Wade Park Station senior apartments are planned next to an elevated railroad line and the Red Line rapid transit tracks at the corner of Wade Park Avenue and Lakeview Road (RDL). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.
Project may also help boost neighborhood
A Central Ohio developer was awarded millions of dollars worth of tax credits based a conceptual plan for a senior apartment complex called Wade Park Station, located where Cleveland’s University Circle and Glenville neighborhoods meet East Cleveland.
But after Wallick Communities of New Albany and its designer, RDL Architects of Beachwood, inquired about two electrical wires crossing the vacant lot at different locations, they had to go back to the drawing board — and do so carefully.
The skinny site between Wade Park Avenue and the elevated railroad tracks was last used more than 35 years ago as a parking lot for the long-closed Hough Bakery plant on the other side of Lakeview Road.
The two electrical wires were high-voltage power lines, one belonging to Cleveland Public Power and the other to First Energy. Worse, one had a 20-foot-wide property easement below it and the other a 36-foot-wide easement on which no structure could be built.
But the 40-unit apartment building couldn’t be redesigned in a way that reduced its unit count, amenity spaces and other features that might jeopardize a Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) award it had already won in May from the Ohio Housing Finance Agency (OHFA) based on a conceptual plan that was no longer valid.
The Wade Park Station development site is a 20-minute walk to the heart of University Circle and even faster by HealthLine bus on Euclid Avenue or by car (RDL).
And that award was for OHFA’s most highly coveted, competitive 9-percent tax credit that would subsidize up to 70 percent of the project’s costs. Wade Park Station’s construction costs were estimated at about $13.25 million.
The conceptual plan was approved not only by OHFA but also by the City Planning Commission’s Design Review Committee earlier this year. It was back before the commission today.
“To maintain the 40 units plus amenities, we were forced to work around the easements,” RDL’s Project Manager Winston Hung told commission members.
“With these two constraints and also the topography slope from Lakeview all the way down Wade Park — we have a roughly 10- to 12-foot slope — they forced us to redesign and rethink the intent of the design,” he said.
The new, final plan was presented to Planning Commission today. And it won unanimous support today.
The location of two electrical line easements required the conceptual plan, at top, to be designed for the final plan, bottom, that was approved by Planning Commission today (RDL).
“I like the design and I think it will really, really enhance the area,” said Planning Commission Chair Lillian Kuri. “To be honest, it might drive additional development.”
A spokesperson for the developer Wallick Communities said they intend to submit building permit applications for city review in Spring 2026. If so, that could let general contractor Wallick Construction LLC break ground in Summer 2026.
The result would be a building that’s three stories tall at the Lakeview end and four stories at the southwest end. The prior, conceptual plan envisioned the building being entirely three stories tall.
At its tallest point, the redesigned building will stay below the zoning code’s 50-foot height limit for the site. And the site plan retains the originally proposed 24 off-street parking spaces at the southwest end plus an outdoor patio at the Lakeview end.
Construction could be completed by fall of 2027. Once open, the West Park Station senior apartments will be managed by Wallick Properties Midwest, LLC, according to its LIHTC application. There will be 30 one-bedroom apartments and 10 two-bedroom suites.
The planned Wade Park Station apartments are on the University Circle side of Wade Park Avenue, as viewed from Glenville side of the street. In the distance at left is Lakeview Road, across which is East Cleveland (RDL).
Of the 40 apartments, 33 will have rents that are affordable to seniors 55 years and older who are earning 60 percent of the area’s median income (AMI). Another four units will be affordable to those earning 30 percent AMI and three units for persons at 80 percent AMI.
The final, approved design for the building retains all of its programming from its original concept, including first-floor common areas that total 1,413 square feet. Those include a community room, office and exercise room. There will also be two apartments on the first floor.
Exterior materials will be brick, vinyl siding and corrugated metal in the vertical elements to break up the massing. Vertical fiber-cement panels of different colors will also break up the façade and serve as wayfinding, Hung said.
He also said there will be site landscaping including new trees, shrubs, mulch beds and grass. There will be lighting along paths, parking lot and illumination of the sides of the building.
In addition to brick, concrete block, vinyl and corrugated metal siding will be fiber-cement panels that will be painted different colors to break up Wade Park Station’s massing and provide quicker orientation and wayfinding. The vacant Hough Bakery plant is seen in the background (RDL).
Wade Park Station LLC, an affiliate of Wallick, acquired the 0.9-acre property from Knez Homes affiliate Triban Investment LLC in September for $565,000, Cuyahoga County records show. Knez had planned to build townhomes there.
Also in September, Wade Park Station secured an $800,000 mortgage from Finance Fund Capital Corp. of Columbus, pledging the newly acquired property and any future buildings to be constructed on it as collateral.
Knez had partnered with Jim Miketo, owner of Forest City Shuffleboard Club in Ohio City, in acquiring the 3.7-acre, vacant Hough Bakery site in 2019. The partnership planned 57 housing units and 180,000 square feet of commercial space.
Although the partners said they intended to retain the historic, century-plus-old structures along Lakeview, no detailed redevelopment plans were ever publicly released for the bakery site.
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