After decades of sitting dark, the long-vacant Northern Ohio Blanket Mills is back in the game as housing and community space at 3160 W. 33rd Street in Cleveland’s Clark-Fulton neighborhood. The former industrial workhorse has been reborn as 60 affordable apartments wrapped around big ground-floor suites for nonprofits, childcare and resident support services. Developers and neighborhood partners say the project restores a key historic anchor and plugs fresh economic activity into West 33rd.
Funding and who built it
County documents show the redevelopment closed with roughly $39.9 million in total financing and that Cuyahoga County provided $1 million in Emergency Rental Assistance funds toward the project, according to Cuyahoga County Department of Housing and Community Development. The county’s social post about the opening also lists additional finish-work support in the form of a $250,000 grant and a $1 million loan, and credits the renovation with helping to bridge the final phase of construction, Cuyahoga County said. Local developer Levin Group partnered with Metro West Community Development Organization to deliver the conversion and shape the community programming.
What the building offers
Levin Group’s project page describes the three-story mill as a roughly 112,000-square-foot adaptive reuse that now holds 60 one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments targeted to households at or below 60 percent of area median income. The developer says the first floor will host onsite supportive services, including primary and mental-health care, early-childhood education and job training, intended to serve both tenants and the broader Clark-Fulton community. The renovation is designed to keep historic character in place while updating the interior for modern housing and nonprofit uses.
Ground floor tenants and services
Local reporting shows Metro West Community Development Organization will lease a modest office suite in the building and that Little Steps Bilingual Enrichment Center has signed on for a larger childcare space, with remaining commercial bays still open for neighborhood uses. NEOtrans reported that Metro West planned a roughly 3,200-square-foot office build-out and that Little Steps will occupy several thousand square feet for classrooms and play space.
Jobs and neighborhood impact
The county’s post credits the project with supporting an estimated 95 construction jobs and about 30 permanent positions, and says the renovation activated roughly 31,400 square feet of ground-floor space while helping to advance about $33.3 million in nearby investment. Cuyahoga County notes the Blanket Mills site had sat vacant for years and frames the reuse as both a jobs win and a preservation win for Clark-Fulton.
Where this fits in the neighborhood
Neighborhood leaders point to the Blanket Mills conversion as part of a wave of West Side investment that includes the Astrup Awning rehabilitation and the CentroVilla25 cultural-economic hub for La Villa Hispana, along with the ongoing MetroHealth campus transformation nearby. The Cleveland City Council newsletter highlighted Astrup as a comparable adaptive reuse project, while organizers of CentroVilla25 say their hub will amplify small-business and cultural activity along West 25th. MetroHealth’s own materials document a multi-phase campus transformation that anchors much of the neighborhood’s recent development.
What comes next
With apartments opening up and nonprofit space coming online, developers and city partners say the next steps are straightforward: tenant move-ins and ramping up supportive programming. “This project is an exceptional addition to our neighborhood,” Ward 14 Councilwoman Jasmin Santana said in earlier coverage, noting the complex financing and the importance of keeping families in place, NEOtrans reported.
