The $42 million project is the first step toward remaking Upper Chester, a broad stretch of land north of the Cleveland Clinic's main campus and west of University Circle.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- After years of delays, debate and deliberations, the empty lots stippling the southeast edge of Cleveland's Hough neighborhood might see shovels soon.
The Finch Group, a Florida developer with a foothold in Cleveland, hopes to start construction early next year on a 177-unit apartment building at East 97th Street and Chester Avenue. The $42 million project is the first step toward remaking Upper Chester, a broad stretch of land north of the Cleveland Clinic's main campus and west of University Circle.
Conscious of financing challenges and the need for neighborhood consensus, the Finch Group is starting small. The first six-story apartment building will occupy one corner of Finch's 38-acre target site -- which itself covers less than half of the potential 100-acre Upper Chester footprint.
But the deal has bigger implications, as an attempt to blur barriers between the gap-toothed residential neighborhoods north of Chester and the bustling employment, educational and cultural centers to the south and east.
Representatives from the Finch Group and Westlake Reed Leskosky, a Cleveland architecture firm, received conceptual approval for the apartment plans at a city design review committee meeting Thursday morning. Their sketches show a project that will start on Chester and, gradually, reach north, with apartments, stores, subsidized apartments for the elderly, townhouses and offices.
That broad vision isn't a surprise. Developer Wes Finch described it last fall, as he and the city hammered out a deal for publicly-owned land. But the starting point -- full-priced apartments, with a concierge, a coffee shop and a small grocery store -- marks a change in approach.
In June, Finch missed out on critical tax credits to support construction of a 60-unit senior apartment building along East 97th. He plans to reapply, through a competitive process managed by the Ohio Housing Finance Agency. Deed restrictions on the land, once occupied by low-income apartments, still require a certain number of affordable homes on the 38-acre site.
Those low-cost apartments will come later, though. For now, the Finch Group has turned its attention to building on University Circle's recent market-rate rental boom.
"The supply and demand dynamics are totally out of whack right now," said Finch, who owns the nearby Park Lane Villa apartments and Parkside Dwellings and believes there's ample room for more rentals in the neighborhood.
The first apartments at Upper Chester will range from a handful of 512-square-foot efficiencies to two-bedroom units spanning 1,120 square feet. Projected rents are $1,000 to $2,200 a month. Aimed at researchers, educators and medical residents on short stints at nearby hospitals or Case Western Reserve University, most of the apartments will have one bedroom.
The Clinic and CWRU recently announced plans to build a medical education campus south of Chester, to open in 2016. And even with the Clinic trimming its budget, hospital building projects might lead to more high-paying, short-term jobs.
"Most people are going to come for three or four years," Finch said. "Most are 25 to 35, and that's our target market."
His plans call for a complicated stack of financing, including a government-insured mortgage on the apartments and federal New Markets Tax Credits for the grocery store and other ground-floor retail. The project also would quality for residential tax abatement.
Construction on the first building could end by June 2015. If Finch can't close on his financing and buy land from the city early next year, then he'll push back the project until late 2014, with a spring 2016 opening.
The next phases would be the senior housing and a roughly 130-unit addition to the first apartment building, which eventually would line Chester from East 97th to East 101st Street. Later projects might include offices and townhouses, which could be built by 2020.
Last year, Finch's plans included a full supermarket, something the developer says is still a possibility at Upper Chester. But he's starting with the small market and watching what grocers are doing elsewhere in the city.
The Finch Group and Councilman T.J. Dow expect to hold one more community meeting before presenting the project to the Cleveland City Planning Commission for approval in early October.