CLEVELAND, Ohio -- After years of vacancy and demolition threats, the former Ameritrust complex is set to reopen within days - restored as a hotel, apartments, offices, dining and entertainment venues.

On Wednesday, construction crews were putting finishing touches on the historic buildings at East Ninth Street and Euclid Avenue, where a longtime eyesore is being reborn as a project called The 9. Work on most of the complex will be finished by this weekend, though a Heinen's Fine Foods grocery store won't open in the Cleveland Trust Rotunda until early 2015.

The $170 million redevelopment ranks among downtown Cleveland's biggest and brightest symbols of revival. Along with Cuyahoga County's new, $80 million headquarters on Prospect Avenue, the project creates a new anchor for East Ninth and Euclid, a high-profile downtown intersection that lost some of its shine as corporate tenants drifted away and large buildings went dark.

Brothers Fred and Greg Geis bought the Ameritrust complex from the county in February 2013. Now, just over 18 months later, they've completed the county's eight-story office building; transformed a Marcel Breuer-designed tower into the Metropolitan hotel and high-end apartments; carved out spaces for a theater, events and a Mediterranean restaurant; built a rooftop bar on the old Swetland Building, at 1010 Euclid Ave.; and turned the rotunda's basement into a nightspot called the Vaults.

"When we started tearing walls out, we found all kinds of rooms we didn't even know we bought," Fred Geis said during a tour of the complex this week.

The apartments in the Breuer tower are more than 90 percent leased, Greg Geis said, while the smaller units in the 1010 building are 75 percent leased. Some of the first apartments to go were the 3,000-square-foot units at the top of the tower, which rent for $5,995 a month.

Renters started moving in just before Labor Day weekend. Asked about rumors that the tenant roster includes pro athletes and local celebrities, Greg Geis was circumspect. "We're discreet on who our clientele are," he said. "I can tell you I'm living here. That's about it."