CLEVELAND — The Playhouse Square Foundation, the nonprofit steward of downtown Cleveland’s theater district, has been eyeing the nearby Greyhound station for at least a decade.
Now the depot, which has always served travelers, is ready for its second act.
Public records show Playhouse Square recently paid $3.35 million for the building and neighboring land. The purchase puts a historic property in preservation-savvy hands while giving Playhouse Square control of key real estate just north of the theaters.
Spokeswoman Cindi Szymanski said the nonprofit isn’t ready to discuss its vision.
“We look forward to sharing our plans for the space when they are solidified. In the meantime, we are committed to respecting the historic integrity of the building,” she wrote in an emailed statement.
And, she added, Playhouse Square will work with the city and Greyhound to ensure a smooth relocation process for the bus business, which has been trying to move to a smaller space for years.
During a January interview with News 5, Playhouse Square CEO Craig Hassall talked about his growth aspirations. “I’m very keen that we do expand our campus,” he said.
The nonprofit doesn't just oversee the nation’s second-largest performing arts center. Playhouse Square is also a major landlord, using real estate to support the arts and education.
“We’re already very full in terms of audiences and numbers of shows,” Hassall said in January. “So there’s a real appetite in Cleveland for more activity in the Playhouse Square neighborhood.”
That could include more restaurants, bars, performance spaces and theaters.
'We could save it'
The Art Deco-style Greyhound station could hold any of those things. It’s three stories tall and spans more than 30,000 square feet. And it’s flanked by parking lots that, if they’re combined, could become a major development site near the eastern end of downtown.
“That’s a strategic piece that they had to get their hands on,” Allen Wiant, a former Playhouse Square executive, said of the Greyhound property.
Wiant, who retired in 2018, was the nonprofit’s head of strategic development.
He was part of discussions in 2016 about moving Greyhound to a new, much smaller building and renovating the depot, possibly as a Discount Drug Mart store.
That project never happened. It stalled as the city explored the prospect of building a multi-modal transit station – with Amtrak, Greyhound and RTA service – downtown.
“All we knew was that if we could just get our hands on the thing, we could save it,” Wiant said of the Greyhound station, located at 1465 Chester Ave.
A piece of history
Built in the 1940s, the building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. That makes it eligible for federal and state tax credits for preservation – and revival.
That’s something Playhouse Square knows a lot about. The nonprofit has renovated and championed Cleveland's historic theaters, which were threatened with demolition in the 1970s. It has restored other nearby buildings, filling them with offices, apartments and restaurants.
Many of those investments line Euclid Avenue, where Playhouse Square also has added lighting, large signs, a giant chandelier and, just last year, new theater marquees.
But many patrons enter and exit the district on Chester Avenue, where the entrance to Playhouse Square’s main parking garage is right across the street from the Greyhound station.
“You have to secure that northern side … so when you come in, it’s a better-looking entryway into Playhouse Square,” Wiant said. “They need to have a better sense of arrival and sense of place than they’ve been able to accomplish.”
Playhouse Square bought the station from an affiliate of Twenty Lake Holdings, an East Coast real estate investment firm that purchased the property for $1.72 million in late 2022. Twenty Lake bought nearly three dozen Greyhound stations across the country from FirstGroup, a British company that separated the real estate from the bus business in 2021.
Now, Greyhound is owned by FlixBus, a company based in Germany.
'A future for Greyhound'
Greyhound did not respond to an inquiry from News 5 about the future of bus service in Cleveland.
But city officials said they hope to keep buses in the central business district.
“The city is working closely with Greyhound and other partners to ensure that there’s a future for Greyhound in downtown Cleveland,” Jeff Epstein, the city’s chief of integrated development, said Monday.
He would not discuss the details of those conversations.
The closest – and most logical – downtown location for Greyhound is the Stephanie Tubbs Jones Transit Center, just a few blocks away at East 21st Street and Prospect Avenue. A downtown bus hub for the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority, the transit center has a 2,000-square-foot indoor waiting area and a dozen bus bays.
An RTA spokesman said he could not provide an update Monday on any discussions with Greyhound.
Wiant believes the historic Greyhound site has tremendous potential, with plenty of room for housing and taller buildings on the surrounding parking lots.
That will take time. But Playhouse Square has shown it’s willing to be persistent.
“They did a good job in securing the site,” Wiant said, “and they might have to be patient with the redevelopment.”
