Redeveloping an aging commercial strip center

Cleveland and its suburbs are getting a slew of projects that range from retail “lifestyle centers” — generally set apart from their surroundings and lacking housing — to mixed-use new urban developments. The latest project, unveiled in December, involves redevelopment of an aging strip shopping center in South Euclid. Catlin Properties of Sacramento and Contrende Co. of Chicago intend to replace much of the postwar Cedar Center with a development that would have ground-floor restaurants and stores, nine live-work townhouses, and as many as 128 apartments. Georgine Welo, mayor of the 24,000-population suburb just east of Cleveland, hailed the redevelopment as “the revitalization we need.” The municipality owns seven acres of surface parking at the existing center, which is to be torn down. The municipality expects to turn its land over to the developers and, if necessary, to use eminent domain to help the developers obtain adjacent property from other owners. The center, at Cedar and Warrensville Center Roads, a hub of the Jewish community in years past, would have four stories of apartments, a parking garage, and two grassy “commons.” “You could hold arts and crafts fairs, jazz in the park, or a farmers’ market there,” said Jon Bauman of Contrende. The plan, by Cupkovic Architects of Cleveland, is something of a hybrid between New Urbanism and conventional development. An anchor store and several restaurants would line part of Cedar Road; other stores would sit behind a parking lot. The centerpiece would be a pair of landscaped open spaces, which would tend to pull activity away from the road and into the core of the complex. Municipal approvals will be required. On the other side of Cedar Road, in the suburb of University Heights, is another section of the Cedar Center, which Coral Company bought for $12.5 million four years ago. Coral intends to spend $30 million to demolish part of that section, carry out renovations, and add a building containing 130,000 sq. ft. of retail (including a 45,000 sq. ft. Whole Foods store) and 25,000 sq. ft. of offices.