Two vacant Cleveland school buildings will become apartment buildings in Glenville, Jefferson

For years, Cleveland residents and city council members have complained that the Cleveland Metropolitan School District has closed school buildings without a plan for maintaining, mothballing, or redeveloping them. Many sit empty for years, if not decades, and squatters, vandals, roof leaks, and other issues end up damaging them. Buildings that ended up getting torn down could have been saved and redeveloped if they had been properly cared for, critics say.

Soon, two empty buildings in Cleveland will soon avoid that harsh fate: Empire School at 9113 Parmalee Ave. in Glenville and Hawthorne School at 3575 W. 130th St. in the Jefferson neighborhood are both slated to get a complete makeover into affordable senior and market-rate apartment buildings, respectively, with construction possibly starting as soon as this summer. In 2021, the city and school district launched an initiative to transfer 12 empty schools and seven vacant parcels of land to private developers, and Hawthorne and Empire are among the first of these to find a new end user. 

“The goal is to bring empty sites, some of which have been empty for 10-plus years, back into productive use,” Trudy Andrzejewski, asset redevelopment strategist with the city of Cleveland, told Cleveland City Council’s finance committee meeting on Monday, May 8. Andrzejewski cited the fact that there was a great deal of community input into the two projects and the developers have each raised more than 70% of the project costs. “At this point, we feel confident that these projects are not only viable but can move towards groundbreaking in the next several months,” she said. 

Following Monday’s finance meeting, city council that same evening voted to officially transfer the properties to the developers. BC Empire School LLC, an LLC created by the national affordable housing developer Beacon Communities LLC out of Boston, will purchase Empire School at 9113 Parmalee Ave. for $65,000. Sustainable Community Associates, a Tremont-based developer that has built several high profile apartment communities in Cleveland, is buying the former Hawthorne School at 3575 W. 130th St. for $45,000.

The project cost to re-do Empire School into affordable senior housing is about $27 million, with $19.5 million raised so far from a range of sources including a first mortgage, federal historic tax credits, federal low income housing tax credits, and county brownfields remediation dollars, according to documents provided by city staff at the city council meeting. The Hawthorne site has $11.6 million committed out of a $14.6 million project cost, with the developers having secured a first mortgage, historic tax credits, and other resources. Both projects are also seeking city funding to help close the financing gap, and they will likely need to seek additional design review, planning, and zoning approvals from the city. 

In an email to The Land, developer Josh Rosen of Sustainable Community Associates said that his team is excited to tackle redevelopment of the Hawthorne School into affordable market-rate apartments, or what is sometimes called “workforce housing.” He said the goal is to create a mixture of one and two-bedroom apartments that rent for $900-1,500 per month, well below what similar properties are going for in trendier neighborhoods like Ohio City or University Circle. “We think this neighborhood has a ton of assets – Jefferson Park, great restaurants, a strong immigrant community – and we are excited to be investing in Jefferson Park and working with CMSD, the city, and Bellaire Puritas Community Development Corporation,” said Rosen. 

The Hawthorne project will bring 37 new apartments to the Jefferson community, Rosen said. While most of the apartments will be one and two-bedrooms, they are “converting the old auditorium into a three-bedroom and the old gymnasium of the Hawthorne Huskies into a four-bedroom,” he added. Additionally, the developers are preserving the green space around the school, which will be able to be used by apartment residents and community members. 

The Land also reached out to Beacon Communities for more specific information about their plans for the Empire School, but we have not heard back yet. 

Council members expressed support for both projects while railing against the school district for allowing some buildings to sit vacant for years without a plan for maintaining or remediating them. “This project was vetted out, they met with the residents,” said Ward 9 council member Kevin Conwell of the Empire School project. “The majority of residents support the project. This will help to stimulate the neighborhood and increase comps (sales comparables) in the neighborhood. Cleveland Schools did a poor job of maintaining these properties in the past. This will increase safety. It’s a great thing and a shot in the arm for the Glenville community.”

Ward 16 council member Brian Kazy said the redevelopment of Hawthorne School was the biggest investment in the community in more than 20 years and “a perfect example of redevelopment of a middle neighborhood.” (Middle neighborhoods are defined as those that are relatively stable, yet are also not growing and at risk of decline. See more info on the city’s Middle Neighborhoods Initiative here.) 

Ward 8 council member Michael Polensek also had a few choice words for CMSD about its problem properties, which he says abound across the city, including the shuttered Iowa Maple elementary school in his ward, which he says could be repurposed. “Not only has CMSD done a terrible job of maintaining these buildings, but far too many were closed without a thought or consideration of what to do with them,” he said. “There comes a point where the city has to say to CMSD, don’t think about closing another school without a game plan or a mothball plan.” 

Polensek cited Longfellow School, which he helped to landmark as a local historic landmark, as a positive example of a school that was redeveloped. The school just reopened as affordable housing. Cleveland Restoration Society is hosting its annual benefit there on Thursday, May 11. 

Polensek quizzed Andrzejewski as to how many Cleveland schools are empty around the city, but the city staffer said she didn’t know but would try to find out. The Land has reached out to CMSD for comment but we have not received a response yet. 

Alyssa Hernandez, director of community development for the city, said the redevelopment of these school sites, which started under the Jackson administration, is consistent with the Bibb administration’s goals of reactivating empty school sites for future development. “We need to make sure we get these sites back into productive use for residents and neighbors,” she said. 

Learn more about the city of Cleveland’s call for proposals for empty school sites here. Watch Cleveland City Council meetings on Youtube and view meeting agendas, legislation, and how to contact council members at www.clevelandcitycouncil.org.