To make way for the Irishtown Bend Park, this huge billboard on the blighted building on which it sets at the southeast corner of West 25th Street and the Detroit-Superior Bridge will be demolished and replaced by three billboards as a result of a court settlement. The third and final billboard location has been identified (Google). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.
Three billboards the result of court settlement
A George family-owned billboard that metastasized into three as a result of a 2023 court settlement has found its third and final landing spot in Cleveland. That third billboard site is a piece of a city-owned parcel on the Opportunity Corridor near Quincy Avenue that is unlikely to be developed with any other uses, according to a city official. Title to the land will be transferred to the Georges.
According to a filing with the city’s Building Department by the Georges’ architectural firm, Richard L. Bowen and Associates of Cleveland, the 50-foot-tall, two-faced billboard will be located near the southeast corner of Quincy and what is now officially called the Carl and Louis Stokes Opportunity Corridor Boulevard. The $331 million roadway opened in November 2021.
The land was originally acquired by the Ohio Department of Transportation for the roadway project and combined into a single, 9.78-acre parcel with the street address of 9525 Woodland Ave. It included a narrow, roughly 3-acre parcel along the boulevard that was absorbed into the property fronting Woodland and then transferred to the city of Cleveland in 2021.
That 3-acre parcel is what will apparently host George’s newest money-maker — “50 feet overall in height, double-sided electronic LED, 10-foot, 6-inch by 36-foot billboard sign,” as noted in Bowen’s application. Fifty feet is the maximum height allowed for a billboard in Cleveland. Agile Sign Ohio based in Eastlake will install it at a cost estimated at $250,000, according to the application that was submitted to the city Sept. 27.
“It’s on a non-buildable parcel,” said Council President and Ward 6 Councilman Blaine Griffin. The affected property is in his east-side ward. “In talking with the CDC (community development corporation — Burten Bell Carr Development Inc.) and community folks, they’re OK with. It will help resolve a lawsuit. I’m supportive of it.”
Approximate site of the third George family billboard is near the southeast corner of the Carl and Louis Stokes Opportunity Corridor Boulevard and Quincy Avenue, just south of University Circle. The nearly 10-acre city-owned parcel on which it would set currently extends to Woodland Avenue but will likely be divided with the Georges acquiring the smaller, more narrow parcel (MyPlace.CuyahogaCounty.gov).
In the settlement agreement, the city will swap parcels with another owned by George’s Westlake-based Mortgage Investment Group LLC. In 2018, the firm acquired a vacant building set on a 0.41-acre property at 1435 W. 25th St. for $248,000 as public entities were acquiring other parcels for the $110 million, 23-acre Irishtown Bend Park on a hillside above the Cuyahoga River.
The public entities sought to acquire the George-owned parcel but couldn’t come to an agreement with the Georges. The family’s business interests reportedly are run by Tony George and his son Bobby George. They own or manage numerous area restaurants and hospitality businesses in Greater Cleveland.
The Port of Cleveland initiated an eminent domain proceeding against the Mortgage Investment Group in February 2022 to acquire the land. In October 2021, the Georges sued the entities involved in the park project — Port of Cleveland, City of Cleveland, Riverbed LLC, Ohio City Inc., Cleveland Metroparks and LAND Studio — and ultimately prevailed in March 2023.
Several media outlets reported that the George family will be paid $1.25 million for their hilltop property. Three sites will be approved by the city of Cleveland to replace the single, lucrative 70-foot by 30-foot billboard atop a former Royal Castle restaurant. Only after the third site is established and a building permit issued for it, the vacant, former restaurant and the existing billboard can be demolished, per the settlement agreement.
Driving south and west from University Circle, the Georges’ proposed two-faced, electronic LED billboard will be on the left side of the Opportunity Corridor, on a narrow strip of land between the roadway and the CSX railroad’s land, after passing the Quincy Avenue intersection (Google).
The first of three billboard sites that was approved by the city is atop George’s Harry Buffalo restaurant in downtown’s Gateway District. The second will be placed atop a 150-foot-tall pole to be installed behind a fenced-in trash container at George’s property, 1146 Old River Rd., on which Lindey’s Lake House-Flats has a ground lease. That billboard will be next to the Shoreway’s bridge over the Cuyahoga Valley.
The second location was approved by the City Planning Commission earlier this year, although it was not unanimous. Ward 17 Councilman Charles Slife, who also is a Planning Commission Design Review Committee member, was the lone vote in opposition to the second billboard’s location.
“I think it makes the downtown-lake skyline’s beautiful view look like the (Interstate 480) Valley View Bridge,” Slife. “I know there’s an agreement for the billboards. I just don’t think this is the spot for it. There was outreach to me about a billboard near the airport in Ward 17 and I said I had no issues with it. I haven’t received any communication yet since then.”
City Planning Commission Chair Lillian Kuri expressed concern about the two-faced LED-billboard causing accidents. The Georges’ architect, former planning commission chair David Bowen of Richard L. Bowen & Associates, said the Ohio Department of Transportation approved it.
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