CLEVELAND, Ohio - The lights went out at the Watermark Restaurant in the Flats more than 10 years ago, ending a fine-dining run that started in 1985. Nearby on Old River Road, an Arhaus Furniture clearance center closed in 2007, as the fast-growing retailer left the historic Upson-Walton Co. Building for a shopping center in the suburbs.

Members of the Samsel family, who have owned a stretch along the east bank of the Cuyahoga River for decades, watched their neighborhood rise as an entertainment district and then slide into disrepair. Now - with new partners - they've started renovating their waterfront buildings as the district reaches for a new sort of revival, fueled not only by bars, clubs and eateries but also by apartments, offices and recreation.

"We just kind of toughed it out," said Mike Samsel, whose father started a maritime, construction and industrial supply business in 1958 and gradually bought up buildings in the Flats.

Samsel and Kathy Petrick, his sister, co-own and operate Samsel Supply Co. on the east side of Old River Road. Across the street, they've joined forces with real estate developer Fred Geis and another pair of siblings, Jim and John Catanese of Catanese Classic Seafood. Together, they hope to remake four largely empty buildings that face Samsel's longtime offices, fabrication facility and store.

Samsel Supply Co. used to have its offices and fabrication operations in the Upson-Walton Building, pictured here in the 1970s, before moving across Old River Road to the company's current location.

The partners still are finalizing their agreement to split the property ownership three ways. But renovations started during the summer at their first project, an overhaul of the Hausheer Building where the Watermark once filled the first floor.

From Hausheer, at 1250 Old River Road, construction will move south to the vacant Upson-Walton building and a pair of small, connected buildings next door.

Conversations about a partnership started two years ago.

"We first became friends, and then we decided to become partners," Geis said, laughing. "We had a couple lunches, maybe a few drinks during lunch, and then one day you put enough drinks in me and I said 'Where do I sign?'"

Petrick and Samsel have long fended off developers' advances on the Samsel Supply Co. building, at 1235 Old River Road. More recently, they've seen proposals to raze Hausheer and Upson-Walton, which are separated by a parking lot, to make way for new apartment buildings.

The Catanese brothers and Geis took a different approach: Maintain the history of the Flats and try to bring jobs, not residents, back to buildings that once brimmed with ropes, chains, sail-making operations and other maritime activities.

"I'm very committed to keeping offices down here," said Geis, who also is exploring a tech-focused office reinvestment in the troubled Western Reserve Building, up the hill on West Ninth Street.

The three-story Hausheer Building's second floor is home to two office tenants, HSB Architects and Engineers and executive-search firm Gayhart and Associates, Inc. Most of the top floor is empty.

A restaurant is scheduled to open in the spring in the former Watermark space downstairs, where patrons will have access to spruced-up patios along the river. Samsel, Petrick and Geis won't say much about the eatery, but a building permit posted on the property alludes to a company registered with the state as Old River Brewing Company Cleveland LLC or Big Cat Brewery.

The Watermark Restaurant, pictured before it closed in 2003, helped kick off the fine-dining era in the Flats when it opened in the 1980s. Now the space will become a restaurant and brewery.

The old Watermark space is significant for the Catanese brothers, who supply seafood to chefs and other customers across Northeast Ohio.

"The Watermark was probably our first real account in the city years ago," said Jim Catanese, president of the family business on Merwin Avenue in the Flats. "That place put us on the map years ago, if you will, as a supplier. ... We're very familiar with the area down there, and when [the Flats East Bank] got built out, it just made sense that the development would work its way up the street there."

Citing a plethora of restaurants downtown, though, the investors don't plan to court additional eateries. Instead, they're seeking retail tenants for the first floor of the Upson-Walton Building, which has been vacant since Arhaus left.

There already are offices at street level in the smaller buildings to the south.

In another contrarian move, Geis and his partners aren't seeking historic preservation tax credits, which have played a key role in many other downtown projects. All four buildings qualify for credits as part of the Old River Road Historic District, and the Upson-Walton Building is individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Hausheer and Upson-Walton often are described as pre-Civil War structures, meaning they were built before 1861. The exact date of construction is somewhat unclear, though. Some sources do mention the mid-1850s or the late 1860s. But the nominating form for the Old River Road Historic District puts the construction date of both buildings closer to 1871, after the Civil War.

Both Italianate-style buildings have cast-iron storefront piers and round-arched windows. And both properties are part of a rare strip of downtown that looks much the same as it did more than a century ago.

"All the buildings are eligible for federal and state historic tax credits and conservation easements. It's a financing opportunity not taken," said Tom Yablonsky, executive director of the Historic Warehouse District Development Corp., a nonprofit neighborhood group.

Geis said he didn't want to deal with limitations imposed by the tax credits. The only public funding in the project, so far, is a $300,000 state revitalization grant for the Hausheer Building. That building ultimately could be a $4.5 million renovation project, between top-to-bottom repairs, mechanical upgrades and the restaurant.

"We wanted the ability to make changes as necessary to the building and to do repairs as necessary and use the colors I want to use," Geis said of Hausheer, now painted a soft green with purple and brighter green accents. "We just didn't want the control that the historic tax people put onto it. We've redone everything. There's not one piece of this building that hasn't been touched by our crews."