Love Funding recently closed a $15.3 million loan to renovate a whole city block in downtown Cleveland to accommodate a new loft apartment community.
West 25th Street Lofts will offer 83 market-rate loft apartments in four adjacent buildings in Cleveland’s Ohio City neighborhood, including one that was originally constructed in 1866 to house the Jacob Beahr Brewery. The financing was secured by Love Funding Midwest Regional Director Bruce Gerhart through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s 221(d)(4) loan insurance program, and also made use of federal and Ohio state historic preservation tax credits. The HUD program provided the development team with low-rate, non-recourse financing for the duration of construction and for a subsequent 40-year term.
The loan was originally slated to be finalized in 2014 but the closing of a charter school in one of the newer buildings allowed the development team to add another 22 units to the project. Since then, the immediate area has benefited from further development, leading USA Today to name the area one of 10 “up-and-coming” neighborhoods in the United States.
“When you work with quality people, a complex deal like this can be accomplished,” said Rick Foran of Cleveland’s Foran Group Development LLC, who is leading the development of the project along with Christopher Smythe of Smythe Property Advisors LLC. “We are euphoric about the outcome.”
In addition to the HUD loan and historic tax credit equity provided by other sources, the project also tapped two City of Cleveland funding programs. Over the decades since it was constructed, the building has been home to a local Odd Fellows chapter, a metal shop operated by The Riester and Thesimacher Company, The Phoenix Machine Company, Lester Engineering Company and the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority.