The first phase of Miceli Dairy Products’ expansion in Cleveland’s Buckeye-Woodland neighborhood will build south along East 90th Street and around two homes plus the New Zion Baptist Church, shown only as a trio of two-dimensional rectangles along East 90th in the bottom image. New structures include the one hosting the docked trucks and the dark-sided storage building next to it (TMA Architects). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.
First steps start toward $128M build-out
Miceli Dairy Products is taking the first big steps toward its multi-phase expansion vision by unveiling plans for its $16 million first phase. But when all three phases are completed in the coming years, Miceli anticipates making a $128 million investment that will bring hundreds of new jobs to Cleveland’s Buckeye-Woodland neighborhood.
The first phase will result in the creation of 50 new permanent jobs and features the construction of more than 30,000 square feet of new structures at 2777 E. 90th St. They include a new storage building with a freezer, a warehouse with a future cooler, shipping and receiving space plus a small shipping and receiving office, according to plans submitted to the city’s Building Department.
Cost of those structures is estimated at $7 million, public records show. Additional costs including planning, legal, site preparation and grading for truck access driveways linking East 90th and a vacated East 92nd Street that are not counted in that figure. Miceli Dairy officials said they’re looking forward to starting the project.
“We’re excited to kick off construction this spring as part of the first phase of our expansion, with even more plans on the horizon,” said company Vice President of Marketing Maria Miceli in an e-mail to NEOtrans. “Our goal is to become a gem along the Opportunity Corridor — creating jobs and contributing to the revitalization of the neighborhood.”
Micei Dairy Products is a third-generation Cleveland-based business which manufactures fine Italian cheeses. It has been located on Buckeye Road at East 90th since 1949, back when the area was called Hungarian Hill.
Site plans for the first phase of expansion of the Miceli Dairy show the new structures as shaded, located between East 90th Street at the top and the vacated East 92nd Street at the bottom. The existing plant is to the right, or north in this view (TMA Architects).
But most Hungarian-Americans moved to the suburbs in the 1960s and 70s while the nearby 19th-century industries closed or moved out. The neighborhood suffered from widespread abandonment. Longtime employers like Miceli and Orlando Baking that focus on the food industry have stayed and blossomed in recent years.
According to the unveiled plans, the family-run dairy will expand southward — up against the elevated right of way of the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority’s (GCRTA) light-rail Blue and Green lines that link Shaker Heights with Downtown Cleveland.
In fact, this past summer, Miceli’s development arm, the Miceli-Lograsso Development Co., had to get board approval from GCRTA to acquire a tiny, 0.108-acre piece of property from the transit agency for $6,000. That piece of property that extended away from the rail line was not needed by GCRTA but it was important for Miceli to be able to design the truck driveway between East 90th and 92nd.
It also made it possible for Miceli to avoid having to acquire several properties along the east side of East 90th — including the New Zion Gospel Church, 2747 E. 90th, along with two private homes just south of the church. Instead, Miceli will expand the plant behind those three structures, plans show.
Looking north along East 90th Street, one of the two private homes that the Miceli Dairy will expand behind is seen at far right with the New Zion Baptist Church visible in the background. Beyond is the rest of the plant as well as the bell tower of the 19th-century St. Elizabeth of Hungary Cathedral (Google).
But in a development agreement with Miceli that was submitted to the GCRTA board, it publicly revealed details about Miceli’s second and third phases of its expansion plans. Most of that expansion will be to the west and north of the existing Miceli manufacturing plant.
On the west side of East 90th, Miceli-Lograsso Development has a purchase option for a little more than a half-acre of land owned by the Lomack Drum Co., 2800 E. 90th. No purchase price was disclosed, Cuyahoga County property records show.
In April, Miceli-Lograsso Development purchased a 0.42-acre piece of land that was owned by Anthony Gray Jr., a principal of Lomack Drum. The dairy firm’s development arm paid $20,000 for the parcel, located at 2820 E. 90th, which is right next to GCRTA’s light-rail rapid transit tracks.
Lomack Drum, affiliates and their principals have been accused of numerous environmental violations at its East 90th site. Just to the west of it was another property affiliated with the Grays — the L Gray Barrel & Drum Co., which was forfeited to the state of Ohio in 2022.
Miceli Dairy Products Co.’s development arm, the Miceli-Lograsso Development Co., owns nearly 30 acres of land for and near its offices and plant on East 90th Street at Buckeye Road. The land is between the Opportunity Corridor Boulevard and the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority’s light-rail Blue and Green Lines. As shown, Miceli is acquiring more land (MyPlace.CuyahogaCounty.gov).
The Cuyahoga Land Bank won an Ohio Brownfield Program grant of $1,934,812 last month to assist Miceli with its expansion, primarily west of East 90th, according to a summary of grant awards released by the Ohio Department of Development.
“The (Brownfield) project will demolish obsolete structures and remove contaminated soil at the former Eberhard Manufacturing and Gray Container sites,” the summary noted. “Redevelopment plans include paving the site for truck parking and retaining a renovated warehouse for storage, supporting Miceli’s expansion efforts and creating 320 new jobs.”
That number of jobs also includes the 50 workers to be added in the first phase of expansion. The second and third phases of expansion are proposed to involve an investment of about $112 million, the GCRTA agreement noted. The expansion would vastly increase the company’s current employment of about 173 workers, according to ZoomInfo.com.
To put the scale of that expansion into context, the big new Cleveland Cold Storage warehouse that opened last year at 2777 E. 75th St. by an affiliate the Orlando Baking Co. cost $32 million to build. The 156,775-square-foot warehouse is located on 11 acres of land just to the west of Miceli’s growing campus along the Opportunity Corridor Boulevard.
Miceli land clearing and cleaning work for the company’s future expansion has been underway for more than a decade, showing how long the company been wanting to grow its business while remaining in Cleveland’s urban core (Miceli-Lograsso Development Co.)
Adjusted for inflation, Miceli’s expansion could result in the addition of another 500,000 square feet of office, production and warehouse space. So far, Miceli-Lograsso Development has acquired nearly 30 acres of land in the past decade and continues to acquire more for its expansion, county property records show.
Miceli has leveled abandoned industrial buildings and cleaned up the land including for a 14-acre, construction-ready site on Opportunity Corridor at Evarts Road. It also acquired numerous, mostly former residential parcels north of Buckeye to create a 5-acre development site there. A number of other city-owned properties in the area are also to be acquired by Miceli, according to the development agreement with GCRTA.
“Staff (at GCRTA) have been engaged with Miceli principals for more than two years to assist with the planning, design and development of their expansion plan,” said GCRTA General Manager and CEO India Birdsong-Terry in a company memo last June. “This significant Miceli expansion also has the support and cooperation of the city of Cleveland, Cuyahoga County and the state of Ohio.”
The agreement with Miceli includes the dairy firm’s participation in the GCRTA Commuter Advantage Program with the purchase of 25 transit passes for workers. The Miceli plant is located just west of the Buckeye-Woodhill station on the Blue and Green lines, as well as the 120-unit Woodhill Station West apartments that opened in March and the adjacent Woodhill Station East development now under construction.
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