Accepting the award for Best Downtown Placemaking - 5th Street Arcades | (Left to right) Tom Yablonsky, Executive Director of HGNC; Dick Pace of Cumberland Development and developer of 5th Street Arcades; Kevin Pape, President of the Board at Heritage Ohio
This year’s Heritage Ohio Annual Preservation and Revitalization Conference was held in Newark, OH October 22-23, with over 200 participants learning about best practices in the revitalization and preservation field. Heritage Ohio, like the Historic Gateway Development Corporation (HGNC), fosters economic development and sustainability through preservation of historic buildings, revitalization of downtowns and neighborhood commercial districts, and promotion of local tourism.
HGNC NOMINATED THE 2019 AWARD WINNERS:
Best Commercial Building Rehabilitation “Large Town” Award
The Garfield Building sits proudly on the corner of Euclid Avenue and East 6th Street of Downtown Cleveland. Built in 1893, it carries a significant legacy as the first “skyscraper” east of Public Square using innovative technology for the time – steel framing. In recent years, the building had become an under-utilized Class C office building no longer attracting the prominent tenants that once held. With the momentum of the downtown housing market, Millennia Housing Management, Ltd saw the opportunity to revive the Garfield’s legacy with the completion of a $32 million adaptive reuse of this structure from offices to a mixed-use residential with ground floor retail. What makes this project stand out is in the preservation of the building’s architecture details, which went beyond the requirements of the Secretary of the Interiors Standards reinstating the storefronts and recreating stone details including the cartouche, ionic pilasters and lion’s head.
The 1893-banking hall has been converted into The Marble Room, showcasing the original grandeur as one of Cleveland’s swankest dining rooms.
Best Downtown Placemaking Award
The 5th Street Arcade is a project that exemplifies placemaking via the effort to recruit local retailers and entrepreneurs to offer unique shopping and services to the growing downtown residential and office population leasable space. The space is made up of two historic buildings built in 1898 and 1911which includes a successful Marriot Residence Inn, but the retail space was largely vacant with only 20 of the 47 spaces filled. Dick Pace of Cumberland Development knew he had to have a very hands on approach to fill and activate the space. The small arcade spaces are a good fit for new businesses, he offered reduced rents and a retail competition added four new businesses. New furniture was added to activate the arcade spaces and the entire place was rebranded as the 5th Street Arcade. Now with 100% occupancy and a waiting list for local businesses it is successful interior arcade full of life.
The Best Downtown Placemaking award was created to recognize businesses or organizations that enhance their downtown’s appearance with the intention of creating public spaces that promote people’s health happiness and well-being.
“Many good projects were considered,” according to Joyce Barrett, the executive director of Heritage Ohio, “What stood out the Arcade was the economic vitality made the place.”