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A new direction for a longtime Flats West Bank restaurant site on the Cuyahoga River is about to get underway. But it may be early August before before the public will have the opportunity to enjoy it, according to a spokesman for the construction contractor.
Cleveland’s Building Department today issued a construction permit for $1 million worth of renovation work to the former Shooters on the Water restaurant which had a 37-year run at 1148 Main Ave. When the renovations are done, it will reopen as Shooters Yacht Club with musician and former Cleveland resident MGK (known before as Machine Gun Kelly) leading its ownership group.
Thomas Flynn, director of construction at Beachwood-based TurnDev, submitted the permit application and planning documents for the project. The renovations, taking about four months, will primarily be indoors — a 15,000-square-foot, two-level space in the 50,000-square-foot Sugar Warehouse. TurnDev has been a very busy firm of late, including with multiple development projects.
The space is leased from Nautica Entertainment LLC. That firm, led by developer Jeffrey Jacobs, also owns the Powerhouse, Jacobs Pavilion and the Lady Caroline dinner cruise ship in addition to the Sugar Warehouse that was built in 1987, the year Shooters on the Water opened.
“(This is for) renovation of Shooters Yacht Club — bathrooms, bars, flooring, drywall, insulation, repair damaged decking,” Flynn wrote in the permit application.
TurnDev also oversaw interior demolition of the former restaurant’s furnishings. Total cost of that work was estimated at $50,000 in November 2024, prior to the beginning of demolitions, Cleveland Building Department records showed.
Sources familiar with the project but who requested anonymity told NEOtrans that MGK and local restaurateur Pat D’Onofrio of Velvet Tango Room, Slyman’s Tavern and Inferno Flats (East Bank), were jointly pursuing the Shooters project.
Ohio Secretary of State records show a new partnership SYC JC LLC was formed in March 2024 and acquired the lease rights on or about Nov. 13, the source said. SYC refers to “Shooters Yacht Club.”
State business records also show that, in February 2024, Shooters Yacht Club LLC was incorporated with Andre Cisco listed as the registered agent and 1148 Main as the address. Cisco is a Cleveland entrepreneur who contributed to MGK’s first album.
The assignment for the tradename Shooters on the Water was changed Nov. 13 from Shooters on the Water’s founder and longtime owner Roger Loecy of Chardon to SYC JC LLC. The statutory agent for SYC JC is Andrew Wilber, a partner at Cleveland law firm Kohrman Jackson & Krantz LLP, public records show.
Velvet Tango Room is owned by Cleveland-based CrossCountry Mortgage CEO Ron Leonhardt Jr. TurnDev is a joint venture between Leonhardt and Jon Pinney, managing partner of Kohrman Jackson & Krantz. Pinney is the designated spokesman for TurnDev.
NEOtrans has reached out to these principals for official confirmation and comment but had not heard back from them. NEOtrans also reached out multiple times to MGK’s publicist Natasha Dubin-Collatos at Rogers & Cowan PMK in Beverly Hills, CA but hasn’t heard back from her either.
This will be MGK’s second establishment in Cleveland. On the other side of the Cuyahoga River on the East Bank of the Flats district, he opened 27 Club Coffee, 1215 W. 10th St. in 2020 in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The restaurant and coffee shop’s name 27 Club Coffee is a nod to the “big six” musicians who died at the age of 27 — Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Amy Winehouse.
MGK was born Richard Colson Baker in 1990 in Houston. His parents were both Christian missionaries and lived around the world. He came to Cleveland in the 2000s, living near Shaker Square and went to Shaker Heights High School. MGK has said he considers Cleveland to be his hometown despite living in many other places.
Cleveland is where he discovered and honed his musical abilities. But after high school, his father kicked MGK out. So the aspiring rapper went to the famed Apollo Theater in New York City and won an Amateur Night Audition, making him the first rapper ever to win. It sent him on to stardom.
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