VOL. 39, NO. 29
JULY 16 - 22, 2018
Source Lunch
The List
David Dunstan, Western Reserve Partners Page 19
Employee benefit services firms Page 16
CLEVELAND BUSINESS REAL ESTATE
RUBBER CITY RISING ‘Unprecedented’ development is helping to reshape downtown Akron
By DAN SHINGLER dshingler@crain.com @DanShingler
In Akron these days, it seems you can’t wave a loan application or a for-sale sign without a developer tackling you, pen and grand plans in hand. The Rubber City is being vulcanized — Akron’s downtown core is on fire with a slew of recent developments, bigger ones in the works and seemingly no end to new projects for which developers are already buying property. The Bowery Project, the Law Building, the City Center Hotel and a yetto-be unveiled project near Lock 3 that could be the biggest project yet have area developers busy. How active is it? “On a scale of one to 10? It depends on how you quantify the scale, but from Akron’s standpoint, it’s a 10 if you look at the development timeline and compare the activity now with what has happened over time. Just in the housing sector alone, it’s unprecedented, the amount of activity going
Illustration by Daniel Zakroczemski for Crain’s
on now,” developer Joel Testa, president of Testa Cos., said. He’s no noob, either. His family’s company has been developing in and around downtown for 40 years, and Testa helped lead downtown’s current residential revival when he built the Northside Lofts in 2006 and gave the city some of its first upscale downtown
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INSIDE Forward focus: Tools to keep the development pump primed Page 10 Who’s who: Some instrumental public and private leaders Page 12
Inside Iconic Agora gets a $3 million facelift Page 5
housing since the advent of radial tires. Testa Cos. spent about $30 million on the lofts’ 92 units, which remain some of the city’s premier housing. The building now is housing new retail development, too. And in 2016, Testa opened the Courtyard Akron Downtown — a $25 million, 146-room hotel that was the
first to open downtown since the city’s heyday. Today’s star of the stage, though, is the Bowery Project — six old, vacant, multistory buildings along South Main Street that, for more than a decade, have been a thorn bleeding momentum from downtown planners, mayors, civic boosters and previous developers who have failed to pull off a renovation. Now it’s again the jewel of the city’s downtown economic revitalization efforts. If it goes well, developers say, it will trigger a wave of additional projects, make it easier to finance other developments by inspiring investors, and give downtown the critical mass and population it needs to succeed as the urban community many hope to see. No pressure, right? The man taking much of that pressure, and still grinning, is Canton developer Dan DeHoff. He and his right arm, vice president of commercial development Beth Borda, say they’re confident they’ll announce the project’s final financing soon, after many hurdles. SEE AKRON, PAGE 14
Force Sports’ g-o-o-a-a-l-l! is to bring professional soccer to Cleveland. Page 4 The Clinic’s global stategy gets a sizable push from Chinese venture. Page 6