Madam Clerk, please call the room.

Councilman Bishop.

Thank you.

Um, we're gonna start with the zoning piece, ordinance number.

So we will want to add yeah, Councilman's Davis and Hudson.

Um, an ordinance establishing the Lorraine Antiques Design Review District, North and South of Lorraine Avenue between West Eighty Third Street and West Sixty First Place.

Um go ahead.

Hi Shannon.

Good morning.

Um Madam Chair Shannon Leonard, uh Chief Zoning Administrator, City Planning Commission.

I'm here with uh Nate Low, the neighborhood planner for this area.

Um and so this is a map change.

Uh the purpose is to grant oversight to the far west design review and city planning commission uh for all exterior changes and demolitions along our commercial corridors and to resect protect and preserve our important urban fabric closest to our transit.

And so uh the proposal here is to add the Lorraine Antiques Design Review District between West 83rd and West 61st place uh to the east, and really the purpose of that is as you can see here.

Um it is this small area in green that we're proposing here.

Um everything around it is along Lorraine.

It's a swear chunk that was left out of design review and landmarks uh commission design review purview, uh, and something that uh councilwoman Spencer as well as um councilman Davis have also included now in the new season have also wanted to support here.

Um so to give you some context.

This is from West 83rd, North and South, uh, and then the GCRTA station going towards the zone recreation center, uh slightly east of West 65th Street.

Um this is just giving you an idea of some of the notable places of which why this area has been on the forefront to try to protect and have a little bit of oversight as it relates to design review, any type of new infill development, as well as any um redevelopment of these sites.

So you have the CPL Lorraine branch down on the west, uh going up to Aspen Place, uh Century Antiques, um, the SSA offices, um, and the zone recreation center, as well as the post office.

Um, this is just giving you some of the context of those photos, those notable places that we just named.

Uh West 83rd in Lorraine, this is looking east.

Um, and then you also have West 80th in Lorraine looking east, um, and really giving you the context.

Now the context is a little bit old uh here, um, but it's still roughly the same outside of the snow that's currently down.

Um you also have the Century Antiques uh building, so you can kind of see the kind of historical and the the natural urban fabric that's here in context, um, and then going forward, you have a little bit more newer design, uh West 73rd in Lorraine.

Um, but notice how that fits in with the old historic context of Lorraine, um, the shopping district there.

Again, just some more context photos, the historic USPS post office, uh, and then West 65th and Lorraine as well, looking north.

Uh just a few more context with Zone Recreation Center and then West 61st place in Lorraine.

You can see a mix of the um older development as well as some newer development.

And so that's the proposal is really to add this small chunk uh called the Lorraine Avenue Umtiques District.

It'll fall into the design review district here that Nate can talk more about if you have questions of the new near west side.

Any questions?

Chief, are there other um districts throughout the city that are antique or is this the only one?

So this is just the name that they chose.

There's various design review districts, and that can I can see why that might be confusing.

It won't be a landmarks district, but it is a design review district.

So it'll be under the purview of city planning commission.

Got it.

Okay.

Councilman Austin.

Thank you.

Through the chair, thanks for putting this together.

I'll just be real brief.

Um, about one block is in ward seven, and the other 99 blocks are in um councilman Hudson's board, but she's an incredible supporter of this initiative.

The antique shops up and down the street are very cute.

Um, and I completely understand our desire to preserve that.

Uh Urban Fabric, so thank you for putting this together.

Happy to see it to the finish line.

And I will say council um woman Hudson sent out an email in support of this piece.

Councilman.

Okay.

Is there are there any public comments, madam clerk?

No, okay.

So any other questions on ordinance number.

Keep this open.

1520 from my colleagues.

Hearing no other questions, ordinance number 1520-2025 has been approved.

Please sign on.

So now we're closing the zoning portion of the meeting, and then we're heading to the regular.

I mean, we'll be hearing the regular DPS meeting.

So please sign up.

Thank you, Chief.

Thank you.

We didn't give you anything to do.

They're a little harder, but um, okay.

