Developers Can Raze Vacant Rowhouses for University Circle Apartment Project

Michelle Jarboe, Crain's

The developers of a roughly 250-unit apartment project in University Circle received hard-won approvals on Friday, July 1, after spending three months in limbo.

The Cleveland City Planning Commission voted, 4 to 2, to greenlight demolition of a strip of vacant rowhouses — the sole remaining building on a 2.2-acre site framed by Stokes Boulevard, Cedar Avenue and East 107th Street. The commission also blessed schematic designs for Stokes West, an approximately $35 million project that will fill the block.

The votes ended an impasse over the brick rowhouses, a relic of a once-bustling district at the edge of a predominantly Black neighborhood. Some commission members believed that the rental homes, built in the early 1900s, should be saved and renovated for new occupants.

The commission tabled the project twice, in April and May, sending the developers back to the drawing board — and to community meetings.

On Friday, City Council President Blaine Griffin, who represents the area, spoke in favor of advancing the proposal. So did Terrell Knight, the economic development manager at Fairfax Renaissance Development Corp., a nonprofit community development organization that serves the neighborhood to the west.

"This project, I think, will be something that will continue to edify and reactivate Cedar Avenue," Knight said.

Bringing more residents to the district will support a Meijer neighborhood market that is rising at East 105th Street and Cedar, at the southern end of the Cleveland Clinic's main campus, said Joyce Pan Huang, the city's planning director. She also applauded the developers' focus on public transit and their decision to add six townhouse-style units to their plans along Cedar.

"I believe that the benefits of the new construction outweigh the costs of demolition," Huang told the commission.

University Circle Inc. owns the triangular site and has a ground-lease deal with ACRE, an Atlanta-based firm that's new to this market, and local developers Brent Zimmerman and Sam Messina. The partners are planning an eight-story building where 66% of the apartments will be furnished studios, with utilities included in the monthly rent.

The rest of the apartments will be more traditional one- and two-bedroom units.

The average rent for a studio will be $1,395, according to a presentation submitted to the planning commission. The typical one-bedroom unit will rent for $1,595, while the average rate for a two-bedroom will be $2,495.

A dozen units scattered throughout the project will be reserved for low-income tenants. During Friday's meeting, ACRE development manager Jeff Goldstein stressed that the units will not be short-term rentals listed on Airbnb or other booking platforms.

"We believe, at these rents, we will have some of the most affordable new product in the city of Cleveland," he said.

The apartment building will include fitness facilities, a first-floor co-working space and a pool deck. The parking lot, with space for only 100 cars, will accommodate electric vehicles. The developers hope to work with the city to slim down the surrounding streets and to provide parallel parking around the perimeter of the site.

Revised site plans also show pocket parks that will bookend the apartment building, at Cedar and Stokes and at East 107th and Stokes. Public art in one of those spaces will reference the history of Cedar and the Fairfax neighborhood, said Steve Jennings of LDA Architects.

The developers studied renovating the rowhouses, at a projected cost of $2.2 million. But the deal didn't make sense, Goldstein said. Restoring the homes would have hampered the blockwide redevelopment effort and resulted in units with inefficient layouts and above-market rents, he told the commission.

University Circle Inc. has owned the rowhouses since 1989. The last tenant moved out in 2017. The property had been losing money for 17 years, said Elise Yablonsky, the organization's vice president of community development.

During community meetings, residents focused on parking concerns and their desire to see activity along Cedar — and not on the demolition, she said. The Stokes West developers plan to incorporate wood paneling, columns and stonework from the rowhouses into their project.

Commission members August Fluker and Denise McCray-Scott voted against both the demolition and the new construction proposal. Fluker chastised University Circle Inc. for letting the townhomes fall into disrepair. He also chided the organization, which he said is falling short in its relationships with the surrounding neighborhoods.

"I would like to remind everyone that, as we begin to start planning in Black and brown communities, the lift will always be heavier," he said. "The cost will always be more. Because it's called deferred maintenance. Period. It's no more complicated than that. And I'm not talking about buildings. I'm talking about impacts of redlining."