All About Apartments, September 2021

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SEPTEMBER 3, 2021

ALL ABOUT APARTMENTS

All About Apartments

A Cleveland Jewish News Special Section Bedrock partners with ROOST Apartment Hotel at The May BOB JACOB | MANAGING EDITOR @BobJacobCJN bjacob@cjn.org |

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edrock will exclusively partner with ROOST Apartment Hotel, the high-design extended stay concept, to introduce a long-term stay hotel at The May at 200 Euclid Ave. opening in early 2022, according to a news release.

Located across from Public Square in downtown Cleveland, the new ROOST, a hospitality concept known for bridging a boutique hotel with apartment-style living, will span three floors of the iconic May Company building and include 62 studio, one-, two- and three-bedrooms apartments of the 307 total suites at The May. Available for any duration stay, all extended-stay hotel guests will have access to The May’s high-end features such as stainless steel appliances, quartz countertops, in-unit washers/dryers and amenities, including 24/7 security, a threestory open-air atrium, panoramic rooftop terrace, state-of-the-art fitness center, a maker space, covered interior parking and more, the release stated.

“Since opening the doors of The May, our residents have experienced the comfort and sophistication of city living and now with ROOST, we can’t think of a better way to offer this amenity to leisure travelers and professionals who require a long-term

stay in downtown Cleveland as downtown continues to gain momentum,” said Kofi Bonner, CEO at Bedrock, in a news release. “ROOST’s guests will experience a hospitality product completely new to the Cleveland market complete with The May’s amenities, as well as all of the local restaurants, arts and entertainment, and events downtown offers just steps away.”

ROOST Cleveland will be operated

by Method Co., a Philadelphia-based hospitality company which is responsible for several ROOST locations across the country, including an upcoming outpost in Detroit at Book Tower, in addition to several design-centric boutique hotel properties and restaurants. Method Studios, Method Co.’s in-house design firm, will oversee the decor and furnishings of the apartments that will include contemporary touches such as vintage oriental rugs, functional custom work spaces, coffee tables by Danish design house Gubi and modern light fixtures

by Original BTC, among other high-end design sources.

“We are thrilled to be working with Bedrock and excited to be part of this new offering in downtown Cleveland,” said Randall Cook, CEO and co-founder of Method Co, in the release. “With this new ROOST location, whether guests are staying with us for a few days or a few

A rendering showing what the interior of the ROOST Apartment Hotel at The May could look like. |Submitted rendering

months, we will be able to offer the opportunity to experience this incredible historic building with all the luxuries, amenities and services of modern living.”

ROOST Cleveland is just one component of the overall May development, which already features a growing residential community within its 307 existing apartments. The property maintains space for future retail and restaurant tenants, and existing tenants such as Taco Bell, Pura Vida and Cuyahoga

Community College.

Acquired by Bedrock in 2017, The May Company building has anchored Cleveland’s Public Square for over 100 years. The May Company department store opened in its namesake building on Euclid Avenue in 1915 and operated there until 1993. It remained primarily vacant until Bedrock began an historic restoration of the property.

For more information, visit myroost.com/cleveland.

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S h o p • D i n e • L i v e • Wo r k • P l a y • S t a y

FO U RT H A N D PA R KA PTS .CO M Enjoy your choice of a luxury one, two, or three-bedroom suite designed to exceed your expectations while also offering best-in-class amenities and superior customer service.

Pinecrest, our vibrant district, features a Whole Foods, a broad array of restaurant options, a state-of-the-art dine-in theater, favorite national and local brands, and fitness studios.

Many shops and restaurant patios are also dog friendly.

I -27 1 & H a r va rd Ro a d • D i s cove r P i n e c re st .co m

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SEPTEMBER 3, 2021

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Seller’s market driving prices through the roof May this New Year be filled with health and happiness, and sweet moments for you and your family.

Happy Rosh Hashanah!

Named by Editor & Publisher Magazine as one of

10 News Publishers That Do It Right 2021

To read why, visit cjn.org/honors

ALEX KRUTCHIK | STAFF REPORTER @AlexKrutchikCJN akrutchik@cjn.org |

T

he housing market is currently unlike anything real estate experts have seen in recent memory. The current situation is considered to be a seller’s market as there are more people trying to buy homes than there are available, driving prices very high.

Is there a difference between the market for apartments versus the Hanger market for homes? It depends who you ask.

