CLEVELAND, Ohio — After sitting largely vacant since 1993, an expansive building and the 10 acres of land that it stands on in Cleveland’s Central neighborhood will get a new life after being acquired by the Site Readiness for Good Jobs Fund.
The 183,000-square-foot building at 7000 Central Ave. in Cleveland was built in 1901 by the Wellman-Seaver Engineering Co. and was where the Hulett Ore Unloaders were built, according to a press release.
The building has been bought and sold numerous times since the 1950s with the most recent owner being a Florida firm that never realized redevelopment plans, the release stated.
“This actually came to us originally on a drive around with Richard Starr, the councilman from ward 5, who had me in his car,” Brad Whitehead, managing director of the Site Readiness Fund, told Crain’s Cleveland Business in an interview. “He pointed to the building and said, ‘Can you do something about that thing?’ And it sits right in the middle of the neighborhood, and he said, ‘That thing is an eyesore and it’s a blight on our neighborhood.’”
The Site Readiness Fund acquired the property for $845,000 by working with the Cuyahoga County Land Bank, Whitehead said. The county land bank is the execution partner for the Site Readiness Fund and is the “operational arms and legs,” Whitehead said.
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Cuyahoga Land Bank
