Applicants seek $262 million in Ohio brownfield funds

Cuyahoga County property owners and developers are seeking $71.6 million in state grants to study and clean up contaminated sites — about 27% of the funding requests that the Ohio Department of Development received last month.

The state’s new brownfield remediation program was not immediately oversubscribed, despite lots of buzz among project investors and consultants. The first-round application deadline was Jan. 31, and 204 applicants submitted requests for just over $262 million.

The state is offering up to $350 million in awards on a first-come, first-served basis, though officials earmarked $1 million of that money for each of the 88 counties. Based on that formula, it appears possible that all of the round-one applicants eventually will receive awards.

The development department is reviewing the applications, which span 59 counties.

Roughly 40% of the requests are related to assessments, evaluations of land or buildings. The remaining 60% were for clean-up money, totaling almost $251.3 million for everything from site work to asbestos removal.

The maximum potential clean-up award is $10 million. The cap on assessment funding is $300,000.

The state required private property owners and developers to team up with public-sector entities to apply. Local governments, port authorities, park districts and land banks also could pursue funding on their own.

In Cuyahoga County, developers took the lead on most of the 41 applications.

Elsewhere in the state, the majority of the applicants were local governments or public agencies.

Industrial Commercial Properties LLC, a Solon-based developer, is seeking $10 million to assist with the transformation of City View Center, a former big-box shopping center in Garfield Heights. The property, built on former municipal landfills, slid into foreclosure and spent years in receivership before an ICP joint venture acquired it in early 2021.

The company is remaking the project as a business park called Highland Park.

A developer trio tackling two former Ford Motor Co. plants also is seeking the maximum clean-up award — in both cases. A state database provided to Crain’s, in response to a public records request, shows that a joint venture formed by Weston Inc., the DiGeronimo Cos. and Scannell Properties applied for $10 million grants for properties in Brook Park and Walton Hills.

The partners bought a long-shuttered automotive plant in Brook Park, near Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, in May. They purchased the idled Walton Hills stamping plant in late December. Both properties are slated to become multi-building business parks.

Separately, Weston submitted a $4.5 million grant application for a site the developer is calling Tungsten Industrial LLC. The state’s database does not include project addresses, making it difficult to determine the location of some of the properties.

T.J. Asher, Weston’s president of acquisitions and development, could not be reached for comment on Friday, Feb. 11.

WXZ Development, based in Fairview Park, is seeking $4.2 million for clean-up at the old Ferry Cap & Set Screw Co. complex in the Flats. A WXZ affiliate bought the property in 2018 for a potential residential makeover.

The team behind Studio West, an ambitious Lakewood project that includes the former Phantasy Entertainment Complex, applied for just over $4 million. The new owner of the Westinghouse building, a former industrial property at 5800 Breakwater Ave. in Cleveland, asked for $2.6 million.

In Garfield Heights, landscaping supplier Kurtz Bros. is pursuing almost $2.5 million to clean up a site on Warner Road. And in Cleveland’s Midtown neighborhood, an investor group led by real estate broker Rico Pietro hopes to win $2.2 million to clean up the former Accurate Plating Co. property at 6512 Carnegie Ave.

The applications reveal plans for a project called Opportunity Commerce Park near East 55th Street, along Woodland Avenue, not far from the western end of the Opportunity Corridor. In January, local investors paid $950,000 for roughly 18 acres at 4900 Woodland Ave., according to public records.

Nathan Wynveen, a principal with Beachwood-based TurnDev, confirmed that the new development company is pursuing a potential project. The vacant land has a messy history that spans everything from housing to an orphanage to a scrapyard, he said. The investors, a group that includes attorney Jon Pinney, applied for close to $2.2 million in clean-up money.

“We are working to develop this site. It’s an exciting site, obviously,” said Wynveen, citing the proximity to the new 3-mile boulevard linking East 55th Street to University Circle. “And, as you saw, we need substantial funds.”

Great Lakes Brewing Co. asked for more than $1.9 million for remediation on the 8-acre Scranton Peninsula site the company purchased in 2018. Cleveland Metroparks asked for nearly $1.3 million for a restoration project at the zoo. And a group planning a riverfront park in the Flats, on the Zaclon LLC property in Cleveland’s industrial valley, applied for $811,338.

Developers are seeking grants to assist with renovations of three former Cleveland schools — the landmark Empire, Central and Nathaniel Hawthorne buildings, set to become housing — and remediation at the onetime Robert Fulton school, which will be razed to make way for new, mixed-income apartments.

Sustainable Community Associates, the developer working on the Nathaniel Hawthorne project, also asked for a $1.8 million grant for clean-up at Park Synagogue in Cleveland Heights. The company is conducting a master-planning process to come up with the best redevelopment scheme for the historic synagogue, which the congregation listed for sale last year.

The other Cleveland applicants seeking clean-up money are:

• MidTown Cleveland Inc. and Pennrose Properties, for their challenging overhaul of the old Warner & Swasey Co. complex near East 55th on Carnegie Avenue.

• MRN Ltd., for work at the former Voss Industries site on West 25th Street in Ohio City. That property is earmarked for redevelopment as a mixed-use project called Carriage Works, with apartments, offices and retail space.

• Symba & Snap LLC, a company planning to overhaul an empty Goodwill building on East 55th for food production and processing.

• The organization behind a long-imagined arts incubator and mixed-use project called the Foundry on East 71st Street.

• Vesta Corp., the developer behind a planned senior-apartments project at 1552 Ansel Road, in the city’s Hough neighborhood

• And Levin Group Inc., which is working with the Metro West Community Development Organization on a planned apartment redo of the vacant Northern Ohio Blanket Mills property in the Clark-Fulton neighborhood.

The city of Bedford Heights applied for $1.6 million to help clean up the long-languishing Metaldyne facility on Cannon Road.

Fifteen of the Cuyahoga County applications were more preliminary, for funds to pay for environmental studies. Those requests spanned everything from the Bridgeworks project site in Ohio City, where a hotel and apartments are set to rise at West 25th Street and Detroit Avenue, to a onetime railroad power plant that is sitting in state forfeiture in the Central neighborhood, at Cedar Avenue and Ashland Road.

The NRP Group asked for assessment funding for a corner at Pearl Road and Memphis Avenue in the Old Brooklyn neighborhood, where the developer has teamed up with the Old Brooklyn Community Development Corp. on plans for a 45-unit affordable-housing project. The project would involve demolishing the existing buildings on the corner, including a church.

Scott Skinner, NRP’s vice president of development, said the deal hinges on securing competitive tax credits for low-income housing. Nothing will happen on the site until all of the financing is in place, he said.

“The assessment funding allows us to fully investigate all of the three buildings on the site to determine what the actual cost of remediation and demolition would be,” he said. “And we are trying to figure out what, if any, of the materials of the existing buildings are salvageable.”

Summit County generated 14 applications, for almost $20.4 million in grants for study, clean-up and remediation.

Industrial Realty Group LLC submitted the largest request, for $6.4 million to assist with ongoing redevelopment at the former Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. campus in Akron. The city of Akron asked for almost $5 million to tackle the former B.F. Goodrich power plant downtown.

The Summit County Land Reutilization Corp. submitted a half-dozen applications, most of them for assessment money. Cuyahoga Falls asked for cash to help clean up a long-shuttered gun club, a clay-pigeon shooting range that is set to become a park with trailhead amenities.

And the Conservancy for Cuyahoga Valley National Park submitted a $4.5 million grant application, for clean-up at the former Brandywine Golf Course. The conservancy bought the property last…