SHAKER HEIGHTS, Ohio - The Van Aken District, dreamed up as a downtown for the suburb of Shaker Heights, just picked up a dash of dining-driven momentum.

Jonathon Sawyer, a local chef who has won national accolades, will help craft the food and beverage lineup across the project, which could include a handful of sit-down restaurants and a food hall housing 15 to 20 stalls. Sawyer also plans to open a restaurant - his fourth, and his first outside the city of Cleveland - at the mixed-use development.

The brainchild of RMS Investment Corp., longtime owner of the Van Aken Center retail strip along Warrensville Center Road, the Van Aken District will bring 102 apartments, 60,000 square feet of offices, retail renovations and roughly 100,000 square feet of new stores and restaurants to a busy intersection at the end of a Rapid train line. That's just the first phase of a development that could, down the road, feature additional offices and more housing.

RMS hopes to close on financing for the $100 million first phase later this year. The new buildings could debut in spring 2018, though a freestanding The Fresh Market grocery store is scheduled to open earlier, as soon as spring 2017.

Landing Sawyer as both a restaurateur and a creative partner gives RMS extra oomph in the developer's efforts to attract other chefs and food-related businesses.

Last year, Sawyer was singled out by the James Beard Foundation as the best chef in the Great Lakes region. Food & Wine, Bon Appetit and other publications have lauded both the chef and his restaurants, including The Greenhouse Tavern on East Fourth Street downtown.

He's been tapped as an investor panelist for "Cleveland Hustles," a CNBC reality show co-produced by LeBron James and scheduled to air in August. On the Food Network's "Chopped Grill Masters" show this week, he edged out other chefs to win a first-round competition.

"The restaurant industry is very tough, fickle, with a lot of strong egos," said Luke Palmisano, president of Cleveland-based RMS. "We have to make sure that we have restaurant groups that complement each other. What better person to help us create that mix than Jonathon?"

Sawyer, a one-time Shaker Heights resident, lives with his wife and their two children in neighboring Cleveland Heights. Cleveland's inner-ring, East Side suburbs beg for a gathering place that isn't a school, the closest Starbucks or soccer practice, he said. By partnering with RMS, Sawyer will get a chance to shape that new, central hub for a community replete with historic homes and brick apartment buildings.

He'll also have a say over the types of businesses and operators that surround his new restaurant - an as-yet-unnamed project that he wouldn't say much about this week.

"We haven't done a new restaurant since Trentina, which is three years old," he said, referring to his tiny, Italian-inspired eatery in University Circle. "Noodlecat is five. Greenhouse is eight. We're very particular about what we wanted our next move to be."

Across the Van Aken District, Sawyer and his team will play a "quality assurance" role. He and Palmisano didn't get into the details of their arrangement, beyond saying that Sawyer will design and shepherd the food and beverage culture - the feeling and style - of the project.

Sawyer hopes to strike a balance between local and national tenants, one-off businesses and chains, and affordable and high-end options. As a starting point, he's been chewing on his own unsatisfied East Side food cravings - bagels came up several times during an interview - of the last decade.

RMS plans to fashion its food hall out of the current Fresh Market building, the newest part of Van Aken Center, after the grocer relocates. The rest of the 1950s shopping center will be demolished to make way for new buildings, including a parking garage.

The 22,000-square-foot food hall, which both Sawyer and Palmisano compared to Union Market in Washington, D.C., might hold a few stores and two restaurants, in addition to stalls. In October, Detroit-based watchmaker Shinola announced that it will open a store there. Other tenants include Rising Star Coffee and Luna bakery.

To come up with a name for the building, RMS drew on the suburb's history. The developer and a local branding firm spliced together the names of the Van Sweringen brothers - Oris Paxton, or O.P., and Mantis James, or M.J. - an eccentric pair of real estate speculators who developed Shaker Heights, Shaker Square, Terminal Tower and a rail line between downtown and the East Side.

The result of that branding exercise? The Orman Building, which Palmisano described as a name that nods to the past without being stuck in it.

Tania Menesse, the city's economic-development director, wouldn't drop any hints about what Sawyer is planning for the food hall or his own restaurant.

RMS has mentioned only a few additional retailers, including Mitchell's Ice Cream and Chipotle, which will share a small building near The Fresh Market with dry cleaner D.O. Summers.

Earlier this year, Shaker Heights entered a development agreement with RMS and approved site plans for both The Fresh Market's site and the broader project. The city, working with the local school district, also put framework in place for tax-increment financing deals that will redirect a portion of new property-tax revenues created by the development to covering debt payments.

Those TIF arrangements will support new construction plus renovations at the existing Shaker Plaza shopping center, which RMS bought for $8.2 million in April, according to public records. The developer is shifting some Van Aken Center tenants to revamped spaces at Shaker Plaza, on the other side of Van Aken Boulevard.

Menesse said the public financing is ready and that RMS, which oversees private real estate investment for members of the Ratner, Miller and Shafran families, is striving to reach leasing thresholds for its private financing and working through complicated deals with local and independent businesses.

Sawyer's involvement, she said, is a significant win for the project and for Shaker.

"RMS is striving to bring first the best of local, which Sawyer is, but also to bring new restaurateurs to the market and the best purveyors, whether it's retail or food, from across the country," Menesse said. "Those are the relationships that Jonathon Sawyer has."