Living at 55 is an affordable senior housing complex planned at the site of where Sterle’s Country House stood for decades. The site is seen here at the northeast corner of East 55th Street and Prosser Avenue on Cleveland’s near-east side (City Architecture). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.
Senior housing to fill vacated E. 55th site
After a brief pause, the next chapter for a block of East 55th Street, between Bonna and Prosser avenues, is proposed to begin. That block, in Cleveland’s St. Clair-Superior neighborhood, held Frank Sterle’s Slovenian Country House for 68 years — an icon in Cleveland’s Slovenian and Croatian communities.
But now it is planned to become a 63-unit, income-restricted, senior housing development for people aged 55 years and older, led by Famicos Foundation, a community development corporation working in east-side neighborhoods.
To be called Living at 55, with an address of 1401 E. 55th St., the $21 million investment will serve a new need in Cleveland’s St. Clair-Superior neighborhood. The apartments will be affordable to those earning 30-70 percent of the area’s median income.
“The four-story property will offer 55 one-bedroom and eight two-bedroom apartments; eight of the units will be fully accessible, plus two sensory units” to support a calm atmosphere and support daily routines, Famicos said in its application to the Ohio Housing Finance Agency for 9 percent Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC).
The 9 percent LIHTC is a highly competitive federal program administered by states to finance new construction or substantial rehabilitation of affordable rental housing. It provides a dollar-for-dollar reduction in federal tax liability for investors over 10 years, typically subsidizing 70 percent of a project’s development costs.
Proposed site of Living at 55 on East 55th Street in Cleveland’s St. Clair-Superior neighborhood (MyPlace.CuyahogaCounty.gov).
Famicos said the building will be wood-framed and clad in brick, metal panel and vinyl siding. Amenities will include a fitness room, multi-purpose community room with kitchen and Wi-Fi access, on-site property management, resident services and social services offices.
“These amenities will allow residents to improve their mental and physical health, also known as Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADLs),” Famicos continued. “The building will also provide a variety of universal design features to help residents continue to age-in-place.”
The architect of record for the project is Cleveland-based City Architecture. A general contractor was not yet publicly noted. Assisting Famicos in developing the project is Columbus-based Lowenstein Development LLC with Key Community Development Corp. of Cleveland a primary financier.
“Though the Slovenian community is sad about the loss of Sterle’s years ago, I personally would love to see that site and this neighborhood continue to develop,” said Brad Nosan, president of the Slovenian National Home, located nearby at 6417 St. Clair Ave.
“We need to activate vacant commercial properties and parking lots and I think more development here is a great thing,” Nosan added. “A high tide should raise all ships.”
On the eve of demolition, Sterle’s Country House shows the scars of a fire two months earlier that damaged the roof and second floor and rendered the neighborhood icon unsalvageable (NEOtrans).
Sterle’s closed as a public restaurant in June 2017 after a 63-year run in the same location. Frank Sterle, an immigrant from Slovenia, settled in the neighborhood that was populated with Slovenians, Croats and other eastern and southern Europeans.
He opened a small building on East 55th with a few picnic tables and one waitress. It eventually expanded to 14,000 square feet, gained its chalet decor on the outside and beautiful scenic murals of Slovenia inside and out, including crests of towns that Cleveland’s Slovenian diaspora came from.
After Sterle died in 1986, the restaurant was taken over by Mike Longo and Margot Glinski, both immigrants — from Italy and Germany, respectively, according to Cleveland Rocks-Cleveland Eats. When Longo died 25 years later, Glinski retired and Rick Semersky purchased Sterle’s in 2012.
Semersky opened Goldhorn Brewery, 1361 E. 55th, and tried to continue Sterle’s as an event and party center. It didn’t work and the Sterle’s property fell into foreclosure. It was put up for bid at a sheriff’s auction in 2021.
Closed but still standing in the morning sun in July 2022, Sterle’s Country House on East 55th Street at Bonna Avenue was in its last summer (Google).
Famicos acquired the closed restaurant and its 1.23-acre site for the minimum bid amount of $187,334 in August 2021, according to Cuyahoga County records.
Two days before Thanksgiving, on Nov. 22, 2022, a fire broke out in the vacant structure. The building was heavily damaged, as a large section of the roof collapsed. Famicos demolished the structure in the last week January 2023. News of the demolition hit Cleveland’s Slovenian community hard.
“I feel like I’ve lost a friend,” said Joe Cimperman, president of the pro-immigration economic development organization Global Cleveland and a former Cleveland city councilman. He grew up nearby on East 74th Street near St. Clair Avenue.
“The thing about growing up in St. Clair was that Sterle’s was as close to a country club as we could get,” he said upon learning of the demolition. “We didn’t grow up in Bratenahl. Sterle’s made good times a little more fun and the hard times a little easier to take.”
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