Cleveland board OK’s 42 new apartments in Hough neighborhood, near Cleveland Clinic’s

CLEVELAND, Ohio — A Cleveland board on Friday approved plans to add new market-rate apartments to the city’s Hough neighborhood.

The Cleveland City Planning Commission gave its final OK to a plan by ARPI Development to build 42 apartments in a four-story building in the 1800 block of East 93rd Street, near Chester Avenue. The site is north of the Cleveland Clinic’s main campus.

The building will have a mix of studio, one and two-bedroom apartments with patios or balconies. Geis Companies Director of Design Development Brandon Kline, who designed the building, said it will also include a community room, bike storage, and a fitness center.

The property will also include a lot with 28 parking spaces, as the owners expect some residents to get around using bikes and public transportation.

Construction is expected to begin by the end of May, Kline said.

ARPI – which includes several partners, including Shaker Heights orthodontist Dr. Richard Arnstine – acquired three of the four parcels needed for the project over the past five years, paying a combined $213,000 for the land, Cuyahoga County property records show. The Cleveland Land Bank owns the fourth parcel, and Kline said the Planning Commission’s approval paves the way for the Land Bank to turn over the lot.

Kline noted during his presentation to the Planning Commission that the developers are looking at some land west of the current project, to add 118 additional apartments. Most of the parcels are owned by the city Land Bank.

Developers are building in a section of Cleveland they expect to grow in coming years and have started adding houses and apartments to the neighborhood.

They see potential in the Hough neighborhood, which for decades was known as one of the more impoverished and crime-addled areas of the city; one that struggled to escape the shadow of the 1966 riots.

The Cleveland Clinic’s expansion plans in the coming years include building the Global Center for Pathogen Research & Human Health. That is part of an initiative that includes state money to form an “innovation district” with the three major hospital systems, Cleveland State University and Case Western Reserve University.

The goal is to bring 20,000 jobs to Ohio within the next decade, capitalizing on Cleveland’s already well-known medical research work to also encourage additional startups and companies to invest.

To the west, the Cleveland Foundation is building its new headquarters at the northeast corner of East 66th Street and Euclid Avenue.