Cleveland Leverages Vacant Factories to Boost Housing Supply and Create Jobs

Cleveland’s leadership frames the city’s challenges as an income problem and has launched the Site Readiness for Good Jobs Fund, which has secured more than $80 million to ready unused land for development. The plan rezones 1,500 acres of the Midline area using form-based codes, eliminates certain single-family permit fees and halves others for multifamily projects, while adding tax-increment financing for utilities. Modular housing firm MMY US won a design competition and will remodel the historic Wellman-Seaver-Morgan Engineering building into a factory that will create over 150 union jobs and produce energy-efficient homes in eight weeks.

Private investors are being courted to build on the city’s 2,800 vacant land-bank lots, with the goal of unlocking more than 25,000 jobs over time. Residents hope the combined housing and job strategy will reverse decades of disinvestment and make Cleveland a walk-to-work city again.