CLEVELAND — Forty years after it closed, the historic Warner & Swasey Co. complex in Midtown is finally getting a new lease on life.
The development team just plugged the last funding gap for a $64 million renovation plan – a makeover that will fill most of the former manufacturing plant with 112 apartments while preserving industrial and architectural history. Now the project team is racing toward a financial closing on Dec. 15 and preparing to start construction in January.
“I’m just so overwhelmed with gratitude – and kind of amazed at the miracle that is happening right now,” said Geoff Milz, the Ohio director of development for Pennrose, the Pennsylvania-based real estate developer that is teaming up on the project with nonprofit neighborhood group MidTown Cleveland Inc.
“It only takes one person to say ‘no,’ right? One person says ‘no,’ the project doesn’t move forward. But so many people have said ‘yes,’” he said. “’Yes’ to affordable housing in Midtown. ‘Yes’ to historic preservation. ‘Yes’ to allocating scarce resources. ‘Yes’ to minutia around building code and different ways to design buildings. … ‘Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.’ And I’m just so grateful for all of the people who have pulled together and made it happen.”
MidTown and Pennrose have been working together to save the complex since 2018. Ultimately, it took many partners – and two dozen funding sources – to make it happen.
The project includes public, private and philanthropic money. It involves federal and state tax credits for historic preservation, along with Low-Income Housing Tax Credits from the Ohio Housing Finance Agency. That independent state agency recently agreed to let Pennrose shift housing tax credits to Warner & Swasey from another project, filling the final hole.
Construction is likely to take two years. That means the apartments – 56 for families and 56 for low-income seniors – could open in early 2028. They’ll carry income restrictions.
To qualify today, a tenant living alone would have to make $20,450 to $40,860 a year, based on data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The income limits are slightly higher for larger households and could change over the next few years.
Ashley Shaw, MidTown Cleveland’s executive director, still can’t quite believe what’s happening.
“How did the stars align on these millions of dollars that all came in at once to make this a real project?” she said. “Because it wasn’t a real project a couple years ago.”
Passing drivers on East 55th Street and Carnegie Avenue got the news first Thursday evening. MidTown and Pennrose hired a team with a projector to post a message on one side of the building after dusk. “Construction begins 2026. Leasing in January 2028,” it said.
“There’s such a personal connection to this building for so many Clevelanders,” said Shaw, who fields constant questions about what’s happening with the property.
“So many people that I know … shared that their mom or their brother or their uncle or somebody they are related to used to work in this building,” she said.
The brick factory opened in the early 1900s. Warner & Swasey was a major machine tool maker with thousands of workers and products ranging from turret lathes to binoculars and telescopes. The plant closed in the 1980s.
Cleveland acquired the property in 1991 as a possible site for a municipal service center. But that project never happened. The building languished, becoming a gallery for graffiti artists and a magnet for squatters and urban explorers.
Pennrose and MidTown recently bought the property in a complicated transaction designed to preserve some of the financing for the project and meet spending deadlines.
“Everything about this project is fairly unusual,” Milz said with a laugh.
The construction project will involve opening the roof of the taller section of the building along Carnegie and removing and replacing large sections of deteriorating floors. Workers will also tear down the central metal sheds, with their saw-toothed roofs.
That demolition was supposed to start earlier this year. But it got delayed because the developers were still trying to scrape together the last bit of money they needed.
RELATED: Step inside Cleveland's Warner & Swasey complex, where work is finally about to start
Cuyahoga County, the city, and City Councilman Richard Starr put several layers of funding into the deal. In a written statement, Mayor Justin Bibb said the project illustrates how the city is working to strengthen neighborhoods while honoring history.
The project also won support from the Cleveland Foundation, private lenders and investors, the Federal Home Loan Bank of Cincinnati and the Port of Cleveland, which has a program that gives developers a sales-tax break on construction materials.
All the financing is for the first phase of the project, to restore the five-story building and create 112 one- and two-bedroom apartments.
The developers are also planning a second phase, which will include 28 apartments and 22,000 square feet of commercial space. But that’s something to worry about later.
Today, they’re celebrating a milestone they weren’t sure they’d ever see.
“This really has stood as this behemoth that’s so visible, surrounded by so much activity and investment. But, also, has divided our neighborhood,” Shaw said, pointing out the building’s prominent location.
“If this building is brought back to life,” she said. “There’s so much opportunity.”
Michelle Jarboe is the business growth and development reporter at News 5 Cleveland. Follow her on X @MJarboe or email her at Michelle.Jarboe@wews.com.
