A group of buildings built in the late 1800s on Church Avenue between W. 25^th and W. 28^th Streets in Ohio City were once the hallmark of a manufacturing town – housing everything from the original Baehr Brewing Company and Odd Fellows Masonic Hall to a machine shop and a tin and sheet metal shop, among other business and residential dwellings. 

Exhibit Builders last owned and operated the buildings fronting W. 25th Street. More recently, the heavy industrial buildings housed the Phoenix Ice Machine Company, Lester Engineering Company, then a charter school and the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority.
 
Today development partners Rick Foran of Foran Group and Chris Smythe of Smythe Property Advisors are converting the structures into contemporary apartment lofts with a nod to their unique history. “You know you’re in historic buildings, but with modern amenities,” says Smythe.
 
The project has been nine years in the making. Smythe and Foran bought their first property in the group from CMHA back in 2008 with a bank loan. Then the real estate market tanked.

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Whether it's a national design competition, kids making their own space or locals splashing color amid an active greenspace, Shaker Heights' Moreland district is alive with art and community collaboration.

This week marks Fresh Water's sixth birthday and to celebrate, managing photographer Bob Perkoski visually catalogs a few things that came along after our humble inception.
 

Two local record manufacturers are advancing the vinyl renaissance with dazzling multicolored discs. They’re also redefining just what a record can be.