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WEEKLY FOCUS: UNIVERSITY RESEARCH, Page 10 VOL. 40, NO. 33
AUGUST 19 - 25, 2019
Source Lunch
Akron Researchers believe their technology can battle algae. Page 15
Manufacturing
Daniel Hampu, chief operating officer, Fontus Blue Page 19
Middlefield Bank feeling heat from Ancora. Page 4 REAL ESTATE
Condos start a comeback Once a developer’s nightmare, for-sale units are returning to region By Stan Bullard sbullard@crain.com @CrainRltyWriter
GOVERNMENT
SHIFTING SHORES
Huntington Beach in Bay Village is an example of the shifting Lake Erie shorelines. (Photographs by John Quinn for Crain’s)
New legislation gives coastal property owners erosion funding options By Kim Palmer kpalmer@crain.com
In Ohio, about 87% of the Lake Erie coastline is privately owned, and those property owners are solely responsible for the upkeep of their part of the state’s shore.
Lakefront owners always have dealt with shifting shores, but the heavy rains and record-breaking water levels of the last two years have exacerbated normal loss. According to the Army Corps of Engineers, the water levels in Lake Erie are 13 inches higher than last August and 31 inches higher than the
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Heavy rains and increased water levels have added to the erosion along the shores of Lake Erie.
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long-term average. Those levels are expected to remain higher than average throughout the year. State Rep. Mike Skindell, a Democrat whose district includes a long stretch of shoreline in Lakewood, wrote recently enacted legislation that allows owners of Lake Erie-bordered property to create shoreline Special Improvement Districts, or SIDs, for the purpose of funding coastline construction and improvements. “What we were looking at was a method of financing, because what we were seeing is individual property owners could not afford to privately pay for erosion measures. And what they did, if they did anything, is put in the cheapest erosion control measure and not the best,” Skindell said. SEE SHORELINE, PAGE 17
For-sale condominiums — a market devastated in the real estate downturn that some developers said they would swear off forever — are coming back in the region at sites from Chagrin Falls to Rocky River, as well as Little Italy between them. Just a couple hundred steps from Presti’s Bak- Lamb ery and other goodies on Mayfield Road, buyers have started moving into The Quattro, a $13 million project finished this spring that added 26 units to the famous Cleveland neighborhood. It’s on Random Road next to Tony Brush Park and across the street from The Schoolhouse Condominiums in the former Murray Hill School. The modern five-floor building has a brick exterior with white concrete features — cast stone — to match the school and the neighborhood’s context. The interiors are out of HGTV, from open-floor plans to contemporary lettering on the door plates. The average cost at Quattro is in the $600,000s, although one went for $800,000. Russell Lamb, a founding principal of Allegro Realty Advisors of Cleveland who runs its investment division, said the group decided to do condos because there was little new product available, especially with the flat or ranch-style design sought by empty nesters and younger buyers. The project was also a change-up from other Allegro investments, a separate activity from its corporate real estate advisory practice. Most recently it had finished an $8 million project putting townhouses on Wade Park, where it heard prospects asking for larger units. SEE CONDOS, PAGE 16
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