Along Kirby Avenue, one-fourth of a mile from the interchange of Interstate 90 and Eddy Road in Cleveland’s Glenville neighborhood, is this 36-acre property that’s being cleaned up as a new job-ready site (Google). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.
Land bank acquires ex-Republic Steel site
Too much is never enough. When you’re marketing land to new end-users, you can’t have enough clean, developable land in the urban core. And one of the largest, if not the largest in the city of Cleveland has just been assembled by the Cuyahoga Land Bank. The site is located at 12610 Kirby Ave. in Cleveland’s Glenville neighborhood, bordering on Collinwood.
On May 30, the land bank closed a deal to transfer a 21-acre piece of land that was owned by PN Holdings LLC of Atlanta, according to Cuyahoga County property records. The pistol-shaped parcel shares a property line with another big piece of land owned by the land bank — a 15-acre parcel that was owned for many years by the National Acme Co.
The acquisition was announced two months ago when the deal was still pending and when crews began to raze National Acme’s neglected, polluted structures. Although Cleveland’s Site Readiness for Good Jobs Fund (SRF) Managing Director Brad Whitehead confirmed to NEOtrans that the sale closed May 30, he was unable to disclose details including the sale price. But public records suggest the transaction amount may be at least $4.5 million.
He acknowledged that, while the land bank would take title to the property, SRF contributed funding to property acquisition. The Cuyahoga Land Bank is the fiscal agent for the SRF. The reason why terms of the deal were not disclosed at this time is because of the presence of a third party — a tenant, Pull-A-Part LLC, having a continuing leasehold interest in the property even though it no longer uses it.
Public records show the corporate entity buying PN Holdings’ land, 12610 E 131 Holdings LLC (hereafter “131 Holdings”), was created in February. PN Holdings, a company incorporated in 2007, became an affiliate of 131 Holdings. For legal and tax advantages, the land was paper-transferred from PN Holdings to 131 Holdings which has its tax-mailing address in Tempe, AZ, according to a restrictive covenant filed with Cuyahoga County.
A once-robust industrial district at the border of Glenville and Collinwood has faded and taken the surrounding neighborhoods down with it. So the rotting factories are being cleared and the land cleaned so it can be returned to productive use and hopefully bring back the neighborhoods (Google).
“If during the period commencing on the (May 29, 2025) date of this instrument through and including February 23, 2026 (the “Restricted Period”), 131 Holdings conveys the property to an unaffiliated third-party purchaser for an amount that nets 131 Holdings, as the seller, sale proceeds in excess of $4.5 million (the “Sale Proceed Threshold”), then, within 30 days following the closing of such sale by 131 Holdings, 131 Holdings shall pay to Pull-A-Part an amount equal to 72 percent of the sale proceeds that are in excess of the Sale Proceed Threshold (the “Restrictive Covenant”),” the covenant reads.
Signing the covenant was Ricardo León as the authorized representative of 131 Holdings. León is president and CEO of the Cuyahoga Land Bank, officially the Cuyahoga County Land Reutilization Corp.
Whitehead said the land bank has taken title to the PN Holdings/131 Holdings property just as it has the National Acme properties. But it will be up to SRF to market them. And having a single property that exceeds 30 acres hits the “sweet spot” for marketing land to new end users. SRF and the land bank are busily assembling job-ready sites and assisting others as well.
“We do intend to market it as one site and it will be a clean site,” Whitehead said in a phone interview with NEOtrans. “There isn’t much to remove at the PN site — just a small structure and some pavement. Clean up of the National Acme site is proceeding at a frenzy.”
A youngster rides his bicycle past a site on East 131st Street where a steel tube production plant for Steel & Tubes Inc., an affiliate of Republic Steel, loomed over the street. In the background is part of the National Acme plant, now being demolished (Google).
The land bank acquired the National Acme site in early 2024 from Acme Realty LLC in a sheriff’s sale. A transaction price for the National Acme land wasn’t publicly released either. An $11 million demolition and site clean up of National Acme began in early April, bolstered by a $7.6 million grant the land bank won last year from Ohio’s Brownfield Program.
“We’re trying to look at this as a single parcel and we’re already out talking to companies,” Whitehead said. “A few companies have reached out to us already. I feel good about the site and its attractiveness.”
By contrast, the PN Holdings site is already cleaned up, he added. A century ago, it was owned by an affiliate of Cleveland-based Republic Steel called Steel & Tubes Inc., and hosted 420,000 square feet of facilities for the production and finishing of steel tubing. The plant was built in the early 20th century and employed about 500 people. It was the smallest of Republic’s four Cleveland business units.
In 1984, when Republic was merged into LTV Steel, an affiliate LTV Copperweld acquired the Steel & Tubes plant. But LTV steel went bankrupt only two years later. It remained in bankruptcy for more than a decade. The Kirby Avenue facility was closed in the late 1990s and sold as part of LTV’s bankruptcy liquidation process.
Along Kirby Avenue, signs went up two months ago announcing the demolition work that was about to get underway at the National Acme site (NEOtrans).
An affiliate of Hemisphere Brownfield Group LLC of suburban Bedford acquired the steel tube production site in 2002 for $400,000, demolishing its “highly distressed” facilities and removing asbestos from the property.
No public funds were used during a site clean up that was initiated and undertaken by the property owner. An owner-initiated clean called the Voluntary Action Program is reviewed by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency. Afterwards, Hemisphere said it received a “no further action required” letter from the EPA.
The cleared and cleaned former steel mill site was sold in 2007 to PN Holdings for $2.7 million. PN Holdings leased the property to Pull-A-Part LLC of Georgia for 20 years with four additional five-year options that could extend the lease by another 20 years, county records show.
Pull-A-Part advertises itself as the largest private, self-serve, do-it-yourself used auto parts market in America. Customers bring their own tools and remove desired parts from vehicles in their inventory. Pull-A-Part remained in business at the Kirby Avenue site until about 2015. It has another location on West 130th Street.
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