Brown Gibbons Lang & Company (BGL), a leading independent investment bank and financial advisory firm, is pleased to announce the closing of approximately $217.6 million in financing for the residential and hotel components of the Erieview Tower and Galleria redevelopment in downtown Cleveland. BGL’s Real Estate team served as the exclusive financial advisor to ErieView Development on the project.
The redevelopment will turn the 40-story 1964 landmark at East Ninth Street and St. Clair Avenue into a 210-key W Cleveland hotel, the first W Hotel in Ohio, and 215 W Apartments offered exclusively for rent rather than for sale, a first for the brand worldwide. The hotel and apartments are scheduled to open in 2027.
The amenity program is the most extensive assembled in a single Ohio building. A resident will be able to park in the enclosed garage on a February evening, and reach the 38th-floor restaurant, without ever stepping outside. Residents, office tenants and hotel guests will draw on the same food and beverage program throughout the property, including dining delivered to residences and to office floors. The spa, fitness center, 15,000-square-foot ballroom and lobby lounge are planned to be reachable within the Tower.
“BGL brought both creativity and discipline to a highly complex capital structure, helping us bring together the right financing partners to move this landmark redevelopment forward. Their understanding of historic redevelopment, structured finance, and the Cleveland market was instrumental in helping us reach this important milestone. This project has always been about more than one building. It is about honoring Erieview Tower’s legacy while creating new energy for East Ninth Street and downtown Cleveland for generations to come,” said Elias Kassouf, ErieView Development.
Financing the Residential and Hotel Phases
Nuveen Green Capital provided $93.4 million in C-PACE financing for the redevelopment, the largest C-PACE transaction closed in Ohio. The proceeds fund energy, water, and building-envelope improvements, including VRF mechanical systems, curtain wall, and elevator modernization. ERIEBANK, a division of CNB Bank, is providing senior financing of $20 million.
Foss & Company invested in the Ohio Historic and Transformational Mixed-Use Development tax credits and provided bridge financing for those tax credits. Consortium Structured Investments invested in the federal historic tax credits, with Midland States Bank providing federal historic tax credit bridge financing. Cuyahoga County provided a loan supporting the hotel. The financings also include Ohio Brownfield Remediation Program funds, City of Cleveland tax abatements and tax increment financing, and Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority incentives.
BGL worked closely with Kohrman Jackson & Krantz (KJK), representing ErieView Development in the transaction. The other parties involved in the closing include Berardi + Partners LLC, TurnDev, Turner & Townsend, Novogradac & Company LLP, Beyer Blinder Belle (hotel architect), and Rockwell Group (interior design).
“This was a highly meaningful financing for BGL, not only because of the scale and complexity of the transaction, but because of what it represents for Cleveland,” said Anthony Delfre, BGL Managing Director, who advised Erieview Development on the financing. “BGL’s founder, the late Mike Gibbons, was a strong advocate for high-quality multifamily housing across the Midwest, and Northeast Ohio is exactly the kind of market where that vision continues to resonate. Cleveland’s momentum, combined with the strength of the Erieview redevelopment, helped make it an ideal setting for Marriott to introduce Ohio’s first W hotel and the first W Apartments offered for rent anywhere in the world.”
About BGL’s Real Estate Team
BGL’s Real Estate team offers comprehensive real estate investment banking services tailored to the middle market. It provides client-focused solutions with an emphasis on real estate advisory, debt, preferred and private equity placement, financial restructuring, recapitalizations, sale-leasebacks, structured finance, and asset acquisitions and dispositions across all asset classes. The team assists real estate owners and developers looking to form alliances and joint ventures with single-source capital providers to gain local and institutional access for all capital needs.
