SHAKER HEIGHTS, Ohio - The design for a sleek, glassy and very likable-looking Mitchell's Ice Cream shop is part of the latest improvements to plans for the upcoming Van Aken development planned for this East Side suburb.

Lakewood architect Scott Dimit released new renderings of the Mitchell's building to The Plain Dealer in tandem with new renderings of other buildings planned for Van Aken released by the Cleveland architecture firm Bialosky.

The Bialosky images depicted the latest refinements for several other buildings in the complex, including an office and retail building, a 300-space garage and a 100-unit apartment and retail building.

The new drawings and renderings offer the sharpest picture yet of what the $100 million first phase of the Van Aken project, planned by RMS Investment Corp., will look like.

Architects at Bialosky said demolition on the existing outmoded Van Aken shopping center, located southwest of the intersection of Warrensville Center Road and Farnsleigh Road, could begin as early as November.

They also said that the city of Shaker Heights has approved or nearly approved designs for most of the buildings in Van Aken's first phase.

In all, the development will include 11 acres bounded by Warrensville Center Road, Chagrin Boulevard and Farnsleigh Road.

Timing

Previous reports have stated that the project's first phase could open by the spring of 2018.

Luke Palmisano, president of Cleveland-based RMS, was traveling and could not be reached for comment about progress on leasing the Van Aken project's office and retail spaces.

In July, The Plain Dealer's Michelle Jarboe reported that Jonathon Sawyer, a local chef with a national reputation, would help shape the project's food and beverage lineup, including a handful of sit-down restaurants and a food hall housing 15 to 20 stalls.

RMS also previously announced that the firm had recruited Detroit-based watchmaker Shinola as a major tenant.

In August, however, Fresh Market, a grocery chain, announced it would close its store in the existing Van Aken complex and not build a new one as expected on the east side of Warrensville Center Road at Farnsleigh Road.

Designers from Bialosky said that city permits issued for the new Fresh Market are null, and that RMS is seeking a new grocer to build on the site.

The architectural news is that the increasingly refined Bialosky buildings are designed less to grab attention than to provide a framework for public spaces in the Van Aken development, and for eye-catching accent buildings including the Mitchell's shop.

Dissent on design

At a public forum last April, some Shaker residents harshly criticized the still-emerging Bialosky designs as too modern and not traditional enough for the suburb, which is known for vintage early- and mid-20th-century homes designed in a variety of historical revival styles including Tudor, Federal, Georgian "Country Chateau" and French Classical.

The new Van Aken buildings will avoid directly evoking any of those historical styles. Yet it's also clear that they make extensive use of brick, a familiar material in the suburb, and that they're meant to evoke early-20th-century commercial or industrial buildings, but with extensive areas of glass and metal detailed in a more contemporary manner.

In other words, they look as if they're meant to act as background structures that subtly blend retro and contemporary styling, but without an emphatic sense of historical time.

"We are not adhering to issues of style that are nostalgic and that are meant to evoke thoughts of a different time and place," Jack Bialosky, the firm's lead principal, said in an interview.

Respectful of Shaker history

"What we're really trying very hard to do is to respect the underlying qualities of historic [Shaker] traditions while creating a new architecture that is respectful, but is not dated."

Bialosky said he hoped to take a more progressive and contemporary approach on a restaurant and retail building planned for a triangular site on the Farnsleigh Road frontage.

That new building - not yet extensively designed - will stand between the five-story apartment on the southwest side of the development, and the office and garage complex on its east side.

Also framed by those two major structures will be the Mitchell's shop, which will face south toward an open triangular public park in the center of the development's first phase.

Dimit designed the Mitchell's with a largely opaque one-story rectangular block on its north side, containing internal operations for the store. The block, sliced with diagonals on its ends, is sheathed in finely detailed wood planks.

A yummy-looking Mitchell's

The rest of the store - and the majority of the building - consists of a very glassy, triangular space for patrons on its south side.

The store looks sleek, contemporary and very inviting. It also looks as if RMS hopes it will become an active, visible centerpiece to the development whose pizzazz will be accentuated by the relatively restrained and reserved look of the Bialosky buildings around it.

In other words, the development is shaping up as a place with buildings that know when to grab attention, and when to play a supporting role.

It's still too soon to render a final judgment about the emerging design for the project. But the latest designs, when compared with earlier drawings from a year ago, show definite signs of improvement.