Gold Coast Makeover: Carlyle Slated for $5 Million Restoration

The Carlyle, a 546-suite condo building located on the shores of Lake Erie in Lakewood, is getting a facelift. Throughout the remainder of 2008 and 2009, it will undergo a $5 million restoration program to spruce up the building.

The redevelopment, funded by the owners through a special assessment, will include the restoration and waterproofing of the building's parking deck, a complete overhaul/replacement of the heating system (ancticipated to lower utility costs), replacement of the electrical distribution system, restoration of the outdoor pool and re-landscaping of the pool area and lawns, refurbishing of the exercise room, and the redecoration of the lobby and corridors.

"Our goal is to make the best use of our very special location on the lake," suite owner and Marketing Committee Chairman Steve Casselman told "Lakewood Alive". "We're capitalizing on our shoreline location, getting rid of asphalt, and adding green space to create more of a park-like feel."

With 546 suites, the Carlyle is "almost a city unto itself," Casselman points out. Services available within the building include a dry cleaner, restaurant, deli, beauty salon, exercise room and racquetball court. (We ask: why would you *ever* leave? Especially in the winter!)

The Carlyle also offers an excellent location in proximity to downtown Lakewood, the Rocky River metroparks, Lakewood Park, Edgewater Park and downtown Cleveland. The grounds include a private beach area, picnic grounds, volleyball courts, and an outdoor pool overlooking Lake Erie.

Condominiums at the Carlyle are surprisingly affordable, with some units priced below or slightly above $100,000.

Cassellman recognizes the importance of buildings such as the Carlyle to the city of Lakewood. "We recognize that our ongoing success is inextricably linked with Lakewood's success," he says.

If Lakewood's story is one of reinventing itself through projects that breathe new life and vibrancy into the city, then the Carlyle's restoration shows that it is a critical chapter in that story.

The Carlyle is just one of the many condominium buildings on the Gold Coast. To search for condominiums in Lakewood, visit the PURE website, go to the search function, check "Gold Coast" in the neighborhood section, then click search. To contact an agent at PURE's Lakewood office, call 216/228-6440.

A Piece of Cleveland: What Do Furniture Sales Have to Do With Neighborhood Redevelopment? (Hint: A Lot!)

One of the panelists in last week's forum "Beyond Foreclosure: Small Scale Solutions That Work" at the Levin College of Urban Affairs was Chris Kious, one of the founding partners of A Piece of Cleveland. Chris gave a rousing presentation that began with the admittedly dubious claim that, in his own words, "selling furniture can help to solve the problem of foreclosures in our neighborhoods."

Here's how it works. A Piece of Cleveland is a start-up company whose mission is to "rescue and upcycle good wood." In other words, the APOC team takes apart old buildings slated for demolition, salvages the wood and other materials that are inside, and hand-crafts furniture from the forgotten remnants. In doing so, APOC is preventing these materials from clogging our landfills, preserving pieces of our history (the furniture items include 'rebirth certificates' chronicling the materials' history), and creating jobs and economic benefit from deconstruction, a new industry.

Given that some of the foreclosed homes in our communities will eventually be torn down due to decrepit condition, APOC has created a viable alternative to demolition, as well as the budding of a new industry in Cleveland.

APOC has recently received media coverage in Northern Ohio Live, Crain's, the Plain Dealer and Inside Business. Their clients include Fahrenheit Restaurant in Tremont(APOC created all of Fahrenheit's new tables) and Starbucks at Cedar-Fairmount. APOC creates everything from cutting boards to lamps to tables from recycled wood.

Within the last 12 months, Progressive Urban Real Estate has partnered with APOC to recycle a portion of several houses slated for demolition. We are looking forward to partnering with this exciting new organization in the future.

Civic Investments Launches Foreclosure Rehab Initiative

One way to tackle the trend of foreclosures in recent years is to get foreclosed homes back into the hands of responsible homeowners. That’s the message being conveyed by Civic Investments LLC, a group of investors that are marketing a foreclosure rehab initiative in Cleveland through Progressive Urban Real Estate.

