Seeds & Sprouts IV – Early intel on real estate projects

This is the fourth 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.

Millennia Companies expects to start in early 2020 the $40
million renovation and conversion of 75 Public Square into
119 apartments over two commercial spaces (Millennia).
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

75 Public Square housing conversion is near

Two weeks ago, NEOtrans was the first to report on a planned $73.6 million rehabilitation of the “new” headquarters of the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co. (CEI), 55 Public Square. Now it’s the old CEI headquarters’ turn — 75 Public Square.

Renamed as Public Square North, the 15-story building is near to seeing rehab work start. Millennia Companies plans a $40 million rehabilitation and conversion of the 1915-built office building into 119 apartments.

Cleveland Construction Inc. was hired as the construction manager and bids were issued recently for interior demolition work of the 150,000-square-foot building. That suggests that workers will be on site in early 2020.

Located on the northwest corner of Public Square, the building also features two commercial spaces for lease on the ground floor — one measuring 1,200 square feet and the other 3,000 square feet. A newsstand and restaurant have operated in those spaces at various times in the past.

Because Millennia also owns Key Tower, located on the northeast corner of Public Square, residents of Public Square North will be able to use facilities at Key Tower. That includes the new fitness center Vedas Fitness and Key Tower’s underground parking, according to promotional materials.

Lincoln Partners LLC has acquired more than 1 acre of land
at the intersection of Scranton Road and Willey Avenue for a
mixed-use project of housing and commercial (MyPlace).

The Lincoln in Tremont gets a new developer

Good locations for development don’t lie fallow. Scranton Place LLC first proposed a six-story condominium development on the southwest corner of Scranton Road and Willey Avenue. Four years later, the project is back but with with a new property owner and developer.

Through an affiliate named Lincoln Partners LLC, Sustainable Community Associates (SCA) bought Scranton Place’s 0.7-acre parcel in 2017 and added three parcels totaling 0.33 acres earlier this year to have a 1-acre plot.

Two of the three parcels were acquired from the Cleveland Animal Protective League and the third, on Brevier Avenue, was acquired from the Cuyahoga County Land Reutilization Corp. An alley through the site called West 18th Place was vacated.

The site is just east of the Fairmount Creamery apartments on Willey that SCA developed in 2014 and north of the Wagner Awning apartments and The Tappan, both developed by SCA at Scranton and Auburn Avenue.

Plans for The Lincoln are under review by the City Planning Commission. Josh Rosen, a principal at SCA, said that more project details will be revealed soon. But at this time, the goal is to construct approximately 83 housing units with parking below ground and a roughly 6,000-square-foot, street-facing commercial space, he said.

The project is named The Lincoln because it is a couple of blocks west of Tremont’s Lincoln Park. Willey-Kenilworth Avenue is one of two main streets that connects Tremont with Ohio City. And Scranton Road is a main route between Tremont, Clark-Metro and downtown, via the soon-to-be-developed Scranton Peninsula along the Cuyahoga River.

This probably isn’t what most Clevelanders think of Hough
after the last 60 years that the neighborhood endured. But as
University Circle keeps growing, development is spreading
west and north into Hough. The East 90th Apartments on
Chester Avenue is one of many developments planned
or underway in the Hough neighborhood (CPC).

Boomtown UC is spilling over into Hough

Multiple, large-scale developments are planned or underway in the once vibrant and densely populated Hough neighborhood that succumbed to white flight, race riots, despair and widespread abandonment.

New housing, parks and businesses built over the past 30 years have stabilized Hough compared to its darkest days. It’s enough that real estate investors now see it as a place for spin-off development from booming University Circle, Cleveland Clinic and Case Western Reserve University to spread.

Among the developments are Signet Real Estate Group’s Axis at Ansel, a $35 million, five-story, 163-unit apartment building under construction at Hough and Ansel avenues. It is next to the 10-story Kingsbury Apartments that was gutted by vandals but is structurally sound and for sale.

Recently announced was the East 90th Street apartments, a multi-phase, 461,093-square-foot development on Chester Avenue sought by the Inspiron Group. The developer is currently working farther west near Cleveland State University, converting to residential two 1950s-era office buildings on Euclid Avenue on both sides of East 30th Street.

At East 90th, Inspiron will raze multiple vacant apartment buildings that it considers too costly to renovate. In their place will rise four new buildings totaling about 400 housing units. This site was where a developer recently proposed a mixed-use development called Core 90, but abandoned the project. It is two blocks west of the Finch Group’s large Innova development.

Between East 59th and East 61st streets, plus Wade Park and White avenues, WRJ Developers, LLC proposes to build six buildings with 12 apartments per building, offering market-rate and subsidized units called Hough Paradigm. The developers also propose work with the city on linking two disconnected sections of Wade Park.

Significant additional residential developments are being considered for the area along and north of Chester to accommodate growing numbers of medical staff, students and neighborhood residents seeking higher quality housing within walking or biking distance of work or school. Keep an eye out for 75 Chester apartments, due to rise on both sides of East 75th Street north of Chester.

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