Cleveland’s Warehouse District Gets A Lift
Stark Enterprises pitches development plan that will take Cleveland’s Warehouse District to the next level.
Susan H. Fishman

Rendering of Cleveland’s Warehouse District after completion.

“It needs much more density,” he says. “There have to be a lot more people on the streets, which is what attracts people to an urban neighborhood and keeps them there. It’s what urbanity is about, and not just in terms of numbers of people, but because there are too many wide open spaces in the form of surface parking lots, those properties need to be developed in order to eliminate these big gaps; it’s like teeth missing in a smile.”

The other missing component in the Warehouse District is mixed-use, says Stark. “The great urban neighborhoods that we all have been to, whether it’s SoHo or Tribeca or Georgetown, have a very interesting and interactive retail format that characterizes and defines the street, and we don’t have much, if any, of that in the Warehouse District,” he notes. “So if we could fill those gaps with significant density and put many more thousands of people on the streets, and if we can provide a character by the right kind of retail and development of the streetscape aesthetically, then I believe we will have a great urban neighborhood.”

Stark Enterprises has acquired some of the most prime real estate in Northeast Ohio and developed commercial properties from small community-based shopping centers like Brooklor Plaza in North Olmsted, Ohio, to major suburban shopping districts like the Montrose area of West Akron where Rosemont Commons, The Shops of Fairlawn, OfficeMax Plaza, West Market Plaza and Lowe’s Plaza comprise 1 million square feet. Over the years, the company has established a new vision of establishing identities for communities by employing mixed-use density and commanding architectural design to create distinctive, pedestrian-friendly commercial districts. An example is Crocker Park, a $480 million mixed-use development in Westlake, Ohio, that vertically integrates retail with residential, office, dining and entertainment venues, all executed around an inviting streetscape. The project encompasses 12 city blocks with great design in public spaces, streetscapes, parks and alleyways and features a mix of locally owned shops, cutting-edge office buildings, street-interactive restaurants, loft-style apartments and city homes and work/live townhouses. It also includes one of Ohio’s first boutique hotels, a community college, a regional medical hub, regional transit services, civic space and a community arts theater center.

With its community-based philosophy, Stark Enterprises is perfectly positioned to head up the current development plan for the Warehouse District — a massive undertaking that’s impact is so transformative, it requires the collaboration of all of the key civic-interested organizations in town, from foundations to groups like the Greater Cleveland Partnership. The first phase of the project alone, which is scheduled to open in 2010, is estimated at $1 billion. With the development potential of all of the land that will be north of the Warehouse District, it could ultimately be close to $20 billion, says Stark.

“There are all kinds of developers who are supportive of the plan, and I’ve made multiple presentations to the Downtown Cleveland Partnership, which consists of the key developers in Downtown. They seem to be nearly unanimously in favor of what we’re proposing.”

The Plan

Still in its infancy, the current Warehouse District development plan begins with a site that consists of all surface parking lots that, with one small exception, do not require tear down of any existing buildings, historic or otherwise.

“This is simply realizing the plan of the Warehouse District, which is to build mixed-use buildings on those lots that once had such buildings and not to exceed certain height limitations,” Stark notes.

Stark Enterprises has designed a prospective tenant mix for the streetscape, which will feature 1 million square feet of retail and, above that, approximately 3 million to 4 million square feet of mixed-use space, including office, residential and hotel tenants.

At the same time, Stark Enterprises is advocating the expansion of the Warehouse District. The Cleveland Port Authority is in the process of moving its operations and extending the urban grid of the Warehouse District north to the water’s edge of Lake Erie and west to the Cuyahoga River. The proposal includes bringing the Lakeshore Freeway down to grade between West Ninth and West Third, so there is no longer a separation between everything south of the freeway and everything north of the freeway.

“That freeway is nothing but a shortcut through the middle of the city that was built with little regard for how the water should be connected to the center of the city,” Stark notes.

Today, the Warehouse District is a self-contained urban community that is home to a residential population of 2,800. The current average income of the Warehouse District resident is $75,000 annually with a median income of $54,500. There is a daytime business population of 167,000. In total, the entire market serving the Warehouse District from Rocky River to the West, Parma to the South and Bratenahl to the East approaches a population of 800,000.

With both the further renovation of existing buildings in the Warehouse District and the new construction by Stark Enterprises, the Warehouse District population is expected to increase to approximately 12,500. The daytime populations (business and tourist) will more than triple to 566,000 office workers and visitors daily over the next 5 years. These numbers could be even greater with the proposed construction of new gaming facilities and a new convention center.

There are also numerous major residential developments underway in the immediate vicinity that will increase the new residential population by an additional 13,000. Those projects include The Flats East Bank Neighborhood, by Scott Wolstein of Developers Diversified (331 housing units that include apartments and townhouses slated for 2007), The Avenue District Development on 12th Street, by Zaremba, Inc. (400 condominiums that include lofts, penthouses and townhouses slated for 2007), The Euclid Corridor Project, by The City of Cleveland (4,000 residential units along the corridor slated for 2008), Lighthouse Landing, by Walnut Grove Ventures Development Corporation (228 condominium units in two towers of 18 and 22 stories slated for 2008), East 4th Street Corner Alley, by MRN Ltd. (163 rentable housing units slated for 206/2007) and 515 Euclid Avenue, by Golberg (28-story condominium tower).

The greatest appeal of the Warehouse District lifestyle is to young professionals and empty nesters — by far the largest segment of American society. This segment is creating the demand for dense, mixed-use living that the Ohio suburbs, with its 30-year-old housing stock and office supply, cannot provide. By 2010, the Warehouse District will meet the need in the Ohio market for a more dynamic, urban lifestyle.