A rendering of the new Minute Men headquarters.
Minute Men, a 53-year-old staffing company that is one of the largest staffing firms in the nation serving private employers, plans to consolidate and expand its headquarters at 3740 Carnegie Ave. in Midtown Cleveland.
“Minute Men is a growing company,” Mike Fant of AODK Architects told the Cleveland City Planning Commission at its March 19th meeting. “They’ve never had all their employees in one space, so this is an opportunity to consolidate and create a campus on one site, where they can continue to expand and grow.”
Employees will relocate from an existing building at 2900 Carnegie Avenue to the new structure. The building will be three stories tall and approximately 45,000 square feet. It will have a restaurant and rooftop terrace on the third floor with “fantastic views” of Carnegie Avenue and downtown Cleveland. The company also plans to build a glass-walled third story connector between the buildings.
The new building will feature engineered stone on the first two floors, and metal panels on the third floor. “It will be like a modern version of the existing building,” said Fant.
As part of the project, the existing Minute Men building will also be renovated. The brick will be stained to match the new building but otherwise won’t change, while the interior will be redone.
A courtyard will be constructed between the two buildings in order to give employees a place to sit outside. Additional parking and landscaping will be added to accommodate more employees and enhance the lot’s attractiveness. The parking lot will have drive exits to both Cedar and Carnegie Avenues.
Commission member Lillian Kuri questioned the building’s setback from the street, saying it could better fit the urban environment and also do a better job of serving pedestrians and transit users. However, she ultimately called it a “fantastic” project and the commission voted unanimously to support it.
Midtown Cleveland executive director Jeff Epstein said the project will allow Minute Men to stay in Midtown and grow, while also strengthening the area. “We’re starting to see pockets of development along Carnegie, from Minute Men and the Warner Swasey building to Central Kitchen, Angie’s and the new Cleveland Bagel. Our strategy is to start activate nodes of strength and grow from there.”
Lee Chilcote is a freelance writer and editor of The Land.
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