Developer consultant outlines action plan, timeline and infrastructure concerns for Severance Town Center

Bridal Porter, a consultant with Impact working on the Severance Town Center effort, presented a draft action plan to Cleveland Heights City Council on Jan. 21, saying the plan is an “action document” intended to move redevelopment from ideas to implementation.

Porter told council that his team has completed a six- to eight-month discovery phase and expects to submit a final version of the action plan within two weeks. “It is a lot less about, you know, just kind of thoughts and more about how do we take ideas to actually the next step and get them done as quickly as possible,” Porter said.

Porter said the document will describe the partnership structure with the property owner Namdar, summarize project schedule milestones, and spell out an engagement and crowdsourcing program that will include a project website for residents to post and vote on uses. He said a city-commissioned residential demand study by Zimmerman Volk Associates supplied data the team used to estimate local retail and housing demand.

A central theme of Porter’s presentation was infrastructure. He warned that county sewer studies show an existing bottleneck in the city-owned collection system that is not a problem today but “could become a problem” as the site is developed. Porter said planning now is essential so that future phases will not encounter an unanticipated sewer constraint and added that funding options could include developer fees, bonds or state and county contributions.

Porter described the team’s outreach to local groups and civic organizations, noting collaboration with Future Heights and a crowdsourced conversation that gathered approximately 750 survey responses. He said the crowdsourcing process identified participation gaps among younger and certain ethnic groups and that the team has established biweekly meetings with city staff to reach those communities.

Council members asked for timing and next steps. Councilwoman Larson pressed for dates; Porter said he aims to finalize the action plan a few weeks after submitting the current draft and is targeting rezoning of the site by the end of 2025. “I am still targeting zoning rezoning the site by the end of this year,” Porter said. He added he expects conceptual plans, impact analyses (traffic, water, schools) and a zoning code draft to follow the concept plan.

Councilman Posh and others praised the transparency of the team’s check-ins with council and the community. Porter said the development phasing will begin on roughly half of the parcel but that the conceptual plan will cover the entire site so later phases are not surprised by infrastructure needs. He also said his team is meeting with potential general contractors, lenders and other developers to prepare financing and engineering for initial phases, with the goal of hard engineering work starting in 2026 and “hopefully be shoveling the ground by the end of 26.”

Porter listed community benefits his team intends to pursue, including local contracting and local employment commitments, and recommended exploring form-based zoning and shared-parking approaches. He emphasized the complexity of infrastructure and the need to address it early: “If you can't flush your toilet, this project won't be built,” he said.

The presentation did not include a council vote or formal action; Porter’s materials will be circulated to council and the public when the team finalizes the draft.

Porter and council members said outreach and follow-up meetings will continue. Porter thanked council and residents for their engagement and closed the presentation by noting the work ahead.