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The long-empty Fifth Church of Christ Scientist, at Lake Avenue and West 117th Street in Cleveland, would be demolished under a block-wide redevelopment plan presented by city officials and Carnegie Cos. at a community meeting last week. Carnegie, which controls the surrounding land, razed a deteriorating retail strip on Clifton last year and plans to build new shopping just south of the church.

(John Kuntz, The Plain Dealer)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A key gateway site at Cleveland's western edge could be redeveloped with a grocery store and other retailers, but that new investment requires the demolition of a long-vacant church that has eluded the wrecking ball since the early 1990s.

The Fifth Church of Christ Scientist, at Lake Avenue and West 117th Street, must fall to enable a land swap between the city of Cleveland and Carnegie Cos., a Solon developer that owns the surrounding block. Late last year, Carnegie razed an old retail strip along Clifton Boulevard, just south of the church, setting the stage for new construction near the city's border with Lakewood.

A site plan released last week shows new retail lining Clifton between West 116th and 117th street, with parking tucked behind the stores.

A site plan unveiled last week shows the proposed redevelopment of a key city block at the Cleveland-Lakewood border. The strip of property along Lake Avenue, which the city would own after a land swap, could be a potential site for townhouses, though some neighbors want to see green space there. The plans hinge on demolition of the vacant Fifth Church of Christ Scientist, on the northwest corner of the block.

Giant Eagle, which closed a more traditional store on Clifton five years ago, hopes to return to the neighborhood with a 30,000-square-foot market focused on fresh produce, prepared foods, beer and wine. The city would hang onto a strip of land along Lake, for a possible townhouse project or green space.

If various city boards and commissions sign off, the new retail project could put an end to two decades of neighborhood protests, failed developments and deferred demolitions at a critical corner. But neighbors remain divided over the future of the church, a city landmark that has been rotting since the late 1980s. And some residents want more clarity on what will replace the domed building and whether the main entrance or other pieces of the historic building can be saved.

"This plan is so much more improved than the previous plans," Michael Flickinger, who lives nearby, said to city officials and Carnegie executives during a packed community meeting Wednesday night. "What I would ask the city -- and I know it was mentioned -- many of us would like to see the portico of the church saved."

Historic church no closer to revival

The fate of the church and the potential retail project are different issues, involving properties controlled by two different landlords. For the last year, though, city officials have said they want to see a complete redevelopment of the block. The deal proposed by Carnegie and Giant Eagle might be the city's best shot, since the plan brings together two players with significant power over the site.

Cleveland protectively took possession of the church in 2002, accepting it from a company affiliated with Giant Eagle. At that time, the Pittsburgh-based grocer still operated a store in Carnegie's strip center on Clifton.

To prevent a competitor from moving in, the grocer placed deed restrictions on the church that make it nearly impossible to build a sizable grocery store on that property or the surrounding land. Those restrictions don't roll off until late 2022. Giant Eagle is the only party that can lift them.

During the last 10 years, developers have proposed everything from a chain bookstore to residences as reuse possibilities for the church. A major retail plan fell apart after stores including Giant Eagle flocked to a site at West 117th and Interstate 90. Another design, which included townhouses, dissipated during the recession.

In recent years, City Councilman Jay Westbrook has led everyone from home builders to representatives from the Cleveland Museum of Art through the Fifth Church -- with little yield. The building could cost more than $2 million to repair, he said, and any developer would face parking challenges on the small site.

"We were never under any pretense that the city could do historic preservation," Westbrook told a crowd of nearly 200 people at Wednesday's meeting. "Our goal was to nurture the property to be reutilized -- put into viable economic use."

During a tour of the church early this year, Westbrook navigated the crumbling reading room and the octagonal main hall as water dripped from the ceiling and plinked in the walls. Outside, workmen hauled a tattered recliner, the remains of a squatter's nest, out of a basement stairwell littered with food wrappers, beer cans and malt-liquor bottles.

The church, built in the 1920s and abandoned sixty years later, could continue to languish, waiting for a savior with the money and the will to step in. Or the city could let the building go, now that the longtime owner of the surrounding property has an anchor tenant and what Westbrook describes as a "once in a lifetime" plan to remake it.

Market District Express would anchor project

Affiliates of the Carnegie Cos. have owned the Clifton property for decades. After demolishing the tired retail buildings, which had structural problems, Carnegie toyed with dozens of redevelopment schemes for the site.

In March, a neighborhood group obtained one version of the plan, showing parking along Clifton and three freestanding retailers, the largest of them replacing the church. That sketch prompted strong pushback, as nearby residents railed against what they described as suburban-style development and worried that the block might be refashioned without much public involvement.

The Shoppes at Clifton proposal that Carnegie presented last week looked much different, after months of meetings with the city and a stakeholder group representing residents, merchants and neighborhood organizations. The new site plan shows a two-story Giant Eagle Market District Express store, totaling 30,000 square feet, at Clifton and West 116th. A smaller retail building at West 117th would house four of five tenants, such as a financial services business or a specialty food store.

A two-story Giant Eagle Market District Express store would occupy the northwest corner of Clifton Boulevard and West 116th Street, under plans being floated by Carnegie Cos., the property owner. A smaller retail building, for a handful of tenants, would sit at West 117th Street and Clifton.

"We're extremely excited about the opportunity to return to Clifton Boulevard," Todd Waldo, a senior real estate development manager for Giant Eagle, said at the community meeting. "It is something that we put a lot of thought into."

The Market District Express, the first such store in Ohio, would include a 100-seat restaurant on the second floor and a patio fronting on a promenade stretching from Clifton to the parking lot behind the retail buildings.

To make the deal work, Carnegie would trade its land along Lake for part of the church property along West 117th. With a cleared stretch along Lake, the city could seek proposals from townhouse developers, said Chris Warren, Cleveland's chief of regional development. Some neighbors are lobbying for green space on the site, but Warren cautioned that the cost of creating and maintaining a park would be hard for the city to stomach.

Peter Meisel, a principal at Carnegie, said the company does not anticipate using city subsidies for the project, called the Shoppes on Clifton. The city would shoulder the cost of the church demolition and might invest in bike racks and public art around the shops, using money from the sale of a city-owned lot on the east side of West 116th to Carnegie. That lot could become parking for retail employees.

<a href="http://polldaddy.com/poll/7552131/">What would you like to see at Clifton and West 117th?</a>

Any land sale would require approval from Cleveland City Council. The Cleveland Landmarks Commission, which oversees significant buildings and historic districts, must vote on the church demolition and the new retail plan. So far, neither project has popped up on a public meeting agenda.

"It's much, much better than what was leaked to the community back in March," Jeon Francis, an artist and neighbor leading a public-information campaign about the Clifton site, said of Carnegie's plan.

"But it doesn't seem to be a home run," he added, noting that he and other residents still have unanswered questions about whether pieces of the church could be woven into the site and what might be built along Lake to complete the block.

The city is studying the potential costs of salvaging bits of the Fifth Church. With Carnegie and Giant Eagle eager to start their project, the next few months might bring resolution for one more dilapidated landmark, in a city struggling to find solutions for scads of empty religious buildings.

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