The development team of The Thomas apartments and their future successors posed at a groundbreaking ceremony today in Cleveland’s Tremont neighborhood (NEOtrans).
Team pursuing west-side developments
It’s a project that has gone under the radar amid the many others on Cleveland’s near-West Side. But today, a development team assembled to break ground for The Thomas apartments, 2422 W. 7th St. in Cleveland’s Tremont neighborhood.
Unfortunately, they weren’t able to poke their shovels into the sunbaked, rock-like soil. So they’ll leave that hard part to the excavator which has already arrived on the 0.148-acre site to begin constructing the 12-unit apartment building.
The development team noted that this project, like several others they’re working on, will cater to a market that they say is not being adequately served in Cleveland and especially on the city’s West Side — the middle.
“This is characterized as ‘missing middle’ housing, a development type of which the City of Cleveland has looked to encourage throughout the city,” said James Asimes, president of development at The Dalad Group of Independence. The Thomas is named after a relative of his.
He said Dalad, in partnership with others including Property Advisors Group of Beachwood, is in the early stage of development of two other projects in Cleveland that would provide a similar development style. One is 8400 Lake in the Detroit-Shoreway neighborhood and another is The Park-Phase Two in Tremont.
About to rise at the corner of West 7th Street and Jefferson Avenue in Tremont is The Thomas, a small apartment building providing housing the “missing middle” (Horton Harper).
For The Thomas, Dalad is partnering with Horsepower Capital Partners of Chagrin Falls, Horton Harper Architects of Cleveland, and Rockaway Civil LLC of Kirtland,
“We are actively seeking additional opportunities across the city and region to apply a ‘missing middle’ development approach and we believe there is demand in the market for sensible, affordable apartments of this ilk,” Asimes added.
The development acquired property for The Thomas as TDG Jefferson, LLC in November 2025, paying $283,500, Cuyahoga County property records show. It was purchased from another developer who didn’t deliver its own proposed project — a quartet of luxury, for-sale, attached townhouses.
That developer, ParaPrin, had built in Sandusky but not yet in Cleveland. While it didn’t build the townhomes, it prepared the site for development. In 2023, it razed two existing residential structures on the site.
One was a two-unit, 3,896-square-foot house built more than a century ago. The other is an 820-square-foot building dating from 1870 and described by county records as a “motel.”
Looking at The Thomas from behind on the Jefferson Avenue side shows the development doesn’t overwhelm the small site (Horton Harper).
“Horsepower Capital Partners is excited to partner with Dalad Group on this project,” said the firm’s Principal David Schindler in a written statement. “We believe this project addresses a real gap in the Cleveland housing market.”
“There are plenty of luxury projects and an oversupply of older housing stock, but there is strong unmet demand for well-located, middle-market housing that offers the right mix of comfort, convenience, and affordability,” Schindler said.
“This project is focused on amenities that matter in real life: air conditioning, in-suite laundry and easy parking without overbuilding features that unnecessarily increase rents,” he added.
Horton Harper Architects is a contemporary architecture studio led by Westleigh Harper and Michael Horton, founded in 2011. Harper said the firm specializes in delivering high-quality, contextually driven architecture at a variety of scales.
The development and construction team has recently completed and is under construction on three similar projects on the city’s West Side, including Franklin Yard, 3105 and 3118 Franklin Blvd., Harbor Flats, 2017 W. 44th St., and The Clermont, 2222 Fulton Rd.
END
