Although Scannell Properties hasn’t released any renderings of its proposed expansion of the Cleveland Business Park near Hopkins International Airport, this is a conceptual building design used by Scannell for its other light-industrial and warehouse projects around the country (Scannell). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.
Industrial, warehouse complex sought
Although it’s still early on, plans are coming together for a major light-industrial and/or warehouse real estate development near Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. The roughly $75 million project is proposed to offer up to four new buildings totaling 700,000 square feet set on about 34 acres of city-owned land along Rocky River Drive.
The development, sought by Scannell Properties of Wayzata, MN in suburban Minneapolis, is tentatively called Cleveland Business Park phase two, according to plans recently submitted to the city for a zoning review. The site address was listed as 18801 North Midvale Ave., located in Cleveland’s Riverside neighborhood.
Jack Kelly, director of development at Scannell Properties, who submitted a zoning review application for the project to the city, did not respond prior to publication of this article to a NEOtrans’ request seeking more information about the project.
“A modern industrial park that will have three to four buildings ranging from 80,000 to 310,000 square feet” each is planned, Kelly wrote in the application to the city. “Each building will be equipped with auto parking, truck court, and some will have trailer parking for the larger bulk users.”
Although the number of jobs isn’t yet identified, a standard rule of thumb is a high-density E-commerce warehouse often have one worker per 700 to 1,000 square feet, or 700-1,000 jobs for 700,000 square feet. Traditional low-density warehouses require one worker per 1,500 to 3,000 square feet, or 230-460 jobs for 700,000 square feet.
Shown in red is the site of the second phase of Cleveland Business Park sought by Scannell Properties, north of Cleveland Hopkins Airport seen at lower left. Shaded in orange at the bottom is the future site Huntington Bank Field, home of the Cleveland Browns (Google).
The site is located north of Cleveland Parkway, set on 170 former residential parcels owned by the city with public street rights of way threading among them. On a parcel map, it shows the ghost of a neighborhood that was cleared several decades ago in the name of airport noise abatement, which meant getting rid of residents.
Those parcels, each measuring about 0.13 acres each, will have to be consolidated as a single lot in a new plat along with the vacation of streets like Midvale, Forestwood Avenue and West 188th Street, as part of this redevelopment. Scannell indicated in its zoning review that it has site control over the city parcels.
An e-mail sent to Tom McNair, the city’s chief integrated development officer, was not responded to prior to publication.
Large commercial developments like this usually aren’t delivered in the City of Cleveland without having signed tenants before construction. When they do, they’re called speculative. But Scannell is one of the nation’s largest industrial-warehousing developers, delivering an average of $5 billion worth of new developments per year.
“This is a great get,” said Rico Pietro, principal at the Independence-based brokerage Cushman & Wakefield-CRESCO. “With the Browns gobbling up the most desirable industrial site in a generation, I expect Scannell to find an immediate success. They have a knack with their considerable Rolodex to have a deal in hand at almost all times.”
At left, across Cleveland Parkway, is the city-owned land which Scannell Properties wants to develop. At right is one of the buildings Chelm Properties built for the first phase of Cleveland Business Park. It houses Constant Aviation, an aircraft maintenance and servicing company (Google).
For the new facilities, Scannell said it plans new water, storm and sanitary sewer lines as well as stormwater retention. And it anticipates an electrical power load of at least 10,000 amps, according to its application. That means a power generation capability of several megawatts. Pietro said that is probably too small for a data center.
Although the proposed sum of buildings may max-out at 700,000 square feet, the land area is twice as large. A 34-acre site, while medium-sized for suburban and exurban areas, is a huge piece of the land for the City of Cleveland.
Phase one of the Cleveland Business Park was built 20 years ago by Solon-based Chelm Properties south of Cleveland Parkway on dozens of acres of land it owns through an affiliate Cleveland Business Park Ltd. The Cleveland Airport Rental Car Center is located at the end of that street.
The largest structure built by Chelm in the first phase was a 380,000-square-foot office and warehouse for Sysco Cleveland, a distributor of food and restaurant supplies, set east of Grayton Road. Sysco owns its 50-acre property.
Chelm owns most of the other properties and buildings at Cleveland Business Park whose tenants include Constant Aviation, Kennametal, Alphaport Inc., Mott MacDonald, Schindler Elevator, plus Calvert Wire & Cable.
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