A Clean Express Auto Wash stands on Broadview Road in Parma in a well-landscaped setting. But vocal opposition to building one next to Cleveland’s historic Shaker Square emerged at a design review committee meeting today (Google). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.
Proposal gets vocal community pushback
It may be one of the nicest-designed, best-landscaped and best-operated car wash operations you can find, but Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, his chief of development, City Council members and a committee of the City Landmarks Commission said a proposed car wash doesn’t belong next to Shaker Square.
It isn’t often that the mayor’s Chief of Integrated Development Tom McNair speaks to an advisory board of the Landmarks Commission about a development project. But today he did, addressing the proposed car wash with passionate remarks. It was among many expressions of opposition to the project.
“We are happy to work with the property owner on an appropriate development for this site,” said McNair who lives next to Shaker Square. “But we remain steadfastly opposed to any variation of this application. We will remain opposed to this and we will actively work to stop it as long as we can, as far as we can.”
Proposed is an automated Clean Express Auto Wash at a newly vacant lot at 2750 Van Aken Blvd., just north of Drexmore Road. The site, owned by an affiliate of Paran Realty Group, is located in an historic landmark district listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Thus any developments proposed within that district have to meet design and historical context standards established by the U.S. Secretary of the Department of the Interior standards. It also has to meet applicable zoning, which it does, and public input, which today it did not.
Site plan for the proposed Clean Express Auto Wash on Van Aken Boulevard next to Shaker Square but within an historic district that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976 (Kimley Horn).
The venue today for reviewing the proposed car wash was the Greater Cuyahoga Valley Historic Design Review Advisory Committee. The panel recommends or discourages proposed developments and designs under federal guidelines for the full Landmarks Commission to make a binding decision.
Feedback to the car wash came from 149 letters and e-mails plus 12 phone calls to the committee. One e-mail and one phone were supportive. All of the others were in opposition, to which the car wash’s development team said they were “taken aback.”
“I appreciate all of the feedback regardless of how hard it is hear,” said Joe Bertucci, vice president of development at Express Wash Concepts. “We had a Ward 3 meeting (to present this project) and there wasn’t a backlash at all. That’s why we chose to move forward. It was the opposite of what we’re hearing today.”
“I want to be crystal clear here,” McNair added. “The mayor of the city of Cleveland is opposed to the development. The Council President (Blaine Griffin), I have talked to him personally, is opposed to this development. I know we’ve had these conversations, (Ward 3 Councilwoman Deborah Gray) has some pretty grave concerns.”
Among the opponents were Shaker Square’s co-owner Cleveland Neighborhood Progress, Moreland Courts Condominium Association, Ludlow Community Association, Cleveland Restoration Society plus other neighborhood block clubs and groups, said Jessica Beam-Wymer, the city’s historic preservation planner.
Renderings of all four sides of the proposed car wash next to Shaker Square (SBA)
“The letters from the community groups were not in support of the proposed car wash, noting that the proposal is inconsistent with the Shaker Square Vision Plan for a pedestrian-oriented, transit-rich environment and does not meet the plan or reflect the historic district is in conflict with the surrounding businesses and district integrity,” Beam-Wymer said.
Also noted was a lack of outreach to property owners, to residents in the area, and the demolition of the previous building as previously presented was proposed to avail a large multifamily development concept for the site.
An auto-oriented use is fundamentally at odds with the square’s ideals, historic character, walkability and long-term revitalization goals, she summarized from the public input. Bertucci countered that a gas station and bank drive-through are next to the car wash site, plus lots of parking.
McNair called Shaker Square a special place. He said it’s one of the nation’s oldest planned shopping centers and residential mixed-use district in the country. It was built in the 1920s and designed with the aura of an English town center, mixing Georgian Revival architecture, pedestrians and light-rail trains.
“This is one of the premier examples of transit-oriented development not just in the state of Ohio but throughout the country,” McNair said. “As we have informed the owner, the administration is unequivocally opposed to this development. We feel that it is wildly inappropriate and not in keeping with the historic fabric of Shaker Square or the surrounding neighborhood.”
A prior development concept for the site now being considered for a car wash. However a spokesman for the property owner told NEOtrans that a development as elaborate as this at this location probably couldn’t command rents high enough to justify it (Dimit).
The city in 2022 invested $12 million to acquire the financially and structurally troubled commercial district. It put the property into the joint ownership of two nonprofit development groups, Cleveland Neighborhood Progress and Burten Bell Carr Development Inc.
McNair said the car wash isn’t a pressing retail need for the area, pointing to one nearby at North Moreland and Larchmere. He also said Paran let the former Van Aken Plaza is shopping center deteriorate to the point that it was under a Cleveland Housing Court mandate to be demolished.
Paran secured in 2024 a $802,369 Brownfield Remediation grant from the Ohio Department of Development for cleanup, remediation and ultimately demolition of the 34,000-square-foot Van Aken Plaza.
“A mixed-use redevelopment is planned,” said Paran in its Brownfield grant application. “The redevelopment aims to create retail and residential opportunities, generating approximately 20 new jobs.”
The vacant Van Aken Plaza seen in 2022. The portion to the right or north of the cupola was built in 1939. The plaza was expanded at left in 1979 for a Revco drug store that later was acquired by CVS and then moved to the northeast corner of Shaker Square (Google).
The Landmarks Commission approved the demolition in February 2025 because its members said they were under the impression that a multifamily development, possibly with ground-floor retail, would be pursued.
“We don’t really have a transition plan at this time, other than the site being marketed toward multi-family development,” Paran’s Managing Director Joe Del Balso told the commission last year.
“I’m definitely disappointed to have the owner hoodwink the Landmarks Commission. We were not eager to approve the demolition,” said committee member Lisa Maccora who uses the new Clean Express Auto Wash at Steelyard Commons. “This doesn’t show a lot of forethought or consideration.
I hope you can find another location.”
“It (the car wash) would be great to see this in some other neighborhoods,” said committee member Bob Gardin. “This, I can’t think of anything more inappropriate for this site. I hate to see this going any further. We would be a laughingstock nationally.”
END