Madam Clerk call the role.

Present.

Here.

Thank you.

Ornish number 96-2026 by Council Member Star and orn Emergency Ordnance Designing the Woman Seaver Morgan Company Building as a Cleveland Landmark.

Morning, Madam Chair, Dan Muson, uh Cleveland Landmarks Commission.

We have Brad Whitehead and Sarah Jex from the site readiness fund.

And then Wellman from uh Naylor Wellman, they're the historic preservation consultants.

We're here for the designation of 7000 Central Avenue.

Um, the Wellman Morgan Siever Building or Company Building.

And we do have owner consent.

So with that, I'll hand it over to your microphone.

Yeah.

Uh hard a little harder.

It's the one.

Good morning.

Thank you for your time this morning.

Um we are here to present the Wellman Seaver Morgan Engineering Company building at 7000 Central Avenue for listening as a designation as a landmark.

Um the building is significant under engineering and industry.

Um the Wellman Seaver Morgan Company pretty much put steel on the map.

Um Samuel T.

Wellman is considered the father of the open hearth.

He had 97 patents going through the the team members that made up that company.

Charles Wellman as well had 27.

John Seaver, he was kind of known for cranes.

He had 27 as well, and then Thomas Morgan had 26.

Um, they were prolific, they were international.

They built pretty much um every steel in every steel factory from about 1896 to about 1915.

Then obviously their patents start to spread out and others are doing it.

They built um the Niagara Falls um hydro electronic station.

Um it's countless in Cleveland, we all know them for the Hewlett Unloaders.

That's uh, you know, they helped revolutionize the movement of um materials across the Great Lakes.

So it's a very important company, and that was their Cleveland works.

They did have a works in Akron as well.

They also had um a mining um, I guess like a you know, uh uh a mining industry in Alabama, but this was their home.

They had office building on that property.

It was torn down about 1970.

Um, and what remains is the complex that um the industry was where where they were creating.

They were both designers, um, they made the materials and then they erected the materials.

In addition to industry um steel industry buildings, they also um designed the steel under the steel uh for most of our buildings downtown.

The Caxton is one of them.

So again, it's just a very important um history to Cleveland.

Thank you.

Do we don't have a presentation?

We normally have we photo.

We had one, that's why it was like, oh, I don't have my presentation.

I apologize.

Okay.

So I'm like trying to give you an overview without it.

But yeah, okay.

This is my favorite part of DPS, learning some history about our city.

I needed my prompts anything else that you would like to add?

No.

Um, only remarks I definitely would give before I go into the presentation.

Um, this is a location that's right off of 71st and Central Avenue.

It has been vacant for since about 40, 50 years.

Um, which is a big big issue, is it became an eye sort?

And then when you know when we created the sites for readiness fund, one of the biggest things that the organization wanted to do is figure out how do we reimagine old buildings that have not been utilized.

And also with this building, this is opportunity to preserve um some of the history.

When you talk about the actual cranes that are in the building, they are built from 1900s where they were operating on like you heard still inside of the city of Cleveland back when it was millennial, I mean millionaires row taking place on Euclid.

A lot of the work was doing there, and it was also a location where people had housing right around the neighborhood where they could actually walk to work and operate.

So some of the things that we're looking to possibly do is obviously preserve this building, so therefore there is no demolition of it.

But how do we reimagine the space, utilize a site readiness to be able to get a developer or get some type of businesses industry inside of that facility where we can be able to reimagine what it used to be and create something that'd be modernized for us to have jobs creation in that site?

So this is something that I look forward to partnering and discussing, and I do agree with designate designating the wellman as server more company building as uh Cleveland Landmark.

Thank you, Councilman Star.

We're closed.

So you have no plans as of now for any development.

Um we are presently in negotiations with a uh manufacturer who would be bringing several hundred jobs uh into this facility uh that would be focused in on neighborhood residents who could fulfill those jobs.

And I would um note as well from the site readiness fund perspective.