Civic Investments LLC has invested in foreclosures in city of Cleveland neighborhoods with historically strong housing markets. Specifically, Civic Investments has purchased three homes in the Tremont, Ohio City and Detroit Shoreway neighborhoods of Cleveland.

“Investors can play a key role in getting us out of the foreclosure mess that we’re in,” said Keith Brown, President of Progressive Urban Real Estate and one of the four founding partners of Civic Investments, LLC. “If we isolate foreclosures from the market, then it’s evident that ordinary home sales are still taking place every day in our neighborhoods – albeit at a slower pace and at lower prices.”

“This shows that there is opportunity,” added Brown. “For responsible investors, it’s the combination of rock-bottom real estate prices combined with the fact that homebuyers are still looking for high-quality, rehabilitated homes in strong-market neighborhoods. Rehabbing a home brings it back to life. We want to sell these homes to new owners.”

Progressive Urban Real Estate is currently marketing three homes as a part of its foreclosure rehab initiative:

• 3804 Whitman Avenue, a 3 bedroom, 2 bath home on an historic street in Ohio City, under rehab and priced at $159,900
• 1302 Mentor Avenue, a 3 bedroom, 2 bath home in Tremont, under rehab and priced at $139,900
• 7212 West Clinton Avenue, a 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath home in Detroit Shoreway, under rehab and priced at $149,900

Tremont, Ohio City and Detroit Shoreway are neighborhoods that have shown significant long-term growth in housing values – in part due to redevelopment initiatives undertaken during the past several decades. Despite the downturn in the regional housing market since 2005, housing values in these particular communities have not dropped as significantly as Cleveland neighborhoods overall. For instance, while sales prices in many Cleveland neighborhoods have dropped by 25-50%, sales prices of non-foreclosure homes in Tremont have only dropped 5-10% since peaking in 2005. This shows the resilience of these neighborhoods – and the potential for investment.

Civic Investments LLC, the developer that is spearheading this effort, has hired Civic Builders LLC, a Tremont-based contractor with 25+ years of experience, to manage the rehab of these homes. Civic Investments has obtained financing for this initiative through a partnership between Shorebank Cleveland and Cleveland Action to Support Housing, two organizations with a history of mission-based lending in the city of Cleveland.

For more information about the foreclosure rehab initiative, please contact Lee Chilcote, Marketing Director at 216/619-9696 x 15 or lchilcote@progressiveurban.com.

Home Prices: Desperately Seeking Stability

Last week, we participated in a forum, “Beyond Foreclosure: Small-Scale Solutions That Work,” at the Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University.

Among the panelists was Brian Mikelbank, Director of the Center for Housing Research and Policy at Levin College. In his presentation, Mikelbank cited data showing that the number of foreclosures in Cuyahoga County was beginning to level off. This is good news, and a sign that home prices are beginning to stabilize in Northeast Ohio.

Cleveland has always been known for its stable, affordable home prices. According to recent research by Forbes Magazine, Cleveland is one of the most affordable cities in which to own a home; the average cost of owning a home here is $978 per month, including taxes, insurance, utilities and condominium/association fees.

Amidst the blitz of news about financial markets this week, it was announced on Wednesday that home prices in Cleveland dropped only .3 percent from June to July. This followed a gain of .7 percent from May to June. These numbers contrast with Sun Belt states, which dropped more significantly and, most experts agree, have further to fall before reaching stability.

Finally, despite the tightening of credit, it’s still possible to obtain a good loan in Northeast Ohio and across the U.S., particularly with rates on 30-year fixed mortgages remaining at historic lows. FHA, in particular, has stepped up and enabled many people to obtain mortgages on owner-occupied properties.

This Weekend's Pick: Neighborhoods of Shaker Square Home Tour

After a visit to Felice, a new restaurant that is located at East 126th and Larchmere in a lovingly restored home, it isn't hard to see why people are flocking to the Shaker Square neighborhood.

