A revised, conceptual plan and a new financial request is pending for the development of for-rent townhomes at the site of the former Stephen E. Howe Elementary School in Cleveland’s Glenville neighborhood (LDA). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.
Design refined for historic civil rights site
A planned development of affordable, for-rent townhomes announced nearly two years ago is back with a slightly revised plan and a request for public financial assistance to build the townhome community.
Stephen Howe Apartments Homes is planned to be built on the 2.2-acre site of the former Stephen E. Howe Elementary School, 1000 Lakeview Rd. in Cleveland’s Glenville neighborhood. Due to falling enrollment, the school was closed by the Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) in 2006 and demolished in 2013.
Revitalization Strategies Group of Wylie, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, plans to build the Stephen Howe Apartment Homes. Proposed is a 46-unit affordable housing development offering general occupancy. The developer will pay CMSD $120,000 for the property, public records show.
“We plan to construct a new-construction 46-unit general occupancy townhome community in the Glenville Community,” wrote Michael Bowen, president of Revitalization Strategies Group in a recent letter to Cleveland City Council. The letter notified the city of the company’s intention to seek public assistance for the project.
“The new residential community will be comprised of 12 two-bedroom and 34 three-bedroom (units) and includes six fully accessible ADA-mobility units and one A/V (audio/visual) sensory unit,” he wrote.
A rendering from the prior plan for the Stephen Howe Apartment Homes showing the new street through the development site was to be a straight roadway. The new plan gives it an S-curve to slow traffic and move the new intersection away from several mature trees including one planted in the memory of two people who died as a result of separate onsite tragedies (LDA).
The latter home will be designed with a calming environment that helps reduce anxiety and overstimulation for people with conditions such as autism, ADHD, or other sensory processing disorders. Total estimated price tag for developing the site is just under $15 million.
Target market for the residences will be for households earning between 30 percent to 80 percent of the Area Median Income (AMI), or $43,383 in 2024, according to the developer’s filing with the Ohio Housing Financing Agency (OHFA).
“The development features modern and open-floor plans, full-size kitchens, spacious bedrooms, Energy Star appliances, and community gardens,” according to the project summary submitted to OHFA.
It also noted that “residents will enjoy access to grocery stores, childcare facilities, employment opportunities in the adjacent University Circle neighborhood, parks, and first-class healthcare services.”
A new conceptual plan for the project is slightly different than one that was submitted to the city in late 2023. It won support from the City Planning Commission in January 2025.
In the center of the new housing development, a community park is planned. Both the old and new plans have this green space included although they appear to have a different interface with the new street planned through the site (LDA).
In it, a new street linking Lakeview with Linn Drive was planned as an extension of Saywell Avenue. But the new plan has the new street’s intersection with Lakeview moved south of Saywell’s. The new street also is planned with an S-curve in it whereas the previous plan aligned it as a straight path through the former school site.
And, previously, 52 for-rent townhomes were planned on the former school site, six more than what is planned now. A second phase showed another 16 single-family homes were sought on scattered vacant lots nearby.
The pending OHFA application and letter to the city is silent on the prospect of the single-family homes. Bowen said the proposed townhomes will be financed with a residential first mortgage loan plus state and federal Low Income Housing Tax Credits.
The developer is pursuing the project under the affiliate name of Stephen Howe Apartments Redevelopment Managing Member, LLC.
The project’s architect is LDA Architects, Inc. of Cleveland, Driven 4 Group of Garfield Heights is the general contractor and, once built, the property will be managed by the Fourmidable Group of Bingham Farms, MI.
This conceptual image shows how the parking lots in the proposed development could look. The parking is screened from the street with trees, shrubs and low brick walls (LDA).
The site has a tragic history. In 1964, the Cleveland school board approved the construction of several new schools, including Stephen E. Howe Elementary, to relieve overcrowding in predominantly black neighborhoods.
But that was seen by some as keeping African-Americans stuck in ghettos instead of giving them access to higher-quality schools in predominantly white neighborhoods like Little Italy and those on the city’s West Side.
On April 7, 1964, protests at the construction site for the new Stephen E. Howe Elementary school entered their second day, noted ClevelandHistorical.org.
Rev. Bruce Klunder, 27, father of two, married, white and a founding member of the Cleveland Congress on Racial Equality, laid down behind a bulldozer as four protestors laid in front to prevent the construction from taking place.
The bulldozer operator tried to avoid the protestors in front, backed up the bulldozer without seeing Klunder or hearing him scream, and crushed the reverend to death.
Three trees remain at the Lakeview Avenue side of the former school site including two mature trees at left and another tree planted three decades ago after a kindergartner was shot and killed in a drive-by shooting. Chadey Anderson, Rev. Bruce Klunder who died during a civil rights protest in 1964 and school administrator Stephen E. Howe are named on the plaque next to the tree planted in their memories (Google).
“Riots followed,” reported Cleveland Magazine. “In a crowd of about 3,500, cars were flipped, tear gas employed. Thirteen were injured, including police. Twenty-six were arrested.”
Despite the protests, construction of the school was completed and it was named after a Cleveland school district administrator. Unfortunately, Klunder’s death wasn’t the only tragedy at the school. In 1993, kindergartner Chadey Anderson was shot and killed during a drive-by shooting.
At the school, a plaque was placed and a tree planted in their memory, across the street from Greater New Zion Baptist Church. The tree and plaque were spared when the school building was demolished in 2013.
Previously, the developer pledged to save the tree and plaque as part of the redevelopment in some undefined way. But the new plan appears to retain them at their current site and provide more greenspace around them.
And by shifting the intersection south for the new street that connects to Linn, it moves the added pavement away from the two mature trees that will apparently be kept.
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