CLEVELAND — A blighted CVS store on Cleveland’s West Side is becoming a battleground – again.
On Tuesday, a City Council committee agreed to advance a controversial rezoning proposal for the vacant drugstore on Madison Avenue near West Boulevard. The legislation would open the property up for new uses, including a gas station that’s been on the drawing board for more than a year.
The rezoning isn’t a done deal. The full council still needs to sign off. But Tuesday’s vote signaled that Councilman Danny Kelly wants action.
“I caused a commotion by bringing it back,” Kelly said of the rezoning proposal, which he put on hold last year amid opposition from the city’s planning department.
“I need it occupied,” he said of the old CVS, which closed in 2022. “And I’m working very hard to get the three vacant drug stores in my ward occupied.”
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For the last seven months, Kelly has been sitting on the zoning legislation. He’s been waiting to see if Mayor Justin Bibb’s administration could strike a deal to buy the shuttered CVS for a different, less contentious project: A new fire station to serve the neighborhood.
Kelly said city officials have been talking with the property owner, a company called Shaker Madison LLC. The idea is to move Cleveland Fire Station No. 23 to the site from just a block away, at Madison and West 98th Street.
But there’s no agreement in place.
On Tuesday afternoon, a city spokesman confirmed that Cleveland is pursuing the former CVS, which sits next to an elementary school, Cudell Recreation Center and Cudell Park.
“The city sent an offer letter to the property owner but has not received a response to date,” the spokesman wrote in a text message.
During an interview, Kelly said he’s not part of that back-and-forth. But he’s frustrated.
“How long does it take to negotiate a deal?” he asked.
More than a dozen current neighbors and former Cudell residents showed up at Tuesday’s committee meeting. Most of them spoke out against the rezoning proposal. They said the gas station, if it moves forward, will bring more traffic to busy and hazardous streets.
“We have so many gas stations throughout the city. We do not need another one,” said Diab Dar-Issa, who lives nearby.
“We are not against progress,” he added. “We are not against seeing something go there. We are against putting something there that does not belong there.”
Other commenters pushed back, saying they’re tired of looking at empty buildings.
“If you drive down Madison Avenue … there’s a lot of vacant areas there that need to be addressed and need to be developed,” said Khalid Bahhur, who spent decades in Cudell but lives in Avon now. “We’re hoping this becomes the beginning of something wonderful for that community and for that neighborhood. It’s long overdue and really needed.”
Bahhur said he’s still attached to the area. He also knows the developer behind the gas-station plans, which show a Shell station with four pumps, electric vehicle chargers, a fast-food pizza chain and a bank.
Public records show that Shaker Madison LLC bought the property in late 2023 for $575,000. But city regulations don’t allow a gas station there, on a corridor where planners changed the rules years ago to encourage more walking and cycling.
The property owner asked for an exception to those rules last year – and got turned down by the city’s Board of Zoning Appeals. The gas station group challenged the board’s decision in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court. That lawsuit is still pending.
Last summer, Kelly introduced standalone legislation to change the zoning on the corner – and to remove the property from a special pedestrian-centric overlay district.
The city’s planning staff opposed the move, saying it would set a risky precedent through spot zoning – treating one piece of land differently than everything around it, for the benefit of a specific property owner.
The City Planning Commission unanimously vetoed Kelly's rezoning legislation in August.
But that’s just a recommendation to City Council, which gets the final vote.
“When it came up before … I was asked, ‘Let’s take a break, you know. And let’s look at it,’” Kelly said. “Great idea. I think everybody agrees a fire station’s the best thing for the community there.”
He still believes that. But after months of discussions, he’s tired of waiting.
He acknowledged that rezoning the property will make it easier for the current owner to build the gas station – and might complicate the city’s efforts to negotiate a land deal.
“When I talked to the city, they would like you to just let it sit in abeyance. And they feel it reduces their leverage,” he said of the rezoning effort. “How long do I let it sit?”
The legislation would change the zoning from local retail to general retail, a broader category that allows gas stations. It also would pull the property out of the pedestrian retail overlay district, which the city applied to the street in 2013.
Only one member of City Council’s zoning, development, planning and sustainability committee voted against the legislation Tuesday. That dissent came from Jenny Spencer, who represents many of the neighbors.
The former CVS sits in a tail-like outgrowth of Kelly’s ward – Ward 11. But it’s surrounded by Spencer’s Ward 15, creating a complicated situation for both council members.
“I’ve heard more from my constituents on this specific zoning issue than on any other issue that I’ve encountered in my time on council,” Spencer said during the committee hearing.
She criticized the proposal as spot zoning and asked her colleagues to put off voting on the matter until there’s more clarity about the potential fire station deal.
“I’m absolutely compelled to speak in opposition,” she said, bucking a longstanding council tradition of going along with what ward leaders want for the properties they represent.
Other committee members acknowledged the debate but ultimately voted in favor of the rezoning.
“I think this is just a really good example of a good, old-fashioned disagreement,” said Kris Harsh, who represents Ward 13 on the West Side. “And it’s OK for people to have differing opinions on this subject. This is a policy issue. This is not a character issue. This is simply a matter of what’s best for the neighborhood. And this is why people run for office, to sit at this table and make difficult decisions like this.”
After the meeting, Kelly wouldn’t put a timetable on calling for full approval of the legislation, which he co-sponsored with Councilman Anthony Hairston.
“Let’s see what happens now with more negotiations,” Kelly said. “There’s no rush. … Let’s have some more constructive conversations about doing this. And let’s see if this helps. Doing nothing didn’t help.”
