The article is published as part of an exclusive content-sharing agreement with neo-trans.blog.
It’s not often that a 4.2-acre canvas in the heart of a busy central business district can be marketed to investors. But that’s what a swath of property in Downtown Cleveland’s Warehouse District can offer now that the Rockefeller Building is back on the market. And the larger property offering allows the Rockefeller to potentially be sold at a discount.
Rico Pietro, a principal at Cushman & Wakefield-CRESCO Real Estate in Cleveland, told NEOtrans that the historic, 17-story Rockefeller Building, 614 W. Superior Ave., is being taken over and offered for sale by its lender BridgeInvest of Miami. His sales team has the listing.
The building is going on the market after a failed attempt to redevelop the property by its ownership team led by Kenny Wolfe of Dallas and Agostino Pintus of Cleveland. Worse, the building wasn’t secured, allowing vandals and thieves to enter it to damage and steal its ornate, Gilded Age furnishings.
Pintus declined comment and instead referred questions to his former partner. Wolfe, who is accused of financial misdeeds, could not be located for comment prior to publication of this article. BridgeInvest is stepping in to secure the Rockefeller Building within the next 30 days and prevent further damage from occurring to this national historic landmark.
The 1.89-acre property hosting the Rockefeller Building, built in 1905-10, includes its garage behind and adjacent parking lots. The city in 2021 granted the property owners approval to demolish the 1925-built garage for future development but the garage remains standing.
Pietro said that discounted site plus a neighboring, 2.33-acre swath of surface parking lots owned by Cleveland-based Stark Enterprises will be marketed simultaneously to attract more interest from investors located outside of Northeast Ohio.
Sale prices for the Rockefeller Building property and the Stark lots, southeast of the St. Clair Avenue-West 9th Street intersection, are not publicized. Rockefeller Building Associates paid $13.35 million for the property in 2021. Stark’s West 9th Street Parking LLC paid $9.5 million the surface lots in 2014 but never formally proposed a development for it.
“Although the projects and properties are not related, we are currently marketing both at the same time,” Pietro told NEOtrans. “It is strategic for Cushman and Wakefield, and specifically my team, to be marketing the assets at the same time.”
“It allows us to offer both projects per sales call and potentially to attract out-of-market, new-to-Cleveland investment dollars and developers that could stimulate economic development at both properties,” he added.
He said that pricing will be representative of market conditions and intended to encourage development of both properties by one or more investors. That development need not be high-rises. A high sale price would essentially force any buyer to build tall to be able to recoup their investment.
Pietro said he envisions the development of this Warehouse District canvas to be a prerequisite to a successful Riverfront Cleveland development, championed by Bedrock Real Estate.
The reason, he contends, is that infill of the remaining surface parking lots and other underutilized parcels within the business district should come before adding significantly to its periphery.
“We are not looking for only for a vertical development buyer,” he said. “Let’s infill the last few remaining sites in the central business district, then go vertical on the Cuyahoga (River).”
The Rockefeller and Stark lots, combined, represent the largest “parking crater” left in the heart of Downtown Cleveland. That distinction used to belong to the “Superblock” west of Public Square, also in the Warehouse District.
But that’s where Sherwin-Williams is finishing construction of its new 36-story-tall headquarters tower, parking garage and two-story pavilion fronting Public Square. This winter, the headquarters megaproject will put more than 3,000 employees and many visitors right next door to the Rockefeller Building.
Just last December, the property was awarded $7,325,218 from the Ohio Brownfield Program for site clean-up and remediation. At the time, the Rockefeller was under a purchase agreement by an unidentified buyer. That buyer, which reportedly intended to repurpose the former office building primarily with residential, walked away from the deal.
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