The Shaker Heights Development Corporation’s Shaker Lee Development Fund will allow residents to support the development of the Chagrin-Lee business district.
By Diana Simeon
The Shaker Heights Development Corp. is located at The Dealership on Lee Rd.
In 2016, the Shaker Heights Development Corporation teamed up with seven Shaker residents to purchase a dilapidated property on Lee Road. The partners rehabbed the property, then leased and eventually sold it to Process Canine, a dog daycare, training, and boarding business that recently expanded its footprint on Lee.
The goal will be to “create positive development that is supported by the community.”
The partners took the proceeds from that sale and, in 2019, purchased another property next door to Process Canine. Today, this building houses two new businesses – Angie’s Hair Salon and True Vibes Unleashed – as well as Process Canine’s Training Center.
This approach to revitalizing commercial properties in the Chagrin-Lee business district has been so successful, the Shaker Heights Development Corporation (SHDC) now plans to take it to the next level by forming a fund – to be called the Shaker Lee Development Fund, LLC, an Ohio limited liability company – that will raise money to support further redevelopment of the Chagrin-Lee District, primarily on Lee Road south of Chagrin Boulevard.
“The plan has always been to grow that type of ownership structure and make it more widely available to the general public,” says Nick Fedor, executive director of the SHDC, a not-for-profi t that works to bolster the City’s commercial revitalization and economic development efforts.
How it Will Work
Nick Fedor, executive director of the Shaker Heights Development Corp. Photo by Jason Miller
The plan is for the Shaker Lee Development Fund to raise money from investors, who will become members of the fund. Investments in the fund will be used to purchase, improve, and rent properties in the Chagrin-Lee area. The fund would be open to residents and non-residents.
The primary goal will be to “create positive development that is supported by the community,” says Fedor. “Financial benefits to members is secondary.”
“Once we have funding in place, if there is a commercial property on Lee Road that becomes available for purchase, and it matches the fund’s criteria, the fund will look to acquire it and make the appropriate level of improvements for a specific tenant or improvements that make the property easily adaptable to a certain kind of tenant who could come along in the future,” says Fedor.
The goal is to put these properties back into productive use to complement the many great businesses that have been on Lee for a number of years,” he says. “We want to create momentum in the area. This is a focused way to do that. It’s based on the SHDC’s track record of success. It also provides for a level of ownership and engagement that is unique in our region with members who are able to help shape and contribute to future real estate development in Chagrin-Lee.”
Plans call for the fund to have a nine-member board of directors which they help elect. Fedor says two directors of the board will be from the Chagrin-Lee community. “Ideally, these community members will also be fund members, but that is not a requirement,” he says.
Of the nine directors, seven will be voting directors. The two non-voting directors will be the executive director of SHDC (in this case Nick Fedor) and a representative from the City appointed by the mayor. As of the date of this article, the fund is in the registration process with the Ohio Division of Securities, and cannot offer investments until such time as the offering has been registered. At that time, SHDC will make an announcement regarding the terms of the fund and the manner of investing.
To learn more and for updates, visit shakerdevcorp.com.
