Cleveland is buying a vacant grocery store. It's part of a bigger revitalization effort.
CLEVELAND — The city of Cleveland plans to buy a vacant grocery store on the East Side, in a move that's about much more than remaking one blighted property.
City officials say they've inked an agreement to purchase the former Dave's Markets store on Lakeshore Boulevard in the Collinwood neighborhood. They plan to demolish the boarded-up building and seek redevelopment proposals for the site in early 2025.
The pending deal is an unusual one for the city, which rarely uses its power to buy up and stash real estate in an industrial-commercial land bank. But the old Dave's store sits in a key location, on a corridor where there's lots of public and philanthropic money at stake.
The city's Collinwood Recreation Center is a short stroll away. Humphrey Park lies to the south.
Just down the block, the Euclid Beach Mobile Home Community is shutting down. The 28.5-acre property will become part of the Euclid Creek Reservation, creating a lakefront green space comparable in size to Edgewater Park on the West Side.
And on nearby streets, nonprofits are working to renovate and build homes and bring new life to tired storefronts.
Tom McNair, the city's economic development director, sees a rare chance to shore up a struggling commercial district that's barely a quarter-mile from Lake Erie.
The former Dave's property is 4.24 acres. Next door, the Cuyahoga Land Bank owns 1.5 acres, including a long-vacant Ponderosa Steakhouse, that could go into a larger redevelopment project.
"To me, this is the type of site that can really swing a neighborhood," McNair said.
Dave's shut its Collinwood outpost in April 2022, after almost four decades of serving the neighborhood. At the time, the family-owned grocer was wrapping up renovations at its store in neighboring Euclid and said little publicly about its motivations for downsizing.
City officials cited declining sales, increasingly cash-strapped shoppers and friction between Dave's and its landlord in Collinwood. A few months later, a company associated with locally owned Simon's Supermarket bought the property. But nothing happened.
The building has been languishing for more than two years. Meanwhile, some neighboring businesses, including a small Walgreens on Lakeshore, have shut their doors.
"There's no place for the elderly to get the medicines they need, even," said Kenneth Jones, who puttered by on his scooter Monday morning. "No place for the young folks to get the food they need, the nutrition for their children."
Jones, a 67-year-old veteran, lives in a nearby public housing tower. He used to shop at Dave's twice a week. Now, he gets a ride or takes a bus to Euclid to buy everyday basics.
"It's sort of heartbreaking to notice the deterioration of the neighborhood," he said. "As if no one cares what's actually going on over here."
McNair said city officials do care – and they're acting.
They've agreed to pay $1.475 million for the longtime supermarket site. City Council approved the spending Monday night, and the deal is expected to close late this year.
"For us, this is an opportunity to come in and grab civic control – and really go out and find the right user for this site," McNair said.
Three-quarters of the price will be paid by the economic development department. The rest of the money is coming from Councilman Mike Polensek, who is using community development block grant funds from the federal government.
"We hope this will be a prototype throughout the city of Cleveland for how we develop these large sites of former retail – and not only large sites, but smaller buildings," he said, noting that many neighborhoods are grappling with the loss of everyday retailers.
"What do we do with abandoned big boxes?" Polensek asked. "What do we do with abandoned drugstores, banks and other retail establishments? Because we're seeing even fast-food businesses closing. Restaurants closing."
He and other public officials would love to lure a new grocer to the property, which is large enough for a mixed-use project. But landing another supermarket is a long shot.
"We have had a ton of conversations ... in terms of finding more grocers that want to come into the city of Cleveland. And that's really challenging right now, right?" McNair said. "I think the grocery industry, generally speaking, is going through a lot of its own issues and transformations."
Polensek echoed that.
"It's such a competitive market," he said. "But what other development could this be? A site of housing? We don't know. Could it be a site for other retail opportunities? I'm not wedded to one specific thing. ... Acquiring the site is just the beginning of that process."
And there are other food-related uses that might fill part of the void that Dave's left.
"It doesn't necessarily have to be a full-service grocery store," McNair said. "I think that there are a lot of different models at work."
Polensek said the owners of Simon's Supermarket did see potential in the neighborhood. But he wasn't impressed by the company's existing stores in Cleveland, which are scattered across the East Side. Plus, the amount of subsidy needed to overhaul the aging former Dave's building was too high for the city to consider.
"That was not gonna happen in light of some of the challenges that he has with his other stores," Polensek said. "So we told him that we were going to go a different route."
Jones, who has lived in the neighborhood for about 15 years, is cautiously optimistic about the city's plans. He's tired of looking at abandoned buildings and vacant lots.
"We need some new things around here," he said.
