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buildings and buy vacant lots.
<br /> "I'm a living example of it," says developer Dick Pace, who has spent $7 million
<br />over the past two years to turn a 1910 auto showroom at East 71st Street and Euclid Avenue into labs and offices for
<br />pigment scientists, biomedical researchers and startup entrepreneurs. "Before Euclid Corridor, I didn't feel it was a
<br />good investment," he said. Now his project is so successful, he said, he's looking for other buildings along the street
<br />to buy and rehab. Pace and others say that by connecting downtown and University Circle, the city's two big
<br />employment hubs, Euclid Corridor is adding value and potential to everything that lies between.
<br />
<br />Midtown getting an uptown feel
<br />
<br />Indeed, the price of an acre in the long-blighted Midtown area
<br />has doubled in the past five years from $200,000 to $400,000,
<br />said
<br />Jim Haviland, executive director of the nonprofit Midtown Inc.,
<br />which has assembled 15 acres along Euclid Avenue for
<br />redevelopment. Aside from the anticipated boon for riders, the RTA
<br />project is changing the mood on the avenue by freshening a major
<br />piece of public infrastructure with new utilities, sidewalks, traffic
<br />"Developers gravitate toward places
<br />lanes and transit stops.
<br />where they see investment happening,"
<br /> said Lillian Kuri, director
<br />of special projects for the Cleveland Foundation. "There's no
<br />question [about Euclid Corridor], it's a catalyst." The robust growth
<br />of institutions on or near the avenue, such as the Cleveland Clinic
<br />and Cleveland Museum of Art, while not caused by the Euclid
<br />Corridor project, is likely to expand bus ridership and encourage
<br />further investment. Chris Stephens/The Plain DealerA completed
<br />section of the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority's $200
<br />million Euclid Corridor project shows how the street -- once
<br />dilapidated -- has been significantly freshened. "It's huge," said
<br />Edward Hill, interim dean of the College of Urban Affairs at
<br />Cleveland State University. "I look at Euclid Corridor and, to me, it's
<br />the single most exciting thing since the opening of Jacobs Field --
<br />and it has much more economic meaning." If the momentum
<br />continues, blighted sections of Euclid Avenue could fill up with
<br />renovated apartments, retail shops, research labs, and medical and
<br />cultural facilities. Many projects are to break ground later this year or in 2009, just after Euclid Corridor is finished.
<br />"It's going to be a visual delight, and everybody's going to be shocked," said David Goldberg, co-chairman of
<br />Amtrust Bank and an investor along the avenue. "I won't be shocked, because I know what's happening now. The
<br />city is at a tipping point." This is still hard to imagine downtown, where many buildings along Euclid Avenue stand
<br />vacant. But East Fourth Street, where the Marons have invested $110 million, is humming with nightclubs,
<br />apartments and restaurants.
<br />
<br />Developers including Price and Eli Mann are hustling to join the Marons. Price wants to fill the vacant former
<br />William Taylor & Sons department store at 668 Euclid Ave. with apartments. He also wants to renovate and expand
<br />the empty Ameritrust bank complex at East Ninth Street and Euclid Avenue with apartments, a hotel and offices.
<br />Mann bought five mostly vacant buildings between East Ninth and East 12th streets, including the Cleveland
<br />Athletic Club building, and plans to spend $70 million to fill them with apartments and retail. Mann's architect,
<br />Jonathan Sandvick, wants to peel off glass and metal siding to reveal early 20th-century brick and terra cotta
<br />facades. Farther up the avenue, CSU has started spending $300 million on academic buildings, offices and housing.
<br />
<br />In University Circle, the Cleveland Museum of Art is nearly halfway through a six-year, $258 million expansion and
<br />renovation. The Cleveland Clinic is building $868 million worth of projects, including a giant new heart center.
<br />University Hospitals has $326 million worth of investments on tap. Even Midtown, where development has lagged,
<br />is showing signs of vitality. "I live it every day," said Scott Garson, senior vice president of NAI Daus, who is
<br />spending $10 million to turn the vacant Victory Building warehouse at Euclid Avenue and East 70th Street into 102
<br />apartments.
<br />
<br />City is looking forward, not backward
<br />
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