This is one of several sections of the Taylor Tudors along Taylor Road in Cleveland Heights. Thanks to their developer winning financing from the Port of Cleveland, renovations to restore them with apartments over retail could get underway by year’s end (RDL). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.
Port board OK’d $15M in financing
The Port of Cleveland board on Friday approved issuing up to $15 million in taxable bonds for financing of the $25.6 million Taylor Tudor Plaza Project, part of the first phase of a larger $150 million mixed use neighborhood revitalization of the Taylor Road neighborhood in Cleveland Heights.
The Taylor Tudors project, 1900-1946 S. Taylor Rd., is the cornerstone of the Cain Park Village revitalization project. It will redevelop a trio of three-story, vacant historic buildings into 44 apartments, including eight live/work units. Amenities will include fitness and office space and 11,000 square feet of street-level commercial suites.
Work on the project is expected to start by the end of 2024, with completion planned by the second quarter of 2026. The Taylor Tudors were built between 1927 and 1929.
The Taylor Road project is being developed by WXZ, a Fairview Park-based, family-owned real estate developer who was selected by the city of Cleveland Heights to develop the properties.
Cuyahoga County property records show the properties were transferred by the city to WXZ in April via quit-claim deed after a chain-of-title transfer, as part of a tax-increment financing deal approved by the city in March.
Location of the Taylor Tudors on South Taylor Road in Cleveland Heights (RDL).
“South Taylor was designed as a classic walkable neighborhood,” Cleveland Heights Mayor Kahlil Seren said in a written statement. “Cain Park Village will build on that legacy with a modern vision for housing and retail that draws on the influence of Cain Park as a major arts and cultural destination.”
This project won Ohio’s largest Ohio Historic Preservation Tax Credit award in Round 29, gifted in March 2023. The Ohio Tax Credit Authority provided $5,955,232 to help offset the cost of renovating the Taylor Tudors. It is part of the 6.92-acre development known as Stadium Square Historic District on both sides of South Taylor Road, just north of Cain Park and the Taylor Road Synagogue.
The properties on which those buildings are set were acquired nearly five years ago by the city of Cleveland Heights’ Land Reutilization Program after a tax foreclosure. The Taylor Road Synagogue is also desired by the city and the developer to be part of the redevelopment but has been mired in its own tax foreclosure case since 2016. The state Ohio acquired the property through a court-authorized forfeiture in December 2023.
The development area’s name Stadium Square harkens back to an unrealized plan in the 1920s to build a stadium as part of Cain Park. The district is on the National Register of Historic Places.
A rendering of the Taylor Tudors shows that both sides of South Taylor Road in Cleveland Heights are to be redeveloped. The northward view in this rendering is from a future phase of the same overall development in Cleveland Heights’ Stadium Square Historic District which includes 208 apartments, about 24 townhomes and more than 300 parking spaces in a deck hidden behind the new apartment buildings (RDL).
Across South Taylor from the historic buildings is a strip shopping center called Taylor Commons that would be demolished and replaced with two new mixed-use buildings offering a total of 208 apartments over street-level commercial space.
Another two dozen for-sale townhomes are also planned along the east side of South Taylor. Behind them would be a parking garage with approximately 308 parking spaces, plans submitted to the city show.
In other business, the board approved a plan under which the Port becomes owner of the Gateway East parking garage and leases it to the Cleveland Guardians, allowing the professional baseball team to take over garage operations from the city of Cleveland.
The city of Cleveland approved the sale earlier this year. The Port of Cleveland will receive $35,000 per year in fees to facilitate the arrangement between the city and Guardians.
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