University Circle's Next High-Rise Set to See Construction Soon

This article was published through an exclusive content-sharing agreement with neo-trans.blog.

Sometimes it’s hard to keep track of all the construction happening in and near Cleveland’s University Circle. And for those who don’t travel to or through here very often, you may be surprised to see the next big construction project is already making lots of progress.

From Chester Avenue or Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, it’s hard for passersby to miss the East Stokes’ construction fencing, the heavy construction vehicles laboring, or the construction dust rising up into the air and settling thickly onto parked cars nearby.

But if you’re on Euclid Avenue and you pass by the site for the next 24-story apartment tower in the Circle Square mega-development, you might actually miss it. The reason is the fenced-in construction site is set back from Euclid, slightly hidden behind mature trees and a modular construction office.

Soon, a marketing team will get its hands on East Stokes and give it a new name. For now, East Stokes is a working title — a geographic term to compartmentalize the massive Circle Square development into bite-size pieces. Even so, this is a $140+ million bite.

NEOtrans has already reported twice on this construction project getting underway, starting with a report on the issuance of construction permits on Sept. 8. It was confirmed by a spokesperson for the development team led by Cleveland-based UC City Center LLC and PCP Flow.

“The site is being activated as we speak,” said Alex Smith, vice president of Cushman & Wakefield | CRESCO Real Estate, on Sept. 11. “Sitework will commence ASAP for a targeted project completion date of June 2028.”

Construction workers are removing old parking lots and the old curving lanes and sewers of Chester that merged into MLK’s. They were replaced with a right-angle intersection that freed up land for East Stokes. The site will be excavated and a thick concrete pad foundation poured to support the tower.

East Stokes will have 281 apartments, about 17,682-square-feet of ground-floor retail, and four stories of structured parking with 315 spaces. A future phase will have a half-dozen townhomes along the MLK side, screening the parking garage behind.

The same development team, and its general contractor Power Construction of Chicago, built University Circle’s tallest building right across Stokes Boulevard from East Stokes. Construction on the 24-story, 267-foot-tall Artisan apartment tower, 10700 Chester, was completed in June 2023.

It was followed at the end of 2024 by Circle Square’s 11-story, 207-unit Library Lofts atop the MLK Branch Library which relocated around the corner from the old MLK Branch Library on Stokes.

Library Lofts and the 298-unit Artisan apartments leased out quickly, providing the market case for a second tower of similar size to The Artisan. East Stokes will be about 263 feet tall.

Address for the new East Stokes tower will be 10700 Chester Ave. Just south of Chester to Reserve Court, Stokes closed to traffic on Sept. 21 for 450 days. Reserve is an alley just north of Euclid.

Before it reopens, Stokes’ will be redesigned as part of a larger project. But in the Circle Square portion north of Euclid, the roadway will become a two-way street.

North of Euclid in the Circle Square development area, Stokes’ roadway will be narrowed. A protected bike lane will be provided, sidewalks widened and a streetscape installed with benches, landscaping and public art on the roughly 500-foot-long section from Chester and Euclid.

South of Euclid Avenue, for 1.1 miles up the hill to its intersection with MLK, Stokes will continue to be one-way southbound but the roadway will be significantly altered.

Stokes’ four one-way lanes of traffic will be narrowed to two lanes to add a two-way protected bike path and to slow down traffic. That will reduce traffic noise and make the surroundings safer for pedestrians and cyclists.

Those plans were developed over the past year following public input meetings in Ward 6, hosted by Councilman Blaine Griffin. An ordinance to authorize a $946,229 city contribution to the $4.73 million project is making its way through City Council and is up for Planning Commission review Friday.

The city funding is from Road and Bridge Bonds & Public Utility Funds. The remainder of the project is funded by a federal Surface Transportation Block Grant awarded by the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency to the Ohio Department of Transportation which is administering the project.

Final design of the new Stokes roadway is due to be completed this winter. A construction contractor will be selected in spring 2027 and construction scheduled to start by summer 2027. Construction is to be completed by summer 2028, according to the city.

That’s roughly around the same time East Stokes would be completed and add a second 24-story tower to Cleveland’s second downtown. For now, it’s a fenced-in, dusty lot of activity, digging down to start building up.

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