Amtrust Financial will be vacating the red-bricked 800 Superior and moving north up East 9th Street to the darker, glassy AECOM Building to the upper-right of its current home (CBRE). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.
Moves will leave 800 Superior mostly vacant
NEOtrans has learned that AmTrust Financial is vacating its current Downtown Cleveland offices and moving most of its 600 jobs to the suburbs. One result of this big shake-up of office properties is that the 23-story 800 Superior building downtown will be left mostly empty by year’s end.
AmTrust Financial, a commercial insurance and risk management provider, will keep some workers downtown by moving north up East 9th Street. City records show it will take 51,397 square feet on the second and third floors of the AECOM Building, 1300 E. 9th St. How many workers will stay downtown or move to the suburbs isn’t known.
The 21-story tower was built in 1972 as the Bond Court Office Building and renovated several years ago as a Class A property. It is now one of the most amenity-laden and fully leased office properties downtown.
AmTrust will spend about $200,000 for interior demolition on two floors at the AECOM Building to make it ready for an interior build-out to its liking. That’s according to a building permit application submitted yesterday to Cleveland’s Building Department by Dallas-based Corgan Associates, Inc. from its Phoenix office.
Additionally, AmTrust will lease out the entirety of a 102,062-square-foot former Progressive Insurance office building, 6055 Parkland Blvd., in Mayfield Heights. The building is next to Interstate 271 but should not be confused with larger, former Progressive headquarters buildings farther north along the highway.
An office building in Mayfield Heights called Parkland Place was sold by Progressive Insurance last year and will be fully occupied by AmTrust Financial next year (LoopNet).
Called Parkland Place, it was formerly owned and occupied by Progressive Insurance. It was sold in one year ago to Time Equities Inc. of New York City and Legacy RHM Capital of Lyndhurst for $3.5 million. The partnership updated the 38-year-old building in the past year.
The office shake-up was confirmed by three sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity, one of whom referenced two e-mails from AmTrust in the last month noting the pending changes.
The e-mails, sent to AmTrust to employees, also said the company is enforcing a return-to-office mandate. Employees are to work in the office at least four days per week. That will justify the company’s investment in updated offices and amenities, the e-mails said.
AmTrust spokesperson Chaya Cooperberg did not respond to an e-mail from NEOtrans seeking comment and more information prior to publication of this article. At one point in the late-2010s, AmTrust occupied nearly 300,000 square feet at 800 Superior, located at that namesake address.
It now has roughly half that. With its lease at 800 Superior due to expire at the end of this year, and the property in the midst of a sale to the Kassouf family, AmTrust reportedly was looking for 160,000 square feet of office space elsewhere.
AmTrust Financial will relocate to and occupy about 51,000 square feet of space on the second and third floors of the AECOM Building on East 9th Street downtown (LoopNet).
NEOtrans has exclusively reported the pending sale of 800 Superior, including its 328-space garage at 735 Vincent Ave., to the Kassouf family. Their intended uses of the building aren’t yet known.
But with the building emptying out and the weak office market, it is more likely to be a candidate for a conversion to non-office uses. Meanwhile, downtown’s 96 percent population growth of the past 20 years is slowing, perhaps influenced by fewer downtown office jobs.
Kassouf Development Corp. is redeveloping the 40-story Erieview Tower, at 1301 E. 9th, for $217 million. The 62-year-old office tower was left mostly empty and is being repurposed with apartments, luxury hotel, rooftop restaurant and updated offices.
When it was listed for sale by broker CBRE two years ago, 800 Superior was 77 percent leased. AmTrust is 800 Superior’s largest tenant. National General Insurance is its second largest. Both have naming rights to the building.
The current leases for AmTrust and National General have simultaneous expiration dates of Dec. 31, 2026, CBRE noted. And neither tenant is renewing. National General, based in Charlotte, has not said where or if it is relocating its offices.
AmTrust owns and uses a portion of the Rock Run Center office building in suburban Seven Hills (Google).
National General is owned by Allstate, based in suburban Chicago. The building is owned by 800 Superior LLC, an affiliate of Allstate. As for AmTrust, its legal headquarters is in New York City. But most of AmTrust’s management and administrative staff are in Cleveland.
The vacancy percentage of 800 Superior after the departure of AmTrust, its largest tenant, and National General Insurance, its second largest tenant, is officially not reported.
CBRE said in 2024 that AmTrust and National General combined to lease 300,000 square feet of 800 Superior. Their departures could leave the building with less than 65,000 square feet leased, or a vacancy of approximately 86 percent.
Rico Pietro, Kassouf’s broker and CRESCO Real Estate principal, did not respond to NEOtrans’ request for comment on the departure of AmTrust. Terry Coyne, executive vice chairman at Newmark in Cleveland, and broker for the AECOM Building, also did not immediately respond.
Steve Ross, first vice president at CBRE, didn’t answer NEOtrans’ inquiries either. He is the broker for both 800 Superior and Parkland Place, the former Progressive Insurance office building in Mayfield Heights.
The name AmTrust Financial won’t be worn by 800 Superior after this year. It lease here will expire at year’s end and it downtown presence at the AECOM Building will be much smaller (Google).
At NEOtrans’ request, a spokesperson for RHM sent a message to David St. Pierre, president and CEO at RHM, requesting confirmation and comment. But no answer from the partner in Parkland Place’s ownership was provided prior to publication.
After moving 800 workers downtown in 2011 from suburban Seven Hills, AmTrust continued to grow. It increasingly leased larger amounts of space in the 475,921-square-foot 800 Superior. The building was built in 1969 as the headquarters for Central National Bank.
At its peak in the late-2010s, AmTrust had more than 1,000 workers at 800 Superior. The company continues to own and use an office building at Rock Run Center, 5800 Lombardo Center in Seven Hills.
The garage for 800 Superior was briefly closed by the city in 2024 in response to complaints about its condition. It was reopened later that year and, after an inspection in 2025, the city Building Department declared it “Safe with repair and maintenance program.”
Yet Phoenix Coffee departed the garage’s ground-floor space for 776 Euclid Ave. Also, many AmTrust employees park elsewhere. They are provided a parking stipend which AmTrust will no longer have to pay with the move to the new locations.
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