Howard Hanna Moves Real Estate HQ to Cleveland
Howard Hanna Real Estate will move the regional headquarters of its 21-county operation in Ohio from Seven Hills to Cleveland. It will consolidate its operations in the downtown Warehouse District at 800 West St. Clair, the former location of recently acquired Realty One.
“With the help of Councilman [Joe] Cimperman, the Downtown Cleveland Alliance and the City of Cleveland’s Economic Development Department, we were able to show the unique assets available to businesses that made Downtown Cleveland the location of choice for the company,” Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson says.
The city will provide to Howard Hanna an Urban Development Action Grant loan in the amount of $250,000, distributed over three years and likely turned into a grant if all loan conditions are met, including maintenance of employment levels.
According to Howard Hanna executives, about 100 Seven Hills employees will join about 55 former Realty One employees downtown. More hiring is expected and the employment level will likely reach 200.
Howard W. Hanna IV, president of Howard Hanna Ohio, said that in addition to taking over Realty One’s 25,000-square-foot office space, the company plans to lease another 5,000 square feet in the building to accommodate more staff. He said the company is making a “significant” investment into the property, above the loan amount, but did not provide a figure.
“The decision to place our Ohio headquarters in the city solidifies our commitment to the region and Cleveland, which is one of the nation’s largest major urban centers,” Hanna says. “Before we entered the Ohio market in 2003, we were impressed by the vitality of Cleveland as a world-class city that offers outstanding quality of life and has an unlimited potential for business growth. That impression is not only lasting, it is deepened.”
Howard Hanna Real Estate Services, with corporate headquarters in Pittsburgh, PA, is the fifth-largest full service real estate company and the third-largest privately held real estate firm in the United States. In a period of nearly six years, the company has acquired eight other real estate brokerages and expanded services to include insurance, mortgage options, title and escrow.
It is estimated that the brokerage’s move will generate more than $1 million annually for the local economy. Howard Hanna says it expects downtown to grow in the next decade, with a resurgence of high-density, mixed used-urban developments.
West Chester Medical Center Opening in May
West Chester Medical Center, which broke ground in West Chester, OH in July 2006, is scheduled to open its doors in May 2009. The facility is the first new full-service hospital in the Greater Cincinnati area in 25 years.
Part of the Health Alliance of Greater Cincinnati, the 380,000-square-foot facility will be located near the borders of Butler and Warren counties.
The hospital will help fulfill a need for close-to-home health care in these rapidly growing communities. By the time the hospital opens, the populations of these counties will already have grown more than 10 percent, compared with the population level at the time of the ground-breaking for the project in 2006.
Once fully operational, the 160-bed hospital (which has a 300-bed future expansion plan) will employ nearly 1000 workers. Officials do not expect the economic downturn to negatively impact the hospital’s usage. “People cannot control when they get sick. Illness is always going to be there. So even when there are bad economic times, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to impact the medical field,” says Stephanie Savicki of the Health Alliance.
Located off Cox Road on the University Pointe medical campus, West Chester Medical Center is equipped with the latest technology, providing services which will include inpatient and outpatient diagnostics and treatment, imaging and a 24-hour full-service emergency department.
Hyland Software Prepares for Expansion
Hyland Software Inc. has purchased 17 acres of Nordson Corporation’s neighboring 25-acre campus in Westlake, OH. The $7.5-million sale closed on December 30, 2008 and included the procurement of Nordson’s headquarters building on Clemens Road.
Founded in 1954, Nordson, one of the world’s leading producers of precision dispensing equipment for adhesives, sealants and coatings, was left with too much room in Westlake after moving its laboratories to other locations.
While Nordson plans to keep five acres and the second floor of the 68,000-square-foot building, pending relocation of its headquarters, Hyland is likely to purchase the other 3.25 acres of the property in order to support expansion plans.
Budgeted to hire 145 people in 2009, Hyland’s workforce grew by nearly 30% last year, reaching 851 employees and surpassing the company’s projections. More than 700 of those employees work at the Westlake headquarters, a 16-acre campus with a 138,000-square -foot building.
Established in 1991, Hyland Software is northeast Ohio’s largest software company. Developer of the OnBase enterprise content management suite, Hyland provides organizations with tools for paperless operation.
Hyland Software Inc. will keep its current headquarters and progressively fill in the Nordson building. Hyland estimated that the two buildings could hold 1,200 employees and said it “could probably get about 3,000 people in Westlake if [it builds] out the whole property.”