Ellyn Hanger, area vice president of The Vue in Beachwood, and Jim Rosenblatt, manager of Rosenblatt Realty in South Euclid, noted a few trends being caused by the current market.

As for the apartments versus homes trend, Rosenblatt said he sees equally recent high demand over the past 12 months for both apartment as well as home rentals and for home purchases.

“There is very low inventory for homes listed for sale in MLS (multiple listing services), which in turn also fuels demand for rentals,” Rosenblatt said. “Most homes are selling within 30 days of being listed on MLS and many are going for $10,000 to 30,000 over list price in multiple bid situations. I recently sold a home in Beachwood for full price of $329,900 for cash with no inspections on the day it was listed for sale, which the owner accepted over other offers.”

Hanger said, originally, many people were buying homes because of lower interest rates. But as time has gone on, it has driven the prices of these homes up very high. She said this affects whether people want to live in a home or an apartment.

“They’re trying to get out of their leases because they want to buy a house,” she said. “Now a lot of times we’ll have a purchase program where you can buy your

way out of your lease. So we had a lot of people doing that at the beginning of the year when the interest rates were lowering.

Hanger added that this trend of people leaving their apartment for a home is slowing down now.

“The beauty of our business is, there’s always people who need an apartment,” Hanger said. “People are always coming to our apartments, and it’s all different demographics and all different age groups.

There’s people that lived in an apartment for 20 years, or there’s people that move from apartment community to apartment community after a year.”

The only change in trends that Rosenblatt does see is that there are many more real estate purchasers who are investors looking to hold houses as income producers, not “flips”.

“This, again, adds to the lack of inventory that might typically come on the market in the past,” Rosenblatt said. “I know of one friend working for a company over the past few years handling their rentals of between 200 to 300 single-family homes in the area that used to be for owner occupancy. And even more recently around 40 side-by-side brand new homes were built in Pepper Pike and were only for rent. That is a new trend. New home subdivisions built only as rentals.”

All this pressure, Rosenblatt said, is post-pandemic with a lot of inexpensive money both from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae as well as from “Wall Street” looking for higher returns that home rentals typically generate.

“These trends started since the housing crash of 2008 and accelerated over the past 18 months,” Rosenblatt said. “On the east side of Cleveland in cities such as Beachwood and University Heights, there has also been significant increase in the number of people moving into the area from New York and New Jersey for all the benefits offered here in terms of less expensive housing costs, larger houses and yards, excellent schools, less traffic and less congestion.”

“There is very low inventory for homes listed for sale in MLS (multiple listing services), which in turn also fuels demand for rentals. Most homes are selling within 30 days of being listed on MLS and many are going for $10,000 to 30,000 over list price in multiple bid situations. I recently sold a home in Beachwood for full price of $329,900 for cash with no inspections on the day it was listed for sale, which the owner accepted over other offers.”

Jim Rosenblatt

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THE VUE APARTMENTS ABOUT US

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RMS hopes to create ‘new downtown’ at Van Aken District JANE KAUFMAN | STAFF REPORTER @jkaufmanCJN jkaufman@cjn.org |

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he transformation of the 1950s-era Van Aken Shopping Center to today’s Van Aken District – with apartments that will rise 199 feet, 6 inches into the air in the city’s tallest building – took shape from planning efforts that go back more than two decades.

The vision was “to create a vibrant, walkable, mixed-use Braverman district, one that had interesting buildings and landscaping, something that had a central gathering spot, that the transit station should be iconic,” Joyce Braverman, planning director for the city of Shaker Heights, told the Cleveland Jewish Makepeace News July 9.

“And the final part of the vision was a connection to the existing neighborhood,” she said. “That connection is what makes Van Aken different than a lot of other new developments.”

Ratner Van Aken District includes housing known as the Upstairs at Van Aken, which consists of 103 apartment units on the upper floors of the mixed-use district. The new building will add 228 units across Farnsleigh Road.

CONNECTING TO NEIGHBORHOOD One of the architectural features that helps Van Aken District connect to its neighbors is a loggia to protect those who are approaching the district from off site, Jon Ratner, president of RMS Investment Corp. of Shaker Heights, explained to the Cleveland Jewish News during a July 7 tour of the mixed-use district. Ratner spoke of the vibrancy of the district, with rentable work space on the first floor, as well as a small grocery, restaurants, shops and offices.

In addition, there is a quarter-acre park, dubbed the living room, that includes climbing rocks, small tables and chairs, near Mitchell’s Homemade Ice Cream.

