As the president of the Historical Society of Old Brooklyn, Constance Ewazen is intimately familiar with how the neighborhood has changed.
Dozens of boxes line the walls of the cluttered, one-room museum; stacks of high school yearbooks, photographs and newspaper clippings chronicle the history of the neighborhood nestled on Cleveland's Southwest Side.
Longtime residents like Ewazen have watched as the 1920s-era Broadvue Theatre on Pearl Road became a movie theater, then a pornographic theater, before being demolished and replaced by a drug store and now, a Family Dollar.
They watched as the beloved Glenn Restaurant, often called "the first business of Old Brooklyn," closed its doors after three-quarters of a century.
They watched as the CVS on Pearl Road closed its doors, adding more vacancy and blight to the main economic corridor.
Now, as the neighborhood prepares for a $40 million development plan in Downtown Old Brooklyn, Ewazen and a group of passionate residents say they've had enough change.
"They can build their thing, but not here," said the 68-year-old Ewazen, a lifelong resident of Old Brooklyn, as she sat in the historical society museum, set for demolition as part of the development plans. "There's all kind of places in Old Brooklyn [to build]... it doesn't have to be right in the very heart of Downtown Old Brooklyn."
The group of determined opponents have been pushing back on development plans the neighborhood's community development corporation calls a "once-in-a-generation investment" to develop 129,000 square feet on the corner of Pearl Road and Memphis Avenue.
That includes preservation plans for the 120-year-old St. Luke's church, which has sat vacant for years, and construction of a mixed-used apartment building.
"All decisions on this development were truly rooted in the priorities of the community," said Tipping Point Real Estate Development President Jim Ambrose, the project's manager. "All of the strategic decisions of high quality housing, community space, restoring the St. Luke's original footprint and everything you'll see in the future really, truly, came from what the community most highly prioritized to achieve this."
Amber Jones, the interim executive director of Old Brooklyn Community Development, said they have spent years engaging hundreds of neighbors, a majority of whom she said are on board with the plans.
"It's not just for the people who would be living there," Jones said. "Because it's a residential mixed-use building, we thought about how the community can also gain assets that are currently missing, like a community space and outdoor space at that intersection."
With preservation and construction comes demolition. The school added decades later to St. Luke's church will be taken down, as well as the Greenline building, a one-story building housing tenants like Ewanzen's historical society. The apartments will be built on the Greenline building site.
Preservationists don't want to see those old buildings go. Ewazen said she cannot find a comparable location for her historical society, and she is not sure where she'll go by September. The Old Brooklyn CDC said they have given the tenants ample notice required by law and have alerted them about the impending project for years.
The CDC also maintains that the window to preserve the buildings slated for demolition is long gone.
Ambrose said the Greenline building is riddled with health and environmental problems, such as an underground fuel tank below the foundation and asbestos.
As for the St. Luke's Educational Building, Ambrose said it does not have a foundation like the rest of the church, which makes it difficult to maintain. It also blocks the front entrance of the Pearl Road United Methodist Church, which will be redeveloped.
The project comes as the neighborhood is actively seeking economic development opportunities to address decades of stagnation.
"This neighborhood has not seen investment like this in 75 years," Ambrose said. "This is this corner's best chance to reshape the entire Old Brooklyn's commercial district for the next hundred years. And we're so close."
Ward 13 Councilmember Kris Harsh calls Old Brooklyn one of the city's "middle neighborhoods," a term used to describe parts of the city that are not economically thriving but not overly distressed, juxtaposed to the exploding popularity of nearby West Side neighborhoods like Ohio City and Tremont.
"Looking at those corners, there's not much going on, there's no vibrancy," Jones said of Old Brooklyn's main economic corridor. "What we're looking for is to create a dense, walkable community."
Harsh said that the neighborhood struggles with issues seen in other low- to middle-income parts of Cleveland, such as property appraisal gaps. He said development and economic vibrancy means a better life for residents, new and old.
"Preserving the character of Downtown Old Brooklyn is really important," Harsh said. "The church has stood there for 120 years. We want to make sure that it stands there for another 120. But it's in bad shape...it's a terribly expensive project. In order to finance it, we're going to build a new residential commercial development around it. That's what makes the whole project work."
But Ewazen maintains that can happen without demolishing the old. Once the neighborhood's character is lost, she said, it's gone forever.
"Once they tear it down, you don't put it back," Ewazen said. "And that's ties into my concern with this corner...leave some of the past. You can have your new stuff but leave the past alone."
The project is expected to be complete in 2027.
