Ohio City Bridgeworks Project Eyes Fall Groundbreaking After Last Year's Redesign
By Mark Oprea,
2024-04-30
Bridgeworks' latest design, shown again at Cuyahoga County Council on Monday, was just backed with a $2 million construction loan. Build out is slated to wrap up near the end of 2025. One of Ohio City's most malleable apartment projects in recent years was awarded $2 million on Monday, in an effort by Cuyahoga County to push the complex closer to its groundbreaking later this fall.
Set to rise on the western edge of the Veterans Memorial Bridge, Bridgeworks, in its latest phase, comprises 140 units of market-rate housing, including 82 one-bedroom apartments, in a somewhat muted grey-and-teal seven-story building.
That $2 million loan was extended by County Council's Economic Development & Planning Committee on Monday to allow room for Bridgeworks' redesign late last year. One that's more realistic, all parties acknowledged, in light of market conditions.
"It’s easy to fold your tent when the rates are the worst they’ve been," Committee Chair Jack Schron said.
Such market conditions, for which housing experts predict could worsen for multifamily buildings , are what led the Bridgeworks team, spearheaded by Michael Panzica, to create a building with more sense in today's housing market—that is, making half of the 140 units workforce, or affordable apartments at Cleveland's median income level. ( That's about $34,000/year .)
Anthony Stella, a leading financial analyst for the county, told councilmembers that such county investment into Bridgeworks is a boost to Ohio City's growing public realm, buttressed by the in-progress Irishtown Bend Park to the south, along with the RTA's planned resurfacing of West 25th into Bus Rapid Transit.
"This is a catalytic project that will help with the whole area," Stella said. Bridgeworks' redesign last year, a response to changing market conditions, kept a public and private entrance to the lower streetcar level of the Veterans Memorial Bridge. What makes Bridgeworks' build interesting is primarily the where of the equation: Geis and Panzica, its developer and builder, are aiming to construct the property on what used to be a primary underground artery to the streetcar level of the bridge it plans to link to. County Executive Chris Ronayne has long touted that space, which closed in 1954, as ripe for redevelopment as Cleveland's "Low Line," a bike-and-pedestrian track connecting Ohio City and Downtown.
On June 21 and 22, the county announced this week, that bottom level will be open yet again to tease its future, with Summer Solstice-themed live music and art installations.
A future that Bridgeworks residents, and Ohio City locals and visitors, would ideally be a part of, with planned underground access to the streetcar level.
Even if the building itself isn't perfect.
"This design is garbage," Zaim Naches wrote on Bridgeworks' feedback page. He slotted it as cookie cutter luxury housing, referring to nearby development off Detroit Avenue: "Rename it Waterford Bluffs Deaux as another generic gateway to the neighborhood."
"We deserve better," he said.
Ohio City resident Courtney P. highlighted a potential widening of the big gap between Ohio City's luxury stock and the somewhat neglected Lakeview Terrace across OH-2 to the north, public housing that, Scene found last year, is still suffering from ongoing air quality issues and rat problems.
Ohio City, Inc. stepped in last March with an air quality monitoring initiative—which placed seven sensors around Lakeview—yet such efforts are unlikely to improve quality of life concerns anytime soon.
"Each apartment that gets built feels more and more like you’re trying to take over the community of people that have had this place as their home for years," she wrote. "Please commit to unity and inclusivity in who you allow to live in your apartment."
Like The Welleon further west on Detroit Avenue, or TREO on West 25th further south, Bridgeworks would likely benefit from the city's brand new transit-oriented development legislation, which awards perks to developers who build with non-car-centric design in mind.
As advertised Monday, Bridgeworks could be a boon to cyclists and walkers eager to traverse the Low Line and the nearby Irishtown Bend Park when both projects are completed—if everything goes as planned—before 2028.
Bridgeworks aims to have construction wrapped up by the end of 2025, a timeline on its website predicts.
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