CLEVELAND, November 9, 2023 — Cleveland Development Advisors (CDA) is loaning $5.5 million for a project that will completely make over a West Park neighborhood school into reasonably priced market rate apartments.
The $14.9 million historic renovation of the former Nathaniel Hawthorne School Elementary School, located at 3575 West 130th, into 37 reasonably priced market-rate one- to four-bedroom apartments. The developers are preserving the green space around the school, and it will be used by both apartment residents and community members.
“This mixed-income project will be catalytic in that it will be adding high-quality, reasonably priced apartments to the neighborhood to diversify the area’s housing mix and build market confidence,’’ said Yvette Ittu, President and CEO of CDA.
Jefferson-Puritas West Park CDC is supporting the project. “This will help the neighborhood stabilize and grow by providing a different type of housing in the community and increasing the number of people living in the neighborhood,” said Bryan Gillooly, Executive Director at the CDC. “The project addresses our middle neighborhood plan by spurring investment in the Lorain Avenue commercial corridor.”
Sustainable Community Associates (SCA), a Tremont-based developer which has built several high-profile apartment communities in the city, purchased the former school for $45,000. “We think this neighborhood has a ton of assets – Jefferson Park, great restaurants, a strong immigrant community – and we are excited to be investing in the area,” said Josh Rosen of SCA.
SCA is a small, mission driven, neighborhood-based development group that has leveraged more than $100 million investment into mixed-used, mixed-income projects across Northeast Ohio. Their other historic renovation projects have included Fairmount Creamery, Mueller Lofts and Wagner Awning.
Hawthorne School was built in 1917, with additions in 1920 and 1927. It was closed in 2013