Richmond Heights council hears phase two plan for Belle Oaks - cleveland.com

RICHMOND HEIGHTS, Ohio -- City Council’s Planning & Zoning Committee heard Tuesday (March 3) from architects describing the second phase of the Belle Oaks development proposed for the southern portion of the 69-acre Richmond Town Square property.

Prior to the committee meeting, council also held a brief special meeting in which it approved by a 6-0 vote (Councilman Mark Alexander was not present) state-required legislation that confirms that the city has received a petition with all necessary information from developers DealPoint Merrill requesting that a committee be established to oversee finances of the proposed $200 million mixed-use development.

It was one week earlier that DealPoint Merrill’s lawyers proposed the action so that the New Community Authority (NCA) financing mechanism could be utilized.

The committee, or board, will be comprised of an odd number of between seven and 13 members. The city and DealPoint Merrill would each select members, with the city naming a majority. The board would carry out the development’s financing plan, collect revenues and pay debt service on bonds.

After receiving DealPoint’s petition, the city had 10 days to accept that petition and the information it includes as fact. The city has 30 days from receipt of the petition to set up a public meeting where questions can be asked before action is taken to form an NCA committee. That public meeting has been scheduled for 6 p.m. March 24 at City Hall.

Belle Oaks at Richmond will be built in two phases and will include more than 700 luxury apartments, new retail buildings, surface-level and garage parking, a park and swimming pool, and more.

In the first phase, Bialosky Cleveland architects Principal Paul Deutsch said, plans call for work to start at the north end of the property in June with the demolition of the former Sears building.

DealPoint Merrill, of Woodland Hills, Calif., is still negotiating to purchase the rest of the mall from Michael Kohan. If the purchase happens, the remainder of the mall, with the exception of the existing CubeSmart (former Macy’s building) and Regal Cinemas building, would be demolished to make room for construction.

Deutsch and fellow Bialosky architect Brian Menga presented plans Tuesday to the council committee. They were the same plans approved three weeks earlier by the city’s Planning & Zoning Commission.

The council committee took no action in approving the plan. Council President Eloise Henry said she wants to wait to see results of a market study showing the need for the number of apartments and retail planned, as well as a parking study, before voting to approve.

Economic Development Director Brian Gleisser said the developers already have had a parking study done.

“We’re waiting on a city study to see if it backs up what their parking study says as far as the size of parking spaces and the number of spaces that would be needed,” he said. The city code calls for slightly larger parking spaces than does the state code. If it is shown that the smaller spaces can be used, it could eliminate the need for hundreds of spaces and allow for more landscaping.

Gleisser said he hopes work starts in June, as the architects stated, but he knows that there is much work to be done before construction or demolition can begin.

“We first have to negotiate a TIF (tax increment financing) agreement with each school district,” he said. That’s because from the former Sears building north, the mall site is located within the Richmond Heights School District, while property south of the former Sears is located within the South Euclid-Lyndhurst School District.

“We also have to negotiate a CRA (community reinvestment area) agreement with the two school districts,” he said. The CRA agreement involves negotiating how the City of Richmond Heights will share newly gained payroll taxes from the development with each school district.

Gleisser said that there is not yet a start date scheduled for any of the negotiations. If all goes well, and construction does start at mid-year, Gleisser said construction of phase one apartments and phase two retail would begin at the same time.

“But phase two retail buildings are much simpler to build, so they would be finished in the latter part of 2021,” Gleisser said. "Phase one residential would be finished the latter part of 2022. And then phase two residential would be completed in 2023.”

Phase one contains some retail, but the two planned retail buildings would have dwellings above.

Gleisser told council that what they were seeing was a conceptual site plan and that, if there were any changes made to the plan, those changes would have to come before council for approval. In addition, each building constructed will be subject to city review.

During an earlier Finance Committee meeting, Building Commissioner Jim Urankar said that the Belle Oaks project would generate about $500,000 in permit fees. Those fees would be used to offset the cost of inspections and other building department tasks pertaining to the development.

In all, Meng said, the development will be made up of 1.7 million square feet of residential and retail space, including the already existing CubeSmart and Regal Cinemas buildings.

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Richmond Heights council hears phase two plan for Belle Oaks - cleveland.com
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