As seen from the Wade Lagoon in front of the Cleveland Art Museum, the new East Stokes mixed-use tower will be near some of University Circle’s most notable attractions, as well as its many growing employers (SCB). CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM.
First construction permit issued for UC tower
In a booming area like University Circle, it just doesn’t seem right not to have at least one construction crane looming over it. Fortunately, that visual injustice is about to be righted in the coming months with another major, crane-inducing project.
That project is the 24-story East Stokes apartment tower, 10700 Chester Ave. The first-phase permit was issued Sept. 8 by the Cleveland Building Department for this high-rise which is being developed by Cleveland-based UC City Center LLC and PCP Flow.
Although no groundbreaking ceremony is planned at this time, site preparation work is already getting underway and the timeline is “imminent” for getting shovels in the ground, said Alex Smith, vice president of Cushman & Wakefield | CRESCO Real Estate.
He is a spokesman for the development team and his firm is handling the retail leasing for East Stokes as well as the similarly sized Artisan apartments tower across the Stokes Boulevard. Both projects are by the same development team.
“The site is being activated as we speak,” Smith told NEOtrans today. “The construction team is procuring fencing to be installed ASAP, leasing construction trailers, etc. Sitework will commence ASAP for a targeted project completion date of June 2028.”
The East Stokes apartment tower will rise on the “East Stokes Block North” site with construction staging for it on “East Stokes Block South” (SCB).
East Stokes will have 281 apartments, about 17,682-square-feet of ground-floor retail, and four stories of structured parking with 315 spaces. Stokes Boulevard will be narrowed and enhanced with wider sidewalks and a streetscape along it, from Chester to Euclid Avenue.
“Also planned is an expansion of the existing retail space at the Artisan, bringing our total (space) on the west side of Stokes up to 35,960 contiguous square feet,” Smith explained.
The first phase of East Stokes construction authorized by this permit, for which the application was submitted in April, has a cost estimated at $24 million, according to public records from the city’s permit Web portal. What is included in this first phase?
“Construct the foundation, perform site work and erect structural steel for the new 24-story high-rise East Stokes apartment building,” wrote Brian Miller, a project architect for the Chicago-based architectural firm Solomon Cordwell Buenz (SCB), in the application.
Total construction cost among all phases is not publicly available, but in July, the Port of Cleveland’s board authorized a capital lease for East Stokes and up to $140 million in taxable lease revenue bonds. Additional soft costs such as legal and architectural fees were not included.
As seen from behind on Reserve Court, the former Cleveland MLK Branch Library was getting demolished this for future development. This site will not be used for construction staging for East Stokes. Instead, it will be the site of expanded retail and parking on top of which will be a future hotel (Contributed).
The issuance of a permit for a project of this scale is a significant indicator of imminent activity. The permit fees alone for this first phase are $190,392.20, all of which were paid in late August, public records show.
Permit fees are based on the dollar amount of the work to be performed. The City of Cleveland requires that construction get underway within one year of issuance, as verified per city inspection, or the permit expires.
But more so, it means that East Stokes got its construction loan approved. A developer and its general contractor, Power Construction of Chicago in this case, don’t pay such large fees out of their own pockets but from a construction loan that pays for the overall project bid. A bid typically includes permit fees.
East Stokes is part of the 4.5-acre Circle Square district which has already delivered the tallest building in University Circle — the 24-story, 267-foot-tall Artisan Apartments, 10600 Chester, which opened in 2023.
The future site of the East Stokes tower includes the former, curving eastbound lanes of Chester Avenue where they merged into MLK Boulevard. That helped free up a larger development and to “square-off” intersections to calm traffic and help make University Circle more pedestrian and bicycle friendly. The 24-story Artisan is seen at right. It is next to the old MLK Branch Library, fronted by its six arches, which still stood when this picture was taken in May (Google).
The Artisan’s 298 apartments leased out in just one year, and at more than $3 per square foot. That success is what motivated the development team to pursue a follow-on project. But rising construction costs and interest rates slowed progress, including forcing a building redesign to reduce costs.
East Stokes will be University Circle’s second-tallest tower but is only five feet shorter than the Artisan. Also in Circle Square is the 207-unit Library Lofts apartments over a new MLK Branch Library at 10555-10601 Euclid Ave., combining for an 11-story building that opened in 2025.
Demolition of the former MLK Branch Library, built in 1970 right around the corner at 1962 Stokes, is nearly complete. In the long term, it is envisioned as a site for a new hotel. It is not anticipated to be used for construction support site for East Stokes, Smith said.
Instead, he said the construction materials staging area and the construction office for East Stokes will be on the east side of Stokes where the temporary parking lot for the old library was located.
The Circle Square development team is planning an expansion of the existing ground-floor retail space at the Artisan to bring the total leasable space on the west side of Stokes Boulevard up to 35,960 contiguous square feet (CRESCO).
That’s the site of a future Circle Square office building. But given the lackluster state of the national office market, a building here is a long way off. Mature trees at the south end of this lot near Euclid are to be preserved, site plans show.
The last construction project in University Circle that was big enough to warrant a construction crane was Case Western Reserve University’s new $300 million Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Building, 10900 Euclid Ave. It is due to open this fall.
Cleveland Clinic’s new 1-million-square-foot Neurological Institute on Carnegie Avenue between East 89th and 90th streets also needed a construction crane — two actually. But it is just west of University Circle in Cleveland’s Fairfax neighborhood. It is due to open this winter.
Those two big Eds-n-Meds projects are part of the reason why University Circle needs more housing. They will employ thousands of people, some of whom don’t want to drive to work or school on the district’s increasingly congested streets and boulevards.
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