The Global Center for Health Innovation sat almost vacant during a tour February. The facility currently has one tenant with a few employees, a Starbucks, and is being used to accommodate socially distanced Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court jury trials during the pandemic.CLEVELAND, Ohio — The Cuyahoga County-owned Global Center for Health Innovation has struggled since its opening in 2014 to find a purpose that will make it profitable.
“There wouldn’t be demand for that type of space and it would be cost prohibitive,” said Nate Kelly, president and managing director of the CRESCO/Cushman & Wakefield real estate brokerage firm in Cleveland. “It is an A-plus, beautiful property that would be so cost prohibitive to retrofit for a reasonable private use that I wouldn’t even consider it.”
Doug Price of the Willoughby-based K&D Group, one of the largest landlords in downtown Cleveland, said his gut feeling was that it could sell for $35 to $50 a square foot, or $8.2 million to $11.8 million. But that is contingent on a lot of factors, namely having a marquee tenant lined up. It would also require a lot of renovations, which would likely far exceed the price he proposed.
The officials who run the facility – better known as the Medical Mart, its original name – have been unable to retain large tenants. “You can’t separate out the systems,” he said. “You could not sell the building and it would fetch zero on the open market because you can’t provide the things the buyer would need.”Kelly, who worked at the county while the Medical Mart was being built, said he thought a better use was what was being proposed: a further expansion of the convention center. More meetings mean more “eyeballs on Cleveland,” which makes it easier to get people to invest, he averred.