This row of industrial buildings last used by Premium Metals Inc., as seen last August on the south side of Breakwater Avenue in Cleveland’s Gordon Square neighborhood, probably won’t survive long enough to see the spring. They are the last industrial buildings along Breakwater and are due to be leveled for a large development called Breakwater Residences (Google). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.
A new residential development to follow
In the coming weeks, the last vestiges of industry along a once heavily industrialized street are due to pass into history. What will replace it is the same thing that has replaced industrial uses along the rest of Breakwater Avenue in Cleveland’s redeveloping Gordon Square neighborhood — housing. Lots of housing.
Demolition permits were requested this week from the Cleveland Building Department to take down multiple, vacated industrial structures on two parcels. One parcel is located at 5901 Breakwater Ave. and the other is immediately west of it at 6001 Breakwater.
Requesting the permits for developer TurnDev of Beachwood is C&J Contractors of Cleveland. It submitted the applications on Dec. 23, noting for both demolition jobs that it will “Demolish commercial buildings per the city of Cleveland specifications.” The buildings to be taken down total about 66,452 square feet.
Cost of the demolition work is estimated at $324,280, according to the two permit applications. Funding for the demolition and removal of asbestos-containing materials is coming from a $817,598 Ohio Brownfield Program grant that was awarded last month by the Ohio Department of Development to the Cuyahoga Land Bank.
Replacing the industrial buildings is Breakwater Residences, a working title for a 193-unit housing development planned with a mix of three-story townhomes fronting a five-story apartment building. The development won approval from the Cleveland Planning Commission’s Design Review Committee late last year.
A rendering of Breakwater Residences from roughly the same vantage point as the lead photo in this article. It’s a remarkable change from what this street looks like now, and even more so from what it looked like at the turn of the century (Dimit).
Today, TurnDev Principal Jon Pinney told NEOtrans that construction on Breakwater Residences is scheduled to start in the third quarter of 2025 — sometime between July 1 and Sept. 30. He said it will not be built in phases, such as with the apartment building or townhomes first. “It will be built all at once,” Pinney said.
The permit applications note that four buildings will be razed including the oldest which dates to 1926. They were built, owned and used by the Owen Bucket Co. for the manufacture of clamshell buckets for earthmoving and construction purposes until the properties were sold by Owen Bucket in 1980.
The most recent user of those buildings was Premium Metals Inc., which put the property on the market prior to relocating its flat-rolled steel service center operations and 50-plus employees to a more modern facility in Cleveland’s North Broadway neighborhood, not far from Cleveland’s Industrial Valley.
The 3.4 acres of land, owned by Premium Metals President Robert Pelles, was sold in January 2023 to TurnDev affiliate TD BWA LLC for an undisclosed amount. The land and buildings were appraised by the county at $1,735,400 for tax purposes but Pelles and brokerage Cresco had listed the properties at $3.4 million.
A site plan for the Breakwater Residences that was approved by the Cleveland Planning Commission’s Design Review Committee last year. Breakwater Avenue is at the north edge or top of this image (Dimit).
Breakwater Residences is proposed to have 13 townhomes along Breakwater with 180 apartments in a five-story building placed mostly behind the townhomes. However an eastern section of the apartment building will extend north to Breakwater.
There are 189 parking spaces planned with 115 indoor stalls on the first-floor of the apartment building and another 74 spaces outdoor spaces in a surface parking lot. Each of the townhomes are designed with two garage spaces on their ground floors, plans show. A pool, club area, fitness center and outdoor patio are planned south of the apartment building.
South of the Breakwater Residences site is a former railroad industrial spur that is planned to be converted by the Western Reserve Land Conservancy into a hiking/biking trail to link this growing community to Edgewater Park. South of the trail is Herman Park, a faded city-owned park with an athletic field and playground.
Multiple industries stood between Herman Park and Lake Erie until just after the turn of the century. But one by one, the industries are disappearing, being replaced by one housing development after another. The latest is the “Soap Site” development, 6400 Herman Ave., pursued by the Heirloom Company that includes many of the same principals that built The Welleon on Detroit Avenue.
A lot has changed in the northern part of Cleveland’s Gordon Square neighborhood in the past 30 years. And more is coming based on plans submitted to the city for former industrial properties south of Breakwater Avenue (Google).
That high-end apartment building leased out very quickly, signaling to the market that demand for more housing in Gordon Square still has a lot more room to run. The strong housing market also is fueling other pending developments nearby.
That includes redevelopment of the remaining structures of the former Westinghouse plant, 1200 W. 58th St. New investors are apparently on board, based on recent but vague legal and mortgage filings, and there could be news of development progress soon, according to a source who spoke to NEOtrans on the condition of anonymity.
In 2017, much of the Westinghouse site was redeveloped by the NRP Group of Cleveland. It had just finished building The Edison at Gordon Square apartments and was looking at building a follow-on project on the Premium Metals site with 318 apartments and a multi-level parking garage.
That was on a larger site than is now available following completion of the Krueger Group’s two neighboring developments — Breakwater Storage and West 58th Apartments. Instead, NRP Group chose to develop The Collins apartments on Scranton Peninsula in the Flats so as not to compete with The Edison.
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