Cleveland's new site fund buys huge factory on the city's East Side

Overhead cranes and abandoned cabooses hint at the backstory of this building. A once-mighty factory where workers made the machines that shaped America.

Now the Wellman-Seaver-Morgan plant on Cleveland’s East Side is getting a second shot at life. A new nonprofit just took control of the property – a vacant behemoth on a 10-acre site in the city’s Central neighborhood.

This factory, at 7000 Central Ave., is the first major purchase for the Site Readiness for Good Jobs Fund, an organization launched last year by Mayor Justin Bibb’s administration and City Council.

The fund is working with the Cuyahoga Land Bank to acquire and clean up industrial properties by using public and philanthropic money to lay the groundwork for private investment.

“Our goal is 1,000 acres over the next 15 years that lead to 25,000 good jobs,” Brad Whitehead, the fund’s managing director, said during a recent interview.

“Injecting life and vitality into neighborhoods. Removing blight. Promoting environmental justice and building wealth,” he said. “And this site, with all of its strengths and attributes – sitting right in the middle of a neighborhood – is just the kind of place that we hope to reactivate.”

But the old manufacturing plant is far from typical for the site fund, which expects to focus on vacant land. In Central, Whitehead is taking on a 183,000-square-foot building – a complex he hopes, in some form, to save.

“Walking in here and just seeing the majesty of this place, you realize what a great place Cleveland was – and can be,” he said while standing on the dusty factory floor.

Site Readiness for Good Jobs Fund

'Just an eyesore over there right now'

Built in 1901, the plant produced huge equipment for steel mills. Wellman-Seaver-Morgan also built Hulett unloaders, which lifted iron ore and coal off Lake Erie freighters.

One of the company’s executives, George Hulett, invented the unloaders in the late 1800s. The mammoth machines transformed the shipping business, dramatically reducing the amount of time and manpower required to haul materials off ships.

The few remaining Huletts in Cleveland, long unused, are being dismantled.

But industry moved on. And Wellman-Seaver-Morgan, after several name changes and mergers, left Cleveland in 1988. A railroad-track manufacturer later used the factory.

It’s unclear when the last worker left. Neighbors say the property quickly became a magnet for squatters and vandals. It attracted graffiti artists, who have turned almost every surface – brick walls, unbroken windows and abandoned train cars – into a canvas.

“We don’t know what’s going on in there,” neighbor Daanicia Smith-Ayers said. “So, to see it possibly be something that’s beneficial to the community would be great. Because it’s just an eyesore over there right now.”

L. David Colabine/News 5

The site fund paid $845,000 for the property in a sale that closed Monday morning. The seller was an out-of-state investor who bought the wedge-shaped site in 2017.

The Cuyahoga Land Bank, or Cuyahoga County Land Reutilization Corp., is holding the real estate for the site fund. The land bank, a quasi-governmental entity, is exempt from property taxes and has unique powers to acquire and clean up blighted land and buildings.

Whitehead said Burten, Bell, Carr Development Inc., a neighborhood nonprofit, will own a stake in the project. Burten, Bell, Carr is investing money provided by the Fund for Our Economic Future, a civic organization dedicated to improving the regional economy.

'An industrial might once again'

The site fund is using $50 million from the city to buy properties, with a heavy focus on the East Side. The money is from Cleveland’s $512 million infusion of federal pandemic-stimulus cash, from the American Rescue Plan Act.

The Bibb administration proposed the site fund last spring, and City Council signed off on the spending soon after.

City officials have talked about pursuing additional funding from Cuyahoga County and JobsOhio, the state’s private nonprofit economic development corporation. The site fund also plans to seek state grants for environmental clean-up.

“We have all the right ingredients to make Cleveland an industrial might once again,” Mayor Justin Bibb said last week during a visit to the Wellman-Seaver-Morgan plant.

“As we acquire this land and – relatively soon – put shovels in the ground, I think it’s a great symbol of Cleveland’s comeback,” he said.

The mayor described the building as “awe-inspiring.” It’s exactly the sort of property he hoped to see the site fund take on.

“I think this investment shows that this administration is serious in terms of bringing jobs and bringing hope back to Cleveland’s East Side,” he said, referring to majority-Black neighborhoods struggling with high poverty rates and the fallout from decades of decline.

L. David Colabine/News 5

Councilman Richard Starr, who represents the area, brought the old factory to Whitehead’s attention. Neighbors often complain about illegal dumping and vandalism on the block.

“If it was once making jobs in an ecosystem in our neighborhood, how can we look and explore ways to do that again?” said Starr, who has a long list of other blighted properties he hopes the site fund will look at.

“He pointed at that thing, and he said, ‘Can you fix it?’” Whitehead recalled. “And we walked in here and it was like ‘Oh my gosh, this place is something special.”

'We need to get a broom'

The small team at the site fund doesn’t have a firm plan for the building yet. But it has a few ideas.

With a soaring roof and vast, open floor, the factory might still work for a manufacturer. Or it could make sense to peel the walls off and keep the steel frame.

Whitehead mentioned a project in Pittsburgh where the skeleton of an old steel mill shelters three new office and research buildings.

That project, Mill 19, was the brainchild of an economic-development nonprofit called RIDC, short for Regional Industrial Development Corporation. The former mill is surrounded by a massive redevelopment called Hazelwood Green, which is being shepherded by foundations.

Courtesy of RIDC

“It’s a stunning building,” Whitehead said of Mill 19. “Hopefully we can do something of similar grandeur right here in the Central neighborhood.”

A y-shaped, elevated rail spur still runs into the Wellman-Seaver-Morgan building. That structure might become an outdoor walking path or patio if it’s sturdy enough to save.

Anthony Garcia/News 5

But those are just concepts today. In addition to working with engineers, Whitehead plans to seek ideas from neighbors and community groups.

“We do have some environmental cleanup that needs to be done. We need to get a broom, as you can see,” he said, laughing. “And, frankly, we start planning.”

Down the street, Smith-Ayers is hopeful. She’s tired of the view from her front porch. But she doesn’t want to see another industrial titan torn down.

“It’s beautiful in there to me,” she said, adding that she would love to see the empty cabooses preserved as part of any project.

“I would like to see it be a positive source for us that are here,” she said. “Don’t tear it down if you’re just gonna leave a blank space, a blank canvas. We have enough of those.”