senior economist at Zillow.

"Cleveland is attractive to buyers currently living in larger and more prominent cities because we offer many of the same benefits and amenities they might have but at a more affordable cost of living," said Allie Carr, a real estate agent at Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices in Cleveland. 

Tucker added that, over the longer term, this trend could contribute to homes prices leveling out across the nation, as people move away from the priciest cities and toward more-affordable areas. It may also spread out some of the spending and wealth-accumulation which had been increasingly concentrated in "superstar cities" over the last few decades.

"I think what it comes down to is that Cleveland is a bit of a well-kept secret," Carr added. "Prices have been increasing rapidly since the pandemic with buyers selecting to move here from larger cities as well as young professional renters living here (and) choosing to put down roots here. In spite of the price spike, we still offer tremendous value in comparison to larger cities with higher costs of living and similar amenities."

With new arrivals finding housing bargains in Greater Cleveland
compared to the more expensive cities they came from, Zillow
says housing prices across the country could level out. Others
 caution the housing market may return to normal with the
pandemic and government stimulus ending (Zillow).

In May 2021, Realtor.com reported the median list price of homes in Cleveland, OH was $109,000. That's a stunning increase of 21.2 percent vs. May 2020. The median listing price per square foot was $69. The median sale price was $125,000.

But realtor Emmanuel (Mike) Skantzos at Howard Hanna in Rocky River cautioned that it's too soon to know the long-term impacts of the Great Reshuffling on Greater Cleveland and if it will last much beyond the pandemic.

"Short term, yes it's positive," he said. "I don't know about the long term. The market's so crazy, who knows what's going to happen tomorrow? The market is slowing down a tiny bit but I expect it to slow down more next month. It's still going to be busy but not as busy."

He noted that the big run up in sale prices over the past year are topping out, buyer morale is running low due to the difficulty in finding what they want and for-sale inventory is increasing. And with federal stimulus benefits running out, there will be fewer incentives to support the real estate market.

Skantzos said he is curious to see how long it will take for property sellers to be convinced to reduce prices when the time comes. He also said it will be interesting to learn what will the market be like after people return from the summer vacations they've delayed since last year. Will there be more inventory by then, more people back in the office, fewer government incentives and less financial resources for buyers? 

END

George files development plan for Irishtown Bend land

On May 10, at a building at the southeast corner of West 25th Street
and the Detroit-Superior Bridge, crews paint over graffiti including
obscenities directed at the property owner Bobby George. With the
clock ticking down on sale negotiations with the city, George has
submitted a development plan for the site (Freethink).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

UPDATED JUNE 9, 2021

As protracted negotiations with the City of Cleveland drag on toward a possible impasse over a critical piece of land, developer and restaurateur Bobby George on June 7 submitted development plans for that property. Interestingly, those plans were drafted more than a year ago.

The 0.41-acre property is located at 1435 W. 25th St., at the southeast corner of the Detroit-Superior Bridge in the booming Hingetown section of Ohio City. Set on that land is a decrepit, sometimes-graffiti-tagged small building and a really big billboard above it.

City officials have been trying to acquire the property for the 23-acre Irishtown Bend Park. All other properties for the park have been acquired or have purchase agreements except this one. And structures on all but one of those acquired parcels were demolished earlier this spring. Once the remaining residents are relocated from the old Front Steps, 1545 W. 25th​, it too will be demolished. A new Front Steps, called St. Joseph Commons, opened at 2554 W. 25th.

That leaves in the way of Irishtown Bend Park only a decayed, 15,689-square-foot structure and an apparently profitable billboard perched atop it. As the city was trying to acquire that property several years ago, it was instead snapped up by George via his Mortgage Investment Group LLC in 2018 for $248,200, according to county records.

Plans for Irishtown Bend Park would remove all existing structures
as they are located on an unstable hillside. Work to stabilize the
hillside, due to start later this year, cannot be completed until
the structures are removed (CMG Landscape Architecture).

Now, according to two sources close to the negotiations, George is asking the city to buy the property for $4.2 million. City officials have made several alternative proposals to George for a land swap as well as different locations for establishing electronic billboards. The sources requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the negotiations.

One of the properties George sought from the city was the former 100th Bomb Group restaurant across Brookpark Road from Hopkins Airport. But the city had already leased it to a joint venture seeking to open a business called the Aviator Event Center.

With the city running out of options and time to appease George before the matter becomes an eminent domain case in probate court, the developer yesterday submitted plans to the city for a $4 million "wellness center." But those plans raise more questions than they answer, sources said.

