Developer Scott Wolstein, who led the effort to remake Cleveland’s Flats, died late Thursday. He was 69 and had been diagnosed with cancer six months ago.
Wolstein worked for many years with his father, Bert L. “Bart” Wolstein, developing and managing shopping centers with the company they formed, Developers Diversified Realty. Scott Wolstein became CEO of the Wolstein Group in 1979.
Bert Wolstein, who died in 2004, long dreamt of developing the Flats. The Wolsteins already owned much of the property along Old River Road. Scott and his mother, Iris, along with another developer, Fairmount Properties, convinced the city of Cleveland to use the threat of eminent domain to allow them to buy up the rest.
Flats East Bank was born in 2010 with an office tower, a hotel and several restaurants. More restaurants and apartments followed. So did a public esplanade along the river, giving the general public access to the waterfront for the first time in a long time.
In January 2019, Wolstein sat down for an interview on “The Downtowner,” an Ideastream Public Media podcast that focused on life in Cleveland’s city center. Here are some of the thoughts he shared.
On the idea of closing down and developing Burke Lakefront Airport: “There is so much development land in Cleveland right now. The last thing that we have in Cleveland is [a] scarce resource of land. We have plenty of very unsightly parking lots that need to be developed vertically before we start repurposing productive property.”
On whether he was concerned that his Flats East Bank mixed-use development project of apartments, bars and restaurants is chasing the same night-life crowd as the East 4th Street and West 6th Street entertainment districts downtown: “No, I’m not. My objective in the Flats is to attract a broad-based demographic.”
In the 1980s, the Flats was a popular nightlife area, but with that popularity came trouble. Fights. Public drunkenness. Disorderly conduct. And tragedy. In 2000, three people died in alcohol-related drownings in a five-week span. The Flats’ reputation soured. The bars and other businesses closed.
Wolstein jump started the redevelopment of the East Bank, and more residential development throughout downtown followed. His goal was to attract “a broader demographic” in the Flats.
In “The Downtowner” interview, Wolstein said he thought he’d achieved that.
“The objective in the Flats is to recreate downtown living in Cleveland in a manner that it can be, actually, a fun place for my children and their friends to come back and live. And I think in large part we have accomplished that,” he said.
“I have children living in Chicago and New York, and they bring their friends here to visit the Flats and they go to FWD (Forward Day + Nightclub) and some of the other restaurants and clubs, and they say, ‘I want to move to Cleveland!’ And that’s music to my ears.”
