CLEVELAND, Ohio -- In a deal with big implications for the future of University Circle, the Cleveland Institute of Art is selling its valuable, 4.1-acre property on East Boulevard to the Cleveland Museum of Art and Case Western Reserve University for $9.2 million.
Money from the sale will trigger completion of the $66.2 million expansion and renovation of the art institute’s Joseph McCullough Center for the Visual Arts at the nearby Uptown development, which the art college co-anchors with the new home of the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland.
The university and the art museum, meanwhile, will share an equal, undivided ownership of a uniquely important and centrally located property zoned for a residential tower that could rise 175 and a building that could nearly equal the expanded Cleveland Museum of Art.
“We knew that it could be something great and we wanted to be sure over time that there was a potential to develop something truly outstanding that reflects the institutions,” CWRU President Barbara Snyder said on Sunday.
She said the museum and the university acted together to ensure they could jointly control the property, rather than see it be sold to a private developer.
Cleveland Museum of Art Director David Franklin said Monday he hoped that at least part of the property could be used for an expansion of the joint art history program operated by the university and the museum.
“I think there’s a very ambitious vision that Case and the museum share, so this is a great moment,” he said.
He stressed, however that no plans are imminent, and that the museum’s immediate priority is finishing its $350 million expansion and renovation, which is due for completion at the end of this year.
The Cleveland Institute of Art's site on East Boulevard is bounded to the west by East Boulevard and to the south by Bellflower Road.
Any development on the art institute property would be “sequenced,” around other projects already underway at the museum and CWRU he said. Buying the land now was simply good stewardship for the future on the part of both institutions.
The art institute site is now occupied by the Gund Building, named for Cleveland banker and arts benefactor George Gund II. Built in 1956, it’s a modern-style art studio and classroom building that also houses the popular Cinematheque film program.
The building sits on four parcels all owned by the art institute. The property has mature trees along East Boulevard and a large parking lot to the east, where it shares a boundary with CWRU. To the south lies Bellflower Road.
One of the largest properties for sale in University Circle in recent years, the art institute's land is across the street from the art museum and a short walk from Severance Hall and the Euclid Avenue bus rapid transit HealthLine.
Zoning on the property would allow a high-rise residential tower 175 feet high, with a total of 535,000 square feet – an amount roughly equivalent to the size of the expanded art museum.
With variances, the institutions could build more and go even higher, said officials from University Circle Inc., the area’s nonprofit development corporation.
Chris Ronayne, UCI's director, said he could easily see educational and exhibit facilities on the site along with a residential tower that could produce income for the buyers like the condominium tower built by the Museum of Modern Art in New York in the 1980s.
The art museum and CWRU aren’t looking that far ahead now. They won’t take possession until the Gund Building is vacated and expansion of the McCullough complex is complete in about two years.
Cleveland Institute of Art will use the $9.2 million from the sale of its Gund Building and property at 11141 East Blvd. to pay for the expansion of the Joseph McCullough Center for the Visual Arts at 11610 Euclid Ave.
“We have lots of time to think about the potential use of the property and to plan for that,” Snyder said. “We will focus on what’s good for the Cleveland Museum of Art, Case Western Reserve University and all our stakeholders in the community.”
For Grafton Nunes, president of the Cleveland Institute of Art, the sale of the East Boulevard property is a major milestone in the history of his 131-year-old institution.
“It’s huge,” he said.
The art institute has held classes in its Gund Building on the East Boulevard site since 1956, and at the McCullough Center since 1981.
Consolidating at Uptown will help the four-year independent art college realize savings from not having to manage a split campus with two buildings located a half mile apart.
Expanding at Uptown will also add vitality at Uptown, where developer MRN Ltd. plans to break ground soon on a Phase II retail and residential building at Ford Drive and Euclid Avenue that will include housing for 130 first-year students.
A $30 million renovation of the McCullough Center, originally built in 1916 as a Ford Model T plant, was completed largely under David Deming, who preceded Nunes as president of the art institute.
Nunes, who came to Cleveland two and a half years ago from an administrative post at Emerson College in Boston, revised prior expansion plans for McCullough developed under Deming. He increased the addition from 51,000 to 80,000 square feet to provide more space for academic programs.
He eliminated plans for a sloping rooftop garden, fearing it would develop leaks and also vetoed plans to wrap the addition’s west facade with vinyl banners of artworks created by faculty and students because he thought banners would age quickly.
The consolidation of the Cleveland Institute of Art at Uptown helped spur the second phase of Uptown's housing development, shown above, which will include rental apartments for 130 CIA freshmen.
He decided instead to cover a portion of the west facade with a computerized “media mesh” that can be programmed like a giant video screen.
When expanded, the McCullough complex will encompass 240,000 square feet of space, enough to give every student a personal work space or studio from sophomore year on — a major selling point for the college, Nunes said.
The art institute will consider the McCullough expansion a separate but connected building, which will be named the George S. Gund II Building in honor of $10 million in donations from the Gund Foundation and members of the Gund family, Nunes said.
The expansion will include a new art gallery, a new Cinematheque and state-of-the-art classrooms for students in graphic, interior and industrial design and other disciplines.
By triggering so much potential across University Circle, the art institute’s sale of the East Boulevard site, Nunes said, “is a situation where all ships rise on the same tide.”
