Skyline 776 Apartment Eyes Full Completion This Fall, With Finishing Touches Being Made

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Fifty weeks ago, NEOtrans got a tour of the Skyline 776 apartment tower just as its first tenants were moving in. But those tenants were moving into a 23-story high-rise that was still under construction and recovering from a sudden transition. Nearly a year later, work is still be done on the building, at 776 Euclid Ave. in Downtown Cleveland. But a lot has been done and there is finally an end-date in sight.

Finally gone is the scaffolding over the sidewalk in front of the 304-unit luxury apartment building. The absence of the scaffolding was the most visible change to passersby. Decorative finishes on the lobby and other amenity spaces were recently completed.

Having that evidence of ongoing construction were apparently among the factors that have held back leasing progress. After a year of leasing, the building is only 50 percent full, said Daniel Dickson, a managing partner at Detroit-based Trowbridge Ventures which owns a majority interest in Skyline 776.

Leasing rates of about $3 per square foot are comparable to other new-build high-rise apartment buildings on Euclid Avenue, like The Beacon or The Lumen. But both of those leased out within a year. Dickson said he is hoping the nearly complete finishes will help secure more tenants.

“We’ve seen a really nice increase in traffic since we finished the pool deck,” he said. “It’s really impacted our leasing so far.”

Existing residents were happy the pool is finally open with more than a month left before the Labor Day weekend — Cleveland’s unofficial end to summer. At about 225 feet above the street, it is the highest swimming pool in Greater Cleveland — the previous record going to the pool atop the 20-story, 200-foot-tall Luckman Apartments on East 12th Street.

In fact, shortly after Labor Day is when construction is due to be completed, although sections of the outdoor rooftop deck will be done sooner like the grill station and firepit. One of the last additions to the apartment building will be the planting of a tree that will poke through a hole in the wavy, decorative roof that’s 250 feet above ground.

The rooftop amenity space has commercial-grade appliances so that it can be permitted with a foodservice tenant but right now it is used as an on-demand venue rather than a static one.

But roughly 8,800 square feet of space in the building has a question mark hanging over it. That space is actually divided up into four areas — a second-floor/mezzanine restaurant, a first-floor restaurant with sidewalk patio, a basement speakeasy and a lobby café.

They were to be fitted out at a cost of about $2.1 million by Dean and Anna Valore, principals of Cleveland Bistros LLC. Instead, those spaces are back on the market, listed with brokerage Cresco starting earlier this month. Dickson said Cleveland Bistros will not be a part of the building.

“We’re trying to figure out what that exit looks like,” he said. “Dean’s a great guy but it’s just not going to work out.”

The goal is to have a new tenant take over all of the restaurant spaces at once, but they are open to an interim solution — providing a café-type service in the building’s lobby. That space is nearly built out so the start-up capital will likely be very small.

“The priority is to find someone who can open the café, and potentially do a pop-up café,” Dickson said. “Obviously, we would prefer a long-term tenant. We have some good leads. We want to make sure the restaurant and the speakeasy downstairs and the café are all done in a responsive manner.”

Skyline 776 does have a paying tenant — Dogtopia of Downtown Cleveland. It is also an example of the fact that the building is pet-friendly, offering grooming, spa and night boarding.

Trowbridge acquired Skyline 776, formerly called City Club Apartments, along with Skyline on Stokes in University Circle which is opening Aug. 1 for the first tenants to move in. The acquisition of Skyline on Stokes was not due to any financial problems with that project.

However, the acquisition of Skyline 776 came after the developer, Farmington Hills, Michigan-based City Club Apartments, reportedly had a bigger appetite than its budget for furnishings and finishes. An affiliate of Trowbridge, Finance Michigan, was Skyline 776’s primary financial backer.

Costs were cut on furnishing the building so the apartment finishes could be afforded. For example, fold-away Murphy beds were planned for the studios but they were among the first things to go. Dickson said an entire studio could be furnished for the cost of buying and installing a Murphy bed.

In addition to the usual studios, one-bedroom units, two-bedroom apartments and three-bedroom suites are convertible studios that have a small bedroom in them. There are also 10 pre-furnished units for either extended-stay corporate accounts or for people who simply don’t want to move everything, Dickson said.

Two conference rooms, co-working spaces, a theater, fitness center, yoga studio and infrared sauna are available, along with a walkway to an adjacent parking garage plus on-site building management provided by Village Green Property Management of Southfield, MI.

“The idea for the building is we want people to come in and live, work and play in the building,” Dickson said. “We want you to see yourselves living here, working here, exercising here, eating here. It’s coming to life.”

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