That space is used to screen movies, hold yoga sessions and block parties – as well as for parties and informal gatherings by members of the public.

Also at the Van Aken District, there is an outdoor farmers market each Thursday and each Friday a band plays in the early evening.

Jon Ratner, CEO of RMS Investment Corp., says he is excited about Van Aken District’s role as Shaker Heights’ downtown. | CJN

Van Aken District transitioned during the COVID-19 pandemic by blocking part of Tuttle Road in front of the Market Hall to create an outdoor seating area for diners.

Photos / Jane Kaufman

PUBLIC ART ON SITE “We have incorporated art through the site,” said Ratner, including Debra Sue Solecki’s images of a shape shifter known as Ubu, which in some sense refers to Van Aken District’s transformation from shopping center to mixed use district. There is also sculpture by local sculptor Don Stewart and an art installation called Stratus, which hangs above an alley near the Market Hall. Ratner credited District Gallery at Van Aken District for making that happen.

“So it’s important for us to bring the community forward,” he said. Artwork from students at Shaker Heights High School is on display in the Market Hall as well.

A CENTRAL SPACE TO EAT The Market Hall features small restaurants dotted through a central area with tables and chairs.

“So when we were planning this, from like 2012 to 2016, we really saw the explosion of food halls or market halls around the country,” Ratner said. “And we knew that there was an opportunity for us to do this in the former grocery site. What it took, though, was curating of a lot of very small shops.”

He said the challenge for the developers was “to align on a vision of what we wanted to deliver to the customer, with all of these individual small shops.”

The benefit, he said, “is we gave all of these small shops or local entrepreneurs the opportunity to get into business, with much lower investment.”

The concept allows the small restaurants to launch businesses with a very small amount of space, Ratner said.

A FAMILY LEGACY Prior to its transformation as Van Aken District, the site was the Van Aken Shopping Center, developed by Ratner’s cousin, Albert Ratner, in 1955, which Jon Ratner called “a community anchor.”

“I like to say if you’re 40 and above and you grew up on the east side of Cleveland, you have some memory of the Van Aken District, whether it’s where you had your first job, you bought your prom dress or your wedding suit. So much of the community had memories here from Draeger’s ice cream to Sand’s Blue Line Cafe and Pearl of the Orient, and just so many great shops, so many great restaurants that really created sort of the fabric of this community for four decades.”

TIMES CHANGE Ratner said times changed, with the opening of Beachwood Place in 1978, with the building of Interstate 480, and with additional housing to the east.

“It’s true that the Van Aken Shopping Center in its original formation sort of fell into a little bit of a down period,” Ratner said. “So we wanted to, you know, to recreate that and sort of create a new generation of memories for the users of this site. And so we tore down the original center in 2016, and all but the grocery store building, which was relatively new.

And then we reopened it as the Van Aken District in 2018.”

A NEW DOWNTOWN He said the vision was to create Shaker’s “new downtown.”

“Creating a whole new set of stores and shops and places for the community to come and experience and live their lives and create these memories has come to

fruition,” Ratner said. “So we couldn’t be more happy about it. There’s not a day that goes by that I’m not up here that I don’t run into somebody that sort of comes up to me understanding my role at the project and … thanks me genuinely for changing the neighborhood and changing the way that they are able to live their lives.”

THE PARK ON SITE He said critical to that piece was the creation of the green space.

“We knew what was critical towards a long term successor was creating place,” Ratner said. “The world of retail is changing a lot, has gone from bricks and mortar to online. … So what still attracts people to place and what brings them out? Well, it’s creating opportunities for real experiences for interaction to get together with friends and neighbors.”

The living room allows for that.

“It really speaks to our intention of being open and being inclusive and having the mandate and district feel comfortable and accessible for the very broad community,” Ratner said.

LAURELS FOR VAN AKEN DISTRICT Van Aken District was one of 23 finalists in the Urban Land Institute for Americas Awards for Excellence in May, recognizing “real estate projects that achieve the highest standard of excellence.”

The finalists were chosen “ by a multidisciplinary jury of ULI members representing a range of real estate and land use expertise, including development, finance, planning, urban design, architecture and landscape architecture,” according to the Urban Land Institute’s website.

VAN AKEN | 104

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Jon Ratner, CEO of RMS Investment Corp., walks through the living room, the name of the quarter-acre green space that is near Mitchell’s Homemade Iee Cream at Van Aken District in Shaker Heights.

