The Flats East Bank developers are on the verge of closing a financing deal for their second phase, which includes apartments, restaurants and more offices.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The developers behind the Flats East Bank project expect to break ground within weeks on their first residential building, the centerpiece of the waterfront neighborhood's second phase.
The Cleveland City Planning Commission and a downtown-focused design review committee gave the thumbs-up this week to the footprint for an eight-story, 243-unit apartment building facing the Cuyahoga River. The Wolstein Group and Fairmount Properties have applied for a building permit for the foundation and needed the commission's approval before the city would sign off.
Adam Fishman of Fairmount, which is developing the project with Scott and Iris Wolstein, said the team is on the verge of closing on financing for phase two. Fishman wouldn't discuss the details, but the final package is sure to include a blend of public and private money.
The $275 million first phase of the Flats project sits east of West 10th Street and comprises the Ernst & Young Tower, an Aloft hotel, a fitness center, restaurants and a parking garage. The second phase will be anchored by the large, curving apartment building, where six residential floors will perch atop 10 to 15 ground-floor restaurants and businesses and largely concealed second-story parking.
View full sizeAn elevation plan shows the riverfront face of the planned apartment building at the Flats East Bank project in downtown Cleveland. Phase two plans also show a handful of freestanding restaurants and entertainment venues, including Panini's and Toby Keith's I Love This Bar & Grill. Those buildings, and a long-discussed riverfront boardwalk, would open by June 2015.
A second, lower-rise office building north of Front Street would lag the apartments, with financing that hinges on pre-leasing. Fishman would not identify potential office tenants, but he said the building might range from 130,000 to 175,000 square feet.
"We've just finished leasing 425,000 square feet in a location where many said we couldn't lease a single square foot," Fishman said of the swift movement of office tenants to the E&Y Tower. "We're extraordinarily bullish on our prospects."
Don Frantz, a consultant working with the developers, said the apartment floor plans call for 175 one-bedroom units, 61 two-bedroom units and seven three-bedroom units. Fishman would not provide specific rent figures but said the building will charge rates "near the high end" of the market.
A small portion of the building -- less than 20 percent -- could be corporate suites, which companies rent to house traveling executives or short-term hires.
The building would hold 246 parking spaces, all reserved for residents. The project already includes several public-parking areas, in the phase one garage or on surface lots, and sits next to the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority's waterfront rail line.
Frantz and representatives from Dimit Architects showed a few renderings at public meetings this week, but they cautioned that elements of the design still might change. One high-profile feature stood out: Large "Flats East Bank" lettering, on top of the apartment building, modeled on iconic displays like the Domino Sugars sign in Baltimore.
"This is a high-quality project," said Jack Bialosky, Jr., an architect and member of the downtown design review committee. "It's everything that we want to come here. That it has a sandwich of retail, then parking, then residential makes it extraordinarily difficult to accomplish. And it looks great to me."