a Renewed Lake Erie Again One of the Greats the New York Times
Square Feet
Cleveland'due south Thriving Theater Hub Lures Residents
CLEVELAND — When a national tour of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" played here final month, Vincent Wil Hawley walked from his apartment at Residences at Hanna, a new 102-unit conversion in a renovated role building addendum, and was in his seat v minutes later.
"It'south basically like you're living in the middle of Broadway," said Mr. Hawley, 30. "It's fun to have and so much civilization outside your door."
Residents of Midtown Manhattan are accustomed to walking to the Theater District to meet what's new on Broadway. Only Mr. Hawley's trip to and from Cleveland's gilt Palace Theater was something much more significant. It was a sign, decades in the making, that this city'due south efforts to create a thriving residential real estate market in its downtown core was starting to look more similar a box-office striking than a bomb.
An estimated 12,000 people now alive in downtown Cleveland, double what the population was in 2000, according to the Downtown Cleveland Alliance, a nonprofit organization that represents belongings owners. Rental occupancy is near a record high of 95 per centum. Such growth has roots in initiatives that Rust Belt cities similar Cleveland and Detroit are using to lure residents, including tax credits, new business organization incentives and outreach to millennial professionals looking for affordable and bike-friendly city living.
Simply in Cleveland in that location'south a more marquee reason people are moving downtown: the theater. PlayhouseSquare, a nonprofit that operates nine functioning spaces in Cleveland'due south theater commune, has run its own real estate services division since 1999. With last fall's opening of Residences at Hanna, Playhouse Square took its starting time step into the world of residential real estate, an unusual projection for an arts organization that is unremarkably more concerned with renewing subscriptions than leases.
The worlds of theater and real estate merge in several ways. In New York, performing arts organizations frequently do good from mixed-use development. In 2012, Off Broadway's Signature Theater moved into a multi-venue complex on the ground floor of the MiMA building on West 42nd Street. Regionally, theaters are landlords out of necessity; they charter or own apartments and other housing for out-of-land actors and crew members. Alive-work spaces for artists are commonplace across the country.
Residences at the Hanna is anchored on the ground floor in part past the Hanna Theater, which was congenital in 1921 and once attracted stage luminaries like Katharine Hepburn and Henry Fonda. Today it houses the Great Lakes Theater, a company that produces archetype works. Rents there range from $750 for a studio to $i,600 for a two-bedroom.
Mr. Hawley, a jewelry designer, says he pays $i,275 for a 925-square-foot, one-chamber flat with unobstructed views of Lake Erie. All units in the eight-story building were leased before the project was completed in Oct. As with many other new buildings downtown, in that location'south a waiting list to become in.
Today PlayhouseSquare manages more than 2.3 1000000 square anxiety of office and retail infinite in northeast Ohio. Merely nether half of that is in the PlayhouseSquare district, which includes five celebrated theaters, dating back to the 1920s, that after decades of neglect were renovated as part of a 27-year, $55 million entrada of public and private funds.
"We are creative, and that carries over to how we create a neighborhood," said Allen Wiant, the vice president for strategic evolution in the theater group's real estate division.
Credit a musical for the original attempt to redevelop PlayhouseSquare. In 1973, a production of the musical revue "Jacque Brel Is Live and Well and Living in Paris" that was to run for ii weeks became a striking and ran for over 2 years. That success brought people downtown and renewed involvement in saving Cleveland's historic theater district.
PlayhouseSquare realized that filling theater seats on a regular footing required restaurants and bars nearby, where people could come before a testify and stay after.
Fast-forward a few decades. PlayhouseSquare officials viewed the eight floors of the Hanna addendum, which include the theater and several floors of former function space, equally an adaptive reuse opportunity. The K&D Group, a regional programmer backside other downtown apartment buildings, bought the annex for $3.25 million from Playhouse Square's real manor division. Equally a component of the transaction, fabricated public Dec. 29, 2011, PlayhouseSquare agreed to lease the ground floor for retailing, situated near the Hanna Theater, from K&D for a menses of years.
Most xl years afterward the closing of "Jacque Brel," and after millions of dollars in renovations and surface area development, people are not just being entertained in Cleveland's theater district. They're calling it abode.
"A logical development is residents," said Joe Marinucci, the president and principal executive of the Downtown Cleveland Alliance and a one-time vice president for real estate development for PlayhouseSquare. "That creates more of a 24/7, dynamic environs."
PlayhouseSquare is also in the middle of a $sixteen million transformation of the surrounding streetscape, with new signs, gateway arches and the renovation of a small eatables featuring a food kiosk called Dynomite. On May 2, the organization will concur a lighting anniversary for its new, retro-looking electronic signage and a gigantic LED crystal chandelier that will hang over an intersection almost the theaters.
In addition, ii new restaurants will be opening in the next several months.
"It's non just about what's on stage," said Art Falco, the president and master executive of PlayhouseSquare. "It comes downwardly to creating a vibrant area, besides."
Mr. Marinucci said that until occupancy reaches over 20,000, downtown is "still short" on the number of people needed for a truly round-the-clock neighborhood with meaning pedestrian traffic. Civilities similar drugstores and supermarkets are withal lacking downtown, although Heinen'due south, a local grocery chain, plans to open a 33,000-square-pes supermarket this fall some five blocks away from the Hanna as function of the renovation of a former bank edifice.
Despite the positive turnaround in its theater district, Cleveland continues to face up serious economic hurdles. A recent study from the Brookings Institution found peachy income inequality in Cleveland, with the poor getting poorer. Neighborhoods but outside downtown, like Fairfax and Hough, the site of riots in the 1960s, show few signs of revival.
Merely PlayhouseSquare's residential project may provide a model for other struggling Rust Belt cities that are eager to discover the synergy that links the performing arts, urban development and affordable commercial real estate.
"The basic rule in real manor for v,000 years is value is tied to location," said Robert L. Lynch, the main executive of Americans for the Arts, a nonprofit arts advocacy system in Washington. "Whenever you tin can practise something that enhances a location, you lot enhance the value. Fine art and theater are value enhancements."
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Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/02/realestate/commercial/clevelands-thriving-theater-district-makes-downtown-living-alluring.html
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