The Lorain West Apartments are proposed to be located on its namesake street near the Lorain-West 65th Red Line rail station. (RDL). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.
Project to add to record TOD investment
One by one, the many used-car dealerships along Lorain Avenue on Cleveland’s West Side are going away. For the most part, they are getting replaced with new multifamily housing developments and that’s what’s proposed to happen again.
Volker Development Inc. of Wisconsin but with an office in Lakewood has applied for Low-Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC) from the state to help finance construction of a 65-unit apartment building for lower-income families at 5301 Lorain Ave. in Cleveland’s Detroit-Shoreway neighborhood.
Currently occupying that 1.017-acre site is Diversified Auto Sales LLC owned by the Pisano family since 1992. Volker Development has a purchase agreement for the site that would be executed if its financing and city design reviews are approved.
Neither are guaranteed. The tax credits Volker is seeking from the Ohio Housing Finance Agency is a scarce, highly competitive 9 percent LIHTC that would subsidize about 70 percent of the development’s estimated $19.7 million in construction costs, according to its pending application.
That would allow the apartments — 44 two-bedroom apartments, 11 three-bedroom suites and 10 one-bedroom units — to be affordable to families with incomes between 30 and 70 percent of the area’s median income (AMI). According to the US Census, Cleveland’s AMI per household in 2025 was $43,107.
Based on the conceptual rendering of Lorain West, a four-story, roughly 65,000-square-foot apartment building might have the footprint as shown here in black on the red-shaded property Volker Development seeks to acquire (NEOtrans/Google).
Another question to be answered is, will the city allow the oldest of several structures on the property to be demolished?
The site’s oldest, at 5415 Lorain, is a two-story, apartments-over-storefronts, wood-framed commercial building measuring 3,360 square feet and dating from about 1890. It is rated in fair condition by Cuyahoga County’s property appraisers.
Two on-site office-garage buildings dating from 1978 and 1983 also are to be razed to accommodate a roughly 65,000-square-foot, four-story building fronting Lorain and fitting in between West 53rd and 55th streets.
A well-maintained, two-story, brick commercial building with a new mural at 2014 W. 53rd St. is not owned by the Pisanos and not part of the Volker’s Lorain West development.
The development site is large enough and its proposed parking lot — only 17 spaces — small enough that a four-story apartment building with a different configuration could be built on the site without demolishing the 19th-century building. It may require a zoning variance for density, however.
A 19th-century building at 5415 Lorain Ave. could be demolished to make way for the Lorain West apartment Building (NEOtrans).
But that design option goes out the window if Volker’s goal is to build a second phase of similar size on the site, on a bluff overlooking the Norfolk Southern freight railroad and Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (GCRTA) Red Line tracks.
A Volker representative did not respond to an inquiry submitted by NEOtrans via the company’s Web site prior to publication of this article. An e-mail sent to property owner Mike Pisano of Solon was not answered either.
Northwest Neighborhoods Community Development Corp. Executive Director Bridget Kent Márquez said she was not yet familiar with the specifics of the Lorain West project.
But the site was chosen, and the parking limited, because those tracks lead to GCRTA’s West 65th-Lorain Red Line rapid transit station only a few blocks away. Also, Lorain hosts the No. 22 bus route. Both transit lines offer service every 15 minutes in both directions. The buses run 24 hours a day and the trains 22 hours a day.
“Lorain West will provide much needed affordable housing for families in the City of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County,” wrote Volker’s Managing Director Greg Baron in a letter to Cleveland Clerk of Council Patricia Britt on Feb. 23, to notify the city of its LIHTC application.
This two-story brick structure with the mural at 2014 W. 53rd St., owned by West 53rd Street LLC, is not part of the proposed Lorain West development (NEOtrans).
“The project will capitalize on transit-oriented access to the W. 65-Lorain RTA Rapid Station and high-frequency bus lines along Lorain Avenue,” Baron added.
He said the building’s amenities will include open-concept floor plans, in-unit washers, dryers, and dishwashers, a community/multi-purpose room, enhanced indoor/outdoor security camera systems, and 24-hour secured access.
This project is the latest of many in Cuyahoga County that are rising next to rail transit stations and on high-frequency bus lines. A new report by the county’s Planning Commission noted that $324 million in new transit-oriented development (TOD) occurred in 2025. It broke the record from the year before.
A total of $1.5 billion was invested in TOD projects in the county in the last seven years. And if gas prices continue to remain high, the demand for transit-accessible housing could break more records.
A Red Line train heads toward Downtown Cleveland and University Circle from the West 65th-Lorain station and passes below the Aspen Place transit-oriented development. Lorain West would be another transit-supportive development nearby and, if built, would add to Cuyahoga County’s growing number of TOD projects (NEOtrans).
“People want to be able to get to places quickly without having to drive everywhere, and that’s why we’re seeing big investment along Cuyahoga County’s frequent transit corridors,” said Cuyahoga County Planning Manager Patrick Hewitt on social media.
Lorain West is near other developments. An historic, condemned brick building at 5505 Lorain is to be stabilized for $30,000. Across the street, at 5708 Lorain, a commercial structure is under renovation for $250,000. And The Judith Cafe, 5222 Lorain, opened three years ago after a $53,780 investment, city records show.
Right next to the Red Line station, the predecessor of the Northwest Neighborhoods CDC built Aspen Place, 6016 Lorain, in 2019. The three-story, mixed-use building has 40 affordable apartments over a retail space, leased to Urban Kutz Barbershop.
“This investment underscores the continued demand for housing, retail, and employment near Greater Cleveland RTA’s bus and rail routes,” Hewitt said.
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