The 17-story Rockefeller Building on Superior Avenue in Downtown Cleveland has a new opportunity facing it as K&D Group took title to the property today (NEOtrans). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.
Apartments, new garage, vertical add sought
As first reported by NEOtrans earlier this month, K&D Group said it would seek $6 million worth of “make-safe” repairs to Downtown Cleveland’s vandalized Rockefeller Building after it took title to it. But it began shoring up the Gilded Age edifice on the very day the sale closed.
Crews for K&D contractor Epiq Construction, headquartered in Downtown Cleveland, were on site today putting plywood on ground-floor windows and closing off parking lots with barricades plus signs to start taking control of the property, located at 614 W. Superior Ave.
A residential conversion with ground-floor retail plus additional parking on-site is envisioned. That includes a new parking garage in back, off Frankfort Avenue and West 6th Street, that could be designed to support future vertical development.
“K&D is thrilled to announce the acquisition of the historic Rockefeller Building in downtown Cleveland for $5 million, effective today,” the Willoughby-based company said on social media.
K&D Group CEO and co-founder Doug Price III told NEOtrans in March that his company would pursue an expedited acquisition of the property from Miami-based lender BridgeInvest after the prior owner Rockefeller Building Associates defaulted on its obligations in pursuing a $130 million redevelopment of the property.
Within hours of the sale transaction closing, K&D-hired crews of Epiq Construction were on site to secure the Rockefeller Building (K&D Group).
“Just hours after K&D acquired the Rockefeller Building, our partners at Epiq Construction were on site to secure the property’s exterior and parking lot,” K&D continued on social media.
K&D partnered with the Cuyahoga Land Bank to tap $6.1 million of a previously awarded $7.3 million Ohio Brownfield Remediation Program grant to afford the make-safe improvements.
And it hired Geis Companies of Streetsboro to save “a building that has seen better days, but one full of incredible potential,” K&D said. But only a few months ago, there was a real risk of losing the Rockefeller Building to the wrecking ball.
Geis was selected because the prior owner had chosen them as the general contractor to redevelop the building into apartments, offices and retail and the lender took over those contracts. Keeping Geis meant working with an experienced historic renovation contractor who could start the work more quickly.
The West 6th Street side of the Rockefeller Boulevard reveals the obsolete parking garage behind with ramps that modern cars cannot access due to ground clearance issues. Salt has destroyed metal rebar and new flooring is not financially feasible (NEOtrans).
Geis Construction Senior Designer Bill John Bonazza said in a building permit application submitted to the city on April 1 that subcontractors would install temporary plywood sheathing to all exterior wall openings, broken and missing glazing, storefront systems, and windows.
He also said the make-safe work would involve interior demolition on all floors, including mechanical, electrical and plumbing. Bonazza said the work is the type which would have been needed prior to a major renovation.
The site improvements will include demolition of a 43,617-square-foot parking garage built in 1925. The demolition was approved five years ago by the Cleveland Landmarks Commission.
At that time, a 2021 report by Osborn Engineering said the garage was obsolete and could not be feasibly repurposed for contemporary uses without destroying it.
From Frankfort Avenue, the less glamourous side of the Rockefeller Building is seen, along with its 1925-built parking garage. The proximity of the new Sherwin-William headquarters is evident here (NEOtrans).
Replacing it in the interim will be a new asphalt parking lot and stalls at the old garage location, Bonazza said. The garage’s footprint is about 8,300 square feet, which translates to roughly 30 additional surface-lot parking spaces. They will add to the roughly 180 parking spaces already on the 1.85-acre Rockefeller property.
But in the long term, a new parking garage will be sought behind the Rockefeller Building to address a parking shortage in the Warehouse District following the recent opening of Sherwin-Williams’ new headquarters tower in the next block east.
“The hope is to build a garage that has vertical development possibilities,” said Rico Pietro, a principal at Cushman & Wakefield – CRESCO Real Estate brokerage in Independence which listed the property for sale. “The initial plan will be amenities to activate garage’s roof” for the benefit of tenants of the Rockefeller Building.
“Personally, I’m hopeful that (Cleveland’s Department of) Economic Development makes every effort to incentivize K&D to be proactive with the infrastructure of the garage,” Pietro added.
A conceptual rendering of a potential vertical development of the Rockefeller garage site that could capitalize on the benefit of a conservation easement (Heart).
“The possibility of future vertical development atop the garage will be based on the collective decisions of a public-private partnership today,” he continued.
Millions of dollars worth of Ohio Conservation Easement Program benefits could be gained if the parking lots next to the Rockefeller Building were developed, as was considered by prior suitors of the Warehouse District property.
Up to $70 million in public incentives were gathered for the prior attempt at redevelopment. Those included the Ohio Brownfield grant, $4 million in Ohio Historic Preservation Tax Credits, $14 million in Federal Historic Tax Credits, and $2.4 million in Opportunity Zone Tax Credits.
The Rockefeller Building was constructed in 1903-10 at the behest of Cleveland-native John D. Rockefeller, the founder of the Standard Oil Co. and once the richest man in the world. At the time, the 17-story, 261,264-square-foot office building was the city’s tallest.
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