90% of the buildings that we see, and we often do write arounds uh with all of you and in your wards, uh 90% of what we see needs to come down, either because it's structurally unsound uh or because it just doesn't fit modern manufacturing needs.

Uh and it this was one of the very first buildings that we saw in a write around with Councilman Starr, and he pulled up in front of that building and pointed and said, this one, fix this one.

Uh and it turns out the bones are good, as uh you'll hear in the presentation.

Uh and it's just a beautiful structure as well.

And I would note uh we've engaged the community in conversations.

And uh soon after getting the building, I remember talking to uh one woman on her front porch who is within the shadow of the building, and I said, What should we do with this thing?

Is it time for this to come down?

And she said, No, please don't tear this down.

Uh we spend all this time tearing things down.

Let's keep this one.

Thank you for that.

Okay, so now I've got my prompts.

Um, okay, so here it is.

Um there, like I said, the office building which you're seeing on the right middle.

Um, that building is down, and then there's a few buildings in the back that have been demolished.

From this picture in 1915, it got a little bit more of addition that brought it out, which is 700, I mean 7,000 Central Avenue.

Um, so this is just a bird's eye view of it to give you the sense of massing.

It's 184,000 square feet.

Um, and it's pretty much an open floor plate.

Um, there is two areas where there is a second floor and a third floor, um, and you're gonna see um from ground to top, we're looking at 40 feet of open space, so that really allows it to be um from manufacturing purposes.

And you know, as a historic preservationist, the one thing that the national parks loves more is when a building gets used as its original purpose.

So this is you know, it's not gonna be apartments, which is what we tend to do, right?

So um here's just uh you know some exterior pictures of the building.

It does look decrepit, you know, it's got graffiti all over it.

Um, but it's kind of an easy fix.

The base of the building is brick.

Um, the upper areas are panel.

We would be putting in an insulated panel because they had open hearths, so it was really warm in there in the winter.

It will not be that warm if we don't do something about the exterior.

Um, and then there's uh a large amount of light, which is common to a factory building that we'll be able to initiate, and then I don't have a good picture of it.

Um, this is one of those buildings that it's so big and the way the sun shines on it, it's kind of always in the shade.

But there I think are 14 dock bays along um 71st.

And then at the rear of the building, and this just gives you a sense of the interior, how big it is at the rear of the building.

Um, there are two spurs that go into it.

Um we've walked on them, don't do that.

But they uh the railroad said they will not allow us to reuse them, they're pretty crickety.

There's just some more interiors.

So um I'm standing up.

There's a platform that you can stand, and so that's one of those cranes that um councilman starr mentioned.

Um there's a handful of other cranes.

I really need an engineer to go in there and tell me what all the different cranes are because that is now my area of expertise.

But there's 19 of these ones right here that just they go the full length of the building.

So there it is um in the 1913 sandboard map, just to give you a sense of its size.

Um, and there it is again on the 1927 Hopkins.

You can see those.

I'll go back real quick.

You can see those two spurs that go into it.

And they come in at a second floor level.

And then there it is in 1953.

So there's the interiors of kind of different sections.

And to give you a sense of just how big it is.

So again, Wellman Seaven Engineering began in 1896 with Charles and Samuel T.

Wellman brothers and John Seaver.

As I mentioned, Samuel T.

Wellman is known for being the father of the open hearth.

He started his career in 1860s.

There's something called the Simons Hearth.

And he worked for them in Boston and was sent all over the country to implement.

He perfected that design.

And if you didn't catch it, my name is Diana Wellman.

So this is my husband's great-great-grandfather.

So I have a special interest in this.

He passes away.

And for whatever reason, he chooses to not stay with his family company.

He brings his money and joins them in 1902.

And then there's just some highlights of the company through time.

1896, they're founded, 1900, they become Wellman Sieaver.

And as you can see, they're making the tilt, there's a handful of different types of furnaces, and again, not my area of expertise.

But there's something called the tilting furnace.

They start bringing that online.

Oh, and I should bring you back.

Samuel T comes to Cleveland for Otis Steel Company.