VAN AKEN | 102 WHAT’S NEXT Mackenzie Makepeace, development director at RMS, said the Farnsleigh corner site is a logical next step for residential construction.

“We feel like this is just a great site for residential,” she told the CJN July 7.

“We’re so close to the hub that was created through the first phase of development.”

In addition, she said, having residential units across the street will increase residential density, which should help the retailers at Van Aken District.

“We’re not just creating a standalone building that happens to be next to what we’ve already created,” she said. “It’s a continuation of .. what we started so many years ago.”

She said the split building will “bring a lot of residential density in a tall tower, but break up that mass along Farnsleigh.”

She said the sight lines down Walker Road were created by the cutouts.

She also spoke to the decision to build tall.

VERTICAL VERSUS HORIZONTAL “The height allows us to bring more residents to the space while kind of opening up the back of the site for green space,” she said.

Makepeace said she hopes the new apartment building will attract “a great mix of people, just like the city of Shaker does,” with units ranging from 600 square feet for one-bedroom apartments to penthouse units that will be nearly 3,000 square feet.

She said the Farnsleigh lot is closer to the Farnsleigh RTA stop than it is to the end of the line.

“So this should allow residents really easy access to downtown,” she said. “To the airport if they choose, and we’re hoping that this encourages people to become either one-car no-car families.”

DENSITY AS A GOAL Ratner said it was the success of the first units at Van Aken District that allowed RMS to consider the yet-to-be-built apartments on Farnsleigh and Van Aken.

Over the past 21 years, the city developed six major plans, and held 61 public meetings around the development of Van Aken District.

“So there’s been a lot of input from the community in crafting this vision,” Braverman explained.

That might be why the city Planning Commission approved the final design for the two-tower apartment building at the corner of Farnsleigh Road and Van Aken Boulevard in a unanimous vote June 2, albeit with conditions and requests for additional detail.

Braverman explained that RMS is developing the Van Aken District “one parcel at a time.”

“This is a development style I support because it’s more authentic,” Braverman said, adding that the variance allowing the entire building to be dedicated to residential – rather than a mix of retail and residential – made sense on that site, and that it fits into the district’s overall mix.

LOOKING AHEAD The corner of Chagrin Boulevard and Warrensville Center Road is slated for development, Braverman said, as is the former Qua Buick lot on the corner of Farnsleigh and Warrensville Center roads across from Shaker Rocks.

“There is a lot of interest out there on that parcel,” said Braverman, adding a request for proposals is being worked on for the Qua Buick lot, which is now an empty lot. “So, we do feel the time is right to get that going.”

The city also owns a vacant lot south of Wendy’s on Warrensville Center Road and the city has been working with the owner of an adjacent parcel to that one as well on a

APARTMENTS

SEPTEMBER 3, 2021

There are plans to transform Shaker Plaza in the future.

The bandstand is ready for Friday evening concerts near the Market Hall at Van Aken District. possible redevelopment plan.

RTA, meanwhile, plans to redevelop its end-of-the-line station, helping to complete the city’s vision of the land.

Along the way, the city has received grants to reconfigure the intersection.

Braverman said RTA considered extending the blue line to Harvard Road or to Northfield Road. Both concepts were thought not to be easily funded and haven’t been realized, but RTA is now in the midst of planning a replacement for its station.

In 2023, the city of Shaker Heights will do additional work at the rapid transit station stop intersection with where it intersects with Tuttle Road.

FLEXING WITH COVID-19 PANDEMIC Van Aken District was designed to allow for flexible space on Tuttle Road, where during the COVID-19 pandemic, the road was closed in front of the Market Hall, fake grass was laid down and picnic tables with umbrellas were installed on the street for outdoor seating in a streeterie.

That transformation, Ratner said, allowed restaurant operators to continue to operate

through the pandemic.

The Van Aken District has had an expanded “DORA,” or “Designated Outdoor Refreshment Area” since last spring, and this past winter the DORA included a few igloos outside the Market Hall.

“We had worked with the city already sort of on a predetermined plan as to how we could close that street,” Ratner said. “So we didn’t need to go through a long and lengthy approval process.”

He said that streeterie will be open on an annual basis during warmer weather.

“We love it,” Ratner said. “I think the community loves it. And it just speaks to some of the kind of creativity and authenticity with which we developed the Van Aken District ... and then continue to bring it forward.”

To watch a video with this story, visit cjn.org/cjntv

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