© 2024 Ideastream Public Media

1375 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44115
(216) 916-6100 | (877) 399-3307

WKSU is a public media service licensed to Kent State University and operated by Ideastream Public Media.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
News
To contact us with news tips, story ideas or other related information, e-mail newsstaff@ideastream.org.

Church Puts Two Downtown Cleveland Buildings on the Market

The church's headquarters on Prospect Avenue in downtown Cleveland. Photo credit: United Church of Christ
The church's headquarters on Prospect Avenue in downtown Cleveland. Photo credit: United Church of Christ

The church bought its more than century-old office building in 1990 when it moved its headquarters from New York City to Cleveland. It’s now a hot property as downtown goes through another revival.

Church spokeswoman Christina Villa said it's a good time to sell.

"As the building increased in value and we don’t need all of the space, putting it on the market seemed like the responsible thing to do," she said.

Finding a buyer shouldn’t be hard, since historic buildings come with government subsidies for developers.

"Somebody that buys this building, one of the reasons they might be attracted to it from an economic motivation, is they can access these financing tools to do what they want to do," said Tom Yablonsky, with the Downtown Cleveland Alliance and the Historic Gateway Neighborhood Corporation.

He said reuse of historic buildings, especially as housing, has been a big part of downtown Cleveland’s revival.

The church is also selling the building next door housing the Radisson Hotel, which it built to replace a parking lot.

Villa said the church will keep its headquarters in downtown Cleveland – it might just lease back its current space from a new owner. She said it also wants to maintain a chapel on the ground floor whose congregation has grown with downtown’s residential population.