Finishing touches are being put on Sherwin-Williams’ new Morikis Global Technology Center in Brecksville. Employees will start moving into the sprawling facility in late-September and be done with the relocations by Christmas (Sherwin-Williams). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.
R&D employees get schedule to move in
Schedules are coming into focus for the relocation of about 900 Sherwin-Williams’ employees who will be moving into the global coatings giant’s new Morikis Global Technology Center in south-suburban Brecksville. The change will also affect hundreds of Sherwin-Williams employees in Downtown Cleveland and in east-suburban Warrensville Heights.
Starting the week that begins on Monday, Sept. 22 and ending Dec. 19, the Friday before Christmas, employees and their office and lab materials will migrate in waves over to the new, 600,000-square-foot research and development facility. The property on which the new center is located has the address of 6701 Miller Rd.
According to employees affected by the move, they were informed by managers this week about the timetable for moving into Brecksville’s Morikis Global Technology Center. The facility is named after former Sherwin-Williams’ CEO John Morikis who launched the development of the research center and a new downtown headquarters tower.
A timetable for moving into the new headquarters, located just west of Public Square, has not been set yet. NEOtrans was first to report that the grand opening of the new 616-foot-tall headquarters tower would be delayed until at least October. The reason was due to the improper application of fire-retardant material on the skyscraper’s steel superstructure and would have to be reapplied.
Ready for workers is this sprawling floor of lab space at Sherwin-Williams’ Morikis Global Technology Center. But other sections of the huge building aren’t yet ready so it will be a couple more months before employees start moving in (Sherwin-Williams).
Employees moving into the Brecksville research center will come primarily from two facilities — the Breen Technology Center, 601 Canal Rd. downtown, and the Warrensville Technical Center, 4440 Warrensville Center Rd. in Warrensville Heights.
An exact breakdown of how many employees are coming from which research center is not available. Julie Young, vice president of global corporate communications at Sherwin-Williams, is on vacation until July 9. An e-mail to the communication department was not responded to prior to publication of this article.
A source familiar with the staffing at these facilities said that nearly 600 people work at Warrensville and about 340 work at Breen. Approximately 150 people will relocate from Warrensville to the Skylight Office Tower in Downtown Cleveland where Sherwin-Williams leases office space.
Additional staffing at Brecksville will come from other facilities, including possibly Valspar Corp.’s research center in Minneapolis. Sherwin-Williams acquired Valspar in 2017 for $11 billion. Eventually, about 700 research and office workers could relocate from Minneapolis, according to two sources familiar with the company’s plans.
The Breen Technology Center, in the low-level buildings seen at the middle just beyond their parking lot, will be empty by the end of this year. Its new owner, Bedrock Real Estate, plans to demolish Breen’s buildings (Google).
But there is no room at the new Sherwin-Williams headquarters or their other office locations in Cleveland — old HQ, Skylight, former Higbee’s Department Store, and its flex space on Hinckley Industrial Parkway in Cleveland — to relocate Valspar office workers.
The company plans to move employees to the new HQ only from the old HQ and Skylight. The other office locations will be kept for the time being as rumors about a second headquarters tower have gone cold. Things could heat up again after workers settle into the new tower.
Both Warrensville and Breen will be closed. Each property was sold by Sherwin-Williams in 2023. The Breen Center, named for former Chairman and CEO John G. “Jack” Breen, was sold to Bedrock Real Estate. Bedrock also bought the company’s old headquarters in the same deal.
Sherwin-Williams’ Warrensville Technical Center in Warrensville Heights will close by the end of the year with its employees mostly relocated to Brecksville and the rest to Downtown Cleveland (Google).
While Bedrock plans to retain and redevelop the 1930-built, 900,000-square-foot headquarters, its Riverfront development masterplan shows the newer Breen Center will be demolished. Breen’s 10 acres of land is to be redeveloped with new construction, including mid- to high-rise residential, office and community uses, plans show.
The Warrensville Technical Center, with 500,000 square feet of space spread among 18 buildings on a 105-acre campus, was acquired by Industrial Commercial Properties LLC It was originally built by Standard Oil of Ohio and closed by British Petroleum-America in the 1990s.
ICP won a $10 million Ohio Brownfield grant to clean up the site so it can be redeveloped. The redevelopment plan envisions transforming the site into a modern industrial business park with five new buildings, totaling 680,000–707,229 square feet, projected to employ more than 350 people, according to ICP’s Brownfield application.
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