WAITE HILL, Ohio — Federal agents descended on the home of Frank Sinito, a prominent Cleveland real estate developer and one of the nation’s top affordable-housing owners, on Wednesday.
Police cars blocked the driveway to the Sinito family’s estate in the tiny Lake County village of Waite Hill. Attorneys from the Benesch law firm stood just outside the gate. A News 5 helicopter captured video of roughly a dozen cars and agents carrying boxes.
Carl Dondorfer, the police chief for Waite Hill, said agents from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Department of Agriculture were executing a search warrant. Both agencies provide financing for affordable housing projects.
The agents arrived just before 7 a.m., Dondorfer said. It’s unclear what, exactly, they were looking for. Representatives for HUD and USDA did not respond to calls or emails.
Sinito is the founder and CEO of the Millennia Companies, which owns and operates hundreds of low-income apartment complexes across the eastern half of the United States. He’s also a major Downtown property owner with a portfolio that includes Key Tower.
In an emailed statement, an attorney for Millennia confirmed that the federal agents were from HUD and the USDA. The lawyer, Marisa Darden of Benesch, wrote that Sinito and Millennia Housing Management, the company’s property-management arm, are cooperating with investigators.
“It is important to remember that an investigation is just that,” Darden wrote. “There have been no arrests and no charges filed.”
Beyond that, Millennia and Sinito declined to comment.
HUD recently banned Sinito and Millennia Housing Management from entering new federal contracts until late 2028 in an action known as a debarment.
In a letter about the pending decision last December, HUD cited the unauthorized movement of money and underfunded security deposit accounts. “Nearly $4.9 million is missing or was improperly taken from 19 HUD-insured or HUD-subsidized properties,” the letter states.
“Your misconduct affects the integrity of HUD’s multifamily programs because it jeopardizes the financial viability of the projects,” the agency wrote. “The mismanagement of your properties risks the housing stability, and housing quality, of those tenant families.”
The debarment became final in March, according to another letter from HUD.
Over the last year, Millennia has cut jobs and put affordable housing properties up for sale. In late 2023, Sinito said the cuts were not impacting Millennia Commercial Group, which oversees Key Center, or Savour Hospitality, the company’s fine-dining division.
In addition to Key Tower, Millennia owns the Marriott at Key Center hotel next door; the 75 Public Square, Garfield and Statler apartment buildings Downtown; and the massive, vacant Union Trust Building at East Ninth Street and Euclid Avenue.
That building was long earmarked for a major mixed-use development called the Centennial, including a hotel, offices and hundreds of modestly priced apartments. But Millennia switched approaches last year and started pitching it to Cuyahoga County, instead, for a consolidated courthouse.
Sinito and his wife, Malisse, also have a portfolio of high-end restaurants, including Marble Room and Il Venetian Downtown and LockKeepers in Valley View.
