The St. Agnes Church bell tower on Euclid Avenue once called parishioners to services. Now it is calling residents to the site in the form of a proposed new apartment building. But the bigger draw is Cleveland Clinic’s growing Main Campus, just two blocks to the east (Google). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.
Mixed-use may rise at St Agnes bell tower
A potentially large, mixed-use residential-retail development is in the early stages of planning, to be located just west of the Cleveland Clinic’s Main Campus. The site, 8000 Euclid Ave., notes a familiar, yet neglected city-designed landmark — the former bell tower of St. Agnes Church in the Fairfax neighborhood.
In fact, the project’s working title embraces that remnant of the church which was demolished 51 years ago — Silver Hills at Euclid Bell Tower. Silver Hills refers to the lead developer on the project — Shaker Heights-based Silver Hills Development Inc.
Little is known about the development which popped up on Cleveland Building Department’s Web portal last week. Efforts to learn more about it directly from the developer have proven fruitless so far. Two inquiries by NEOtrans to Silver Hills have not been answered prior to publication of this article.
“Don’t have any answers for you as we just learned of this proposed project yesterday,” said Denise VanLeer, executive director of Fairfax Renaissance Development Corp., said in an e-mail to NEOtrans on March 12.
But some educated guessed can be made about the project based on its site, its developer and the incomplete filing submitted to the city on March 5. That filing notes it is a construction project at “0 Euclid Ave., 44103” and will be called “Silver Hills at Euclid Bell Tower.”
Location of the proposed Silver Hills at Euclid Bell Tower development (MyPlace.CuyahogaCounty.gov).
It is the former St. Agnes site because, when searching the database by a parcel number for the property at the southwest corner of Euclid and East 81st Street, only two filings show up from the past five years.
One is the Silver Hills at Euclid Bell Tower. The other is an incomplete permit request by Bowlin Communications LLC begun in December to install a power meter at 2026 E. 79th St. in preparation for a new utility pole here. It remains incomplete because no plans were submitted to the city.
The property is owned by Good Karma Broadcasting whose local media presence is the radio station ESPN Cleveland 850 AM. Good Karma has a transmitter tower in the center of the property. Neither Good Karma or Silver Hills responded to NEOtrans’ inquiries about a potential development here.
Only two blocks east of the development site is the former Cleveland Playhouse property and the start of the Cleveland Clinic’s Main Campus. Cleveland Clinic plans to build a new parking garage here for employees and, potentially, to support future development of the 11-acre Playhouse site.
The reason why the Silver Hills development is probably large is because the national developer doesn’t build anything small. Among a dozen multifamily developments built, underway or officially planned around the country, its smallest project is the 192-unit Triton Cove apartments under construction in Fort Myers, FL.
Silver Hill’s Triton at the Flats, just across the Cuyahoga Rivers from Tower City Center in Downtown Cleveland, is the developer’s first project in the city. But it doesn’t appear to be its last (Harrison Whittaker).
Everything else it built or is building tends to fall in the range of 200 to 300 apartments with a few larger projects. All of its projects start out with working titles of “Silver Hills at —-” and, once leasing starts, they change to a brand prefaced by “Triton” — the Greek god of the sea.
Its only other Cleveland development is the former Silver Hills at Thunderbird, since branded as Triton at the Flats, located at 1960 Carter Rd. on Scranton Peninsula. Leasing is underway here as the finishing touches are put on this 300-unit riverfront apartment complex.
Its only other Northeast Ohio development is a multi-phase, 200-unit project called Silver Hills at Lorain, 5430 W. Erie Ave., planned with 170 apartments in two buildings plus six cottage houses adding another 30-36 units. Silver Hills has applied for Low Income Housing Tax Credits for a 94-unit, senior apartment building as a first phase.
The Euclid Avenue site measures 1.6 acres or 70,000 square feet. Of that, the bell tower’s base and a narrow grassy strip between the tower and the sidewalk take up about 1,500 square feet.
Unless the 250-foot-tall tower is deemed structurally unsound, it is unlikely to be demolished since it is a city-designated landmark. Plus, the proposed development’s uses the bell tower in its name. Although it wouldn’t be the first development named after the settings it replaced.
Another attraction to the site is the HealthLine bus rapid transit on Euclid Avenue which has a station next to the development site. The St. Agnes bell tower is in the background (Google).
A 200-unit apartment development would require about 200,000 square feet of floor space; a 300-unit development would need about 300,000 square feet. Anywhere from 150 to 300 parking spaces could be needed, requiring another 45,000 to 90,000 square feet.
Silver Hills at Euclid Bell Tower could be built more vertically rather than fill out the site. Zoning for the site allows a new structure of up to 175 feet high to be built. But building tall is expensive and the city will require a building here to fill out the site.
The reason is the zoning code includes a pedestrian retail overlay which requires the structure to be built up next to the street right of way. And the zoning means it will be mixed use unless Silver Hills requests and wins from the city a variance from having to include a ground-floor retail space at the front of the building.
So a Silver Hills building with its typical programming on this site would rise about five to six stories tall with first-floor retail on Euclid and a parking garage behind, having vehicular access off East 81st. Above the would likely be four or five floors of residences.
The Good Karma Broadcasting property, with its transmitter tower visible to the right of the St. Agnes Tower, is a narrow property. It remains to be seen if the property with the close CVS drug store, at right, is included in it (Google).
The wildcard in this design concept is the fate of the closed CVS drug store and its 1.74-acre property next door. It is listed for sale by Trinity Real Estate Investment Services of Texas which is asking $2 million.
It may remain a retail operation for another eight years because CVS still has a lease on the property which doesn’t expire until Jan. 31, 2034. But the lease is to a CVS affiliate called 79th Street LLC and it is available for sublease as well.
The proximity of Cleveland Clinic and other employers is a drawing card to this area. One of the first was Signet Real Estate Group of Akron which developed Foundry Lofts, 7220 Euclid, and leased it out quickly. Follow-on projects by Signet are planned at 4209 Euclid and at 7107-7113 Euclid.
Under construction one block to the north of the bell tower site is Chester 82 Apartments, 1898 E. 82nd St., in Hough. Marous Development Group of Willoughby is building 131 market-rate apartments.
St. Agnes Church and its bell tower as seen in the early 20th century (Cleveland Catholic Diocese).
St. Agnes Church was built in 1916 at a time when Catholicism in Cleveland was seen as a religion for immigrants and its mission to that of the poor. So building such a church on the Millionaires Row of Euclid Avenue was part of a transformation for both the religion locally and for the street.
It was built shortly before white, Catholic Clevelanders began moving to the suburbs as the first wave of African Americans came north to live and work in Cleveland. St. Agnes did not survive the second, much larger wave after World War II.
The church was seen by some African-Americans in Cleveland as a European church, despite the best efforts of its pastor, Father Floyd Begin, to open its arms to more of the community. The grand edifice was too expensive to maintain by the shrinking parish.
It was closed in 1975 and demolished over the following year. But a community effort saved the bell tower from destruction. It has endured Cleveland’s freeze-thaw climate, including a brush with an EF1 tornado in 2023 that took down many nearby trees and light posts.
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