A rendering of the exterior improvements planned for the former grocery store that became the Cuyahoga County Westshore Professional Center. It will now become the West Side Community Resource Center (GCFB). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.
Resource center, streetscape to advance
A streetscape grant was approved for the Lorain Station Historic District this week, shortly after construction plans were submitted to the city for repurposing a former grocery store in this district into a West Side Community Resource Center that will provide needed services in a more attractive setting.
Together, the two projects represent an investment of nearly $6.3 million and will reshape the northwest corner of Lorain Avenue and West 98th Street in Cleveland’s West Boulevard neighborhood.
Redevelopment of the 1960-built, 31,363-square-foot former Pic-n-Pay grocer is sponsored by the Greater Cleveland Food Bank Inc. (GCFB). The old store was renovated in 2006 as the offices for the Westshore Professional Center that hosted Cuyahoga County Job & Family Services programs.
GCFB acquired the property in 2024 for $3.5 million from K&Z Mutual Realty, LLC. And earlier this month, GCFB’s designer Van Auken Akins Architects of Cleveland submitted a permit application to the city to start renovations, with a price tag estimated at $2.7 million.
Streetscape plan for the Lorain Avenue-West 98th Street intersection, including a mural at lower-right, on the side of 9745 Lorain Ave. (Westown CDC).
Similar in design and function as the GCGB Resource Center and Market on Waterloo Road in Collinwood, Lorain Station’s facility will feature a welcoming lobby, food pantry with a grocery store experience, a demonstration kitchen and office space for a variety of community service partners.
Those partners include United Way 211, Step Forward for access to utility payment assistance and head start assistance and Cuyahoga Community College for academic enrollment and workforce program assistance.
Most of the renovations will be made to the interior of the building but some decorative elements and new signage and lighting will be added to the exterior. The structure is rated to be in very good condition, according to county property records.
And this week, a City of Cleveland streetscape grant in the amount of $57,000 was awarded to the Westown Community Development Corp. by the Cleveland Citywide Development Corp. (CCDC), said Rose Zitiello, Westown CDC’s executive director.
The north side of the Westshore Professional Center as seen from West 98th Street (Google).
“A comprehensive streetscape plan located in the Lorain Station Historic District has received a grant that includes new street trees, benches, historic district interpretive signage and bike racks,” she said.
The grant will pay for 100 percent of the streetscape work. That work focuses on the Lorain-West 98th intersection including a new mural on the west side of 9745 Lorain. It was designed by Westown CDC and the improvements were approved by the City of Cleveland Design Review Committee.
The street intersection is also the junction of two bus routes, the 24-hour, high-frequency No. 22 route on Lorain and the north-south No. 18 bus that runs hourly on West 98th for 18 hours a day.
The Lorain Station Historic District is named after a former Cleveland Transit System streetcar barn that stood at the northwest corner of Lorain and West 98th. It was demolished for the Pic-n-Pay grocery store.
The northwest corner of Lorain Avenue and West 98th Street is where most of the streetscape improvements will be focused, in front of the new West Side Community Resource Center (Google).
The streetscape work is scheduled to be completed next year at approximately the same time that work on the new West Side Community Resource Center is done and the facility opens.
“The plan was designed to support and enhance the existing customer experience who shop in the district as well welcoming new visitors, clients, employees, volunteers and partner agencies expected next year when the new Cleveland Food Bank Resource Center will open,” Zitiello said.
CCDC serves as the approval authority for the City of Cleveland Department of Economic Development loans and grants. Farther west along Lorain, the city a decade ago delivered a $3.6 million streetscape from West 117 to West 140th streets to catalyze commercial revival in Westown CDC’s service area.
Chaired by Stefan Holmes, CCDC also reviews loan requests approved by the city’s administration and financed by the Department of Economic Development and provides recommendations to Cleveland City Council.
END
