McCafferty Health Center on Lorain Avenue in Cleveland’s Ohio City neighborhood, as seen from the alley Fulton Court behind it (Google). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.
City issues RFQ, as it promised in early July
Cleveland city officials followed through on a promise they made in early July when they announced they would be making the city-owned McCafferty Health Center property, 4242 Lorain Ave., available for redevelopment. Today, they issued a formal invitation to professional real estate development teams to respond to a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) to redevelop the site and address the need for affordable housing in the Ohio City neighborhood.
Not only is population growing fast in Ohio City, but so are the housing prices and rents. With the Cleveland Department of Public Health moving out of the McCafferty Health Center, city officials saw it as an opportunity to attract investors to deliver a wider range of housing options.
So the city and Ward 3 Councilman Kerry McCormack are seeking project visions for affordable housing with ground-floor uses aimed toward nonprofit or social services that support neighborhood residents.
The 19,000-square-foot clinic, constructed in 1971, is largely underutilized, with approximately 25 percent of the space occupied by the Cleveland Department of Public Health. The 1.3-acre city-owned property on Lorain Avenue offers a rare opening on a thriving commercial corridor.
Location of the McCafferty Health Center property on Lorain Avenue and the current zoning in the area. A Pedestrian Retail Overlay, shown by the purple lines along Lorain, means that a public ground-floor use must be provided in new buildings (CPC).
Transforming this city-owned site to meet the neighborhood’s affordable housing needs has long been a part of McCormack’s vision and Ohio City’s Strategic Plan. This initiative is further supported by the Cleveland 2030 Housing Equity Plan, as well as local, state, and national studies that validate the need for affordable housing due to the rising number of households that pay high percentages of their income toward housing costs.
“In order to sustain a vibrant and equitable city, we believe that it’s critical to maintain and create housing opportunities where individuals do not have to pay more than 30 percent of their income on this basic need,” Trudy Andrzejewski, bureau chief of neighborhood revitalization in the city’s Department of Community Development said in a written statement.
“Projects like this are an opportunity for the city to play a part in reducing the intense housing cost burden of Clevelanders at various income levels, in this case, focused on the rental market,” she added.
To ensure that this opportunity is place-based and rooted in community voice, the Department of Community Development collaborated with Ohio City Incorporated to release a Community Values survey on July 1. This survey will remain open throughout the RFQ process and can be accessed here. Community partners at nearby institutions, including the May Dugan Center, the Spanish American Committee, the Young Latino Network, and the West Side Catholic Center, have also administered the survey to their clients.
McCafferty Health Center is being made available to developers to build affordable housing on the site in a neighborhood with many expensive houses and apartments. This view is from the alley Fulton Court behind the health center, near West 44th Street (Google).
“I want to thank all of the public health professionals who have served the Cleveland community from the McCafferty Health Center for decades,” McCormack said. “Their work has touched the lives of many people in need of medical services in our neighborhoods. As we move forward, I am excited about the future of this site continuing to serve a public purpose by providing affordable housing and social services to the neighborhood. I appreciate the hard work of City staff and look forward to future community engagement to ensure this is the best project possible.”
Qualifications will be accepted through October 1, 2024, with selection of a development team no later than November 1, 2024. A virtual info session will be held on Friday, September 6, 2024, at 1 PM EST. Please register here, if you plan to attend.
The Submission Process and Evaluation Criteria and can be found on pages 19-21 of the RFQ.
Learn more about this and other asset redevelopment projects and access the full RFQ at Asset Redevelopment | City of Cleveland Ohio.
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