Council committee advances ordinance to allow transfer of McCafferty Health Center site for senior affordable housing

A Cleveland City Council committee advanced Ordinance No. 42-2025 on a motion to allow the city to enter site-control and development agreements for the McCafferty Health Center property at 4242 Lorraine Avenue in the Ohio City neighborhood.

The legislation authorizes the director of public health to transfer control, possession and use of the property to the departments that will manage redevelopment and to enter development agreements enabling a proposed project led by Penrose LLC in partnership with Ohio City Inc. Trudy Andrzejewski, bureau chief of neighborhood revitalization in the Department of Community Development, told the committee the plan calls for demolition and new construction of a mixed-use, transit-oriented development with roughly 70–72 senior affordable rental units and ground-floor nonprofit or office space.

The project team intends to pursue Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC) through the Ohio Housing Finance Agency's 9% program. Andrzejewski said site control is needed to evidence the city’s support for the tax-credit application, which the presentation identified as due in February; award notifications were described as expected in May. A city official told the committee the city does not intend to transfer the site until the project secures substantial financing — typically about 75% of the capital stack — and until design review and other approvals are complete.

Council members asked about minority participation and contracting. Committee members pressed for written, enforceable community benefits and for minority equity in development ownership and construction rather than only subcontracting. Andrzejewski said the RFQ specified participation by businesses certified with the city’s Office of Equal Opportunity and that the Office of Equal Opportunity was on the RFQ evaluation committee, but she said negotiations on a community benefits agreement and subcontractor selection will occur after the city and developer determine how much funding the project requests from the city.

The developer named in the RFQ response was Penrose LLC, with Ohio City Inc serving as co-developer and co-owner; the construction firm identified in the submission is John G Johnson Construction. The presentation said Penrose has worked on other local projects, including an adaptive-reuse project at East 55th and Carnegie and additional affordable housing work in the city; Penrose Management Company would manage the property. The site sits in the Lorraine Avenue local landmark district and will go before the landmarks commission for design review.

Project timing in the presentation forecasted a financing award decision in May, subsequent intensive design and permitting steps, a hoped-for financial closing roughly a year from the committee meeting, construction beginning in June 2027, and full occupancy by the end of 2027, assuming financing proceeds as planned.

No vote tally was recorded in the committee transcript; the committee chair called for the motion and the ordinance was moved. The transcript indicates the committee expects the item to return to finance with further detail on developer background, the proposed community benefits package and any city funding requests.

Discussion points, clarifications and next steps included: the ordinance grants authority to enter site-control and development agreements but does not itself transfer title until financing thresholds and approvals are met; the development team will apply for 9% LIHTC; community benefits and post-project hiring requirements are expected to be negotiated later and monitored by the Office of Equal Opportunity; and the project will proceed through landmarks design review because the site is in a local landmark district.

The committee advanced the ordinance (motion made and moved; vote not recorded in the excerpt).