Three structures identified here are to be demolished plus a fourth, a small house, partially hidden behind them are to be replaced by a new development called Memphis & Pearl. St. Luke Church will be preserved and incorporated into the development (Desmone). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.
Memphis & Pearl project to rise in their place
In the coming months, the busy intersection of Memphis Avenue and Pearl Road in the heart of Cleveland’s Old Brooklyn neighborhood will look very different. The change is due from the City Planning Commission’s approval on Friday of an application to demolish four buildings at that intersection, each of which are historic structures but in varying stages of decay.
Proposed to replace them would be one of the largest and most important developments in Old Brooklyn in five decades, said Ward 13 Councilman Kris Harsh. The Old Brooklyn Community Development Corp. (OBCDC) selected a development team led by Pittsburgh-based Desmone Architects to pursue redevelopment of the 0.558-acre site that is owned by OBCDC.
Planned is a six-story building at the corner of Memphis and Pearl with 74 apartments offering 23 studios, 42 one-bedroom units and nine two-bedroom suites, plus 3,600 square feet of apartment amenity space and 6,500 to 9,600 square feet of retail/restaurant space in the adjacent St. Luke Church. There would also be 6,500 to 9,600 square feet of community space, according to a project summary.
“Our hope is the development of the Memphis and Pearl will be a catalyst that ignites a rebirth for the business corridor,” said Geoff Aiken, a Desmone architect, regional vice president and leader of their Cleveland office in a written statement. “Our thoughtful design concepts pay homage to what the community continues to cherish while also providing them their wants and needs.”
This graphic, with Memphis Avenue at the bottom and Pearl Road diagonal to the right, shows which buildings will be demolished and which ones will be preserved for the Memphis & Pearl development (Desmone).
To make way for the development, the commission approved razing the St. Luke Church’s school, called the Education Building — a matching structure that was added on to the church in 1927. The 1903-built St. Luke sanctuary lost its 1839-established congregation in 2014 but will remain standing and be repurposed as a commercial structure, possibly a craft brewery.
At the corner of Memphis and Pearl, a pair of commercial structures called the Greenline buildings dating to 1912 and forming a triangular footprint will also be demolished. And behind those structures, an 1,107-square-foot bungalow-style house was approved for demolition, as well. All of these buildings were described by project backers as suffering from “structural degradation, environmental issues, economic insufficiencies and incongruent land use at Memphis and Pearl.”
“Not only is this terribly exciting, this is at its heart a preservation project,” said Councilman Harsh at Friday’s commission meeting. “We’re trying to save a hundred-year-old church and make it the centerpiece for the next hundred years in the neighborhood.”
The Pearl Road United Methodist Church will not be touched but will share parking with the development. In August, OBCDC won a grant of just over $2 million from the Ohio Brownfield Program to remove hazardous materials like asbestos and lead and pay for the demolition of the four structures.
Similar in scale and orientation to the previous map, this graphic shows how the site is proposed to be redeveloped (Desmone).
“This is very much a CDC-led project,” said OBCDC Executive Director Lucas Reeve. “We currently own and assembled some parcels in Old Brooklyn. Not only is it a CDC-driven project but it’s very much a community-driven project. Over the last three or four years we’ve engaged with about 650 people across the neighborhood — to make sure they were involved in this process.”
He also said the project will signal positive change in the neighborhood and contribute to a more dense, walkable, engaging main street. Significant features of the St. Luke’s Education Building are planned to be salvaged and potentially re-used in various portions of the project. These features include the stained-glass windows and main-entry wood doors.
“This is a transit-oriented design,” Reeve added. “This is along a major transit corridor that will be seeing improvements in the next few years as well. So it’s very important to be able to add more housing than we do (have) in downtown Old Brooklyn currently. There are less than 100 apartments in downtown Old Brooklyn.”
The Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority is amassing $50 million in public funds to build its MetroHealth Line Bus Rapid Transit project along West 25th Street from the north end of Ohio City to the center of Old Brooklyn. The project will provide dedicated bus lanes, traffic signals that prioritize buses, improved streetscapes, and better waiting environments for bus passengers. Construction is due to start in 2026 and take two years.
This massing of the proposed Memphis & Pearl development along Pearl Road shows the intended placement and scale of buildings to be built and renovated rather than their detailed designs and textures. Memphis Avenue is at the left side (Desmone).
The 74 apartments in the new six-story building are proposed to be priced with market-rate rents. Planning Commission Vice Chair August Fluker expressed concern about it not offering affordable housing but joined a unanimous vote for the demolition.
“It’s not going to be high-end market-rate apartments,” Reeve responded. “We’re talking very much mid-level, pushing more toward workforce. It will not be displacing people.”
He said a new study suggests there is an over-abundance of affordable housing in Old Brooklyn. And since the pension fund of the labor union AFL-CIO is an investor in this project, Reeve said they would want to support housing for workers but still want a return on their investment.
“There is so much that I love about this project,” said Planning Commission Chair Chair Lillian Kuri. “It’s saving what should be saved. It’s the right kind of preservation. It’s going to add the opportunity for some new construction. It has the potential to become a destination. It’s exciting.”
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