This article was published as part of an exclusive content partnership with neo-trans.blog.
After nearly eight years on and off the market, a small parcel at 2208-2210 Superior Viaduct at the west edge of Cleveland’s Flats District has sold to a growing stakeholder in the neighborhood. Addiction treatment center Stella Maris Inc. acquired the property last week and proposes to renovate an historic building on the site to expand the scope of its services. The site was twice proposed for a residential tower but neither advanced past the conceptual stage.
Instead, Stella Maris bought the 0.3-acre parcel and its 8,781-square-foot building for $840,000, according to Cuyahoga County property records. The 100-plus-years-old building is a single-story structure set back from the old Superior Viaduct with a small parking lot out front.
On the other side of the building, on Washington Avenue, it is a two-story structure due to the downward-sloping land. There, it has no setback from the street. The brick building has wood framing and is rated by the county’s real estate appraisers to be in fair condition.
Stella Maris, Latin for “Star of the Sea,” is based almost directly across the street at 1320 Washington. The treatment center was founded in 1948 by Father Otis Winchester of the neighboring St. Malachi Church and members of a then-new organization, Alcoholics Anonymous, to house and support homeless men through their recovery from alcohol dependency.
In 1950, the treatment center bought its first property, a small house at 1306 Winslow Ave., county records show. Since then, Stella Maris has expanded to nearly 50,000 square feet of treatment facilities, offices, an auditorium and a popular coffee shop. Its most recent expansions were its largest.
In 2020, it built 12,480 square feet of treatment space at its Washington Avenue campus. It also bought the former St. John Cantius convent, 2270 Professor Ave. in Cleveland’s Tremont neighborhood, and renovated it as a 13,000-square-foot, 32-bed residential treatment center that opened in 2022.
“Stella Maris is one of two stand-alone medical detox centers in Cleveland, and the only site where you can move through an entire continuum of care on one campus block,” its Web site noted. Care services include withdrawal-detoxication management, inpatient residential, partial hospitalization, intensive outpatient recovery management, and supportive housing.
Kelli Wall, director of development and advancement at Stella Maris said the newly purchased building will house administrative offices on the second floor with the first floor on the Washington side accommodating a donation center, warehousing and storage.
“We’ve grown exponentially and we have no storage space,” Wall said. “The warehouse will allow us to do bulk purchasing and save money which, since we’re a nonprofit, is very important to us. We get a lot of donations like clothing, shoes, hygiene products. It will be fabulous as we are out of space we’re very excited about it.”
She said items left by prior users of the building are being cleared out. Actual renovations and conversion of the building for Stella Maris’ use could take about a year following design approvals by the city. Hill Street Construction of Cleveland has been hired to do the work, Wall said.
Cushman & Wakefield/CRESCO Real Estate of Cleveland represented both buyer and seller in the transaction. CRESCO Principal Rico Pietro represented Stella Maris and Vice President David Leb represented seller Daryl Kertesz, principal of Woodmere-based Activity Capital.
“With frontage on both Washington and Superior Viaduct and great views of downtown, it’s a really enticing site, but not the easiest to develop,” Leb told NEOtrans. “Luckily, the bones of the existing structure are still in good shape, and Stella Maris was able to creatively figure out how to best use the building to expand its scope of services in the area.”
CRESCO took over marketing of the property in early 2022 with an asking price of $1.5 million. Kertesz affiliate Downtown Ventures LLC acquired the property in 2016 for $350,000, according to county records. Leb said that, when CRESCO first listed the property, the development market was stronger with the city still offering 15-year, 100-percent tax abatement and more manageable debt options for developers.
“Both the seller and the buyer are happy with the valuation, which is always a cherry on top of any transaction when you have that outcome for the two parties involved,” Leb added.
“We initially planned to develop the property ourselves, but we tend to err on the conservative side,” Kertesz said. “When Stella Maris Cleveland expressed interest, we knew it was the right decision. We greatly admire their dedication to providing transformational chemical dependency and mental health treatment services. Their continued presence and expansion in the neighborhood will undoubtedly help them better the lives of many more people.”
Shortly after acquiring it, Activity Capital proposed a 64-unit, 11-story apartment building at 2208 Superior. Kertesz said he chose that height because it would come up to the then-115-foot current zoning height restriction for the site. But he expressed interest in possibly getting a variance to build up to 20 stories tall if the market would support it.
Instead, the city raised the height district on its own to 250 feet. A new developer, United Community Developers of Cleveland, sought to test the vertical limit in 2020 by proposing a 27-story, 186-unit apartment tower called The Viaduct. Its principal Wayne Jatsek secured a purchase agreement for 2208 Superior, got the city to approve plans for the tower and tried to raise investor interest while contributing little of his own. But the project and its developer soon faded away.
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