1903, Thomas Morgan joins.

And then, you know, there's our famous famous George Hewlett that designed the Hewlett and Loters.

Wellman Engineering, they do they built those along the Great Lakes.

They continue through the partners are all dead by 1919.

John Server Sean Seaver dies in 1911.

Charles and Thomas Morgan die in 1905 from a derailment of a train heading out to Mentor.

And then in 1919, Samuel T dies of a heart attack.

The company continued though.

In 1930, the name changed to Wellman Engineering Company.

They got a Army Navy E Award for their contribution during World War II.

And you'll see some images from that.

Later they joined with McDowell, who is also a very important engineering company in Cleveland, become the McDowell Wellman Engineering Company.

By 1979, 1980, Dravo of Pittsburgh takes them over and the building is vacated.

So there's just some, you know, these are the things they made.

Those are big items that they were producing rapidly.

And there's an open hearth furnace if you want to know what that looks like.

Don't know how it works.

Here's just a list in 1901 of the furnaces that they were installing across the country and across the world.

That's the Caxton building under construction, as I mentioned.

They designed the steel for that.

Here's John Seaver was known for his cranes.

So here's just an example of cranes.

Just again, these are just examples of cranes and things they were doing across the country.

And I'll just kind of move through these.

That's a coal chute.

And these are all patents that you're looking at.

There's our Hewlett Unloaders.

If you've ever had a chance, if you if I've got five minutes of your time, Google it and you'll be amazed how smooth these these things operated.

They were just amazing engineering.

And there's a coal bucket inside an oar boat, just give you a sense of scale.

So there they are inside the plant, the workers on one of their um canyons that they designed for the World War II.

And then I'm just gonna give you that little bit brief.

We're also so we're listing this building on the National Register, Historic Places.

It's being listed under engineering and industry, and then also for Samuel T.

Wellman.

Um that's the building behind them is Warner and Swayze, and um that's Samuel T that the arrows pointing to.

Uh Swayze's kind of noticeable because he has that big beard.

Um, but that is a whole bunch of very important engineers from the city of Cleveland.

You can, if you look at those names, you'll recognize them.

Um T, as I mentioned, it's open hearth.

Um, he also founded a company called Wellman Bronze and Aluminum Company, and they were located at Wooded in 93rd.

That building is is demolished.

They mostly provided parts for the Peerless Auto Company.

And then I'm just sharing some family photos of Samuel T.

The young boy in the bow is Holly G.

Wallman.

He ended up taking over for the company in 1919 and stayed with the Morgan Siever Engineering Company through 1930, and then he switched over and went to Wellman Bronze.

And there's the Wellman Bronze and Aluminum Company building that's now demolished.

And then I thought this photo is great because it's called old timers and they don't look very old to me.

So and then Jen, this is the reason why we're also listening on the National Register for CMT Walman, because there's no other buildings that are left to represent him.

His house on Euclidean Avenue is long gone.

It's um where the Cleveland Clinic Police Station is.

Definitely a building worth saving.

Congratulations again, Councilman Starr.

I'm curious to know how many workers they had at that time.

Yeah, I'll have to try to figure that out.

I mean, it sounds like it was a very efficient, you know, steel industry in general is a pr very efficient.

Um they talk about how it's a very dirty job, but um the men that did that were highly skilled to be able to control the heat of the fire and you know that.

So we'll try to find that out.

Well, thank you for that um that lesson.

Uh is there are there any other questions?

Oh, Councilman Harsh.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um, and I uh uh appreciate uh your help in getting this to the table so quickly.

This is uh we're working on a very timely uh uh project here.

Um so I'm very excited about this.

This is a a wonderful adaptive reuse and uh the historic designation is gonna help us really make that possible.

Uh thank you to Councilman Starr for uh being so involved on this.

I I put in a call to see if he knew about it.

He's like, I've already been there, I've already talked to them, I've already been hours on this.

I had no idea, so that's wonderful.

Um question though, through the chair uh about the rail spur.