First, a programming plan for the wellness center drawn up by Richard L. Bowen & Associates was dated April 10, 2019. And renderings by the same architectural firm were dated March 8, 2020. The plans apparently were not shared publicly until yesterday.

A proposal for a wellness center on West 25th Street (at lower left)
shows a 22-space parking lot on land owned by the West Creek
Conservancy which is acquiring land here not for development
or parking, but for the Irishtown Bend Park (Bowen).

David Bowen, the son of the founder of the architectural firm and one of its principals is also one of the two contacts listed on George's application to the city. Bowen is also chair of the City Planning Commission where he has served since 1997.

Neither Bowen or the firm's Director of Design Kyle Hulewat, listed as the other contact on George's zoning review application, responded substantively to an e-mail by NEOtrans seeking more information about the proposed wellness center project and its timing. However, Bowen did acknowledge receiving the e-mail which also asked its recipients if they could put NEOtrans in touch with George.

NEOtrans has yet to hear from George to learn more about the project, his progress in securing financing for it, and when he intends to start building repairs and renovations. That includes shoring up the foundation on a failing hillside that could collapse into the Cuyahoga River and block maritime traffic, according to the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency.

Sources estimate that stabilizing a small portion of hillside at a cost of about $5 million would be necessary before George's property could be redeveloped. Total cost of stabilizing the entire Irishtown Bend slope is about $44 million. After that work is done, construction on the park can begin.

Programming plan drawn in 2019 and submitted this week for
a building located at 1435 W. 25th St. in Ohio City (Bowen).

The city reportedly will not give George a building permit until the hillside is stabilized. The same sources said that the existing building would have to be demolished first to construct caissons necessary to stabilize the slope. In other words, the sources said George's building cannot be developed or saved.

Even if the building could be saved, the property cannot be developed due to parking. George's property is not large enough to accommodate the number of parking spaces to meet building and zoning code requirements. George would have to secure a variance from the city to offer less parking than the code allows. A variance is unlikely considering the city's adopted land use plan for that site is a park.

It is not clear what the property's proposed use would be classified as -- as retail, office or possibly a clinic/health/medical center. Those different uses require different amounts of parking spaces. The existing building is proposed to be redeveloped with 17,473 square feet of usable space.

Proposed uses include a yoga/flex room, juice bar/retail space, education corner, meeting room, treatment rooms, cryogenic therapy room, light therapy room, float tanks room, steam/sauna, co-working space, kitchenette, outdoor patio and rooftop deck, per documents Bowen submitted to the city.

George is co-founder of a popular wellness center nearby called LYV The Wellness Space, 1870 W. 25th. A source familiar with his businesses said the popularity of LYV has prompted George to seek expansion on the near West Side, downtown and other locations that are growing in population and income.

Renderings of a conceptual development located at the southeast
corner of West 25th Street and the Detroit-Superior Bridge. The
renderings were drawn more than a year ago according to the
date on the lower-right corner of the image (Bowen).

According to the city's building code, if the proposed use is considered office/co-working space, George would need to provide 35 parking spaces. If a retail use, 70 spaces would be needed. And if it's a clinic/health/medical center, George would have to provide 87 parking spaces.

A site plan shows 12 parking spaces on land George owns. A rendering shows 22 spaces on land George doesn't own. But that wouldn't be the first time George has offered parking at this location on land he doesn't own, the sources said.

After food hall/business incubator Ohio City Galley opened in October 2018, the business leased land across West 25th from George for parking. Unfortunately, George didn't own the land on which he leased out via a written agreement. Ohio City Galley closed in February 2020.

Ward 3 Councilman Kerry McCormack, Ohio City Inc. Executive Director Tom McNair and LANDstudio Executive Director Gregory Peckham were all contacted for comment on this situation but none responded to NEOtrans' requests.

END

Sherwin-Williams' HQ tower's height edges upward

Featuring a sloping roofline approaching 600 feet above Superior
Avenue and West 3rd Street, the new Sherwin-Williams HQ tower
will join Terminal Tower, 200 Public Square and Key Tower as
the city's four tallest buildings and will be four of the six tallest
structures in the state of Ohio (Ian McDaniel).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

By 2024, Cleveland's four tallest buildings will surround Public Square.

Barring an unlikely dramatic change in the tower's programming and design, Sherwin-Williams' (SHW) new global headquarters is nearing its final form. While some plans of the HQ may be submitted to the city this month, some interior designs may not be finalized by SHW's Build Our Future committee until after site preparation work gets under way this coming winter on the west side of downtown Cleveland's Public Square.

