Cory Shaffer
cleveland.com
(TNS)
CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio – Friday, Jan. 24 was the final day of what had had been a milestone week for the sprawling Marquee at Cedar-Lee apartment complex project in Cleveland Heights.
The first residents of the $66 million project’s completed building on Lee Road, in the heart of the city’s vibrant Cedar-Lee business district, moved in that Monday, with another influx set for Saturday.
Over on Cedar Road, construction on the second building, a four-story structure overlooking Cleveland Heights High School’s football stadium, was on track to wrap up in a few short months.
But just after 7 p.m. that Friday night, something inside the Cedar Road building ignited a massive inferno that would burn for the next 20 hours and turn one of the city’s flagship development projects that was nearly finished into a charred and warped protrusion, now marked for demolition.
While some in the community saw the fire as a devastating blow to the project’s future, Cleveland Heights officials and developers viewed it as one more obstacle in a development that had already weathered two decades of challenges.
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“This project almost died several times on the way,” Mayor Kahlil Seren said in a recent interview. “But it’s a ‘Cleveland-tough’ kind of project. We’re just going to keep moving forward. There’s no stopping this project, there’s only delaying it.”
An economic recession, a change in the city’s form of government, a citizen-led petition drive and a political fight with the school board all threatened but failed to thwart the city’s vision for the property it bought back in 2005.
Deron Kintner, a principal at developer Flaherty and Collins, said that the construction team must wait for the State Fire Marshal’s Office to finish its investigation into the fire’s cause before it can knock down the building’s remnants and start the years-long process of rebuilding.
“It’s a gut punch, but it’s not something that we can’t overcome,” Kintner said. “We’ll still deliver the project; it will just have a different completion date.”
Early days: recession, regression
The Marquee at Cedar-Lee project traces back to 2005, when the city acquired vacant land along Lee Road and Cedar Road, envisioning a transformative development. Initially, the focus was on the Lee Road greenspace, described by one developer as “a gaping tooth in an otherwise beautiful smile.” But plans stalled with the 2008 housing crisis, leaving the city in a holding pattern.
As the economy rebounded, the city sought bids for a mixed-use project along Lee Road, even building a two-story parking garage in anticipation. The idea to expand the project to Cedar Road came from the original developer, but when bidding reopened, that firm didn’t submit a proposal. Instead, the city awarded the contract to Indianapolis-based Flaherty & Collins, developers of the Ascent at the Top of the Hill apartments at Fairmount and Euclid Heights boulevards.
Then came political upheaval. Cleveland Heights transitioned to an elected strong mayor system, with its first election in 2021. Newly elected Mayor Kahlil Seren embraced the project, seeing it as a flagship development.
“When I first became mayor, I was thinking ‘we’ve got momentum. The wind is at our backs,’” Seren said. “And this was the project that taught me that momentum is a myth.”
Further delays arose in 2022 when a citizens’ group launched a ballot initiative to preserve the Lee Road site as green space. Their effort, which could have derailed the project for years, ultimately failed at the polls. Meanwhile, the city and the Cleveland Heights-University Heights school board negotiated a tax increment financing (TIF) package, with the district leveraging its approval to eliminate fees the city charged for school use of municipal athletic facilities.
“It’s a very good opportunity, and it’s overdue,” school board member Daniel Heintz said. “We’ve been trying to work on this issue for quite a while.”
Seren agreed to end the fees but rejected the district’s request for 30-year priority use of city facilities. He also insisted on a clause ensuring the deal wouldn’t set a precedent for future developments.
Under the final agreement, the district secured 34% of the property taxes it would have otherwise received—an improvement over the 25% share granted for the Top of the Hill project.
With the deal finalized, construction began in spring 2023, aiming for completion in 2025—20 years after the city first acquired the land.
The aftermath
Monday marks one month since the Cedar Road building caught fire, and investigators from the State Fire Marshal and the city’s fire department are still working to determine the cause.
Inspectors have determined that the massive building is not structurally sound and at risk of collapse until it can be demolished. With the investigation ongoing and the building unable to be demolished, the city has shut down the Cedar-Lee parking garage and Cedar Road, between Kildare and Lee roads, to prevent injuries from falling debris, should it collapse.
Several business owners have said that the garage being closed has left visitors to the district with few places to park, and it’s decimated their business.
Rebuilding the structure is a priority for Seren because it’s a key piece of a larger economic and residential development strategy to grow the city’s shrinking population. The city counted 45,000 residents.
The 2020 U.S. Census pegged the city’s population at 43,569, a far cry from the 60,000 people who called the city home in the 1960s.
“Recreating that Cleveland Heights requires more density. And you find more density in and around business districts and mixed-use, multifamily developments,” Seren said.
Kintner, the partner at Flaherty & Collins, said that the company also sees Cleveland Heights as a growing community with a market for new, higher-end apartment complexes.
And the Marquee at Cedar-Lee will be a draw for people from around the region, in part because of the uniqueness of the neighborhood.
“It’s a neighborhood that has an organic feel and fabric to it, where other places feel a little more manufactured,” he said. “There’s nothing manufactured about the Cedar-Lee neighborhood.”
While Seren and Kintner are dedicated to getting to work at the site as quickly as possible, business owners in the district are suffering from the blaze’s collateral damage.
Quintin Jones and Amanda Elfers, the husband-wife owners of Rudy’s Pub, went to Cleveland Heights City Council at its Tuesday meeting to ask when the city may be able to open the garage — even if it means boarding up the edge of the garage that abuts the burnt structure or blocking off portions of it with police barriers.
“It’s killing us over there, as a business,” Jones said. “We need some facts, some dates. If you could help us out, we would greatly appreciate it.”
Seren told cleveland.com that the city has received an initial bid to board up the side of the garage that abuts the burnt structure and is exploring its options.
“I know it’s a frustrating situation for the businesses and people in the neighborhood and their patrons, as well,” Seren said. “And we are, across multiple departments, working as quickly as we can.”
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