Collinwood High School is the largest school building that was awarded a new end-user as a result of a city-led request for proposals process. A local and a national firm won the opportunity to redevelop this large, historic school property (Google). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.
Housing, services, retail, event spaces sought
New end users of nine closed schools were identified by the City of Cleveland today to reactivate those properties with new uses including senior affordable housing, social services, retail/community event space, and other projects.
The end-users and their proposed reactivations were selected through a city-led request for proposals (RFP) process that began in May. All nine of the sites are currently Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) properties. But seven will be transferred to the city.
As part of the RFP process, the City also held community meetings to get residents’ ideas on how the school buildings and/or their properties could be repurposed to best serve their neighborhoods.
The largest school building in the RFP was Collinwood High School which closed in May. It is a 345,203-square-foot building on 5.4 acres at 15210 St. Clair Ave. Most of it was constructed in 1924 around South High School that was dedicated in 1907.
Winning the opportunity to redevelop Collinwood High is a partnership of Boston-based WinnCompanies and First Interstate Properties Ltd. headquartered in the Cleveland suburb of Lyndhurst.
Set on East 92nd Street at the end of this vista down Pierpont Avenue in Glenville is Michael R. White School. Social service organization ThirdSpace Action Lab was awarded this property by the city (Google).
“First Interstate Properties and WinnCompanies are honored to be selected for this project, which would transform Collinwood High School into affordable apartment housing for adults ages 55 and older,” said Ramie Schneider, senior vice president at First Interstate, in an e-mail to NEOtrans.
“The adaptive reuse of buildings like this is a key part of our two firms’ expertise and we’re looking forward to revitalizing this important building,” she said. “The partnership between the two firms emerged from my work at WinnCompanies for several years prior moving back to Cleveland to work alongside my father (Mitchell Schneider) at First Interstate Properties.”
Since 1989, First Interstate has partnered with Cleveland on Steelyard Commons, One University Circle, 121 Larchmere and University East. WinnCompanies has transformed historic structures into housing since 1981. It converted nine former schools into communities offering 993 apartments, most of which are affordable housing.
The largest school property in the City’s RFP, as measured in land area, was the former Michael R. White School, 1000 E 92nd St. The 72,686-square-foot, 1921-built school building sets on 6.6 acres.
Social service organization ThirdSpace Action Lab (TSAL), founded in 2018, won the opportunity to redevelop this property to provide place-based solutions to racial inequity and exclusion. TSAL’s offices, event center and bookstore are located in the Glenville Arts Campus, 1464 E. 105th St.
The largest school on the city’s West Side to gain a new lease on life is the 200,000-square-foot Charles A. Mooney Intermediate School in Old Brooklyn. It was one of two schools awarded to MCM Company. Mary Church Terrell School was the other (Google).
The former Michael R. White School is a large canvas. And it is next to Stonebrook Montesorri School, 975 East Blvd., as well as a nearly 3-acre piece of well-kept, city-owned land across East from Rockefeller Park and the Cleveland Cultural Gardens.
Real estate developer MCM Company of Cleveland is the only RFP respondent to be selected for repurposing two school properties — Charles A. Mooney, 3213 Montclair Ave. in Old Brooklyn, and Mary Church Terrell, 3595 Bosworth Rd. in West Boulevard.
MCM is a woman-owned real estate development and program management firm led by Melissa Ferchill Swingos. The Tremont-based company focuses on urban niche development, historic tax credit redevelopment, adaptive reuse, and healthcare facility strategic planning.
Affordable housing developer The Finch Group, based in Florida and Cleveland, was recommended for redeveloping the former Kenneth W. Clement Boys’ Leadership Academy site, 14311 Woodworth Ave. The 3.4-acre site is not far from Collinwood High.
Sustainable Community Associates, which has developed multiple new-construction and historic-renovation residential and mixed-use developments in Northeast Ohio, was selected to redevelop Tremont Montessori School, 2409 W. 10th St.
One of the newest schools to be closed and offered up for repurposing is the 2006-built Hannah Gibbons School on Larchmont Road at St. Clair Avenue in Collinwood. The City recommended Rehoboth Cares repurpose this property as a base for its home-care services (Google).
The same firm in 2024 redeveloped Nathaniel Hawthorne School, 3573 West 130th St. in Cleveland’s Jefferson neighborhood, with 37 mixed-income apartments.
The only public-sector redevelopment partner the city identified was the Cleveland Metropolitan Housing Authority which will tackle the Dike School of the Arts, 2501 E. 61st St., a 1.9-acres site in Cleveland’s Central neighborhood.
For those seven sites, the City is planning to move forward via mutually beneficial land exchanges between the City and the CMSD. The City is recommending project partners at two other sites, to be facilitated via a sale-leaseback between CMSD and the project partners.
One is the 2.3-acre Bolton School, 9803 Quebec Ave., in the Fairfax neighborhood. It will become a new site for the Canopy Child Advocacy Center, currently located at 2806 Payne Ave. The nonprofit organization serves children and families affected by child abuse.
The other is the 3.2-acre, 2006-built Hannah Gibbons-Nottingham School, 1401 Larchmont Rd., in Collinwood. Rehoboth Cares of North Carolina was selected to base their local home care services for the elderly, pediatrics and respite care here.
Tremont Montessori will be repurposed with residential by an experienced developer, Sustainable Community Associates, in one of Cleveland’s strongest residential neighborhoods (Google).
“This milestone marks the start of our next phase where the City will engage in the established transaction process with CMSD, and teams will work with residents to develop projects that meaningfully contribute to their neighborhoods,” said Matt Moss, the City’s deputy director of land strategy and asset redevelopment in a written statement.
“It was important to us to lead with what the community wanted to see happen on these sites, so we integrated their feedback to shape the entire process,” he added. “Centering community needs and desires while creating neighborhood-based investment opportunities that benefit every resident is what the Cleveland era is all about.”
Teams that were chosen have a strong track record, significant experience, and presented visions that were well-aligned with best uses identified by the community, city officials said.
“Many of these sites reside at the center of our neighborhoods, which is why outreach and engagement are at the core of every step in this process,” said Ward 7 Cleveland City Councilmember Austin Davis.
“With the project teams in place, we can start the hard work of reinvigorating these pillars of our community to bring more opportunities for stability and growth to every block,” he said.
Of 12 school properties offered in May, Adlai Stevenson School in the Lee-Harvard neighborhood was one of three that was not recommended for new users and uses. It was the newest school among the 12 offered (Google).
Three school properties that were in the original RFP were not included in this recommendation. One was Adlai Stevenson School, 18299 Woda Dr., in the Lee-Harvard neighborhood. Built in 2009, it was the newest school among the original 12.
Although that school is newer, the 55-year-old Louisa May Alcott K-5 school, 10308 Baltic Rd. in the Edgewater neighborhood, was thoroughly renovated more recently in 2013. It was not included either.
The third school that wasn’t part of this recommendation was Alfred A. Benesch Elementary, 5393 Quincy Ave., in the Central neighborhood. The 1977-built school sets on 3.4 acres of land. It isn’t known if these sites will be part of a later recommendation.
The next step in the process will be the negotiation of the exchange of land between the City and CMSD. Community feedback and participation will continue to be an integral part of the process moving forward.
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