In Downtown Cleveland, Cohen & Co. intends to rename the Playhouse Square office tower formerly known as the Renaissance Center and later as US Bank Centre (Stratus). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.
US Bank to step down its naming of tower
With accounting and consulting firm Cohen & Co. growing its office staff in Downtown Cleveland and US Bank reducing its, there’s going to be a change at the top of the former Renaissance Center at Playhouse Square. Superior naming rights to the 1990-built, 16-story office building US Bank Centre, 1350 Euclid Ave., is going to pass to Cohen.
According to a source familiar with the property and who spoke on the condition of anonymity, Cohen & Co.’s headquarters occupy just over 30,000 square feet of space. They’re spread across two floors with an open area and stairwell linking the eighth and ninth floors. A floor in the building averages just over 16,000 square feet, pretty small for a typical office building.
Their space hasn’t increased much in recent years despite experiencing some “organic growth,” the source said. However, Cohen has been “reconfiguring its existing space to accommodate a few more folks” at 1350 Euclid, the source added. The firm has been at the current home since 2003.
Plans for new signage were submitted to the city’s Building Department last week by Stratus Signs of Mentor and Agile Sign & Lighting Maintenance Inc. of Eastlake. The new LED-illuminated signs will be placed atop the building on the south and north facades. Cost of the installations is estimated at $15,000, city records show.
US Bank Centre, soon to be renamed for Cohen & Co., stands at far right along with its 400-space parking garage at lower right in Downtown Cleveland’s Playhouse Square (LoopNet-CBRE).
Privately owned Cohen & Co., founded in 1977, has a dozen offices in the Great Lakes region and Northeast. Including Cleveland’s, it has offices in Akron, Baltimore, Buffalo, Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Clair Shores, MI and Youngstown, OH. There is a publicly traded financial firm Cohen & Co. based in New York and founded in 1999 but is not the same company.
Meanwhile US Bank’s regional offices had shrunk in recent years to one and a half floors — the 11th and 12th floors. Its ground-floor bank branch remains in operation albeit reduced in scale. The source said the reduction is space was due to increased remote and hybrid work, not a reduction in employment.
Although US Bank’s name will no longer adorn the crown of the 210-foot-tall building, it will continue to have secondary naming right as Cohen has had in recent years. And the public space out front of the building along Euclid and Huron Road will continue to be called US Bank Plaza.
The Playhouse Square Foundation-managed plaza was previously called Star Plaza, named by then-Cincinnati-based Star Bank. That changed when the company, later renamed as Firstar, bought US Bank but kept the name US Bank because it was more familiar nationally.
Cohen and Co.’s offices occupy more than 30,000 square feet on the eighth and ninth floors of 1350 Euclid where they continue to add employment (Cohen).
When built in 1990 by the Wolstein family, the Renaissance Center was the first new office building built in downtown’s theater district in 50 years. Designed by Richard L. Bowen & Associates of Cleveland, the building continues to be owned by Chagrin Falls-based Heritage Development, led by Iris Wolstein.
The building’s broker, CBRE Group, reports that the 262,352-square-foot building is 83-percent leased. This spring, the building gained a Fortune 1000 company as its headquarters. Aerospace and defense contractor TransDigm Group Inc. relocated from Erieview Tower to occupy the building’s 15th and 16th floors.
Unlike many other office buildings in the city and suburbs that are hurting from remote working, other good things continue to surround 1350 Euclid. An onsite, fine-dining restaurant, District, recently expanded. The building also is connected to a 400-car garage, has tenant lounges, collaboration areas and a 74-seat amphitheater with audiovisual connectivity. Such amenities are intended to make it competitive with remote work.
Cohen & Co. CEO Chris Bellamy and CBRE Senior Vice President Warren Blazy both opened e-mails from NEOtrans but otherwise did not respond to them prior to publication of this article. The listed phone number and e-mail address for Heritage Development’s Vice President-Director of Real Estate Robert Benjamin did not work.
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