A brand-new Van Aken-Warrensville Rapid Station, under construction on Tuttle Road in Shaker Heights, will feature a heated indoor waiting area and public restrooms (Harrison Whittaker). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.
Progress Pics: Arcadia, GPPC, Miceli Dairy expansion, more
Between new railcars, upgraded stations, rebuilt tracks, and Transit-Oriented Development (TOD), the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority’s (GCRTA) Blue and Green lines are benefitting from hundreds of millions of dollars in investment that could reshape the future of the city’s least-used rail transit lines.
Ongoing track improvement projects will allow trains to operate at up to 45 miles per hour and as often as every 10 minutes. Eight Blue Line stations are set to be rebuilt with ramps to become ADA compliant, while another eight Green Line stations are planned for the same improvements once funding becomes available.
While track improvements will allow trains to be run more frequently, new service patterns — such as a direct route to the airport from Shaker Heights — are unlikely to come to fruition unless voters approve an additional sales tax levy of up to a half-percent in May 2027.
A 1981-built Breda light rail vehicle cruises east over the Holton Avenue Viaduct. In 2028, brand-new Siemens S200 railcars will replace these older trains on the Blue and Green lines (Harrison Whittaker).
Though both lines will benefit from infrastructure upgrades, the Blue Line — which follows Van Aken Boulevard through the suburb of Shaker Heights east of Shaker Square — is expected to see the biggest transformation from TOD.
Its eastern terminus at the Van Aken-Warrensville station is anchored by the walkable, mixed-use Van Aken District. Now, Columbus-based Metropolitan Holdings Ltd. is developing Arcadia — a 141-unit apartment building just a block away on the site of a former car dealership, 3393 Warrensville Center Rd.
As part of a tax-increment financing deal with the City of Shaker Heights, the building will make 25 units affordable to households earning 80 to 100 percent of Area Median Income (AMI) for 20 years.
Arcadia, a five-story mixed-use development, is under construction on Warrensville Center Road near the terminus of the light-rail Blue Line (Harrison Whittaker).
Arcadia was designed by Beachwood-based RDL Architects who will move its offices into this building’s second floor. The $62 million development will feature 15,000-square-feet of retail space in ground-floor storefronts. In April, Metropolitan announced that one of those storefronts will be occupied by Paris Baguette, a South Korean bakery chain, expected to open in late-2027.
Meanwhile, construction of a brand-new Van Aken-Warrensville station is underway at the terminus of the Blue Line. The nearly $18 million rail and bus facility will feature restrooms and a heated indoor waiting area for passengers.
Though original plans called for a low-level platform with ADA-compliant ramps, similar to the existing station, the design was updated to a (mostly) high-level platform to support the new railcars.
A revised design for the new Van Aken-Warrensville station upgrades its center platform with mostly high-level boarding (Harrison Whittaker).
The new station was designed by Cleveland-based HWH Architects Engineers Planners Inc. Mike Coats Construction Co. of Niles, OH is the project’s general contractor.
In June, NEOtrans announced that two Blue Line-adjacent sites owned by the City of Shaker Heights had won federal grants to pursue TOD: a 2-acre lot directly east of the Van Aken-Warrensville station, and the underutilized Stephanie Tubbs Jones (STJ) Community Building, near the Van Aken-Lee station.
STJ likely won’t be the only TOD on Lee. This month, the city will begin the reconstruction of Lee Road with a bike path and improved pedestrian infrastructure. The new streetscape is a core component of the Lee Road Action Plan, a vision to revitalize the southern portion of the street with mixed-use infill development.
The Lee Road Action Plan aims to transform the southern portion of the street in Shaker Heights into a walkable commercial district with mixed-use infill development (Harrison Whittaker).
Transit-supportive development won’t be limited to the Blue Line, either. Cleveland’s Shaker Square, served by both Blue and Green line trains, recently adopted a Vision Plan which seeks to revitalize the historic shopping district with an upgraded streetscape, revamped green space, and new TOD.
Further west, the East 79th Street Blue and Green line station is being rebuilt with ADA-compliant ramps, covered platforms, and a heated bus waiting area — a feature requested by GCRTA CEO and General Manager India Birdsong Terry. Previously considered for closure due to low ridership, the new station could soon serve a mixed-use development proposed just north of it by Burton Bell Carr Development Inc.
The station was designed by Bowen, a Cleveland-based architectural firm. Its general contractor is a joint venture between R.L. Hill Management, Inc. of Solon and Platform Cement Inc. of Mentor.
The new East 79th Street Blue and Green line station will feature covered platforms and an ADA-compliant ramp (Harrison Whittaker).
While most TOD emphasizes residential and retail uses, new jobs created by commercial and industrial development can boost transit ridership as well.
In 2024, NEOtrans unveiled plans by Cleveland-based Miceli Dairy Products to spend up to $128 million on a multi-phase expansion project. The first of its phases, the expansion of a cold-storage facility on the east side of East 90th Street, is just wrapping up now and is expected to create 50 permanent jobs.
Along the Opportunity Corridor, west of Miceli’s current facilities, the cheese-maker is planning an even larger two-phase expansion project including a new mozzarella production facility and R&D center. In total, the company expects to create approximately 320 jobs across all three phases.
On the east side of East 90th Street, Miceli Dairy Products wraps up work on an expansion of its existing cold storage facility (Harrison Whittaker).
Meanwhile in downtown, Detroit- and Cleveland-based Bedrock is making progress on its $3.5 billion riverfront masterplan. Current work includes the construction of new Eagle Avenue ramp connecting Downtown’s Gateway District to the riverfront, a new training facility for the NBA’s Cavaliers, and a 6,200-seat riverfront amphitheater for Live Nation.
The training facility, dubbed the Cleveland Clinic Global Peak Performance Center, is wrapping up construction and has begun installing exterior signage highlighting the Clinic-Cavaliers partnership. Across West 3rd Street, a warehouse has been demolished to make way for the new ampitheater.
The new riverfront developments surround Bedrock’s Tower City Center mall above GCRTA’s primary downtown rail station — served by Red, Blue and Green line trains. Through GCRTA’s Park-N-Ride system, the new destinations could increase rail ridership to downtown from from across the region.
Bedrock’s Global Peak Performance Center, bottom-left, is the first major ground-up development in the firm’s riverfront masterplan (Harrison Whittaker).
GCRTA’s Green Road station, which serves as the terminus of the Green Line in Shaker Heights, is the agency’s second-largest Park-N-Ride with space for 820 vehicles. The only station with more capacity is the Brookpark Red Line station near Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, with 971 parking spaces.
For more construction updates around Greater Cleveland, check out NEOtrans’ other Progress Pics articles.
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