Stokes East apartment tower may see construction start this year and soon rise to approach the height of its neighbor, The Artisan, University Circle’s tallest building (SCB). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.
Permits sought for East Stokes tower
With all of the job growth happening around University Circle and the latest expansion news at Cleveland Clinic, it’s probably not a surprise that another high-rise apartment tower in that area is moving toward the start of construction.
Designs were approved by the Planning Commission in October 2025 for the 24-story East Stokes apartment tower at Chester Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. But that doesn’t necessarily translate to construction. On the other hand, submitting a construction permit application is a stronger indication.
That’s what happened yesterday as East Stokes’ lead developer, Cleveland-based UC City Center LLC and its architect Solomon Cordwell Buenz, located in Chicago, requested a construction permit from Cleveland’s Building Department. It will still be weeks if not months before a permit is approved, however.
UC City Center is a company created by Cleveland-based Midwest Development Partners to help plan for and deliver the 4.5-acre Circle Square district featuring multiple towers including The Artisan and Library Lofts.
The new East Stokes apartment tower is due to rise soon in the East Stokes Block North. Its predecessor towers The Artisan stands next to Chester Avenue in the Main Block North and Library Lofts fills out the Main Block South. An office building is planned in the East Stokes Block South but Reserve Court is no longer planned to extend east of Stokes Boulevard (SCB).
And it is working in partnership with Cleveland developer PCP Flow to help build out and deliver on that master plan. Construction of the East Stokes apartment tower will bring the development closer to finishing that goal.
“We are working to finish our previously shared (Circle Square) master plan,” said Steve Rubin, vice president of UC City Center. “At this time we have nothing further to report.”
The application submitted yesterday is for a portion of the building’s construction at this time, representing about $24 million worth of work. Erecting a 24-story multifamily building will likely cost in excess of $100 million although a specific figure is not yet publicly available.
“They’ve been trying to move on that for while so, yeah, I’m pleased to see they’re moving forward,” said City Council President Blaine Griffin. The Circle Square development is in his ward which is Ward 6. “But it’s not a surprise. They’ve been working on it for a while.”
The top of the East Stokes apartment tower will feature an infinity pool. The “infinity” description alludes to its appearance that it seemingly continues beyond the edge of the tower while you’re looking across the pool’s surface (SCB).
The East Stokes apartment tower is shown in planning documents as topping out at 262 feet high. Its high point will be the top of the building’s elevator overrun, or headroom structure for the elevator shafts.
That would make it five feet shorter than the 267-foot, 24-story Artisan apartment tower which is currently the tallest building in Cleveland’s University Circle. A 2024 version would have made East Stokes six feet taller. That was among many design revisions made last year to reduce the cost of the tower to make it financially feasible.
The Artisan was the first new structure built in the Circle Square district, launched by the same development team as East Stokes. Its general contractor was Power Construction which will also build East Stokes. A year after it opened in June 2023, The Artisan reached 90 percent occupancy.
The success of that building was a major factor in the decision and financial wherewithal to construct East Stokes. Not only was its leasing success a driver and a case study for East Stokes, but so was its ability to pay off the bonds issued by the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority to finance construction.
At the bottom of the tower, at the corner of Chester Avenue at right and MLK Drive at left will be retail spaces and the building’s lobby (SCB).
Bonds were issued to 10600 Chester Operator LLC, an affiliate of Chicago-based White Oak Realty Partners, some members of which now work for PCP Flow and its subsidiary PCP Voyager. It entered into a ground lease with the port authority in early 2021, according to Cuyahoga County property records.
“The bonds have previously been redeemed in full and the parties now desire to terminate the ground lease,” noted a lease cancelation memo filed with the county on Jan. 6. Last year, the county appraised The Artisan at $68 million for tax purposes.
Paying off bonds could free up some capital for financing the construction of East Stokes. A sale of the Artisan could free up even more. Developers often sell their newly constructed buildings once they’ve stabilized, or leased out.
Termination of the lease points to a potential sale of The Artisan. So might the February filing of a financing statement for the continuation of security interests by The Artisan’s owner. Such a filing can preserve the owner’s lien priority status during a sale process. Rubin had no comment on either.
Ground-floor uses of East Stokes, at right, are shown. The white buildings at left are part of the Main Block North of Circle Square. the top part of which is the ground floor of The Artisan. Below that is a future retail podium with a hotel above on the current site of the old MLK Branch Library (SCB).
East Stokes will have 285 apartments offered for rent at market prices. If The Artisan is a guide, the rents could range from $3 per square foot on the lower floors to $5 per square foot on the upper floors. Six levels of parking will provide spaces for about 315 vehicles.
The building will measure 436,923 square feet, the permit application shows. On the ground floor will be 17,000 feet of for-lease retail space facing Chester and Stokes Boulevard. Second floor office space proposed in an earlier plan was removed due to softness in the office market; 14 apartments were added in its place.
That office space could have tested the market for the second phase of the East Stokes block, which extends south to Euclid Avenue. There, an office building is proposed in Circle Square’s master plan but the current office market means saving that project until later.
Plans for the tower show its lobby will be the at the building’s northeast corner, at Chester and MLK. South of the lobby on the MLK side, up to five for-sale townhouses are planned but are not a part of this phase to keep the financing for them separate.
END
