For two people in the development business, Frank and Malisse Sinito are a study in juxtaposition.

Frank is all business in a gray suit and gunmetal glasses. Malisse is the more casual of the pair, donning a flower-pattern top and lugging a large purse.

After brief introductions, they bundle into an elevator for a tour of the massive lobby of the 925 Building. On the third floor, they lead me to the balcony that encircles the L-shaped lobby. “This building, every time I come here, the beauty is just …” Frank says, trailing off as we reach the railing and letting the space speak for itself.

The banking lobby overwhelms you with marble — floors, columns, even the intricately carved banking tables. The floor, vast as a football field, tends to squeak undershoe. All around, rows of Corinthian columns support a barrel-vaulted ceiling high above, modeled on a Roman basilica.

As we circle the lobby, it’s evident the original builders, the Union Trust bank, the largest bank outside New York in the 1920s, intended this space to trumpet a company and city bound for new heights of prosperity.

Far above, faint light teases the faded colors of Grecian-inspired murals. One shows Lady Liberty, flanked by two rifle-toting doughboys standing at attention. Each of her hands grasps a pole, from atop which American flags billow. She glows with freedom everlasting, heavenly, framed by a corona of red, white and blue. She stares down bare-breasted and proud.

It’s that kind of place.

Rounding the long side of the L, Frank again stands at the railing. He looks down on a grand staircase and a creamy carpet stretching toward what will eventually be the entrance to hotel rooms, offices, a restaurant and a car showroom.

“This is one of the draws that initially drew me to this project,” Frank says. “Look at this. It’s just beautiful.”

The Union Trust folded less than a decade after the building was completed in 1924, cast aside like a crumpled dollar bill in the breeze. But the lobby, and the high-flying dream for Cleveland it embodied, remained.

Lately, it’s mostly sat empty, except for an occasional wedding. The lobby’s plaster ornamentation is crumbling and cracking in places from moisture.

Just as the East Ninth Street and Euclid Avenue intersection is important for Cleveland, this moment is a significant crossroads for the Sinitos. Over the last five years, the husband and wife team have quietly emerged as two of downtown’s biggest real estate players.

In 2014, their privately controlled Millennia Cos. purchased 75 Public Square, their first center-city foray. The next year, they scooped up the Garfield Building at East Sixth Street and Euclid Avenue and transformed its former National City banking lobby into Marble Room, a swanky steak and seafood restaurant.

But those properties were just the foundation for the Sinitos’ major real estate play downtown. In January 2017, Millennia acquired the iconic Key Tower, Ohio’s tallest skyscraper, for $267.5 million. In May, the company scooped up the 925 Building for $40 million.

In the short end of the 925’s L, they are contemplating another high-end restaurant with a menu tilted toward Asian cuisine. On the L’s other end, if negotiations pan out, a luxury car showroom could be outfitted with gleaming Bentleys and Aston Martins.

They expect the 925 Building to be a showpiece in an evolving downtown, just as it was when it was built.

“It seems like [Frank] is trying to build some legacy in the city center,” says downtown councilman Kerry McCormack. “No doubt about it.”

But the Sinito name already comes with a bit of history. Frank’s father, Thomas Sinito, was a notorious Cleveland mobster. Imprisoned during his son’s high school years, Thomas found religion behind bars. After his father’s death, Frank too was converted and founded Ohio’s largest prison ministry.

Although he is often quoted in the business press, Frank has never told a reporter his father’s story. It’s part of what I want to know, but Frank is elusive, constantly on the move.

We circle the lobby, then duck into a set of C-suite offices, where Frank and Malisse check out a boardroom and look out over Ninth and Euclid.

“This is the one project that has to get done,” Frank says. “You can’t have this renaissance occurring here in Cleveland without this building getting done.”

We zip downstairs to see the vault and then step out into the Euclid Avenue heat. Over the last few years, the gaps up and down the block have slowly filled in — Heinen’s Grocery Store in the Cleveland Trust building, renovations and a Yours Truly at the Halle Building. Even the long-troubled Cleveland Athletic Club, which used to radiate mildew stink and cold breezes onto the sidewalk, is abuzz with construction equipment.

The Sinitos are late arrivals to downtown’s revival. The pioneer work is done. Others cleared the brush and paved the streets. Last year, the neighborhood added more than 800 units of housing and hit 15,000 residents, a significant milestone on the quest toward 20,000.

“I mean, truly, we are Johnny-come-lately,” Frank says, spreading his arms up and down the street to indicate his new neighbors as he walks toward the Statler, Millennia’s latest acquisition. “They get all the tribute.”