A group led by Cleveland-area investor Joel Scheer plans to refashion the buildings as an office complex called Settler's Point.
CLEVELAND, Ohio - A growing construction-management business is laying the foundation for a bigger presence in Cleveland, through an office-and-showroom relocation to the former Sammy's in the Flats.
Welty Building Company, Ltd., a 70-year-old company based in Fairlawn, has signed a lease on much of the first floor of the brick complex on West 10th Street. The company and its furniture subsidiary, Environments 4 Business, are the first tenants lined up for an office redevelopment of the buildings, empty since the well-known Sammy's catering and events business closed in 2013.
A group led by Cleveland-area investor Joel Scheer plans to refashion the buildings as an office complex called Settler's Point. The name is a nod to the nearby site where Moses Cleaveland's surveying team landed in 1796 to sketch out a town on the east bank of the Cuyahoga River.
Construction at Settler's Point could start within 30 days.
Welty expects to move by early 2016, freeing up the company's current offices and showroom on the ground floor of the 515 Euclid parking garage at Euclid Avenue and East Sixth Street. A local developer is considering a high-rise apartment project atop the garage, where restaurants or stores might be more logical street-level tenants than a construction company office.
"I bet we have looked at probably two dozen locations," said Don Taylor, Welty's president and chief executive officer. "The Sammy's facility, Settler's Point, came along sometime in April or May. Our folks really fell in love with the idea of the redevelopment of 10th Street."
Welty opened its Cleveland office four years ago and employs roughly 25 people between the construction business and the furniture showroom. Globally, the company has 144 employees at offices in Ohio and Texas.
Taylor won't talk financials, since Welty is privately held. But he predicts that the Cleveland office will bulk up significantly. He estimates that Welty will double its overall size - revenues and employment - during the next few years, through acquisitions, hiring and landing more contracts. The company recently absorbed Brae Burn Construction of Houston, for example, in a deal with undisclosed terms.
"We anticipate that there will be more announcements here in the not-too-distant future about our growth," Taylor said, adding that the company is seeing strong demand for healthcare projects and corporate headquarters work, in particular.
Naturally, the company is acting as construction manager at Settler's Point, where Welty will occupy just shy of 7,000 square feet. The entire office will double as a demonstration area, of sorts, for Environments 4 Business, a furniture dealer that develops corporate floor plans and helps clients find ways to save space.
Scheer and Rico Pietro, the real estate broker marketing the former Sammy's complex, said they're talking to other creative and financial office tenants to round out the project. At this point, Scheer hasn't asked for any incentives to rehabilitate the property, which he bought for $1.6 million late last year.
Built in sections in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the 31,000-square-foot cluster of buildings originally housed a picture-frame factory. Their age and location, in a historic district, make the structures eligible for federal and state tax credits for preservation. But Scheer doesn't plan to seek those tools.
"I would say that within three to four months that building will be sold out," he said, adding that growth of the Flats East Bank project to the north and the reinvention of Public Square to the southeast are generating more interest in a now-quiet strip of West 10th Street.
"There's so much activity," he said, "and people are clamoring to buy buildings and lease buildings because it's a fun place for Millennials to work. If you're 27 years old, where would you rather be?"
Taylor echoed those sentiments, predicting that the river views and the appearance of the company's future office space - with exposed wood beams and brickwork - will help Welty attract and keep employees.
"I'm not clairvoyant," he said, "but our gut tells us that this is the next direction that growth is going to go. And we should be able to get in on the ground floor of it."