Nela Park sale closes, putting East Cleveland landmark in new hands

Nela Park, the East Cleveland landmark often described as the nation’s first industrial park, has been sold to a Milwaukee-based real estate firm.

An affiliate of Phoenix Investors closed Wednesday, May 4, on the purchase of the 92-acre property, according to Colliers, the brokerage that handled the sale. The transaction does not appear yet in Cuyahoga County land records.

Colliers did not disclose what Phoenix paid for the property, which the county values at close to $7.9 million. The deal was a complicated sale-leaseback, an arrangement that will keep longtime occupant GE Lighting, a Savant Company, in place.

The changing of the guard at one of Northeast Ohio’s most storied properties raises the prospect of fresh investments in East Cleveland, a poverty-stricken inner-ring suburb that sorely needs a boost. Nela Park has been a critical anchor for the city since 1910, when officers of the National Electric Lamp Co. picked the sloping, wooded site for an industrial research center.

Phoenix, a company focused on reviving former manufacturing facilities, announced a deal to buy Nela Park in early March.

The sale was expected to close that month but dragged on for several more weeks. The seller was an affiliate of Savant Systems Inc., the home-automation company that bought GE Lighting in mid-2020.

Phoenix did not respond to an interview request Wednesday. A GE Lighting spokesman declined to divulge the sale price or discuss deal terms.

“Our intention is to stay at Nela Park. We signed a long-term lease,” said Ben Sabol, the spokesman. “We have no intention of leaving. We are still going to be doing the lights at Nela Park, the holiday lighting. … While we’re not going to own the park anymore, we are committed to staying at the park and being a part of the community.”

The complex totals more than 1 million square feet, spread across 26 buildings. Savant’s lease spans several hundred thousand square feet, Mark Abood, a senior vice president at the Colliers office in Cleveland, wrote in an email.

Abood, who worked on the deal with Virginia-based colleagues Rob Stockhausen and Grant Bates, described the property as “one of northern Ohio’s top five most architecturally significant treasures.” Colliers marketed the listing through a hush-hush process and ultimately represented both the seller and the buyer.

“Phoenix is no stranger to attracting vibrant new companies to its properties, and Nela will be no exception,” Brian Hurtuk, managing director of the local Colliers office, said in a news release. “Phoenix’s entry into northern Ohio ushers in a new era of development at the site.”

Along Noble Road, southeast of Euclid Avenue, Nela Park has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1975. Most of the major buildings, clad in red brick and trimmed in terra cotta and stone, were constructed between 1911 and 1921.

The park’s name started out as an acronym, for the National Electric Lamp Association.

NELA became part of the General-Electric Co.’s lighting business in 1911, and the first buildings at Nela Park opened in 1913. In the 1930s, the property became the headquarters for GE’s incandescent lamp department. At one point, nearly 5,700 people worked there, according to the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History.

Today, GE Lighting has approximately 250 employees in East Cleveland. Spread across the campus today, those workers will move into offices and labs in two buildings. That space is the former home of GE Current, another former General Electric subsidiary.

GE Current, a Daintree company, recently moved to Beachwood. GE sold that business, which makes advanced lighting, sensors and controls for commercial spaces, in 2019.

As part of home-automation company Savant, GE Lighting produces lights and fixtures for residential applications.

In January, the company sold two Ohio manufacturing plants, in Bucyrus and Logan, to Phoenix, public records show. Those transactions also were sale-leaseback deals, but GE Lighting is exiting the facilities. The plants, where workers make linear fluorescent lamps and halogen bulbs, are scheduled to close in late September.

In East Cleveland, it was important to find a preservation-minded buyer, Sabol said. He anticipates that Phoenix will recruit companies to the park and bring mothballed buildings back online.

“I think their plan is to enhance what’s already there and to really … restore it to its former glory,” he said.

In a news release in March, Phoenix founder and chairman Frank Crivello said the firm was enthusiastic about expanding its footprint in Ohio.

“Revitalization is one of our core values,” he said. “We plan to both honor the park’s history and embrace its future with thoughtful renovations while attracting high-quality tenants to the area.”

City officials could not be reached for comment Wednesday.