It's morning in Cleveland

Superior Viaduct, The Flats, Cleveland

Things have been kindling here for a while, but when guys from New York start coming to a town like Cleveland sniffing around for the sleepers, you know you've turned a corner.

"We're not in Cleveland by accident," one NY developer told me for a story I wrote last week. "We're only in markets that we feel are exploding."

Another guy took a risk on a downtown building in 2007, buying the property and turning it into apartments. His 22 units are full-up now, with 80 on the waiting list.

"As recently as 2003," he told me, "the population on our block was pretty much zero and now it's got to be three or four hundred." His inspiration was a stint living in NYC. "I thought we had the same architectural bones as some of those neighborhoods and the potential to do something similar."

Random photo, Lorain Avenue, Cleveland

I've got another story in the can for next week about yet another developer horning in our market, this one from Chicago.

All of these guys are buying big, old, solid, vintage, cool buildings, because this town has a lot of 'em. This guy, for instance.

Metropolitan at The 9, Cleveland

Now this is completely unrelated--or maybe it isn't--this guy is one of about 30 people in the entire country who knows how to operate a mastering lathe, which is imperative in the making of a vinyl record. I do not know what the exact terms of his lease are, but studio space here is dirt cheap compared to the coasts. He's moving into 78th Street Studios, a big, old, solid, vintage, cool building that is one of the hottest studio spots in town.

Watch this space.

Lake Affect Studios, Cleveland

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