Officials eying 2018 opening of assisted living facility

With the bond financing in place, the Tapestry Wickliffe project is expected to begin soon with sights set on a September 2018 opening.

Tapestry Wickliffe Assisted Living Facility is being developed at the site of what was most recently the Mosley Select Suites at 28500 Euclid Ave.

Once complete, the 122,000 square foot facility will contain 11 assisted living and 56 memory care suites.

Tapestry Wickliffe said it will be an “adaptive reuse of a current building in conjunction with a new construction addition.”

According to the Lake County

Ohio Port and Economic Development Authority, the “L shaped” residential tower will wrap around a 12,000 square foot atrium that will provide space for dining, indoor recreational and gathering spaces, walking paths, gardening, chapel/theater area and landscaped “green” areas.

The facility is estimated to bring in 100 new health care and service industry jobs once fully operational.

“This will be an asset of critical important to Lake County and the surrounding communities in meeting the increasing needs of our growing senior population,” said Tim Cahill, the port authority director of public finance. “At the same time it will convert a currently vacant hotel building into a state of the art facility at our county’s western gateway.”

Cahill previously said the 100 jobs created by the project will help offset some of the losses that will be felt by ABB, who announced in January it would be moving from Wickliffe to a new facility in Highland Hills.

Minneapolis, Minnesota-based LaSalle Development Group is the developer of the project. LaSalle affiliate Tapestry Wickliffe Senior Housing Management is the project manager. According to the port authority, affiliates of the manager currently manage 12 senior assisted living and senior memory care facilities and provide management services for 64, with about 5,300 senior living units.

“It’s great to see the sale of this property finally be completed,” Wickliffe Mayor William Margalis said. “This investment by the Tapestry Group in Wickliffe and particularly Euclid Avenue, will become an example for other developers to look at the great potential Wickliffe has to offer.

A combination of taxable and tax exempt bonds have been issued for the project. The port authority and the Lake County commissioners approved the bonds in late September, The bond finance transaction was completed Nov. 2.

Of the bonds being issued, $50 million will be tax exempt lease revenue bonds. The other $5 million will be taxable.

“There’s no liability on the part of the port authority or the county government in terms of any default on these bonds,” Lake County Commissioner Daniel P. Troy said in September. “They’re basically going through this process because the law allows this for now — with tax reform pending in Washington — for tax savings to be realized by the entity for responsible for using the proceeds of the bonds.”

Originally built in the early 1970s as a Holiday Inn, the site has been vacant since 2014 after the hotel was determined to be a nuisance because of safety issues, unsanitary conditions and violations of the zoning code, specifically fire codes.

In November 2016, Wickliffe residents overwhelming voted to rezone the property from general business to private recreational/institutional.

“The city staff and elected representatives have worked closely with us to make this a great addition to the community,” Tapestry Senior Housing Management chairman Tom LaSalle said in a statement. “We also are grateful to the community for approving the referendum to make the project a reality by voting 83 percent in favor.