Six townhomes will populate a vacant lot on Stanford Avenue in Cleveland’s Old Brooklyn neighborhood and help boost the nearby Pearl Road commercial corridor where the townhouses’ developers have already begun to make a difference (RSA Architects). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.
Townhomes, businesses to create synergy
Some developers focus on building homes in all-residential neighborhoods. Others focus on building and renovating commercial spaces on busy streets. It’s not often that a developer pursues both with the goal of each supporting the other. But that’s what a new development firm comprised of experienced real estate professionals is pursuing in Cleveland’s Old Brooklyn neighborhood.
The latest addition is six market-rate townhomes are planned in the 3500 block of Stanford Avenue, just west of Pearl Road in the heart of Old Brooklyn. The traditionally designed Stanford Townhomes will be built on vacant, former city land bank lots acquired a year ago by Greenlight Building Co., founded in 2023.
Construction permits are being submitted this week to the city’s Building Department for the townhomes to be built in two separate buildings. Each townhome residence will have up to three bedrooms, measure as much as 1,675 square feet and be listed for sale starting at $375,000. They are eligible for Cleveland’s 15-year tax abatement.
And they will be steps away from Pearl Road — Old Brooklyn’s main commercial corridor where Greenlight’s initial partners Frank and Sam Camardo began investing their time, talents and treasure into re-energizing buildings with new businesses.
“The townhouse project on Stanford is the outgrowth of our original investment in Old Brooklyn,” said Frank Camardo. “We spent a lot of time in Old Brooklyn as kids visiting our aunt who lives there, so we always knew it was a strong neighborhood that would support new retail businesses if the opportunities existed.”
Renovations were just getting underway in 2022 on 4298 Pearl Rd., the red-shaded building at the center, which became The Geek Peek store. Behind it, two more businesses opened — Lekko Coffee and The Splatter Loft (Google).
So in 2020, Frank and his older brother Sam purchased three vacant commercial buildings at 4298 and 4302 Pearl. Frank Camardo came from DiGeronimo Companies which developed Valor Acres in Brecksville, is developing District 46 next to the Cleveland Browns headquarters in Berea and now they’re the master developer of the Downtown Cleveland lakefront.
For their Old Brooklyn efforts, the Camardo brothers brought in John Ellis, founder of the real estate development firm EB Pinnacle Properties, as well as Bill Sanderson, who was vice president of land and construction for Knez Homes. That team pulled together a synergistic approach between residential and commercial.
“Our hope here is that an active commercial corridor on Pearl Road will create demand for new housing in the neighborhood, and that new housing will then spur additional retail interest and support what’s already there,” Frank Camardo said.
Their renovated Pearl buildings attracted new tenants — The Geek Peek opened up shop at 4298 Pearl’s storefront with Lekko Coffee and The Splatter Loft taking over the warehouse space behind the storefront.
Around this same time, the partners started Greenlight Building to focus on new-construction infill housing. Their first project was part of the Circle East development in East Cleveland, next to University Circle. Their first two homes there, in addition to Cuyahoga Land Bank’s first four units, are currently listed for sale.
This grassy 0.4-acre lot on Stanford Avenue is due to see construction start soon on six townhomes. At the end of the street is the Pearl Road commercial corridor (Google).
They are currently building two more townhomes, this time at 1348 W. 78th St. at the up-and-coming west end of the Gordon Square District. Overlooking Lake Erie at the north end of West 78th, the 13-story Shoreway Tower is under construction.
They had also planned a townhouse development at 4302 Pearl, formerly Bob Goff Heating and Air Conditioning Inc. But the developers had to scrap it when the city’s Board of Zoning Appeals denied their rezoning request. The Cleveland Fire Department expressed concerns about having access to residences at that site.
So they shifted focus to the land bank lots on Stanford for residential development. But they never lost sight of further investments on Pearl.
“In the midst of planning the Stanford Townhomes, we purchased the vacant Mr. E’s building at 4256 Pearl, located right around the corner from the Stanford site,” Camardo added.
It was renovated to become the new home of The Foundry Concert Club, which relocated last year from Lakewood’s Edge neighborhood. The goal was to create a synergy between residential and commercial land uses.
Another view of the Stanford Avenue townhomes shows how they will be arranged in two buildings each with ground-floor garages accessed by a center driveway and from the back of each townhome (RSA Architects).
“A lot of us in the nonprofit side have always seeing the importance of having a residential base but without having to convince them, they (Greenlight’s principals) also see the importance of a commercial base. Three businesses have already resulted in their investment,” said Old Brooklyn Community Development Corp. Executive Director David Robinson.
“As building owners, it’s very clear that they’re a great landlord,” Robinson continued. “The Foundry is doing well. The others are doing well. We’re happy to see the investment coming into the neighborhood.”
But that doesn’t mean Greenlight Building is done building in Old Brooklyn. Camardo says there’s more work to be done there.
“Because we’ve seen such a positive reaction to The Geek Peek and The Foundry, we feel confident that people will want to live nearby on Stanford,” he said. “And we’re hoping to add to the retail mix shortly, with our next project being the renovation of the 4302 Pearl building to bring in a restaurant/bar concept.”
Other developments are proceeding in the heart of Old Brooklyn. In December, interior demolition and construction work began at the $8.9 million conversion of two bank buildings into the Pearl Road Residences. Another is the Memphis and Pearl development at its namesake streets for which permits are being issued so demolition work can start.
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