Redevelopment of a vacant and vandalized 51-year-old apartment building on Hough Avenue is due to start next week, according to public records. The project will help continue the Hough neighborhood’s turnaround (Google). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.
Revival of vacant tower to boost neighborhood
ARTICLE UPDATED AUG. 27, 2024
According to a public record located by NEOtrans, a groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled from 10 a.m. to 12 noon Sept. 5 for the redevelopment of a vacant 10-story apartment building at 9410 Hough Ave. in Cleveland’s resurgent Hough neighborhood. Kristi Halford, a spokesperson for the project’s development partners, confirmed the scheduled event in an e-mail to NEOtrans.
A permit application was submitted yesterday to the city by Maryland-based corporate events firm Events USA for the ceremony. The permit included a large tent, stage, seating for up to 75 people, restroom trailer and onsite electrical power provided by AAble Rents of Euclid. Estimated cost of the groundbreaking ceremony is about $9,000, the public record showed.
Halford, founder and chief supporting officer of C3 Visionary Strategies, LLC, a Maryland-based business marketing and strategy firm, said a formal media alert about the groundbreaking ceremony will be distributed later this week. A Web site for the development, called Ninety-Four Ten, also was created.
The project’s development partnership is led by Northern Real Estate Urban Development (NREUV) of Washington DC and Sullivan Land Services Co. (SLSCO) of Galveston, TX.
“We are thrilled to finally break ground on 9410 Hough,” said Gina Merritt, NREUV’s founding principal. “Our team’s persistence and commitment to this project has helped us overcome several hurdles the last couple of years and we are so excited to provide the Hough community with investment and opportunities it deserves.”
A rendering of what the Ninety-Four Ten Apartments and its new-construction community-amenity building at right along Hough Avenue could look like by this time in early 2026 when work is due to be completed (RDL).
Financing for the $47 million redevelopment of the apartment building was finalized in early July. When work is completed in about 18 months, the 98,200-square-foot reinforced concrete structure will be restored with 116 affordable apartments. There will be 51 one-bedroom and 65 two-bedroom units for families earning 60 percent of the area’s median income.
Plus, a 5,040-square-foot, two-story, wood-framed community-amenity building will be constructed immediately west of the apartment building. There, area residents can receive mental and physical health services, education, training, financial literacy, entrepreneurship development, employment services, plus arts and music programs.
NREUV will partner with WFL Collective and Project Community Capital to provide economic empowerment services to the Hough community including skills training, job placement, entrepreneurship acceleration, barrier removal and housing support. NREUV has partnered with Famicos Foundation, a Cleveland-based community development non-profit whose mission is to improve the quality of life in Greater Cleveland, to provide children’s programming at the center.
City records also show a construction permit was awarded July 10 to SLSCO, the project’s general contractor, to conduct $20.4 million worth of work. The permitted work includes building alterations and construct additions at the Ninety-Four Ten Apartments. Separate electrical, plumbing and heating-ventilating-air condition permits are required, as are permits for installing automatic fire sprinkler and fire alarm detection systems, according the July 10 permit.
Site plan for the proposed Ninety-Four Ten Apartments and the associated community-amenity center to the left of the existing, 10-story building. Behind them will be about 98 parking spaces, accessible by vehicles only from Hough Avenue (RDL).
Built as the Kingsbury Apartments in 1973 by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), it sat vacant since 2011 and was condemned by the city. HUD put the building on its distressed list and urged SLSCO to bid on the property at an auction in 2021. SLSCO participates in large federal government projects including disaster response efforts and distressed properties. It acquired the property in June 2021 for $1.5 million, Cuyahoga County property records show.
NEOtrans broke the story on the first reports about Ninety-Four Ten back in December 2021. That was when the project was estimated to cost $37 million but due to rising interest rates and cost of supplies, the budget has increased by $10 million.
A complex and innovative financial structure of public and private funding was organized to deliver the project and close that $10 million gap. So many different layers of funding were necessary that a complicated capital stack like this is sometimes dubbed “baklava financing” — a reference to the multi-layered Greek pastry dessert.
That financing includes 14 types of public and private funding including $8 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds from the city of Cleveland and $1.1 million in financing from Enterprise Community Partners. Other lenders and investors include JLL, Freddie Mac, Citizens Bank, CREA LLC, Ohio Housing Finance Agency, Village Capital Corporation, WFL Collective, The Cleveland Foundation, The George Gund Foundation, the State of Ohio, and Cleveland Development Advisors.
A close-up of the planned community-amenity building at 9410 Hough Ave., next to the existing apartment tower. The new community-amenity building will be of wood-frame construction (RDL).
“SLSCO took a chance on us and they, along with their consultant Springcreek Advisors, has been instrumental in facilitating this opportunity for NREUV,” Merritt said in a written statement last month. “This project has been stalled for two years but we have been steadfast in our commitment to the people in the Hough community and are thrilled to work with them to reinvigorate their neighborhood.”
This project is seen as essential to continue the redevelopment of the Hough neighborhood as an inclusive community. First, the enduring poor condition of 9410 Hough has, no doubt, discouraged some investors from continuing the neighborhood’s resurgence resulting from Hough’s proximity to booming University Circle.
But the increased pace of investment that has been made so far has pushed up rents and threatens to push out long-time residents who have stayed in and stabilized Hough in the decades since the 1966 riots. Many are elderly residents who wish to downsize by moving into apartments but can’t afford rents at newer developments in the neighborhood.
Two other affordable housing developments are happening in Hough. Renovations are underway by Beachwood’s The Orlean Company at the 66-unit Amesbury Rosalind Apartments at three sites along East 93rd Street. And construction is due to start soon at Gordon Crossing, a 46-unit apartment building at the southwest corner of East 101st Street and Woodward Avenue.
END
