The first renters move into The Residences at 1717 (formerly The East Ohio Building)
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Tenants returned to the East Ohio Building on Tuesday, nearly five years after the last office user turned off the lights.
Mitch and Roberta Kurlander of Allentown, Pennsylvania, arrived around 9 a.m. to start schlepping their son's possessions up to the second floor. David Kurlander, a 26-year-old medical resident at University Hospitals, is one of the first renters to settle in at the southeast corner of East Ninth Street and Superior Avenue.
Now dubbed the Residences at 1717, the East Ohio Building lived its first life as a modernist office tower. The K&D Group, an apartment developer and manager based in Willoughby, bought the empty building last year and launched a residential conversion that should be finished next spring.
The first two floors of apartments opened on Tuesday. Doug Price, K&D's chief executive officer, expects to open two additional floors every three weeks, until the 21-story building is full. Half of the 223 apartments have been leased.
"We have people that rented the penthouses a year in advance," Price said.
http://www.cleveland.com/first_renters