The biggest news is that HQ's tower final form will approach and possibly reach the 600 foot level above the northwest corner of Superior Avenue and West 3rd Street, according to sources on the HQ design team. Those sources also gave NEOtrans enough details to allow our graphics expert Ian McDaniel to sketch a rough massing of what the tower could look like and how it might appear contextually in the city's skyline.

As we have seen, the HQ's features have changed over time as the design process has moved along and outward from the tower's elevator/stairwell core. More changes could occur. However, the changes are becoming less dramatic as SHW gets ready to submit its first batch of blueprints to the City Planning Commission for review.

How Sherwin-Williams' new HQ tower will appear in the downtown
Cleveland skyline as viewed from Lake Erie. It is assumed that the new
tower's sloping roofline will angle up to Public Square (Ian McDaniel).

In addition to being about 600 feet tall, the HQ tower also would feature nearly 40 floors. The number of floors would equal that of the dark-green Erieview Tower on East 9th Street. But the physical height will exceed Erieview's 529 feet and put it firmly in fourth place among downtown Cleveland skyscrapers. Exceeding it will be three of its Public Square neighbors -- 200 Public Square (45 stories, 658 feet), Terminal Tower (52 stories, 708 feet), and Key Tower (57 stories, 948 feet).

The reason is that the top of SHW's HQ will reportedly have a sloping roofline that reduces the size of the floorplates on the upper floors and tops off the structure with a decorative feature. The effect is similar to that of the much shorter Atria office complex in North York, suburban Toronto. It not only gives the building a soaring appearance, it can also differentiate it from other buildings, as a principal of SHW HQ architect Pickard Chilton recently explained.

At the 2017 grand opening of another tower with a sloping roofline, 609 Main in Houston also designed by Pickard Chilton, developer Gerald Hines urged Jon Pickard to "Tell them about the top of the building -- why it’s not a flat top!”

“Well, we thought that a flat top gets a little bit lost in the skyline,” Picard explained to the audience, including PaperCityMag.com. “If we could create a silhouette that is memorable, then wherever you are. . . you see that slope, then you know the building.”

The sloping roofline of SHW's new HQ will reportedly be very
similar to that of one of the Atria II or III office buildings in
North York, Ontario, in suburban Toronto (Google).

Even though the SHW HQ architect also designed 609 Main and both buildings will feature glass-curtain-wall exteriors, design team sources cautioned that SHW's HQ will have a different form. SHW's 1-million-square-foot HQ tower will be more boxy and angular below the sloping roofline. Floorplates will likely average about 25,000 to 27,000 square feet. That and large windows will allow natural light to penetrate deep into the office building.

And the tower will likely have indents in the exterior, including an outdoor terrace cut into the lower midsection of the building overlooking Public Square. While it won't be open to the public, the terrace will offer a unique corporate amenity space for employees, suppliers and clients.

The feature offers a similar "terrace with a view" as that which is notched into the exterior of Ernst & Young Tower, 950 Main Ave., although it faces toward Lake Erie and the Cuyahoga River. Such a space can also offer a place for employees to think, grasp a bigger picture and recharge their creativity.

"The key partners we have selected are aligned with our vision of creating a next-generation workplace that supports serving our customers at the highest level, retaining and attracting top talent and igniting creativity, collaboration and industry-leading innovation," said SHW Chairman and CEO John Morikis in a written statement last fall.

SHW HQ architect Pickard Chilton has designed
glass-curtain-wall office towers with sloping rooflines
before, like 609 Main in Houston. However, the SHW
HQ will reportedly be more boxy (HarveyCleary).

Sources said there's a possibility that SHW's HQ development team, notably general contractor Gilbane Co., will get started started on site work before Pickard Chilton and the interior architect, Vocon Partners LLC, submit their full package to the city for review. The design team is in no rush to finalize everything, especially the interior details.

Supplier sources indicate that the high cost of construction materials, namely steel but others as well, has pushed SHW's HQ construction estimates well above the minimum projected expenditure of $600 million. SHW HQ suppliers may wish to wait a few months before they start to place materials orders. Ratings agency Fitch Solutions estimates that steel prices will fall from the present record high of $883 per metric ton to $600 per metric ton in 2022.

In the meantime, SHW is soliciting employees to "Find their color" in the HQ's interior design and layout. And with over 1,700 SHW paint colors, "there's a perfect color for every mood, every space and every project," to quote a certain paint company's ads.

To that end, SHW has put mock-ups of proposed office designs on the second floor of the Midland Building -- one of the 91-year-old Landmark Office Buildings at 101 W. Prospect Ave. that the 155-year-old company has called home since they were built.

