Yum Village Relocates Downtown as New Retail Heading to Langston Building Near CSU

Cleveland State will be getting news of fresh retail in the next couple of weeks.

Three storefronts—The Pita Place, Downtown Nutrition and Yum Village—in The Langston building off Chester Avenue, on the north side of CSU’s campus, have been vacant since late September.

Carasai Ihentuge, the Yum Village owner who will be reopening his Afro-Carribean restaurant in the former Joe Maxx Coffee spot nearby, told Scene one business will be occupying those three retail spaces come November.

He relayed information from Playhouse Square, which manages both The Langston and The Edge on Euclid.

They “hinted toward a department store, a pharmacy kind of place,” Ihentuge said. “Like a Walgreen’s or CVS, as an example.”

A spot that “will give people a reason to walk around that area,” he added. “Not just another food place.”

Downtown Cleveland as a whole is severely lacking on the department store and pharmacy front. The CVS off East 9th and Rockwell closed in 2022; the one on Euclid and East 9th just brought in outside management to deal with rising in-store thefts. And anything resembling “department store”—like the elusive Target downtowners salivate over—requires a 12-minute drive or RTA schlep to Steelyard Commons.

The area has long tried to figure out how to both provide its burgeoning residents with home goods and spots to pick up a pair of socks or carton of milk while also turning a profit. A retail study commissioned by Downtown Cleveland, Inc. has laid out an earnest effort to fill in vacancies—like a pop up market on Huron, or a downtown night market—but nothing earth-shattering has yet been implemented.

A call to Richard Hart, who manages The Langston, was unreturned on Friday, as was an email to Cleveland State. A representative from DCI refused to comment, adding “there will be an announcement in the next few weeks.”

With its purchase of the Greyhound Building down the street on Chester, its apartment-heavy renovation of the Bulkley Building and its coming café on U.S. Bank Plaza, Playhouse Square is trying to mesh its growing property portfolio into Downtown Cleveland’s attempt to solidify itself as a livable neighborhood.

Which is also what gives Ihentuge, who signed a five-year lease at The Langston, hope that Yum Village’s new spot can ride the promise of more foot traffic. Along with whatever’s happening with the Cleveland State 2.0 master plan admid a lingering $40 million budget gap.

“I mean, CSU is a commuter college,” he said. “But they’re trying to make it more enticing for students to walk around, live here and all that.”

Yum Village will reopen on November 12, and have a grand re-opening at The Langston, Ihentuge said, the second week of January. [content-2]

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