At long last, construction is about to get underway on the new Walz Branch of the Cleveland Public Library and, above it, Karam Senior Living affordable apartments in Cleveland’s Detroit-Shoreway neighborhood. It is one of several major construction projects emerging in this area (Bialosky). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.
June start ID’d for long-sought project
It’s a $34 million project nearly six years in the making. But after a pandemic, a sharp increase in construction costs, pursuits of additional financing and working out a complicated development partnership to build essentially two buildings in one, construction is finally in sight for the new Walz Branch Library topped by Karam Senior Living apartments.
Construction permits were awarded by the city this week for the first part of the project — the 10,300-square-foot Walz Branch of the Cleveland Public Library (CPL), to rise at 7918 Detroit Ave. in Cleveland’s Detroit-Shoreway neighborhood. CPL Chief Operating Officer John Lang said construction work could begin by June.
The library portion of the building will be two stories tall and cost about $12 million to build, including legal, architect fees and other soft costs, Lang said. The library’s first floor will be dedicated to collections and reading areas plus a lower level providing a meeting room, staff and mechanical spaces. Construction is estimated to take at least 16 months, public records show.
Above it will be an additional three stories of structure housing a 51-unit affordable apartment building for seniors 55 years and older earning 60 percent or less of the Area Median Income of $56,008 per household. It will also have a community room, laundry facilities, 46 on-site parking spaces and a wellness center.
This $22 million, 52,000-square-foot residential portion is being developed by a new entity called W80 Senior Limited Partnership, jointly owned by the nonprofit Northwest Neighborhoods Community Development Corp. (NNCDC) and Cleveland-based Salus Development LLC, a for-profit company that focuses on affordable housing projects.
Plans for the first floor and lower level of the Walz Branch Library. Since the land slopes down to north at the top of the image, the lower level will actually look like the ground-level from behind the building (Bialosky).
In some ways, the overall project sounds similar to the Library Lofts development in University Circle. There, a 200-unit, nine-story, market-rate apartment building was built atop CPL’s new Martin Luther King Jr. branch library. The complicated project had its groundbreaking in mid-2021 and wasn’t completed until the end of 2024.
Coordinating those two projects and partners wasn’t easy. Add to that inflation, supplier issues, change orders and cost overruns. Altogether, they put the project more than one-half-year behind schedule.
“The combined project will be similar to MLK/Lofts in that it combines a neighborhood library with apartment housing in a jointly developed facility, but the look and feel will be very different,” Lang said.
In 2023, the combined Walz branch-Karam Senior Living project had an estimated cost of about $22 million. Trying to come up with another $12 million wasn’t easy or quick.
“The cost increases after the pandemic is what had delayed the project for some time,” said NNCDC Executive Director Bridget Kent Márquez.” This is a very innovative design in that affordable housing is combined with a public library. Being that the buildings are joined, there are complexities which all have costs to be accounted for.”
Floor plans for the three levels of the Karam Senior Living apartments are shown here and can be seen in greater detail by clicking on the image. Detroit Avenue is along the bottom of each floor plan (Bialosky).
How complex is this new building? Not only are there two building owners with two separate budgets, they also have their own general construction contractors for each portion. The library is being built by Gilbane Building Company and the apartment building will be the responsibility of Marous Brothers Construction.
Following the creation of the W80 partnership, it needed an arrangement with CPL through a Construction, Operating and Reciprocal Easement Agreement (COREA) passed by CPL’s board in March. Among its provisions, CPL will take ownership of NNCDC-owned properties and consolidate them into a single parcel. There is also an air rights agreement between W80 and CPL.
As part of the COREA, CPL will pay for $2.6 million in shared building components like foundations, electrical, pavement and landscaping while the W80 partnership will be responsible for $475,264 of shared building features such as the elevator and a high roof, according to public records.
“The CPL Board of Trustees has already approved our construction contract, and we expect final documents to be signed with W80 within the next few weeks so that sitework can commence by June,” Lang told NEOtrans.
The 1920s-built Chateau Apartments was a low-income housing property owned by the Detroit-Shoreway Community Development Corp. Barely visible to the right was the old Walz Branch Library (Google).
Márquez said Gilbane and Marous are communicating and coordinating on their respective shares of the project, as are CPL and NNCDC, so they can get shovels in the ground soon.
“They (CPL) remain an absolutely amazing partner with whom we are closely coordinating with daily at this point,” she said in an e-mail to NEOtrans. “We will have a ceremonial groundbreaking, a press release and will plan a sort of community celebration as well, so please stay tuned!”
The project has its origins in a Nov. 21, 2019 CPL Board authorization to explore the option of partnering with NNCDC, then known as Detroit-Shoreway CDC, to construct a mixed-use development consisting of a new Walz Branch attached to an affordable senior housing development.
NNCDC was awarded Low-Income Housing Tax Credits from the Ohio Housing Finance Authority (OHFA) in May of 2021. The existing Walz Branch Library and neighboring Detroit Chateau apartments were demolished in early 2022. But NNCDC was unable to proceed with construction due to the industry-wide increases in construction costs caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In October 2022, shortly after the existing Walz Branch Library and Chateau Apartments were demolished, it seemed like construction would soon follow. But this is how the northeast corner of Detroit Avenue and West 79th Street has looked ever since (Google).
To make the project work, financing had to come from lots of different sources. Cuyahoga County is providing $1,950,000 of HOME Investment Partnerships Program funding and an additional award of $75,000 of Emergency Rental Assistance 2 funding. The Port of Cleveland is providing a capital lease to give sales tax savings to the project.
The city of Cleveland contributed $600,000 of HOME Funds, $3.6 million of American Rescue Plan Act/General Funds and $1 million in Community Development Block Grant. Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority is providing approximately $14.4 million in Project Based Vouchers and OHFA awarded $2.6 million in Multifamily Lending Program Risk-Share funds.
Funding for the new Walz Branch Library is coming from a 2017 voter-approved 10-year, $100 million-plus bond issue to replace or rebuild all 27 neighborhood branches, followed by a $65 million renovation of the Main Library downtown.
The library is named for Dr. Frederick Wilhelm Walz, a native west-side Clevelander who practiced medicine and served as a city councilman, among other achievements. Upon his death in 1945, Walz left his property — his home, his office and two other buildings — to Cleveland Public Library.
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