The southeast corner of Opportunity Corridor Boulevard and East 79th Street isn’t much to look at right now and that’s why it’s a good development site. It’s a large, relatively clean and mostly undeveloped site in the heart of the city and it’s almost entirely owned by the city of Cleveland and other public entities (Google). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.
Largest property for lab acquired this week
A sale closed this week for the largest property acquired among many needed to accommodate a proposed, significant laboratory-research facility sought by the Cleveland Clinic and other project partners. It is but one piece of a major expansion of facilities by the Clinic that NEOtrans first reported last month.
The roughly 25-acre lab facility site, at the southeast corner of Opportunity Corridor Boulevard and East 79th Street, is in an area largely dominated by expanding food-related industries like Orlando Baking Co. and Miceli Dairy Products.
But this site which is being cleared of its prior uses is intended to be food for thought, a venue for exploration and innovation into the health care, medical and biotechnology fields.
And while the Cleveland Clinic is behind this project in Cleveland’s Kinsman neighborhood, according to three sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity, it is not being sought solely for the Clinic’s benefit.
Instead, it is intended to be a host for it and others to conduct research in affiliated health care fields. The community angle to the lab facility is why it’s not planned to be built on the Clinic’s Main Campus just up the road.
The sources described the project in terms that suggest it will be a large-scale development. And whenever the Clinic is involved, “large” can often mean something more than that.
Within the orange line is the 25-acre site for the reported health care laboratory-research center complex. City-owned parcels or groups of them are outlined in red. The former McTech Corp. property that was acquired this week by an affiliate of the Site Readiness for Good Jobs Fund is outlined in blue (MyPlace.CuyahogaCounty.gov).
Details about the project, including its specific scale, are not yet publicly known as it is still in the early-developmental stages and there’s still one private property remaining at the edge of the targeted development site. So the parties involved aren’t yet ready to talk about it.
“Thanks for reaching out,” said Angela Smith, senior director of corporate communications at the Cleveland Clinic. “At this time, we don’t have any information to share.”
Roughly 100 parcels, mostly former residential lots measuring not much more than one-tenth of an acre each, comprise the development site. It is bounded by Opportunity Corridor on the north, East 79th to the west, the Norfolk Southern mainline railroad to the east, and the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority’s Blue and Green light-rail lines to the south.
On April 28, the titles transferred for the largest single property in this site — a trio of parcels totaling 3.64 acres hosting a 1979-built, 46,445-square-foot industrial building, according to Cuyahoga County property records.
Terms of the sale weren’t disclosed. McTech was asking $2.3 million for its property, according to its since-removed listing. The county appraised it at $946,500 for tax purposes.
The McTech Corp. facility as seen from the Opportunity Corridor Boulevard in September 2022 (Google).
Located at 8100 Grand Ave., it was the headquarters of construction contractor McTech Corp. which is merging with another family business in Solon where owner Mark Perkins lives, a source said. Perkins didn’t respond to NEOtrans’ inquiries.
The buyer is 8100 Grand Partners LLC. The identity of the actual owner remained hidden behind filings by the Beachwood-based law firm Singerman, Mills, Desberg & Kauntz, Co., LPA, or simply SMDK. They didn’t respond to NEOtrans, either.
But multiple inquiries elsewhere led NEOtrans to the Site Readiness for Good Jobs Fund, a nonprofit organization at the intersection of the city, the Cuyahoga Land Bank and the Fund for Our Economic Future that’s creating “shovel-ready” sites in Greater Cleveland for development.
Brad Whitehead, managing director of the Site Readiness Fund, acknowledged that his organization is behind 8100 Grand Partners and confirmed the purchase of the McTech property. But he declined to provide details on what comes next for that site.
“We are sorting out all the next steps,” Whitehead said.
A lab facility with a 200,000-square-foot footprint, shaded in gray, and its parking lot plus landscaping could fit into a blue-shaded portion of the site along the Opportunity Corridor Boulevard (Google).
That leaves one 0.7-acre property that’s not yet in line for the proposed future use of this 25-acre site. At 8126 Holton Ave. is Integrity Truck and Car Wash owned by Lettie and Roy Sears of Cleveland.
Their future intentions for their land, including if they’ve been asked to sell it, are not known. NEOtrans did not get responses from e-mails sent to them and no operable phone number could be located. No public records, such as a certificate of disclosure, exist to indicate a sale is pending.
