Planning Commission members said Upper Chester is too important, and the window of opportunity too narrow, to delay. But, they want to see much more communication between all the players and property owners in the area.
A remnant of a brick road runs across vacant land north of Chester Avenue, with the Cleveland Clinic's main campus in the background. The property is part of the long-dormant Upper Chester site in Cleveland's Hough neighborhood. Now, a Florida developer has reemerged with a proposal to build apartments and a grocery store along Chester and senior housing further north.
CLEVELAND -- The Cleveland City Planning Commission lent its support this morning to an apartment and retail proposal in the Hough neighborhood, despite concerns expressed by the Cleveland Clinic and a nonprofit development group.
The vote was a key hurdle for legislation permitting the city to enter a development agreement with the Finch Group, a Florida company. That agreement allows the city to sell the developer land in an area known as Upper Chester, after the Finch Group lines up financing, gains control of other properties and produces more detailed plans.
The legislation will head to City Council on Monday, the body's last meeting of 2012.
Representatives of the Clinic and Neighborhood Progress Inc., a nonprofit group that has worked with the city to assemble the Upper Chester site, said they want to see a competitive request for development proposals. The Finch Group was selected as part of a master-planning process in 2007, before the U.S. financial crisis and recession delayed the project and derailed development across the country.
"We fully support an open-door RFP process to bring in alternative proposals," Brian Smith, the Clinic's director of strategic project development, told the commission.
The Clinic owns land at East 93rd Street and Chester Avenue, just west of where developer Wes Finch hopes to build apartments.
The city, which plans to sell its property for fair-market value after an appraisal, does not have to solicit bids. And Planning Commission members said the project is too important, and the window of opportunity too narrow, to delay Upper Chester more.
Still, they want to see much more communication between the city, the developer, neighbors and nearby institutions, including the Clinic and Case Western Reserve University.
"I don't think an RFP is necessary to have a world-class development today," said David Bowen, an architect who sits on the commission. "But I will also tell you that this site plan, as it's shown today, wouldn't be acceptable."
Bowen was one of four commission members who voted for the plan. After the meeting, he said he doesn't object to Finch's plan to build 295 market-rate apartments, senior housing, a grocery store and other retail north of Chester Avenue, at the Cleveland Clinic's front door.
But he wants the developer to look more closely at pedestrian connections and ways the project interacts with its surroundings, including the Clinic, CWRU's future medical campus to the east and the neighborhoods to the north.
"Balancing these forces is not easy," commission member Norman Krumholz said of the developer's plan to remake a blighted area and the reservations expressed by the Clinic and Neighborhood Progress. "But my inclination is to go with the proposal as it stands, given the closing window on financing and opportunity."
Commission member Lillian Kuri, who works for the Cleveland Foundation, abstained from the vote. The foundation paid for most of the 2007 master-planning effort and views Upper Chester as a critical property in the broader University Circle area.
The Plain Dealer reported in mid-November that plans for Upper Chester were re-emerging, four years after they fizzled in the wake of the U.S. financial crisis. Though Upper Chester spans more than 100 acres of Hough, the city and the Finch Group are starting with 38 acres bounded by East 93rd and East 101st streets and running north from Chester Avenue toward Hough Avenue.
Finch hopes to buy the land from the city next year and start construction in November or December.
The developer also has an agreement with Neighborhood Progress, which committed in 2007 to buying property in the Upper Chester footprint and selling it to the Finch Group if the company came up with a city-approved plan. That agreement expires Dec. 31 of this year.
On Twitter: @mjarboe
Subscribe on Facebook: MichelleJarboeMcFee