From a Public Square view, the new SHW HQ may appear more
boxy but also will likely show its tallest side, reaching about 600
feet above the street. It will also have a terrace facing the square.
This imposing façade will fill a void in Public Square's street scene
 for the first time in more than 30 years when two smaller office
 buildings were demolished for an unbuilt tower (Ian McDaniel). 

After July 12, when all employees have returned to the office on a hybrid schedule of three days a week, they will have the opportunity to take a walk through their potential future workspaces and give their feedback to members of the design team. Only managers have toured the mock-ups so far.

Among the proposed work spaces are smaller cubes and collaboration rooms. There is a more open floor layout of cubes, more seating areas to do ad hoc meetings or to take one-off calls. SHW considers its current HQ as antiquated and not meeting the work needs of today. Up to 3,500 people will work in the new building.

"A new space was developed on 2-Midland to provide employees a peek into what the new workplace experience will be in our future HQ," according to a notice distributed to SHW employees in the first week of June.

"Last week," it continued, "we kicked-off guided tours for employees. HQ, BTC (Breen Technology Center) and WTC (Warrensville Technology Center) employees will be invited to attend a tour over the next few months. Be on the lookout for your invite between June and August. Beginning in September, self-guided tours will be available during regular office hours."

As viewed from the south side of downtown Cleveland, the new
SHW HQ tower will fill a wide gap in the city's skyline west of
Public Square with a significant skyscraper (Ian McDaniel).

SHW is putting extra effort into the interior design details after getting some pushback earlier this year from some members of the design team. Those members criticized the C-Suite-level Build Our Future committee on open-floor designs as well as a design concept of having employees work from any cubicle or workstation.

While the HQ will rise one block west of Public Square, SHW continues to plan for its new Center of Excellence (CofE) fronting the square. The CofE will be three stories tall and serve as a learning center and amenity space, as noted on SHW's official site plans.

The structure will reportedly offer up to 80,000 square feet of conference facilities for employee training and corporate functions, a small company museum for touring new recruits and VIPs, plus a rooftop lounge for after-work cocktail parties.

The CofE will be used as SHW's talent recruitment venue, sources said. It is proposed to be connected to the HQ via a skybridge above West 3rd. The HQ, in turn, will be connected to a large parking garage via a skybridge above Frankfort Avenue.

The new parking garage will have a liner building along West 3rd to comply with the city's building code. That liner building must hide the parking deck along its entire street frontage with at least 70 percent of that building comprised of active uses such as retailers, restaurants, hotel lobbies, residences, cultural amenities or recreational spaces.

Official Sherwin-Williams headquarters site plan (SHW).

Sources continue to say that no public uses will be provided along Frankfort or in the interior of the HQ tower. Instead, there will be a loading dock for the HQ tower on Frankfort, shown as a notch on the official site plan. However, the tower may be angled to open up a larger sidewalk area at the corner of West 3rd and Superior where a sidewalk café or other public space could be provided.

SHW will not use all of the land it acquired last year for the HQ. Instead, it is opening up its property along West 6th, St. Clair and Frankfort for development in order to expand mixed uses from the Warehouse District into the HQ campus area.

That could allow some public uses along Frankfort immediately east of West 6th or be held for future HQ expansions. However, none of those potential uses or activities have been identified thus far.

Way back in October 2018, NEOtrans was the first to report that SHW was pursuing a new HQ. We were also first to report the hiring of many of SHW's HQ project partners in 2019 as well as the selection of the west side of Public Square as the site of the new HQ.

The company had also hoped to build its new research and development facility on Scranton Peninsula near downtown but apparently couldn't get landowner Scranton Averell Inc. to return phone calls. NEOtrans noted that Brecksville's ex-VA Hospital site was in the running; SHW ultimately chose it for the R&D facility.

END

Cleveland-Cliffs seeks new HQ, but where?

Cleveland-Cliffs’ logo may not be on the façade of 200 Public
Square in downtown Cleveland for much longer. In several
years, the HQ of the Fortune 500 firm will reportedly be else-
where. But where? And will it be in a new or existing building?
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

According to several sources, a newly expanded Cleveland-Cliffs is actively looking for a new location for its headquarters. Similar to when NEOtrans was first to report 2 1/2 years ago of Sherwin-Williams (SHW) seeking a new HQ, Cliffs’ search efforts are also in the early stages. Unlike Sherwin-Williams, Cliffs apparently hopes to move more quickly in its search.

To read the rest of this story, see NEOtrans' new site at https://neo-trans.blog/