CLEVELAND, Ohio — Developers hope to break ground this summer for a 24-story apartment tower in University Circle, where the high-rise and a more modest — but unusual — residential building that includes a public library will be the first two chapters in a bigger real estate story dubbed Circle Square.

The glassy, 298-unit tower is slated to fill a void at Chester Avenue and Stokes Boulevard, where a former Cleveland police station sat until late last year. Stretching as tall as 250 feet, the building will surpass the nearby One University Circle tower in height and, by 20 or so units, size.

The tower will be the tallest component of Circle Square, a multiyear project meant to remake more than 5 acres on either side of Stokes, at the northwestern gateway to the city’s medical, educational and arts district. Plans honed by Cleveland-based Midwest Development Partners show five new buildings, four of them perched above parking garages wrapped by retail space. The full plan could involve hundreds of apartments; a few condominiums, perhaps; 100,000 square feet of neighborhood-focused retailers; roughly 1,500 parking spaces; offices; and a hotel.

But the library will come first — and is arguably foremost for longtime neighborhood residents. Since 2015, when a mixed-use vision for the highly visible corner surfaced, replacing the Cleveland Public Library’s 1970s-vintage Martin Luther King Jr. branch on Stokes has been the linchpin for the broader project.

Related story: New MLK library, Library Lofts win thumbs-up from design committee

A nighttime rendering shows the proposed new Martin Luther King Jr. branch of the Cleveland Public Library, with apartments perched above it on Euclid Avenue.SO-IL + JKurtz Architects, Bialosky Architects

On Thursday morning, a city design-review committee gave its blessing to preliminary plans for the new library, a two-level, 30,000- to 35,000-square-foot building that will be constructed on Euclid Avenue, just around the corner from the existing branch. The same committee gave a thumbs-up to plans for Library Lofts, nine floors of apartments that will sit above the library.

Integrated into a single structure, the library and lofts are being designed and engineered by separate teams. And they’ll have separate ownership — public downstairs and private above.

The existing library won’t be closed and demolished until the new branch opens in early 2022. But the Cleveland Public Library’s plans are far enough along to kickstart work on the western block of Circle Square, starting with Library Lofts and the apartment tower. The initial flurry of construction also will include the first sections of a parking garage tucked behind the library, where patrons will have dedicated, free parking.

The Library Lofts project involves nine floors of apartments above a two-story Cleveland Public Library branch, in an unusual public-private partnership.SO-IL + JKurtz Architects, Bialosky Architects

Steve Rubin, a Midwest partner, expects both apartment projects to be nearing completion two years from now. The developers have been talking to the city and neighborhood nonprofit group University Circle Inc. about significant changes to the roads and sidewalks around the site in hopes of slowing traffic and making the area safer and easier to navigate on foot.

“This is our chance to create a neighborhood across the street from our version of Central Park,” Rubin said, referring to Cleveland’s expansive Rockefeller Park. “And if that isn’t walkable, then I don’t know what you can make walkable.”

A site plan shows the anticipated layout of Circle Square, a five-building project that will involve changes to streets including Chester Avenue and Stokes Boulevard, at the edge of University Circle.Midwest Development Partners

Library Lofts will be an approximately 207-unit apartment building filled with studio and one-bedroom units with an average size of 625 square feet. Rubin said the units will be the least-expensive housing at Circle Square, with monthly rents projected to start at close to $1,400. With the library downstairs, he expects the building to appeal to medical residents, interns and young professionals.

The building will sit between the American Cancer Society, at Euclid and East 105th Street, and Fenway Manor, a 143-unit, historic apartment building that serves elderly, low-income tenants. The owners of the Fenway recently finished a $25 million renovation project that involved an extension of an agreement to maintain the building as affordable housing.

Midwest’s planned tower, which doesn’t yet have a name, will be a high-end addition to the block. Rubin wasn’t willing to talk about potential rents for the units, which will range from studios to three-bedroom penthouses. Plans for the building show an outdoor pool and hot tub, along with enclosed fitness facilities and a party room, all on the rooftop. Eighteen floors of apartments would sit atop six levels of resident parking, with retail at street level.

A rendering shows the Chester Avenue entrance to the 24-story apartment tower planned by Midwest Development Partners, White Oak Realty Partners and Ponsky Capital Partners. Eighteen floors of apartments will sit above six floors of parking, with retail on the ground level of the garage.FitzGerald

A city design-review committee is expected to get its first look at preliminary designs for the Circle Square apartment tower in early March.FitzGerald

Midwest is a joint venture between Rubin, who has worked on projects including Crocker Park in Westlake; the Weiss family, former owners of American Greetings Corp.; and the Ponsky family. On the tower project, the local group is teaming up with Chicago-based White Oak Realty Partners, a company whose leaders have worked on high-rises in other Midwestern cities, and Ponsky Capital Partners.

“As a native of the Cleveland area, I have been looking for the past several years for the right opportunity to bring our urban residential program to market,” Christopher Lynch, a White Oak co-founder and principal, wrote in an email this week.

Rubin said the developers and investors aren’t worried about oversaturation in the apartment market. Midwest’s nearby Centric project, a 272-unit apartment building on Mayfield Road, is 95 percent occupied. On Wednesday, developer Mitchell Schneider told the Port of Cleveland’s board that One University Circle, which was the city’s first high-rise residential development in decades, also is virtually full.

“We think that there’s a huge, huge, huge opportunity,” Rubin said of demand for new apartments. “Now, I will say, I also think that in a perfect world, we’d like to see some ownership here, and not just rentals. … But that’s aspirational. We’re just not there yet.”

The apartment buildings will qualify for 15 years of property-tax abatement, which Cleveland offers citywide for new residential projects and renovations that meet certain green-building requirements. The city is partway through the approval process for a tax-increment financing agreement for the project, which would redirect a share of the property-tax revenues from the new buildings to paying off costs for public improvements, such as parking garages, sidewalks, utilities and landscaping.

“We’ve been recently introduced to the sort of reimagination of the project,” said David Ebersole, the city’s economic-development director. “We are supportive of the proposed development, and we’re just starting to get engaged on what the road reconfiguration would look like.”

The Cleveland City Planning Commission is scheduled to review designs for the library and Library Lofts on Friday. A city design-review committee is expected to get its first look at the 24-story apartment tower on March 5. Both buildings will require additional reviews and approvals.

Chris Ronayne, president of University Circle Inc., described the projects as significant first steps toward making a prominent entry point to the district feel more cohesive and inviting. “Our hope is that this is a place that’s no longer a passthrough to another place,” he said, “but that this is a place that’s a neighborhood, with pedestrian priority, where you can stop, shop, live and walk to work.”