Felice's owner, Margaret Mueller, is a Shaker Square resident who can often be found at the restaurant, talking to her patrons and telling the story of how she developed the restaurant. Felice is an upscale bistro that offers excellent food and a great happy hour menu on weekdays between four and seven pm. The natural woodwork of the restaurant is complemented by the Bradbury wallpaper from California that Mueller chose for the restaurant's walls. Felice also features a flagstone patio behind the house - a perfect city retreat. The restaurant's interior was designed by Ricardo Sandoval, the owner of Fat Cats and Lava Lounge owner.

This weekend, you can discover some of Shaker Square's other hidden secrets at the first annual Neighborhoods of Shaker Square Home Tour. The event takes place from 2-6 pm on Saturday. Tickets are $15 in advance and $20 at the door, and they are available at www.shad.org, by calling 421-2100 or at the Dancing Sheep (12712 Larchmere Blvd.).

The Shaker Square tour begins at Sergio's Sarava, which is located at 13225 Shaker Blvd. An arts and cultural exhibition is also included as part of the tour. From Sergio's, tour-goers can pick up a map and take a self-guided trip between the eight homes that are on the tour.

One of the highlights of the tour is a two-story, five bedroom, 4.5 bath penthouse in the Shaker Courts Condominiums building on Shaker Boulevard. The condo, which has been completely renovated by its owners, features a rooftop patio with views of the Cleveland skyline and Lake Erie.

Other highlights of the tour include a green-built home in the Ludlow neighborhood, and a renovated two-family on East 128th Street.

Congrats to Katharyne Starinsky and Patrick Shepherd, who spearheaded the creation of this home tour, on a job well done. Many thanks also to the Shaker Square Area Development Corporation (SHAD), the non-profit CDC that serves the area and was chosen as the beneficiary of the funds that will be raised by the event.

You can read the Plain Dealer article about the home tour by clicking here.

A Good Ambassador for the Cleve: Michael Ruhlman

Michael Ruhlman, who writes mostly about food, chefs and cooking and lives in Cleveland, has a cool blog at www.ruhlman.com. In it, Ruhlman discusses his debates with his wife about living in the Cleve (the Velvet Tango Room in Tremont is one of Cleveland's many hidden gems, he says in his argument as to why the couple should continue to live in Cleveland). Ruhlman also writes about a trip to the North Union Farmer's Market at Shaker Square (it's a haven for enthusiasts of all things local and organic, and it can be found online at www.northunionfarmersmarket.org). In the post, he relates his surprise at purchasing nearly all of the items on his grocery list for a comparable price to what he'd spend at the grocery store. In one of his latest blog posts, Ruhlman tries to educate his readers about foodie-related things like consomme (as in, what the heck is it? ... answer: a broth ... and why you should make it). Ruhlman's books include "Soul of a Chef," which delves into the career of Cleveland's own Michael Symon (of Lola Bistro and Iron Chef fame). Maybe Ruhlman should win some kind of award for being a good ambassador for the Cleve. Can I get a second?

Where's Our Bailout? County Treasurer Jim Rokakis Says It Straight

As Congress feverishly debates proposals to bail out Wall Street, questions continue to arise about to help Main Street cities like Cleveland.

Cuyahoga County Treasurer Jim Rokakis – who sounded the alarm about foreclosures well before this issue grabbed the national media spotlight – wrote in a Plain Dealer editorial this past Sunday: “We hear a lot about bailing out banks and protecting investors. We hear little about the innocent victims of the current financial mess. Cities like Cleveland, awash in vacant properties that erode their tax bases and bust their budgets ... What will be done about us – you know, Main Street, Cleveland?”

In his editorial, Rokakis suggests several long-term remedies to get us out of the housing recession that our country faces at this time, including:

• Responsible government regulation.
• Changing the basis of executive compensation from one that rewards short-term gain at the expense of long-term consequences.
• Allowing state and local governments to protect themselves (Cleveland passed a law against predatory lending several years ago, Rokakis says, but was not allowed to enforce it by the state legislature).
• Keeping people from leaving government service, then becoming lobbyists and taking obscene amounts of money from the people that they were supposed to be regulating.

As news develops, we will continue to post analysis of the proposed bailout and how it will affect homebuyers and owners on our blog. Stay tuned.