Focused on transformation, Frontline Development Group does more than construct buildings. “We want to build community,” says Sheila Wright, president and managing partner of Frontline Development Group, which she launched in 2017, and then with the City of Cleveland entered into an agreement to acquire about 5 acres of land in the Hough neighborhood.
Today, its Allen Estates project at historic League Park is designed as a mixed-use, mixed-income neighborhood of 300 housing units — modern residences, brownstones and mid-rise apartments with commercial tenants at ground level. The project spans along East 65th Street from Linwood to Wade Park and the East 66th Street corridor connecting to the Cleveland Foundation’s headquarters and the new Cleveland Public Library branch.
“Most of my life in Cleveland, I’ve heard people talk about the need for investment on the east and south sides, and it’s happening,” Wright says. “With support, investment and attention, there is an explosion of activity.”
Wright says the level of economic activity in progress is “not the normal course” and instead represents “an injection of investment we are seeing play out.”
Gordon Crossing at the southwest corner of East 101st Street and Woodward Avenue will include a three-story building with 54 (46 of those secured by the low-income housing tax credit) apartments in the Newton Avenue Historic District in partnership with Frontline Development Group and Woda Cooper Companies. There is also a project by Famicos Foundation called Henrietta Homes, coming online this summer.
Khalid Hawthorne, the organization’s real estate development director, says vacant lots in Hough offer an avenue to “kickstart development and provide accessible price points.” Famicos Foundation has been rooted in the Hough community for more than 50 years, providing services from neighborhood revitalization to social services and affordable housing solutions.
He points to other important Hough projects: Innova Apartments in the southeast corridor, Axis at Ansel and The Lumos. The Inspiron Group of Cleveland is building the 131-unit Addis View apartments with up to four phases amounting to 400-plus apartments planned. Marous Development Group is planning for a 127-unit building at East 82nd Street and Chester Avenue.
In nearby Glenville on the corner of East 105th Street and
Superior — once referred to as The Gold Coast — Famicos Foundation has been rehabilitating its large homes. “The last one we sold on East Boulevard went to someone who moved from Cleveland to Washington, D.C. and back to Cleveland,” Hawthorne relates. “The house next door had been abandoned and because they saw what we were doing, it sold and is now being rehabbed.”
Famicos is also preserving Glenville’s St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church with plans to create a multipurpose community center. Residents can feel the momentum, he adds. “They are seeing that development is happening and it’s optimistic for the future of their neighborhood.”