The only public records found show that Integrity Truck and Car Wash owes the city $260 for four annual safety inspections, according to the Cleveland Building Department. Because of the unpaid tab, the business was denied use permits in each of the last four years, records show.
Other properties not yet in the city’s hands, or that of the Site Readiness Fund, will probably be in them soon. Three properties from 8017-8027 Rawlings Ave. that belonged to two former churches were acquired by Burten Bell Carr CDC’s The Zone LLC.
Two of the three were quit-claim deeded to the city a month later. Ownership of the middle parcel, 8021 Rawlings, remains with the community development corporation. But its 100-plus-year-old church was demolished last year. Yet its demolition permit application wasn’t submitted to the city until April 27.
Not only is the Pine Grove Missionary Baptist Church gone, at left, but so is every other structure visible here on Holton Avenue east of East 79th Street (Google).
“Truly heartbroken to learn our beloved church located at 8021 Rawlings Ave. Cleveland has been demolished and new construction is being erected at the location,” wrote Kenneth McKissack on Facebook on Dec. 22, 2025. “I’m glad we are the church and not the old building.”
Also razed last year was the substantial Pine Grove Missionary Baptist Church, 8005 Holton Ave., built in 1912 as the First Hungarian Baptist Church. The only structures left standing in the entire 25-acre redevelopment site are the former McTech building and the Integrity Truck and Car Wash.
Other properties are due to be transferred to the city for free. Those are the many fragments of larger properties acquired by the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) for the Opportunity Corridor Boulevard that opened in 2021.
Those that fall outside of the road’s right of way, or more than 70 feet from the centerline of the roadway, are to be transferred. But because there are so many parcels, the city had to prioritize which ones it needed to have transferred first. That priority list is evolving, according to e-mails secured by a NEOtrans’ public records request.
For example, the city previously sought to prioritize the transfer of parcels needed for the new Cleveland Division of Police headquarters, to be located west of East 75th Street and north of Opportunity Corridor. But a less expensive alternative was found in the former Artcraft Building on Superior Avenue at Interstate 90.
At left is Integrity Truck and Car Wash on Holton Avenue. It is one of two buildings still standing in the 25-acre development site for the new health care lab-research facility. It may soon see the fate of the buildings at right, all of which have been razed since this September 2022 streetview (Google).
For planning and execution purposes, the Opportunity Corridor was divided up into sections. The East 79th area is in Section 3. The city and ODOT entered into option agreements for the disposition of excess lands for each section of the Opportunity Corridor.
The Clinic’s new lab-research facility has raised the priority of splitting up and transferring unneeded parcels from ODOT to the city. There are six of those within the potential lab development site.
And there are other ODOT parcels on the north side of the boulevard and east of the elevated Norfolk Southern railroad tracks where other developments are planned.
Miceli is planning a major expansion of its production facilities east of the elevated tracks and McTech’s Perkins is planning to develop the northeast corner of Opportunity Corridor and East 79th, sources said.
“We are particularly interested in a set of parcels along the corridor just east of E. 79th Street, given the development proceeding in this area,” wrote John Fahsbender, the city’s brownfields and site coordinator in an Oct. 9, 2023 e-mail to ODOT Real Estate Administrator Matthew Schulz.
Looking east from East 79th Street shortly before the Opportunity Corridor Boulevard opened, the site at right is where the new lab-research facility is planned (Taco Slayer Aerial).
But progress has been slow. Nearly one year later, the properties sought by the city still hadn’t been transferred by ODOT. Only those west of East 75th and east of East 93rd Street have been transferred.
“We are aggressively assembling sites for redevelopment, and in almost every instance, we would need to acquire ODOT property located outside the presumed ROW to complete site assembly,” Fahsbender wrote on Sept. 5, 2024 to Schulz and ODOT Assistant Legal Counsel Richard Makowski.
The proposed lab facility is only one of many building projects on the Clinic’s next round of expansion which, according to sources, may be even larger than its last which is wrapping up this year.
Since 2022, more than $1.5 billion worth of building projects at the Clinic’s Main Campus resulted in 1.6 million square feet of new and renovated space. Planned in the next round are two new parking garages, a new hotel, a new inpatient and outpatient care facilities and an expanded, upgraded Emergency Center.
“They’re looking at some major investments,” City Council President Blaine Griffin told NEOtrans. Much of the Clinic’s Main Campus is in his Ward 6. “I’m familiar with some of the general concepts but not the specifics. But I was told to be on the lookout for some major investments.”
END
