A slew of construction permit applications were submitted to the Cleveland Building Department last week for the redevelopment of the former Voss Industries plant, 2168 W. 25th St., in Cleveland’s Ohio City neighborhood. This $63.4 million project along with a planned bus rapid transit corridor on West 25th promises to expand the vibrancy of the Market District farther south.
Last week, the architect for developer MRN Ltd. submitted 23 separate files of detailed plans to the city for the mixed-use redevelopment of the 234,766-square-foot, multi-structure factory. The complex began its manufacturing life in 1884 as the Rauch & Lang Carriage Co. and ended it in 2020 as an aerospace plant for Voss Industries. Voss and its 300 jobs relocated to suburban Berea.
The property made its first step toward a new, mixed-use purpose when MRN affiliate 2168 West 25th Street LLC acquired the plant and its 4-acre site for $7.5 million in March 2021, county records show. In its latest and apparently final iteration, the complex will be called The Carriage Co. and feature 139 apartments above 115 indoor parking spaces plus ground-floor retail and restaurants, plans show.
The redevelopment will also create unique spaces by reactivating the long-dormant West 25th Place and Hancock Avenues that intersect in the middle of the site. Files submitted to the city on Dec. 18 include requests for permits for interior demolition, construction, mechanical, electrical, plumbing and landscaping. Even if there are no building, zoning, fire or other code compliance issues found, it may still take months for the permits to be approved and work to begin, as is common.
“The scope of work is to convert a historic factory complex compromised of 14 existing building segments into new apartments with amenities including indoor parking and a cold shell for office and future retail uses,” wrote MRN’s Chief Operating Officer Joseph Del Re in submitting the documents to the Building Department.
The architect for The Carriage Co. redevelopment is Cleveland-based architect SA Group. Among its credits was the renovation of an historic building on Superior Viaduct in Ohio City for Snip Internet’s offices, prior to its acquisition last year by Chicago-based Zentro. SA Group has also worked with MRN on other projects before.
At The Carriage Co., the projected cost for the requested, permitted work is estimated at just over $18.5 million, public records show. But full build-out of the overall redevelopment will cost quite a bit more, based on information in a tax-increment financing (TIF) deal approved with the city as well as an Ohio historic tax credit. Both were awarded last year.
Planned to follow the residential work is the provision of up to 24,000 square feet of rentable commercial office and co-working space, 25,000 square feet of general retail and restaurant space, and 50,000 square feet of anchor food/beverage, pickleball and indoor mini-golf use, according to publicly available documents from the city. MRN also owns several surface parking lots along West 26th Street behind The Carriage Co.
“In order to assist with the project financing, the developer has requested the city impose a 15-year, non-school TIF,” the legislation read. “The TIF will support debt service related to the project. The project will create and/or cause to create approximately 125 new W-2 jobs at the project site with an approximate payroll of $3,750,000.”
The city entered into a 15-year non-school TIF agreement with 2168 West 25th Street LLC. By passing the legislation, the city declared certain improvements with respect to the project to be a public purpose and exempt 100 percent of the improvements from real property taxes. The public purpose, according to the proposed ordinance, is that the redevelopment would clean up and repurpose a blighted property.
In June 2023, 2168 West 25th Street LLC was awarded $5 million in Ohio Historic Preservation Tax Credits. In September 2023, the project was authorized to receive an Economic Development Loan of up to $2 million from Cuyahoga County. The year before, the redevelopment was granted $724,838 from the Ohio Brownfield Program for cleanup and remediation of the site.
The project was previously referred to as the Carriage Works but there is a smaller redevelopment nearby in Tremont called the Scranton Avenue Carriage Works, 2341 Scranton Rd. That project by Broadview Heights-based JAMM Real Estate Co. offers seven apartments and one ground-floor retail space.
A few hundred feet away from The Carriage Co., MRN owns and continues to invest in the historic, 10-story United Bank Building at the southwest corner of West 25th and Lorain Avenue. It recently expanded its Market District Lofts by converting excess office spaces on the seventh floor to 17 residential units.
Other developments are emerging along the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority’s planned $50 million bus rapid transit corridor on West 25th. They are the BVQ neighborhood residential investments that include the multi-phase Hub 27 development plus major projects in Old Brooklyn at Memphis-Pearl and on the east side of Pearl as well.
An e-mail sent by NEOtrans to Del Re at MRN, Ltd., seeking more information and comment on the project, was not responded to prior to publication of this article.
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