CLEVELAND — As Cleveland looks to create affordable housing downtown, the city has received $15 million in funding to do just that.
On Tuesday, U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), announced that that the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Section 108 Loan Guarantee Program has awarded a $15 million loan to the City of Cleveland for the Centennial Project. The project aims to rehabilitate the historic downtown Huntington Building located at 925 Euclid Ave. into affordable housing for low- to moderate-income households.
“Every Ohioan should have a safe and affordable place to call home,” Brown , who also serves as the chair of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, said in a statement. “This investment continues downtown Cleveland’s revitalization and will create affordable housing so that Ohioans who work downtown whether it’s at Playhouse Square or Rocket Mortgage Field House or the Natural History Museum, can access housing close by.”
Initially announced in 2021, the Centennial Project calls for "a redevelopment of the 1.4 million SF former Huntington Building (formerly the Union Commerce Building) into a mixed use building: 864 apartments, retail, office, a 61-room boutique hotel, a museum (“Cleveland Exposition”), and a high-end restaurant," according to the Center For Cleveland. The project, which is being developed by Millennia Companies, previously received a $40 million Transformational Mixed-Use Development (TMUD) tax credit from the state of Ohio last March.
At the time, Millennia Companies said that it had secured more than $476 million in private, federal, state, and local financing commitments for the project.