ICP bags West Side industrial building for $2.55 million

Industrial Commercial Properties of Solon is setting about updating a substantial industrial building at 7000 Denison Ave. in Cleveland that it has just added to its growing portfolio.

“We kicked off renovations immediately,” said Austin Semarjian, vice president of leasing and acquisitions at the Semarjian family-owned company, which has a portfolio of industrial and corporate properties in Northeast Ohio as well as other parts of the state and Michigan.

“We’re going to demolish any walls that impact the flow of movement through the building. We’re going to paint the walls, the columns and the deck white to make it a Class A product,” Semarjian said, acknowledging that the former factory “needs a refresh” for today’s market.

Through Cleveland Denison LLC, ICP on Dec. 17 paid $2.55 million for the building according to Cuyahoga County land records.

Despite its position near the corner of Denison Avenue and Ridge Road, and its Denison address, the building is tucked far north of the street with little frontage. Indeed the scale of the 150,000-square-foot property is more apparent from the west side of the building on West 73rd Street, or where Storer Avenue ends in a “T” on its east side.

The structure dates from 1967. It hit the market after ParkOhio Products, a subsidiary of Mayfield Heights-based Park-Ohio Holdings Corp., shut it at the end of March 2019. The company did not disclose how many jobs would be lost in a state filing on the closing of the plant, which produced rubber parts.

The seller was an investment group called Industrial Lease III Propco LLC, which had paid $4.3 million for the fully leased property in January 2018, according to county records.

Semarjian said he believes the building may land a manufacturer because multiple such companies are nearby. However, it could be a single company or several, he said, as ICP will be flexible.

“We’re excited that this building is in the city of Cleveland. We’re a Northeast Ohio company and want to support the city,” Semarjian said, noting the building is in an area that has low industrial vacancy.

George Pofok, a senior vice president at Cushman & Wakefield Cresco brokerage in Independence, said the building is one of the few industrial buildings of scale available on the West Side. He put vacancy in that immediate area at just 3%, and lower than the region as a whole.

“You can count on one hand the buildings with more than 100,000 square feet available in both West Cleveland and the western suburbs,” Pofok said. He noted ICP will have to “spend some money on the building,” but it has good freeway access and can offer tenants a lower asking rent than would be possible in the suburbs.

Pofok and fellow broker Eliot Kijewski represented ICP in the purchase.

Semarjian said agents David Stover and Gregg West of Hanna Commercial’s Cleveland office represented the seller.