CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Banking on demand from the casino and other downtown projects, the owners of the May Co. building hope to turn four floors of the historic department store into a parking garage.

For years, developers and architects have eyed the eight-story building, at 200 Euclid Ave., for apartments, hotel rooms, offices and entertainment venues.

Now plans submitted to the city of Cleveland show another proposal: Nearly 750 parking spaces, between ground-floor retail and upper floors that might become housing and offices.

The project's architect described the plans as "embryonic."

"We've been hired to make a plan and see if the city is receptive," said Robert Zarzycki, a Middleburg Heights architect representing the building's out-of-state owners. "And hopefully, if they are, we would move forward."

Zarzycki is scheduled to present the parking plan to a city design review committee Thursday, and the Cleveland City Planning Commission will see it Friday.

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The project would fill part of a largely vacant building just off Public Square. But it could hurt the property's ability to win tax credits for historic preservation - incentives that have helped developers remake vacant buildings across the state.

"It's a million-square-foot building, and it clearly is a historic landmark," said Jonathan Sandvick, a historic preservation expert and Cleveland architect. "I think for a building that large, preserving the credits for redevelopment should be a paramount concern."

A building owner did not respond to requests for comment. Zarzycki said a historic redevelopment of the building would be "overwhelming" and that the investor group sees immediate potential to capture traffic from the casino.

The Horseshoe Casino Cleveland is set to open May 14 in the Higbee Building, on Public Square. The casino's developers are building a valet-parking operation off Prospect Avenue, just south of the May Co. building, and bought a nearby garage from the city last year.

Plans for the May Co. project show 734 parking spaces on floors two through five of the building. The windows might be removed to provide ventilation, and steel guardrails would be placed on each floor, behind the white terra-cotta facade.

Cars would enter and exit on the Prospect Avenue side of the building, where ramps would replace two empty storefronts. The only tenants - the Cadillac Ranch, BarRoom and Cuyahoga Community College's Hospitality Management Center and Pura Vida restaurant - face Euclid Avenue.

Cleveland Planning Director Bob Brown said the project might require a traffic study.

And it could meet with skepticism from preservationists who see opportunities for a complete restoration of the building.

"It isn't that parking can't be in the building," Sandvick said, "but the strategy for it would have to be done with great care."

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