Um well, first off, who owns that railroad track?

Whose track is that you gotta get it green?

It'll work.

There we go.

Uh Norfolk Southern owns the rail.

Okay.

And so through the chair, if uh if if if a future occupant wanted to rebuild a spur that tied in, would Norfolk Southern be amendable to that?

I mean, that's what they do or no.

There's no tie-in there possible.

I'm just uh through the chair.

Uh we really had hoped so, but Norfolk and Southern said that it doesn't fit with current um engineering and structural requirements for how you get to grade.

So nor it's Norfolk and Southern who said no.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Because it currently it comes in on the second floor.

Yeah.

Oh, oh.

Okay.

Yeah, I think they said that it's the turning radius, and that a man actually has to get out of the train to s to to make that happen.

It's not something that you can.

Even with that triangular piece of the Northwest.

Okay, all right.

I just thought I would ask.

Uh, this is a fantastic project.

I'm really excited about it.

Thank you, everybody who's been working on this, and thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Councilman Harsh.

Councilwoman Um Gray.

Thank you.

Um, thank you.

I just I just want to say um, this is something that's astonishing to me too, because I grew up in the area before Star was born.

So I'm just throw that out there, Star.

Just okay.

So I walked that area.

I lived in that area, and I seen when the building was uh in uh operable order when they had employees there.

That was like the epitome of that area of people working in the central area.

And um, and it was safe, you know, it was doable.

That was the bread, and uh that was the bread of people lifestyles in that area, factories.

And uh just over time to see how it withered away and became empty and been empty all these many years, is it's unimaginable that uh it can be restored, but you're sitting here at the table uh with one of the best landmark staffers here.

I have to give him credit on this because they do an excellent, excellent job.

Um being biased per se, because I'm on the landmark commission too, but I have met the landmark staff and they are just superbly um uh um uh uh experience of going through these buildings and looking through them and looking at the good bones.

So I really appreciate uh Dan being at the table supporting this, and I know that is something if he's at the table, then I know it's a go.

So my uh question is um chair to the uh team here.

How soon uh that you think that um that you're gonna go in after this landmark, how soon?

You know, will it be starting work or process it's gonna be open per se?

That fair question.

Uh through the chair to Councilman uh Gray.

Uh very fair question.

Um we're with uh in collaboration with uh Councilman Hirsch, we're putting together the financing package with the company now, which we hope to have tied up in the coming two to three months uh with uh renovations hopefully starting in early 27.

That's great news.

All right, that's it.

Thank you.

Councilman Star, I know you gave some remarks.

Anything now, just just for um context, when you think of this location and you think about the the actual area, um, it's two different buildings that I definitely would like to talk about.

Definitely this project, Noelamena, which is located on 71st and Central.

But then also when you're looking at presentation and it showed that um in 1916, there was an actual meeting that was taking place where people in the manufacturer industry rather were still was having to meet in that Warner Swayze building.

And if we're familiar with Warner Swayze, they were one of the ones who manufactured during World War II, where they had ships, planes, tanks for the entire war that was coming out of Cleveland.

And when you talk about it back then, they had about 7,000 Clevelanders actually working in a factory to do that type of work.

So now that we fast forward to today, the Warner Swayze building closed down in the 80s, and we just passed the final um package and closed on the finances for Warner Swayze to be converted into 112 mixed residential housing units as well as storefronts at the lower part of the complex, which is going to break ground sometime this year.

Um and then addition, when you fast forward from 57th in Carnegie, just up the few blocks, you have a location that was a manufacturing industry that was closed as well during that time.

And now we're here today um doing some great work to be able to designate as a lesson as a landmark, but then also utilize it to be able to use manufacture and create more jobs in the community like they once set out.

So this is overall bringing the entire neighborhood who have manufacturing facilities that were our source to back activation.

So I support um ordinance number 96-2026, which is taking place in Warfy.

Thank you, Councilman Starr.

Any other questions?

There are no other questions.

Thank you all for being here.

Thank you to all my colleagues.

Meeting adjourned.