CLEVELAND, Ohio - A planned residential tower on Euclid Avenue won its second set of design approvals this week, taking another step toward a late-2016 construction start.

The Cleveland City Planning Commission gave a thumbs-up Friday to more fleshed-out images of the Beacon, a 19-floor apartment building that will sit above the existing 515 Euclid Ave. parking garage. On Thursday, a design-review committee dedicated to the downtown area also gave its nod to the project team's request for schematic approval.

Stark Enterprises aims to begin site work late this year or early next and to open the 187-unit apartment building in spring 2018. The developer still needs permission from the Cleveland Board of Zoning Appeals to erect a taller, more densely populated tower than the current zoning allows. And the planning commission will see the project at least one more time, for final approval, before construction starts.

Members of the design-review committee asked for a deeper examination of Stark's lighting plan, which is a critical part of the project. Nighttime renderings show a tower that's lit from underneath, where the first residential floor meets the top of the glassy garage. Nadaaa and Westlake Reed Leskosky, the architecture firms behind the design, also showed LEDS on alternating floors at the metal-clad building's edges, creating a zipper-like look up the sides.

The most noticeable - and complicated - lighting feature is on the 21st floor, the only floor where residents will have balconies. Renderings depict that floor as a band of light at night. Katherine Faulkner of Nadaaa said the designers are working on ways to ensure that the tower is illuminated to stand out without causing disruptions for tenants.

"It is probably our biggest design challenge," Faulkner told the design-review group.

Tom Yablonsky, a committee member, said such distinctive features often get left on the cutting room floor as developers of downtown projects try to keep costs down and make the numbers work. The Beacon will be much less interesting if that happens, he said.

"The lighted balcony is a unique design feature I'd like to see you keep," said Yablonsky, executive director of the nonprofit Historic Warehouse District Development Corp. and Historic Gateway Neighborhood Corp.

Other design-review committee members asked the architects to revisit the appearance of the roof, where a rooftop deck for tenants and mechanical areas sit side-by-side. They asked for more detailed images of the first floor, where storefronts lined Euclid and the entrance to the garage sits on East Sixth Street. And some members said a rooftop sign bearing the Beacon name was too large and needed to shrink by 10 to 15 percent.

The city's economic-development department is talking to Stark about assisting with the project, department executive Kevin Schmotzer told the planning commission. The city doesn't have a specific proposal yet. But members of the project team have talked about trying to extend a tax-increment financing district that gives real estate owners the ability to reallocate a portion of new property-tax revenues from their projects to repaying construction debt.

The Beacon is the fruit of a joint venture between Cleveland-based Stark and Reuven Dessler, the managing partner of an investor group that owns the 515 Euclid garage.