The six-story Hanover House and the lobby for The Vibe development are seen here next to the Ohio City Firehouse in Cleveland’s Hingetown enclave (Vocon). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.
Ohio City’s largest project since Intro
With financing approved, the developer of Ohio City’s largest new-construction project in four years has an eye toward fall for a groundbreaking date of The Vibe, 2828 Clinton Ave., in Cleveland’s Hingetown enclave.
Jon Pinney, managing partner of the project’s developer TurnDev, based in Beachwood, confirmed the approval of The Vibe’s financing. Although the financing has not yet closed, he said it’s pretty much a matter of reaching the closing date at this point.
With that in mind, TurnDev and The Vibe’s architect, Cleveland-based Vocon Partners LLC, have submitted a construction permit application to the city. The Building Department is processing the application quickly.
If the financing closes as expected and the permit is approved in a timely manner, Pinney said the goal of a fall groundbreaking for the project can be achieved. Construction is due to take about 18 months. However, there are still some questions remaining on the project.
Ground floor of The Vibe, showing the residential units surrounding the second level of the parking garage. The first level of the garage is below ground in a similar configuration as to what is shown here (Vocon).
The largest of those questions is — who will build it? Although Mentor-based general contractor Cleveland Construction had helped TurnDev with design and estimating for The Vibe several years ago, it is not the general contractor.
“We haven’t officially signed a GC (general contractor),” Pinney told NEOtrans.
Pinney said Cleveland Construction is no longer involved with The Vibe which has been in development for four years by TurnDev. It was the second developer to try its hand at the site — one of the last large undeveloped sites in Hingetown.
Another developer, the Snavely Group of Chagrin Falls, had tried to develop the property for three years before. It planned a mixed-use residential-commercial development with Adcom Group relocating its headquarters there.
The second floor of The Vibe which shows the form of the two apartment buildings which continues to their upper floors. Clinton House is to the lower left and Hanover House is to the upper right with north at the top. In the center is the amenity deck on top of the parking garage (Vocon).
While Adcom’s CEO Joe Kubic acquired the property, he saw the project’s costs rising too high. Instead, Adcom moved its growing media and marketing business to the Western Reserve Building, 1468 W. 9th St. downtown.
Pinney said he could not publicly provide a specific cost estimate for its purely residential project. According to Google AI, multifamily projects are currently costing about $250 to $280 per square foot to build, which could put a construction cost for The Vibe in the neighborhood of $80 million.
“We’re targeting less than that,” Pinney said without elaborating.
The City Planning Commission approved designs for The Vibe in 2024. The 304,310-square-foot multifamily development will have two buildings connected by a shared, two-level parking garage. Planned are 212 market-rate apartments and 223 parking spaces.
Along West 29th Street, with the Ohio City Firehouse on the left, the townhouse-like style of Clinton House is intended to transition to the single-family homes to the west (Vocon).
One level of parking will be below ground and one will be above. Atop the parking garage will be an amenity deck including swimming pool, grilling patios and dog walk. Adjacent to them, above the ground-floor lobby, will be a lounge, fitness room and yoga studio.
An L-shaped, five-story apartment building called Clinton House will wrap around the corner of the parking garage at Clinton Avenue and West 29th Street. An reverse L-shaped building of six stories, Hanover House, will wrap around the garage at Church Avenue and West 28th Street, formerly Hanover Street.
If built, the construction project would be the largest in Cleveland’s Ohio City neighborhood since the 2022 completion of Intro, a 297-unit apartment building topped by an event venue and above multiple ground-floor retail spaces at Lorain Avenue and West 25th Street.
An axonometric view of The Vibe development site once it is built out and how it is intended to fit into its Hingetown surroundings (Vocon).
The development is called The Vibe in reference to the site’s historical use by industrial equipment manufacturer Cleveland Vibrator Co. A partnership led by TurnDev acquired the company, 2828 Clinton Avenue LLC, that owned the 1.7-acre site in Ohio City’s booming Hingetown community.
The 27,000-square-foot, 1920-built Cleveland Vibrator machine shop on the site was razed early last year by C&J Contractors Inc. of Cleveland for $187,031, according to public records.
Cleveland Vibrator and its roughly three dozen workers relocated in 2020 to an existing building at 4544 Hinckley Parkway in Cleveland. The 103-year-old company continues to operate there.
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