CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A long-delayed and much-discussed downtown Cleveland project has resurfaced, promising a hotel and 55 luxury apartments at East Ninth Street and Euclid Avenue by late 2014.

CRM Companies Inc. said Thursday that it has resumed work on the Schofield Building, a Victorian-style brick and terra-cotta structure that has been sitting, windowless and hung with scaffolding, for three years.



Working with Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants, the developer is planning a 122-room hotel topped by apartments that will have access to room service, valet parking, the hotel concierge and other amenities.

The Schofield sits just northwest of the site of Cuyahoga County's future headquarters and across from the former Ameritrust complex, another vacant property set for renovation. With the Geis Cos. of Streetsboro exploring their own hotel-and-apartment project, plus offices, at Ameritrust, two troubled corners of a major intersection are set for revival.

"We're just very, very pleased that they were able to put the package together," Joe Marinucci, who leads the Downtown Cleveland Alliance, said of CRM and Schofield. "It obviously is at a critical location in downtown. In many ways, Ninth and Euclid is the symbolic center of the city."

A historic restoration promised in 2009, the Schofield has been dormant since a year later. That's when workers finished pulling down a metal facade to reveal the brick-work and investigate how badly scarred the terra-cotta was. Enough historic fabric remained that the project qualified for federal and state tax credits aimed at preservation.

But hotel lending, which dried up during the recession, was slow to rebound. CRM reworked the project and obtained extensions on the state tax credits.

Steve Calabrese and Brian Intihar of CRM said they've spent the last year tweaking their plans and considering the best uses for the building. Now they're confident enough to move forward with the $50 million project, with fewer hotel rooms and more apartments than originally planned.

Calabrese would not elaborate on the project financing, but he said CRM has signed a deal with Cleveland Construction Inc. of Mentor. Workers returned to the site within the last 30 days, spurring questions about whether the project had found new life.

The developer says he never stepped away.

"It would have been very easy to make this into an apartment building a few years ago and call it a day," Calabrese said. "We spent a lot of time and a lot of money defining what use it should be. ... It just took us time, and it took money."

Kimpton will operate and manage the hotel, which does not yet have a name. The project also will include a ground-floor restaurant and high-profile retail space at the corner of Ninth and Euclid.

The concept of marrying a hotel and apartments -- with shared services -- has been floated before in downtown Cleveland. But Schofield might be the first project to test that market. CRM has not set rates for the apartments yet, but they're likely to charge a premium compared to other downtown rentals.

The apartments will range from just under 1,000 square feet to 3,000-square-foot corner units with views of Lake Erie, PlayhouseSquare and Public Square. Calabrese said most of those large units are spoken for -- one of them by a member of the investor group behind the project.

Apartments at the company's nearby redevelopment of Chester Commons, a former office building rechristened as Seasons at Perk Park, will rent for $1.40 to $1.50 per square foot -- or $1,400 to $1,500 for a 1,000-square-foot unit. That's slightly above average rates for downtown, where apartment occupancy is hovering around 96 percent. That project, with 33 units, will be complete in September.



CRM also is renovating the Truman Building, at 1030 Euclid Ave., for apartments set to open next year.

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